The Back Door

You voted, and SNEAK won. Hermes's main channel is frozen until November by a Community Guidelines strike. At 1 a.m., at his mother's table in her cave on Mount Cyllene, he opens his second channel, on the same login. No lock. The upload goes through. The strike is on channel one, he whispers, channel two never did a thing. Then Maia appears with her lantern: you promised me, sweetheart, no more tricks.

His video: the road to the Underworld, told by the god who walks it. In the old myths, Hermes is the one who leads the spirits of the dead down to the Underworld. By noon, the whole agora is watching it on the temple's giant screen, and the second channel brings him two thousand new followers. The god above him in the ranking gains exactly as many: still 1,001 ahead.

At 3 p.m., in his red-lit game room, Ares plays the video live and laughs: frozen god, brand-new channel, I know those gloves, messenger. But who sent Ares the link? At 6 p.m., all of Olympus has seen it, Zeus too. His verdict: I count gods, not channels.

Here is the trap: YouTube judges the person behind the channel. During a strike, using, creating or acquiring another channel to get around the restrictions is circumvention, and it can end every channel you have. Here is what Hermes doesn't know: the link reached Ares at 2:58 p.m., from an account with no face.

Now the choice: delete the video, and the new fans go with it. Keep it, and Ares knows, and every channel is at risk. Then, far below, the account with no face whispers: leave the back door open. Halloween's mine.