The Mask

You voted, and LOCK won. His mother comes first, and Olympus loved it. Ares didn't. At 7 p.m. on Halloween, the last night the dead may follow, Hermes turns the old key three times. The deal with Ares is dead. You, locking a door? Maia asks. Who are you hiding from, sweetheart?

Ares calls. Locked, messenger? Fine. Tonight, my guest wears your face. He has Aphrodite's little video from day thirteen: Hermes under her ring light, following the dot, turning his head. Every angle of his face. At 10 p.m., all Olympus streams masked. On Ares's stage, a tall guest wears Hermes's face, perfectly. I'm Hermes, it says. I lie, I steal, and the dead bore me. In the streets, the dead stop scrolling, and three thousand followers vanish before eleven.

But how do you fight a video of your own face? Hermes knows one weapon: copyright. Your face isn't your copyright, Athena warns. Read the form twice. I never read twice, he laughs. At 11 p.m., his request is rejected, and the mask keeps talking.

Here is the trap: on YouTube, just because you appear in a video doesn't mean you own the copyright to it. A copyright removal request is sworn under penalty of perjury that you are the owner, and misusing the process can get your account terminated. For an AI fake that looks or sounds like you, the route is a privacy complaint, where YouTube weighs things like disclosure, realism and parody, and may first give the creator time to remove or edit. Poor darling, Aphrodite purrs. Your face, my video. Everything has a price.

Now the choice: at sunset his freeze ends. Face the mask live, and risk looking like the fake. Hide, file the privacy complaint, and let it crawl while the mask talks. Then, at midnight, the mask goes live again, from an account with no face. Midnight, a distorted voice whispers. I said I'd speak for you.