Deepfake

A thriller about the power of technology to weaponize our darkest instincts.

A brilliant loner, Etta Baldwin, 17, has been surviving in the underground of Berlin since she fled from foster care four years ago, using her self-taught computer skills to support herself. She has a favorite café where she works, and she sleeps in abandoned buildings throughout the city.

When the charismatic Lulu walks into her life, Etta lets her guard down and goes with Lulu to meet her ＂family.＂ The V live in a derelict amusement park, where father-figure Milan provides all the guidance and care his followers need. Etta finds acceptance and love, and lends her hacking skills and deepfake manipulations to the group’s subversive activities.

But as violence and chaos spread because of the manufactured reality created by her videos, she starts to question Milan’s true intentions, and the allure of the V begins to wear off.

With the world tumbling toward war, Etta tries to stop the juggernaut she has created . . . and finds herself in the crosshairs of the people she had come to think of as family.

Alex Schuler began his career as a Navy pilot, then developed AI software for the commercial and defense sectors. His systems have been deployed on Navy ships and submarines, as well as NASA space shuttles. Alex turned to writing exciting and accessible science-based fiction to explore the ethical and philosophical implications of the technology he helped develop. His characters question their place and purpose in a rapidly changing world of ever-more-sophisticated--and potentially dangerous--technological advances.

Code Word Access, the first novel in Alex Schuler’s Code Word series, shot to #1 on Amazon in the sci-fi category.

An early fan of Star Trek (the original, of course), The Outer Limits, and Sigourney Weaver in the Alien movies, you might find Alex wandering the halls of ComicCon or reading a great sci-fi book under redwood trees. Which book? Maybe Dune (Frank Herbert) or Stranger in a Strange Land (Robert Heinlein).