Final Option (Oregon Files 14)

“Unfortunately, no,” Eric said. “We’ve received a call from Langston Overholt’s private number.”

“What do you mean ‘from Langston Overholt’s private number’?” Juan asked.

Eric shook his head. “It’s not Mr. Overholt on the line. It’s someone else. He won’t say who it is. And, he’ll only talk to you on video chat.”

“He asked for me by name?”

Eric nodded. He looked just as puzzled and concerned as Juan felt.

Max left the dismantling work to be completed without him, and they all hurried to the op center. When they got there, Juan took a seat in the command chair, while Eric sat at the helm and Max took his spot at engineering. Hali was back at his communications post, with his leg in a brace and crutches perched next to him, and Murph was at the weapons station. He didn’t seem his usual bright self, and Juan caught him glancing at Linda’s empty seat. Murph still blamed himself for her absence. Juan made a mental note to talk to him later.

“Hali,” Juan said, “focus the camera tight on me and put the guy on the main screen.”

At first all Juan could see was a blurry room with several indistinct people moving around in it. One person was closer, in the center, but his face wasn’t visible.

“Who am I speaking to?” Juan asked.

“Ah, Juan Cabrillo!” a man jovially replied. “I’d recognize that voice anywhere. I hope you remember mine.”

The voice sounded familiar, as if echoing from his past, but Juan couldn’t quite place it. “It would help if I could see your face.”

“Of course. My bad.”

The image resolved itself. Juan was bewildered by what he was seeing.

The room on the screen was an exact duplicate of the Oregon’s op center. There were four people in it, including the man at the center.

All of them had Juan’s face.

It looked like it was actually Juan talking when the man said, “Here I am. Now, we have some important things to discuss.”

Juan motioned for Hali to mute the feed.

“What’s going on here?”

Murph swiveled in his chair. “They must be using an app like deepfake. It lets you paste a person’s face onto someone else in a video and make it look like they’re talking.”

Eric nodded in agreement. “The most famous example is when some joker put Nicolas Cage’s face on characters in a dozen different movies that he never appeared in, like Lord of the Rings and The Terminator. It can be done in real time. And the software special effects have gotten very realistic.”

“Does it change their voice?” Juan asked.

“So far, that’s been harder to do,” Murph said. “It’s probably his real voice.”

“Are you still there?” the man asked, waving. “Hello?”

Juan looked at Hali. “Put me back on.”

Hali nodded.

“We’re all laughing hysterically here,” Juan said in a monotone. “It was getting so loud I had to put us on mute.”

“I thought you’d like this,” the man said. “You’ve always had a high opinion of yourself.”

“And what should I call you? Juan Squared?”

“I think you know what name to call me, although it has been a while. I think the last time we saw each other was at that little bar in Chechnya. What was it called? The Brown Bear?”

Juan felt the blood drain from his face as he suddenly realized who it was. The voice he heard now was more gravelly than he remembered, but it was definitely the same man.