It begins with a simple assignment.
A group of college students is asked to solve a problem. It's something to complete, submit, and forget, but as they work, they begin to notice a pattern they cannot explain. At first, it looks like coincidence. Then it repeats. Then it holds. The more they test it, the clearer it becomes. The world around them does not just fail them. It runs on them. It extracts. It contains. It consumes.
And it has done so for longer than they can trace.
Once they see it, they cannot go back. Fixing the system from within stops making sense, but leaving is not something they can do on instinct. They have to prepare for it. They have to build toward it while still living inside it. The longer they stay, the more it takes. What began as a question becomes a calculation.
How long do they have, and what will be left of them if they wait too long?
Approximately 101,000 words.
