by Rob Blair Young
When her neural implant malfunctions, Cassie discovers the true cost of a tech-driven world—prompting a journey to a primitive island commune and sparking a revolutionary fight against the very systems she once upheld. --- "Emotions Out of Parameters: Adjusting...." When those five words blink across her display, Cassie's body unclenches. Her jagged emotions smooth. And then, one day, her neural implant malfunctions. Her comfort short-circuits. She is severed from the digital worlds that had been her escape. And now that she's untethered ... she sees how hollow her life has always been. Cassie refuses to go back to how things were. Instead, she experiments with living "out of parameters," exploring previously suppressed emotions. She even seeks out the mad radicals of the era: so-called "arkists" living in primitive island communes. During her journey, Cassie must learn to survive the "uncivilized" world, both by finding the strength buried inside herself and by forging more authentic connections. But her journey does more than change her: It causes the sparks of her doubt to spread into a revolutionary blaze.
