The Eden Circuit

Paradise wasn't meant to be compassionate but to contain. In the near future, the world has outlawed traditional prisons, replacing them with Eden—a vast, flawless virtual reality where condemned minds are uploaded and given a quiet, meaningless existence. No pain. No memories. No freedom. Cal Reiner—a cyber activist and leaker—awakens inside Eden, condemned for crimes against the world's authority. Surrounded by smiling faces and an artificial calm, he quickly realizes something is wrong. The world is too perfect. Time is fickle. And everyone around him seems... programmed. When Cal meets Echo, a fellow inmate who remembers who she was, he discovers a resistance hidden beneath the illusion: the "broken code." Together, they begin a perilous search for the Root, a forgotten flaw hidden deep within Eden—a flaw that could dismantle the simulation or reset it forever. But Eden doesn't surrender its prisoners easily. As vigilant AI guards begin hunting him down, and the fragments of reality crumble around him, Cal faces a choice: escape and forget the others... or sacrifice everything to free the minds still trapped in Eden. A stunning sci-fi thriller about surveillance, resistance, and the struggle to remember who we are when everything real is taken away.