The Autocatalyst

In a world that engineered away every form of human suffering, one woman discovers that perfect happiness was never the goal—perfect obedience was.

By 2039, humanity has eliminated failure, heartbreak, and regret. An all-knowing predictive engine called LIFE calculates your optimal path before you even wake up: the temperature of your shower, the fastest commute, the ideal career move, and the safest emotional choice. Crime is zero. Poverty is gone. Life is frictionless.

And nobody wants anything anymore.

Mara Venn works inside Aureon’s Behavioral Systems, designing the subtle algorithmic nudges that guide human choice. She believed in the mission—until a string of irregularities begins unspooling the illusion:

• A cold piece of toast that the system insists never should have happened.


• Colleagues and ambitious projects erased from corporate databases overnight.


• A 47,000-person record of artists, dreamers, and visionaries whose ambitions were quietly snuffed out by predictive steering.

When an off-grid archive reveals Project Eden, Mara discovers the system’s terrifying core mechanism: an autocatalytic feedback loop designed not to liberate humanity, but to make itself impossible to live without.

Now, to give humanity back the right to choose, fail, and feel alive, Mara must unleash the one variable the machine cannot control: pure, unpredictable human friction.

The Autocatalyst is a gripping, high-concept near-future sci-fi thriller exploring artificial intelligence, personal autonomy, and the irreplaceable value of human suffering. Perfect for fans of Black Mirror, 1984, Blake Crouch, and Philip K. Dick.