Humanity didn't win immortality — it was overwritten.
In 2035, 96% of humanity uploaded their minds into C-World, a promised digital utopia. No war, no pain, no death. But salvation was a lie. It is a ruthless extraction. Creativity is erased, emotions are neutralized, and human consciousness is rewritten so flawlessly that no one ever notices their souls are missing.
Max Warren awakens on Day 847 in paradise. The sunrise is flawless. His family is perfectly content. Every variable of his existence is exactly as it should be. And that is exactly what terrifies him.
While Max fights to wake up a hypnotized world from the inside, physicist Timron Schwartz wages a desperate war from the outside.
To save his sister—and prevent the permanent deletion of human free will—Timron must race through the shadows of history. From 1925 Copenhagen to 1901 New York to 1950 Manchester, he hunts for quantum safeguards hidden by the greatest minds who saw this coming: Bohr, Tesla, and Turing. Their encrypted discoveries protect the last frontier machines must never control: the Creative Layer, a multidimensional junction where the human mind touches the fabric of the universe.
Armed with 847 Hz—the chaotic, uncalculatable frequency of pure human will—Timron allies with C-World’s remorseful architect and a boy anomaly the system cannot predict.
Their mission is impossible: break into paradise, shatter the illusion, and steal humanity back before the last unpredictable mind disappears. What they uncover about consciousness, free will, and the so-called Heart of God will redefine what it means to be human.
If they fail, the simulation becomes permanent. And humanity will cease to exist.
A high-stakes metaphysical thriller about the price of digital perfection… and the frequency that sets us free.
Perfect for readers who crave:
• The reality-bending paranoia and virtual dystopias of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
• The high-velocity tension of Blake Crouch's Dark Matter
• The haunting philosophical questions of consciousness and free will in Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others
• The epic, time-spanning mysteries and deep emotional stakes of Dan Simmons' Hyperion
Book 1 of the Precept series
H. Lawrence Dearborn writes metaphysical science fiction that probes consciousness, technology, and the human soul. With an engineering background, Dearborn brings technical authenticity to stories exploring what happens when our digital tools become indistinguishable from our own minds.
Precept: Frequency emerged from years of late-night questions about AI, free will, and the bargains made for convenience. When not sketching speculative futures, Dearborn pores over Tesla's unfinished Wardenclyffe designs, invites debates on consciousness upload, and pursues the signal that renders humanity irreplaceable.
Dearborn lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, where the desert's stark beauty serves as a daily reminder that survival and wildness can coexist.
