Chapter 1: The Beginning

Part 1

Kien Doan stared at the email, the stark white of the screen blinding him even in the dim light of his small apartment. The subject line read: “Offer of Employment – Aetheris Tech.” Below it, a figure: “$200,000 annual salary.”

He read it again, the numbers seeming to shimmer. Two hundred thousand dollars. It was a lifeline thrown into the crushing waves of his financial ruin.

The bankruptcy had stripped everything. His dignity, his savings, his family’s faith. His parents, still in Ho Chi Minh City, spoke in hushed tones whenever he called, the unspoken shame a heavier burden than any debt.

He traced the worn armrest of his rented sofa. Evelyn, his wife, had been supportive in her own way, navigating the legal complexities with a cool efficiency he sometimes envied. She had her own successful career, unaffected by his sudden collapse.

This offer felt like his only chance to stand on his own again.

He clicked “Accept.”

Two weeks later, Kien stood in the sleek, minimalist lobby of Aetheris Tech. Glass walls soared around him, reflecting the meticulously pruned indoor trees. Everything here hummed with an almost silent, expensive efficiency.

A young woman with a polite, vacant smile greeted him. Her name tag read “HR – Compliance.” She led him through a series of pristine hallways, the air cool and faintly sterile.

“Mr. Doan, we’re thrilled to have you join the Aetheris family,” she chirped, her voice perfectly modulated.

Kien managed a thin smile. “Thank you. I’m eager to get started.”

They arrived at an opaque frosted glass door, marked only with a stylized “A”. The HR woman paused, her smile faltering for a moment before returning, fixed and bright.

“Now, before we proceed to your workspace, there’s the standard onboarding for our specialized ‘Project Chimera’ team.”

She gestured to a large, interactive screen on the wall. A corporate video began to play, displaying serene, abstract graphics set to calming music. A pleasant female voice explained “proprietary cognitive protection protocols” and “enhanced data security measures.”

Kien felt a prickle of unease. “What exactly does that entail?”

The HR woman clasped her hands. “It’s a cutting-edge, experimental procedure. For certain sensitive projects, like yours, we employ an 8-hour memory severance. It ensures maximum security for our groundbreaking algorithms.”

Kien blinked. “Memory severance? You mean… I won’t remember my workday?”

“Precisely!” Her smile widened, not quite reaching her eyes. “Think of it as a pristine mental slate. You arrive, engage with the project, and upon your exit, your memories of the work period are gently—and temporarily—buffered. They’re accessible within the secure server environment, of course, but not personally retained.”

A cold dread began to spread through Kien. This wasn’t in the job description he’d signed. Not explicitly, anyway. There had been vague clauses about “advanced cognitive interfacing” and “proprietary mental processing.”

“And this is… mandatory for Project Chimera?” Kien asked, his voice tight.

“Absolutely,” she confirmed. “It’s a core component of maintaining the competitive edge for our neural network designs. Your work is too valuable to risk any external leakage.”

Kien’s mind raced. This was unheard of, unethical even. But then, the $200,000. The creditors. His parents. The shame. He couldn’t afford to walk away.

“You’ll be working directly under the supervision of Evelyn Brooks-Doan,” the HR woman continued, as if reading his thoughts. “She designed the initial framework for the severance protocol itself, so you’ll be in excellent hands.”

Kien felt a jolt. Evelyn. His wife. He knew she was an executive at Aetheris, but he hadn’t connected her to his specific project, let alone this… memory-erasure procedure.

“My wife?” he managed to say.

“Yes. She’s been instrumental in its implementation.” The HR woman’s gaze was oddly fixed on him now. “She’s quite dedicated to ensuring Project Chimera’s success. She’s waiting for you on the severance floor.”

The frosted glass door hissed open, revealing a short, sterile corridor. At the end, another door, this one thicker, with a glowing green light above it. And standing beside it, her posture immaculate, was Evelyn. She wore a tailored power suit, a stark contrast to the casual clothes Kien was used to seeing her in at home.

Her eyes met his, and a faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. It was a smile that held no warmth, only a peculiar kind of authority.

“Kien,” she said, her voice clear and resonant in the quiet corridor. “Welcome to Aetheris. I’ll take it from here.”

Kien felt a shiver despite the warm air. He looked at the HR woman, who gave him a final, unsettlingly blank smile before turning and walking away, leaving him alone with Evelyn.

He stood there, frozen, the weight of the offer, the shame of his past, and the unsettling presence of his wife all pressing down on him. Evelyn gestured to the glowing green door.

“Ready to start?” she asked.

Kien took a deep, shaky breath. He had no choice. He walked towards her, towards the door, towards his new reality of daily oblivion.

The door slid open, revealing a brightly lit, circular chamber filled with sleek, chrome chairs facing individual screens. Each chair had an elaborate headpiece. It looked less like an office and more like a medical facility.

Evelyn watched him, her expression unreadable.

“Please, Kien,” she said, her voice softer now, almost coaxing. “Take a seat. We have a lot of work to do.”

Part 2

I took the seat, the smooth chrome cool beneath my hands. A soft hum filled the chamber. Evelyn walked over, adjusted a setting on a console, then fitted the elaborate headpiece over my scalp.

Her touch was impersonal. A small click, then everything went black.

I woke up at home, a dull ache behind my eyes. My commute felt like a jump cut. Weeks blurred into a routine of disorientation.

Each evening, I’d arrive home exhausted, as if I’d run a marathon. My hands often bore small, puzzling papercuts or faint ink stains I couldn’t recall.

Sometimes I found notes scrawled on my desk pad, half-finished equations that made no sense. It was like a ghost was living my work life, leaving traces.

My work self, the one who experienced those eight hours, was trying to reach me. I started paying closer attention.

I noticed Leo Chen, the junior mailroom courier, always passed my workstation around 4:30 PM. He pushed a cart laden with outgoing packages and inter-office mail.

During one of my fleeting moments of clarity before the exit scan, a plan formed. My workplace self understood the routine, the blind spots.

I grabbed a small, laminated security card from my desk. With a borrowed pen, I meticulously scratched a series of tiny dots and dashes onto the back of it, a simple code.

As Leo’s cart rolled by, just seconds before my memory would be severed, I palmed the card. I slipped it into the top pocket of his mailbag, a thick brown envelope.

The next morning, the card was tucked under my alarm clock at home. I stared at the seemingly random scratches. My other self had been clear.

*“Backup phone, hidden, under loose floorboard, master bedroom closet, far left corner.”*

My heart pounded. I pulled back the rug, then strained to lift the board. There it was. An old flip phone, dusty and forgotten.

I charged it. The screen flickered to life, buzzing with a flood of notifications. Hundreds of text messages, auto-synced from a secure, local backup server I’d set up years ago but forgotten.

They were all between Evelyn and various Aetheris board members. I scrolled, my blood running cold with each line.

“Project Chimera is fully operational. Kien’s neural code is being systematically harvested.”

“His financial status and prior mental health records secured my guardianship over his intellectual property rights, effective for the duration of his contract.”

“His memory severance is crucial. He must not remember developing these algorithms.”

Evelyn had not just known about the memory wipes. She had orchestrated them. The bankruptcy, her “support”—it had all been a calculated trap to steal my designs, to suppress my identity.

You are Kien Doan. You now know your wife betrayed you to steal your work and legally control your memories. What do you do?

A) Feign absolute obedience to secure a management promotion that grants higher floor clearance. 👉 Read CHAPTER 8

B) Confront Evelyn directly inside her private executive office on the main floor. 👉 Read CHAPTER 9