In a near future transformed by the Empathy System—a neural network that lets people feel one another’s emotions—psychologist Evelyn Chen becomes its most reluctant critic. What began as a healing tool has crept into schools, courts, and government, smoothing conflict while erasing privacy, dissent, and authentic feeling. When her son is flagged for “emotional instability” and a teen’s suicide exposes coerced “corrections,” Evelyn joins an underground of “Free” resisters to uncover hidden code that can not only read emotions—but shape them. From campus quietism to a global UN showdown, she fights to reclaim the fragile balance between safety and freedom, connection and self.
