Paper Cage

In the Allied States of Virelia, the landmark "Hawthorn v. Ellis" ruling temporarily blocks a government algorithm designed to police online speech. Dr. Soren Vale, a genius profiler for the Virelian Bureau of Criminal Analysis, testified that the algorithm would amplify violence. As he hunts the "Echo" killer who targets the algorithm's architects, Vale's hyper-empathy for the murderer's twisted logic shatters his sanity. What begins as a rational pursuit descends into a psychological nightmare where logic—the last line of defense—proves to be a fragile paper cage against the hurricane of human emotion.