Real-time interactive fiction : Solace, Nevada, 2037
RELAY:
SOLACE
A thriller in your pocket.
In real time.
THE SIGNAL
Night 0 : a posthumous message
At 11:47 p.m., the channel goes live. Theo Brandt, an engineer at Argos Technologies, died six hours earlier. Suicide, according to Solace PD. His posthumous message connects Avery Ingram, a freelance journalist investigating the MIRADOR program with him, to an anonymous relay in a source-protection network: you.
Avery isn't chasing a scoop anymore. Avery is looking for a way out. You're the only voice available, and every piece of advice can save or kill.
Which means I'm dead.
Finish the job, or get far away. But decide fast.
They always decide faster than we do.
Ok ok ok.
Who are you?
Nobody smokes that slowly in real life.
THE CITY THAT WATCHES
America in 2037 : the tipping point
Neural implants are emerging and dividing people. For the first time, half the country lives augmented, the other half not yet. Solace, Nevada : a new city built on a dry lake, entirely financed and operated by Argos. The first “Aware City.” No red lights, no cash, and a sensor mesh that forgets no one.
SOLACE
240,000 residents, zero official blind spots. Implanted residents go to the front of the line. To the north, Sector Zero : the neighborhood never finished, refuge for everything Solace would rather not see.
ARGOS TECHNOLOGIES
Giant of “predictive urban security” and maker of the IRIS implant. 11,000 employees, an ethics charter engraved in the lobby, and a program whose name appears nowhere.
MIRADOR
The illegal merging of the city's sensors with implant telemetry. A predictive score for every resident. Three deaths disguised in the file. Theo was the third.
THE RELAY
An informal source-protection collective. You are a relay: anonymous, unlocated, reachable only through the encrypted channel. Nobody knows the other relays. That's the rule.
YOUR CHOICES MATTER
And so does time : the real kind
The game runs on real-world time. Avery travels, hides, sleeps. When night falls on Solace, the channel goes quiet, and your phone wakes you if something goes wrong. Never more than 8 hours of waiting, and always because you decided it.
Real time
Crossing a sector takes twenty minutes. A crack, six hours. Waiting for a maintenance window can save your life: time becomes a resource.
Five documents
DOC-01 to DOC-05: internal memos, reports, logs. The channel can decrypt them, Avery's terminal can't. Read carefully, there's always a detail that contradicts someone.
Trust
Avery isn't a pawn. Inconsistent advice, one silence too many, and at the worst moment Avery will decide without you.
Timed choices
Some decisions don't wait. 10 real minutes, then Avery decides. The phone in your pocket becomes a responsibility.
DISAPPEAR
Six documented exits : and a rumor
A death isn't the end. The channel finds Avery at the last safe point.
What it costs, you'll find out.
THE PROTOCOL
The network's rules : non-negotiable
Theo spent months building it before he died. Six rules, not one more. The network protects its sources because every relay follows them to the letter. You're a relay now. Read.
“If you're reading this, the protocol found someone.
Don't try to figure out why you. Just be there.”
T.B., protocol log
THE CHANNEL
IS OPEN.
First episode of the RELAY series, available now on iPhone. Keep your phone charged: the next message won't wait.