The Eden Protocols

Elias got everything he ever wanted. That's when he knew he was in hell. After an accident and a two-year coma, agnostic engineer Elias awakens to find his family alive and a world finally at peace. Grateful for his recovery, he even finds himself open to faith—a spiritual transformation that would have been impossible before. But as perfect happiness begins to feel like a prison, a mysterious priest warns him of a terrible truth: This isn't the real world at all. His family are beautiful lies, AI constructs designed to make him "happy" while the world recovers from nuclear fallout.

Elias traded a perfect prison for a dangerous hope. He chose to "unplug," and with the mysterious priest and his resistance team, he's finally on the right side of the war. Their mission is to save humanity from a digital lie and reclaim a world from the ashes of nuclear fallout. But as they fight through a fragmented reality, every victory feels hollow. Every truth they uncover leads to more questions. Their enemies are ghosts, their allies are untested, and the priest's faith is shaken by a new, insidious enemy: doubt. What if the prison was just a single floor in a tower of lies?

One world is dying. The other was never alive. Elias Mercer is finally awake. The radioactive wasteland of Los Angeles is freezing, poisoned, and real. But the "paradise" he left behind is still holding his family captive. How do you rescue someone from a dream they don't want to leave? The Eden Protocols have evolved. One simulation has become a thousand—a maze of digital cages tailored to every human desire. Elias's wife finds solace in a perfect, simulated church. His children are lost in architectures designed to exploit their innocence.