When cities fracture and neighbors turn on each other overnight, officials call it unrest and dismiss it as random human behavior. Dr. Marcus Kane knows better.
When he’s offered a prestigious new post and an even more secretive side project by the enigmatic Mr. Chen, Kane is promised influence, funding, and answers. All he has to do is assemble a team and follow instructions without question.
Across the country, two neuroscientists detect the impossible: a silent frequency embedded in the human brain. It doesn’t insert thoughts. It intensifies them. Fear sharpens. Anger crystallizes. Grief sinks into despair. The signal leaves no fingerprints, only conviction.
As violence spreads, containment zones multiply, and ideological extremism ignites, Kane uncovers fragments of a truth buried beneath layers of classified deception. The chaos isn’t spontaneous. It’s being tuned.
And someone is holding the dial.
Caught between a corporation that knows more than it admits and a world spiraling toward orchestrated collapse, Kane realizes the project never needed his expertise. It needed him.
The deeper he goes, the harder it becomes to tell whether he’s investigating the system or being integrated into it.
Because the most effective weapon doesn’t force obedience.
It convinces you the choice was yours.
DISTORTION is a speculative psychological thriller novella about perception, power, and the invisible force turning humanity against itself, one mind at a time.
For readers who love Black Mirror style psychological suspense and near-future conspiracy thrillers.
