What if survival wasn’t about rebellion—but about restraint?
Gary Stetson is not a revolutionary. He does not sabotage the system that controls his life. He does not fight it openly. He learns how it works—and how to survive inside it.
Marked as shenili, altered in ways that make him valuable and dangerous, Gary is assigned to a labor compound governed by metrics, compliance, and quiet discipline. Pain is regulated. Behavior is measured. Harm is redistributed until no one can point to where it began.
As Gary becomes increasingly effective at stabilizing the people around him, the system notices. Competence creates patterns. Patterns create visibility. And visibility invites correction.
The Shenili Protocol is a slow-burn dystopian novel about institutional power, moral restraint, and the cost of being useful in a world that treats care as interference. There are no heroes here, no simple villains—only people navigating a structure designed to erase anything it cannot neatly categorize.
This is a standalone work of speculative fiction for readers who prefer ethical tension over spectacle, systems over uprisings, and consequences that linger long after the final page.
Reader Note:
This novella is about systems, not spectacle. It does not feature a traditional rebellion arc, romance subplot, or triumphant resolution. Its tension is procedural, psychological, and cumulative.
Genre: Science Fiction
Gary Stetson is not a revolutionary. He does not sabotage the system that controls his life. He does not fight it openly. He learns how it works—and how to survive inside it.
Marked as shenili, altered in ways that make him valuable and dangerous, Gary is assigned to a labor compound governed by metrics, compliance, and quiet discipline. Pain is regulated. Behavior is measured. Harm is redistributed until no one can point to where it began.
As Gary becomes increasingly effective at stabilizing the people around him, the system notices. Competence creates patterns. Patterns create visibility. And visibility invites correction.
The Shenili Protocol is a slow-burn dystopian novel about institutional power, moral restraint, and the cost of being useful in a world that treats care as interference. There are no heroes here, no simple villains—only people navigating a structure designed to erase anything it cannot neatly categorize.
This is a standalone work of speculative fiction for readers who prefer ethical tension over spectacle, systems over uprisings, and consequences that linger long after the final page.
Reader Note:
This novella is about systems, not spectacle. It does not feature a traditional rebellion arc, romance subplot, or triumphant resolution. Its tension is procedural, psychological, and cumulative.
Genre: Science Fiction
Used availability for Lynn Nodima's The Shenili Protocol