Warden of Echoes

In the Near Wilds — a frontier where failed terraforming and forgotten bio-wars birthed “echoes,” adaptive quasi-sentient anomalies — Ash Vey wanders as a licensed Warden. Gene-spliced to interface with echoes, hired to solve incidents others can’t, bound by an oath of neutrality.

Then the contracts stop making sense. A consortium called the Charter Combine is standardizing echoes into “Judgment Engines” — algorithmic morality enforcers that erase dissent and redefine personhood. The oath that was supposed to protect now protects the wrong things.

Gritty, intimate, folkloric. Every contract asks the same question: what does a Warden owe when neutrality stops being virtue?