The Joy Tax

Velden runs on pleasure. Neural implants track every moment of happiness, converting delight into currency—and no one questions the cost. Experience designer Neil Lindemann never did, until his business partner's death left him stranded in a city with no word for mourning. Sinking through social algorithms that erase the unhappy, Neil uncovers a hidden community of outcasts and a chilling secret buried in the implants themselves. To honor what he's lost, he'll have to make an entire city feel something it was engineered to forget.