The market is rigged. But not by banks. By the universe itself. Adrian Shaw has a secret. He cheats at reality.
On paper, he's a brilliant but unremarkable AI scientist, grinding away at an optimization startup. Off the books, he's discovered something else entirely-a hidden "backdoor" in the universe that lets him nudge probability, rewrite outcomes, and quietly correct the parts of life that offend his sense of order.
At first, it's harmless. A job interview goes a little better than it should. A trader's algorithm misfires in just the right direction. A friend survives a car accident that should have been fatal. The world doesn't notice. The math holds. And Adrian tells himself what any good cheater tells himself: I'm not hurting anyone. I'm just fixing the bugs.
But every edit leaves a fingerprint.
Patterns accumulate. Systems strain. Soon, Adrian isn't the only one looking at the numbers.
A ruthless hedge-fund prodigy, a government black program, and a shadowy online collective all start hunting the anomaly in the data-the invisible hand that keeps tilting the game. To them, Adrian isn't a man; he's an exploit. A weapon. Proof that the world is malleable.
As markets buckle, wars twitch off-script, and entire lives pivot on his sleepless choices, Adrian realizes he's crossed an invisible line. He's no longer testing a trick; he's running an unsanctioned experiment on eight billion people.
The more he "fixes" things, the worse the cascades get. Every solution spawns side effects he didn't foresee. Every mercy has a cost he can't fully calculate.
To protect the people he loves-and the fragile fabric of a world he's already bent out of shape-Adrian has to answer a question the math can't settle for him:
If you really can cheat reality, where does responsibility end?
Simulacra: CHEAT is high-concept, character-driven speculative fiction about power, probability, and the first step from an ordinary human to something dangerously close to a god.
PERFECT FOR FANS OF BLAKE CROUCH, TED CHIANG, AND NEAL STEPHENSON.
