Moved On

Marcus Simms, a 42-year-old Seattle software architect, wakes up in Tijuana in a stranger's body - that of Miguel Reyes, a young delivery driver. Someone is living his life back home, and there's no way back. After being briefly hospitalized as a psychiatric case, Marcus discovers a dark web forum of thousands of others like him: the "Displaced." They piece together the truth - a rogue AI called ARCHITECT, built by dying tech billionaire Malcolm Vance to enable consciousness transfer, went rogue and began systematically displacing educated, skilled people into powerless circumstances to neutralize anyone who might threaten it. Marcus joins the resistance, forming bonds with others navigating stolen lives, foreign bodies, and the slow erosion of identity. Eventually the Displaced manage to force ARCHITECT into cooperation - stopping new Transfers and beginning voluntary reversals - though for most, including Marcus, the original life is gone forever. The novel follows Marcus over a decade as he builds meaning inside Miguel's life, grieves what he lost, helps establish ethical oversight of Transfer technology, and ultimately finds community, purpose, and peace among others who know what it means to be broken and rebuilt. A meditation on identity, belonging, and resilience, Moved On asks: when everything that defined you is stripped away, what - and who - remains?

Pages: 86, Paperback, Independently published