Lawful Regression

Neil Harrison was a ghost in the machine. He didn’t use a gun to rob his victims; he used a keyboard to bleed them dry, a few quid at a time, until he’d amassed a £30 million fortune. He figured he’d do a soft five years in a low-security cage, come out, and vanish into a sunset bought with stolen silver.

But the law has a new shadow, and Judge Halloway is the one holding the lantern.

She offered him a choice. He took the one that sounded like a velvet sentence: the RtR Programme. He thought it was a home-stay. He thought he’d played the system one last time. He was wrong.

The "Redemption through Regression" protocol is a cold, clinical kind of hell.

Neil’s thirty-year-old mind—slick, greedy, and unrepentant—is stripped from his frame and poured into the helpless body of a newborn. For the next twenty years, he won’t be a high-stakes grifter. He’ll be a "subject." He’ll be wrapped in blankets by handlers who look at him with clinical pity. He’ll remember every penny he stole while he’s being burped, bathed, and put to bed.

Ten cycles. Two years an infant. Over and over until the man he was is nothing but a memory in a cradle.

In a world where technology can rewrite the soul, Neil Harrison is about to learn that some debts aren't paid in time—they're paid in innocence. The lights are dimming, the milk is warm, and the nightmare is just beginning.

Welcome to your first birthday, Neil. You've got nineteen more to go.