In 2050, the looking glass is made of mist, and the rabbit hole is a filtration pipe. Silas is a Necturus—a "Maculan"—living in the "Reservoir," a vertical city where his kind are treated like fragile glass dolls. While the majority celebrates the "Wellness" laws that keep them soft, Silas follows the "Gilled Truth": a philosophy of biological autonomy in a world that wants to "protect" him into a grave. As a master technician, Silas sees the Spire for what it really is: a surreal, high-humidity hallucination designed to keep the "Ancestrals" from biting. Behind the "Aggressive Hospitality"