They didn't lose control of the world.
They optimized it.
In the aftermath of systemic collapse, healthcare didn't fail-it evolved.
The Union saved millions of lives by replacing organs with leased synthetic implants, offering survival through contracts instead of charity. The system is clean, efficient, and legally unassailable. Miss a payment, and the asset is reclaimed.
Jonah Hale is an Enforcement Officer-tasked with executing those recoveries.
He doesn't see himself as a killer. He follows procedure. He honors contracts. He believes that violence ceases to be violence when it is administered politely, lawfully, and without malice.
Until the day the system begins to fracture.
As Jonah uncovers the buried architecture beneath the Union's immaculate order-legacy behavioral models, predictive compliance engines, and doctrines that redefine consent itself-he is forced to confront a terrifying possibility: the system isn't malfunctioning.
It's working exactly as designed.
Death Broker is a chilling dystopian thriller about institutional violence without brutality, the moral anesthesia of procedure, and what remains of conscience when responsibility is outsourced to systems that never feel guilt.
There are no villains here.
Only policies.
Only participation.
And once you see how it works, you can't unsee it.