In "Mind Puppets," a relaxing day at the beach transforms into a surreal nightmare when Georgy witnesses a thunderous boom that no one else seems to remember. After discovering her drink mysteriously filled with sand and encountering a child who shares her memories of the strange event, she realizes reality itself has fractured around her.
As Georgy flees from men in black suits and a boy whose appearance glitches between child and adult, she's rescued by a resistance fighter named Eleanor who reveals the horrifying truth: powerful forces have manipulated time itself. The American and Chinese governments have discovered a quantum anomaly allowing them to rewrite history, and Georgy is one of only five "anomalies" whose consciousness remains anchored to the original timeline.
Guided by Eleanor's cryptic instructions, Georgy finds her way to a lighthouse where she meets the professor and Charlie, fellow anomalies fighting against the timeline manipulation. Together, they navigate a distorted world where reality shifts beneath their feet, rescuing other anomalies and evading "temporal agents" who seek to eliminate them.
The group ultimately confronts the Architects-godlike beings orchestrating the rewriting of history-in the quantum nexus at the heart of reality. Here, they form a neural link, combining their memories of the original timeline to challenge the Architects' control. With a unified declaration that "THIS IS NOT THE TRUE TIMELINE," they shatter the fabricated reality and restore the proper flow of time.
When Georgy awakens back on the beach, everything seems normal-but a chance encounter with Charlie and the other anomalies suggests that beneath their conscious memories, a profound connection remains, echoing like thunder that never was.
This thought-provoking thriller blends quantum physics with philosophical questions about the nature of reality, memory, and the resilience of human consciousness in the face of godlike power.