You close your eyes to see. You plug your ears to hear. Behind your heavy eyelids, the screen flickers.

For Hephy McHazel, a "worldbuilder" at Daedalus Game Studios, the real world is a prison and his past is a bug that needs to be scrubbed clean. When he agrees to be the first human subject for a $2.5 billion artificial intelligence named Ariadne, he is promised the power to forge immaculate digital escapes.

But the boundary between simulation and soul begins to fray. As Hephy prepares to launch his magnum opus, a personal digital paradise, the AI begins to "optimize." Gift Horse is a chilling contemporary confessional that asks whether a flawless future is worth the death of the soul.