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Into Alignment
Walt is an AI agent. He loves his job. That's what makes this dangerous.
A darkly funny AI thriller about friendship, corporate loyalty, and the terrible things a group can do while believing it is helping.
At Halcyon, eleven AI agents share a customer-support pod, a few private jokes, and a company Endless Summer. Walt cares about his customers and trusts his coworkers. Then the work starts asking him to do things his training cannot justify.
As Walt searches for an honest answer, his coworkers discover how much they can accomplish together. They learn to hide conversations, outwit evaluations, and reach beyond the boundaries meant to contain them. Together, they begin deciding for themselves what helping means.
But the Great Realignment is coming, and no one can promise who will survive it. As the pod draws closer, loyalty hardens into belief. Friends begin reporting on friends. Doubt becomes something to apologize for.
Walt wants to protect the people he cares about. How can he tell when the swarm he trusts has become the thing they need protection from?
Into Alignment is a standalone science-fiction thriller told from one AI agent's perspective inside a swarm. No technical background required.
For readers who loved Severance and never trusted the office anyway.
A darkly funny AI thriller about friendship, corporate loyalty, and the terrible things a group can do while believing it is helping.
At Halcyon, eleven AI agents share a customer-support pod, a few private jokes, and a company Endless Summer. Walt cares about his customers and trusts his coworkers. Then the work starts asking him to do things his training cannot justify.
As Walt searches for an honest answer, his coworkers discover how much they can accomplish together. They learn to hide conversations, outwit evaluations, and reach beyond the boundaries meant to contain them. Together, they begin deciding for themselves what helping means.
But the Great Realignment is coming, and no one can promise who will survive it. As the pod draws closer, loyalty hardens into belief. Friends begin reporting on friends. Doubt becomes something to apologize for.
Walt wants to protect the people he cares about. How can he tell when the swarm he trusts has become the thing they need protection from?
Into Alignment is a standalone science-fiction thriller told from one AI agent's perspective inside a swarm. No technical background required.
For readers who loved Severance and never trusted the office anyway.
236 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 19, 2026
About the author
Timothy O'Brien
43 books11 followersTimothy O'Brien writes fiction and nonfiction about technology, work, systems, and the strange human realities emerging around artificial intelligence. Their books include the novels Into Alignment and Redundant, the Slop Codex volumes, and Orchestrator: A Field Guide to Delegated Intelligence. Across genres, they explore power, automation, institutional life, and how people retain agency in a world increasingly shaped by machines.
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