In the theatre of Life's unfolding drama, perhaps it is not what happens "to us," but "for us" that is important. The road to riches for Luke Carmichael, a young cognitive scientist and would-be technology entrepreneur, had led him to a precipice in the Meadow.

How to decide?

Luke was enthralled by people, more precisely their irrational behaviours. Why did they act as they did? What drove their choices and decisions, even when the outcomes were harmful, or even self-destructive?

Fascinated by the dopamine reward of a decision made, the intoxicating rush of risk that overwhelms logic, Luke railed against a deterministic world, convinced he could engineer a better one. To that end, he had developed an agentic Artificial Intelligence program which he christened Spirit.

Luke had come to Las Vegas from Europe seeking his slice of the American dream. His true destination lay in Silicon Valley with its investors, but a detour had been forced upon him, landing the young man in the city locals called “the Meadow”.

By day, as a way to pay the bills, he was a part-time chauffeur at the exclusive Paradise Tower. The driving-gig seemed inconsequential as Luke ferried the Tower's secretive, wealthy, and powerful residents. Yet their activities exposed him to the more sinister undercurrents associated with power and pleasure.

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