"Tsvetograd-42" is a city on a distant planet, built by people as a transfer hub for space travelers. But people haven’t arrived there for almost two hundred years. Androids continue to exist by inertia: they imitate human habits, quote films, and blindly follow protocols.
When a catastrophe threatens to erase the city from the face of the planet, maintenance engineer Ray understands that only decisions directly forbidden by the instructions can save them.
A philosophical science-fiction tale about the cost of freedom, the evolution of consciousness, and what truly makes us alive.