EXHAUST: The Dogs of The Span
They called it justice.
It was just maintenance.
In The Span—a dome city where mercy is a contract and sin is a renewable resource—death-row convicts are reborn as Chain Dogs collared enforcers wired for obedience and leased to a system that feeds on its own crimes.
Arden Reik, a condemned gang survivor, wakes from his own execution with a leash bolted to his spine and a second chance that already feels like another sentence. Assigned to Division Ø7, he joins a unit of broken legends—Darius Kell, the veteran whose mind houses something monstrous; Seraphine Vega, a thief who weaponizes beauty; Kai Drayven, a hacker who trusts algorithms more than people; and Lyra, an artificial ghost who dreams in human frequencies.
Together, they hunt “malfunctions” in the city’s justice machinery—terrorists, rogue AIs, and cults worshipping the machine itself. But with every mission, Ø7 uncovers fragments of a darker truth: that The Span’s divine order runs on human consciousness, and that their own collars may be training something far greater—and far hungrier—than any god.
As the city exhales its ghosts, Arden must decide what freedom means when rebellion itself is another product line.
Cyberpunk noir meets theological horror—a story of five sinners trying to stay human in a world that recycles the soul.