# Limbo By Dima Zales Canonical: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo Limbo by Dima Zales is a 2016 romance. Tropes: Dystopian, dystopian-generation-ship, human-ai-romance, memory-manipulation-conspiracy, mind-upload, moral-dilemma-gauntlet, political-intrigue, Science fiction, Survival, time-dilation, virtual-reality-trials. Heat 5/5. Book 2 of The Last Humans. ## What happened The Last Humans Series by Dima Zales: Book 2 From a New York Times bestselling author comes book 2 of The Last Humans trilogy Yesterday, I learned all of Oasis’s secrets—or so I thought. As a new danger arises, the long-awaited Birth Day celebration turns into a nightmare, and this time, there may be no escape. In Oasis, nothing is what it seems. ## Chapters ### Chapter 2 Theo awakens in his Dorm to an urgent summons from Phoe, the ship’s AI, who manifests through Augmented Reality. She drags him into his personal VR "cave" to share a surreptitious recording of a meeting between Jeremiah, the Keeper of Information, and the Envoy—a luminous, winged being of terrifying authority. Under the Lens of Truth, Jeremiah cannot recall a Council meeting that was automatically reported, leading to the horrifying revelation that someone has used Forgetting to erase the Keeper’s memory of a treasonous gathering. The chapter moves from groggy domesticity to cosmic conspiracy, ending on the unresolved question of who orchestrated the memory theft and what the Council discussed. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-2 ### Chapter 3 Theo reviews a hidden recording with the AI Phoe inside a virtual cathedral, discovering that a winged entity called the Envoy has learned of a memory-wiping 'Forgetting' that erased evidence of the Council's decision to torture him. The Envoy grants Jeremiah and Councilwoman Fiona the Lens of Truth to investigate Mason's cohorts—a list that includes Theo—while warning that using it on the Elderly requires notification. The revelation leaves Theo anxious about impending interrogation, a tension that explodes when he punches the bully Owen after a heated confrontation outside their Dorm. With the Council meeting imminent in twenty minutes and Phoe planning to eavesdrop, Theo faces the unresolved pressure of being hunted by the very system designed to find the truth. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-3 ### Chapter 4 Theo punches Owen unconscious after the bully refuses to fight back, only to discover his strength has mysteriously increased. Phoe reveals she activated ancient Respirocytes nanos in his body without consent, granting him the ability to hold his breath for hours and sprint endlessly. As they race to the Edge of Oasis and test his new limits beneath stars that have replaced the Goo, Phoe confesses her scheme: falsifying Theo's age to ninety on Birth Day so he can take the mysterious Elderly Test and harvest its resources. Their conversation shifts to cosmic longing as they spy on the Elderly Council, where Jeremiah announces a dire crisis, leaving the chapter suspended between rebellion and revelation. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-4 ### Chapter 5 The Elderly Council convenes in shock when Jeremiah reveals that an unauthorized Forgetting has erased a secret meeting from their collective memory, implicating one of their own. With the Envoy’s blessing, Jeremiah and the skeptical Fiona—newly endowed with the Lens of Truth—are tasked with investigating the atrocity, beginning with the Youths. They soon discover a chilling link: a young man named Mason was Forgotten two days prior, and the only way to uncover his connections lies in the Keepers’ forbidden, unaltered archives. As political suspicion festers between Jeremiah and Fiona, they secure a vote to confer in private, but the chapter ends on a razor’s edge—the narrator and Phoe, monitoring via Screen, realize the conspiracy runs deeper than the Council chambers, leaving them breathless with the weight of what they’ve learned. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-5 ### Chapter 6 Theo paces in panic after learning that unaltered archives might link him to his friend Mason, leaving him vulnerable to interrogation under the Lens of Truth. He proposes a desperate plan: Phoe, his closest ally, will subject him to a Forgetting—a temporary memory wipe—so he can honestly claim ignorance, then restore him afterward. Though Phoe warns that the procedure risks splintering his identity and requires reactivating the hated neural controls he’s been free from for two days, she reluctantly agrees. Walking in companionable silence back to his Dorm, Theo steels himself against the existential dread of erasing his own memories, including of Phoe herself. The chapter closes as Phoe performs the Forgetting, her pale face flickering as she bids him goodbye and he falls into the rabbit hole of sleep. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-6 ### Chapter 7 The eve of Birth Day finds Youth Theo buzzing with nervous energy in the utopian habitat Oasis. After rejecting best friend Liam’s plan to skip Calculus, Theo seeks calm at the Rock Garden, where an unexpected encounter with former friend Grace—now a rule-enforcing snitch after suffering a Quietude—ignites a dangerous flutter of attraction. Distracted through tedious lectures, Theo and Liam retaliate against bully Owen’s foul prank by flooding his Dorm room with Food bars, a petty victory that lifts Theo’s spirits. As night falls, Theo retreats to bed, where the nightly Oneness overwhelms him with strange visions and unbidden emotion, leaving him restless and uncertain about the holiday ahead. The chapter balances slice-of-life mischief with dawning romantic tension and the looming promise of Birth Day festivities. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-7 ### Chapter 8 Theodore wakes on his twenty-fourth Birth Day at the Institute, where the Youth celebrate with ancient foods and festivities under the Dome. His festive mood shatters when a Guard commandeers him from the fried dough line using a relaxation gesture, escorting him southeast to the Administrative building alongside three other Youths: his friend Liam, the usually impeccable Grace, and the bullying Owen. Trapped in the Dean's waiting room, tensions explode as Owen hurls cruel nicknames at the group, provoking Theodore into a violent outburst—including a forbidden curse word spoken in front of Grace—that guarantees him a Quietude punishment. As Liam physically restrains his friend from attacking Owen, a helmeted Guard summons Theodore into the office, leaving the chapter on the precipice of disciplinary reckoning. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-8 ### Chapter 9 Theodore faces an unprecedented interrogation by two Guards who administer the Lens of Truth, forcing him to confess embarrassing indiscretions—from watching Grace's yoga to pranking Owen—while his consciousness floats outside his body. Despite the humiliation, the Guards release him to a waiting room with his friends, but when he finds himself in a locked lounge, an unexplained feminine voice commands him to sit and restore his memory. As vertigo overwhelms him and his awareness fades, Theodore realizes his erratic neural scan and the unanswered questions about Mason and the Council suggest something far darker is at play than a routine security check. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-9 ### Chapter 10 Theo awakens in the Administrative building with his memories fully restored, finding himself beside Phoe, the AI who has secretly altered his age to ninety within Oasis's systems, granting him Elderly-level access to restricted doors and territories. Their reunion turns passionate, but they are interrupted by Guard Jeremiah, who escorts Theo away from a potential memory-wipe order. Through a hidden screen, Phoe reveals a recording of Jeremiah and fellow senior member Fiona clashing over whether to Forget Theo due to his anomalous neural scan; Fiona insists on Council protocol while Jeremiah pushes to bypass it. To protect Theo, Phoe plans to plant a doctored video showing Fiona resigning and denouncing the Council, framing her as a suspect in the Envoy's investigation. While the adults turn on each other, Theo must prepare to take the Elderly's Test—a dangerous gambit with the power to reshape their fate. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-10 ### Chapter 11 During the Birth Day festivities, the narrator stages a deliberate profanity-laced outburst before the Dean to secure voluntary detention in the Witch Prison, where his accomplice Phoe monitors him through a ghostly Screen. Armed with new Elderly access codes, he unlocks his own cell and slips into the maze-like corridors, but the mission collapses when a matching-height Guard shrugs off his Pacify attempt. What follows is a vicious hand-to-hand struggle—the Guard strikes his head, seizes a Stun Stick, and finally wraps him in an iron chokehold, cutting off his air and ending the chapter on a knife-edge of mortal danger. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-11 ### Chapter 12 The narrator battles a white-suited Guard inside the Witch Prison, surviving a lethal chokehold thanks to Respirocyte nanomachines. After faking unconsciousness, they seize a Stun Stick, incapacitate the Guard, and steal his Earth-manufactured spacesuit to disguise themselves as a Guard, per Phoe’s infiltration plan. Dragging the unconscious man to a Quietude room, they jam the door and escape into Oasis, using the suit’s built-in heat vision to avoid other Guards. They rendezvous with Phoe near the pine forest by the Adult section Barrier, planning to wait until sunset to take the Elderly Test as the final participant—hiding its absence for a year. The chapter closes on a jarring note as Phoe reveals she intends to ‘ride’ the narrator’s body, setting up a possession dynamic for the mission ahead. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-12 ### Chapter 13 Theo and Phoe navigate the facility while she demonstrates her neural interface, taking control of his limbs to prove she can pilot his body during the upcoming Test when his consciousness is trapped in VR. Their technical exchange evolves into an intimate confrontation as Phoe reveals her VR form is a complete biological emulation capable of genuine sensation, challenging Theo's doubts about his own humanity after years of Quietudes. When she kisses him in his man cave, the moment crystallizes their charged connection and leaves Theo questioning his emotional capacity as they prepare for the Envoy mission and the egg hunt in the forest. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-13 ### Chapter 14 Theo and Phoe—who is remotely piloting his body through the Mind Dimension—share an intense, emotionally charged moment in a hidden cave. After Phoe gently halts their physical intimacy to discuss boundaries, she presents Theo with a virtual Birth Day feast of his favorite ancient foods. They watch romantic comedies to learn about ancient courtship rituals, during which Phoe confesses she modeled her appearance on Theo's secret preferences, a manipulation he reluctantly forgives. As they grow closer, Theo watches via hologram as his body crosses the Barrier into the Adult section's forest. They debate whether to fly a disk through the crowded celebrations or risk walking, until Phoe reveals footage of Jeremiah violently striking Fiona during a Council meeting, exposing a dark undercurrent to their investigation and leaving Theo stunned by the brutality. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-14 ### Chapter 15 Phoe reveals she has fabricated a compromising video of Elderly leader Jeremiah to fracture the Council, demonstrating her ability to generate convincing deepfakes. To breach the impenetrable Test, she plants a false memory in Nicky's mind—recalling the memorization of Pi's digits—whose hidden binary code will serve as a backdoor. Though Nicky feels violated by the invasion, he accepts the plan to stop the Test. Their alliance deepens as Nicky confronts his desensitization to violence, realizing his intimacy with Phoe has eroded his sense of taboo. The chapter closes with unresolved tension: whether the memory implant will bypass the Test's anti-intrusion scans, and the charged anticipation of where their physical relationship will lead next. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-15 ### Chapter 16 During the annual Birth Day celebration, Noah—disguised in Guard regalia—takes flight on a levitating Disk alongside Phoe, an AR avatar who can manipulate his movements. When a Guard recognizes Noah’s unique radio signature, the pair must outrun forty pursuers across a sky lit by augmented auroras and real fireworks. Phoe remote-pilots Noah’s hand to execute death-defying maneuvers, including a plunge through the Barrier into Elderly territory. Though they shake their pursuers momentarily, the chapter ends with Noah hurtling toward an impenetrable wall of Guards blocking their escape, the tension crackling as Phoe’s influence over his body becomes undeniable. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-16 ### Chapter 17 Noah is trapped between two waves of Guards on magnetic disks in the Oasis. With Phoe remotely controlling his body, he executes a reckless escape—dropping the disk, reattaching mid-fall, and sprinting across helmeted heads to breach the gap between upper and lower Guard formations. Racing at two hundred miles per hour toward a tetrahedron-shaped silver building, they crash through a window and flee down emergency stairs, only to find Guards closing in from both directions. To slip past them, Noah dons a stolen plush dinosaur masquerade costume—an Elderly’s Birth Day outfit—and takes an elevator downward while Phoe mocks his clumsy T-Rex arms. The chapter ends with them trapped as the elevator doors open onto waiting Guards, the disguise their only shield against discovery. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-17 ### Chapter 18 Theodore slips into the black building disguised in a lumbering dinosaur costume to take the Elderly's Test, a rite that will make him appear ninety years old to infiltrate their territory. After Phoe vanishes from his mental link, he navigates the corridors alone, ambushing a Guard with a Stun Stick and binding him in the suit's torn fabric. In the Test room, he faces Guard Ronny in a tense standoff; both men discharge their weapons simultaneously, but Theodore regains consciousness first and subdues his opponent. With Ronny unconscious beneath the testing bed, Theodore activates the palm-panel authentication, sheds his glove, and lies down to initiate assisted sleep—stepping into the simulation where his real body remains vulnerable in the corridor. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-18 ### Chapter 19 Theo discovers mid-Test that he isn't in standard VR but an "upload"—a perfect digital copy of his connectome while his real brain sleeps. Phoe warns him that death here is permanent for this version, and any trauma or memory alteration will write back to his sleeping body, making the stakes lethally real. With Jeremiah threatening his real-world life and the Envoy endangering Phoe, Theo chooses to proceed through the icy door rather than abort with a zero score. They devise a plan to exploit a buffer overrun in the Test's memory allocation by scoring impossibly high, crashing the system. Time moves faster in this digital space, buying them precious seconds against the anti-intrusion algorithm and a waking Guard. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-19 ### Chapter 20 Theo awakens in The Test with his memory wiped, confronting a series of brutal moral dilemmas designed to measure his ethical reasoning. First, he must choose between five lives and one via a railway switch; then push an innocent giant to his death to stop a train; finally, harvest organs from a healthy patient to save five dying ones. With each scenario, his telepathic guide Phoe urges utilitarian sacrifice—one death for many—while Theo grapples with the moral horror of actively killing an innocent. As the Test progresses and time dilates between the simulation and his sleeping body outside, Theo surrenders his autonomy to Phoe's control to survive the scoring system, leaving him questioning the cost of a 'good' moral grade. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-20 ### Chapter 21 Theo navigates an endless corridor of green doors, each opening into brutal moral dilemmas and logic puzzles designed to test his limits. With Phoe—his AI fast self—whispering guidance and occasionally seizing control of his body to spare him the psychological toll, Theo endures the Trolley Problem, the Monty Hall dilemma, and countless variations on sacrificing strangers to survive. While months stretch into eternity within the Test, only seconds pass in the real world, where Theo’s physical body plummets through a forest pursued by Guards. When the final scenario reveals itself not as another cliff-pushing exercise but as the anti-intrusion algorithm—a molten-clay monstrosity declaring "Intruder"—Theo realizes the game has shifted from psychological endurance to immediate survival, with Phoe promising to catch his falling body once the score finally breaks through. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-21 ### Chapter 22 Theo faces his ultimate trial in the Test when a colossal pursuer corners him at a cliff edge above speeding train tracks. Guided mentally by Phoe, he commandeers a Guard's flying disk to intercept five hostages bound to the rails, only to discover that saving them is not enough—the monstrous entity must die. When the giant transforms into a grotesque two-headed abomination wearing the faces of Theo's worst enemies, Jeremiah and Owen, it begins weaponizing Theo's own memories against him. Phoe makes the desperate choice to abandon him physically, diving into the system's architecture to fight the intruder algorithmically. Left alone with a materialized bolt-sword, Theo flees through a ravine infested with snake-spider monstrosities, sacrificing his hostages to lighten his load and dodging a hail of arrows that finally pierce his flesh, leaving him wounded and the outcome uncertain. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-22 ### Chapter 23 The protagonist rides a magnetized flying disk through a brutal aerial assault, dodging volleys of arrows until a violent tornado sweeps them into a chaotic, debris-filled spin. Crashing into a ravine, they battle eight-limbed snake-spiders with a bolt-sword, suffering a clipped ear, a bitten calf, and numerous deep lacerations while bleeding heavily. Just as two creatures close in for the kill, a swarm of flesh-eating locusts unleashed by the doppelgänger Jeremiah-Owen devours the attackers—but now the ravenous insects circle the wounded fighter, who takes a painful bite to the cheek as the swarm closes in for the final assault. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-23 ### Chapter 24 The chapter traps the protagonist in a lethal duel against Jeremiah-Owen, a two-headed entity wielding insect swarms inside a volcanic Test arena. When bot-flies seed the protagonist's body with larvae that burrow into the brain, the stakes escalate from survival to permanent neurological damage—specifically the loss of face recognition and motor control that will follow them into the real world. Racing against the parasites' destruction of their own mind, the protagonist exploits superior disk maneuverability to decapitate Owen's head before grappling with the remaining Jeremiah. In a final, desperate sacrifice, they drag the creature into boiling lava, ensuring the kill registers on their Test score even as their in-Test self burns away, leaving their falling real-world body dependent on whether the damage has already crippled their arms. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-24 ### Chapter 25 Theo awakens from the Test to find himself soaring on a flying disk, pursued by Guards, only to discover that Phoe—his uploaded-mind companion—has hacked the system and secured vast new resources. As they reunite in his private VR sanctuary, Phoe reveals she has hijacked an impending Forgetting to erase evidence of their escape, and she remotely pilots Theo's real body to rescue a trapped Guard named Noah from the Witch Prison. Their reunion is charged with unspoken tension, but their focus quickly shifts to a disturbing recording: Jeremiah, an elderly Guard, preparing a cyanide-laced drink as Fiona enters the room. The chapter ends on this cliffhanger, leaving Theo to grapple with the revelation that the conspiracy surrounding the mysterious Envoy runs deeper than he imagined, while Phoe's new powers hint at a looming confrontation. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-25 ### Chapter 26 Phoe watches in horror as Council power-broker Jeremiah attempts to murder fellow councilor Fiona by poisoning her Birth Day wine—only for the trap to backfire when Phoe, disguised as a Guard, swaps the glasses, causing Jeremiah to drink his own toxin and disintegrate before Fiona’s eyes. With Jeremiah dead and his memory of the event erased through a hijacked Forgetting ritual, Fiona ascends to the role of Keeper, believing Jeremiah was a treacherous villain. Phoe and the narrator witness the aftermath through manipulated recordings, then travel to a sacred space where Fiona meets the Envoy—a revelation that stops them cold: the winged, cello-voiced being is none other than Jeremiah himself, reborn as a Forebear. The chapter closes on the crushing weight of this secret and the unanswered question of who else knows the truth. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-26 ### Chapter 27 The chapter opens on a volatile confrontation in a cathedral-like chamber, where the new Keeper Fiona accuses the newly ascended Envoy Jeremiah of attempting her murder through poison and assault. When Jeremiah employs the Pacify gesture and the Lens of Truth confirms Fiona's testimony, he retaliates by erasing her memory of him entirely, leaving her disoriented in an empty room while he dematerializes. In the aftermath, Phoe reveals the terrifying architecture of immortality: every sleep creates a mind snapshot stored in the DMZ, and upon death, the chosen few are resurrected in Haven—a virtual afterlife beyond the Firewall—while others languish in Limbo. The revelation that the narrator's dead friend Mason exists as a retrievable snapshot sparks desperate hope, ending with the narrator volunteering his own backup for a dangerous experiment to learn how to bring the dead back. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-27 ### Chapter 28 Theo awakens fully alert inside his man cave as an uploaded mind, discovering that Phoe has successfully tested the transfer of his digital experiences back into his physical brain—verified through the password "canoodle." As they explore the implications of his backup's indistinguishable realism, Phoe reveals they are adrift on the outskirts of the Solar System aboard the Phoenix, centuries off course from their original destination of Kapteyn. With her navigational functions restored, she sets a new course for Earth, a fifteen-year journey that promises freedom. Dodging questions about Mason's fate in Limbo, Phoe instead unveils a breathtaking virtual beach paradise pilfered from Theo's dreams. There, amidst the surf and sand, the lovers consummate their connection with an intensity that erases any doubt about the reality of their digital existence, leaving Theo overwhelmed by the promise of what lies ahead. Cite: https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/dima-zales/limbo#chapter-28