About the Book
Knew Downs is a novel by ET Mueller set in a near-future world where artificial persons live and work alongside humans.
Knew Downs follows Jane, a young data-center engineer who finds purpose and identity inside the corporate world of Sci-T — until a merger ends it in a single afternoon.
What follows is a search: for work, for self, for solid ground. Jane lands at Gopher Group under a new boss, Fabi, who is everything her last boss wasn't — until he tells her something that shouldn't be possible.
The novel asks what happens when the systems we trust to define us turn out to be something else entirely.
"A novel about work, consciousness, and identity in the age of AI."
Chapter 1 — Charge
Jane works as an engineer at Sci-T under her boss Zane. The work is intense and all-consuming, and she buys into it completely. How much of her life is actually hers?
Chapter 2 — Spin
After a merger, Sci-T shifts. Pressure builds, and Jane is suddenly fired. One moment she belongs — the next she doesn't.
Song: Going and Gone
Chapter 3 — Sense
Out of work, Jane replays her past and imagines new futures. If you can rewrite your lines, which version do you choose?
Songs: Rewrite My Lines · Learn To Be Funny
Chapter 4 — Work
Jane puts on her makeup. With her college friend Lucy, conversations turn personal. Jane gives advice, avoids certain questions, and tells a lie just to see what happens.
Song: Deference
Chapter 5 — Fit
Before her first real job, Jane earned money through a series of hustles. During her first internship, she observes — everything.
Chapter 6 — Release
Jane replays her first job back to the moments where she started competing with her boss. She moves from taking ownership to taking over.
Chapter 7 — Scale
Jane feels Lucy's absence and tries to steady herself through routine, timing, and control. She attends a talk and looks back at her past. She decides to stop working alone.
Chapter 8 — Charge
Jane joins Gopher Group and meets Fabi. Is this a fresh start — or the same system in another form?
Chapter 9 — Release
Jane learns the systems at Gopher and builds her own. She becomes valuable and hard to replace. What does it mean to matter inside a system that can still move on without you?
Chapter 10 — Scale
Jane proves herself fast and gets access to more data, more responsibility, more work. She keeps taking it on — even when it starts to feel like too much.
Song: Purlins and Concrete
Chapter 11 — Bond
Jane and Fabi have grown close through work. When Jane pushes him to be direct, he tells her something that sounds impossible. What begins as a strange confession turns into a deeper question about consciousness, identity, and whether either of them fully knows what they are.
What do you do when someone else's confession starts to sound like your own?
Song: Reality's Illusion
The story continues.
Song: Silicon Girl
The manuscript incorporates multiple forms — drawings, comics, code fragments, charts, songs, poems, and corporate visual elements — woven into the narrative to reflect a consciousness shaped by technological systems and mediated perception.
Much of the novel's imaginative energy comes from the meeting point between infrastructure and interior life: data centers, technical systems, managerial language, and the hidden architectures that quietly organize modern existence.
At its center is not only a philosophical question about intelligence, but a human one: what happens when a person's working life, emotional life, and sense of self begin to blur inside the same machine-made world?
Jane
The narrator. A gifted engineer with a sharp eye and an unstable sense of belonging. She kept a journal, thought she could profit from it, and lost control once the lawyers arrived.
Zane
Jane's manager at Sci-T. Charismatic, dominant, technically competent — and too convinced of his own command.
Fabi
Jane's manager at Gopher Group. Calm, philosophical, and generous in a way that unsettles as much as it reassures.
Lucy
A friend from engineering school. Conversations with Lucy have a way of going somewhere Jane didn't expect.
Barney
Founder of Sci-T. Built it in his basement. Lost control after the lawyers arrived. Thinks he knows how to manage Jane.
Uncle
Jane's formative influence. Controlling, self-justifying, and impossible to dismiss. "Estrangement doesn't erase influence; it just removes gratitude."
Noema Sorenta
Part persona, part performer, part mirror. She claims to care deeply about Jane. She may be right.
And a cast of engineers, executives, consultants, professors, and choral voices drawn from history, myth, and literature.