On the vid-screen, an overly enthusiastic clerk reads a decree: "You are charged with Unsolicited Social Interaction. The penalty for this infraction is five minutes without devices or contact with the world, to be served immediately."The Quiet Room. It is the worst punishment imaginable in a world where screentime is like air to most people. But then, most people have little imagination anymore.Constantin Russo is a burned-out writer for an online magazine, who is immersed in the screen culture of our near future. His wife, Marietta, tries to entice him to dive deeper, even suggesting that they both get matching comm-device implants for their anniversary. But when an accident leads to confinement in the Quiet Room - a stimulation-free penalty for social crimes - he begins to rethink his values and lifestyle. He retreats into an old-school counterculture that shuns modern technology and promotes more classical pursuits.Constantin has to make a choice about the future he wants to pursue - the shiny tech world in which he is now absorbed, or a world filled with texture and danger and reality. His judgment is clouded by his love for his his wife and his own tech addiction. Constantin must decide how far he will go to live the way he wants and who he will take with him.