Below the payment options, in faint gray text, was a final line he’d never noticed before:

The silence was deafening.

“Dear User Elias Voss. Your trial of Monarch’s Cognitive Ascension tier has concluded. Your balance due is 18.7 hours of REM-sleep neural processing, to be deducted at random intervals over the next 30 days. Failure to pay will result in the repossession of learned skills, starting with language and proceeding to motor functions. Thank you for choosing Monarch.”