Synopsis

When billionaire Elliot Feldman Sr. dies, his former daughter-in-law Nora is summoned to the reading of his will. The offer appears impossible to refuse: a house in the exclusive community of Feldman Oaks, a generous stipend, and financial security. The price is hidden inside the paperwork. To receive the inheritance, Nora must serve for one year as Custodian of Elliot’s Continuity Suite – a biotech-preserved body installed in her living room.

The company calls him a Resident. The contract describes routine care. But Elliot’s body is not as passive as promised. As glitches become movements and movements become violence, Nora is pulled into a machinery of corporate reassurances, legal traps, invasive monitoring, hostile relatives, public spectacle, and a neighborhood determined to protect property values before people.

Darkly comic and increasingly disturbing, CUSTODIAN EMBEDDED turns inheritance, grief, domestic space, and the business of defeating death into a story about what happens when ownership survives the owner – and compliance becomes permanent.

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Excerpt

Chapter One – The Reading of the Will

The conference room smelled like money trying to smother old coffee.

Nora sat in a leather chair that cost more than three months of her rent and tried not to sweat through the back of it. The AC was turned up high enough to keep orchids alive and emotions dead, but her shirt still clung between her shoulder blades.

Across the polished table: Martin Weiss, Feldman family lawyer. Pale, precise, thinning hair so neatly parted it looked vector-drawn. Between them sat a thick blue folder and a tablet in a tasteful leather case.

On the far side of the room, against a wall of smoked glass: the Feldmans.

Elliot Jr.—“E.J.” now, because rich men were allergic to syllables—scrolled his phone with the coiled impatience of a man who’d been taught the world was late for him.

Tabitha, wife number two, razor-sharp bob and a dress that probably had a name, watched Nora with the appreciative contempt of a woman assessing a thrift store find.

At the end of the row sat a stranger in a navy blazer, the helix logo pinned to her lapel like a religious symbol.

EMILY – CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, her badge said.

Nora didn’t know why Emily was here.

She also knew exactly why Emily was here.

Martin cleared his throat.

“As we discussed,” he said, voice smooth as refundless retainer fees, “Mr. Feldman updated his estate plan in the last six months of his life. Given his… role… in the development of the Continuity Suite, it was important to him that his arrangements reflect his values.”

“His values,” Nora said. “Right.”

E.J. looked up from his phone. “Can we stay on track, Martin?” he said. “I have a call at three.”

“Of course,” Martin said. “We’ll be efficient.”

He opened the blue folder and slid a few pages aside, like a magician revealing a rabbit that was also a bomb.

“As to the disposition of Mr. Feldman’s remains,” he said, “and associated property…”

Tabitha clasped her hands in her lap. Her nails were neutral pink and weaponized.

Nora stared at the tabletop.

She’d seen Elliot Sr. dying already. First in the hospital, still technically alive; then at the hospice, technically not. She’d thought that was the last weird thing she’d ever have to do for him.

That had been stupid.

“Elliot Feldman Senior,” Martin read, “being of sound mind and body at the time of this writing—”

“Debatable,” Nora muttered.

“—hereby directs that his physical remains be entrusted to Feldman Home / BioContinuum Inc. for integration into the Immortality Suite, pursuant to the Continuity Pilot Agreement.”

He glanced up to see if anyone would challenge the phrase.

No one did.

Tabitha’s jaw tightened. E.J. looked back at his phone like he’d heard this part already and wanted to skip to his lines.

Nora frowned.

“‘Integration’ how?” she asked. “Like… ashes in a lamp, or more like a whole horror-movie situation?”

Emily’s smile brightened by two percent.

“It’s not ashes,” she said. “It’s a residential continuity environment. Very dignified. Very cutting-edge.”

“Those are a lot of adjectives,” Nora said. “None of them tell me what it looks like.”

Martin cleared his throat again, gently herding.

“Mr. Feldman’s instructions are detailed in the annex,” he said, tapping the folder. “But at a high level: his remains will be preserved and housed in an in-home Continuity Suite. The specifics of the hardware are proprietary.”

“Proprietary,” Nora repeated. “Love that for a dead body.”

Excerpt from CUSTODIAN EMBEDDED: A Dark Comic Horror Novel by Karlo Petigny. Copyright 2026 Karlo Petigny. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Karlo Petigny writes speculative stories that combine psychological pressure, institutional absurdity, horror, and dark comedy. His fiction is interested in the moment when normal procedures become impossible to escape: contracts continue beyond death, corporations redefine personhood, and homes become controlled environments.

CUSTODIAN EMBEDDED, his debut novel, introduces Feldman Oaks and The Continuity Cycle. The series continues with PERPETUAL VIEWING, now in development. Petigny lives in Canada and develops his work across fiction, screenwriting, audio, and cinematic promotional storytelling.

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Trigger warnings: Strong language, disturbing imagery, violence, body horror, grief, medical and biotech themes, and psychological distress.