"This book was different than all the other books I read by veteran authors...an intense story that left me wondering what would happen next." -Amazon Reviewer What happens when performance becomes the most important metric—and everything else becomes negotiable? It’s the year 2045, and Carla Castillo is a top-ranked cadet at the Unified Military Academy, where every decision is measured, every weakness tracked, and every mistake recorded. As graduation approaches and military assignments loom, pressure to perform has never been higher. When the academy becomes entangled in a classified clinical drug trial designed to enhance cognitive performance, Carla and her peers are drawn into a system that rewards speed, compliance, and results—at any cost. As cadets begin to behave unpredictably and lives are put at risk, Carla is forced to confront a far more dangerous challenge than any training exercise: determining where responsibility ends when decisions are shaped by data, authority, and flawed incentives. Told through the lens of a high-stakes military environment, The Peak Experiment is a leadership novel about decision-making under pressure, ethical blind spots, and the hidden costs of optimization. In the tradition of thought-provoking leadership fiction, this coming-of-age story explores what happens when young leaders are trained to follow systems before questioning them—and what it takes to speak up when the system itself is broken. This novel will appeal to readers interested in leadership, ethics, military culture, and the human consequences of performance-driven organizations.