In the Old Bailey, James Fletcher waits as his life is reduced to facts: a riot, a death, and a community torn open. Not long ago he was an ordinary man - a husband, a father, a professional - certain he was doing everything right. Then the headlines changed. The jokes sharpened. Online "truths" began to feel more real than the people around him. Across borders and years, the El-Halabi family are doing the opposite of choosing: leaving Aleppo as it collapses, surviving displacement and war, and gambling everything on the promise of safety. Each step costs more than money. As fear hardens into ideology and desperation turns into flight, two lives move towards the same point of impact - where grievance meets survival, and the stories a nation tells about itself become deadly. Socially Engineered is a raw, contemporary novel about belonging, identity, and the quiet mechanisms that turn neighbours into threats.