The neon smeared across the slick pavement, fractured by the downpour. Rain tasted like ozone and regret. Kai traced the glyphs blossoming on the wall – not spray paint, but *rain graffiti*, ephemeral code blooming in the moisture. It pulsed,…
The chipped ceramic of the mug warmed Leo’s palms, a pathetic comfort. Below, the city breathed a bruised purple, a constant twilight born of stacked hab-blocks and light-dampening polymers. He hadn’t spoken to his sister, Clara, in seventy-two cycles. Seventy-two…
Rain lashed the ferroconcrete, slicking the corridors of the Exchange to a sheen. The air tasted of ozone and desperation. Jax traced a finger across the chipped Formica of the broker’s desk, ignoring the static cling. The man, Krell, didn’t…
The rain slicked alloy of the undercity clung to Anya’s boots. Voidberries, bruised purple, rolled underfoot as tech hustlers huddled in the decaying nanogrime sprawl, their voices murmurs lost in the static hiss of failing power conduits. She needed a…
The peaks clawed at a bruised sky, broken teeth against the fading light. Dust devils danced across the shale, ghosts of arguments long settled. Old Man Tiber, they called me, though I hadn’t earned the name through age. It was…
The slick, obsidian tide crept up the cracked plasteel of Fremont Street, reflecting the fractured neon of a dying city. Rain wasn’t water anymore, not here. It was data – corrupted, fragmented, *wrong* – leaching from the ruptured servers beneath…