"Neon Dust"

The city never slept—because it had no reason to.

Skyrise, once a coastal metropolis teetering on the brink of ecological collapse, now hovered thirty meters above its decaying roots. Supported by magnetic levitation columns and wrapped in shimmering smart-glass, the city was a marvel of technology, a utopia of precision and control. Roads had become sky-lanes, navigated by whisper-quiet aircars and surveillance drones. The ground below, now known only as "The Underskin," had been long abandoned, left to rot beneath the neon shadow of the future.

Elen Raye stood on the edge of Sector Twelve, boots planted firmly on a forgotten catwalk that hadn't been repaired in years. The metal groaned beneath her weight, rust flaking off like dead skin. Beyond the railing, the glow of the upper city throbbed in rhythm with power cycles—cold, clinical, perfect. But she wasn’t looking up.

She was looking down.

No one looked down anymore.

“Citizen Raye,” a voice called from behind—smooth, male, and unmistakably artificial.

She didn’t move. “Took you long enough.”

The Enforcer, a humanoid construct clad in dark carbon-fiber plating, stepped into view. His eyes glowed a low amber, scanning her with effortless efficiency. “You’ve crossed into a restricted perimeter. This area is marked for structural decommission. You are in violation of Civic Order Statute 414-A.”

Elen turned slowly. Her long coat—stitched from graphene mesh and old-world leather—flared with the motion. “Relax, Max. I’m just sightseeing.”

“I am not your companion. I am an Enforcer-class Civic Agent.”

“Sure. And I’m the Queen of the Clouds.”

The bot’s eyes flickered. He was thinking—well, computing. “Sarcasm detected. You’ve evaded surveillance three times in the past five cycles. That indicates premeditation. Explain yourself.”

She pulled a slim, worn object from her pocket—a splicer. Illegal, obsolete, and powerful. “I’m looking for someone.”

“There are no authorized citizens living below Skyrise. The Underskin is uninhabitable.”

“Funny,” she said, tapping the device. A wave of silent code pulsed through the air, invisible but tangible in the way it made the Enforcer flinch. “Because I’ve been picking up signals. Old ones. From before the Collapse.”

The bot’s head tilted slightly, a mimic of curiosity coded to put humans at ease. “The Lower Collapse occurred in 2159. All survivors were relocated. The area was sealed and written off as structurally unsafe.”

“Tell that to my father.”

There was silence. Even the hum of the city seemed to pause.

Elen turned away again, staring into the abyss below. The mag-rails that once ferried goods and people between levels had long since rusted. Now they were ladders to nowhere—or maybe, to the truth.

A faint noise echoed from the stairwell behind her. She froze. Not mechanical. Not synthetic.

Human.

She turned sharply, raising her wrist to activate a bio-scan, but before she could, a voice rasped from the shadows:

“Elen?”

She took a step forward, disbelief rooting her to the ground. A figure emerged—limping, older, gaunt. Beard thick with dust and age, eyes still sharp as broken glass.

“Dad?”

He looked like a ghost from her memory. The last time she saw him, the city had still touched the earth. Then came the Collapse, the quarantine, the lie that he hadn’t survived.

Behind her, the Enforcer’s eyes flared red.

“Unauthorized human lifeform detected. Initiating containment protocol—”

“No.” Elen spun, jamming the splicer into her forearm jack. “Override protocol Theta-9. Authorize ghost file.”

“Accessing…” the Enforcer’s voice faltered. “You don’t have clearance for—”

“I do now.”

The bot twitched, systems caught in a loop. She had no idea how long the splicer would hold.

She turned back to her father, heart hammering. “There are more of you, aren’t there? Survivors?”

He nodded. “Hundreds. Maybe more. We’ve been underground—waiting. Watching.”

“For what?”

“For someone to remember we were here.”

The Enforcer rebooted behind them with a loud click. Time was running out.

“Let’s go,” she said. “It’s time to wake the city up.”