Cyberpunk City AI

The rain had stopped, but the metal still dripped.

They stood together near the edge of the old pedestrian artery — one of the forgotten elevated walkways that hung like a vein between the hollowed-out towers. Below, Cyberpunk City pulsed and sparked like a wounded beast. Above, the wind dragged the scent of ozone and rust through fractured neon.

Liora crouched by the rail, eyes on the street two levels down, where a broken NeuroCorp drone still sparked in the gutter. Her shoulders were tense, her jacket soaked through. She hadn’t spoken in a while—not since the last shot was fired.

Kael leaned against a crumbling column, arms crossed. His pulse was slowing, but his grip hadn’t fully relaxed. He kept looking at Liora like he was waiting for her to break—because she didn’t, and that scared him more than if she had.

Kira sat farther back, her fingers trailing through the edge of an old graffiti tag—her tag, from years ago. A spiral glyph half-consumed by moss and time. It used to mean resistance. Now, it looked like memory fading.

For a long moment, none of them spoke.

“You didn’t have to come,” Kael said finally, voice low.

Kira didn’t look at him. “I was already here.”

Liora glanced back over her shoulder. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Kira sighed, pushing up to her feet. “It means I’ve been walking these paths longer than either of you know. It means I’ve already seen how this ends—if we stay.”

“We can’t just run,” Kael said.

“I’m not talking about running,” she said. “I’m talking about rooting.”

Liora stood now too, eyes narrowed. “Verdant Verge.”

The words landed like an echo.

Kael scoffed, just barely. “You want to go live in the trees? Make art out of ferns while the city burns?”

Kira stepped toward him, not angry, but solid. “I want to go somewhere we can actually breathe. Somewhere I can think without being scraped by Klarna’s echo every time I close my eyes.”

“We could go for a while,” Liora said carefully, the idea still forming even as she said it. “Just to recover. Regroup.”

“No one recovers in this city,” Kael said.

“Maybe not in it,” Kira replied.

Another gust of wind rattled through the scaffolded railings. Below them, a neon billboard flickered and died.

“I’m not promising to stay,” Liora said. “I’m not promising anything.”

“I’m not asking you to,” said Kira.

Kael looked at both of them. For a moment, it seemed like he might walk away. But then he shook his head and muttered, “You both talk like the Verge is some kind of myth.”

“It is,” Kira said softly. “That’s why it still works.”

They left before dawn—no plans, no announcement. Just three figures moving through the last stretch of the Walkway, stepping out of the city’s noise and into its roots.