Cyberpunk City AI

Kira paused outside one of the buildings, her eyes fixed on a weathered entry panel beneath a flickering cyan light. “This used to be a housing block,” she said, brushing her fingers along the cracked wall. “But none of this… none of this was here before.” Her voice carried a mix of hesitation and resolve. “I want to see what’s inside.”

The rusted door creaked open with a hiss of stale air and ozone. Kira stepped in first, brushing her hand along the keypad as if it might still work. It didn’t. The others followed close behind, expecting the interior of an abandoned apartment complex.

But what they found was anything but.

The lobby walls were stripped down to raw composite material, the original decor erased beneath layers of exposed conduit and semi-translucent panels. Violet-tinted fluid flowed through glass tubes embedded in the walls, pulsing at slow, rhythmic intervals. The tubes branched like arteries, disappearing into the ceiling.

Light came not from overhead bulbs but from thin strips embedded in the floor and under the panel seams. The glow shifted gradually from blue to red, pulsing in sync with the liquid.

Where there should’ve been furniture—chairs, mailboxes, wall art—there were rows of low-slung terminals, blank screens facing upward, each one wired to the walls by bundles of fiber like roots. Some flickered to life as they passed, displaying bursts of data: maps, waveform patterns, incomplete glyphs.

They turned a corner into what might’ve once been a stairwell. The stairs were gone. In their place, a ramp of smooth material extended up in a gentle spiral, its surface shimmering faintly. At each level, narrow doorways led into other chambers—some open, revealing glimpses of metallic pods, glowing panels, more cables.

They entered one of the larger rooms.

At the center stood a single open pod. Its interior was molded to fit a human body. Cables hung loose from the top, dripping faint luminescent residue into the pool below. Above it, a panel projected a floating image—a digitized rendering of a human figure dissolving into points of light.

No signs of life. No signs of abandonment, either.

The place didn’t look deserted. It looked unfinished.

Liora’s eyes swept the space, taking in the tube-lined walls, the subtle thrumming beneath their feet, the quiet hum of systems still awake.

Kael moved to one of the terminals. It scanned his presence but displayed nothing.

Kira didn’t speak. She only stood there, taking it all in, her brow furrowed as she glanced at the cables that trailed along the floor like veins—some leading to the room’s far corner, where another sealed door waited.