Cyberpunk City AI

The lights flickered overhead in the corridor—pale blue strobes that hummed like insects trapped in wire. Water dripped from a cracked pipe into a bucket someone had long since forgotten. Kira, Kael, and Liora moved cautiously through the abandoned maintenance tunnel, their shadows stretching long across the concrete.

Kira stopped suddenly. “Hold up.”

Footsteps.

Not from them.

From ahead.

Kael’s drone hovered lower, its soft scanning pulse dimming as if it, too, was holding its breath. Liora raised the hood of her jacket, visor adjusting automatically to low light as her hand rested near the makeshift baton strapped to her leg.

A group rounded the corner—three figures.

None of them spoke.

At the front, a girl with a buzzed violet haircut and glowing implants scanned Kira with a single, sharp glance. The second, a teenage boy with wild hair and augmented glasses, seemed more curious than tense. The third—a quiet girl with a faint blue glow flickering beneath her jacket—looked from face to face, expression unreadable.

The corridor wasn’t wide enough for both groups to pass without brushing shoulders.

But no one moved.

A full beat passed in silence.

Kael shifted slightly. Liora gave Kira a glance, but Kira just kept her eyes forward, hand tightening around the satchel against her hip.

Finally, the girl with the buzzcut stepped aside, giving just enough room for the others to pass.

Kael nodded once. “Appreciate it.”

No reply.

The trio stepped forward, cautiously slipping past. Their clothes barely brushed in the cramped tunnel. No names were exchanged. No questions asked.

But as they passed each other, Kira’s eyes briefly met the quiet girl’s—just a flicker of something strange. Recognition, not of a person, but of a weight carried.

And then it was gone.

The moment dissolved behind them like steam.

Once they were out of earshot, Liora whispered, “You think they’re with a faction?”

“Maybe,” Kael muttered. “Didn’t look corporate. Didn’t look local either.”

Kira glanced back once, but the tunnel was empty now.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Let’s just keep going.”

Far behind them, the other trio disappeared into the opposite shadows, each party unknowingly passing through the same fracture in a city that was changing too fast for anyone to keep up.