The rain in Neon Spire didn’t fall so much as fragment — a thousand tiny chrome shards that ghosted the pavement and painted storefronts in streaks of electric color. Mateo walked under it, collar up, hands shoved into the pockets of a coat that knew better days. The city hummed with the soft static of…

He calls himself Morrow because names in Iron Alley get bent until they fit the shape of a man who survives here. Morrow’s face has the practiced softness of someone who knows how to make a woman feel seen for exactly as long as it keeps her close. He learned long ago that there are…

He counts profit the way other men count breaths. In the spreadsheets on his wall — glass panes that glow faintly when his fingers pass — every column is a planet he helped shift into orbit. His title is printed on cards people in meetings clear their throats for: Senior Integration Director. His apartment, perched…

The rain never stopped in Iron Alley—it just changed color. Tonight it fell in streaks of copper and electric green, mixing with oil slicks and neon reflections on the cracked pavement. The sound of it was drowned by the low hum of generators, the sputter of holographic signs, and the distant rumble of freight drones…

The Neon Spire never sleeps; it only exhales different colors. Tonight it breathes cobalt and bruised magenta. Towering slabs of glass and steel stitch the sky into a jagged skyline, and every surface wears advertising like neon jewelry — drifting holo-signs hawking blissful serums, corporate mascots with permanent smiles, an endless carousel of promises. Rain…