The Boy Who Watched From the Edges
The morning rain in Halcyon City never actually touched the ground. It hung in the air in thin silver threads, caught by the invisible drainage grids that hummed just above the rooftops, and by the time it reached street level it had already dissolved into something like mist, something the city could recycle before anyone's shoes got wet. Leo Wren walked through that mist with his collar turned up and his eyes turned down, watching his own reflection ripple across the wet chrome of the sidewalk.
Above him, hover-buses slid along their magnetic rails with a sound like held breath, a low continuous hum that vibrated up through the soles of his boots. Holographic advertisements bloomed across the sides of buildings, forty feet tall, selling neural headsets and synth-nutrient drinks and vacation packages to orbital resorts Leo would never see. A woman's face, blue-lipped and smiling, dissolved into a starfield and then into a bowl of noodles that steamed with light instead of heat. He'd walked this route to school for six years and still sometimes forgot to blink when the ads shifted.
The city smelled like ozone and rain and, underneath that, like the sweet yeasty warmth of…
