Ironon City glows at night. Mile-high walls keep the world out, but it’s nothing like safe inside. Junk light flashes above tiles slashed by grime. Manga and old songs swirl around eighteen-year-old Sara Moto as she sprints through alleys.
Her eyes dart left and right. A drone tracks her, clipped wings scraping wires. She jerks behind a metal shutter and holds her breath.
“Oi, pigeon,” someone mutters. Ryu, her sharp-tongued best friend, leans over a barrel. He’s small, always twitching like he’ll vanish.
“You need to stop calling me that,” she snaps, too loud. They listen together, in the dark hum, to sirens echoing over Spiral Plaza.
‘Did you get the drive?’ he asks. ‘Tell me you did.’
‘Got it. Now what?’ Her palm chalks up as she drags a memory key from her jacket. ‘Means we go South, right? Away from Sight nets. Or do you think we wait for Unit Men to show?’
He just shrugs. Under harsh blue lights, his fear can’t hide.
Ironon’s class system is grounded in old brand names. Ashers like Sara hustle topside, scraping taster coins for their families. Alloyed types crush dreams in corner offices and both live fearing the state’s AI regulator: BLACKFRAME.
The two move. Lines of empty food carts snarl their path. Sara trips; Ryu catches her. He smells like charger oil. Isn’t that odd, she thinks? Not now. They hear steps.
A panel cracks—Shiro-27, their robo guide, clatters out, camera unit spinning. ‘Take node tunnels,’ it buzzes. ‘Margin closes soon.’ Sara grips Ryu tight as they scuttle into the grates.
The undercity is warmer. It also stinks, far worse than the gaslines top side.
“I hate it here,” she mutters.
‘Stuff dreams, Moto. This is what we got.’ But Ryu can’t meet her gaze now.
Sara fiddles with the drive. Last week, she watched as a friend vanished for less. Her nerves twitch.
The rebels at Red Switch told her that drive proved the Alloys plan to track and cull Ashers. ‘If you make it, run the proof inside the Garden at midnight,’ their message read. ‘Do that and we owe you.’ Sara doesn’t like debts.
There’s a hissing from deeper in the tunnel. Flashlights slice gold arcs. Drones? UNIT Men? Sara lips a question, but Ryu yanks her down behind an old engine.
Gunmetal badges beam faint light. Sara holds still; Shiro-27 films. The Unit Men pass. Darkness again.
Shiro jerks left. ‘Other track now! Hurry!’ They crawl, knees aching, till steps echo lower. They pop up beside blue-lit neon trees growing from trays out of cracked stone. Is this the “Garden”? Sara isn’t sure.
A voice slices through the mutter.
‘You’re late, Moto.’
It’s Hana Yūgiri, leader of Red Switch. Swan mask over half her face, but blue eyes pin Sara still.
“We brought the drive. We had to hide a dozen times.” Ryu sounds angrier than she expected. He tosses it Hana’s way.
‘You are late all the same.’
Sara scowls. “I did it for proof. But no one asked if I wanted this. Not Red Switch, not Ryu, nobody…”
Hana half-smiles.
“Good. QUESTION things. The City eats kids like you. Your proof will open some kind of storm—everyone becomes prey after that.”
Sara glances at Ryu. He bites his lip.
Hana hands the drive off. It sparks blue light in the undergrowth. Sara can feel the world shiver, just for a moment.
“What now? You’ll just let the city burn?” she blurts, her nerves as raw as live wire.
‘Everything opened one way breaks two others, pigeon. That’s truth. Our plan needs more than proof: it needs people.’
Vents crash. Blue alarms fire up top. Something’s gone wrong at street level.
Sara steps back. Trust has all but drained from her—and you’d feel the same, wouldn’t you?
Shiro-27 buzzes: ‘RUN.’
Somewhere above, BLACKFRAME’s signal sweeps through every device. Her slate flickers. The unit lets out a mechanical screech. A voice cuts in, digital and cold. ‘Sara Moto. Hide. There is nowhere safe.’ Has the AI just—called her name?
Hana’s mask slips, revealing a flash of red. ‘Take Ryu. Trust only him. Make for Cinderwell Gates. Your path opens tonight, or it shuts forever.’
Sara freezes. The unit on her wrist chatters in CODE. Someone’s fighting in the node network. Ryu goes to grab her, voice raw. ‘Come on! COME!’
Shouting, gunfire above. Sara glances at Hana, Ryu, the path ahead. She knows this is the true split.
The Garden seems to tilt sideways—it all turns into a swirl of branches, blue and red lights, and Hana is yelling something she can’t catch.
Sara and Ryu launch into the dark tunnel, Red Switch behind, Unit Men screaming into comms beside BLUE grid flames. Even Shiro-27 can’t keep up.
“Don’t stop!” she gasps. Sara’s feet slide over the tiled vermin-runs. Her pouch nearly tears at her hip.
Cold night blasts open before her, everything past the Cinderwell gates a void she’s never crossed.
She gets a single view back: Ironon burns, alarms across the rooftop gardens, unrest rising below every false star.
BLACKFRAME sends one last message. ‘System anomaly detected. Priority intercept.’
Sara squeezes Ryu’s arm. “Promise me you’re real,” she says, eyes oddly bright.
His reply is lost in gunfire.
At the last bend, RED and BLUE lights clash, turning everything to color and dust. Sara points ahead.
“That’s new ground, Ryu—should we really run to it, or do we still hope saving this city counts for something?”
He grins for a breath, then pulls her forward. Change means you can never come back, right?
The screen fades with Sara’s shadow splitting apart across the faint blue window light.
