The rain turned to mist. Somewhere below, a child laughed. And Mira started running.

She loaded the file. The terminal read: ACTIVATION PROTOCOL READY. CONFIRM?

Trikker wasn't a person. It was a ghost in the machine—a decentralized, self-propagating bit of code that lived in the guts of the city’s atmospheric processor network. Officially, the Bluebits were just a weather control system, seeding clouds for the agri-domes. Unofficially, they were the oxygen for a million souls in the lower levels. If the Bluebits stopped, the city stopped breathing.

“Someone who just lost a brother to a test run. Kael works for the Upper Spire. They want to clear the lower levels. Cheaper than evictions.”