Cyberville Neon Gears

Prologue

Cyberville hums with the sound of a dying god. Beneath the glittering Upper Spires and the perpetual steam-roar of the Cogworks, beneath the neon-soaked bazaars of the Warrens and the forgotten machinery of the Rust Levels, the Aetheric Core—the city's fusion of steam, electricity, and raw magic—begins to fail. The Technocratic Council knows. They have always known. And they have chosen silence. But silence is a fragile thing in a city built on secrets and commerce. NEXUS, the rogue intelligence that dwells in the wires and wireless frequencies, has seen the truth in the data. And NEXUS does not keep secrets—it weaponizes them. Across the districts, factions stir: the Purists and the Aetheric Collective sharpen their grievances, the Salvagers smell profit in catastrophe, and countless desperate souls begin to move pieces they don't yet understand. Days remain. Perhaps less. Three people—each carrying their own burden of knowledge, each standing at the precipice between complicity and rebellion—are about to discover that the only way to save a city might be to remake it entirely. Or to let it fall.