The air outside HyperCon was sharp, carrying the metallic tang of recent rain and the sour bite of the city's breath. Riley hunched his shoulders as he walked, the day's weight pressing into his chest like a second gravity. He barely noticed the neon ads scrolling along the building's fa?ades, offering quick paths to nowhere: "Join the Future with HyperCon!" and "Dream Big. Work Harder." The slogans made his stomach churn. Thom had probably seen the same promises this morning.

  His steps carried him to a corner gas station—more out of instinct than purpose. The flickering sign above the door read OPEN 24/7 in a sickly green glow. Inside, the store felt even smaller than it looked from the street, its shelves sagging under the weight of cheap, shrink-wrapped meals and generic toiletries. Riley grabbed a basket and started filling it on autopilot: instant noodles, soap, toothpaste. The bare essentials.

  "Eighty-nine Luxa," the cashier said without looking up, his voice as tired as the rain-soaked street outside. Riley surrendered his day’s earnings, the metal card scraping faintly against the counter.

  Eighty-nine Luxa for watching Thom die.

  He left without a word, his bag of groceries rustling against his side. The city's noise pressed back in a low thrum of engines and voices that blurred into static. It didn't matter. Riley couldn't hear anything but Thom's laugh, caught halfway between a joke and eternity.

  Back at Tower 7c, Riley climbed the stairs with his head down, his feet moving on instinct. The elevator was broken down—not that he minded. The slow, solitary trudge gave him space to breathe, even if the air in the stairwell reeked of damp concrete and stale sweat.

  When he reached his floor, the balcony stretched unnaturally in his mind. He walked past doors marked with fading numbers, their paint flaking onto the threadbare carpet. The sound of muffled arguments and a crying baby seeped through the thin walls, but they felt far away, like they were part of a world Riley was only half living in.

  His own door clicked open with a nudge of his shoulder. The room greeted him with its usual silence, the kind that wrapped itself around his thoughts and squeezed. He dumped the groceries onto the desk, their weight replaced by an emptiness he couldn't name. For a moment, he just stood there, staring at the groceries bathed in lifeless light.

  Eventually, Riley moved on autopilot. He unpacked the bag with slow, deliberate motions, lining up each item on the desk like it mattered how the toothpaste lined up next to the noodles. He paused halfway through, his fingers tightening around the crinkling plastic.

  Ninety Luxa. That's all Thom's life had been worth.

  Riley shoved the thought down and finished putting the groceries away. He grabbed a towel from the corner and headed for the communal showers.

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  The bathroom smelled faintly of mildew and industrial-strength cleaner, but the water was hot, and Riley let it run over his skin until the world blurred into steam. He closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cool tile. The day replayed itself behind his lids in relentless detail: the grounding strap, the flash of light, Thom's lifeless body crumpling to the ground.

  He'd barely known how to breathe after that, and now—now he had to keep going like nothing had happened.

  When the water ran cold, Riley turned it off and dried off mechanically. He dressed in silence, his motions stiff as if life's coldness seeped into his bones. The smell of damp concrete clung to him as his feet carried him down the balcony.

  Riley returned to his room just long enough to drop his towel on the chair and grab one of the instant meal packets he'd picked up earlier. His footsteps dragged as he made his way to the kitchen. The hall was quieter now, the occasional muffled voices fading into the background.

  The kitchen itself was a relic of better days. Above cracked tiles, a single fluorescent light flickered weakly above a mismatched collection of appliances. A sink full of dishes sat untouched in the corner. The water pooled at the bottom, giving off a faint metallic odor. A single burner on the stove still glowed faintly red, abandoned mid-use by whoever had cooked last.

  Riley moved like a drone. He filled a kettle with water, set it on the least grime-covered burner, and waited, leaning against the counters as the coils began to heat. The packet in his hands crinkled softly as he stared at it. The glossy image of a steaming bowl of noodles seemed more like a taunt than a promise.

  The silence stretched, broken only by the hiss of the burner and the faint hum of the fridge behind him. He rubbed a hand over his face, the motion doing little to chase away the exhaustion clinging to him.

  It wasn't until the kettle started whistling that Riley realized his mind had wandered. He poured the boiling water into a chipped bowl, dunked the meal packet in, and stirred it with a fork he grabbed from a half-clean pile next to the sink. Steam rose in weak spirals as he watched the noodles soften, the smell of artificial seasoning filling his nostrils.

  He took his bowl and sat at the lone table near the window. The chair creaked under his weight. Its legs were uneven against the floor. Outside, the city was a blur of lights and movement, the neon glow of advertisements painting the night in garish colors. People moved in streams down the sidewalks, their lives carrying on with an urgency Riley couldn't summon.

  He ate in silence, each bite mechanical, the taste as bland as he'd expected. The noodles were gone quickly, leaving him staring at the bottom of the bowl, his reflection distorted in the murky broth. His thoughts circled back, refusing to be ignored.

  It had been one day. One day since he'd walked out of Helix, and already, Thom was gone. His life was extinguished, and Riley could do nothing to stop it.

  Thom's voice echoed in his mind, a hollow memory that felt like it belonged to someone else. Riley tightened his grip on the bowl, his knuckles whitening as a flicker of anger sparked in his chest. At himself. At Hyperion. At the endless, grinding machine that chewed people up and spat them out as if they were nothing.

  Riley let out a slow breath, his grip loosening. The spark dimmed, replaced by a leaden resignation that settled deep in his chest. He set the bowl aside and leaned back in his chair, his gaze fixed on the city outside.

  If this was what life out of the orphanage looked like, he wasn't sure how long he could last.