SIX STILL DREAM

Nerathis sold normal by the minute.

It sold it beneath a black-blue sky plated in metallic cloud. It sold it through synthetic rain that fell with programmed persistence, thin as wire and cold enough to polish every chrome tower into a blade. It sold it in electric fog, in the pulse of traffic lanes suspended between buildings, and in the neon that colored the streets without ever warming them.

Above the city, advertisements moved across the sides of towers large enough to have weather of their own. Hunters stood in heroic silhouettes before burning Gates. Insurance companies promised dignity after catastrophic displacement. A silver bottle of memory drink rotated in the air, beaded with impossible condensation. Fashion houses dressed their models in coats that changed color according to the wearer’s registered mood. Spiritual-rescue services offered freedom from grief in six painless sessions, payment plans available.

Every promise glowed. Every promise watched. The streets below were bright enough to make darkness feel illegal.

A maintenance drone crawled along the underside of a transit rail, one mechanical limb locked around the metal while the others searched for a fault. Sparks burst from its open body and fell toward the avenue. The drone jerked, corrected itself, and continued working without complaint. Across from it, a woman on a billboard smiled at the city. The smile arrived one frame too late.

No one looked up long enough to notice. Hidden speakers breathed awake through the rain.

“Nerathis remains stable tonight. Citizens are advised to continue normal routine, maintain civic confidence, and report any unauthorized visual disturbance to the nearest Directorate node.”

The message passed from tower to tower in the same patient voice. Calm, warm, almost human. It followed the transit lanes into the lower districts, descended through the fog, and settled over an avenue where the floodwater reached the curb. People kept moving.

They moved because the rain would not stop for them. They moved because the lights at their places of work had already counted them out, and the locks at their homes would count them in. They moved because standing still in Nerathis invited questions, and questions generated reports.

Tired workers pressed through the crowd with their collars raised. Maintenance crews in stained reflective shells carried sealed tool cases toward the night shift. Masked teenagers slipped between elegant adults whose clothes shone clean despite the dirty rain. Children walked close to their parents, learning the speed of the city before they were old enough to understand where everyone was going.

One exhausted worker pushed forward with his head lowered. Water ran from his hair and down the back of his neck. Beside him, a teenage girl slowed to glance at the unnatural sky.

“Keep moving,” the worker said. “If we stop every time the sky looks wrong, we’ll never make it home before the air prices change again.”

The girl’s mask hid the lower half of her face, but not the anger in her eyes.

“That’s the point,” she said. “They want you tired enough to call fear a schedule.”

The worker did not answer. Perhaps he had no answer. Perhaps he had already spent it somewhere else.

At the next crossing, a public screen spread across the face of a municipal building. Its white letters were sharp enough to be seen through the rain.

CIVIC DIRECTORATE PUBLIC MESSAGE

STABILITY INDEX: 91%

NO ACTIVE GATE EVENT DETECTED

PLEASE CONTINUE NORMAL ROUTINE

The crowd passed beneath it in obedient streams. A mother caught her child staring and pulled him closer by the wrist.

“Don’t stare at public screens too long,” she said. “They only say the same thing until you believe you’re safe.”

The boy twisted around to keep reading as she led him away.

“But why do they keep saying normal if everything is normal?”

His question disappeared into the noise of the crossing. His mother walked faster.