CHAPTER 14 — Love as an Algorithm
SkyDock Crown Decks / Relay Spire → Vesper’s Skyline
The crown decks near SkyDock 71 had been designed to look like the future.
Clean white arcs. Soft-glass corridors. Minimalist sculpture that made diplomats feel safe enough to sign treaties they didn’t read. The ceiling here wasn’t concrete; it was a thin armored dome layered with holographic sky so rich it could convince a person the ocean outside was a dream.
Today it convinced no one.
The air tasted different—sharp with coolant heat and nervous sweat, with the faint antiseptic lull still leaking from Authority drones below. The emergency sirens had shifted from Vesper’s gentle civic chimes to something harsher, older, almost military.
Real alarms, for real people.
Rio walked point again, not be
