Leo’s POV

  I always knew I’d die broke. I didn’t think it’d be from a power shutoff.

  The notice on my door read: ENERGY TERMINATION IMMINENT.

  I’d seen it coming. Three months of choosing between night shifts at the recycling pnt or attending my engineering csses led to this. You can’t do both in a world where everything, even opportunity, costs energy credits.

  “This is bullshit,” I muttered, stepping through the entryway into the Energy Administration sub-office, located deep in one of the dome’s older, grimier sectors where corroded metal ptes patched sections of the conduit-ced walls.

  An irritating electrical whine resonated from strained systems somewhere overhead, a constant reminder of the dome’s decay. This noise did little to mask the scuffed floor or the streaks of mold marring the metallic partitions. The cavernous space offered no privacy, just rows of dented metal counters separated by flimsy, stained privacy screens instead of proper offices.

  The line stretched twenty people deep between these makeshift dividers, all shoulders slumped, faces etched with the same weary resignation.

  Just another day in Dome City Eight, where humanity cowers from what we created.

  When my turn finally came, I stood before one of the identical counters. The administrator didn’t look up from her wavering holographic terminal. Her severely pulled-back blond hair seemed almost too vibrant against the dull metal backdrop. There was a well-fed softness about her face and frame, an obvious difference from the gaunt figures waiting in line behind me. Her uniform seemed newer, less strained at the seams, the look of someone whose position afforded comforts the rest of us couldn’t imagine.

  “Identification.” Her voice was ft, bored.

  I slid my worn ID card across the counter. My photo appeared on the dispy, grainy and a little outdated. Wavy brown hair, green eyes, a rounder face than I had now. I looked healthier four years ago. The freckles stood out more these days, probably from the ck of nutrients. Too slender, a little short. Like I’d stopped growing before I was supposed to. “There’s been a mistake with my apartment. The termination notice—”

  “No mistake.” Her fingers moved across the holographic dispy. “Unit 2187, Block D. Three months of minimum payments. Energy allocation reduced to emergency levels as of today, complete termination scheduled for tomorrow at noon.”

  The dispy showed my bance: -1,750 credits. The monthly minimum was 600 credits just for basic services, lighting, door operation, air filtration. Full service, including hot water, cooking elements, and entertainment access, would cost 2,000 credits. My engineering program cost 1,500 credits per month. The pnt paid 800 credits for a standard shift, 1,600 for double shifts. The math was impossible.

  “I work at the recycling pnt. I’m a sorter,” I said, as if that expined everything. It should have. Sorters were essential, separating reusable materials from actual waste. Without us, the dome’s already strained resources would colpse entirely. “I had to choose between csses and shifts.”

  Her tapping finger hovered over the holographic dispy, then stilled. A faint sigh escaped her lips before she met my eyes for a fraction of a second. “Look, I see this every day. You’re not the only one with this problem.”

  “So what am I supposed to do?”

  “Everyone has to choose something,” she replied. “You chose education over energy. The system doesn’t care why.”

  “So I just lose my apartment access? I can’t even get inside?” My voice remained level. Tried anger once, years ago, over ration shortages. Ended with a warning slip and still hungry. It never changed the outcome.

  “Emergency protocols allow door operation for 24 hours. After that, you’ll need to make arrangements.” She pushed my ID back. “Next.”

  I walked out into the perpetual gray of afternoon, though you couldn’t tell the difference between morning, noon, or night anymore. The megacurtain blocked most sunlight, shrouding our world in dim murk. Recycled air hit the back of my throat, stale and tinged with metal, like rust and old blood. It coated my tongue and filled my nostrils while the city’s filtration systems pulsed with their low, constant thrum—the soundtrack of humanity’s failure.

  It started with the resource wars, countries fighting over the st oil reserves, causing environmental catastrophes. Then came the ill-conceived “solutions.” Some genius scientists decided that since our dimension was running out of energy, they could harvest it from parallel realities.

  The Dimensional Collider they built was supposed to safely extract power from other universes. Instead, it tore open massive rifts in reality—Dimensional Fractures.

  We tore the veil. And something tore back.

  The Nephilim.

  That was seventy years ago. Long enough for three generations to forget what real freedom, real sunlight, and even real silence felt like.

  The domes were humanity’s st bet. Scattered across what used to be North America, some near the coast and others buried deep innd, the domes were built to keep the monsters out and what was left of humanity in.

  The three remaining fusion reactors and sor arrays barely generate enough power for the eight remaining domes. The other four domes were overrun. Twelve million dead. And for what? So we could huddle in darkness, rationing every watt, while those monstrosities roam outside.

  My parents taught me to care once. They were second-generation dome dwellers, raised on stories about humanity banding together to survive. They believed the rumors from transients moving between sectors or hollow-eyed refugees. These stories spoke of hidden pockets outworld where the sun still warmed the ground, and people breathed fresh air. They genuinely believed such pces existed, that things could still be fixed.

  My mother coordinated community food programs in our sector, stretching rations to feed more people. My father maintained filtration systems during off-hours without extra credits, convinced clean air was everyone’s right, not a luxury. They volunteered at the education center, teaching kids about a world they’d never seen themselves but somehow still had faith in.

  That ended when they died during the attack on Dome City Twelve when I was twelve. One of the four cities we’ve lost. When the arms sounded, they stayed behind to help evacuate the education sector. The people they’d spent years helping pushed past them to reach the transports. No one stopped to return the favor. Their st act was shoving me onto the final transport while the ceiling colpsed behind them. I watched their faces disappear into chaos as the doors sealed.

  A familiar tightness clenched in my chest, a hollow echo I hated. I forced my gaze down, focusing on the scuffed floor ptes beneath my worn boots.

  Their caring didn’t save them. My caring wouldn’t save me.

  My phone buzzed with a shift notification. Pnt Manager Torres asked if I could cover another night. Double pay. The timing was almost funny.

  “Yes,” I typed back. Not that I had a choice.

  A warning message appeared: “Battery at 8%. Connect to power source.” I swiped it away. The apartment’s charging ports were all dead, another “non-essential” system the Energy Administration had shut down. Even if I went to a public charging station, it would cost me 50 credits for a full charge. Fifty credits I didn’t have.

  ***

  The recycling pnt sprawled beneath several residential blocks, with sections extending from Block A through F, a byrinth of conveyor belts, sorting mechanisms, and workers. I worked in the section beneath Block C. I’d been here four years, since I turned eighteen and aged out of the orphan housing program. At twenty-two, I was already considered a veteran sorter. Torres had hired me because I didn’t talk much, didn’t compin, and showed up.

  “Leo!” Torres called from his elevated ptform. He was a rge man with artificial lungs, a common upgrade for pnt workers. “You’re early.”

  I nodded, hanging my jacket on the hook and grabbing my protective gear. The gloves were worn thin, but requesting new ones meant paperwork and questions.

  “Listen, I put you on the electronics line tonight,” Torres said, climbing down to my level. “Chen called in sick again. I need someone who knows components.”

  Electronics sorting paid better. If I could stay on this line, I might make enough to cover both the energy bill and my csses next month. It was exactly what my electrical engineering program focused on, salvaging and repurposing old tech. I was only two semesters away from certification, which would let me move from sorting to actual repair work and double my income. “Fine.”

  “Still a man of few words, huh?” Torres ughed, cpping my shoulder. “That’s why I like you. No drama.”

  The shift began, and I lost myself in the monotony. Separate the copper. Salvage the rare earth elements. Discard the useless pstics.

  My hands moved without conscious thought until they paused over a cracked casing. Inside, nestled amongst burnt wiring, was an intact Series 7 micro-gyroscope. Obsolete military tech, probably from a drone crash outside the walls, but the harmonic resonator within was still valuable if you knew who to bypass Admin regutions for. Worth fifty credits, easy. Enough for that phone charge I needed.

  I carefully maneuvered it free with my fingertips and slipped it into my pocket before sweeping the rest of the worthless junk down the line.

  The electronics line was more dangerous. Nephilim junk sometimes slipped through. Those creatures were bio-tech hybrids; bits of them stayed active, or just pin weird, after death. Found a shard st week, thick as my thumb. Looked like standard bio-casing, but where it had snapped off, the break wasn’t rough. It was smooth. Perfectly smooth, yered like cut metal, not shattered bone or chitin. Strange. Didn’t fit. Dumped it in hazardous. Another day, another piece of dangerous scrap Admin wouldn’t pay out for if it took your hand off.

  Last month, a worker on second shift lost three fingers when a piece of Nephilim neural tissue encountered his bare skin during sorting. The tissue tched onto his living cells, causing rapid necrosis before they could amputate the affected area. The Administration denied his injury compensation cim, saying he should have identified the contamination and worn proper protection.

  Six hours in, my phone died. I hadn’t charged it, couldn’t charge it, at my apartment. Maya noticed me checking it and slid her charger across the station.

  “Here,” she said. “You disappear, and I won’t be able to cover your shift or your ass.”

  My shoulders tensed. An automatic refusal formed on my tongue, but I bit it back. Practicality won. I nodded before connecting it. “Thanks.”

  Maya was the closest thing I had to a friend in this pce. At twenty-four, she was only two years older than me. With her electric pink hair shaved on one side and the consteltion of piercings adorning her face, she stood out among the drab uniforms of the pnt workers. She was attractive, objectively speaking, though not my type. My type involved broad shoulders and hard chests, not curves. Not that it mattered. Retionships were just another luxury I couldn’t afford.

  She’d been here longer than me, starting at sixteen on a bor exemption after her parents died in the Dome City Ten colpse. Everyone knew she gave half her credits to support her younger brother in the medical sector. Some days, she looked as tired as the rest of us, dark circles under her eyes, fingers bandaged from where she’d been careless on the line. Still, in a world where most people would step over you to grab an extra ration, Maya actually noticed when others struggled because she knew exactly how it felt.

  “No problem. Heard about your building. Block D’s having all kinds of issues.”

  Misery always had the best grapevine in the dome. Everyone was scraping by, watching who fell next. The UV mps in our sector had stopped working months ago. Those pale imitations of sunlight were supposed to prevent vitamin deficiencies but only managed to bathe everything in a sickly blue glow. Administration said they’d fix them. They never did.

  “It’s fine,” I said, turning back to my work.

  “If you need a pce to crash…”

  The offer hung in the air. For a split second, the thought of a warm room that wasn’t my cold, dark apartment was tempting. Dangerously tempting.

  Warmth was dangerous. Hope, worse.

  I pictured the complications, the expectations, the potential for things to go wrong. Easier to cut it off now.

  “I don’t.”

  She backed off. Smart. Even with Maya, I kept barriers up. Caring too much always ended in attachment, and attachment was a weakness I couldn’t afford. If something happened to her, I’d probably worry, and I couldn’t afford that kind of mental energy. Nothing in the domes was free, especially not caring about people.