The rain stops at the cloud deck. Above it, the Aether Spires punch through the weather like knives of glass and carbon. Filtered air, private vertical farms, and private weather. The corporations that own Drift City live here — or rather, their executives do. Most of the towers are hollowed-out monuments: boardrooms, server vaults, and penthouses that never see the street.

Access is by sealed mag-lifts that start in the mid-levels and require a living biometric key. The lower city calls them “the dry.” People who work in the Spires commute up in the morning and come back down poorer. The ones who stay overnight are either very rich or very owned.

Neon still burns up here, but it’s tasteful: thin cyan lines, no pink, no flicker. The rain you see on the windows is projected. The real rain never reaches this high.