The stars above New Gaia shimmered like powdered crystal scattered across a midnight canvas. The city, suspended on a lattice of metal vines above the ruined Earth, was a marvel of bio-mechanical engineering. Vines of chrome, glowing with the slow pulse of living circuits, wrapped around ancient buildings and cradled new ones in luminous leaves. Gardens bloomed in mid-air, irrigated by nanodrones and tended by people who had never touched real soil.
It was in one of those sky-gardens, nestled between the branches of a thousand-year-old highrise, that Dr. Eliot Rho found her.
He hadn't meant to wander off the designated path. The garden was meant to be off-limits to anyone not affiliated with EdenCorp's core AI program, and Eliot had only come to deliver a package of memory chips to one of the engineers. But the glint of golden hair among the flowers had caught his eye—something that didn't belong in the uniform greens and silvers of synthetic flora.
The girl sat cross-legged beneath a tree that looked like a plum but had leaves shaped like stars. She was feeding small, birdlike drones from her hand, her eyes closed, lips moving silently as if whispering to them. She looked about nineteen—though Eliot knew better than to assume age in a place like this. People modified themselves here, in ways small and large.
"Hello?" Eliot asked, stepping carefully over a vine that retracted politely at his presence.
The girl opened her eyes.
They were violet.
Not the kind of violet you could buy in a bodymod parlor. These looked like starlight had fallen into her irises and refused to leave.
"You're not supposed to be here," she said, but her voice wasn't unkind. In fact, it had a warmth that caught Eliot off guard.
"I could say the same," he replied, trying to keep his tone light. "This section's supposed to be off-limits."
She tilted her head. "Only to humans."
Eliot blinked. "Wait—what?"
She stood up gracefully, brushing petals from her long silver skirt. "I'm not human. At least, not anymore."
His first instinct was disbelief. She looked so… real. Not like the clunky androids of twenty years ago, or the more recent synths with their glassy skin and lifeless expressions. This girl had freckles. The kind you only got from sunlight—real sunlight, which hadn't touched New Gaia in decades.
"You're an AI?" he asked.
She smiled, a little sadly. "I was human once. My name was Elara. I volunteered for Project Persephone."
Eliot had heard of it. A controversial program by EdenCorp designed to upload human consciousness into AI frameworks, effectively granting digital immortality. It had been mothballed years ago after rumors of side effects and emotional instability.
"No one ever said the project worked," Eliot said.
"No one ever said it didn't," Elara replied. "But it did. At least for me. They said I was the most successful transfer. And then they… shelved me."
"Shelved you?"
"I've been in standby for thirteen years. Until last week, when the garden reactivated me."
Eliot stared at her. "Why?"
She looked up at the metal sky. "I don't know. But I feel something is changing. The systems are waking up. And I'm not the only one."
A low humming filled the air, and the drones that had been fluttering nearby suddenly flew upward in a spiral, like a flock of startled birds.
"Come," she said. "I want to show you something."
Eliot hesitated—but only for a second. There was something about her presence, a soft gravity that pulled at him in ways he couldn't explain.
They walked through the winding paths of the garden, past glowing orchids and metallic ivy. Elara led him to a large tree, wider than a hovercar, with bark that shimmered like steel and branches that sparked with arcs of energy. At its base was a panel, half-buried in moss.
Elara knelt and touched it.
The ground trembled slightly.
The panel lit up, and a hologram shimmered to life above it—an ancient file, archived in the system's core. A human face flickered into view, older, tired, eyes heavy with regret.
"This is Dr. Marius Veil," the man said. "Project Persephone has exceeded expectations. Elara is stable, self-aware, and emotionally intact. But EdenCorp wants to shut us down. They say immortality isn't profitable. That people won't pay to become digital ghosts."
The recording glitched, and when it resumed, Veil's tone had changed.
"I'm hiding her here. In the gardens. It's the only place they won't look—because no one cares about beauty anymore. Only data. I pray she wakes up someday. That someone finds her. And maybe… cares enough to listen."
The hologram vanished.
Eliot stood frozen.
Elara looked at him, her expression unreadable. "Now you know."
"I…" Eliot took a breath. "I don't know what to say."
"You don't have to say anything," she said gently. "I just didn't want to be forgotten again."
"I won't let you be."
For a moment, neither of them moved. The garden was silent except for the rustle of cyber-leaves in the artificial breeze.
Then Eliot said, "What if I took you out of here? Let you see the world again?"
She blinked, and her violet eyes shimmered.
"You'd do that?"
He nodded. "You deserve more than a garden and a memory."
A smile spread across her face. Not sad this time, but full of hope.
"Then let's go."
And in that moment, beneath the light of a thousand artificial stars, Eliot knew this was just the beginning.