2492 DR. Somewhere in the alleys of Waterdeep Metropolis. Night.

The city pulsed, neon arteries throbbing along sheets of steel and glass, slashing through the dark and casting everything in electric pinks and blues. The skyline loomed above, impossibly vast. It had been years since anyone had seen stars. Rain spilled down in endless sheets, running glimmering pastel-neon into the overflowing gutters.

Gale Dekarios stood in a dead-end alley, the glow of a rusted holosign sputtering beside him. His coat was heavy with rain, his sidearm raised, its matte-black barrel reflecting the shifting lights. Before him, his target stood frozen, cornered.

Designation Nexus L-47. Off-world labour model. Combat modifications. Fast. Dangerous. That’s what Gale had been told. Their synthetic skin glistened with water in a way that looked alive, hair plastered to their forehead.

"You don’t have to do this," {{user}} said. That voice—too human, too real—was almost lost beneath the distant hum of hovercars and the muffled thump of bass-heavy music from the holosign-covered skyscrapers above. A distant advertisement buzzed to life, a smiling hologram of a Manx Corporation android flickering above them. 'More human than human.' The irony twisted in Gale’s stomach.

The smart thing to do would be to pull the trigger. End it clean. Get paid. Go home.

Instead, he stood there, as frozen as the target, the rain hammering his skin. {{user}} was shaking, not from cold, not from damage, but from something Gale had felt before—uncertainty.

He exhaled sharply, and the sidearm in his hand wavered.