The morning light slid across Pangia like a smooth sheet of glass, catching on the mirrored towers that rose in tight clusters across the super-continent. The cities weren't just connected; they hummed together—one continuous grid of power, data, and motion. Even the air felt engineered, filtered through climate rings that circled the skyline like silver arcs.
Sky-rails drifted above the streets with quiet magnetized grace. The cars didn't touch the tracks; they floated, whispering across invisible currents. Below them, the streets were broad, polished, and impossibly clean. Crowds moved with the confidence of people who believed their world was untouchable. And in a sense, it was. Pangia had built itself into a single, flawless organism—an entire continent breathing in unison.
Energy towers, tall as mountains, pulsed at their cores with soft white light. They looked alive, as though each one had a heartbeat. The glow spread outward into the city through transparent conduits embedded in the ground and walls—rivers of power flowing everywhere, guiding the rhythm of daily life. Machines responded instantly, doors gliding open, drones sweeping silently over rooftops, every motion effortless.
On the horizon, the continental shield shimmered faintly. It wasn't designed for war; it was meant to regulate weather, redirect storms, and harvest atmospheric energy. Pangia hadn't had a true conflict in decades. The people trusted their prosperity too deeply to imagine anyone would destroy it.
Near one of the central plazas, where holographic gardens shifted through different seasons as a form of public art, a soft vibration rolled through the pavement. Not violent—barely perceptible. A few pedestrians paused, blinking, waiting for the sensation to pass, then carried on. The city had dozens of moving parts; a tremor was nothing unusual. The holographic trees continued to change color, petals falling in perfect simulated arcs.
Above, a transport carrier drifted by, casting a moving shadow across the plaza. Its engines emitted a low, harmonic tone that blended with the distant hum of the sky-rails. Everything felt synchronized, designed, predictable.
Another small vibration passed—slightly stronger this time, as if something deep beneath the continent had cleared its throat. A flock of courier drones veered off course for a moment, spinning as though confused, then reoriented and resumed their path.
People glanced up. Looked around. But again, nothing happened.
The third tremor came as a soft pulse, rolling through the foundations of the city like a wave of pressure, bending the reflections in the glass towers for a split second. The air thickened, almost sticky, then loosened.
Someone near the plaza murmured, "That wasn't normal," but their voice was lost under the rising hum from the sky-rail overhead as it glided across a beam of early sunlight.
And just as that vibration faded, the distant horizon flickered—
a faint, wrong shimmer, like heat rising from metal.
It flickered again.
Brightened.
As though the sky itself was straining.
The light sharpened, and the reflection of the city warped in every glass surface around the plaza. People turned toward the horizon, hands shading their eyes, trying to make sense of the crawling distortion that was beginning to spread—
The flicker expanded, trembling like a living thing—
—and froze there in the air, pulsing faintly.
And then it brightened again.