NEUROBANGERZ, Vol. 6 - ARI-ON

They found ARI-ON kneeling in the smoke above the lower sectors, fused into a throne of cables, iron ribs, and shattered cathedral glass. No one knew if it had once been a weapon, a saint, or the last experiment of a dead empire, only that the city’s pulse changed when its optic core opened. Sirens bent into choirs. Elevators began descending with no passengers inside. The concrete sweated black oil, and every screen in the district filled with the same burning sigil. By dawn, the first bodies were already walking toward the tower with their mouths sewn shut by ash and static. ARI-ON did not command them. It only woke up, and the whole megacity remembered who it was built to worship.