"I know," she whispered to the glass. "But sometimes, I just want to see if the stars can outrun the light."
She turned away from the vast, terrifying beauty of the wastes and stepped back into the neon-lit safety of the dome, the gilded light at her back and the shadows of the Net waiting ahead.
To her left, the burned in eternal, unmoving noon. The sun was a bloated gold eye that never closed, baking the sands until the air shimmered like liquid brass. To her right, the Night-side loomed in jagged, frozen violet. It was a kingdom of perpetual frost where the stars were the only lanterns, cold enough to shatter steel.
Morgan didn’t turn. She watched a dust storm roll across the horizon, a wall of gold illuminated by the undying sun. "Just making sure the world hasn't tilted," she thought back, her internal signature flickering with a touch of dry humor.
"Checking the perimeter again?" a voice crackled through her mind-link.
She pressed her palm against the glass. This was the "Gilded Shadow"—the thin, twilight ribbon where humanity clung to life.
"Arcalis hasn't moved in centuries, Morgan," the voice replied, softer now. "It won't start today."