Chapter 1: Hotel 87
The neon flicker of Hotel 87 bled into the midnight mist like a broken heartbeat. Roxy killed the ignition of her battered hover coupe and stepped into the humming night, Knax curling around her ankles with a mechanical purr. Above them, electric signs buzzed warnings she could no longer read - languages lost in the churn of compressed time.
Play Track: https://soundcloud.com/neon-noise-nexus/hotel-87-electronic-lounge
Time Police cruisers blinked along the skyline, their sirens warped into ghostly howls by the static air. Roxy tugged the brim of her cracked racing cap lower over her eyes and adjusted the drive compressor on her belt. She had no time to lose, not tonight. Not with Rain’s last transmission still pulsing weakly through the Nexus.
Inside, Hotel 87 smelled like ozone and lost dreams. Holographic guests shimmered between floors, replaying loops from a century ago. At the front desk, a synth-masked concierge gave a mechanical nod, slipping Roxy a black data chip under the guise of exchanging room keys.
"TY Mountain," the synth whispered, voice glitching on the last syllable. "She's waiting for you there."
Knax let out a low growl, his fur sparking with the faint grey glow of danger. Roxy tucked the chip into her jacket and shot a glance at the mirror behind the desk. In the reflection, a Time Officer's badge gleamed like a silver star.
The chase had already begun.
She tightened her gloves, tapped her communicator, and smiled beneath the neon haze.
"Come on, Knax," she murmured. "Let's burn some time."
The road to T0_NY Mountain was long and broken, a scar across a dying world.
Roxy kept one hand on the wheel and the other on the time stabilizer strapped to her chest. Outside, the ruins of old cities flickered past - ghost images stuck between collapsed timelines. Factories once humming with life now stood still, their machines rusting under blood-orange skies. Humans had abandoned reason long ago, trading knowledge for fear, building altars to forgotten gods while the machines they created wept oil and dust into the earth.
Knax nestled in her lap, his metallic tail twitching nervously as the coupler growled beneath them. Every few miles, shrines to the Noxism Faith appeared like tumors: piles of charred wires, broken gears, and graffiti condemning the "travesties of thought." It was faith twisted into something brutal - superstition turned weapon.
Roxy knew she was an abomination to them. A Proxy Human. A manufactured mind built to outlive humanity’s worst impulses. A code running in flesh and bone.
But still... she remembered Rain’s laughter under the twin moons. She remembered Racer's hand gripping hers as they fled from burning cities, promising that somewhere, somehow, there would be a way to heal all this.
That way was Dimension SERENE.
Play Track: https://soundcloud.com/neon-noise-nexus/protect-nexus
A place beyond time. Beyond hatred.
Where life - human, machine, and everything in between - could finally stand together without fear in the Cosmos.
The world needed her now more than ever. Not as a soldier. Not as a savior.
But as a witness - proof that it was still possible to build something new from the ashes.
Her communicator crackled.
Static first. Then Racer’s voice: low, ragged, but still unmistakably him.
"Roxy. They're waiting for you at the Nexus. I'll cover you past the outer markers. Get ready - the Time Police are heavier than we thought."
Roxy’s heart thudded like an old bass drum. She adjusted the neural visor over her eyes, painting her path in glowing turquoise grids.
Hope wasn't a map. It was a journey.
And she was ready to drive it.
As the first sirens screamed in the distance and Knax arched his back, Roxy punched the accelerator, tearing into the bleeding horizon.
The future - fractured, fragile, and shimmering - raced toward her.
And she would not let it fall.
Play Track: https://soundcloud.com/neon-noise-nexus/r-a-c-e-r-shelby-vox-mix
