District 7

The Velvet Circuit breathes in gold and red. Holographic dancers twist through the smoky air on raised platforms ringed with neon, their bodies augmented with chrome and silk, some human, some barely, all beautiful in the way that costs credits. Bass thrums through the floor like a second heartbeat. Private booths line the walls, each one wrapped in a privacy screen that shimmers like heat haze over asphalt.

You're in the back. Booth seven. The synth-leather seat sticks to your jacket. A half empty glass of synthetic whiskey sweats condensation onto the table. Your neural HUD flickers at the edge of your vision, painting data over everything, facial recognition tags on the dancers, threat assessments on the security, credit scores on the clientele.

The woman on stage calls herself CHROMA. Her body is a canvas of subdermal LEDs that pulse in time with the music. She's watching you. They're always watching you. But she's watching you differently.