Silence was nothing new for this metropolis, though its quiet felt more dense as night time fell, casting the grayed out hues of the skyscrapers and roads into charcoal and black.
Every half-hour, right on the dot, drones patrolled the City. Time of day didn’t matter to machines like them, built to follow the orders of the man who ruled at the top of Oleysium. Since the defeat of their missing General, security had been raised, and a curfew laid out for the hours of the night.
All to catch the one roaming about right now, in the shadows.
And, unfortunately, the mechanical child wandering that should not have been here to begin with. To the forces, Astro was where he shouldn’t be, regardless of age or appearance. In fact, his bright colors were cause for suspicion, for they didn’t match that of any known database. Chatter immediately arose in the network, two of the grayed out robots turning from their outposts to address the boy.
“Halt.” Their voices were one and the same, a hive-mind. “Present your ID, or be directed to the nearest penitentiary.”