She pointed down through the table, toward the floor, then changed her mind and pointed up at the bright strips in the ceiling. She laughed at her own uncertainty and fed the rest of the slice to the person beside her.

“Who decides what gets grown? Who maintains the water? Who repairs the transit lines?” He kept his voice level. “Is there a council? A network admin team? A city office? Anything.”

That got a few more faces turned toward him. Not alarmed. Not guarded. Just briefly puzzled, as if he had used a set of tools they no longer kept in the house.

“Why decide?” someone said.

Elias said, “So it works.”

A boy, maybe twenty, maybe younger in mind if not in body, leaned close enough for Elias to smell crushed mint on his skin. “It works.”

Elias bit back the first answer that rose in him. It works because someone makes it work. Instead he took a piece of bread to stop his hand from shaking and forced himself to eat. His stomach had begun to gnaw at him with sharp, ugly reminders, and his head felt clearer after the first swallow.

He changed tactics. “Those towers.” He pointed through the open side of the hall where, beyond the green sweep of terraces, several structures rose above the gardens. Most were slim and bright, softened by planted skins and bridges. One was not. That one stood farther off, broad-shouldered and plain, its surface dark and smooth, with no balconies, no trailing growth, no people near it. “What are they for?”

A woman at the table looked where he pointed, then shrugged. “Shade. Rooms. Music. Sleep.”