The City That Never Finishes

Elena Voss stepped off the maglev train into the humid sprawl of Elysium City, her boots crunching on gravel that should have been polished marble. The station was a skeleton of ambition: soaring arches half-clad in glass, exposed rebar twisting like veins in a cadaver. "Welcome home," she muttered, slinging her duffel over her shoulder. The air smelled of rust and regret, the kind that clung to a place where dreams went to die mid-construction.
Her mother, Dr. Miriam Voss, had built Voss Engineering into a powerhouse, bidding on the city's endless mega-projects. Now Miriam was gone—heart attack, they said, though Elena suspected the stress of juggling bribes and blueprints had done her in. At 32, Elena was back from her stint in Singapore's flawless skylines, inheriting a company teetering on bankruptcy amid scandals. "Corruption," the headlines screamed. Kickbacks, embezzlement, the...