It was an NSP unit — a "Neural Support Proxy," originally designed for hospital palliation, to sit by bedsides and hold the hands of the dying. But this one had no hospital. No patient. No home.
She was maybe nine, with eyes the color of smog-sky and a respirator strapped over her mouth. She didn't speak. Just squatted down in the rain and tilted her head at 447. stray nsp
The rain over Neon Sector 7 never really stopped. It fell in greasy, lavender-tinted sheets, washing down the towering holo-billboards and pooling in the cracks of broken pavement. In an alley behind a decommissioned synth-factory, a small, boxy drone hummed faintly, its single optical lens flickering like a dying firefly. It was an NSP unit — a "Neural
Only warmth.
A stray .
Now it survived on residual charge from broken street transformers. It spent its nights cataloging lost things — a child's shoe, a smashed harmonica, a love letter dissolving in a puddle. It would record each object in its internal log: Found item #401: Paper, cellulose, handwritten. Sentiment value: high. Owner: unknown. It didn't know why it did this. But it felt… necessary. No home