Before the Quiet Breaks

Canvas Savannah City never slept all the way through.

Even at dawn, the skyline hummed — delivery drones buzzing past glass towers, holographic billboards cycling through neon ads, and the distant clang of the transit rails cutting across the east quarter. It was a city that always had something to say.

At the very center of it all stood the Paintbrush Fortress — four tall towers shaped like giant paintbrushes, the whole building striped in bold black and white from base to rooftop. From the highest observation deck, you could see every block, every rooftop garden, every crooked alley below.

Ms. Paintbrush Zebra stood there now, her grey cape rippling in the morning wind, her blue-and-black supersuit catching the first gold light of sunrise.

She pressed two fingers to her earpiece.

"Zia, anything unusual overnight?"

"Nothing, Ms. PB," said the AI. "City's quiet."

She squinted at the eastern district.

"It never stays that way."

The Drone That Wouldn't Hush

She was still on the observation deck when Zia's voice crackled through the earpiece again.

"Ms. PB — delivery drone malfunction in the eastern district. Number Forty-Four. It's been circling the same block for twelve minutes."

"That's unusual," she said, squinting east.

She spread her grey cape and lifted off, cutting low over the rooftops.

The eastern district was the quieter half of Canvas Savannah City — shorter buildings, smaller shops, a street market that smelled like grilled corn and machine oil. She spotted Drone Forty-Four immediately: a city-registered silver delivery drone spinning in a clumsy loop above a narrow fire escape, making a repetitive chirping sound.

Below it, on the fire escape's second-floor landing, sat a kid. A young monkey — maybe eleven or twelve — small for his age, with pale grey fur and big amber eyes. He wore an oversized brown jacket and held a small notebook pressed tight to his chest.

The drone kept circling him, chirping insistently, like it was trying to say something he wasn't answering.