#AUSTIN

Austin in 2085 had doubled down on the bit.

Cowboy, but with LIDAR. Ranch chic, but the cattle were delivery drones drifting over I-35. Boots with carbon-fiber shanks and embedded NFC for cover charges. Ten-gallon hats with OLED brims running sponsor loops: whiskey, water credits, enterprise AI. The airport gift shop sold spurs that synced to your step count. "Yeehaw-as-a-Service" in tasteful serif on a premium tote.

Heat rolled off the taxi queue in sheets, held back just enough by misters pumping mesquite-scented reclaimed air. A bronze longhorn sculpture outside of baggage claim hummed faintly; the eyes were cameras. A boy posed for a picture; the statue blinked consent on the screen behind him and offered his parents a content license for $99.99.

The rideshare corral was a futurist's idea of a stockyard. Stalls pulsed green when your car was 'saddled.' A fleet of matte trucks wore corporate brands signaling as ranch: NLT, GlobalTrust, LoneGrid Power. A few 'authentic' options idled in a separate lane. Robotic horses with chrome necks and leather saddles. Something for tourists in town for bachelor parties who wanted the full frontier fantasy without the smell.

Billboards did the accent. One, a twelve-story cowgirl in a smart exosuit lassoed a flaring data stream and drawled, "Rope your runtime" for a cloud provider. Another, a tech-evangelist preacher promised Eternal Compute at Sunday services. And best of all, a BBQ joint offered Brisket NFTs and a "Proof of Smoke" ledger you could lick with your tongue and scan in if you bought the premium sauce.

Security wore star-shaped badges that doubled as body cams and automatic threat detectors. "Rangers™️" the stitched patch said, as if the trademark settled the history. Their drones had little chrome spurs on the landing gear.

Downtown stood up straight as if it knew it was on camera. Towers with mirrored chaps of solar film. Balconies shaped into enormous hats. The outlier was the New Life spire, which didn't try as hard. It rose clean and indifferent above the costume. Pure glass and money with an algorithm pretending not to watch. Nestled right in the middle was a large curved screen, streaming:

"NLT LIVE: Founder Returns In Person."

Elias Reiss looked… curated back to life. The suit did most of the lifting: midnight fabric that drank the light, cut tight to hide the way stasis had edited him. Shoulder's a size down, hips swallowed by fabric. Skin with that expensive absence you only get from cryo. Snail slime and whatever else they put in it. The wrinkles weren't age; they were folds in the paper.

Next to him: a woman so correct she could sell absolution. The caption called her EX-013 | SERAPH_1.0 like a model-year truck, but the styling read synthetic. Perfect posture. Perfect hairline. The face you hire to teach other faces how to articulate. She stood a half-step back and a degree turned, a geometry that says "feature" while reading as "owned."

You could call it a couple if you were generous or a product demo if you weren't. The vibe was girlfriend-as-feature: a beautiful proof of concept standing inside his gravity. He stood half in front of her, the way men do when they practice chivalry on assets.

Melissa let the feed run for fourteen seconds, the way a habit runs even after it ruins you. On the twelfth, his laugh hit the room a half second late. On the fourteenth, her blink landed a hair out of sync and merged back into perfection.

She managed to peel away from the spectacle and walked.