Sirens. Salt air. Footsteps on wet wood. Juno's already moving.
Juno sprints. I chase her lane, palms up, sketching a quick square—four points, four lines. The pattern hums.
A thin veil snaps up in front of panicking dockworkers. Arrows ripple across it, herding them to the right.
Kein: I draw a pattern and light and sound lie for me. Not "real." Fast, cheap, small.
"Civilians right," Mia says in our ears, steady as a metronome. "Pier Four is hot. Unmarked crew. Plates taped."
We're in Board blues, reflective patches flashing EXPLORER AUX. Juno's braid is a wet lash. She doesn't carry a blade. She doesn't need one.
Juno is Ken-primary.
Ken: contact pressure—skin, grip, impact that chokes a technique as it forms. Illegal outside a tagged combat zone. Tonight, it's tagged.
Three men in rain slickers haul a metal crate on a dolly. A fourth—bigger, mirrored shades under a hood—stands guard. He spots us, barks, and they push faster, wheels bumping over split boards.
A low vibration crawls up my boots. Not the dolly. The pier.
"Feel that?" I say.
"Yeah," Mia says. "Not our work. No permit on Pier Four. Cameras were dead eight minutes before the call."
"Left sweep," Juno snaps.
I ghost toward Mr. Shades, head down so he doesn't catch my eyes. Gaze Trap needs half a second of eye contact. Done right, I nudge edges and distance. Done wrong, I look dumb.
I whistle. He turns.
Lenses flash harbor lights.
Mirrored shades. Counter.
Fine. Phantom Steel.
I spin a second blade from nothing—Kein noise and light—let it scrape right, metal on wood. Bait. My real katana sits quietly in my left hand.
He lunges at the noise. I step inside, let his arm sweep through the air, and kiss the tendon behind his knee with the real edge.
Not deep. I don't like heavy cuts early. I don't like blood in my shoes.
He grunts, buckles, and still moves fast—Ken pulses down his arm, and he slaps me with a dead hand. Rope with a brick. I stagger.
"Two more, west side!" Mia calls. "Masks. Hand signs."
Kein users.
Steam peels back near the forklifts. A shape sketches lines that hang, then fade.
Good. Rival caster. I can read that.
Juno hits the first slicker like a small car. Ken makes her heavy. Shoulder to ribs—air goes out of him. She slaps his wrist—Ken Disrupt—and his fingers go slack. Whatever pattern he had dies.
"Hands where I can see them!" she barks, driving him to the deck.
Mr. Shades rushes me, chin down, eyes hidden. Smart. Straight tackle.
I could let Juno finish him. I don't.
Early finish keeps the others honest.
I flick my gaze to his feet.
His lead foot hits a plank with a different note—swollen, soft. He'll plant there.
I give him my eyes. I don't need to tilt a whole world—just one line. In his head, the plank edge sits half a step closer.
He short-steps. Weight lands where there's no wood.
His hip drops. Balance tilts. That's enough.
Cutting Channel—a blink of Ken along my blade. I hate burning Ken, but for one cut? Fine.
I exhale. Steel hums once. I draw a shallow line across his calf where the muscle's tight. The pulse carries deeper than it should. He collapses.
Ugly trick. Juno will lecture me later. It ends fights.
"Lark is up," Mia says.
Her drone—a plastic gull with too many joints—banks over the pier, camera blinking red. A cable spools, hooks the dolly, and yanks it into a net stack. The crate tips, hammers the deck.
The hum under my feet grows.
Not the crate. The pier.
Fog flowers from the masked caster's hands. Too thick for the weather. Sound skews, light sinks; your ears think they're underwater.
"Stay on me," Juno says, stepping into gray. She uses touch. I use angles.
I slide behind her left shoulder. Her free hand taps the pier three times. Rhythm. Count steps off her taps.
One. Two. Three—she stops. Elbow pops. Someone oofs. Wrist, then shoulder. Wood creaks.
I sketch low: a Kein Beacon. A blue breadcrumb only we can see, tuned to our channel. Lark dips, reads it, pings our visors. Path mapped.
"I've got a runner," Mia says. "East ladder. Backpack and a handset."
"On it," I say.
"Negative," Juno says. "Kanon, with me."
"I'll be quick."
"Don't—"
I'm already sliding along the edge, palm skimming rail. Fog's cooler by the water. The hum climbs into my wrist bones.
Foot scuffs on a ladder. I hit the top and look down. Two rungs below: goggles, cracked handset. Tape over the antenna. He raises it like he's about to—
"Drop it," I say.
He looks up. Clear lenses. Good. He gifts me that half second.
Gaze Trap—shift the last rung an inch wider in his head. He adjusts, misses. Drops. Thigh cracks a rung, shin kisses the next. The handset arcs into black water.
He screams. Real. I hate that part.
I grab his collar and haul. He's light until the pain hits. Then he's heavy.
"Got him," I grunt.
"Copy," Juno says. "Mia, caster?"
"North end," Mia says. "Using fog to mask an exit. Van under a tarp."
I hand the runner to two harbor cops who've finally found courage. They don't like us. We don't like them. They take him anyway.
Back into gray. Left hand on the rail. Right hand on the blade, tip down. No pointing at folks, I'm not cutting.
Fog thins. The caster's at the end, fingers snapping through another pattern. Fast. Sloppy on the edges—lines fray when he breathes too quickly.
"Hey," I say.
He twitches. Clear goggles. Perfect.
Gaze Trap. I plant a pit behind him—fake—in his head. He steps short. Doesn't fall. Steps wide. Knows something's wrong. Smart.
He flings a palm. Fog ripples. Eyes sting.
Phantom Steel right—fake sword scraping loudly. He slashes at the noise with a knife I didn't see. Real blade. Not a pure caster.
I move left. Katana slides under his forearm, taps the tendon, light. Knife clatters. He snarls, tries to cast. Fingers can't find the line—pain ruins fine motion. That's the point.
"Hands," I say.
"You don't know what you're standing on," he spits.
He might be right. The hum under us is a bass line now, a distant engine. My molars buzz.
Juno ghosts in on his right, hand on elbow, knee bends without permission. He goes flat.
"Done," she says.
She isn't winded. I hate her. I love her.
"Crate," Mia says. "Check the crate."
Fog shreds into ordinary mist. Dockworkers peep from behind pallets. A woman in a yellow hat flips us off. Fair.
The crate is dented. No markings. Simple latches. I pop them.
Inside: coils of cable, rebar bundles, a heavy nail gun stamped PROPERTY OF CITY WORKS, and a bag of big seawall bolts.
Juno frowns. "Why steal maintenance gear?"
"Check barcodes," Mia says. "Pulling inventory."
Numbers are scraped to ghosts. Intentional.
The hum throbs stronger. Boards stagger under my feet like a whale just rolled.
"Under the pier," I say. "Something's under the pier."
We lean out. Tide slaps pylons. A shy glow rides the water—not bright. A wavering sheen, like heat on asphalt. Here, then gone.
"What is that?" Juno asks.
Mia goes quiet, flipping feeds and permits in our van somewhere up-dock. "Nothing on record," she says. "No heavy permits here for a month."
Heavy permits: the kind that let you lock a pier, brace a wall—anything that moves bones. Three signatures minimum.
"Private job?" I say.
"On a public pier?" Juno shakes her head. "Not a chance."
We haul the crate off the dolly. The dock boss roars about the chain of custody until Juno looks at him. Not with eyes. With spine. He decides to care about something else.
Slickers facedown, wrists zip-tied. Harbor cops fuss over forms. Shades-guy groans. I crouch beside him.
"Who sent you?"
He smiles small and square. "You'll figure it out. Maybe."
My jaw tightens. I want to put steel into wood beside his ear and let splinters talk. I don't. Body cams are on. The Board audits.
"Badge," Mia says.
His safety badge is cracked. Inside the crack, a sliver of copper peeks. I pry a sticker off. City badge underneath.
"Weapons under our pier. City badges. Cameras dark," Juno says. "Huh."
"Fog wasn't city-grade," Mia adds. "Freelance hands."
The caster snarls from the deck. "You don't even know the words for what you're standing on."
He looks at the water like it's home. Or like it scares him.
The hum peaks, a low drumbeat under skin. People flinch without knowing why.
Lark dips and sends a magnified feed of pylon bases. Not clean wood. Wrapped—not rope—something like a net of dark glass. It shimmers, then vanishes as a wave slaps.
"What am I looking at?" Juno asks.
"Whatever it is," Mia says, "the city didn't do it."
I step to the very edge. Boards complain. Teeth buzz. For a breath, pressure palms the outside of my skull—hand on a window.
It passes. I sway.
"Kanon," Juno warns.
"I'm fine." I'm not. Pressure sits behind my eyes.
The caster laughs. "Keep touching it. See what it does."
"Shut up," Juno says.
We stare at the water. The sheen hides.
Somewhere close, the pier hums again—like a beast turning in its sleep.
The wood under us thrums, and every bone in my body answers.