Dawn scrapes color onto the water while we kit up to crawl under a pier that hums.
Mia feeds coffee into the van like it's a second fuel line. Juno stacks gear with a ritual neatness that slows her heart. I sit on the bumper and stretch my shoulder until the ache stops sounding like Rao's laugh.
"Permit's approved," Mia says. "Routine under-structure inspection. Safety priority. We've got legal tag from seven to nine."
"Low tide hits at six forty-two," Juno says, glancing at the harbor clock. "We're early."
"We're careful," I say.
We roll to Pier Four. The harbor smells like salt and switchgear. Dockworkers pretend not to watch us. Someone throws breadcrumbs to gulls like a bribe to the air.
Juno checks the Anchor Gun—smooth, heavy, compact with Mia's recoil break and two fresh coils clipped to her harness. She tosses me a second harness and a long line.
I clip in, check knots, check carabiners. Ken is tough; Kein is lies; anchors are neither, and that's why I trust them.
Mia brings Lark to perch above the seam where the plank meets the water. "No fog, no tricks," she says. "If anything starts to sing, you back out."
"Define 'sing,'" I say.
"Your teeth hum," she says. "Like last night."
"Copy."
We tag the zone on the pier edge. Legal lines click in my visor—bright blue geometry ringing our work like a promise and a warning. The hum is quiet now, like the sea holding its breath.
Juno clips my line to a cleat and hers to the Anchor Gun and steps to the edge. "On me," she says.
She goes first, because she always goes first. I follow, boots kissing wet pylons, breath fogging the gap.
Under the pier are all ribs and shadows. Water laps. Our headlamps cut a cone that makes the darkness look thicker. Pylons descend like trees into a black forest. The lattice we saw on Lark—if it exists—hides in the angles.
"Anchor," Juno says, and drives the first spike. The gun thumps. Steel bites timber. Line sings briefly, then holds.
We move hand over hand. The pier's belly groans with old wood and new work. Paint flakes fall like gray snow.
"There," Mia whispers in our ears. "Left pylon, third row. I'm getting a shimmer on infrared. Not heat. Interference."
We angle left. I keep three points of contact and one lie ready in my hands. Nothing shows, which means it's about to.
The hum starts as pressure behind my eyes. A palm on a window again. I blink. The lattice blooms.
It isn't rope. It isn't glass. It's a net of planes at wrong angles, shimmering like oil over water—thin struts growing out of wood grain, bracing pylons in patterns that laugh at right angles. When a wave hits, hexes ripple and smooth.
"Not city," Mia says, awed despite herself.
"Hungry," I say, because the caster's word won't leave.
"Anchor," Juno says again. Her voice is steady because mine isn't. She plants a second spike and clips us closer. The lattice brightens a tick as the gun goes off, like it tasted the sound.
"Back it off?" I ask.
"We're in tag," Juno says. "We finish the look."
I push a fingertip toward a strut. My brain says "don't." My hand does anyway. The air there feels colder and thicker, like someone stretched a membrane over a hole in the world.
"Don't touch," Juno says. "You touch with your eyes."
"Copy," I say, and swallow.
Mia whispers numbers we won't remember later—angles, distances, micro-vibrations. Lark chirps above, sending us a top-down ghost of our underworld. The map draws itself in my visor: pylons, braces, the wrong-angled net.
"Do we cut one?" I ask.
"No," Juno says fast. "We mark. We report."
"And Kade buries," I say before I can stop it.
Juno doesn't look at me. "We build the case."
I breathe slowly. I count boards between breaths. The hum presses and eases like a surf no one can see. I think of Zann's hand on the back of my neck when I was ten, steadying me before a cliff jump. "Feel the edge," he'd said. "Don't fight it. Understand it."
I open my palm in front of the lattice. Kein wants to draw a line to make sense of it. I don't draw. I watch.
The net thickens where pylons meet. It is thin that bolts should take the load. It's bracing in ways carpenters don't. It's also growing—hairline threads that weren't there a breath ago now are. They twine toward our anchor points like they heard us arrive.
"Juno," I say.
"I see it," she says. The Anchor Gun's frame vibrates in her hand, just enough to make her frown. "It's resonant."
"With what?" Mia asks.
"Weight," Juno says. "Touch. Pressure."
Ken by another name.
The long line tugs. Not from us. From below.
"Back," Juno says, calm. "Two steps."
We reverse along clips, smooth, practiced. The tug eases. The lattice dims a fraction. It doesn't like us moving away from the load. It wants us on it.
Footfalls thud above—dockworkers moving pallets in the ordinary morning. The pier answers in a low chord that knocks lightly on my molars.
"Mark and go," Juno says. We paint discreet tags—noninvasive—UV dots at pylon seams so we can find this exact wrongness later. Mia logs coordinates. Lark hums approval.
On the last clip-out, the hum swells. A whisper rides the sound, not in my ears but behind them:
LOOK WHERE THE WOOD HUMS.
Old phrasing. Not Rao's "anchors." This is the voice that dropped the clip in Mia's buffer. It doesn't come through comms. It comes through the line.
My mouth goes dry. "Did you hear—"
"Nothing," Juno says, too fast. "Out."
We climb. Daylight hits my visor like a blessing and a lie. The tide is at its low notch. If we were five minutes later, we'd be wet to the chest.
On deck, we de-tag the zone. Legal geometry winks out. Dockworkers go back to pretending we aren't there.
Mia meets us with towels and a look that is half triumph, half worry. "We got it," she says. "Maps, readings, visual. Enough for a brief."
"Not for Kade," I say. "For us."
"For the Board," Juno corrects.
"For the city," Mia says, softer than either of us. "Pick a bigger noun."
I clamp the towel to my hair and stare down between planks. The lattice hides like it never did. The hum hangs around my teeth like a song I can't shake.
My phone buzzes.
Unknown: Bring two more lines. No drilling. Noon tide will mask you.
"Time to sleep?" I ask.
Juno checks the sky. Checks her watch. Checks the Anchor Gun like it's a promise. "Two hours," she says. "Then we go back."
Zann would tell me to eat something. I find a stale bar in my pocket, chew sawdust, and try not to see Rao grinning from a crossbeam.
The city creaks. We listen.
At 9:01, Kade texts a single line: Stand down on Pier Four. At 9:02, the pier hums louder.