Ariad's field kit looks like a lunchbox that learned how to explode.
Ariad drops the box on the planks: swabs, a handheld spectrometer, a rubber-footed tuning puck.
"Walk me through it," she says.
"Lattice on pylons," Mia says. "Not city spec. Spike notches: three-one-three."
Ariad's mouth twitches. "Forum joke. 'Do it right, do it wrong, fix it in public.' Cute."
She sets the puck, taps twice. A low tone thrums up through the pier. My teeth vibrate a different note than the one we've been hearing.
"Don't touch the lattice," she warns.
"Wouldn't dream of it," I say.
She hovers the spectrometer over Mia's chip. The screen sketches jagged mountains.
"Polymer-glass composite with seeded crystalline growth," Ariad says. "Shouldn't happen in salt water without a power source." She glances at me and doesn't repeat "power."
"What does it do?" Juno asks.
"Locks," Ariad says. "Ties load across members in two axes. Whoever did it knew this pier's failure history. This is an upgrade, not sabotage."
"Then why hide it?" Mia asks.
"Because three departments will make it disappear if you don't pay three fees," Ariad says.
The puck's hum shifts a hair. The lattice shivers, then goes still.
Ariad narrows her eyes. "It's tuned. Responds to frequency. Great."
"Great, how?" Juno says.
"Great as in weird," Ariad says, already packing. "We need a map—if it's carrying load wrong at the wrong tide, we'll lose wood fast."
Mia flicks through feeds. "I can pull maintenance anomalies. Camera dropouts, fake work orders."
"Do it," Juno says.
"Dry Dock Three," Mia says. "Four outages this week. Two 'repairs' logged same time by different crews."
"Pick one," Juno says.
"Dry Dock Three," I say anyway. The hum here feels like a dare.
⸻
Dry Dock Three is a concrete bowl that drinks the harbor. One crew in bright vests "patches" the far wall with more pointing than doing. Another crew isn't city at all: three in gray jackets moving like they're music. Their tools aren't a city issue.
No Rao in sight. Doesn't mean he isn't here.
"Tide's rising," Mia says. "If the lattice is mis-tuned, we'll know in ten."
Juno slaps a placard on the chain. WORK ZONE toggles from red to blue in our visors. Laws are her armor; inside the ring, she's heavier.
"Red line on me," she says. "Kanon, you and Ariad are blue. You draw; she calls."
"Draw what?" I ask.
"Stress," Ariad says, pointing at the wall. "Use Kein Chalk."
I drag two fingers and pull a thin blue line from the air. It clings to concrete like dust you can't wipe. Our HUDs see paint; the world doesn't.
"Good," Ariad says, already running. "Mark cracks, pull, every anchor I call."
The city crew blinks at us like we're thieves. The gray-jackets keep working: ladder, feeder, hammer. The hammer looks like it belongs on a sub.
"Contractor," Ariad says, flashing her badge like a blade. "Who signed your work?"
The hammer woman doesn't stop. "Nobody who'll stick their neck out for you."
"We can play this two ways," Juno says calmly. "You show your plan and we don't drag you in; or you don't, and we still won't—people drown when crews fight—so we'll arrest you later."
The ladder guy laughs without humor. "Board humor."
"Not Board," Ariad says. "Civil Ops."
That lands. The trio trade glances. Ladder points. "See the hairlines? If we brace to the city spec, that panel accordion when the pump starts. We triangle and bleed load into lower pins."
Ariad is already there, eyes sharp. "Show me your notch code."
He flips a spike: three notches, one, three.
"Cute," Ariad says, not smiling. "Where's your map?"
"Upstairs," the hammer woman says, meaning: her head.
"Draw it," Ariad says. "Kanon, Chalk."
I pull lines where she points. Cheap if I don't layer too many. The wall becomes a web you can actually see. The city crew watches, then steals the idea without guilt, pointing at my blue like it was always there.
A truck clanks at the dock mouth. Another "city" crew. No plates. Tarp lifts just enough: foam canisters, rolling brace gun.
"All right," Mia murmurs, "call me paranoid, but—"
"Paranoid," I say.
"—That's our friends from Yard Twelve."
The truck parks wrong, blocking the mouth. Three clean hi-vis hop off like they're here for a photo. A fourth stays at the tailgate with a shoulder tube.
"Paint again?" I ask.
"Worse," Mia says. "Salt-loaded gel. Eats cheap bolt heads."
Juno to the gray-jackets: "Off the wall. Now."
"We're almost—" hammer woman starts.
Juno's voice snaps like a line under strain. "Now."
They drop, tuck tools. The first gel round splats high and runs like a slug. Where it touches old bolts, smoke fizzles.
Juno sprints the ramp. Two strides. Launch. Ken slams through her boots when she lands on the hood. Tube-man flinches. She palms his wrist. Ken Disrupt melts his grip. He fires blind; the round splatters his own tarp. Gel drools over foam canisters.
"Back!" Mia yells.
The driver panics and slams the reverse. Juno rides the hood like a pissed-off ornament, pushes Ken through the metal skin until the driver thinks the engine died. He kills it himself, hits the emergency, throws his hands up.
Two hi-vis runners try to flank with cutting saws. I throw a Phantom Steel shriek left; one bites, one doesn't. The biter chases air, whips, scans for me. Gaze Trap catches. I shift the ramp lip in his head a hand's width. He short-steps and kisses concrete. Saw skitters.
The second runner is disciplined. Eyes on my shoulder, not my face. Trained off footage. He angles for my belt to cut the clipline.
"Not today," I say. Cutting Channel pulses down my blade. I tap between his knuckles. The saw drops, screaming. I smack his temple with the flat. He folds.
"Lark," Mia says. The drone dives into the truck bed and strobes foam canisters white-hot. The feed washes out the tube-man's world. He pukes, stops being brave.
"Board en route," Mia adds. "Kade's pinged. He's got wheels."
"Of course he does," I say.
"Stop talking," Ariad says in my ear. "Start bracing."
She's got ladder-guy and hammer woman back up already. They moved like a unit through chaos. She points, I Chalk. We build a web with blue and metal that means something.
"Anchor here," the hammer woman says. "No—here. City anchors are mush below that line."
"Anchor Gun," Ariad says, and I pass it. She fires three spikes in a triangle city spec would never allow. Clip one line, a second, a third. "Pump!"
A city worker hits the switch. The dock wheezes. Water sluices out. The wall groans like an old man getting up—wants to flex where it always flexed. Lattice shimmer along the lower seam wakes and spreads, heat-over-road.
"Hold," Ariad tells the wall. It listens because we gave it a map.
The gel chews high bolts, spits smoke, then stops—damage, not disaster. Juno peels off the hood, drops, cuffs Tube-Man to his axle.
"Rao?" I ask the gray-jackets without looking.
They don't answer. They hear me.
Board windbreakers flood the ramp. Kade in front, coat perfect.
He takes it all in: truck, gel, chalked wall, gray-jackets standing, Anchor Gun in Ariad's hands. His face rearranges to neutral.
"Civil Ops," he says. "Not your site."
"It is today," Ariad says, not looking up. "Your site didn't brace it. Your site logged a patch that would have failed. I'll put it in writing."
Kade's eyes flick to gel-eaten bolts smoking like cigarettes. He doesn't argue. He pivots. "Arrest those three," he tells his team, pointing at the gel crew. "Not them." He doesn't point at the gray-jackets. He's not blind; he's patient.
He glances at my Chalk map. "Erase that."
Ariad bristles. "No. They'll never see it otherwise."
"It compromises footage," Kade says.
"Then your footage is wrong," Ariad says. "Leave it. One day of truth won't kill you."
Kade's mouth readies a reply, decides to breathe instead. He looks at Juno. "Messy."
"We kept a wall up and people dry," Juno says.
He nods like that's the only score he's allowed to care about. "Chain the truck to my office."
The gray-jackets exchange a look; one taps his goggles twice, and a cold, familiar knot tightens under my ribs.