We prep ugly and fast, because the tide won't wait.
Ariad spreads parts on the van floor: survey pole, brace spike head, ratcheting arm. "Reach Gun," she says. "Shoots a spike past the line without our barge crossing it. Reach isn't distance."
Mia straps a bigger battery to Minnow and spools a longer tether. "Range plus ten percent. If it snaps, I cut power so it doesn't crawl off into a story."
Juno files three forms in five minutes—Aux Assist, Training Drill, Temporary Safety Perimeter—and tapes orange tags in a neat stack near the gunwale. Laws are her armor; tonight they're our bridge.
Kade glares at the tide chart like it insulted his mother. "We go to the mile," he says. "We do not cross. We plant nothing on structures beyond it. Your Reach Gun makes me nervous."
"Good," Ariad says. "Nerves keep bolts honest."
He almost smiles. Doesn't. "Map," he reminds us. "Not fight."
"Copy," Juno says.
We push off at last light. The city goes rust-orange behind us. Wind scrapes the water flat where it plans to be mean later.
Outer pylons grow out of gray like ribs. The three–one–three notch code walks us to the boundary. Past the mile, the vector runs on spike heads like breadcrumbs, straight toward a dark seam on the water that isn't weather.
Mia hangs the first orange placard on the rail: UNDER-STRUCTURE INSPECTION — TRAINING. Zone flips. It buys us Ken-touch legality on deck.
"Anchor in," Juno says. We clip. We breathe. The hum is here, calmer, like it's waiting to see if we're serious.
"Minnow?" Ariad asks.
"Dropping," Mia says. Green soup; then lattice wraps on the near pylons—shimmer, dead, shimmer. Good pattern. Tuned.
"Shoot," Juno says.
Ariad shoulders the Reach Gun at the bow. The arm telescopes three meters beyond our rail. She sights a brace site across the line. The mile buoy swells beside us like a cop watching.
"Wait," Kade says.
"Wait what?" Ariad asks, steady.
He tilts his head. "Listen."
We do. The hum isn't a single note now; it's two, half-beating. Far out, something drifted off tempo.
Ariad exhales. "That gets worse at reversal. We plant now or we swim."
Kade nods once. "Plant."
The spike thunks clean into old wood on the far side of the line. She clips our line this side. A hand on a door without stepping into the room.
"Kein Chalk," Ariad says.
I draw fat arrows on the near pylon face—our visors only. It costs almost nothing if I don't go wild. Kein Chalk is our language now; crews started stealing it this morning.
"Two boats east," Mia says. "Inflatables. No nav lights. Four men each."
"Gel?" Juno asks.
"Probably," Mia says. "Plus something heavier in a dry bag."
"Knives," Ariad says, the way bricklayers say rain.
"Zone's live," Juno reminds us. "Hold the line. We don't touch anyone off deck."
The inflatables fan out and idle like gators. One carries a man in a mirrored visor with a short baton. He taps the tube like he's bored. Another shoulders a launcher and sights our anchor line.
"Strobes on my call," Juno says.
The launcher coughs. A gel can arcs.
"Now," Juno says.
Lark dumps white pain into the boat. The round hits wide and spits corrosive slug into nothing. The gunner drops the tube and dry heaves. Old-stomach guy again.
Visor-baton doesn't blink. He loves this. He points at our Reach Gun arm and gives the chin: cut that. Two in the bow draw saws.
Ariad flips the Reach Gun head to hook mode, catches our line, jerks it high like a jump rope. The saw men swing and miss. One over-commits and almost pitches into the drink.
"Ken through deck," Juno says.
She plants both palms and sends a broad, legal swell through the barge skin; not a strike—an assist. The hull settles, our line goes tight, the spike sings the right note.
Visor-baton grins and hops from his tube to our rail in one clean arc.
He lands light. Legal line or not, he's on our deck now. Ken-touch is fair game. He must know. He doesn't care.
"Hands," Juno says, because she says it to everyone.
He flicks his wrist—Kein Flash bead ready in his ring hand. I close my eyes before it pops. Bright bites and dies behind lids. I step into him on the squeak of rubber, blade scraping rail long and ugly to mask my foot.
He keeps his eyes off mine—mirrored visor; trained. He drives the baton at my thigh. I let it take coat, not meat, and ride the impact into a twist. He tries to trap my blade. I rotate, palm his wrist with the flat, feel Ken push back through metal like a live wire—he's tuned.
He feints at my belt where my clipline sits. I grunt (he wants that), then Gaze Trap the deck edge in his body-map by a finger's width. Mirrors beat eyes; they don't beat habit. He short-steps, hips catch rail.
Cutting Channel—pulse down the blade—and a kiss to the tendon above his heel. He drops a fraction; Juno fills that fraction with a wrist tie that looks polite and feels like a door slamming. He hits deck blinking under glass.
"Next," Ariad says. No time for ego.
Minnow's camera jerks. Something moves under the mile buoy—fast, deliberate. The lattice on the far pylon flares, then settles like it recognized an old friend and remembered it hated them.
"Two signatures under," Mia says. "Non-fish. Not human stroke."
We don't say the word.
The second inflatable strafes the Reach Gun arm with a rigid hook to yank it offline. Ariad lets the hook glide, then snaps the arm down. The hooker eats rail and loses a tooth to the river. He laughs through blood. Good-mood crew.
"Gel," Mia warns.
The tube coughs again. I throw Phantom Steel—a fake clang off port. The gunner bites and sends the round wide. It blooms useless against a swell.
"Board?" Juno asks.
"En route," Kade says from the stern, voice steady. He hasn't drawn anything but a pen since I've known him. Tonight he grips the rail like a man trying not to draw a line that costs his job.
The underwater signatures brush our line. The hum goes off-tempo. The spike we planted beyond the mile stutters in its notch.
"Walk it," Ariad says. "Past the bad spot."
We tighten one cleat, ease the other, sweep stress along the path my Chalk arrows sketch. The wrong pattern—far pylon, double-four-none—flares where load wants to go; we pull it away. The good lattice takes it. The beat slows.
A rope hisses. An inflatable has a bolt cutter on our line. Juno steps into the gap, palms open, and talks with Ken—not hitting, just pressing presence against forearms and knuckles, stealing fine control. The cutter bites water and curses.
Visor-baton coughs a laugh under his mask. "You're not the ones I was told to expect," he says. "You're competent."
"Flattered," I say, and bump his head into the rail with the flat for a nap.
Mia's tablet pings on a private line. She doesn't show me; she reads. "Walk the vector until it stops singing." Beat. "Signed Z."
Kade hears through the open mic. "Of course." He closes his eyes like he solved a math he hates, opens them ready to file the answer. "Thirty seconds," he says. "Then we pull."
Thirty seconds to hear the vector's last note—or to make a mistake we can't take back.