The Drowned Causeway announced itself first as a smell, a miasma of salt, rust, and slow decay carried on the damp wind. Then came the sound, a constant, low symphony of creaking metal, groaning pontoons, and the hollow slap of grey water against corroded steel. Finally, it rose from the perpetual twilight, a chaotic metropolis of scavenged barges and pre-Fall naval scrap lashed together, a sprawling, lawless island of rust and desperation. Lights, fueled by scavenged power cells and burning oil, flickered in a thousand dirty windows.
Rhys guided their stolen flat-bottomed boat into a crowded, narrow channel, the air growing thick with the smoke of cooking fires and the press of unwashed bodies. This was a place outside the grand, sterile logic of the Babylon Compact and the radiant faith of the Chorus of Eden. It was a system of pure, brutal pragmatism. Nysa stood at the prow, a still, pale figure in her colourless robes, her senses overwhelmed not by spiritual energy, but by the raw, chaotic signal of ten thousand desperate lives packed into one place.
They were ghosts here, their allegiances meaningless. Their presence, however, was not. On a high walkway fashioned from a skeletal crane arm, a man lowered a pair of binoculars, his gaze fixed on the newcomers. He spat a stream of brown juice into the water below and keyed a small comm unit clipped to his vest. The word went out. Outsiders. One in a Compact jumpsuit, one in Chorus robes. A strange pairing. Interesting. Profitable.
They found their informant in a stall that reeked of fried fish and stale water, a cramped alcove tucked beneath the overhang of a listing cargo container. The man was small, his eyes darting like insects. He saw their exhaustion, the way Rhys favored his side, the way Nysa’s gaze never settled. He saw walking liabilities.
— Looking for someone, — Rhys stated, his voice low. It was not a question.
The informant polished a grimy glass with a dirtier rag. — Everyone’s looking for someone. Or running from someone. Which is it for you?
— Julian Croft, — Nysa said, her voice a soft whisper that cut through the noise of the market.
The man’s eyes flickered with recognition, and then with avarice. — The memory broker? High-end clientele. Information like that has a price.
Rhys placed two foil-wrapped ration packs on the counter. The dense, nutrient-rich bars were a week’s worth of survival for a man like this. It was a steep price, a tangible piece of their future spent on a single piece of information. The informant’s gaze locked onto them. He licked his lips.
— He has a place on the outer ring, — the man said, his hand snatching the ration packs and hiding them under the counter. — A converted listening post. Looks like a rusted metal sphere. You can’t miss it. He’s waiting for you.
The last words hung in the air, slick with a double meaning Rhys didn’t like. As they turned to leave, he saw the informant subtly tap the comm unit on his vest. The deal was done. And so was another.
They moved through the crowded, swaying walkways, the wood slick with damp and grime. The path to the outer ring was a labyrinth of narrow passages and rickety bridges. They were halfway across a long, exposed pontoon bridge when they saw them. Four large men, their clothes a patchwork of scavenged armor plates and leather, blocked the far end. Two more appeared behind them, cutting off their retreat. They all wore the same crude sigil painted on their shoulder plates: a clenched fist crushing a gear. The mark of Roric Slade, the warlord who held the Causeway in his grip.
— Slade wants a word, — the one in front grunted, his hand resting on the hilt of a wicked-looking blade fashioned from a sharpened leaf spring.
There was no negotiation here. No appeal to a higher authority. This was the system of the Causeway, and it was closing around them. Rhys’s hand went to the sidearm holstered at his hip. Six rounds. Not enough.
— Now, — Nysa whispered.
To their left, tied to a low-slung barge, was a small, open-topped watercraft. A skiff. Its engine cowling was open, a set of tools resting beside it. It was their only chance. Rhys didn’t hesitate. He vaulted over the rope railing, landing with a grunt of pain on the deck of the barge. Nysa was a fluid shadow behind him. He ripped the ignition wires from the skiff’s console and slammed them together. The engine sputtered, coughed a plume of black smoke, and roared to life.
Shouts erupted from the bridge. The men drew their weapons. Rhys shoved the throttle forward, and the skiff shot out from the barge, its nose lifting as it carved a sharp turn into the main channel. A few stray shots from handheld projectile weapons pinged off their stern. They were clear. They were moving.
But their escape had been too easy. As they cleared the inner maze of the market, the wider expanse of the Causeway opened up before them. And there, moving to intercept, was the source of Roric Slade’s power. It was a barge-citadel, a monstrous fusion of a pre-Fall dredging platform and the armored superstructure of a naval destroyer. Its hull was a fortress of welded plates, and mounted on its foredeck, swiveling towards them with cold purpose, was a piece of repurposed artillery, its long barrel a finger pointing directly at them.
A horn blared from the citadel, a deep, gut-shaking sound that echoed across the water. A warning. A declaration of ownership. A shell screamed overhead, impacting the water fifty meters to their right. A column of grey water and black mud erupted into the air, raining down on them. The chase had become lethal.
— They’re bracketing us! — Rhys yelled over the roar of the engine. He pushed the skiff to its maximum speed, the small craft skipping violently across the choppy water.
Another shell screamed in. This one was closer. The explosion rocked the skiff, throwing them against the console. The air filled with the sharp, metallic scent of cordite. Rhys’s wrist-comm, slaved to the Tinker’s Guild ghost network, began to chatter erratically, the steady Geiger click of its new programming overwhelmed by the sudden spike of radiation from the detonating shell.
— I can’t see the trajectory! — Rhys shouted, his eyes scanning the sky.
Nysa closed her eyes. She reached out, not with her sight, but with the senses she had honed in the heart of the Edens. The world of Matter fell away, replaced by a world of energy, of intent. She could feel the gunner on the barge-citadel, his focus a sharp point of light. She could feel the energy building in the cannon’s chamber, the cold, mathematical line of its intended path. It was not prophecy. It was physics, felt with a different set of nerves. The cost was a sharp, draining ache behind her eyes, the feeling of her own life force being spent like currency.
— Left, now! — she commanded, her voice sharp and clear.
Rhys didn’t question it. He threw the tiller hard to port. The skiff veered sharply just as a shell screamed through the space they had occupied a second before. The water erupted behind them, the shockwave lifting the stern of the skiff and slamming it back down. A long crack spiderwebbed across the console.
— Another one, — Nysa said, her eyes still closed. — High arc. Coming down on us. Straight ahead. Faster.
Rhys jammed the throttle forward. The engine screamed in protest. The skiff surged forward, a predator’s grace emerging from the brute force of Rhys’s piloting skill. He was no longer in a twelve-meter Warden, but the principles were the same: vectors, momentum, and a complete trust in the data. Nysa was his Geist Window now, translating the chaos into clean, actionable information.
The shell landed just behind them, close enough that the heat of the blast washed over their backs. The skiff shuddered, and a section of the port gunwale splintered, torn away by shrapnel.
They were a single, functioning unit. A pilot of Matter, guided by an oracle of Spirit. A fusion of two worlds, born of desperation and fire. They moved through the artillery barrage, a frantic, elegant dance of instinct and skill. Rhys’s hands on the controls, Nysa’s voice in his ear, a calm, steady stream of vectors.
— Hard port. Through the gap between those two wrecks.
He obeyed, threading the needle between two half-submerged freighter hulls. The barge-citadel’s line of sight was momentarily blocked. It was the opening they needed. Rhys pushed the skiff into the maze of the Causeway’s industrial graveyard, a junkyard of rusting gantries and sunken platforms that Slade’s larger vessel could not follow.
The sound of the artillery faded, replaced by the groan of their skiff’s damaged engine and the rasp of their own breathing. The frantic clicking of the Geiger counter on Rhys’s wrist-comm slowed, settling back into a steady, quiet rhythm. It sounded different now. Not the ghost of a leash, but the quiet, persistent heartbeat of their own survival.
They had escaped. They had the location of Julian Croft. But they had left a trail of defiance in their wake.
The barge-citadel sat motionless in the main channel, a silent, brooding monarch. On its command deck, Roric Slade watched the small skiff disappear into the rust-choked ruins. He did not give the order to pursue. He simply made a note.
The grey water was calm now, the sky a uniform sheet of metallic cloud. The engine of the skiff settled into a low, sputtering hum.
