Steelwake Protocol

Kade Arno touched the scar at his throat as if it were a chord he could pluck and make the city answer. The scar had a shape—an old brand of an employer he had left—and the skin around it still puckered when he stretched. Below him the canal breathed like a living thing: slow, salty exhalations that fogged the visor of his suit when he leaned over the rail of the lift. Steelwake's lower arcs were a different planet. The upper streets shimmered with holograms and courier lanes; here, under the city's stomach, shipping containers drifted like dead fish in oil-slick water. The air carried the smells of old salt and hot iron and fried algae. He breathed it anyway, because under that rot were valuables people paid for with credits and with grudges.

His rig clanked as he prepped the drone. SPAR—he hated the name but loved the utility—whined awake and pulsed a soft cyan. The drone's articulated arms were wrapped in scavenged polymer. A cracked camera blinked in apology. Kade ran a gloved hand along the console and hummed in time with the whine. Habit, anxiety, control; the three motions that kept his hands steady. His harness thunked when he lifted. The lift dropped with the forgiveness of old hydraulics and the smell of greasy soap. He kept his mouth shut and let the machine do the complaining.

“Don’t dawdle today,” Mina said behind him. Her voice was thin with the smallness of the apartment but laced with a sharpness that belonged to someone who had learned how to bargain with fate. Mina moved into the viaduct light like a shadow tested against glass. She had the same narrow cheekbones as him and a scar along her left knuckle from a childhood falling into a generator. Her chest rose and hovered beneath a worn respirator—medicine that coughed in and out for her, rhythm like a second heart.

“I’ll be quick,” Kade answered, and the lie came clean as a polished coin. He never liked to promise when debts stood like teeth between him and sleep.

Down in the canal the salvage was already waiting. A corroded panel, exposed wiring like veins, and a crate wrapped in mesh that clanged when the current nudged it. Kade set SPAR to drift and felt the tether tighten in his grip. He could imagine the credits this crate might fetch—just enough for Mina's next refill and another week's rent. He checked the seals, toggled the lights, and leaned over the rail. The city hummed above, a swarm of color. Far away, a siren keened in a register that made the bones sing.

He descended into damp air and shadow, the lift dropping silent and slow. Water licked the metal of his boots the moment the bay door folded open. The smell grew thicker. Metal tasted like old coins. He clipped SPAR’s tether to his belt and let the drone slip down first, pulsing its light to paint the underbelly of the world. The beam caught long teeth of pipe and the bridle of a half-submerged tram. Something moved in the foam—a curl of synthetic fabric, a glint of plastic—but for a moment it was only water and garbage and the steady chime of the city's indifferent machinery.

The crate's mesh snagged on a length of rebar. Kade felt the slick give beneath his boots, adjusted his weight, and pushed the drone forward. The camera feed shivered as algae tugged at the lens. When SPAR nudged open the mesh, the crate sighed. Metal rasped against metal. Inside, two items: a medical case blued by sterilization and a small cylindrical object wrapped in foam—no bigger than his fist, with a ring of gem-like composite along its seam. The composite pulsed faintly, more like a wounded animal than a machine. He reached for it and felt a jolt through the tether that was not electricity. SPAR clicked and spat static. An alarm thrummed in his ear, low and urgent.

It was just after that that the lift startled the surface with a thump above. Voices—three, hard, clipped—bent through the grating. Kade slid the crate into the sling and cut the tether. He let the lift begin to rise, palms cold on the handle. He glanced up through the holes of the platform and saw a shadow pass: a silhouette with broad shoulders and a helmet that bore the insignia of VossShield security. Kade's throat closed. VossShield didn't patrol the lower arcs for salvage. They were a corporate privateer, paid to take what the law would not touch.