Tetherfall

The harbor smelled like rain on hot metal: salt, diesel, and the faint copper tang of burnt circuits. Neon signs bled down the sides of stacked barges, painting the damp decks in bruised blues and pinks. Cass Calder rode the outer rail of her rig like a surfboard, the salvage harness singing against her ribs with every hard cut of wind. Below, the city’s spine — that thin tether of light running up into the smog — throbbed with a pulse that said the night was awake and dangerous.

She dropped into the cargo maw with practiced ease, boots sparking off a rusted hatch that gave a sound like a gunshot. Water hissed underfoot. A crate sat half-submerged, barnacles like teeth around its seam. Cass jammed the prybar, felt the give of old screws, smelled wet plywood and something sweeter: overheated pressure coils. Her gloved fingers brushed a metal case inside. It fit in her hands like a heartbeat.

Someone screamed — not a human shout but the high keening of a surveillance drone. Lights from a corporate skiff carved through the fog above the waterline. Engine throttles rasped. The skiff dipped, and a small drone fell, sparks trailing as if an ember had severed its tether. It hit the water, tossed by a wake, its casing cracked open. Cass didn’t think; she moved. The harness wrapped around her hips and the rig’s winch took her weight as she lunged, fingers closing on plastic and circuitry.

The drone shivered in her palms. A blue lens blinked like a blinded eye. A child's voice — thin and synthetic — said, 'Please. Keep. Safe.' Cass felt something around the drone slide into her palm: a tiny lattice of glass and light, warm despite the cold air. It flashed with a map fragment and a line of code that tasted wrong in her mouth. The skiff’s searchlight found her. A silhouette stood in the bow with a long coat, a face half-hidden under a visor. A voice came down in a calm that contained teeth.

'Drop it and step away, Calder. You know how this ends.'

Cass grinned even though her throat had gone dry. Her hands tightened. 'Not tonight.'

She clipped the drone to her chest and kicked out, launching herself into the choppy water. The harness yanked, the rig’s thrusters complained, and she felt the bite of speed as she skated along the top of the harbor, neon flares reflecting in wake like errant stars. Behind her, the skiff turned, and a burst of tracer slashed a mast. Planks exploded into the air. Electrical thunder rolled across the water. She heard the skiff’s voice again, closer this time: 'Marla Voss. Surrender the package.'

Cass glanced down at the drone’s cracked lens. Inside, a tiny cluster of light blinked on — not a signal but a face. It was a construct of code and childish cadence. 'Name: Pip,' it said. 'Find the spine.'

She swallowed. The word hit like a coin in a locked slot. The spine was everything.