Riptide Protocol

The canal was a rib of the city, slow and metallic under neon. Aya Kimura floated face down in it, the webbing of her salvage suit whispering against the water. Her hands slid over rusted tiles and cable hair. The EchoShroud on her spine ticked in her bones, mapping the drowned alley with soft taps. Haptics were her sky. Sound had been a blur since the storm years ago, when a collapsing pier slammed her head and left a high, endless whine. The Shroud gave her back a world of pulses and pressure.

She found the corner where a noodle stall once clung to the wall. The sign still hung at a tired angle, a fish with one eye lit. Inside, her light cut water into ribbons. Chopsticks drifted like arrows. Beneath a table, glove fingers brushed corrugated plastic. A sealed case. Aya wedged her pry-knife in and levered slow, watching for stray arcs from submerged power. When the seal broke, a yaw of old soy and oil drifted up. She eased the case into her mesh bag, clipped it in, then pushed with a slow kick.

Above, scooters buzzed over the pipewalks. Shadowed feet stopped, then crossed. Somewhere the city’s main pumps exhaled, a distant whale in a steel cave. Aya kicked until she touched ladder rungs slick with algae, then rose. The water slid off her rounded helmet plate. She pulled it back and breathed air that tasted like rain and cheap battery. Neon wrote tired cursive on the water skin.

“Find me something good?” Old Yun called through a gate of welded frying pans. He looked like a knot of wire that had learned to smoke. His salvage-yard spread along a barge’s deck, piles of chipped terminals, smashed drones, boxes of screws sorted by color and religion.

Aya hooked her bag over the railing and pulled herself up. Water spilled from her suit to the planks. She opened the case on a split drum. “Memory cores. Four. Maybe five if we strip the lacquer right. And a lamp with guts that don’t smell fried.” Her voice had the flat edges of someone who listened with skin.

Yun flicked ash into an old teacup and leaned in. “Mmph. Not bad. You hear the wardens last night? Three blocks east. They’re measuring thirst.” He tapped a knuckle on the case. “City’s old as bones. It remembers. People always want its memory.”

Aya took the chits he offered and wiped the water off before they could dissolve. “What happened east?”

“BlueGlyph turned the valve to a thread.” Yun blew smoke up into the steel beams. “Said the zone missed quota. You know how this dance goes.” He glanced at the canal, then back at her. “You be careful, Aya. The water isn’t just water anymore.”