The storm unclenched like a fist that needed feeling back, and the city took one collective, shaky breath. My comm vibrated, then another line, then five—notifications slamming against my palms until the burned one forgot to complain. I crouched on the tug’s slick deck under a tarp that wasn’t a roof, tablet propped on a crate that smelled like old rope and iodine wind. Red from the barge still strobed across the river, but above us the clouds cracked open in a pale oval: the eye.
“Ready for hail?” June asked in my ear. I heard keys, the thrum of her van’s battery rack, and the faint cicada-chatter of drones she had convinced to look elsewhere.
“Get me the mirrors,” I said. “All of them.”
“Unions, clinics, public defenders,” she said, ticking with her tongue. “Two journos I trust to fact-check meaner than they flirt. A maritime safety channel with six retirees and one stubborn god.”
“Send,” I said.
The tablet spat lines of green and a progress bar that hated stopping at ninety-eight. I watched hashes match and files split, the confession’s waveform tucked into a dozen deadman packets. June’s overlay turned the city into a pulse map, the barrier arches into ribs; blind zones sat under each arch like pockets of breath the cameras couldn’t hold.
Notifications hit. One. Ten. A hundred. They skittered across glass like hailstones desperate to be ice.
“Clinic took it,” June said, voice bright with the kind of fear that wakes people. “Dockside free. They’re pinning the nurse’s statement to the top.”
The tug rolled under a passing wake. I gripped the crate, tasted engine oil and the metal of my own mouth. Across the water, the algae-lit skin of the barrier park shimmered, a sickly green that never learned the difference between wellness and theater. A maintenance drone drifted low, rotors sawing an insect rhythm; June spoofed its tabloid cousin with a looping resilience-festival firework, and the drone decided to be patriotic somewhere else.
“Go wide,” I said. “Mirror to the union stevedores’ channel. Their shop stewards don’t sleep during storms.”
“On it,” she said. “And—oh. That was fast. Public defenders are requesting the raw dumps and chain-of-custody affidavit.”
“They get everything,” I said. “They know the difference between evidence and a story.”
“You’re trending,” she said, wicked and worried. “Well, not you. The sentence. ‘We target friction.’”
I breathed once, twice. The burned hand buzzed in time with my pulse. Red light from the barge felt less like emergency and more like admission. The notifications rolled, unreadable as sleet. The tide clock at the marina—big, vain, three minutes fast on purpose—ticked into the eye, daring everyone to believe they were early and not late.
“How’s the clinic feed?” I asked.
“Live,” she said. “Patch in?”
“Patch,” I said, and the tablet split its face. The clinic room bloomed on the right half: concrete painted hopeful, acoustic panels patterned with sea grass, a camera no one was hiding. A nurse I had hauled through a flood sat wrapped in two blankets and a refusal to be small. The microphone caught everything—the soft hiss of oxygen, the low murmur of volunteers, the distant ferry horn carving the lull.
“You can cut anytime,” June said. “They already cleared HIPAA the human way—consent, on camera.”
“Keep it,” I said. “This needs faces.”
The nurse spoke, voice raw but steady. “I swapped bands with a friend,” she said. “I told myself it made me brave. It made me lucky. She ran. I didn’t. I still work on my definitions.”
My throat tried to do more than swallow. I anchored it.
A dock worker—shirt with a union patch, hands that had moved the city for twenty years—leaned into frame. “We’ve seen the ledger,” he said. “We’ve seen the hallway clip. We are not confused about friction. Friction keeps ships from sliding off the planet.”
The chat ran like a river across the bottom: heart emojis that didn’t cheapen anything, question marks that did their job. June pushed verification badges into place the way other people set bones. A doctor from the free clinic read a timestamp, name masked, injury unmasked. “Night migraines aren’t resilience,” she said. “They’re a symptom of dosing.”
“Put me audio-only,” I told June. “I’m not the news. The admission is.”
“Copy,” she said. “Your voice, not your face.”
I leaned into the mic taped near my collar with a strip I’d stolen off a patient monitor. “Harbor Eleven,” I said, keeping my tone low and surgical. “You heard her say it. Dr. Sable Kincaid: ‘We target friction.’ The files show flags escalated to cleanses when staff questioned harm. The board knew enough to profit. The unions and clinics have the package. Mirror it. Don’t let it drown.”
A volunteer lifted the clinic’s tablet to the window. Outside, the hurricane barrier’s park arches glowed like a spine under skin. I remembered squeezing through those blind zones with Elias, the algae light painting us the color of expensive calm. I remembered thinking protection requires closeness, and how closeness turned my cover to lace.
“Phones off at the Palmetto House,” June said, amused and sharp. “But their kitchen staff are posting denial screenshots from the walk-in. Lawyers text at forty below.”
“Any hits from prosecutors?” I asked.
She took a beat. “Ping from the municipal DA’s burner account,” she said, glee hitching a ride on her caution. “They’re opening inquiries and asking for the preservation orders we drafted. Also, a state AG staffer just followed the clinic feed.”
Breath went in and didn’t snag this time. “Board?” I asked.
“They’re leaky,” she said. “Two members retained separate counsel five minutes ago; one is claiming they voted against escalation protocols in subcommittee, which is a cute memory considering the minutes you stole.”
“Post the minutes,” I said. “Blur the intern’s name.”
“Already blurring,” she said. “You’re welcome.”
Notifications kept piling—hail on hail. The tug’s captain yelled something about lines in a voice built for Sunday choir and mid-storm cursing; I waved and he waved back with a rope-rough hand, the kind Harbor Eleven’s elites only borrow in their dating profiles when they want to look authentic. A drone banked across the eye and the cicada hum returned, a reminder that our air is watched even when the rain softens into something like mercy.
The clinic feed shifted to a woman with a braided bun and a gaze that could dry wood. “Truth ruptures cover,” she said. “We’re not delicate here. We are sore and we are loud.”
“Unions just coined a hashtag,” June said. “#FrictionIsAFeature.”
It echoed my chest like a hammer on a hull. The tide clock flinched forward, lying for convenience again, and the city pretended to be ahead of itself while my bones remembered we were late for everything that mattered.
“What’s trending against us?” I asked.
“#NecessaryHarm,” she said, making the words a taste she wanted to spit. “Bots and some real humans with jobs in PR. Also, a philosophical thread about trolley problems that makes me want to set a trolley on fire.”
“No flame,” I said. “We push faces. We push care. We push receipts.”
She exhaled into her mic, a laugh without celebration. “I’m stitching a rapid page for the public defenders—index, timestamps, cross-links to clinical notes and the board’s bonus schedule. No redactions on the money.”
“Bless your agnostic heart,” I said.
“Bless my routers,” she corrected. “And your very photogenic lapel mic.”
I glanced toward the barge. Red bled into the gray as if the ship had decided to blush. Sable was somewhere behind that metal, tasting defeat like a metallic vitamin. Defeats that large try to hire better names: miscommunication, crisis, reforms. I listened for sirens and got only the storm, which had traded sheets of rain for a fine mist that kissed the face the way someone does before asking a hard question.
The clinic’s chat ticked into a new speed. A public defender in a too-bright tie popped up on a side-by-side; June flagged him with a banner: VERIFIED. “We’re filing immediate motions to preserve data and halt destruction of records,” he said. “If you’re staff and you’re scared, your fear is evidence too. Call us. We don’t do NDAs.”
The nurse leaned back toward the mic. “I watched a patient forget her daughter’s name for four hours,” she said. “Then remember it. The remembering hurt more. I’m not a philosopher; I’m a human. I’d like consent to be a word that holds.”
“Copying that quote,” June murmured. “Frame it with a sea-grass border and a punch in the last line.”
My burned palm pulsed under the glove, a private metronome reminding me that truth always drew blood from someone. The taste of iron reached the back of my mouth and stayed. I let it.
Micro-hook, I thought, though I don’t say that word out loud; I lived it. The city had tilted toward us for a second. Now it would ask for balance and call that fairness. I needed mirrors that stubbornly refused to reflect propaganda.
“Load the maritime channel,” I said. “Those retirees have opinions about hull integrity and ethics.”
“They’re already discussing scuttles,” June said, scrolling. “One old salt says if you can wedge a knife to save a life, you do it, and the fines can chase you to court.”
“Pin him to the top,” I said. “Give him a fish emoji.”
She snorted. “Anchored with a herring.”
Notifications hiccuped; the tablet vibrated like my heart was an app. “What was that?” I asked.
“Short DDoS attempt,” she said. “They rented incompetence. I own patience. Mirrors hold. Fourteen now. No, sixteen. Public defenders mirrored to a union-backed mastodon instance and a church’s disaster network.”
“Any word from Elias?” I asked, before I could decide not to.
“He’s dark by design,” she said, gentler. “Your message got through. He replied with a timestamp and a line you won’t like: ‘I trust you.’”
The eye above us focused tighter, a clean iris over bad water. I wanted to hold that text and not look at it. I looked at it anyway, in the space behind my eyes where I keep the people who make my pulse speed and my professionalism worse.
“Backlash window?” I asked.
“Five to fifteen minutes before the board’s hired horde begins ‘contextualizing,’” she said. “They’ll claim Sable spoke theoretically. They’ll pretend the clip is doctored and then hedge with ‘out of context’ and then switch to ‘regrettable language’ before promising an internal review chaired by the same people who signed the checks.”
“Post the PDF of her signature on the escalation rubric,” I said. “Then post the video of her saying my sister’s full name.”
June hummed. “You’re mean in the ways I like.”
The clinic’s livestream widened to a panel: a union rep, the nurse, the clinic’s doctor, a public defender. Four faces, one storm-soft window. I could hear the low chorus of Harbor Eleven—ferry horn, drone rotors, the hum of algae pumps behind the barrier’s glass. The smell on the tug braided diesel with rain-washed salt, the city’s real perfume under the PR notes.
“Prosecutors just posted a formal inquiry notice,” June said. “Pinned on the municipal channel with a timestamp and the judge’s initials. Also—wait—board member Tolland is stepping down ‘to spend more time’ with her lawyers.”
“Copy and mirror,” I said. “Keep the clinic feed front and center. No victory laps.”
“No laps,” she said. “But maybe a breath.”
I took it. It didn’t taste like triumph. It tasted like room.
The tide clock across the marina clicked its lie into the calm: three minutes ahead so tourists could feel capable, so locals could joke about planning. I watched the hands move and thought about how everyone cheats time to feel safe. Sable had tried to cheat people. We’d given time back to a dozen and asked the city to keep the rest.
“Hashtag check?” I asked.
“#FrictionIsAFeature is winning,” June said. “#NecessaryHarm is sinking, drowned by union photos and clinic charts. Someone posted the tide clock with ‘ready now’ on it. I’d hug them if I weren’t feral.”
“Stay feral,” I said. “Feral works.”
The hail of notifications softened into a steady rain. The storm above considered its next sentence. I slid the tablet into a dry bag and taped it shut with a strip I ripped off my sleeve. The tug’s captain called my name with a question at the end; I pointed to the clinic feed and gave him a thumbs-up. He pointed at the barrier arches, then to the red-lit barge, then back at me, a mime for choices.
“Hold for a new ping,” June said, too quiet. “Encrypted. From the same whisper-net that found us the panicked janitor two months ago.”
“Read it,” I said.
“Location string,” she said. “Under the seawall arches. Blind zone seven. The message is five words: ‘She waits where clocks lie.’”
My whole body learned a new kind of cold. I looked at the barrier’s seventh arch—every kid in Harbor Eleven knows them by count before they know their times tables—and saw only algae glass and a pocket of darkness where cameras had no appetite.
“There’s more,” June said, voice flattening into the tone we use for bad gifts. “Secondary alert from one of my building watchers uptown: unmarked delivery heading for Elias’s floor. Two different storms.”
The eye above us narrowed again, as if the sky had heard. I tasted metal and brine and the fine grit of a choice I could cut my gums on. The clinic livestream kept talking, hands held between people and cameras like bridges. The city scrolled. The drones hummed. The tide clock lied helpfully.
“Which way?” June asked, not because she didn’t have an opinion, but because she knew I needed to own the answer.
I stared at the arches, then at the dark sliver of water that had taught me everything about timing, and let the question sit long enough to hurt.