June’s fake leak goes out at 20:14, a neat sentence folded to look like gossip: Elias Vance headed to Dockyard K, can’t keep him off the piers. The account that posts it has a backstory of sea-glass photos and dock-worker jokes, the kind of small authenticity Harbor Eleven believes because it wants to. I don’t breathe while it propagates; I count.
“Tick,” June says in my ear, voice bright with caffeine and malice. “Posting at t-zero. I’m mirroring to a couple neighborhood forums and one private concierge list that thinks it isn’t public.”
Elias sits in the passenger seat of the borrowed sedan, jacket collar up, profile clean and stubborn in the algae-lit spill from the Spire. His hand is steady on his knee. He watches my reflected eyes, not the windshield. “We’re bait,” he says, not asking.
“We’re measuring,” I answer. “Bait is meat. We’re a clock.”
I pull out from the curb into a street that smells like fresh rain and brake pad. The algae facade behind us breathes teal; the drones above the boulevard thrum like patient cicadas. Harbor Eleven’s “resilience” fest banners flap damply on power poles, left over from the last storm like compliments that never found a mouth.
“Blue is abort,” I add, quick. “Black is emergency extraction. Green means we ride the plan even if it pinches.”
“Green,” he says, immediate. His mouth tries to be playful; his knuckles tell on him.
At 20:15, the first social feed pulses: a tabloid stringer account retweets June’s bait with four shellfish emojis and a lighthouse. I feel the city’s attention pivot like a school of fish.
“One minute,” June narrates. “Bots are nibbling. Human eyes in thirty seconds. I’ve got a concierge bike pool app opening its dispatch console.”
We slide through a light that turns yellow on our bumper. The road shines black and new. Ahead, the marina’s tide clock glows in its glass booth, hands insisting on a world three minutes faster than truth. Everyone pretends to plan; no one is actually ready. I set my watch by the lie anyway.
“Two minutes,” June says. “Palmetto subnet sniffed Dockyard K and pinged a logistics account. Arcady Shore by any other name.”
I turn right toward the waterfront where the hurricane barrier rises like ribs. Under those arches is false safety: a public park by day, blind camera zones by night, perfect for anyone who wants to be unremembered.
“Three minutes,” June says. “A courier pool just rerouted a bike from Midtown to your cross street. Yellow slicker, carbon frame, oversized battery box that doesn’t match brand spec. That’s not a soup run.”
“Copy,” I say. I feel Elias angle his body toward the window, measuring angles like a man who built machines before meetings. “Eyes right,” I add as we pass a knot of dock workers trading favors in the shadow of a fish mural—a real market, real people, and a dozen phones that make rumor into road flare.
My phone’s decoy feed buzzes with the echo when the tabloid account replies to itself: who’s got pics? The city inhales.
“Four minutes,” June says. “Private security channel in the Palmetto enclave just popped a location marker near Dockyard K. It’s masked as valet traffic. Cute.”
A courier bike slashes across two lanes behind us and lands in the pocket of our route like it rehearsed the step. Yellow slicker, black bag, helmet mirror flashing. They ride a little too left, a little too centered, the way surveillance keeps both exits open.
“I have our first friend,” I say. “Slicker just turned on Crescent.”
“Marked,” June says. “I’ll paint them yellow in my map for symmetry.”
Elias’s laugh is a breath that couldn’t pass inspection. “You do color-coding for your enemies?”
“For their utility.” I take us down along the barrier road and let the arches swallow half the sky. The wind tastes like iodine and old rope. “We’re going under the park.”
“Which means?” he asks, voice lower.
“Which means the city forgets to look for a while,” I say. “And they remember in six.”
“Five minutes,” June cuts in. “Palmetto subnet just spun up a private drone. High-altitude, slow rotors, wants to be a night heron.”
A soft shadow crosses the car; I don’t look up. I look down, to the shine of water puddled where the barrier’s footing meets the road, to the reflection of the tide clock’s white hands jittering where they shouldn’t be.
“Bike just pinged their handler,” June adds. “Packet pattern matches Arcady’s modem farm. Hello, Sable.”
I keep the speed legal plus a hair, the way rich sons believe laws love them. As we slip deeper under the arches, the cameras go from bored to blind. The resin sconce lights along the walkway pour amber, pooling soft shadows where handrails cast ribs on concrete. Kids chalked hopscotch squares here this afternoon; the numbers still show despite the rain, their chalk ghosts stubborn as Lila’s fish patch in that grainy frame.
The courier bike slows to film our rear plate, a tiny tremor in the handlebar betraying fingers that want to hurry. “We’re on stage,” Elias murmurs, tone slipping into the playful bravado he uses when he can’t fix the code.
“Smile that lawyer-proof smile,” I say. I hook left under a lower arch where the park landscaping forms a tunnel of ornamental grasses. Cameras here nap hard; maintenance forgot to wake them after the last festival.
“Six minutes,” June says, exact as a slap. “Courier pushed a vicinity alert. Palmetto’s private drone just shifted position. Two unmarked sedans coordinating by plate recognition—one on Harbor Avenue, one on Fifth. Also, one gray tail just turned onto Seafarer, behind you by three blocks.”
“Copy,” I say. I downshift with a touch and listen to the engine voice settle. “There’s your lag.”
“Six on the nose,” she says. “Tide clock calls three minutes fast; Arcady adds three to double-check your shadow.”
“They don’t trust their clocks,” Elias says, approving in a way that isn’t praise.
The courier veers toward us at the next intersection, then pretends interest in a busker packed under an awning. I could tap the brake; I don’t. Let them see what they want: the heir, the date, the soft evening drive. I let them ride us between arches where the city’s memory leaks.
“Tail at two blocks,” June narrates. “Not on autopilot. He’s riding the yellows. See the hesitations?”
The light ahead blurs from green to yellow and pauses like a held breath. In my mirror, the gray car lifts its nose, then tucks back. An AI would punch probabilities and gun it; a human hopes yellow loves him and then gets religion.
“Human,” I confirm. “Hand on the wheel, not a loop.”
“Good,” June says. “Humans make mistakes. Drones make the same ones forever.”
I cut right into a maintenance lane that smells like wet concrete and salt. The arches lean in; beyond them the marina masts range like thin teeth. The tide clock in its booth ticks on, three minutes fast, truth’s heckler. I mark the time: 20:20. June’s dashboard agrees with a tiny ding.
“Bike is going to try the old ‘forgot my wallet’ trick,” June says. “They’ll swerve like they need the curb and put a camera in your lap.”
“I’ll give them a lap,” I say. “Just not mine.”
“We could turn back,” Elias says. The worry hides behind calm, but I hear it in how he leaves the sentence unfinished.
“We don’t turn,” I answer. “We curve.”
“Curve where?”
“Under the last arch—the one with the bronze plaque about the resilience festivals.” I taste the civic sugar on the word resilience. “The CCTV grid there naps deeper, thanks to a celebratory short that no one reported.”
He huffs a breath that counts as a laugh. “You really do keep receipts on the city.”
“I keep recipes,” I correct, and take the curve.
Ahead, the bronze plaque gleams like a coin at the bottom of a shallow pool. I kill my headlamps for two beats, then bring them up low. The bike brakes hard in surprise. The gray tail behind us catches yellow again and makes a moral choice; it slows. Humans hesitate. In the pocket we made, I pivot us into a service turnout that reads AUTHORITY ONLY to people who haven’t learned that signs love theater.
I stop. I angle my body toward Elias, turn down the dash lights, and pull his hand to my mouth. He startles; then he doesn’t. “Pretend to be kissed,” I whisper. “It’s a ritual the city respects.”
His smile hits late and lights us both. I press my lips to his knuckles, soft enough to read as sweet, long enough for the courier’s lens to gorge. The copper coil along my gum hums at the contact like a small machine pleased to be useful. I count to four and let go.
“That one felt less like pretending,” he says, voice low enough to keep.
“Because it was useful,” I say, and put us back in gear.
We roll out as the light cycles to red for the bike and a moral victory for the gray sedan. The courier curses into a wind no one owns and rides on like a hired thought.
“I’ve got a cross-channel ping,” June says. “Arcady asking for a ‘soft box’ unit to pick up on Harbor Avenue. They’re trying to funnel you to the ferry roundabout.”
“We’ll beat them to their own shadow,” I say. “Left at the bait stand, straight under the arch, then jog right past the tide clock. We’ll let it look like we went into the roundabout. We’ll actually slide the cut-through by the maintenance shed.”
“Copy,” she says. “And… I’ve got eyes on your gray. He’s doing the same small sin at every yellow. He’s not hired muscle; he’s freelance. License plate came up noisy when I poked. Palmetto House valet contractor, registered to a ‘vendor services’ shell.”
“Their subcontract of a subcontract,” I say. “Sable puts three hands on the steering wheel so no one’s fingerprints fit the glove.”
“I’m taking that line,” June says. “It’s mean.”
We glide past the tide clock’s booth. Its hands grin three minutes early, every night. I log the mark: Sable’s people deploy at six. Give or take weather, give or take morale. We can ride that window like a lift.
“You’ve got what you wanted,” Elias says, eyes on the gray in the mirror. “Time.”
“Time and texture,” I say. “Their network moves like lightning, then pauses for permission. That pause is where lives get out.”
The ferry roundabout yawns to our left, a loop of wet asphalt where buses belch and tourists fail at rain. I skim it, kiss its edge, then slip into the service cut-through shadowed by a maintenance shed that smells like cold oil and rope. The arches here press so low the car feels taller. We emerge on the far side in a pocket of quiet so sudden it pops my ears.
“Bike lost you,” June reports, pleased. “Gray is trying bravado. He—oh—he just chose wrong. Yellow loved him not.”
“Goodnight, gray,” I say.
“Not yet,” Elias says, and he’s right. The gray eases through the red like it pays taxes directly to the light. It jerks once when the front left dips into a pothole that knows how to hold a grudge. The car limps a fraction; humans keep going. The driver leans forward, hand high on the wheel, face shadowed.
“I want a look at him,” I say. I stop again under the last arch where the park lights paint strips of gold across the windshield. The rain patters on concrete and the smell of the river climbs the air like a story told twice.
The gray pulls alongside in the lane over, then tucks its nose half a car length back, the way tails pretend to be considerate. The driver glances left. His face floats up in the bleed of our light: lean, late thirties, barbered hair, a polite jaw. He lifts a leather fold to his window and flashes something at me like we’re equals at a gate.
Elias inhales. “Is that—”
“House steward,” I say, already knowing. The badge is Palmetto’s, clean as good silver. My fingers curl on the wheel. The steward’s smile touches his eyes and not his mouth, exactly like it did when he offered my stolen key back. He touches two fingers to his brow, a salute that isn’t.
“Should I wave?” Elias asks, dry.
“We let him believe we didn’t see,” I say. “We saw enough.”
I pull forward, calm as etiquette. We rejoin the more public street where cameras remember to be awake. The courier is gone, the drones hang higher, and the city resumes its polite hum. The gray stays two cars back, chastened or pretending to be.
“So.” Elias rests his hand, palm up, on the console like an invitation I can accept or ignore. I don’t take it; I put one fingertip on the line at his wrist so the camera can’t read it as a decision. “We have six minutes.”
“We have six minutes,” I echo. “And a human who hesitates at yellow.”
“You sound satisfied,” he says, watching me not the road.
“Grimly,” I admit. “It’s not joy. It’s arithmetic.”
“June?” he asks, because he’s learned that the van owns a piece of our air.
“You’ve got your lag,” she says, soft. “And I’ve got a map of every arch that naps at night. You can make something with that.”
“I can make an escape,” I say. “And I can make an entrance.”
We pass the marina. The tide clock smiles wrong at us, the way the city always does. I keep my voice level. “Tomorrow we use their pause to ride a shaft they don’t know exists.”
“A shaft,” Elias repeats. “You’re going to tell me about it?”
“In the morning,” I say, because the morning is where we’ll stage a drill and call it safety. “Tonight we go home slowly and give them nothing easy.”
The gray settles behind a delivery truck. The road widens. The algae glow from the Spire ahead makes a river on the asphalt. I aim for it, steady. The experiment is done; the clock is set.
June clears her throat. “Small epilogue,” she says. “The concierge list that ate my leak? Someone just commented: ‘Don’t worry, Arcady’s on it.’ The account’s avatar is a bronze plaque.”
“Resilience,” I say, and can’t keep the bite out of the word.
The gray signals like a gentleman and turns off before we do. As it passes the corner, the steward’s badge glints on the dash—Palmetto’s crest catching light the way a hooked fish catches air. He doesn’t look back.
“That isn’t the last time we see him,” Elias says, almost kind.
“No,” I say. “But next time he won’t see us.”
The tide clock clicks its lie in my rearview. I hold the number in my mouth like a secret and steer for the Spire, already marking the six minutes I’ll steal tomorrow when we drop into the river’s hidden throat.