Chapter 67: Canal Ghosts

Bekka Hayes planted her stance inside the tape line, holding the tribunal seal against the Association captain while recovery crews secured the crater.

The officer tried to wave corporate transports past the barrier posts, but she blocked the path with wind gathering across her clenched knuckles.

"Apex maintains recovery clearance under emergency council directives," the captain insisted, checking a datapad while gesturing toward the pod. "We are authorized to take custody of all technical assets recovered on this canal."

"Those directives died the second your executive started transmitting alien targeting codes," Bekka answered, advancing until the officer lowered his screen. "This basin is an active crime scene, and my tribunal credential supersedes your corporate recovery permit."

Kessler shifted against his restraints on the ground, groaning as the tight bands bit into his wrists while two guards held his shoulders down.

"This recovery belongs to Apex logistics," Kessler muttered, spitting blood onto the ground while glaring through the mist. "You have no legal authority to hold corporate officers when orbital drop protocols are active."

"You lost your corporate standing when your cutters breached that hull," Bekka replied, indicating the badge pinned to her collar. "You are Association evidence now, and you stay in these cuffs until the tribunal convenes."

Behind her on the basin slope, Leo watched the dock workers gathering along the perimeter mist while Kage lengthened across the ground.

A graying crane operator named Dane stepped past the barrier posts, staring at the mask with grease-stained hands hanging loose at his sides.

"Are you running out on us again?" Dane asked, his voice cutting through the hiss of cooling plating. "Every time council badges show up down here, the people with masks disappear and the slums take the bill."

"I am standing right where you left me," Leo answered, keeping his eyes on the water. "No one is leaving District Nine until this sky clears."

"The lid is still up," Dane said, aiming a thumb toward the vessel blotting out the clouds. "It feels like an anvil waiting to drop on our heads."

"Then keep your crews deep inside the lower shelters until we break it."

Tempest circled the warehouse roof above the basin, watching corporate aircraft hover outside the exclusion zone while the captain signed Bekka’s transfer log.

The officers guided Kessler into a transport, sealing the hatch before any remaining corporate drones could attempt a remote override.

They moved behind a crane near the water, slipping into the alcove where corporate surveillance cameras could not track their faces.

Sierra dropped from the gantry without a sound, landing between them while projecting a blue holographic feed from her palm.

"The District One chair is still broadcasting," she whispered, tracking the flickering stream of data flowing upward toward the flagship. "Gruber got kicked off the council, but his automated uplink never stopped sending targeting packets to the fleet."

"What kind of targeting?" Bekka asked, keeping her back to the open canal while monitoring the perimeter guards.

"A full orbital bombardment solution aimed right at our canals," Sierra answered, selecting the transmission node with her thumb. "If that chair completes its cycle before nightfall, District Nine gets erased from the map."

She flicked the frequency log across her screen, revealing a medical feed tied to sub-level forty inside the central research facility.

"Richter’s old frequency is pinging that basement," Sierra added, her mouth drawing tight. "A man named Rhodes is holding forty-two unregistered healers in cold storage, running the exact same harvest pipeline that tried to take Luna."

Bekka squeezed her knuckles until the gauntlets clicked, staring through the slit between the support pillars toward the crowded streets.

"I cannot come with you," she said, her voice dropping into a rough rasp. "If the appointed liaison vanishes from the canal, the council declares District Nine a free-fire zone within ten minutes."

Leo met her gaze across the shadow, feeling the weight of her political shield locking her to the surface.

"Hold the tape line and keep the captain honest," he said, turning toward the conduit behind the crane. "Sierra and I will kill the chair from underneath."

"Do not get caught in their walls," Bekka warned, glancing back toward the flashing lights of the perimeter wagons. "If you die down there, I will tear that tower down myself."

Tempest stayed perched along the harbor line to watch the airspace while Kage slid beneath the grate, drawing them into the darkness.

They climbed through a shaft beneath the medical tower, squeezing between pipes while patrol drones hummed two levels above them.

Sierra moved along the forward seam like a ribbon, pressing her palm against the wall while guiding his frame through the awkward bends.

A searchlight swept across the ceiling grate, forcing her to shove him backward into a recess where their bodies pressed together.

"Stay still," she whispered, flattening her chest against his ribs while the beam crawled across the wall beside his shoulder.

She breathed in quick bursts against his neck, digging her fingernails into his coat while their heartbeats hammered together in the dark.

"If I step wrong, I drop through the wall seam," she breathed, shivering against his chest. "If you step wrong, they turn you into meat."

The sharp dread of losing him in the architecture flared through her chest, sending heat across the link between them.

A ripple ignited behind his eyes as her spatial awareness flooded his mind, sharing every blind corridor and patrol route in real time.

[ Reciprocal Bloom ]

[ Partner: Sierra ]

[ Want: High | Shared Survival ]

[ Partner Surge: Shadow-Communion Unlocked ]

[ Partner Resonance: 65% -> 75% ]

[ Bloom Ladder: 50% ]

Moving through her doubled vision, he slipped past the camera sweeps while she drifted through the boundary lines without triggering an alarm.

They dropped through the ceiling exhaust and landed inside a gallery lined with rows of illuminated containment cylinders.

Leo stepped between the rows, listening to the wet gurgle of breathing tubes as dozens of healers floated inside fluid.

Their mouths hanging open too long beneath the respirators, a few pairs of eyes tracking the movement behind the glass.

"These are not inventory crates," Sierra whispered, lowering her daggers as she stared at a girl drifting in the tube. "They are people."

"Apex built an entire factory out of stolen lives," he said, his hand resting on the hilt of the Null Razor in its scabbard. "Gruber wanted to make Luna the centerpiece of this floor."

A violent concussion shattered the armory door across the chamber, throwing shrapnel across the floor while smoke rolled into the aisle.

Four Gene-Lieutenants emerged through the ruined doorway, their synthetic muscles shifting in unison as they mirrored his stance.

The lead lieutenant lunged with a brutal open palm strike, and Leo raised his forearm to drink the incoming kinetic force into his core.

The blow smashed through his guard and struck his ribs with a harsh crunch, bypassing his absorption and hurling him across the floor.

"GAAH-!"

Leo choked on a spray of blood, crashing against the base of a tube while his fractured ribs flared with sharp agony.

"Kh...!"

He clutched his broken chest on the floor, coughing up blood while the four clones advanced in silence with drawn blades.