The Hydrarchy office sat high enough on Khelt that the air smelled less like fish and more like antiseptic. The corridor leading to it was too clean, too straight, walls lined with light panels instead of cables.
Gin hated it immediately.
Tamsin walked fast, anger stiffening her spine. People moved out of her way. No one met her eyes.
They reached a reinforced door with a polished plate beside it:
SECTOR ADMINISTRATION — HYDRARCHY AUTHORITY
Beneath that, neatly engraved:
Administrator Kael Marren
Compliance Officer Venn Holst
Tamsin slammed her small fist against the door.
After a moment, it slid open with a hiss.
The office beyond was all sharp lines and controlled climate. A wide desk of repurposed old-world wood sat near the far wall, flanked by maps of shipping lanes. A Hydrarchy flag hung behind it, pristine.
Administrator Marren was nowhere in sight.
Instead, Venn Holst sat sprawled in the desk chair like he owned the place.
He was lean and wiry, black hair slicked back, uniform jacket unbuttoned at the throat. A thin chain glinted around his neck, its charm tucked beneath his shirt. His eyes were pale—not the washed-out kind of someone who lived in dim lower decks, but the sharp, cold kind of someone who looked at people and saw numbers.
When he saw Tamsin, his mouth twisted.
"Not you again," he said. "Little Rell, I told you earlier, there's nothing—"
"There is something," Tamsin burst out. "You took my dad!"
Venn sighed theatrically and leaned back. "We detained a contracted shipwright who violated the terms of his work agreement. That is all."
"You forced him into that contract," she shouted. "You said if he didn't sign, you'd cut our rations and take my apprentice badge—"
"Please don't accuse the Hydrarchy of coercion in the Hydrarchy's office," Venn said, bored. "It's tacky."
Gin stepped forward before Tamsin could throw herself at the desk.
"Hi," he said. "Gin Farcast. I own the skiff this whole little performance is about."
Venn's eyes flicked to him, quickly sizing him up before dismissing him. "Independent," he said. "Hull-9 accent. Floodborn signature. Hm. You do make interesting friends, little Rell."
Gin's skin prickled at Floodborn signature. So they could sense that?
Venn folded his hands on the desk. "Rell is contracted as a primary shipwright for sanctioned Hydrarchy assets and official Hull maintenance. He is prohibited from providing repair services to unregistered private vessels that have not paid the appropriate regulatory fees. He did so. Repeatedly."
"To keep my boat from sinking," Gin said. "You'd prefer I drown offshore and take my Rimark with me?"
"The Hull's obligations end at the dock line," Venn stated. "If you cannot afford our fees, you cannot afford independence."
Tamsin's face flushed bright red. "You're punishing him because he helped people. That's wrong."
Venn smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.
"I'm enforcing a contract he signed. Actions have consequences, little Rell. Your father knew the terms. He broke them. Now he will work off the damages in a controlled environment where his talents can be directed properly. The dry-works are not a death sentence."
"You put him below the waterline," she hissed. "He gets sick when he can't see the sky."
"Then perhaps he should have thought of that before—"
He stood as he spoke, rounding the desk. As he reached them, he lifted a hand toward Tamsin like he was swatting away a particularly persistent gull.
"Run along, child. This is done."
His fingers brushed her shoulder—
And Gin moved.
He stepped between them, catching Venn's wrist mid-air.
"Don't touch her," he said.
Everything in the room went still.
Venn looked down at Gin's hand on his wrist. Then up at Gin's face.
There it was—that flicker of true interest.
"You must be new," he said softly. "No one touches me in this office."
Gin's bones pulsed in warning.
"We can learn each other's boundaries together," Gin spoke, the sarcasm sharp in his voice.
Venn's smile thinned. "Let go, Farcast."
"No."
Venn's free hand came up, deceptively casual, and clamped onto Gin's shoulder.
The world detonated.
It wasn't pain like Gin knew from cuts, pressure, or even the burning invasion of the trench microbes. This was electric: instantaneous, bright, and merciless. Every nerve from his neck to his fingertips lit up, flooding his body with white static.
His muscles seized. His jaw snapped shut so hard his teeth ached.
His Floodborn strain reacted on instinct.
Heat surged from his bones, racing down his arm in a frantic flood. Bone-forge roared to life, trying to shape anything, something, to answer the threat. Blood left his palm in a hot rush, refusing to fall, hungry to harden.
The forming spear warped mid-birth—metal-dark blood jerking sideways, twisting into a half-melted spike that jutted from his hand like a broken nail. It shot past Venn's ribs, missing by a handspan, and slammed into the office wall instead, burying itself deep with a wet, ugly chunk.
Gin would've laughed at that on a different day. A bent spear, was that the best he could manage? The pain was simply too much; he couldn't focus.
Right now, he could barely remember how to breathe.
His lungs refused to work in sync. His vision strobed—office, ceiling, Hydrarchy flag—each frame separated by white flickers of nerve-burn.
The current crawled deeper, licking along his bones, making his Floodborn colony shudder.
Gin's bones snarled back, but it came out as a strangled choke.
He dimly registered Tamsin yelling, small hands beating at Venn's arm. The compliance officer ignored her entirely.
"You feel that?" Venn asked conversationally, as if they were discussing the weather. "Jellyfin is a very tidy strain. It's not about brute force—it's about control. This neurotoxin I'm releasing into your bloodstream, it teaches the body to obey."
Gin tried to pull away. His muscles didn't listen.
"Now imagine that scaled," Venn went on. "An entire Hull's worth of contracts. Obedience written into blood."
His grip tightened.
A fresh wave of electricity ripped through Gin, turning his limbs to lead and rubber simultaneously. His knees buckled.
The last thing he saw before the world narrowed to a tunnel was the jagged spear of his own blood quivering in the wall, dripping slowly.
Pathetic, his forge muttered into his bones.
Shut up, Gin thought back, and then the tunnel collapsed.