The Pinch smelled like every other dive in the Fringe — salt, rust, and the particular rot that came from wood spending too many years half-submerged. Iris sat in the back corner where she always sat, her chair propped against the wall, one boot on the rung of the table. The whiskey in front of her was warm and tasted like it had been filtered through an old boot, but it was cheap and it did the job.
Around her, the usual crowd. Salvagers mostly, the ones who hadn't drowned yet. They had the look — sun-damaged skin, scars on their hands from barnacles and broken glass, eyes that didn't quite focus right after too many deep dives. Some of them were loud tonight. Coyle, especially.
"Segment Seven," he was saying, loud enough for the whole room to hear. "Thirty meters down, visibility maybe two feet. But I got in, got the goods, got out."
He slapped a hand on the bar. His jacket was new. Canvas, not the usual recycled wetsuit material everyone else wore. Someone had paid him recently.
"Bullshit," someone muttered.
"I'm telling you—"
"Segment Seven's been picked clean for years," the woman next to him said. She had a bandage on her neck, fresh. "Nothing down there but crabs and corpses."
Coyle grinned. His teeth were too white. Implants, maybe, or he was younger than he looked. "That's what they want you to think."
Iris watched him over the rim of her glass. He was lying, but not about the job. He'd been somewhere. Done something. The jacket proved it. But Segment Seven? No. Too easy. Too safe. Whatever he'd pulled up, he'd gone deeper than he was saying.
She filed that away and went back to her drink.
The Pinch was built into the ribcage of an old cargo ship that had run aground during the first panic. Someone had cut it open, welded in some scrap walls, and called it a bar. The floor was uneven. When the tide came in, seawater seeped up through the cracks and pooled in the low spots. You learned not to put your bag down.
Through the gaps in the hull, Iris could see the Fringe stretched out in every direction. Containers stacked like a rusty maze. Tarps and sheet metal patching holes. Clotheslines strung between buildings. Lights flickering on and off as generators coughed and died and got kicked back to life. Beyond it all, the water. Always the water.
It was higher than it had been last year.
She took another drink.
"Iris Salter."
The voice came from her left. She didn't turn.
"Not interested, Ezra."
"You don't even know what I'm offering."
"Don't need to."
He slid into the chair across from her anyway. Ezra Kade was thin in a way that made him look taller than he was, all sharp angles and nervous energy. He dressed too well for the Fringe — clean shirt, jacket without patches. He smiled too much. Iris had never trusted him, but she'd worked with him before. He paid on time. That counted for something.
"One job," he said.
"I just got back from a job."
"I know. Henderson's rig, down in the flooded district. Pulled up some copper wiring and a crate of antibiotics. Good haul."
Iris looked at him now. "You keeping tabs on me?"
"I keep tabs on everyone." He leaned back, fingers drumming on the table. "That's why I'm good at what I do."
"What do you want?"
"Like I said. One job. Serious money."
"How serious?"
He told her.
She set her glass down. "You're full of shit."
"I'm really not."
"Nobody pays that for a dive."
"Nobody pays that for a normal dive," Ezra said. He glanced around, then lowered his voice. "This one's different."
"Different how?"
"Segment Nine."
The table next to them went quiet. Not obvious. Just a pause in the conversation, the kind you wouldn't notice unless you were listening for it. Iris noticed.
"No," she said.
"Hear me out—"
"No."
"Iris—"
"I don't care what you're offering. I'm not going to Segment Nine."
Ezra didn't push. He just sat there, watching her. Waiting.
That was the thing about Ezra. He knew when to talk and when to let the silence do the work.
Iris picked up her glass again. It was almost empty. She stared into it like there might be an answer at the bottom.
Segment Nine.
Everyone knew about Segment Nine. It had been one of the first districts to go under after the Separation, back when people still thought the water would stop rising. They'd evacuated most of it. Not all. There were stories about what happened to the people who stayed too long. And then there were the divers who'd gone down in the years since. Some of them came back up. Some of them came back wrong.
Confused. Sick. Seeing things that weren't there.
Most of them didn't come back at all.
"What's down there?" Iris asked.
"A case. Sealed. Specific location. In and out."
"What's in the case?"
"I don't know."
"Bullshit."
"I really don't." Ezra spread his hands. "I'm just the middleman. Someone wants it. They're paying me to find someone good enough to get it. You're good enough."
"There are other divers."
"Not like you."
She didn't say anything.
Ezra leaned forward. "Look. I know your situation. I know you're trying to get out of here. This job? This is your ticket. Enough money to bribe your way into Apex, maybe even Sanctuary if you're smart about it. Clean water. Real food. A roof that doesn't leak."
"And all I have to do is dive into the one place every smart diver avoids."
"Yeah."
Iris looked past him, out through the gap in the hull. The water was dark tonight. No moon. Just the faint glow of bioluminescent algae that hadn't been there five years ago. It pulsed like a slow heartbeat.
She thought about her room. The container she rented for twice what it was worth. The mold in the corner she couldn't scrub out. The sound of her neighbor coughing through the walls every night.
She thought about Jonah.
"When?" she asked.
Ezra smiled. "Tomorrow night. I'll send you the coordinates."
"Half up front."
"Done."
He stood, dropped a credit chit on the table, and walked out.
Iris sat there for a long time after he left. The whiskey was gone. The bar was getting louder. Coyle was still talking, spinning some new lie for anyone who'd listen.
She pocketed the chit and stood.
Outside, the air was thick with salt and diesel smoke. The Fringe never really slept, but it got quieter after midnight. Fewer generators running. Fewer voices. Just the water lapping against metal and the distant groan of the stacks shifting in the wind.
Iris walked the long way back to her container. Old habit. Check your corners. Watch for followers. The Fringe wasn't the kind of place where you got mugged — everyone was too busy surviving — but desperation made people stupid.
She passed the market, shuttered for the night. Passed the comm station where people paid by the minute to send messages inland, hoping someone would answer. Passed the row of containers where the sick were kept, the ones with the cough that didn't go away.
Mrs. Lao was sitting outside her door, like always. She was old enough to remember the before times, back when Boston was a real city and not a graveyard under fifty feet of water. She'd made it out of Shanghai on one of the last boats. That was twenty years ago.
"Evening, Iris," she said.
"Mrs. Lao."
"You look troubled."
"I'm fine."
"Mm." The old woman tilted her head. "You take a job from that snake Ezra?"
Iris stopped. "How'd you know?"
"I see him follow you out of the Pinch. I know his face. He only comes around when he wants something dangerous done."
"It's just a dive."
"Where?"
Iris hesitated.
Mrs. Lao's expression shifted. "Segment Nine."
"It's good money."
"It's blood money. People die in Segment Nine."
"People die everywhere."
The old woman stood. She was small, barely came up to Iris's shoulder, but there was something in her eyes that made Iris feel like a kid getting scolded.
"The water there dreams," Mrs. Lao said. "It remembers things. You go down, you don't come back the same."
"I don't believe in ghost stories."
"I didn't say ghosts."
Mrs. Lao reached into her pocket and pulled out something small. A charm, woven from old fishing line and bits of sea glass. She pressed it into Iris's hand.
"Take it anyway," she said. "For an old woman's peace of mind."
Iris looked down at the charm. It was worthless. Superstition. But Mrs. Lao was already shuffling back inside, and it felt wrong to refuse.
"Thanks," Iris said.
The old woman waved without turning around.
Iris pocketed the charm and kept walking.
Her container was on the third level of the stacks, accessible by a rusted ladder that swayed when you climbed it. The door was reinforced — she'd done that herself — and the lock was new. Inside, it was small. Bed. Table. A camping stove. A shelf with her gear.
She locked the door behind her and sat on the edge of the bed.
The credit chit was real. She checked it twice. Enough money to get out. Enough to stop diving, stop risking her neck every week for scraps.
Enough to finally let go.
But she wouldn't. She knew that.
Because Jonah had taken a job two years ago. A simple dive, he'd said. In and out. And he'd never come back.
Everyone said he was dead. Probably was. But Iris kept diving anyway. Kept going down into the ruins, into the dark, looking for some sign. A body. A clue. Anything.
She told herself it was about closure.
She knew it was about hope.
Iris lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Water stains formed shapes in the dim light. Faces, almost.
Tomorrow night, she'd go to Segment Nine.
And maybe, just maybe, she'd find something worth the risk.
Or maybe she'd just drown like everyone else.
She closed her eyes.
Outside, the water rose another inch.