Julian turned away from the rain-streaked reinforced glass of Studio B.
Down at Pier 14, the black-painted bow of Nautilus-04 cut through the harbor chop, its twin diesels dragging at fifty-eight cycles.
“She’s sixty feet of cold iron and salt rust,” Mac Cole said. His heavy boots thumped across the floorboards as he stared through the glass. “No deckhand on the rails.
No lookout on the wheelhouse roof. Just automated rudder chains and that low engine drone.”
“Can we rush the gangplank?” Elena asked. She set her silver medical shears down on the counter. “If nobody is on deck, Mac and Julian could secure the wheelhouse before the lines even cinch to the bollards.”
“We can’t,” Lin Mei said. She adjusted her wire-rimmed glasses with a chalk-dusted thumb. “Not unless we want our lungs filled with salt water before dawn.”
Julian nodded once. “Lin is right. A maritime tender operating out of New Marrow isn’t a civilian ferry.
It’s a closed contract circuit. If we set foot on that deck without certified shift manifests, the boat’s automated log marks us as stowaways.
