Marsh light flattens the world. The rail rides a causeway shelf pinned to sheet pile, water nosing sleepers like a dog with opinions. Wind comes broadside and insists on renting his balance. He becomes small, elbows set along lash, cheek to timber when the gusts find a new price for standing up.
Salt gets into the cut on his lip and writes its own sentence. Ahead, a pair of frames mark a tide gate, flood steel hung from hoist drums, chain bellies catenaried across the gauge, teeth waiting to call men names. A radio above the gate says something like a prayer with scheduling in it.
He keeps iron and trims speed to a truth he can pay for. The near chain's plate weld looks cleaner than its brothers. He buys the breath he needs.
[WIND CANNON: LV.1 (Proficiency +1)]
Air coins hard. Plate coughs. Chain sags a thumb. A throw man on the stand raises his palm instead of his rifle. The radio says 'After rider' like it's tired of being right. He drops to boards, lets the strap comb through teeth, and threads the belly the chain made into a door.
Hooks reach off the catwalk with all the confidence of men who haven't been corrected yet. One snags the lash and thinks it found a life. He opens brass, lays hiss along the strap until glue gives up and curls like fish scales; the hook learns the pry bar's tone where hinge becomes jaw.
[MECHANICAL FABRICATION: LV.1 (Proficiency +1)]
The hand behind the hook tries his head and discovers the lesson is transferable.
[WIND CANNON: LV.1 (Proficiency +1)]
Bone changes jobs. Fingers become less sure of nouns. Wind lifts the smell of diesel burned correctly from somewhere east where rules still collect a paycheck.
He clears the gate seam and stands enough to own steering. The causeway kinks; sheet pile throws his reflection back at him in long black strips. A refrigerator lies dead across the gauge where someone's plan ran out of people. Sand has shouldered into the web, rail head matt with salt.
Rope. Two wraps around a rusted post. Tail to axle. He makes a capstan out of the speeder and a winch out of his breath.
[MECHANICAL FABRICATION: LV.1 (Proficiency +1)]
The fridge skitters crabwise, grinds paint off on spikes, and surrenders to gravity. Sand kisses the tires like it wants to make promises; the belt carries it away in a hiss of bad math solved by motion.
A sign on a pole with everything but intent worn off reads EAST with patient block letters. Foam chews at sleepers and decides it has time to grow teeth later. He takes the next gust low and lets the rail be the answer.
At the sheet-pile corner a catwalk draws a drop-net wristy and confident. Cone-dressed throwstand hides the cable belly like shame. He sights where bracket meets habit and edits the plan.
[WIND CANNON: LV.1 (Proficiency +1)]
Cable shears. Net slumps to become a blanket. A boy's voice barks a word that wants to be victory and isn't. He keeps line and lets someone else learn timing costs.
The shelf narrows to a strip of rails fitted onto concrete with a weir spill to the right, water stepping down in white ribs toward a lower pool; left, marsh grass tries to be forest with a salt budget. Ahead, a seawall yard with a square building painted the color of doctrine, a home signal dark but polished, ladder points sulking easy to misread.
A harness man stands behind crash rail at the first throwstand with a radio and a face that remembers being nineteen and wrong. 'Hold!' he calls. 'Crossing the lead!'
Rhett shows left palm and taps two fingers to ballast. 'East.'
A shunted flat drifts in the far ladder, a tug pushing with throat idle and patient. The latch pin in the stand's link shows bright where a wrench loved it last week. He pays it the coin that keeps being accepted.
[WIND CANNON: LV.1 (Proficiency +1)]
Pin quits. Lever drops. Tongue kisses. The radio gives up a weary 'After rider' and makes policy sound like mercy. He does not thank anyone; he goes through where thanks would have stood around.
The flat pauses with its center sill making a rumor-sized hole above the gauge. He makes himself rumor-sized. Brake beams pass, footboard takes an inadvisable bite of strap and spits it back, and then he is clear with a breath he will spend carefully.
[SPEED: LV.1 (Progress +1)]
Beyond the ladder the yard ends in seawall: sheet pile stacked to a horizon that forgot color. A surge door mounts the trench mouth—a slab of steel that can descend until water becomes history. It is already coming down, chains walking it toward obedience. Past it, a tank belly noses across a farther crossing, pushed by a tug that enjoys being inevitable.
Two doors. One life. Salt on his tongue. He doesn't blink.
The surge door's near chain plays out from a drum that creaks in a way that hasn't heard oil today. The plate at the belly weld is new metal, a clean invitation. He sights ahead of where he'll be and makes the steel remember it was ore first.
[WIND CANNON: LV.1 (Proficiency +1)]
Weld spits light. The chain drops a hand. The slab pauses as if polite. Men on stands look at radios and make faces like they always knew this would be the day.
'After rider!' someone yells like a man who'd rather be believed than right. The door keeps losing the argument with gravity one inch at a time.
He flattens to timber and hires breath to be silent labor. Teeth in the door's lower edge are honest; they want him to be math someone else balances. He becomes the kind of number that refuses to be totaled.
The slab's rubber lip tastes strap and finds the new fabric he stole from a pallet yard. The buckle checks its beliefs and keeps the marriage. Sparks go backward and pretend to be meteors with schedules.
Hooks from the catwalk over the trench try his lash in a last-minute audit. He opens brass and lays hiss along the strap. Glue curls and lifts like skin after too much sun; the hook changes careers to be river inventory instead.
[MECHANICAL FABRICATION: LV.1 (Proficiency +1)]
Under the slab the trench air is cold and specific, a lung that belongs to engineers who won their arguments. The door takes another inch with the stubbornness of clocks. He spends posture like a man raiding savings between paychecks.
The far crossing appears as a black rectangle of brake tanks and linkage: the tank cut has taken its place across his future. Center sill waits, indifferent and just large enough to be a theory. He wants to measure for it with eyes and time; salt and steel tell him to trust the version of himself who survived the last ten minutes.
Wind blows cross and wet through the mouth; his cheek slides on timber shiny with old oil and sea. He keeps wrist flat, finger where it belongs, and lets the deck speak one high, honest note.
The surge door lip drags leather and decides it can live with his existence. The slab clears his spine by the thickness of poor manners. He is already sighting the brace under the tank where metal becomes hinge.
[WIND CANNON: LV.1 (Proficiency +1)]
A hanger twists open into a breath that isn't owed. He takes it. The center sill keeps its secret like a gentleman. Footboard steals a shaving of strap by way of lecture; the marriage holds for now.
A hand drops from the catwalk count-quick to make his head a lever he doesn't need. He edits the wrist's employment with a short lesson delivered at speed. The hand vanishes with opinions. Water accepts the rest.
[WIND CANNON: LV.1 (Proficiency +1)]
He comes out the far side with salt in his mouth, ribs stinging where steel kept a tally, and wheels taking a slick they didn't order. The trench under the surge door wakes to first spill; water slaps sleepers and retreats, petty and patient.
He rises to a crouch to buy steering and not enough pride to get him killed. The causeway curves left, sheet pile flashing, marsh grass trying to be brave. A sign on the wall says STAY ON THE LINE in a careful hand that wanted to be a teacher and became a guard instead.
He honors it by doing exactly that. The corridor narrows toward another choke where a crossbar sits ready in frames planted into concrete poured level enough to make doctrine. The chain belly is up; the pin holes think about being home. A radio says words that mean close, then words that mean don't. He shows his left palm. Two fingers tap ballast. 'East.'
The near throw man chooses to live with himself tonight and lifts his own palm. The far one pretends he's not helping. The chain rises a breath, enough to make a theory into a seam.
He lowers again until deck is horizon. The bar nests under ribs, friendly as a problem with familiar teeth. The strap sings a high warning and then a lower loyalty.
Salt crosses his tongue and adds a new taste he thinks might be fear and refuses to entertain. Wind takes another rent and fails to collect. The crossbar chooses not to count him wrong.
He clears into yard geometry that wants to be an argument and then decides to be a shrug. White light from a distant head rises and falls in fog, the kind of disciplined wattage that belongs to nodes where men still plan in hours and not minutes.
Behind, the surge door meets its seat with a cough like law. Ahead, the tank tug restates the case that he should be somewhere else. Between them, a small deck and a man made of choices hold the middle long enough to matter.
Water noses the sleepers again, higher. The next frames begin their meeting with the confidence of things on schedule. He gives the motor the last yes that isn't a lie and commits to the twin inches the coast is willing to sell him.
The tide lifts its hand to count. He slides under it and refuses to be arithmetic.