Blablablablablabla
Mmmh.
Blalblablablablabla.
Ok.
I inherited a sail yacht. Can you sail?
..grumpf pf hick hick... how long?
50 feet.
Noh... the mast? ...grrrrrmmpf...
Its got two.
A shooner.
What's that.
No sloop.
That sounds dirty.
Are we talking business and you end telling me about your travel routine?
Aha! Daddy said it can be sailed by one man, by the electric motors.
Aha.
Aha.
#pirates #gentlemenoffortune
#cyberpunkcoltoure
**Aha**
Marseille in the Sixth World had two kinds of heat: the one from the sun and the one from the mana lines under the old port. Both made you sweat. I liked it.
I sat outside a café in the old quarter, my leather jacket stuck to my back, a duffel bag at my feet holding everything I owned. I was sipping a cola with ice, watching the ice lose, and enjoying the heat like a man who had spent too long in sand and cold. The Legion had turned me inapte définitif for reasons I did not quite catch—something about a bad neural interface, a drone that flew itself into a wadi in the Sahel, and a doctor who signed me out as *psychosomatic*. I took the pension and the first tram to Marseille. Nobody here asked too many questions.
She sat down across from me. No invitation. White linen, dark hair, sunglasses pushed up like a headband, a small hermetic sigil on a silver chain. She smelled like money and ozone.
“Blablablablablabla,” she said.
I said, “Mmmh.”
She kept going: “Blalblablablablabla.”
“Ok.”
Then she leaned forward, elbows on the tin table. “I inherited a sail yacht. Can you sail?”
I made a noise—*grumpf pf hick hick*—and swallowed melted ice. “How long?”
“Fifty feet.”
“Noh... the mast?” I asked. I don’t know why. Maybe to test if she knew anything about the boat.
“Its got two.”
“A schooner.”
“A shooner,” she repeated. “What’s that.”
“No sloop,” I said.
“That sounds dirty.”
“Are we talking business,” I said, “or are you going to tell me about your travel routine?”
“Aha!” She pointed at me, pleased. “Daddy said it can be sailed by one man, by the electric motors.”
“Aha.”
She ordered an espresso with a flick of a chrome-ringed finger. A drone hummed overhead, scanning the square; I resisted the urge to ping it. Street shamans and tarot readers worked the edge of the port, selling charms that glowed when the mana was high. The heat made everything shimmer.
“I need a captain,” she said. “One week. Me and my five girlfriends. The boat sleeps seven. You’ll get the small cabin.”
“Where?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters if the boat has two masts and you don’t know the difference between a schooner and a sloop.”
She smiled. “Daddy said the electric motors do the real sailing. You just have to point it and keep the systems happy.”
“I don’t sail boats. I interface with machines.”
“That’s why you’re perfect. Daddy’s people said you can talk to electric motors.”
“I don’t talk to them. They talk to me. Mostly in complaints.”
She slid a credstick across the table. The amount on its little screen was enough for three months of cheap food and a room that wasn’t a coffin. Hard nuyen. Half now, half when we got back.
I didn’t touch it. “What’s the catch?”
“No cargo. No weapons. Just six women, champagne, and a private island off the coast for a party.”
“No weapons?”
“Maybe one or two. For security.”
“What kind of party needs a rigger?”
“The kind that doesn’t want uninvited corp guests.” She tilted her head. “Daddy was in shipping. Some people think he left more than the boat.”
I looked at her for a long moment. She didn’t sweat. That was either expensive thermoregulation or something else. I filed it away.
“Let me guess,” I said. “Daddy was a smuggler.”
“Daddy was a businessman.”
“In the Sixth World, that’s the same thing.”
She laughed. “Aha.”
We walked down to the Vieux-Port. The heat still had its hands around the city’s throat. Drones buzzed between the masts of the pleasure craft. An ork dockworker with a cybernetic arm hauled a crate off a cargo skiff. The air smelled of salt, old fish, and the ozone from the electric ferries. A marabou stork watched us from a lamppost like a tired spirit.
The boat sat at the end of the pier, fifty feet of old teak and new carbon, two masts, and a name painted on the transom: *AHA*. The electric pods under the hull hummed on standby. Through my datajack, I felt them: two smooth motors waiting, a background pulse like a sleeping animal. Something else in the boat’s nervous system ticked at the edge of my perception—a third signal, faint, buried in the bilge. I filed that away too.
Five women stood on the deck in white linen, all expensive and all a little too calm. One had chrome eyes that caught the light. One smoked a black cigarette that didn’t smell like tobacco. One had a guitar case too long for a guitar. One was definitely a mage—my arm hair stood up when she looked at me. The fifth was just bored.
“Girls, this is the captain,” Solange said.
“The captain has a duffel bag and a bad attitude,” the one with chrome eyes said.
“The duffel bag is all I own,” I said. “The attitude is included.”
The mage looked at me. “He’s got a hole in his aura.”
“That’s from the Legion,” I said. “They stamped it out.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Only when someone reads it.”
She smiled. “Good.”
Solange tossed me a key card. “You start now. We leave at midnight. The cabin’s forward, past the galley. Don’t touch the guitar case.”
“Why?”
“Because Lila will break your arm. And she has four arms.”
I looked at the one with the guitar case. She waved with a hand that definitely wasn’t human—too many joints. I didn’t ask.
I stepped aboard. The deck shifted under me, and the motors ticked a little faster through my datajack. I should have walked away. I had the pension, a duffel bag, and no reason to trust six rich girls with a dead daddy’s boat.
But the heat felt good, and the nuyen was real, and somewhere below the waterline, that third signal was awake.
I said, “Aha.”
Marseille in the Sixth World had two kinds of heat: the one from the sun and the one from the mana lines under the old port. Both made you sweat. I liked it.
I sat outside a café in the old quarter, my leather jacket stuck to my back, a duffel bag at my feet holding everything I owned. I was sipping a cola with ice, watching the ice lose, and enjoying the heat like a man who had spent too long in sand and cold. The Legion had turned me inapte définitif for reasons I did not quite catch—something about a bad neural interface, a drone that flew itself into a wadi in the Sahel, and a doctor who signed me out as *psychosomatic*. I took the pension and the first tram to Marseille. Nobody here asked too many questions.
She sat down across from me. No invitation. White linen, dark hair, sunglasses pushed up like a headband, a small hermetic sigil on a silver chain. She smelled like money and ozone.
“Blablablablablabla,” she said.
I said, “Mmmh.”
She kept going: “Blalblablablablabla.”
“Ok.”
Then she leaned forward, elbows on the tin table. “I inherited a sail yacht. Can you sail?”
I made a noise—*grumpf pf hick hick*—and swallowed melted ice. “How long?”
“Fifty feet.”
“Noh... the mast?” I asked. I don’t know why. Maybe to test if she knew anything about the boat.
“Its got two.”
“A schooner.”
“A shooner,” she repeated. “What’s that.”
“No sloop,” I said.
“That sounds dirty.”
“Are we talking business,” I said, “or are you going to tell me about your travel routine?”
“Aha!” She pointed at me, pleased. “Daddy said it can be sailed by one man, by the electric motors.”
“Aha.”
She ordered an espresso with a flick of a chrome-ringed finger. A drone hummed overhead, scanning the square; I resisted the urge to ping it. Street shamans and tarot readers worked the edge of the port, selling charms that glowed when the mana was high. The heat made everything shimmer.
“I need a captain,” she said. “One week. Me and my five girlfriends. The boat sleeps seven. You’ll get the small cabin.”
“Where?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters if the boat has two masts and you don’t know the difference between a schooner and a sloop.”
She smiled. “Daddy said the electric motors do the real sailing. You just have to point it and keep the systems happy.”
“I don’t sail boats. I interface with machines.”
“That’s why you’re perfect. Daddy’s people said you can talk to electric motors.”
“I don’t talk to them. They talk to me. Mostly in complaints.”
She slid a credstick across the table. The amount on its little screen was enough for three months of cheap food and a room that wasn’t a coffin. Hard nuyen. Half now, half when we got back.
I didn’t touch it. “What’s the catch?”
“No cargo. No weapons. Just six women, champagne, and a private island off the coast for a party.”
“No weapons?”
“Maybe one or two. For security.”
“What kind of party needs a rigger?”
“The kind that doesn’t want uninvited corp guests.” She tilted her head. “Daddy was in shipping. Some people think he left more than the boat.”
I looked at her for a long moment. She didn’t sweat. That was either expensive thermoregulation or something else. I filed it away.
“Let me guess,” I said. “Daddy was a smuggler.”
“Daddy was a businessman.”
“In the Sixth World, that’s the same thing.”
She laughed. “Aha.”
We walked down to the Vieux-Port. The heat still had its hands around the city’s throat. Drones buzzed between the masts of the pleasure craft. An ork dockworker with a cybernetic arm hauled a crate off a cargo skiff. The air smelled of salt, old fish, and the ozone from the electric ferries. A marabou stork watched us from a lamppost like a tired spirit.
The boat sat at the end of the pier, fifty feet of old teak and new carbon, two masts, and a name painted on the transom: *AHA*. The electric pods under the hull hummed on standby. Through my datajack, I felt them: two smooth motors waiting, a background pulse like a sleeping animal. Something else in the boat’s nervous system ticked at the edge of my perception—a third signal, faint, buried in the bilge. I filed that away too.
Five women stood on the deck in white linen, all expensive and all a little too calm. One had chrome eyes that caught the light. One smoked a black cigarette that didn’t smell like tobacco. One had a guitar case too long for a guitar. One was definitely a mage—my arm hair stood up when she looked at me. The fifth was just bored.
“Girls, this is the captain,” Solange said.
“The captain has a duffel bag and a bad attitude,” the one with chrome eyes said.
“The duffel bag is all I own,” I said. “The attitude is included.”
The mage looked at me. “He’s got a hole in his aura.”
“That’s from the Legion,” I said. “They stamped it out.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Only when someone reads it.”
She smiled. “Good.”
Solange tossed me a key card. “You start now. We leave at midnight. The cabin’s forward, past the galley. Don’t touch the guitar case.”
“Why?”
“Because Lila will break your arm. And she has four arms.”
I looked at the one with the guitar case. She waved with a hand that definitely wasn’t human—too many joints. I didn’t ask.
I stepped aboard. The deck shifted under me, and the motors ticked a little faster through my datajack. I should have walked away. I had the pension, a duffel bag, and no reason to trust six rich girls with a dead daddy’s boat.
But the heat felt good, and the nuyen was real, and somewhere below the waterline, that third signal was awake.
I said, “Aha.”
We slipped the mooring at midnight, the old harbor lights smeared across black water like a bad tarot spread. I kept the electric pods on low until we cleared the breakwater, then I let the diesel generator cough itself quiet. The silence came first—no thrum, no hum, just the slap of water against teak. Then I hit the winches.
The sails went up ragged at the edges, patched in three places, and beautiful. The wind filled them with a sound like a lung remembering how to breathe. *AHA* leaned into it, not too hard, not too soft, and suddenly I was eleven years old again in a simsense of the old Mediterranean traders, except this was real and I could feel every line through the deck under my boots.
I loved her. I didn't want to love her. I had a duffel bag and a pension and a hole in my aura, but the boat leaned fine into the wind and told me she would make it through heavier conditions if I asked nicely. Electric motors charged in standby, ticking through my datajack like a patient heartbeat. The third signal below the waterline stayed quiet, but I felt it listening too.
The girls came up one by one. They wore white linen and held glasses of something expensive that glittered under the running lights. They did not steer. They did not trim. They watched me as if I were part of the entertainment.
“You look younger than I expected,” said the one with chrome eyes, whose name I had learned was Véronique. She said it like an accusation.
“Clean living,” I said. I didn’t mention the Legion's neural scrubbing, the months of forced physical therapy, the no-drugs, no-alcohol, no-joy medical protocols. I had the body of someone who had been rebuilt and then abandoned. It aged slower when you didn't poison it.
“That’s boring,” said Camille, the black cigarette now unlit behind one ear. She was the bored one.
“Boring keeps the heart rate at sixty,” I said.
Lila, the one with too many joints, sat cross-legged by the mast and began to play something low on a real guitar, not the case. The fourth arm stayed folded under her jacket. The mage—Yseult—watched me from the cockpit, her aura reading like a cold front.
Solange handed me a glass of water. “You really don’t drink?”
“I drink cola. With ice.”
“Ice melts.”
“Everything melts,” I said.
She smiled like I’d said something profound. Rich kids.
By dawn we were off St. Tropez. I dropped the hook in ten meters of water outside the harbor, because the harbor itself was a floating museum of corporate money and I didn’t want to pay docking fees with my half of the credstick. The girls had opinions. We ignored them.
The anchorage was a machine: megayachts with helipads, drone butlers, hulls that glowed with anti-biofilm spells. Music drifted across the water, thin and synthetic. The air smelled of champagne, suncream, and ozone from all the aetheric security.
I sat in the cockpit with my cola and watched the rich world at play.
Solange sat beside me. She had changed into a black swimsuit that probably cost more than my entire duffel bag. Her skin was perfect. Her eyes were old.
“Daddy used to anchor here,” she said. “He said St. Tropez is where money goes to prove it exists.”
“Does it?”
“No. Money doesn’t exist. Only debt.”
“Aha,” I said.
The others drifted over. Lila had put the guitar away. Véronique was polishing her chrome eyes with a little cloth. Camille lit the black cigarette and the smoke smelled like burnt myrrh.
Yseult looked at me. “What do you want, captain?”
“Right now? A heading.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
I looked out at the water. The heat was still there, even on the sea, but it felt cleaner. The boat shifted gently on the hook.
“I want a machine that doesn’t lie to me,” I said. “This boat is honest. The wind is honest. The sea is honest until it kills you.”
“That’s very philosophical for a rigger,” Solange said.
“Riggers talk to machines. Machines don’t pretend to have souls. When they break, they tell you. When they work, they work. The Legion broke me and signed me out with a stamp. That’s honest too, in its way.”
Véronique leaned forward. “You don’t want revenge? Money? Power?”
“I want to sail.”
“Where?” asked Yseult.
I shrugged. “South.”
“How far south?” Solange asked.
I finished the cola, set the glass down with a click. “Africa.”
A silence. Even the drone overhead seemed to pause.
“Casablanca,” I said. “The old free port. No corps, no questions, no St. Tropez. Just a city that’s been traded so many times it doesn’t belong to anyone.”
“That sounds dangerous,” Camille said, exhaling black smoke.
“More dangerous than a private island with six girls and a dead daddy’s boat?”
Solange laughed. “Aha.”
“I thought the plan was a party,” Lila said.
“Plans are for people who know what they want,” I said. “You told me you wanted no uninvited corp guests. St. Tropez is full of uninvited guests. Casablanca is full of people who don’t care who you are. That’s better.”
Yseult studied me. “You’re running from something.”
“We’re all running from something. I’m just choosing the direction.”
Solange looked at the girls. They exchanged glances. Rich girls, used to having the world arranged for them, suddenly faced with a captain who wanted to point the bow at a continent instead of a party.
“How long?” Véronique asked.
“Three days, maybe four, if the wind holds and the pods stay charged. We’ve got enough food and water. The boat can take it.”
“And if there’s a storm?” Camille asked.
“The boat leans into it. I’ll make sure we come out the other side.”
Yseult smiled then, and for a moment the cold front around her aura warmed by one degree. “You love this boat.”
“I barely know her.”
“That’s the best kind of love,” Solange said. She stood, walked to the rail, and looked south. The sun was high now, bleaching the world. “Daddy always said Casablanca was just a movie. He said the real city was a wound.”
“A wound is still a destination,” I said.
She turned. “Then let’s go see how it bleeds.”
The girls murmured, but nobody said no. Lila picked up the guitar again. Véronique started checking something on her wrist comm. Camille flicked the black cigarette overboard, and it hissed when it hit the water.
I stood, pulled the anchor windlass on, and felt the chain come up link by link. The boat settled into herself.
“Set a course southwest,” I said. “We’ll clear the Îles d’Hyères by nightfall and make open water after that.”
“What about customs?” Solange asked.
“We’ll worry about customs when we see them.”
“And if we see pirates?”
“Then I’ll talk to the engines.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You can outrun pirates with electric motors?”
“No,” I said. “But I can make the boat very unhappy if they board. And I don’t think you girls are as helpless as you pretend.”
Véronique grinned, and for a second her chrome eyes reflected the whole horizon.
I took the helm, set the autopilot, and then I did something I hadn’t done in years. I smiled.
The boat turned south. The wind came around. The sails filled again, ragged and perfect, and the Mediterranean opened like a door.
The trip extended.
Good, I thought. Let it extend.
The sails went up ragged at the edges, patched in three places, and beautiful. The wind filled them with a sound like a lung remembering how to breathe. *AHA* leaned into it, not too hard, not too soft, and suddenly I was eleven years old again in a simsense of the old Mediterranean traders, except this was real and I could feel every line through the deck under my boots.
I loved her. I didn't want to love her. I had a duffel bag and a pension and a hole in my aura, but the boat leaned fine into the wind and told me she would make it through heavier conditions if I asked nicely. Electric motors charged in standby, ticking through my datajack like a patient heartbeat. The third signal below the waterline stayed quiet, but I felt it listening too.
The girls came up one by one. They wore white linen and held glasses of something expensive that glittered under the running lights. They did not steer. They did not trim. They watched me as if I were part of the entertainment.
“You look younger than I expected,” said the one with chrome eyes, whose name I had learned was Véronique. She said it like an accusation.
“Clean living,” I said. I didn’t mention the Legion's neural scrubbing, the months of forced physical therapy, the no-drugs, no-alcohol, no-joy medical protocols. I had the body of someone who had been rebuilt and then abandoned. It aged slower when you didn't poison it.
“That’s boring,” said Camille, the black cigarette now unlit behind one ear. She was the bored one.
“Boring keeps the heart rate at sixty,” I said.
Lila, the one with too many joints, sat cross-legged by the mast and began to play something low on a real guitar, not the case. The fourth arm stayed folded under her jacket. The mage—Yseult—watched me from the cockpit, her aura reading like a cold front.
Solange handed me a glass of water. “You really don’t drink?”
“I drink cola. With ice.”
“Ice melts.”
“Everything melts,” I said.
She smiled like I’d said something profound. Rich kids.
By dawn we were off St. Tropez. I dropped the hook in ten meters of water outside the harbor, because the harbor itself was a floating museum of corporate money and I didn’t want to pay docking fees with my half of the credstick. The girls had opinions. We ignored them.
The anchorage was a machine: megayachts with helipads, drone butlers, hulls that glowed with anti-biofilm spells. Music drifted across the water, thin and synthetic. The air smelled of champagne, suncream, and ozone from all the aetheric security.
I sat in the cockpit with my cola and watched the rich world at play.
Solange sat beside me. She had changed into a black swimsuit that probably cost more than my entire duffel bag. Her skin was perfect. Her eyes were old.
“Daddy used to anchor here,” she said. “He said St. Tropez is where money goes to prove it exists.”
“Does it?”
“No. Money doesn’t exist. Only debt.”
“Aha,” I said.
The others drifted over. Lila had put the guitar away. Véronique was polishing her chrome eyes with a little cloth. Camille lit the black cigarette and the smoke smelled like burnt myrrh.
Yseult looked at me. “What do you want, captain?”
“Right now? A heading.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
I looked out at the water. The heat was still there, even on the sea, but it felt cleaner. The boat shifted gently on the hook.
“I want a machine that doesn’t lie to me,” I said. “This boat is honest. The wind is honest. The sea is honest until it kills you.”
“That’s very philosophical for a rigger,” Solange said.
“Riggers talk to machines. Machines don’t pretend to have souls. When they break, they tell you. When they work, they work. The Legion broke me and signed me out with a stamp. That’s honest too, in its way.”
Véronique leaned forward. “You don’t want revenge? Money? Power?”
“I want to sail.”
“Where?” asked Yseult.
I shrugged. “South.”
“How far south?” Solange asked.
I finished the cola, set the glass down with a click. “Africa.”
A silence. Even the drone overhead seemed to pause.
“Casablanca,” I said. “The old free port. No corps, no questions, no St. Tropez. Just a city that’s been traded so many times it doesn’t belong to anyone.”
“That sounds dangerous,” Camille said, exhaling black smoke.
“More dangerous than a private island with six girls and a dead daddy’s boat?”
Solange laughed. “Aha.”
“I thought the plan was a party,” Lila said.
“Plans are for people who know what they want,” I said. “You told me you wanted no uninvited corp guests. St. Tropez is full of uninvited guests. Casablanca is full of people who don’t care who you are. That’s better.”
Yseult studied me. “You’re running from something.”
“We’re all running from something. I’m just choosing the direction.”
Solange looked at the girls. They exchanged glances. Rich girls, used to having the world arranged for them, suddenly faced with a captain who wanted to point the bow at a continent instead of a party.
“How long?” Véronique asked.
“Three days, maybe four, if the wind holds and the pods stay charged. We’ve got enough food and water. The boat can take it.”
“And if there’s a storm?” Camille asked.
“The boat leans into it. I’ll make sure we come out the other side.”
Yseult smiled then, and for a moment the cold front around her aura warmed by one degree. “You love this boat.”
“I barely know her.”
“That’s the best kind of love,” Solange said. She stood, walked to the rail, and looked south. The sun was high now, bleaching the world. “Daddy always said Casablanca was just a movie. He said the real city was a wound.”
“A wound is still a destination,” I said.
She turned. “Then let’s go see how it bleeds.”
The girls murmured, but nobody said no. Lila picked up the guitar again. Véronique started checking something on her wrist comm. Camille flicked the black cigarette overboard, and it hissed when it hit the water.
I stood, pulled the anchor windlass on, and felt the chain come up link by link. The boat settled into herself.
“Set a course southwest,” I said. “We’ll clear the Îles d’Hyères by nightfall and make open water after that.”
“What about customs?” Solange asked.
“We’ll worry about customs when we see them.”
“And if we see pirates?”
“Then I’ll talk to the engines.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You can outrun pirates with electric motors?”
“No,” I said. “But I can make the boat very unhappy if they board. And I don’t think you girls are as helpless as you pretend.”
Véronique grinned, and for a second her chrome eyes reflected the whole horizon.
I took the helm, set the autopilot, and then I did something I hadn’t done in years. I smiled.
The boat turned south. The wind came around. The sails filled again, ragged and perfect, and the Mediterranean opened like a door.
The trip extended.
Good, I thought. Let it extend.
We raised Casablanca after sunset.
The coast came first as a smell—salt and diesel, hot dust, grilled meat, orange blossoms, and something older underneath, like stone that had been breathing for a thousand years. Then the lights appeared. Not the clean, curated glow of St. Tropez, but a jagged shoreline of neon, AR ghosts, minarets with satellite dishes, shantytowns climbing the hills in tangled silver, and corporate arcologies rising in the south like glass cliffs. The city did not sparkle. It burned.
I dropped the sails a mile out and ran the electric pods. *AHA* became a whisper on black water. The girls came on deck without being asked. They stood at the rail, their white linen blown soft by the warm wind, and for the first time since Marseille, none of them talked.
A pilot drone hailed us in French and Arabic. Its icon bloomed on my AR display—a faded crescent with a gear in its mouth. I answered in the clipped French I still had from before the Legion. A human voice cut in, tired and old.
“AHA, old port. Approach at three knots. Keep your transponder true.”
“Three knots,” I said.
“Welcome to the wound.”
The lighthouse slid past, old stone wrapped in AR sigils and prayer flags. Light swept the water in slow, holy arcs. On my internal display, the boat’s systems flickered. The third signal below the waterline ticked once, like something rolling over in its sleep, then went still.
The harbor opened.
Fishing boats with rusted cranes. Cargo skiffs low in the water. Megayachts anchored farther out, dark like animals pretending not to be rich. Drones swarmed over the docks, some delivering food, some scanning faces, some just watching. A wooden dhow moved through the channel, its sails patched with black plastic, its deck crowded with families and boxes. A ferry blew its horn, long and mournful.
The girls leaned over the rail, eyes wide.
“It’s alive,” Solange said.
“It’s a mess,” Camille said, but she was smiling.
“It’s both,” I said.
We docked in the old port. An ork dockmaster with a cybernetic arm and a silver prayer-scroll pinned to his vest caught our lines. His face was scarred but kind. A small boy with bright black eyes offered to watch the boat. I gave him ten nuyen and he looked at it like I had handed him a moon.
Solange handled the dock fees with a soft that translated her French into Darija, and the dockmaster laughed at something she said. Rich girls know how to talk to people when they want something. I filed that away.
The girls stepped onto the dock and the city swallowed them.
We walked into the medina. Narrow streets, hot air, the sound of a hundred arguments in three languages. Magic and poverty and wealth all tangled together. A street shaman sold talismans from a crate, his eyes glazed with something that wasn’t drugs—he was reading the astral. A dwarf smith hammered a glowing brand into a piece of chrome. A corp wage-mage in a clean suit negotiated with a djinn-summoner over a shipment blessing, their voices low and intense. Beggars sat beside data brokers. Food vendors shouted. An old woman read fortunes from a deck of real tarot cards, and when Yseult walked past, the cards flickered on their own.
“This place is full of mana,” Yseult said. “Old mana. Not corp-filtered. Not sterile.”
“Good?”
“Dangerous,” she said. “And beautiful.”
Lila kept turning her head, four arms folded tight under her jacket. “I’ve never heard music like this. Not even in the sprawl.”
Véronique’s chrome eyes caught every light. “No one is scanning us. No one cares who we are.”
“That’s freedom,” I said.
“That’s a hole in the security grid,” she said, but she laughed.
Camille bought a black cigarette from a man who had no other teeth and only one eye. It smelled like cloves and old paper. She smoked it and didn’t say anything for a long time.
“I spent my whole life in controlled environments,” she finally said. “Filtered air. Curated sound. Security teams. Here, rich and poor walk the same stones.”
“Because here,” I said, “fortune is not just nuyen. It’s mana. It’s favor. It’s a good seat near the fountain. It’s a safe corner. It’s a name that means something.”
A boy ran past, chased by a drone. An old woman laughed. Somewhere a muezzin’s call started, not from speakers but from a real human voice, and for a moment the whole medina seemed to tilt toward it. The adhan echoed off stone and glass, mixing with the hum of drones and the crackle of AR ads, and the effect was not contradiction but harmony.
Yseult closed her eyes. “I can feel the city breathing.”
“Don’t get too romantic,” I said. “It also bites.”
“So do we,” Solange said.
She led us up a narrow stairway on the side of a white building. The steps were uneven, the walls damp with sea air. At the top, a rooftop restaurant opened under lanterns and hanging vines. Low tables, worn cushions, the smell of charcoal and spices. From the edge, you could see the whole port, and there she was: *AHA*, small and patient among the bigger ships, her two masts swaying just enough to prove she was alive.
We sat at a low table. A man with a long face and one cybernetic hand brought us mint tea in small glasses. Then the food came.
Tagine with preserved lemons and olives. Couscous piled high with seven vegetables, steam rising like a small weather system. Pastilla dusted with sugar and cinnamon, savory and sweet in the same bite. Grilled sardines with chermoula, flatbread still blistered from the fire. Oranges with orange-blossom water for dessert.
The girls ate with their hands, moaning, laughing, their white linen now marked with oil and spice.
“This is the best food I’ve ever eaten,” Lila said, and she meant it.
“Better than Paris,” Véronique said.
“Better than anything,” Camille said.
Yseult licked honey from her thumb. “It tastes like the world.”
Solange looked at me across the table. “Aha,” she said softly.
I drank my mint tea and watched the port. The boat sat in the harbor, rocking gently. The city hummed. Somewhere below the waterline, the third signal ticked again, a slow pulse like a question.
Maybe we should have been worried. Maybe we should have stayed in St. Tropez, where money proved it existed and nothing ever changed.
But the girls were right about the food. It was the best I had ever eaten, too.
I looked at them—six rich kids, a boat with secrets, and a rigger with a hole in his aura. We did not belong in Casablanca, and that was exactly why we had come.
The muezzin’s call faded. The lanterns swayed. *AHA* waited at the dock.
I said, “Aha.”
The coast came first as a smell—salt and diesel, hot dust, grilled meat, orange blossoms, and something older underneath, like stone that had been breathing for a thousand years. Then the lights appeared. Not the clean, curated glow of St. Tropez, but a jagged shoreline of neon, AR ghosts, minarets with satellite dishes, shantytowns climbing the hills in tangled silver, and corporate arcologies rising in the south like glass cliffs. The city did not sparkle. It burned.
I dropped the sails a mile out and ran the electric pods. *AHA* became a whisper on black water. The girls came on deck without being asked. They stood at the rail, their white linen blown soft by the warm wind, and for the first time since Marseille, none of them talked.
A pilot drone hailed us in French and Arabic. Its icon bloomed on my AR display—a faded crescent with a gear in its mouth. I answered in the clipped French I still had from before the Legion. A human voice cut in, tired and old.
“AHA, old port. Approach at three knots. Keep your transponder true.”
“Three knots,” I said.
“Welcome to the wound.”
The lighthouse slid past, old stone wrapped in AR sigils and prayer flags. Light swept the water in slow, holy arcs. On my internal display, the boat’s systems flickered. The third signal below the waterline ticked once, like something rolling over in its sleep, then went still.
The harbor opened.
Fishing boats with rusted cranes. Cargo skiffs low in the water. Megayachts anchored farther out, dark like animals pretending not to be rich. Drones swarmed over the docks, some delivering food, some scanning faces, some just watching. A wooden dhow moved through the channel, its sails patched with black plastic, its deck crowded with families and boxes. A ferry blew its horn, long and mournful.
The girls leaned over the rail, eyes wide.
“It’s alive,” Solange said.
“It’s a mess,” Camille said, but she was smiling.
“It’s both,” I said.
We docked in the old port. An ork dockmaster with a cybernetic arm and a silver prayer-scroll pinned to his vest caught our lines. His face was scarred but kind. A small boy with bright black eyes offered to watch the boat. I gave him ten nuyen and he looked at it like I had handed him a moon.
Solange handled the dock fees with a soft that translated her French into Darija, and the dockmaster laughed at something she said. Rich girls know how to talk to people when they want something. I filed that away.
The girls stepped onto the dock and the city swallowed them.
We walked into the medina. Narrow streets, hot air, the sound of a hundred arguments in three languages. Magic and poverty and wealth all tangled together. A street shaman sold talismans from a crate, his eyes glazed with something that wasn’t drugs—he was reading the astral. A dwarf smith hammered a glowing brand into a piece of chrome. A corp wage-mage in a clean suit negotiated with a djinn-summoner over a shipment blessing, their voices low and intense. Beggars sat beside data brokers. Food vendors shouted. An old woman read fortunes from a deck of real tarot cards, and when Yseult walked past, the cards flickered on their own.
“This place is full of mana,” Yseult said. “Old mana. Not corp-filtered. Not sterile.”
“Good?”
“Dangerous,” she said. “And beautiful.”
Lila kept turning her head, four arms folded tight under her jacket. “I’ve never heard music like this. Not even in the sprawl.”
Véronique’s chrome eyes caught every light. “No one is scanning us. No one cares who we are.”
“That’s freedom,” I said.
“That’s a hole in the security grid,” she said, but she laughed.
Camille bought a black cigarette from a man who had no other teeth and only one eye. It smelled like cloves and old paper. She smoked it and didn’t say anything for a long time.
“I spent my whole life in controlled environments,” she finally said. “Filtered air. Curated sound. Security teams. Here, rich and poor walk the same stones.”
“Because here,” I said, “fortune is not just nuyen. It’s mana. It’s favor. It’s a good seat near the fountain. It’s a safe corner. It’s a name that means something.”
A boy ran past, chased by a drone. An old woman laughed. Somewhere a muezzin’s call started, not from speakers but from a real human voice, and for a moment the whole medina seemed to tilt toward it. The adhan echoed off stone and glass, mixing with the hum of drones and the crackle of AR ads, and the effect was not contradiction but harmony.
Yseult closed her eyes. “I can feel the city breathing.”
“Don’t get too romantic,” I said. “It also bites.”
“So do we,” Solange said.
She led us up a narrow stairway on the side of a white building. The steps were uneven, the walls damp with sea air. At the top, a rooftop restaurant opened under lanterns and hanging vines. Low tables, worn cushions, the smell of charcoal and spices. From the edge, you could see the whole port, and there she was: *AHA*, small and patient among the bigger ships, her two masts swaying just enough to prove she was alive.
We sat at a low table. A man with a long face and one cybernetic hand brought us mint tea in small glasses. Then the food came.
Tagine with preserved lemons and olives. Couscous piled high with seven vegetables, steam rising like a small weather system. Pastilla dusted with sugar and cinnamon, savory and sweet in the same bite. Grilled sardines with chermoula, flatbread still blistered from the fire. Oranges with orange-blossom water for dessert.
The girls ate with their hands, moaning, laughing, their white linen now marked with oil and spice.
“This is the best food I’ve ever eaten,” Lila said, and she meant it.
“Better than Paris,” Véronique said.
“Better than anything,” Camille said.
Yseult licked honey from her thumb. “It tastes like the world.”
Solange looked at me across the table. “Aha,” she said softly.
I drank my mint tea and watched the port. The boat sat in the harbor, rocking gently. The city hummed. Somewhere below the waterline, the third signal ticked again, a slow pulse like a question.
Maybe we should have been worried. Maybe we should have stayed in St. Tropez, where money proved it existed and nothing ever changed.
But the girls were right about the food. It was the best I had ever eaten, too.
I looked at them—six rich kids, a boat with secrets, and a rigger with a hole in his aura. We did not belong in Casablanca, and that was exactly why we had come.
The muezzin’s call faded. The lanterns swayed. *AHA* waited at the dock.
I said, “Aha.”
