Chapter 283: Fish Do Not Need a Toll Booth

The first person I rescued that morning needed more water around her head, which was a useful reminder that my usual ideas about drowning were built for the wrong audience. I landed on the shuttle roof while the tow cable dragged its passenger section towards the ramp.

An adult grouper woman was bracing the inner hatch with her shoulder, keeping what water remained from pouring into the damaged rear compartment. She saw me through the glass and pointed towards the manual release beside the cable hook before trying to speak.

[System: Keep Their Heads Wet, mate. Get those passengers into safe water for 1,500 EXP and ten IP, and please resist applying the human emergency handbook to a bus full of fucking fish.]

I had already noticed the design difference, thanks, although the people stealing them seem less interested. I caught the tow hook with a tendril and found a lock across its release, because somebody had put more thought into the robbery than basic decency.

The tow boat’s crew shouted that the shuttle had an unpaid recovery fee. "Does that cover the funerals, or are you planning to invoice the families separately?" I asked, and one of them swung a pole at my head instead of defending the price.

I went over the pole on my fin jets and dropped behind him, knocking his knees against the railing with my tail. His partner reached for a weapon, but the grouper woman opened the shuttle’s roof hatch and hurled a loose seat fitting across the gap first.

It hit the man’s wrist, sending the weapon into the water. I liked her immediately, although I still would have preferred our introduction to happen somewhere with lunch and fewer people attempting to monetise an emergency.

The cable winch kept turning while we argued. I tore its exposed power connector loose, stopping the haul with the shuttle still half afloat, then used the stolen pole to lever the locked hook open without taking the passengers on a demonstration of unlimited snake strength.

The shuttle slid backwards into deeper water. I followed it through the open roof hatch, letting Amphibious Breath do its ordinary work while the passengers found room to breathe again and the grouper woman secured the damaged compartment behind them.

There were six adults aboard, including a seahorse man helping a passenger with one injured fin. Nobody needed to be lifted into the air, wrapped in a blanket and congratulated by a fool who had learned first aid from the wrong species.

We moved them through the front emergency hatch into the shallow safety pool beside the dock. Its filtered water and submerged benches gave them somewhere to recover while the dock attendant called the harbour patrol and glared at the tow crew climbing ashore.

The grouper woman introduced herself as Mara Venn, a freight broker with a ruined shuttle and a strong desire to charge somebody for every minute of the morning. I told her my name, and she said she had already guessed from the talking red body and the complaints.

"I prefer customers to remember the complaints, because the body keeps changing and the service standards remain terrible," I told her. "You’ll love this harbour, then, because half the brokers could charge for disappointing you," she replied, checking on the injured passenger before she asked anything else.

The patrol took the tow crew away to explain why their recovery fee had required a locked hook and a weapon. I stayed until the attendant confirmed all six passengers were safe, which earned the mission payment instead of merely assuming they would manage once I left.

My EXP reached 23,500 out of 30,000, and my IP reached 150. The numbers made the next evolution feel close enough to be a real plan rather than something Old Mate could dangle above me whenever I started enjoying a quiet meal.

Six and a half thousand more, and I might finally get a form people don’t try to put in a box.

[System: Try becoming a tax bill, mate, because nobody’s ever excited to receive one and the bastards still get paid.]

The attendant offered to let me wait inside the dry office while the statements were taken, but I stayed beside the safety pool until the injured passenger had transport. It cost me a few minutes and gave Mara a reason to believe I might finish a job after the entertaining part ended.

Mara heard me ask the dock attendant about the freight tag and requested a look at the photograph. The buyer’s berth belonged to a company called BrineSpan, which handled storage and pump contracts below the harbour rather than running an ordinary warehouse beside it.

I asked what she meant by below. She studied me for a moment, then pointed through the clear water beyond the safety pool, where lights moved between structures I had mistaken for parts of the dock foundations.

There was a city beneath us. Roads carried swimmers and sealed vehicles between pale buildings, while enclosed rooms shone behind windows and broad lanes of water moved around coral-covered supports that clearly belonged to people with money and planning permission.

It was not Twawi with a leak. The distinction arrived quickly enough to embarrass me, because I had spent days above a whole society and apparently thought everybody down here spent their day swimming past the same fucking rock.

Mara offered to introduce me at the visitor gate if I helped recover the shuttle’s salvageable cargo under her written authority. I agreed after making sure the passengers were accounted for, and she laughed at my sudden interest in obtaining permission before touching somebody’s boxes.

"I’ve recently discovered that ownership becomes important when the owner is standing nearby and has excellent aim with furniture," I said. She gave me the cargo release, and we followed the marked channel towards a gate built for people who arrived swimming.

The guard examined Mara’s pass, then looked at a notice beside his booth and back at me. My face stared from the page above a shipping description that listed one red serpent as unclaimed restricted biological cargo, with BrineSpan named as the party entitled to collect me.