Dry Leads

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Mara left the vault behind and let the alleys swallow her. The city’s heart was never the steel towers of the Consortium or the thick-walled safety of Uptown—Oasis bled out here, in the sprawl: concrete spillways lined with ramshackle huts, tarp strung between the ribs of broken power poles, a thousand private hungers hiding in smoky corners. She passed a line of residents already pooling at a leak in a tenement wall, each with a cup or scavenged bottle, hoping for runoff. She turned her collar up, not from the chill but from wary eyes.

Gregor Hale had not died for nothing. Mara chewed that truth as she passed through a checkpoint. The guards here wore mismatched armor, badges faded to near-invisibility. They waved her through, and she pressed on toward the market—a half-ruined parking deck where Oasis’s dregs bartered what little they had left.

A skinny woman with burned hands offered her a drink from a battered tin: “Clean, detective. Swear it.”

Mara shook her head. She kept the note Gregor had clung to close to her skin, fingers tracing the words in her pocket. The Mirage. Look below the skin. Was it a place? A person? Or a warning?

She watched the shadows flow around her—broken hustlers, old men selling powder-fine grains of salt, kids hawking sun-bleached glass as if it were gold. Mara caught a flash of movement near a dead stairwell. She waited. They came to her eventually.

A boy, not more than fifteen, approached, face bitter as old tea. “You the cop looking for answers about Gregor?”

He knew. Of course. “That’s right.”

“Jax said you’d come.”

“I need to speak to him. Now.”

A look passed over the boy’s face—the flicker between fear, awe, and something like hope. “He makes his own hours.”

“Then tell him Mara Keane is waiting.”

The crowd moved like thick water, slow and sullen. Mara leaned against a cracked pillar, eyes never still. She’d given up on trust years ago. Someone brushed past her—old trick, checking for valuables, but she only shot a warning look. The pickpocket kept moving, empty-handed. Everyone wanted something; that was the one constant.

Ten minutes later, a voice as smooth as river stone cut through the tension.

"Detective Keane. They said the Consortium's favorite bloodhound had a tail for dirt. What brings you to the riverbed?"

Mara turned. Jax had a smile full of broken promises and teeth brushed with confidence. His coat looked like it had belonged to a better-off corpse, but he wore it like armor. Amber eyes flicked to her badge, then away; here, a badge could kill as easily as it could save.

She didn’t return his smile. "Gregor Hale’s dead. You hear anything?"

Jax gave the shrug of someone unfazed by mortality. "I hear a lot. Depends on the thirst."

He reached into his pocket, jingled something metallic—tokens, water credits, the real currency. "Care to trade, detective? I’m running low."

“Information first.”

He cocked his head. “Trust runs drier than water these days. I’m a generous soul, but not a charity.”

She handed him two brass tokens from her belt. “For your kindness, then.”

Jax weighed them against his palm, blinking slow. "Gregor. Tragic. Poor bastard had luck, then none at all. A week ago, he showed up with a stash—nothing huge, but more than his usual. New contacts, new buyers. He started acting nervous. Flashing teeth when he should’ve hidden them."

Mara pressed. “Where did he get the water?”

Jax’s eyes flickered. “That's a well even I can’t see the bottom of. Only thing certain is it was new stock. Some said he tapped a black market reserve, others whispered about a Consortium leak. But then, there’s this...” He drew close, his breath sour and hungry. “Word is, rivals from the Silt Street ring were looking for something he shouldn’t have had. Gregor crossed a line. And lately, there’s been talk of Mirage—a faction, not a myth. Something… shifting beneath the city skin.”

Mara felt the pulse quicken at her throat. “Names. I want names. Who was on Gregor’s tail?”

Jax shrugged. “I’ll need more than tokens for that. You want the who, you have to pay the going rate, detective. Not just the tokens—something personal. A favor. These days, water and trust weigh the same.”

The market’s hush thickened around them. To one side, a shout—someone battered for hoarding, the bitter logic of Oasis. Mara drew in tight. “You want a promise from me?”

“Consider it insurance. If you survive this case, you owe me. That’s good currency.”

She nodded, jaw clenched. “Deal.”

Jax flashed his teeth again. “Aufa Denny. Smuggler, Silt Street. She’s climbed fast, and she’s ambitious. Didn’t like Gregor moving in on new stock. You’ll find her in the boiler rooms under the refinery, if you know who to bribe.”

Mara chewed on it. Silt Street—the black pulse of Oasis’s underbelly, a place where even the Consortium’s boots didn’t step lightly. Gregor, caught in a crosscurrent between hungry rivals. If Mirage was a faction, they hid deep. But the city didn’t keep secrets for long.

“Why did Gregor leave me a riddle?” Mara asked. “The Mirage. Below the skin. What’s that supposed to mean to a dying man?”

Jax’s eyes darkened. “Means you’re chasing ghosts. Means someone’s making the rules up as you run. You want to see below the skin? Just pray you’re ready, detective.”

She glanced down. The tokens already gone, vanished into the crowd—payment, tribute to trust. Mara felt the weight of the deal settle on her shoulders. She had a thread. A name. A new layer of danger. And the city’s thirst, as always, kept growing.

She pulled away, letting the crowd close behind her. Onward—toward Silt Street, where the air stank of rust and the city’s real trades were done. One hand stayed on her hidden blade, the other on the note. The game was shifting. And if what Jax hinted was true, Gregor Hale was only the first drop before the deluge.

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