Parched Secrets

Mara’s boots splashed in the low puddle outside the refinery, a rarity in Oasis that felt almost criminal. Wind coughed dust across the lot, brushing against the pale skin at her throat. Silt Street’s entrance yawned like a wound—a broken arch beside a corroded service tunnel spattered with paint tags, some fresh, some faded and rewritten by time. Beneath layers of grime, the city pulse kept tempo; every clang, every shiver from overheated pipes, was another reminder of what Oasis bled for: water.

As she started toward the boiler rooms, her comm crackled to life. The signal wasn’t Consortium issue—a private frequency. Mara swept a loop, then ducked into the shadows behind a stack of rust-speckled drums.

“Detective Keane.”

A cool, glassy voice, strained to neutrality. Selene Harrow, Director of Water Operations. Mara’s jaw set.

“Director.”

“Do you have a progress update?”

Mara shifted, back pressing to pitted metal. “The investigation’s ongoing. Victim was targeted deliberately, no sign of water theft. But Gregor Hale was holding something bigger than a ration slip.”

Selene’s voice sharpened a notch. “You will report findings directly to me. This case is of… particular interest. Oasis cannot afford hysteria. The official line is mechanical failure—accident. Do not let rumor precede facts.”

Mara bristled. “With respect, Director, rumors are already out there. If I close this as an accident, we’ll have riots before sunset.”

Silence throbbed for a moment. Then: “You’ve always been… thorough. I trust that won’t impede your sense of proportion. Close it quietly, detective. For the city’s good. For your own.”

The line cut.

Mara brushed sweat from her brow—cold, not from heat. The walls, always watching. Silt Street beckoned, its crude market décor giving way to tangles of pipe and humming fans. Twice, shadowed men glanced up at her, but quickly away. Every secret here came with a price, every answer a bruise.

She found Aufa Denny’s den locked up tight: barred windows, door reinforced with sheet metal and clever wire. No sign of movement. Mara marked the exit routes, every bolt-hole. Someone was making it clear she wasn’t wanted—at least, not today.

On her walk back to her rig, flexing restless fingers, Mara caught the prickling cold of eyes on her. She turned; nothing but drifting vagrants, and an old woman hawking emptied water bottles from a torn sack.

She slid into her battered vehicle, ready to call command. Then she saw it: on her windshield, someone had daubed a slick, wet smear in pale blue paint. Words, shaky—so faint they’d disappear by noon heat:

Drop it or drown.

Mara stared. Paint still glistened in rivulets, cheap water mixed with color just to taunt her. This was no street kid’s bluff. The threat was fresh, brazen, Consortium-grade bold.

She scrubbed it away with her sleeve, then snapped shots for her secured files. That’s how it would be: pushback, hard and fast. She kept the comm line dead and made for the district council archives, brittle anger propelling her.

---

The archives squat beneath a heat-scoured flag. She flashed her badge at the night clerk—a pale youth, all hollow cheeks—and got directed inside, through rows of ledgers and resin-bound screens. Mara filtered for ration logs, sifting back over Gregor’s last month. Most merchants’ rations clicked out in neat columns, tightly audited. Hale’s, though—sudden gaps: thirteen hours missing, two days before his death; a second, fainter anomaly in the depot assignment.

She keyed in city council credential overlays. Half the ration issuance logs flagged as ‘pending audit’, locked behind emergency override. That never happened unless water was being moved off-record. Hale had been caught in the pipeline—literally.

A tap at her shoulder. The clerk, sweating. “Detective, there’s… someone outside asking for you.” The boy’s voice quivered.

Mara tensed. “Who?”

“He didn’t say. Security wouldn’t—”

Glass shattered at the front. Mara’s pistol cleared leather without thinking. She ducked into a side aisle and peered out. Two figures in rough Consortium blues, faces hidden by scarves. “Drop the case!” one barked, voice hoarse. “You’ve got your warning.”

She fired a warning shot through the shelves—dust and splinters fountaining. Her adversaries backpedaled, one hurling a jagged chunk of salt that crashed against the records machine. Footsteps echoed down the corridor, then silence returned. Mara unscrewed her jaw, heart hammering—not a random mugging. This was pressure, official and ugly.

She locked the ration log summary and slid it into her encrypted pad. Enough to draw blood, not yet to kill the beast. Mara leaned on her knees, sucking air, as the clerk gaped from a safe distance.

“Get someone to fix the window.”

She left before more Consortium muscle arrived.

---

The city’s veins ran underground—old sewers, aqueducts, tunnels meant for storms that never came. Mara keyed her drone, tracing Gregor’s last known comm pings, layering his movements over her stolen ration logs. The path ended at an old utility hatch behind the desalination plant, half-buried in rubble and a broken CERAMIX sign.

She cracked it open, every sense clawed raw. The air below was five degrees cooler, heavy with mold and a bittersweet tang—coal and basins. She swept her flashlight, slow: walls bristling with condensation, footprints pressed deep into dust, fresh drag marks.

She followed the tunnel, pistol raised, boots muffled on cracked tiles. After fifteen paces, the path split. Faint voices drifted up—two men, arguing in clipped, frightened whispers.

“…night’s pull was too much. If the council finds—”

“We pay who we pay! You want your throat slit by Denny’s runners?”

Mara melted into the gloom, took quick shots of the crude map chalked on the wall—pipes rerouted, cisterns marked ‘PRIVATE.’ A secret water grid, hidden from Consortium eyes.

She waited. Boots scuffled. Barrels shifted. Silence. Then came the click of a latch and the scrape of a hidden door swinging wide. Mara pressed herself into a divot, slowing her breath to nothing. Two figures exited, carrying cobalt-blue cans marked only with a jagged wave.

When they’d gone, Mara slid forward. The passage ended at a short ladder; above, behind a false panel, stood a room jammed with barrels, documents, ration tokens… and a battered comm pad, still pinging with unread messages.

She flicked through the pad, heart thumping.

Mirage group: Friday shipment missed. Denny suspects. Stay low until council backs off. Mirage group: ‘Below the skin’ means the aquifer runs deep. Tap only at the ghost post, code line Drown22.

A water grid. An entire syndicate, fed by council insiders. The Mirage wasn’t a ghost—it was Oasis’s shadow government, bleeding the city one ration at a time, hiding among Consortium corridors.

Mara sealed the pad, stashing it in her jacket. As she slipped back into the tunnel, feet barely making a sound, the city thundered above—another riot, another parched morning. Gregor had died for this secret, and she was next if she stayed blind.

She climbed into the ruinous sunlight, squinting at the city’s skeleton skyline, the ceaseless shimmer of heat. Her comm buzzed as she emerged: a single command, neutral and cold—

Close the file or be closed.

Mara straightened. She traced the note in her jacket, the pad in her pocket—one hand on grit, the other on the truth. The Mirage was no longer rumor. It was war, water, and power, all concealed by the official skin. And now, she was in its crosshairs.