Marro hated this kind of weather.
Thick air. Rain that didn't fall so much as hover, pressing down on the bones.
Even the gulls had stopped screaming.
That meant something.
Back when his family still ran trawlers, weather like this kept the boats moored in Sector Seven.
"No fish worth catching in dead water," his father used to say.
Marro figured the same rule should apply to people.
But here he was—lighting the front lamps of a half-rotted hotel/brothel at the edge of a flooded port, waiting for guests that didn't know when would arrive.
Business was business.
Even if the tide didn't like it.
He spat off the balcony into the brine below. The splash didn't echo.
"Fucking ghost weather," he muttered, reaching for the half-bottle of rum behind the doorframe.
The building leaned a little left. Still standing, technically.
Once a waterfront hotel, Saint Camille's had survived flood, fire, and five separate ownership transfers. Now it wore half a dozen new skins—plaster over steel, shipwood nailed into broken walls, solar tarp stretched across the west wing where the roof used to be.
Brothel, bar, boarding house. Depending on who asked and how late.
Inside, the lights were low and red. Ceiling fans turned just fast enough to make the humidity feel like breath.
Gold carnival beads still dangled from a light fixture in the corner—leftover from some party ten years ago, or twenty.
A Mardi Gras mask stared down from behind the bar, its paint bubbling and cracked. It had no smile left.
Marro sat with one leg hooked over the arm of a peeling chair behind the counter, blowing smoke toward the nearest fan. His boots were sea-scuffed, his coat patched in five places, and his face held the lean sharpness of someone who'd once been hungry for too long and never got all the way full again. Left ear was plated chrome—old fishing implant modified for wideband listening. Still caught frequencies on stormy nights.
He took another drag, staring out through the busted doorway toward the street, where flood-level lines still stained the walls three meters up.
He'd gotten word half an hour ago—quiet in, quiet out. One night. Temporary lodging.
He didn't like it.
They'd bring signal. Heat. Maybe worse.
Heat meant trouble. Trouble meant attention. Attention meant someone would pay to know.
A flash of movement—then the door creaked. Slow. Wet bootsteps on warped floorboards. One by one, they came in.
Six strangers. Cloaks heavy with sea mist.
Marro didn't smile.
He just stubbed the cigarette out on the countertop and stood up, joints clicking.
"Welcome to Saint Camille's." he said, voice smooth as wet rope.
First through the door was the tall one in a blue jacket—silent, squared jaw, the kind of shoulders that made people shut up before he spoke.
Then the girl: younger, sharper. Pale skin, short dark hair, bandages on her right arm thick as rope. Her eyes swept the room like she was counting exits.
The bold one came next—hunched in his coat, muttering under his breath, boots scuffed like he'd been kicked more than once but always got up.
Then the medic with silver hair. Calm face, steady step. She looked too clean for the road.
The other two were quieter. One older, built like he'd moved cargo his whole life. He carried a heavy pack on his back, bulkier than it looked.
The last—Marro couldn't read at all. Hood low, eyes shadowed. The kind you usually don't notice.
He didn't trust them.
But the tide was dead. And when the tide's dead, you do the business anyway.
"Pay up front. No questions. No names. Now don't bleed on the girls, sugar." Marro said.
The one in the blue jacket stepped forward—young, but carried like command.
Didn't blink. Didn't ask for a room count. Just slid a credit wafer across the counter.
Behind him, the short-dark-hair girl paused.
She didn't say a word, but her gaze swept the room slowly.
She caught sight of the women lounging along the far wall—two on a faded red couch, another perched on the edge of the bar itself.
All three wore less than they should, limbs slicked with sweat and sea haze, laughter too bright for the room's heat.
They were watching the newcomers with the kind of casual interest.
One of them—blonde, skin like polished brass—shifted deliberately, crossing her legs slow enough to count as an offer.
The girl's expression didn't change.
But her fingers curled briefly around the strap of her pack.
The bald one snorted softly. He dropped his gear with a grunt and glanced toward the bar.
"Soon as we're done, I'm coming back for a drink with the girls," he said. "Put it on the company tab. Or tell the company I died heroically and drank in advance."
The silver-haired medic gave him a dry look as she passed.
"If you die mid-mission, I'm telling people it was liver failure."
That earned a grin from him, sharp and brief.
He gave a short chuckle, half smoke and half habit.
"Got three girls working tonight who know how to make a drink last two hours and still keep it interesting. You boys get bored later, ask for Mida, Jule, or Ludy."
The man in the blue jacket looked at him.
"No. We are good."
It wasn't sharp. Just flat, final. A line with no space behind it.
Marro spread his hands, mock-genteel.
"Offer's on the table. No offense taken."
He didn't push it again.
Just reached under the counter, pulled out a cracked tray, and slid three room keys across the surface—metal tabs with faded paint, numbers long worn off.
"Up the stairs, second floor. One near the back, two by the corner rail."
He tapped each key with a yellowed nail. "Locks still work. Mostly."
He didn't look at them as he spoke and reached for the bottle again.
They took the keys without comment and made their way toward the stairwell, steps slow but certain.
Even the air seemed heavier upstairs, thick with heat and cheap perfume.
As the last of them passed through the landing arch, one of the girls on the couch—the blonde—raised a hand and gave a lazy little wave.
Thunder rumbled low across the port, deep and slow—like the bay itself was shifting in its sleep.
Inside, the building creaked with the same tired rhythm. Floorboards groaned upstairs with every step, but no one spoke.
Only the occasional drag of a ceiling fan blade, and somewhere behind a thin wall, a wet-sounding laugh followed by a moan.
Business as usual.
Marro stayed behind the counter, eyes half-lidded, bottle still in reach.
He waited until their footsteps faded down the hall.
Then tapped the console.
The screen buzzed faintly to life beneath the wood panel, old code flickering green in a black sea.
Not a full message—just a string of markers and time codes.
Someone on the other end typed back.
He read. Waited. Typed again.
His fingers were light on the keys, like he didn't want to wake the floor.
Or the ghosts.