Quayside

The quayside is a narrow strip of weathered stone and damp timber planking, slick with seawater and streaked with rust from chains and discarded fishing tackle. Crates and bundles of blackened wreckage—metal fragments twisted beyond recognition—litter the ground, leaking dark fluids into the gaps between the planks. Gulls wheel overhead, their cries mixing with the low groan of ropes against metal and the distant thud of footsteps on stone. The air smells of salt, burnt wiring, and something acrid beneath it, carried on a salty wind that rattles loose debris. Here, the sea’s edge grades into human industry: a working harbor reclaimed for covert operations, where official insignia have been scrubbed away and only purpose remains.