Black Water at the Port

The wealthy hill districts stayed lit end to end. South Side was still lucky to get a streetlight every other block. Grayhaven was a machine that lied, and it was loading all the filth onto one name. Ethan had found something filthier. The audio Maria had smuggled out contained a conversation among Ron Verner, a city consultant, a port security manager, and one of Helios Guard's regional supervisors. In it they mentioned a code name: Lighthouse. It sounded like a civic renewal project. In reality, it was a scheme to tie the old harbor power grid, emergency tunnels, and parts of the subway spur into one "urban protection network" used for counterterrorism and disaster response. On paper it was safety.