The Salt Gate

Aster Gate is losing water. According to every official record, it shouldn't be. Systems auditor Mara Venn finds a discrepancy buried between desalination output, district consumption and reservoir levels. It could be faulty telemetry. Theft. Corruption. Then disgraced field engineer Tarin Sol records pressure changes on an external main that the city's operating history says never happened. Six years ago, Mara's evidence helped end Tarin's career after an unauthorised diversion saved one community and harmed another. Now neither can explain the growing contradictions alone. As they trace hidden routing through pumps, valves, sealed infrastructure and protected reserves, the investigation exposes a second danger inside Aster Gate's ageing water system. Shutting everything down would cripple hospitals, cooling and sanitation. Acting too quickly could drive the threat deeper into the network. Every reading must be proved. Every intervention has consequences. And somewhere beyond the city, the Meridian Line is behaving as though Aster Gate's crisis is only the beginning. A serious, atmospheric science-fiction thriller about infrastructure, scarcity, evidence and the cost of deciding who gets protected.