You push.

The carnival eats the cameras in one white gulp. Heat lifts the nose. A thruster cavitates, which is a fancy way to say it screams on nothing. Minnow stalls in shimmer like a bug in a lamp.

Reed does the adult work: dead-stick, wait, small trim, back out the way the density allows. You help, late. The sled lives. The video does not. Your shoulder will be sore from a brace you held too hard.

By the time the soup clears, Yuna’s grid—run from the house without you—has a candidate, then a voice. Paz is found by people who did not fly glitter. You have a memory of sparkles and a hard drive full of snow.

Vargas meets the moon pool with ginger tea and a look. “You went to the pretty part of the problem. Pretty is not a person.”

You write the log. You do not peel Yuna’s squid. You do not deserve a mascot today.

THE END

What you learned: hot vent water has a different density. Glow is not a lane. Cameras go blind in plumes. Instruments and trim beat sparkle, and sparkle will still try to vote.