Touch Code

Journeyman Cross has logged seven years in the reactor conduits of the Starlight Ocean, swimming directly in the coolant that is only non-corrosive to human skin and titanium. He knows every corner, every pressure curve. But because the fleet prohibits mixed‑gender naked dives, he cannot get his Master's sign‑off. Three female Seniors have rotated through. Three times, the regulations have held him back.

Senior Inspector Lincoln is his new supervisor, compact, hyper‑competent, and unreadable. When a critical valve seizes, the only two available engineers must dive together into the Core‑Gel. The fluid dissolves any barrier‑suit. They go in completely bare.

In the absolute blackness, they communicate through Touch Code, a tactile language of taps and strokes on hyper‑sensitised skin. They clear the valve, but Cross's larger body mass triggers oxygen starvation. Lincoln drags him into the high‑gradient zone, where the only way to survive the oxygen toxicity is to burn it, together, in the dark, with their bodies locked as one.

Touch Code is a slow‑burn sci‑fi erotic novella about two engineers who discover that the most dangerous variable isn't the reactor. It's the person on the other end of the Touch Code.

Includes: Explicit verbal and tactile consent, neurodivergent‑friendly sensory detail, close proximity through technical necessity, ordinary bodies, and a career‑saving resolution.

Two more certified dives, Journeyman. And I don't grade easily.

Wordcount 12855