Predator Code (Tales from Wildhearth #1)

Chapter 14 - Who Did You Pay to Get Where You Are?

Jett took another long bath after her encounter with Bronco, paranoia gnawing at her from the moment he walked away. He was a watchguard. The enforcers wanted her. She wouldn't have been shocked if he'd turned her over as soon as he made it back home.

But hours passed, no wolfkin came hammering down her door, no watchguards arrived to drag her away, and life outside the warrenary trundled along as normal. For the moment, it seemed she'd found someone she could trust.

With the sun beginning to set, she settled into her chair once more, clad in a loose-fitting body wrap of dark green, cinched at the waist with a copper-coloured rope above her asymmetric black-red kilt. Her rig rumbled to life, the green text filling her with a sense of confidence and familiarity. Here, in the world underpinning a world, was where she truly thrived.

Images of her family flashed in the front of her mind, and a kernel of defiant anger smouldered in her gut. The scene that had so nearly broken her was now the one thing driving her onward. She knew in her marrow that she would do whatever it took to stay alive and get the justice Tyr and the others deserved. Jett had never killed anyone before, but she felt more than capable of doing so right now.

So no more hiding.

She needed to get to the bottom of whatever swamp she'd plunged into, and fast. While she'd managed to keep her location under wraps, she now knew for certain the wolfkin search had expanded beyond Palharr District. They had to know she was moving around the city, and she was under no illusions. The net would be tightening on her soon.

So it was time to get close to Fisker, the anomalously high-ranked foxkin designate.

With the ID print cloner, she needed to forge a fresh identity, one that would get her access to the confines of the Conclave and right into the jaws of wolfkin power. She was willing to take that risk. Joining the dots, Fisker had to be involved in whatever had ended up getting his felkin colleague killed. Jett simply didn't believe in coincidences that big.

She trawled around in the Conclave's employment database, scrolling through lists and lists of admin, tech, and support staff who kept the political machine running smoothly. Turnover in such a place would run high, so all she needed was to find an opening for a menial enough position and slot herself in with a fake name.

Easy.

A dizzying number of names rolled down her screen in emerald green, along with department quotas, shortfalls, vacancies, and every other analytic vector that would supposedly keep the seat of government running correctly. She rattled through a series of lists, looking for the staffers in Fisker's department—Housing and Resettlement. It didn't take long for her to find vacancies and slot herself into the system with a few well-placed lines of code.

In a matter of minutes, a brand-new employee named Alayo had found herself a job as a junior admin worker in the body of Fisker's team. Now all they needed was a capture for the records.

Jett slid the ID cloner across the table towards her and thumbed the fat square activation switch on the side. The small screen in the centre of the blocky rectangular machine blinked into life, along with the small camera built above it. A pinprick of blue shone just above the lens, and she pointed it at her forehead, standing up and finding herself a suitably bland section of wall to stand in front of to take the shot.

The machine fizzed when she clicked the capture button, and an image of her appeared on the small screen, pixelated in black and white but still definitely her. Satisfied, she returned to the desk, punching in the necessary specifications and personal information that a valid identity lanyard required.

A few seconds later, the scent of hot plastic filled her nostrils as the cloner printed the ID, depositing a shining, laminated card on the desk. Alayo officially existed as far as the Conclave database knew. Jett picked the ID up, examining it from all angles for any obvious defects before nodding to herself.