Predator Code (Tales from Wildhearth #1)

Chapter 38 - Good Little Lab Rats

The morbid procession of bodies flowed into the facility under the blinding floodlights, wolfkin guards patrolling between columns, long, heavy armbows in clear evidence, ready to shoot anyone who thought of making a run for it. Jett kept her head bowed, shuffling along as part of the line of downtrodden citykin that snaked its way into the Belforra facility.

She felt sick even pretending to be a part of this. These relocations had been going on for years—who knew how many thousand innocent lives had been ground into nothingness in this place. Citykin were being herded like animals. The tales of the Savage Fire came trickling back to the forefront of her mind—stories of bloodletting on an industrial scale, of great wars, and even greater genocides. The perverseness of this place filled her with a barely containable fury. She itched to rip her knife loose and cut the throat of the nearest guard.

The others stayed close in line behind her, not wanting to get separated before they truly knew what they were dealing with beyond those gaping doors. Around them, the other bedraggled kin showed no sign of defiance, no fight. They clutched at meagre bags of belongings that the guards hadn't bothered divesting them of, some discernible family groups trying to huddle closer together.

For their part, the enforcer guards didn't seem to show any malicious intent towards their charges, just like the guard on the train. They just strolled back and forth, making sure the lines kept moving and watching for any attempts at escape. Beyond that, they seemed happy to keep their distance.

That worked in her favour now. She had no way of knowing if these guards had been stationed here for weeks or if some of them might have been part of the wild chases through the streets of Wildhearth, but their paws-off attitude greatly lowered any chance of her being recognised as she walked on, a picture of obedience.

Bulbous orange-red lights embedded in the ceiling illuminated them as they filed into the gaping jaws of the eastern entrance. The kiln-fired ceramic of the ceiling sloped gently downward in a long, broad corridor, funnelling the lines towards a dozen turnstiles at the base of the ramp, each one attended by a wolfkin guard. This area spanned easily fifty meters across, the first stage in their processing.

Behind those turnstiles, she caught sight of a dozen figures clad in odd, tightly fitted clothes that covered them from throat to ankle, gleaming as though varnished and visible from beneath long white coats. Some monitored bulky screens within the arrival foyer while others waited alongside the turnstiles brandishing sleek, black syringes. As the citykin passed them, they were jabbed; a vial of blood was extracted and carted away to one of the monitoring stations. To her horror, she realised they weren't all wolfkin. Felkin, quillkin—even vulkin and foxkin were among the attendants, moving with a cold efficiency as their own people were put into the grinder of the wolfkin machine.

With an effort, Jett kept her head down, disbelieving fury prickling her fur, her hackles rising despite her best efforts. Hopefully, it would just look like expected nerves to the guards. As they passed through the turnstile, a rough paw grabbed her shoulder, and a wolfkin guard held her in place while a dead-eyed quillkin jabbed a syringe into the side of her neck. She let out a tight yelp of surprise but forced herself not to pull away. Seconds passed. The attendant withdrew the syringe, containing a small amount of her blood, depositing it into a cart behind him where dozens of others stood on a rack.

Rubbing her neck, she trudged through, her mind racing as to what those samples were needed for. Behind her, the others no doubt received the same treatment, but she didn't look back. No one here showed any hint of defiance—they needed to do the same to blend in, for now. Her nose twitched as she kept her place in line, trying to scent and get her bearings, searching for something she couldn't find. Ordinarily, she would have been able to smell the wolfkin guards, the other kin, her companions, and a myriad of other sensations, but any musk that had once lingered in this place had been erased by the stinging antiseptic tang of chemical cleaner.