Predator Code (Tales from Wildhearth #1)

Chapter 35 - First Class Ticket Holders Only

It was a bitterly cold night that slithered through the streets of Wildhearth. The streets were filled with the steam of hot breath, smoke from open-air grills, and the clamouring citykin voices. Music crashed from windows in great rolling waves in the entertainment districts, with drinks flowing thick and fast to warm the bellies and hides of the patrons.

In the Silk, high-climbing buildings glittered, patterns of light garnishing their exteriors with exotic designs. Elegantly dressed kin walked those inner streets, dripping with jewels, fine fabrics, and expensive musks.

In the dark spaces between this revelry, Jett padded, following Bronco through the damp streets of the Thacktail district. Here in these narrow crevices, the light and life of the city night was a dim and distant dream. Sunken deep into the city foundations at a crossroads between the intricate canal network, Thacktail was a maze of warehouses and loading docks overwhelmingly populated by otterkin workers.

Even at this late hour, the place had a bustle about it. Lanterns hung high above the forest of jetties, docks and loading areas, illuminating otterkin barge crews who bawled orders to one another. Pairs of dock workers periodically dove into the water, using long metal-tipped punt poles to ease vessels away from the shore before their engines grumbled into life, sending them and their cargo chugging away through the watery labyrinth.

Despite the dingy, half-lit atmosphere of the place, the otterkin seemed jovial enough, many of them exchanging barbs and witticisms as they plunged in and out of the canals, garrulous males being rebuffed by good-natured females as they went about their work. Crates rolled past on heavy metal rails to be snatched up by the jaws of loading cranes. The whole place seemed to mash two worlds together.

For her part, Jett didn't like it. She didn't like water, and her impromptu swim in the city canals had not improved her disposition towards it. The buzzing of the busy districts was what Wildhearth meant to her, not this cold undercity and its denizens.

Nothing for it now, though, she thought grimly, tugging her brown barkhide jacket more tightly around her frame. In her backpack, the block drive from the enforcer headquarters lay swaddled in padding amongst a host of other gizmos that she'd thrown in. Unsure what to expect when they reached whatever awaited them in Belforra, she'd packed the bag with hack modules, shunts, an ID cloner, an overdrive module, and a trio of snooper drives. It seemed prudent to be prepared for the worst.

Bronco trudged along through the shadows with the others strung out behind him in loose single file, and they turned away from the busier sections of dockside through a narrow gully between two barge-repair docks that was lit by a dim line of lamps. A fishy tang swirled in Jett's nostrils, strong enough to make her scrunch her snout up in discomfort.

They rounded a bend onto a dilapidated jetty, its wooden surface chipped, scratched, and damp. The lights here flickered eerily, casting unhealthy shadows in the night. At the end of the dock, Jett's sharp eyes picked out a silhouette in the gloom.

"That's our contact," Bronco said quietly. "Just follow me and stay quiet."

The contact turned out to be a female otterkin worker, a sleek-bodied individual with a glossy coat of waterproof fur that was more than enough to protect her from the worst of the chills. Some otterkin in the inner city conformed to the styles and mannerisms of the city, but these dock workers seemed to have retained a more primal connection to their evolutionary ancestors.

She wore a minimum of clothing: a simple, tight-fitting leather wrap over the top half of her torso and a short, wispy skirt that left her powerful, plank-like tail free to move when she plunged in and out of the water. Her long dark headfur was swept back over her skull and clasped there to hold her aerodynamic shape, and glittering dark eyes like polished pebbles appraised the ragtag band dubiously. In one paw, she clasped a long punting pole, one end resting on the dockside with the other pointing skywards like a spear.