Predator Code (Tales from Wildhearth #1)

Chapter 03 - The Wolves Are Watching

Jett woke up with a groan. Pain twanged in the back of her neck and she blinked, levering herself into a sitting position and looking at the main monitor again. Lines of code continued to spill down the black screen as newly installed processing shunts added more power to her rig, almost doubling the speed at which it could test the code combinations for each layer of firewalling. Isolation programs quarantined self-destructive viruses designed to wipe the data in the event of a breach.

Even so, the thing had been computing all night and only drilled halfway through the layers of security. Whatever was inside the block-drive, someone had gone to great lengths to keep it concealed. Jett couldn't help but wonder about where it had come from, but she knew that asking such questions would also be asking for trouble. Curiosity didn't get her paid and in more than one case it had ensured she wasn't.

Yawning, she rose from the chair and slouched through to the front desk again. A crack of dim light spilled under the doorway – she'd been here all night. Scratching her muzzle idly, Jett flicked the switch of the portable dispenser on the desk, setting it to grind out a hot cup of muskbrew. An expensive piece of machinery, but one that had more than paid for itself.

As the dispenser gurgled away she checked the time on the solarclock to find it was barely past dawnone.

"Fangs," she muttered, rubbing her eyes. Left to its own devices the computer needed another day to dig its way through into the block-drive, and it would hog most of her processing power in the process. That would set most of her other jobs back, giving her another unwanted backlog, which meant more long days grinding in the workshop.

Two hundred thousand, she reminded herself. Two hundred thousand barkstamps. We can wait for that kind of money.

Scooping up the muskbrew, Jett took a gulp of the steaming dark liquid, the herbal concoction blowing away the fug of sleep. Smacking her lips in satisfaction she stepped into the main workspace, casting a baleful eye over the block drive. It perched on a small table in front of the main rig, wires spilling from all sides. She regarded it coldly.

"Tough little skuff, aren't you?" she murmured, taking another sip and examining her options. There was probably enough secondary processing power in the rig for her to work through some less arduous jobs on her to-do list.

She dismissed that thought as it came to her. Although the computer could be left to its computations regarding the block-drive, she sheer weight of money involved made her reluctant to leave the thing alone. The wolfkin were out there somewhere too, she was sure of it. Looking for this thing.

Hinges rasped.

Her head snapped up as the door of her workshop swung open without a knock. A spike of paranoia gripped her for an instant, but when she saw who came through, her shoulders relaxed. A looming figure crossed the threshold, his mass filling the space of the reception area like some kind of ancient statue.

Jett leaned back in her chair, slinging her footpaws up onto the table in front of her, looking the watchguard up and down. Unlike her own kind, the vulkin displayed a lot of variety in their size and shape, their genetic heritage a diverse hodge-podge.

The guard currently standing in her workshop was a particularly large specimen, almost having to stoop to avoid bumping his enormous head on the ceiling. His fur was largely black, shot through with patches of warm brown. His face bore a sharp snout and a powerful set of jaws, his slab-like torso barely contained within his watchguard body armour. Two ears jutted up through his short trimmed headfur like spear points

"Morning, Bronco," she declared, giving him a lazy salute. "Slow a day for you already?"

"Oh, you know how it is," he rumbled good-naturedly, though she could see his eyes flashing around the workshop, taking in every detail. "Gotta check in on everyone's favourite tech. What I'm told, people round here can't switch on a lightbulb without you."