She needed to sleep.

The rumble of the tram carrier was enough to keep her alert as it swept her away from her district—and home—but now that the immediate danger had passed, sheer exhaustion finally fell over her like a net.

She glanced at the solarclock that glowed innocently above the carriage door. A little after noonfive, not long until darkness would begin to descend over the city. Jett scrubbed a paw against her eyes, leaving a red-rimmed, glassy stare behind as she looked up. A route map on the side of the carriage showed a live tracker of their progress with a pulsing blue dot moving down the stations in the outer district line.

Her stop was finally coming up: Carlikane, a district in the middle of the eighth spiral, several miles from Palharr. Over a dozen spirals coiled out from Wildhearth's centre, the narrow apex of the Silk unfurling into a sprawl towards the outskirts. Jett tried to dredge back into her sleep-deprived brain to remember the place. She'd visited a handful of times, not so often that the wolfkin would be swiftly drawn there, but often enough to know it was a good place to blend in.

Hiking the bag up across her shoulder, she blinked several times and stepped towards the door as the low gong of the station approach sounded. Bodies shuffled around her, blameless strangers, but still filling her with an unshakable sense of persecution. She tensed, resisting the urge to lash out, taking slow breaths to stay calm. Exhaustion was beginning to blunt her normally sharp mind, filling her with a paranoid edge.

When did she last sleep?

Not long now, she told herself. She just needed to get to a warrenary and rent a bed. It would take time for the wolfkin to figure out what she might have done, and by then, her plans would be well in motion.

She stepped off, swept along like a piece of flotsam. Shoulders hunched, claws digging into the strap of the bag slung across her shoulder, Jett kept her head down and just concentrated on keeping her feet. The cool evening air was thick with smells and sounds that made her head swim, unable to process the sensory onslaught properly right now. Bodies jostled her as people peeled off to the left and right. She slouched along—a forlorn, directionless figure in the encroaching twilight.

The crowds eventually thinned out, giving Jett space to think, the effort making a band of pain throb behind her eyes. A warrenary, she reminded herself after a moment. Sleep came first—everything else could be dealt with later.

Slouching through the Carlikane District's tightly winding streets, she made her way to what locals called the Basin—a crater-like depression where a host of bars, hotels, warrenaries, and brawl pits had been erected. As she walked, she tried to think of a place she could stay, but the memories wouldn't come. She was too tired. Eventually, she gave up and asked some of the locals. There were a handful of suggestions, but one place seemed to top the list, so her decision was made.

After following the advice of Carlikane's citizens, she emerged from a broad connecting street to see the Basin open out before her, and it certainly lived up to the name. It was a sunken crater more than a hundred yards across, with buildings jammed up the edges, spilling down towards a clearing where she could see the burning lights of brawl pits. The establishment she'd been directed to was just off that central hub.

She trudged her way down towards it, hoping to get to her destination before the full nighttime crowds could arrive. In her current state, Jett wasn't sure she could deal with getting caught up in the rush of revellers without shedding blood.

As it happened, she was just ahead of the after-work deluge, hearing and feeling the swell of life slowly closing in on her from a distance. Making her way through tight alleys, she came upon the warrenary the locals had recommended, situated on the corner of a small plaza, jostling for room with the other warrenaries, residential buildings, and a rather quaint-looking cafe at the base of a conical den stack. Her destination was an unremarkable pillar of ceramic brickwork carved into a standing cuboid, fat enough to enclose hundreds of rooms with ease.

Jett pushed a shoulder to the thick glass of the front door and shoved it open. A simple wood-panelled foyer opened out before her, with warm yellow ceiling lights casting her shadow as she walked towards the reception desk. An elderly quillkin rose from a chair behind it, her red fur edging to white. A truly magnificent plume of a tail swirled up her back, rising above her head before swooping back down again, almost as broad as the quillkin's body in its own right.

"Need a room, hun'?" she crackled in a voice like old parchment. "You look like you need a room."

Jett smiled wearily, leaning her elbows on the desk and nodding. "I need a room."

"Yeh yeh, ol' Hiyfa always knows. You come a long way, eh?"

"I suppose."

"Shows on your face." Hiyfa scratched her nose idly with a claw. "You got stamps?"

"Plenty."

"Good. That's good." She ambled over to a wall of tiny lockboxes, her voluminous blue jumpsuit rasping as she moved. "Not afraid of heights, are you?"

"I manage."

"Okay then." A rattle of claws. Hiyfa opened one of the lockboxes and deftly extracted a scent code key from within. Holding it between thumb and foreclaw, she waggled it at Jett. "Rent's forty stamps a sleep. That okay for you?"

"That's perfect," Jett replied, sleep clawing at her desperately as she drew within touching distance of its reality. She just needed to keep it together a little longer. Fishing in her pockets, she withdrew a pawful of stamps and cast a bloodshot eye over them, then counted out a small pile. "That should see me through the month."

As Hiyfa swept up the stamps to count them, she sagged onto the desk, paws over her eyes. She knew the stamps were good, but the paranoia came boiling back. What if this quillkin wouldn't take her in? What if she ended up back on the streets for another night, trying to sleep in a ditch, watching for wolfkin around every corner? The thought almost made her sob, but she swallowed it down, clenching her claws through her thick white headfur as she waited.

"All good," Hiyfa blared after a moment, oblivious to Jett's inner turmoil. The barkstamps disappeared into the quillkin's till, and she slid the scent key across the desk. "Room's on the sixth floor. Elevator's over there. Get some sleep, foxy. You look like ya need it."

"You have no idea," Jett muttered.

"Hah, I get all kinds in here, girly girl. Runnin' from one kinda trouble or another." Hiyfa grinned. "Long as you got stamps, it don't bother me. Pay on time, ya welcome here as long as ya need."

"I appreciate it."

"Go on now—bed's not fancy, but it'll do the job. We got breakfast included for your money if you awake for dawn. If not, plenty places near that you can get yourself fed."

Jett forced a smile. "Thanks."

She barely even remembered getting in the lift. She moved husk-like through the warrenary, following shining glo-paint signs on the walls towards room 661 until she found a jet-black door with a single unobtrusive slot for the scent key.

She inserted it, and with a bleep of acceptance, the door swung open.

Jett stepped through, shoving the door shut and stumbling into the darkness. She didn't search for the lights; didn't want them. In the night, her eyes quickly adjusted to pick out the features of the room, but all paled into nothingness when she saw the bed. A cover. A mattress. Cushions. A locked door and several miles between her and the people who'd destroyed her life. Jett let the bag thump to the floor with a faint whine of relief. She sloughed off her clothes and toppled forward into the bed's embrace.

Even anger and grief couldn't keep her awake any longer. As soon as she hit the nest of pillows, her eyes closed, and she plunged into a deep, dreamless sleep.

***

When she woke, fingers of dawn were creeping beneath the window shutters. For a moment, she just lay there in a warm cocoon of safety, paws curling into the sheets, revelling in the feeling of relaxation. Fangs, it felt good to sleep. The bed was nothing special, just a circular slab of a mattress, a thick, scratchy cover, and a jumble of pillows, but it could have been heaven to her.

With an eventual groan of protest, Jett eased herself into a sitting position, swaddling the cover around her naked frame, her downy red-gold bodyfur dishevelled from the preceding day's madness. She threw her head back into a cavernous yawn and reluctantly slithered out of bed.

Jett let the duvet fall to the floor and stepped into the adjoining washroom. The cream-coloured circular tub was a paltry specimen by most standards—it wouldn't even come close to fitting someone like Bronco—but she would manage. After a moment of running the hot tap, steam filled the room, and she pulled the door shut behind her.

With a moan of pleasure, Jett lowered herself into the scalding hot water, feeling the heat seep into every ache, worming through her dust-clogged fur, cleansing her from claw to snout. Taking a breath, she plunged beneath the surface and roiled around like some wounded sea creature, with the murky ebb of the water filling her ears.

Eventually, she broke the surface with a gasp, spraying water everywhere. Then she grabbed the bar of white soap and began vigorously scrubbing herself all over. She scoured away the pain and the blood, tried to scour away everything else too. She was panting heavily by the time she finished, collapsing back into the bath with a splash.

Her tears disappeared into the water.

By the time she extracted herself to get dressed, a measure of calm finally descended on her as though the horror of the past few days had been taken away with the dirt and grime. The feelings would come back—she knew that—but right now, she felt recharged. She needed to stop thinking like the wounded party and start thinking like herself. To do what she did best.

She would need a computer—a real one. Glancing around the room, she saw that it had a standard howl-net port beneath the wooden table nestled against the far wall. She'd never be able to recreate her workshop in this little cupboard, but she could make a start.

The clothes Rapid had provided were unobtrusive enough; she pulled on a scratchy, red-brown kilt and a featureless grey body wrap that hung loose, almost like a shawl. She slung on the barkhide jacket and concealed the sheath of her longclaw beneath it. Then she scooped up a few thousand of her remaining barkstamps, enough to get herself a serviceable computer rig.

Jett made to leave the room that would serve as her home for as long as she could last it, but she paused in the doorway, a resolve tightening in her chest. The words for the wolfkin echoed in her mind; you have no idea what you're into.

That was probably true, she thought. But those fools had no idea what they'd let themselves in for either. The murder of her family had transformed Jett from a two-bit hacker into a dangerous foe. The wolfkin were about to find out just how dangerous.

She stepped out into the next chapter of her life.

Damn, did it feel good to move with purpose. As she strode down the passage, her footpaw and shoulder still ached from the fall and the wolfkin bite, but the pain only spurred her on. She left the warrenary, revitalised with her normal sharpness restored as she flicked her gaze left and right for any sign of her pursuers. A steady flow of citykin passed her on either side, none of them paying much attention to a lone foxkin as they went about their daily business. Tucked into her jacket pockets, Jett set off towards the epicentre of the basin.

The throngs of people only grew as she made her way into the heavy heat of the bowl-like district, buildings rising around her and all staring down into the clearing of now silent brawl pits and bars. Not until the sun started to set again would they refill.

Other shops on the perimeter, however, pulsed with life, and it didn't take her long to find the one she was looking for. A run-down, silver-skinned barrel of a building, the store glittered with bars of lighting and fluorescent painted text on the exterior, promising the best deals and the greatest gear. She'd judge that last part for herself.

Putting a shoulder to the door, she eased it open and slipped inside, letting it swing gently shut with a clunk behind her. Turning, a smile flickered across her face as she scanned the walls. Hefty computer rigs stacked the shelves, big black monitors inviting her in, surrounded by processing power shunts, block drives, and dozens of other optional bolt-ons. Nothing matched the assembly she'd created over long years, but the familiarity of the place set her nerves at ease.

"Well, look what the dogs dragged in," purred a sultry voice.

Jett turned her head towards the sound to find a luscious female felkin lounging casually with her elbows on the shop counter, chin propped up on her paws.

"Morning, Fleur," she said with a rueful smile. "Sorry, it's been a while."

Fleur cut a striking figure even with just her top half visible from behind the counter. She was an eccentric—an individual who treated the technology of Wildhearth like an addictive drug. A dark glossy coat covered her, but her headfur had been wrestled into a garish arrangement, hacked short at the back, with a long, lopsided fringe sweeping down the left side of her face and dyed a shining blue. Her torso was tightly encased in a sleeveless crimson body wrap, open at the throat and with a flared collar spilling out and back. Where some saw cumbersome, bulky computers, she saw works of art. Lines of code were as beautiful as poetry, a well-constructed casing as satisfying as a perfectly sculpted statue.

Jett had come across this little emporium several years ago when she was still bouncing from district to district, and the location had lodged in her mind as a place to get quality gear. The pair had maintained a sporadic but good-natured business relationship ever since. Fire-orange eyes appraised Jett, the felkin's lips twisting into a thin smile. The hooped, silver piercing in the middle of her lower lip glinted in the light.

"Well, my stuff is built to last." Fleur flicked a stray strand of headfur aside with a lazy motion of one paw. "My fault for stocking the very best, I suppose. What brings you back to my little slice of heaven?"

"That is a long story."

A knowing smile flickered over Fleur's delicate features. "Oh, oh, been causing a little trouble, have we? I've told you before, you could have a comfy little life if you just went straight."

Jett felt her hackles rising. It was obvious that the bloody events in Palharr hadn't filtered out through the city yet—Fleur didn't know anything was wrong. She considered the felkin a friend, if only loosely, but that didn't stop the anger from boiling up inside her at the glib remark. Memories of her wrecked home and murdered family flashed before her eyes, and her claws flexed instinctively.

Fleur spotted the movement, and the shopkeeper's expression softened in an instant. She straightened up. "Are you okay? Your business is your business, of course, I was just—"

"I'm fine, Fleur." Jett nodded, forcing a measure of calm into her voice. "I'm just out in Carlikane to lie low for a little while, okay? It's complicated, but it's not your problem."

"I understand. Have you got your eye on anything in particular?" Fleur made a vague gesture at the racks of computing equipment, quickly moving the conversation along. "We've got the newest rigs in from Panthol, Virtue and Calibre. Or are you still determined to do everything the hard way?"

Jett smiled grimly. "Always. But I do need a rig to get started." She began drifting along the shelves, her flickering eyes reflected in the glass of the display casings as she examined what was on offer.

Fleur made a playful whining sound. "Well, if you're going to start tearing into the guts of any of these lovely models, I don't want to hear about it."

"You ought to live a little," Jett scoffed, throwing Fleur a derisive look as she stopped and pointed to a large, steel-coloured rig with a main monitor bigger than her torso. Four fat power stacks jutted to either side of it—a Calibre Behemoth IV. She inclined her head towards it. "How much for this one?"

"Now that's a masterpiece you've got your eye on, Jett," the felkin replied, and with a whisper of shifting fabrics, she moved from behind the counter. The body that emerged was all long limbs and curves, her legs displayed by the split longkilt that cinched tightly around her trim waist. She prowled forward on silent footpaws to stand beside Jett, cocking her head sideways at the rig with a dreamy smile on her face.

"Just released the model last month. Top-of-the-line heat-diffusion from the cooling stacks, increased processing power, quad-linked logic boards, streamlined user interfaces, and comes with built-in Ravager Level Hunter Code for security."

"I didn't ask for the company history, Fleur. How much?" She felt a twinge of guilt at treating her friend so brusquely. On any other day, she would have been happy to let the felkin's eccentricity run its course, but right now, she just didn't have the time.

Fleur huffed, a hurt expression flashing across her face. "Fine. For you, I'll do it for two thousand."

Jett lolled her head to one side, considering the offer. Something this powerful probably retailed to the normal customer at twice as much by her estimations—if anything, Fleur was being a little too generous. Under normal circumstances, she might have offered to pay more, but right now, she had to take any little edge she could get.

"Okay, two thousand for this," she said. "And I'll throw in five hundred for some extras."

The felkin rolled her eyes resignedly. "Alright, what kind of extras?"

"Two Ramfold logic boards, an anti-hack module, and the best spoofer you've got."

"That's a piece of work you're building," Fleur chuckled. "I can do that. Do you need this delivered?"

"If you can. I'm staying at Hiyfa's warrenary just outside the basin. You know it?"

"Old Hiyfa? Sure, I stayed there myself a few times back in the day," Fleur replied. "If you've got the stamps there, I can have this beast with you after noon."

"Sounds good to me." She fished the barkstamps free from her coat and held an open paw so he could see them. "Thousand now, the rest on delivery?"

"Still counting your claws after every sale, eh?" the felkin chuckled. "Luckily, I trust you. What room am I delivering to?"

"I'll meet you in the lobby."

Fleur's cheery demeanour faded at that, and she planted a paw on her hip, giving Jett an earnest look.

"Jett, you know if you are in some kind of trouble, you can tell me, right?"

"I know." She sighed heavily and counted out a thousand barkstamps. "I trust you, Fleur, but this isn't something you should get snarled up in. I just need the rig, and I'll be out of your hair."

"Alright...well, if you're sure." Fleur shrugged and accepted the stamps, ruffling them quickly through her claws to count them. "I guess I'll see you later then?"

"Always a pleasure doing business with you." Jett turned for the door, exhaling a deep breath, but she couldn't shut out Fleur's voice following her out into the city again.

"Stay safe, Jett!"