Chapter 25 - Two's Crazy Company

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They retrieved the cloner as they left the Conclave that day.

With Karno following close behind and shielding her body from view as they passed through the checkpoint, Jett feigned a stumble, reaching down and deftly unhooking the cloner from the underside of the scanner. It disappeared beneath her shawl before she straightened up, and then the pair were home free, striding off across the concourse to the tram carrier station, leaving the Conclave security none the wiser.

Now in the safety of Karno's back room, Jett threw herself into the task, siphoning through the dizzying number of individuals that had passed through that sensorclaw that day. There were several guards that passed in and out, but she needed one with the right credentials, one that would give her access to the inner sanctum in a technical capacity. Well into the dark hours, she began to wonder if they'd somehow misjudged the situation, her pool of possible candidates steadily shrinking.

But not long after darkfive, she found the perfect match—a female vulkin guard named Allzo—listed as a beta-rank technical officer assigned to Conclave central security. At last. The triumphant yelp was out before she could contain it, and she slumped back into the chair, rubbing her eyes with both paws.

Dozing on a battered couch tucked against the wall, Karno jerked awake, sitting upright and looking around wildly for a moment before he remembered where he was. He saw her and blinked, focusing bleary eyes on her.

"Good news?" he said around a yawn.

"We've got our match," she replied, swivelling in her seat and indicating the screen with a bob of her head. Karno shoved himself up off the couch and leaned in over the screen, deftly turning her chair back to face it as he went. He squinted—rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Then he looked down, a sly smile curving his mouth.

"Looks like a winner to me."

"Then let's get to work!"

"Woah, now." Karno gripped the arms of the chair and gently spun her to face him, holding it in place so she couldn't turn away. "You need to take a break."

"No, I—"

"Jett, look at me."

Reluctantly she forced herself to look up, meeting his eyes. Pale yellow, like a breeze of light. For a moment, she stared, acutely aware of their proximity, the wolfkin's face so close she could hear the soft rhythm of his breath. The grey-white patterns of his fur were suddenly mesmerising, and she felt her hackles prickle, her tail curling at the scent of his musk. It had a faintly burnt quality to it—not unpleasant—a consequence of a life spent around the heat burning computers of Wildhearth. It occurred to her that her own scent probably carried the same tell-tale signs up close.

Reality hit her with a jolt, and she snapped out of the daze, shaking her head. "I...Karno, this is too important to wait."

"You've been awake for Fire-only-knows how long," he said softly, straightening up when it became clear she wasn't going to spin the chair away. She felt a tremor go up her spine as his scent moved away with him. "So just hold on. Even if you get all our little disguises ready to go, we can't just stroll back in there tomorrow with different outfits and different IDs. Someone will notice."

"We can't waste time, Karno. I've got people waiting for me to get this info."

"We need to do this smart, or we're not going to do it all. You're exhausted, you're angry, and you're on edge. You're not thinking it through." His eyes took on a pleading edge. "You wanted my help? This is it. Get some rest."

His words cut through her desperation, and Jett saw sense. It was true—since arriving at his shop, she'd barely even dozed. Right now, she still felt awake, the adrenaline keeping her going, but the crash would come, and it would come hard. She still felt a twinge of guilty awkwardness that she couldn't quite explain, but she stuffed it down into the recesses of her mind rather than confront it.

"Okay," she relented, shifting uncomfortably and lowering her gaze to the floor. "But we can't wait too long. I've got friends taking risks for me out there. The longer we wait, the more dangerous it will be for them."

"Give us three days," Karno explained. "I'll get the word out that I'm shutting the shop for a little bit to do some refurbishment and get fresh inventory. That way, when we need to go off and work our magic, no one will be wondering where the hell I've got to."

"Three days," she repeated with a nod. "No longer."

***

Peace, but those days felt long.

She slept on the couch in the back room, working on their forged credentials while Karno ran his tech den to keep the veneer of normality. Weirdly she felt more isolated there than she had in a long time, knowing that she needed to keep out of sight at all costs. She couldn't wander the district, not when the risk of someone seeing her coming and going could get back to the enforcers before they were ready.

Even Karno's presence filled her with an edge of unease, not because she didn't trust him but because of what she'd felt when they were alone. Jett didn't even know quite how to describe it, but whatever it was, the aftermath left her with a knot in her stomach that wouldn't unwind. Hours crawled by, but whenever Karno offered to help, she shooed him away. She needed to absorb herself in work and not think about the strange feelings that had rippled through her in that instant.

So she waited and she worked, forging passes that would see them into the deep recesses of the Conclave's security. Separate from the enforcers and the largely vulkin watchguard, these kin protected the parliament, its representatives, and nothing else. Faking one of these passes required a good deal more effort than a faceless staffer in the political machine.

She needed to doctor duty rosters, pack records, images, and employment histories. It only needed to pass for a day, long enough for them to get in and out, but even then, the detail demanded was excruciating. Eventually, she wrestled the pieces into place, finding them open slots on the duty rosters held on the Conclave databases in two days. She picked a pair of shifts in the middle of the day, normally the busiest times in the building, keeping their chances of having a superior officer looking over their shoulders to a minimum.

Beyond the background, they also needed the gear to look the part. The Conclave security livery was distinct: crimson mesh bodysuits augmented by lightweight plates of charcoal-coloured armour. Most of them carried shock truncheons—she could replicate a couple of those without too much difficulty.

During those daytime hours when she'd been buried in the systems side of things, Karno had been busy procuring what they needed. It was straightforward enough to get a facsimile of the red mesh, and they used some cheap dark ceramics to create fake plates of armour. You could crack them with a hammer, but Jett had no intention of putting the gear to test in any kind of combat. A couple of internal batteries housed inside two lengths of black tubing created a pair of passable shock truncheons that really did pack a punch, and their disguises were complete.

On the morning of their expedition, they stood over their handiwork, a mug of muskbrew each. The incident of three nights ago had faded in Jett's memory after the intensive work, and she clinked her mug to Karno's with a grin, taking a brief moment to be pleased with herself.

"You know," he said, admiring the suits, "I think Hera missed a trick."

"Meaning what?"

"Those idiot enforcers should have hired you rather than trying to kill you."

Despite everything, the absurdness of that scenario dug deep into Jett's chest and hauled out a laugh. Once it started, she just couldn't stop. She struggled to hold onto her mug, almost doubled over as the fit of giggling overwhelmed her in a way she just couldn't explain. Karno reached out to steady her, and she caught his paw in hers, using it to hold herself in place as she tried to contain the laughter. It took an effort of will and several deep breaths, but Jett finally straightened up, blinking away tears of mirth.

"Sorry, I—" She broke off for a second to snatch her paw away from Karno's. "Sorry." She sniffed and wiped her eyes, stifling a giggle. "It's been a while since I laughed like that."

"Glad to help," he replied, patting her on the shoulder before returning his attention to the suits as though nothing had happened. "Time to get kitted up, I guess? We've got some plans to find."

***

Being a security guard in the Conclave felt pretty good, Jett had to admit—certainly a step up from her previous alias as an administrative flunky. Having been several days since their last visit, and with the sheer volume of citykin that flooded in and out of the building, the odds of someone remembering their faces and realising they'd changed uniforms was remote.

Still, she'd taken a couple of extra precautions to throw off any searching eyes, dying her flowing locks of white headfur to an oily black and tying them into a thick military braid. The dye would only last a couple of days before starting to fray away, but it would be enough for their purposes.

The passes got them in the front door, and side by side with Karno, she marched with her head held high towards the upper levels of the Conclave and the security levels. As they went, administrative staff parted at the sight of authority, allowing the two "guards" free passage.

Nestled in one of the upper towers, the security headquarters of the parliament encompassed half a dozen levels, distinct from the rest of the structure by its aesthetics. Where most of the government departments had a drab, functional décor of blacks, greys and browns, the security levels were panelled with crisp white, everything sparse and well-organised—as well organised as an operation of this size and complexity could be, at any rate.

A lanky wolfkin stopped them at the entrance checkpoint—an armour-glass sliding door with a sensorclaw of its own—and for several paw-clenching seconds, they stood while he examined their passes before putting them through the reader. Both times the claw pulsed green in testament to Jett's coding skills, and he waved them through. The lobby area waited for them, fifty feet square, its walls lined with registration rigs, for guards to log into their shifts upon arrival.

"Split up," Jett said quietly as they walked through the thronging of the day shift, one paw resting nervously on the stun baton clipped to her belt. "Meet you in Urban Pack-Net."

Karno nodded, peeling off towards a machine on the right side of the room. Jett swallowed down the palpitations of her heart and kept straight, joining a queue of four guards at another machine. Looking around, she could see the evidence of the low-key purging Karno had spoken of during his time as a technician here. While the internal security force contained a smattering of vulkin, foxkin, deerkin, and bearkin, the overwhelming majority of officers present were wolfkin. Karno blended right in, but Jett was acutely aware of her minority status in this place.

After logging in, the broad-backed wolfkin in front of her turned, and his eyes narrowed for an instant at the sight of a slight-framed female foxkin in the security uniform. Jett held his gaze until he strode off, her hackles rising as she braced for an unpleasant confrontation.

Swiping her card through the reader and punching her assigned shift time into the registration, Jett joined the dispersing bodies as the guards made their way to the various parts of the command centre. Some had patrol assignments all over the Conclave's labyrinthine massiveness. Others took on security duties for high-ranking government members out in the city.

Jett had wrangled shifts for her and Karno at the Urban Pack-Net, a portion of Conclave security focused on citywide monitoring, keeping eyes on members in Wildhearth's streets, advising of threats, and keeping progress reports flowing to the command centre. In essence, they took on a support role, with access to the security computing systems.

That was all Jett needed.

She stepped out onto the second level of the security stack, marching through more white-walled corridors punctuated with massive crystal windows, following the signs to the Urban Pack-Net. She passed through another guarded door and into a massive low-ceilinged room carpeted with computing stations. The rigs held a uniform design, with groups of big steel casings squatting on thick-legged desks.

Doing her best to act for all the world like she belonged in this place, Jett flashed a salute to the commanding officer—a sharp-muzzled female wolfkin—before picking out a rig surrounded by three empty units. She slid into the chair, powering the machine up and fixing the accompanying headset in place. Jett took a breath as she recalled the memorized regulations.

"Rig 39 Demarco, Urban Net comm check," she said calmly.

From somewhere deep in the Conclave, a male voice responded, "Comm check is good."

"Rig 39 Demarco reporting for urban support," she continued, her claws dancing across the keys. "What've you got for me?"

"Dial into Howl-Net port 114-082. Minister Adolai's touring the Norfall District."

"Nice." Jett injected a sarcastic drawl into her voice. "Whose tail did she skelp?"

"Above my pay grade," the voice chuckled. "Link in and keep an eye on any reported disturbances in the district. They'll check in through Howl-Net at half-hour intervals. Report any delays."

"Acknowledged." Nodding, Jett punched in the command to switch the comm set from local to city-wide, jacking into an incomprehensible miasma of wires that made up the Howl-Net that connected the city.

"Very slick."

Jett flinched for an instant before her brain connected the voice to Karno. Jaw tight, she craned her neck around her screen and saw that he'd slipped in and taken up a position at the rig to her left.

"Are you trying to burn my nerves?" she hissed, sinking back into her chair.

He snorted. "Take a compliment, foxy."

Rolling her eyes, Jett followed the orders she'd received, knowing that they needed to really blend in to get away with anything with this scheme. Calling into the Howl-Net port as instructed, she was met by a rather surly officer in charge of the security detail for the minister, giving a terse, clipped update that everything was in order, and he would check back in at the next interval.

Smirking to herself, Jett pulled up all the local data for the district, marvelling momentarily at just how much Conclave security had compiled. Between vulkin guard reports, city announcements, observer accounts, and civilian tip-offs, the file was a veritable map of where to go and where not to. Cross-referenced against the parts of the district the minister was due to visit, she had a guide to the danger spots the security retinue could expect. Updates blipped into the file sporadically as new announcements made it into the system, most of them unrelated but all required to build up a full picture.

She heard Karno going through his own start-up procedure and knew she had some time to dig into the security system and search for the all-important plans. Just as Karno had described, the security network operated on a separate loop from the bureaucracy of the Conclave, a much more streamlined and heavily fortified cybernetic haven.

She had one day to crack it.

As more guards filtered into the room to take up their posts, a steady background din of clacking keys and voices settled across Jett's ears. With her chosen spot, there were no desks behind her, meaning no one would be looking over her shoulder. She started making incremental steps to work through the multi-layered security protocols, pausing each time the officer of the division made a stroll around the rigs with a watchful eye.

When they could, she and Karno exchanged harsh whispers, both attacking from different angles, taking agonizing care not to trigger alert snooper codes that would track an unauthorised breach right back to their desks. By noon the pair had cut a backdoor through the computing system, diverting hunter code and fooling firewalls by masquerading as approved programs. Jett's head hurt from concentration, having to hold the progress in her head each time she paused to check in with the escort team out in the city to maintain the facade.

"Keep at it," Karno said, rising from his table. "Got fifteen till my next check. I'll grab us some muskbrew."

"Thanks," she replied absently, her eyes still rooted to the screen. He didn't question it, loping off through the maze of computers as she carried on her work. Despite the strain, she knew she was getting close. On her right screen, a high-level directory taunted her: Internal Operations Briefs, Internal Security Audits, official meeting minutes between the commanding officers of the security personnel and government officials, System Functionality specs, and more. All of it required Pack-Leader authentication, something she'd yet to capture.

Impatience gnawed at her as she waited for her band of snooper programs to catch a login and deliver her a password. They skulked like leeches attached to the required login credential screens, siphoning out the data as it was entered. So far, no one had tried to access these files on her watch.

She tried to occupy herself by keeping an eye on the ever-expanding district dossier, but nothing of any real note was happening. Her government minister was having an achingly uneventful trip through the city. Anxiety dug at her in waves as she waited, spiralling into a well of paranoia about the whole endeavour. They would be hard-pressed to create this kind of access again if they failed now, and with every minute that passed, the wolfkin plot advanced.

Bleep.

Jett almost jolted out of her seat. Her eyes flashed back to the main screen.

A login. The Security Audits file had been accessed, and one of her snoopers had snared the login credentials. For a moment, she forgot to breathe, staring at the screen as though she'd been struck by a stun baton before her paws started moving again. With the login secured, she ran her eyes down the list again, trying to stop her knee from bobbing with nervous energy as she looked.

None of the names were terribly clear as to what the directories might contain, so she just started looking through them one by one. The data within was horrifically classified—stuff someone like her should never have been within a million miles of, but she forced herself not to dally with confidential security briefings or government minutes and recommendations. She had one goal—one thing to find.

She found it in a directory labelled: TACTICAL ENFORCEMENT SPECIFICATION AND MANIFESTO. A murky enough title, it concealed within it a host of official documentation regarding the duties of the security forces in the Conclave, the remit of the local guard packs, and lastly, the enforcers themselves. Attached to each "manifesto" came an accompanying schematic with exquisitely detailed notes.

Jett could have screamed in triumph.

She managed to contain herself, instead looking up to make sure no unwanted attention was upon her. Then she spotted Karno making his way back through the buzz of workers, two steaming mugs in paw, swerving around other officers and exchanging jibes with them with the ease of a veteran. By the time he extracted himself from the

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