Chapter 31 - Euphemisms Get People Killed

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Gallant straightened up, casting a wary glance around her at the sea of staring eyes. Although questions were churning up in her mind, Jett tried to contain herself, seeing the obvious fear in the deerkin's eyes. Clearly, public speaking and underground criminal gangs didn't often factor into this individual's life. She seemed a little shell-shocked at being the centre of attention. She swallowed; glanced around.

"While we're young, antlers," Rapid growled, snapping his claws at her. "Nobody here's gonna hurt you—just out with it."

Fire flared in the deerkin's eyes as she shot Rapid a black look before turning back to Jett and the others. When she spoke, her voice was soft, deeper than Jett expected and mellow like honey.

"I'm from Helsfur District," she began, her apprehension clear. Jett doubted it had been entirely her choice to come to Rapid's little slice of the city. "At least, I was."

"Found her in the district next door," Rapid interjected. "Almachora."

Gallant nodded. "I was there when the wolfkin moved in. They claimed there was some kind of contamination in the Helsfur water supply, a chemical spill that, if untreated, could kill lots of us. We needed—they said—to be moved out to one of their specialist testing hubs. They told us that once we were tested and cleared, we would be relocated. About two months ago, the orders came through our district, letting us know it was coming. We had a week."

"A week?" Jett said quietly. "That's all the time you got?"

"Yup. One week to pack up a life. They talked a big game too, you know. Even had our local Conclave designate show up to do the rounds, checking on everyone, making sure we were prepared and had everything we needed. He made a lot of promises that day." A flicker of sadness crossed her face, and Jett saw the swift blinking away of tears. "I think he actually believed them too."

"And...was there anything in the water?" Bronco asked.

"They provided all the documentation to prove it to the local authorities, but I tested it myself." Gallant shrugged. "I couldn't find anything like what they described. Maybe I missed something—I'm not a scientist—but it all stank to me. It didn't make sense."

"There was never any contaminant; I'll tell you that for free." Karno snorted. "If I were trying to clear out a lot of people, that's the lie I'd use. Did they tell you where you were being moved to?"

"Oh yes." Her face turned from sadness to anger in a flash. "Belforra first, to be tested for our own safety. Then a new district for us, rebuilt to the highest specifications, an old district made new—us part of the lucky few who got to start fresh there." Acid filled her words as she spoke, weeks of pent-up anger beginning to bubble over in a way Jett could thoroughly sympathise with. "They sure know how to shovel their slurry, I'll give them that, but not everyone's so easily seduced. A lot of my friends lived in Helsfur for generations—they weren't about to uproot themselves with the twist of a tail. Neither was I.

"We tried to go through our designate, tried to speak to the local guard pack. We put up signs and started petitions for the Conclave council, but it never made a blind bit of difference. Those documents never made it to the government. How could they? The enforcers had their claws in every piece of this; they blocked anything official from ever reaching the ears of someone who might do something about it."

"Pretty slick, eh?" Rapid muttered, folding his arms and lounging against the nearby table.

"That's one word for it. So the day rolled round, and in came the enforcers. You might have guessed that not everyone went willingly, but that didn't matter to them. Anyone who was ready and waiting got herded to the tram carriers. Anyone else got dragged out of their homes. They were methodical, just went house by house sniffing out anyone and everyone. If anyone resisted, they drugged them up and took them by force." She seemed to hug herself, forepaws sliding up around her upper arms at the memories. "I watched them kick down doors and rip open burrows to get at anyone they hadn't accounted for. It was..." Gallant shook her head. "It wasn't business as usual, that's for damn sure."

A moment of awkward silence descended on them as Gallant's harrowing tale sank in on the group. Even Rapid had the decency to look uncomfortable at her recollections. Jett lowered her gaze, a sense of perspective thrust upon her by the tale. Ever since the enforcers had torn into her life, she'd been on a one-kin crusade to get her revenge. It turned out there were probably a lot of people who shared her feelings.

"How did you get away?" she asked, raising her head to look Gallant in the eye.

"I got lucky." She shrugged. "I'm a medicary; I move around the city a lot—I usually contract to construction outfits, local medical clinics, stuff like that. I was back visiting my parents, but I hadn't lived in Helsfur for years. They didn't take me because they weren't looking for me."

"But your parents..."

"Dragged into the streets like criminals." Her muzzle twitched, and she looked away, swiftly swiping a forearm across her eyes before any tears could come. She turned back dry-eyed, face tight with anger. "I hid, but the only reason they didn't find me was because I wasn't technically living there, so I didn't end up on their relocation list. I waited out the night and then just made my way to the nearest district border. I made it into Almachora, and I've been there ever since, trying to figure out what in the Peace and Fire happened and where my parents are now."

"I can't—" Bronco pinched the bridge of his muzzle, eyes squeezed shut as he tried to process what he was hearing. "How can they do that with no one finding out? How can they just rip people out of their lives? The local guard packs wouldn't stand for it."

"I think you're overestimating your friends," Karno said sadly. "And underestimating what the enforcers are capable of when they act with a purpose."

Bronco's canines flashed for a moment, but he kept himself in check, contenting himself with a glare at their wolfkin companion.

"They kept the place locked down," Gallant continued. "That's why nobody finds out. I tried to get in again after the fact just to get some of my stuff, but they have the place locked up tight now—enforcer patrols and local guards watching the streets. And most people have no reason to go anywhere near a dead, empty district. As far as the neighbouring districts know, it's just another relocation site being overhauled and rebuilt before more people are housed there."

"She's right," Rapid confirmed. "It's like I told you. All the other places on that list you gave me? Same story. People steer well clear of those places now. We only found doe-eyes here because she was snooping around the perimeter."

"Call me 'doe-eyes' again, and you're going to get a hoof through your socket, fox," Gallant hissed, causing the guards around her to tense. Rapid didn't rise to it, however, tossing a nonchalant smirk at her instead.

Jett's brow creased as she digested the information, running through Gallant's swift but visceral account of the enforcer "relocations." Large parts of the testimony very much corroborated what she'd already discovered regarding the local officials being elevated into government positions by the wolfkin. The enforcers leveraged or threatened them into place to sign off the relocations and look the other way when residents resisted. That way, no red tape could snarl up the systematic funnelling of citykin into Belforra.

But they were still missing the crucial, monolithic, looming why.

Her thoughts flickered uneasily back to the data she and Karno had pulled from the enforcer computer—those diagrams of kin from across the spectrum of the city. She couldn't shake the inference there was some very unsavoury science that connected the mass relocations to that data. A tingle of worry swept up her spine as she thought back to those dead-eyed pursuers that had tracked her to the warrenary. She'd assumed it was some kind of drugging. Maybe it went a lot deeper than that.

"Look, I don't know any of you," Gallant continued. "Coming back here with this inked-up gangster wasn't exactly top of my to-do list, but I want to know what happened to my district, to my friends, and to my family. Now, if you can help me, great. If not, then I'm going back to Almachora, alright?"

"Gallant, if your parents are in Belforra," Jett said firmly. "We'll help you find them, because that's where we're going."

"Oh-oh?" Rapid shot her an incredulous look. "You and what army, Jetts? You been listening to a word I've said since you walked in here? That place is locked up tighter than a beaverkin dam. There ain't any routes to sneak in—believe me, I looked."

"There has to be a way!" Jett shouted back, taking a step towards him. "Everything we've uncovered, every scrap of it, leads back there. Citykin are being herded there like damned livestock. Fangs, Rapid! Your own people have probably been dragged off there in these raids. We have to go there, or this will never end."

Her voice echoed within the confines of the office, and Rapid squared his shoulders, glowering at her, and the nearby guards bared their teeth. She returned the favour, frustration beginning to cloud her judgement as all her work threatened to be thwarted at the final hurdle.

"If everyone can keep their teeth to themselves," Bronco piped up suddenly, his deep voice dragging all the attention of the room to him in a concertina of turning heads. "I think I can help with that." For a moment, no one spoke. Bronco glanced expectantly from face to face.

"Think you'd better speak your piece," Karno said, a hint of amusement in his voice.

Rapid let out a derisive snort. "This oughta be good."

"What in the Fire do you think I've been doing all this time?" the towering vulkin rumbled indignantly before turning to Jett. "Your felkin, Zanzihar? I know how he got out to Belforra."

Her eyes widened. "You tracked his movements?"

"To the minute." An edge of pride lined Bronco's voice as he continued. "Turns out a designate can't be very discrete, even a low ranker like him. People in the Silk remembered him. I asked some of the staffers in his department at the Conclave, and they all remember him changing, like night and day. All of a sudden, he just stopped sending out communications through his official howl-net; stopped attending briefings and votes in the chamber. When they did see him, he barely gave them two words. Clearly, something else was on his mind."

"He was one of the local officials they were using," Jett explained to Gallant, trying to get the deerkin caught up with the spider web of the conspiracy they'd plunged themselves into. "Same as what happened to your district. He authorised half a dozen of those relocation orders. But then he must've figured out something wasn't right—and the connection with Belforra."

"And then some," Bronco confirmed. "The days he was absent from voting, it was tricky to keep tabs on him, but he made three visits to three separate bearkin libraries in the Silk district. You can guess the information he was trying to dig up."

"Belforra?"

"Belforra. Turns out, according to the official city records, Belforra had a big concentration of chemical treatment plants packed into it decades ago. Safety wasn't what it was now, and they had a...mishap. One plant went up like a bonfire after a chemical spill, the damage spilled over to the neighbouring plants, and before anyone could stop it, they had toxic compounds flooding the district. The Conclave issued an emergency evacuation order, and the place has been deserted ever since." He broke off with a hollow chuckle. "At least, that's what they've been telling everyone. Zanzihar obviously had his suspicions, so he took it upon himself to check it out."

"How'd he manage that?" Rapid grunted. "Place was locked right up. No way some silk-fur is gonna be sneaking in there."

"Money can do a lot of things," Bronco replied. "He knew about the train, figured out where it left from and when, and he bought his way onto it. He managed to get out to Belforra, and that must have been where he picked up the block drive. Then he came to see you. The day after that, he was dead." He shrugged. "Someone noticed what he was up to, but they couldn't get to him before he gave you that drive."

Karno raised a paw. "That's all very interesting, but you said you could help us get there. Knowing what happened to the felkin—who's dead and buried now, in case you forgot—doesn't really do much for our chances."

A sly smile crossed Bronco's face, one so uncharacteristic that Jett had to stifle a laugh at the sight of it. When he spoke, the vulkin investigator couldn't keep the smugness out of his voice.

"It helps us because I also found the person he bribed, who is very much alive."


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