Jett's tail swished impatiently as she waited, one footpaw tap-tap-tapping against the rusty floor plates of the scrap-dealer's back room. Her nose twitched with the stink of hot metal, stale food and the chemical sting of petro-torches that boiled away in the work areas. She was lightly dressed, clad in just a kilt and a thin grey bodywrap cropped below her ribs, but she could still feel the sweltering heat.

She stood amidst a sea of broken machines, glowing orange furnaces and scuttling workers – one of Palharr District's many illicit scrap shops. Jett learned long ago that these places were goldmines if you had the contacts, but even breathing the air here made her feel filthy.

"While I'm young, Gatte," she called, unable to mask her distaste.

"Yes, yes, I'm-," the gruff voice cut off for a moment, a clatter of falling parts drowning it out. Then a storm of colourful swearing exploded from an adjoining store room. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" A moment later the otterkin trundled into view.

Gatte was a barrel-bodied male with a set of blast goggles perched on his forehead, his body swamped by a mud-coloured barkweave jacket, scorched, scratched, and sporting more pockets than Jett could count. In contrast to the vibrant orange-white of her plush fur, he was covered in a short, thick bristle of dark brown, his black, button eyes flitting left and right in constant motion. From beneath the hem of a his coat a thick, plank-like tail extended, dragging carelessly through the debris that littered the shop-floor.

"Right, now lemme see," he chattered, arms wrestling with a large bundle of components he'd liberated from the back room. "Here... here we go."
Jett took a precautionary step back as Gatte unfolded his arms, letting the pile of gadgets tumble across the worktop towards her. There were half a dozen rectangular processing shunts about the size of a clenched paw, three cylindrical coolant valves, pulled from a Panthol processing rig if she judged the model correctly; an anti-hack hardener, a handful of logic boards webbed with wires and even a scent-spoofer that would throw off all kinds of tracking sniffers.

Sweeping her thick locks of white headfur back out of her face, Jett's turquoise eyes gleamed excitedly as she examined the offerings. Her muzzle slipped into a wide grin. Gatte might've been an odd old soul, but he knew his scrap.

"You're a treasure, buddy," she told him, leaning her elbows on the counter top and gazing dreamily at the parts. "How much?"

"For?"

"The lot."

Gatte beamed. "For you? Call it an even thousand."

Jett's smile vanished. "A thousand?"

"That's a good deal!"

"I take it back. You're not a treasure, you're a pirate!"

"C'mon, Jett! I could get in a lotta trouble moving this kinda gear around."

Jett straightened up, tail curling as she folded her arms, making a show of drumming her claws for thought. Typical Gatte. The otterkin wasn't bad as fences went, but he wasn't above trying to skelp her for a few extra stamps if he thought he could get away with it. She looked from him, to the gear, and back again.

"Eight hundred."

"Je-"

"Eight hundred," she repeated. "And I'll throw in a free system clean out for that rusting heap of a computing rig you've got running this place."

Gatte shuffled uncomfortably from paw to paw, his face crumpling with indecision. "I don't know..."

"Oh, loosen your claws, Gatte. Who else are you going to sell this stuff to?"

"Alright, alright, alright," he grumbled, flapping a paw at her. "Eight-hundred it is. But I'm taking you up on that system clean out."

"I'll swing by next time I've got an opening." Jett's smile returned as she dug a paw into the back pocket of her kilt, fishing out a dozen barkstamps of varying value. Shaped to look like shavings of tree bark, the things came in a bewildering array of denominations, from dull iron singles all the way up to rare-cut crystal, a single one of which could have set Jett up for life.

She pawed through the assortment, arranging a pair of bronze two-fifty stamps and three copper hundreds, and slid them across the worktop through the mess of parts. Gatte scooped them up with surprising deftness and flicked through them in the blink of an eye before they disappeared into the confines of his coat.

"All yours," he said, tapping two claws to his forehead in salute. "I'll letcha know next time there's some stock you might be interested in."

She grinned as she slid the assorted parts into her backpack. "Just as long as you save me the-,"

Something exploded.

The sound scythed through the scrap shop, obliterating every fizzle, crank and clang of machinery and leaving a deafening echo, at though the whole place was a bell that had just been struck with an enormous hammer.

Jett let out an involuntary yelp, leaping back from the table as though scalded and clutching the bag to her breast. "What in the Peace and Fire was that?!"

"I...I dunno!" Gatte looked just as baffled. He blinked; dithered behind the worktop for a moment, then another bang froze him in place. Panicked cries rose from all directions and Jett spun around, looking towards the entrance of the scrap shop. The last thing she needed was to get caught up in some turf war between Gatte and whoever he'd pissed off.

There was smoke everywhere, and running figures moved wraith-like in the gloom. Somebeast was screaming. Jett edged forwards, wondering if she could make a dash for the main door and get out of here before things spiralled even further out of control.

She took two tentative steps before she saw them.

Dark shapes prowled through the acrid fog, solidifying into tall, powerful figures. They wore black armour, each with one paw sheathed in a bladed gauntlet and the other wrist fitted with an armbow. Their limbs were long, thick bushy tails rigid as they moved with a predatory grace. She got a good look at one of them as he cleared the smog.

A coat of grey-black fur; a massive, bone-crushing jaw; lips drawn back in a snarl to reveal a fearsome set of canines. Amber eyes blazing in the half-light. A series of guttural barks cut through the frantic shrieking of Gatte's workers as the attackers spoke.

Wolfkin.

"Gatte," she breathed, edging backwards until she bumped right into him. "Enforcers!"

"What?!" He whirled around, and Jett felt him go rigid with fright when he saw them. "But why? I didn't ... oh, bloody tides'n'fire!" Terror squeezed the otterkin's voice up a full octave. "Wh-what do we do?"

"We?!" Jett looked at him in disbelief. "This has got nothing to do with me!"

Gatte's brow shot up. "You're here, aren't you? Think the wolves are gonna just pat y'on the back and say 'sorry for the mix up?'"

Jett stared at the otterkin, fear and indignant anger making her stomach flip. For a moment she couldn't gather the words. It didn't make any sense. Gatte was a small time dealer in scrap and tech – she couldn't imagine what he'd done to bring the wrath of the enforcers crashing down on them.

Nevertheless, they were here.

"Bloody Fires," she swore, looking back at the encroaching figures. They hadn't spotted her and Gatte yet, but they were spreading out, moving rapidly as they overturned shelves of equipment and wrestled fleeing scrap workers to the ground. Jett didn't know what they were looking for and right now she didn't care.

"Then we run." Slinging her pack onto her shoulders she grabbed Gatte by the shoulder. "Tell me you've got a back way out of here?"

"Err ... yeah, yeah there's a passage-"

"Don't tell me, for Peace sake, just show me!"

Gatte gave her a bobbing nod, twisted back and forth uncertainly, then trundled off toward a dormant furnace squatting in the back corner of the scrap shop. Jett risked another glance back over her shoulder, and a jolt of fright went straight up her spine at what she saw. With the smoke clearing, she could see a dozen armed and armoured wolfkin tearing their way through the scrap shop, hurling bodies aside and rummaging through cabinets, worktops and shelves as they went.

She caught up to Gatte in a few short strides, forcing herself not to look again. The furnace loomed in front of them – a soot-washed cone of brass that climbed easily eight meters high, with a cylindrical heat diffuser disappearing into the ceiling above it. For now its great arched maw lay cold and dark.

Gatte sprinted around to the far side of the furnace, puffing with effort and fumbling a scent key from the pocket of his jacket. Jett skidded around after him, ducking out of sight of the advancing wolves. She discovered the otterkin scrap merchant wrestling his rectangular scent key into a tiny, almost invisible black slot in the wall.

She waited. Two agonizing seconds thumped by in her head before whatever locking mechanism hidden here accepted the key. Something clanked and then a section of the wall panelling sprung free, leaving a gap just big enough for them to squeeze through.

"In here," Gatte said, beckoning.

"Just go!" Jett grabbed him by the scruff of his jacket and propelled him into the darkness beyond.

She found herself in a horribly narrow passage, feeling metal pressing down on her from all sides. Trying to suppress the sense of claustrophobia, she clamped her jaws tight shot and kept a hold of Gatte's jacket as he began shuffling forwards. He paused; groped around for something on the wall.

Something clicked.

A sickly light flickered into light above them, and several more appeared further down the hall. Jett took a deep breath, unlatching her claws from the otterkin.

"That way." Gatte drove his claws up through his stubbly headfur, his eyes wide with barely contained panic. "I'll dump us out in an alley behind the shop."

"C'mon then!"

With screams and cries still ringing in her ears, Jett set off, dragging Gatte along behind her and running as fast as her legs would carry her. Mercifully, the noise began to fade – the wolfkin apparently more interested in ransacking the scrap shop than hunting down. She found herself with a moment to try and wrap her head around just what was happening.

She failed. It didn't make sense. The wolfkin enforcers were Wildhearth's cleaners, the Conclave government's not-so-secret police and sanctioned killers. They didn't go around breaking up small time smuggling rings and unsanctioned scrapyards. Nothing about Gatte's operation could ever have drawn such ire, unless he'd done something very, very stupid.

"Peace, Gatte, who in the Fire did you steal from this time?!" Jett blurted as she went twisting around a bend in the passage.

"It weren't the damned enforcers, I'll tell ya that for free." The otterkin went careening around after her, crashing into the wall of the passage in his haste and almost falling flat on his face. "I swear by the boilin' tides, I got no idea what they're doin' here. I got that stuff from the usual spots – I don't go robbin' the wolves. How stupid you think I am?!"

"Well something's got them out for a fight," she retorted, pausing long enough to catch and steady the otterkin. "They don't come knocking for somebody's missing screwdriver."

"I don't know what to tell you." He sounded helpless; hopeless.

"Never mind then. Let's just get out of here."

The tunnel began to slope up towards the street, dim bars of yellow light directing them upwards. Still hauling Gatte along by his jacket, Jett raced upwards, adrenaline pounding through her veins, her body reacting in no uncertain terms to the presence of the wolfkin hunters. They turned left, then right, and she finally found a door waiting at the top of a cramped stairway.

Relief gushed through her and she manoeuvred Gatte ahead of her, shoving the otterkin up the stairs. He stumbled, blundered and cursed his way to the top and almost dropped the scent key as he tried to insert it into the second lock. On the third attempt, he overcame the trembling of his paws and sank the key into place.

After a moment it bleeped and the locking bolt inside slid back. Gatte grabbed the door handle, wrenched it open, and they tumbled out into Wildhearth's gathering dawn. The sun had its claws over the horizon, rising to send rays of orange and red cascading through the tightly clustered buildings.

Jett heaved the door shut behind them and backed away, half expecting more enforcers to come smashing out into the dim morning light. Looking left and right, she found that Gatte's escape tunnel had deposited them as promised into a thin, dank back alley. Washed from the heat of the scrapshop below their paws, it felt humid and sticky, and she could still smell scorched metal.

To her immense relief, she didn't find any enforcers waiting for them.

"What in the Fire..." Gatte gasped, sagging against the wall and pressing has paws against his eyes. "Why'd they do this?!"

"Maybe one of your scrappers lifted something from the wrong customer," Jett suggested, taking a moment to catch her breath. "They were looking for something down there, Gatte. Maybe someone stuck a claw where they shouldn't have."

"My people ain't that stupid," he protested.

"Got a better explanation?"

"I don't know, alright!" He sighed, letting his head rock back against the wall. "So now what do we do?"

"Oh, no, I've had quite enough of 'we' for today," Jett said quickly, yanking the straps of her pack tighter onto her shoulders. "It's only a matter of time 'til they find that passage, and I'm not going to be around when they do. You better make yourself scarce too."

"I... wait! Y'can't just leave me!" Gatte straightened up stomping around to face her, his expression now clouding with accusation. "How do I know it wasn't you that dragged the wolves into my place, eh? Everythin' was all normal, then you come to pick up your parts and bam. Enforcers!"

Rolling her eyes, she snapped out a paw and grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, yanking the scrap dealer towards her until their faces were just inches apart.

"Shut your trap and listen," she hissed. "I'm nothing more than a dissatisfied customer, alright? I don't know what one of your idiots scooped up that's got the enforcers knocking down your doors, and I don't want to know. I don't want anything to do with it, you understand?"

Gatte gulped nervously. "Err... aye, I understand."

"I got you out of that scrapyard. I've put my paws in the Fire enough on your account, so now you're on your own." She released her hold, taking a deep breath and pointing a trembling claw down the alley. "Now get going. And don't even think about following me."

The otterkin hesitated for a couple of seconds, looking blankly from left to right, then he swallowed hard and took off, his heavy coat jangling all the way down the back street. Jett watched him go, her claws digging deep into the thick fabric of her kilt as she tried to keep reign on her jangling nerves.

He vanished around the corner, and she found herself alone.

Exhaling a sharp breath, Jett turned and took off in the opposite direction, her mind racing with the implications. What in the Peace and Fire would enforcers be doing tearing up Gatte's scrap-shop? She was suddenly very conscious of the bag of parts thumping against her back.

This had been no bloodbath – the wolfkin were searching for something very specific. She had no idea what it might be, if they knew about Gatte's illicit operations, it was a safe bet they knew about her. Jett considered 'legal' a pretty grey area here in the outer districts – how long before she could expect a visit of her own?

The thought sent a tremor of fear up her spine.

She twisted up a street to her right, pelting up towards Pahlarr's main thoroughfare, and towards home. She needed to spread the word – let her family know that the wolves were on the hunt.

She needed to make sure there was nothing for them to find.