4. Chapter Four
Chapter Four
ZAVIN
The Warrens open beneath us in a slow descent, and the human female beside me walks into my territory carrying everything she owns clutched against her chest.
Percy’s case is locked between her arms. Reinforced corners press into the front of her jacket where backup drives cast faint rectangular shadows beneath the fabric.
Her ceramic mug occupies one hand, her grip tight enough to whiten her knuckles around the handle.
That contrast between the object and the way she holds it tells me more about her than the intrusion ever did.
And that intrusion — I’m still turning it over in my head, still tasting the disbelief that hasn’t quite faded since I traced the hack to an eight-by-ten room in the Splits and found a single human female at the other end of it.
Our encryption cost more credits than her entire district produces in a year. Three cryptographers spent four months designing the recursive layering, and every intelligence agency I’ve employed to test the architecture has failed to get beyond the second tier.
She carved through eight.
On borrowed bandwidth.
With a datapad she named Percy.
She could have stolen enough from the administrative tier to blackmail House Sethrak for millions.
Client lists, contract details, the identity of every operative in my network laid open beneath her fingers.
She didn’t take any of it. The partial extraction my systems recovered was vulnerability data, security gap analyses, the kind of information a rival house would pay a fortune for.
Not blackmail material, but currency. Survival credits for a woman with twenty-four days of breathable air.
Your security is shit.
That memory pulls at the corner of my mouth, and I angle my face away before she notices.
That was the first thing she said to me. Pinned against my chest. Halfway out a window. Caught inside a network she had no business penetrating in the first place. And she insulted my life’s work with the calm certainty of someone who had earned the right.
I haven’t laughed that honestly in longer than I can remember.
“So,” she says, and her stride doesn’t falter as the corridors widen around us, rough-cut stone giving way to carved archways. “Are you going to tell me what you want me for, or should I keep guessing?”
“You’ll identify the vulnerabilities in our digital architecture and rebuild any compromised systems you find. In exchange, you get credits, breathable air, and protection. And one more thing. You’ll work for me personally, not the House.”
I keep my pace measured and my tone administrative. The corridor’s bioluminescent panels shift from blue to gold as we descend, the environmental controls adjusting toward the warmth my species prefer.
“Not the House.” She glances sideways at me, and those dark eyes behind their wire-framed glasses hold a sharpness that cuts straight through charm. “What’s the difference?”
“If House Sethrak discovers what you’re capable of, you’ll stop being a contractor and become a resource.
” The thought settles heavily in my chest. My father would recognize her value immediately.
The rest of the House would too. “I’m offering you independence.
You answer to me, you maintain control over your work and your body, and when the job is finished, you leave with enough credits to get off Vahiri. ”
“And if I say no?”
“Then I return you to the Splits with your datapad, your mug, and your twenty-four days of breathable air, and we both pretend tonight never happened.” I run my tongue along my lower lip, catching the shift in her chemistry.
The adrenaline is still there, sharp and bright, but beneath it pulses the warmer note her body keeps producing in proximity to mine.
“Although I should warn you that any future attempts to breach my network will be significantly less successful.”
She’s quiet as she considers the offer.
No bargaining. No panic. No attempts to offer something she thinks I want. She simply weighs the information and searches for the best path through it. Most people react to power. This female evaluates it.
I find that more appealing than I should.
The corridors deepen around us, silk draped through alcoves and shifting in the ventilation currents. Music drifts up from below, a bass note that settles in the chest before the ear fully catches the melody.
“Why did you do it?”
She glances at me. The lenses of her glasses catch the bioluminescent glow, and her expression remains carefully neutral.
“The breach,” I clarify. “You carved through eight layers of military-grade encryption on a datapad held together with solder and optimism. You accessed operational data that could have bought you passage off Vahiri ten times over.”
The corridor widens, and I deliberately slow my stride until we’re walking side by side instead of her trailing behind me.
“You also risked your life. If I hadn’t gone personally, one of my males would have traced the intrusion, and they wouldn’t have pulled you through a window. They would have eliminated the threat.”
The flush that blooms along her jaw isn’t fear. My heat-sensing catches it immediately. The warmth sits high on her cheekbones and colours the tips of her ears, while the chemistry in the air shifts into something I haven’t sensed from her before.
Embarrassment. From the female who informed me my security was shit while pinned against my chest.
“I was building evidence,” she says.
“Evidence of what?”
“That your security is breachable. I wasn’t trying to steal anything.
I was documenting vulnerabilities. Mapping the gaps.
Building a portfolio that proved I could see what your own people couldn’t.
” She lifts her chin. “A human female in the Splits can’t walk up to House Sethrak’s front door and ask for an audition.
She needs something to prove she’s worth listening to. The breach was mine.”
I study her as we walk. The stubborn set of her jaw. The glasses sliding down her nose. The datapad case locked against her chest as though she’d sooner surrender a limb than let someone take it from her.
She hacked one of the most secure networks on the planet because she wanted a job interview. The realization settles into place piece by piece, and with it comes the uncomfortable understanding that she isn’t wrong.
A human female from the Splits with no references would never have made it past the first screening. Instead, she broke into my network, insulted my security to my face, and walked away with my full attention.
Amusement curls through me before I can stop it. The sheer audacity of the plan is absurd. Reckless. Brilliant. She risked her life to submit a job application. A laugh escapes me, low and genuine.
“If you’d wanted a job with House Sethrak, there were easier ways to get my attention.”
“Such as?”
“The contractor portal. Applications. Credentials. A screening process.”
She purses her soft lips. “And would you have listened to a lone human female without references?”
The silence between us holds the answer we both understand. A human female in the Splits with no identity, no references, and skills that shouldn’t exist outside a military intelligence division would have been filtered out long before her application reached anyone who mattered.
She hacked my network because it was the only way to force someone like me to pay attention. Unbelievable — and surprisingly inventive. But no one sells their soul to the devils on this planet without a reason. She must have one.
“So here we are.”
The taste of her lingers. Sharper now. More distinct beneath the adrenaline.
Her scent threads through the ambient pheromone blend that saturates the lower levels, standing apart from the engineered sweetness woven into the air.
Cheap tea leaves. Recycled air, carrying the flat metallic note that clings to anyone who spends long enough breathing the Splits’ ventilation system.
And beneath both, something else. A chemical edge my instincts keep returning to, no matter how many times I tell myself it’s irrelevant.
“You’ll receive weekly credits at independent contractor rates.
Quarters with atmospheric filtration rated for human respiration.
Full provisions. Access to the network systems I designate, expanded as the audit progresses.
You don’t wander the Warrens without an escort until I clear you for independent movement.
You don’t contact anyone outside the network without my authorization.
And you don’t discuss your work, your capabilities, or the scope of the audit with anyone who isn’t me or my senior operative, Resh. ”
“So I’m hired then?” she asks.
“That’s better than your alternative, is it not, female?”
I don’t comment on the way her expression closes off after the question.
The Warrens swallow us whole at the third junction.
The architecture shifts from transitional corridor into the full spectacle of the entertainment district’s upper levels.
Carved stone archways open into vaulted chambers.
Bioluminescent panels paint the walls in copper and rose.
The temperature rises until the air itself feels warm against my scales.
Her attention catches on every junction and every visible seam where the bones of the old colony show through the luxury layered over them. She’s looking past the silk and lighting into the infrastructure underneath.
Every operative, dignitary, and pleasure worker who walks these halls sees what the Warrens are designed to show them. The beauty. The luxury. The seduction. This human female sees the plumbing.
And the fact that she isn’t impressed, that she’s studying structural weaknesses instead of admiring the architecture, catches me off guard.
Most people react to the Warrens. The first-time visitors slow down.
They stare. They try not to stare. They look up at the vaulted ceilings and the silk and the light and spend the next hour pretending they aren’t impressed.
She doesn’t even glance twice.
Resh meets us at the junction to the residential tier, falling into step on my left with the silent competence I’ve relied on for years. His gaze settles on the human female for a beat before returning to me.
His temperature is elevated along the jawline.
His shoulders are carrying more tension than usual.
The combination sets my teeth on edge, but he won’t say whatever brought him looking for me while she’s here.
He knows better than to discuss House business in front of an unknown, which is exactly what she remains.
I’ve brought her in from the cold and taken a gamble.
She has yet to prove I’m right.
“Miro Okonkwo.” I pitch my voice for the security feeds that cycle through the residential corridors. “Independent contractor. Minor technical maintenance on secondary network infrastructure. She works for me now. I’m getting her settled in.”
Resh nods and lowers his gaze. He understands exactly what I’m doing without me needing to explain it.
The designation is deliberately unremarkable.
If Kazren’s audit team reviews the contractor records, her name will sit between equipment maintenance schedules and ventilation calibration reports. Exactly where I want it.
The quarters I designated during transit from the Splits are small by Warrens standards and generous by hers.
A sleeping area with actual linens. A workspace with integrated display terminals.
Atmospheric filtration capable of producing air clean enough for human respiration without supplementary modifiers.
I unlock the door to her quarters through my wrist comm and step aside. She enters cautiously, her attention sweeping the room. The exits first. Then the windows. Then the workstation.
She’s measuring escape routes before she even sets Percy down. The moment the reinforced case touches the desk, her shoulders drop half an inch. The movement is barely visible, but the warmth spreading across her upper back tells me exactly what it is.
Ever since I pulled her through that window, she’s expected someone to take him away from her. Now, for the first time, she doesn’t.
Resh remains outside while I deal with the details. I pull up a supply requisition on my wrist comm while she settles Percy into position and begins checking his systems.
Atmospheric supplements go first. Twelve cartridges, enough for a full cycle, and I add a standing reorder so the stock replenishes before it drops below eight.
She had six left in the Splits. Six cartridges, twenty-four days of breathable air, and a credit account bleeding faster than she could refill it. It’s not enough.
“Take one of these.” I pull a respiratory supplement from the provision kit stocked beside the workstation and hold it out to her.
The pill sits in my palm. “They are standard atmospheric supplements suited for human respiration at this depth. The filtration system handles most of it, but the lower levels run thinner than surface standard.”
Suspicion bleeds through her body, her temperature rising a fraction.
“If I wanted you drugged and compliant, there are more elegant methods.” I place it on the desk beside her mug. “I need your lungs functional. A human female passing out at a workstation is attention I can’t afford.”
She picks up the pill, examines it, and swallows it dry without breaking eye contact. The defiance in the gesture is so deliberate it borders on theatre. I hold back my chuckle.
Humans have no natural defence. They are prey, not predators, yet she acts as though she’s at the top of the pecking order. She’s definitely not stupid. It’s all bluff.
I key in a food order for her on my wrist comm after the cartridges.
Standard human-compatible provisions: protein, hydration, the caloric density she’ll need after months of subsistence rations in the Splits.
I have no idea what humans prefer to eat so I order three options and hope one of them doesn’t offend her.
“Food will arrive within the quarter hour.” I move toward the door. “Eat. I’ll return shortly to begin your briefing.”
“How shortly?”
“As long as it takes.”
She opens her mouth to push back, and I seal the door behind me. The lock engages, my biometric signature keying the mechanism to me and Resh. She won’t be opening it from the inside.
It’s the obvious decision. She’s new. Uncleared. An unknown variable I brought into the Warrens less than an hour ago.
Leaving her free to wander the residential levels would be irresponsible. That Kazren is currently in residence three levels above us has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Neither does the sharp pulse of unease that accompanied the thought of leaving her unsupervised. I’m ensuring her security. That’s all this is.
Security.