CHAPTER 267: CHAPTER 267 - WITHOUT A HITCH... WITH ONE HITCH

Pulling my hand away from Claire’s hair, the familiar interface result shimmered into view for me. The scan had gone through without much trouble, other than having to stand still like that for six seconds and dreading her asking questions.

| TARGET: Claire Thomsson |

| SPECIES: Human |

| VITALS: Normal (Caffeine-Dependency) |

| ADDICTION NOTES: Reduce Intake Slowly, Remain Patient |

Well, it’s nice to know I can use it on humans. Or maybe anything living. It does make sense, considering there was a whole line about ’species’. Now for the real reason I wanted her for this.

Going for the pack roster next as I turn to the side, the candidates list her name just like... well, almost just like with Zoé. A small bit of extra concerning nonsense is sitting there in her line.

| Claire Thomsson - Favored of ???⚝??? |

"What’s wrong?"

Taking off her glasses, she rubs the bridge of her nose before putting them back on. Looking at me with confusion. I’m really not sure I should be doing this.

But my wolf is showing me chickens in that witch’s field again and I just lift my hand and tap the name. Nothing happens.

A few more pokes in the air while trying to think of different things doesn’t help. In under ten seconds, I’m flushed bright red - it feels - and just know that I look insane swinging my fingers at something invisible.

"...I haven’t launched the software for the PC gestures yet, you know..."

"Huh? Oh. Right. That’s... yeah, I was trying it out! Ahah... excuse me for a moment."

Absolutely not running away to the kitchen, no matter how fast I was moving, I start scrounging through the pantry for a snack that can sate my embarrassment. Emptying half of a peanut butter jar in record time, I was glugging down a quarter of a gallon of milk when a thought struck me.

Bringing the interface up again, my fingers touch her name and swipe over towards the center area. So simple that I kind of grow even more mortified.

| ANNEXATION SUCCESS! |

| PACK ROSTER UPDATED |

| TRACKING: Active |

"Do you need anything, Claire? A water or... you know, an explanation or anything?"

"I mean, if you want to tell me what almost any of that was about, I’m all ears."

The way she is unconcerned and not swiping at the air makes me thing nothing probably happened on her side of things. Which is a relief, of sorts. Though the tracking part...

In the system map is now a small lilac dot if I have it zoomed in close enough that my own marker does not take precedence. Right in the direction where Claire was sitting.

The ease of it all was... unsettling. Just like it was when using the Stash for the first time. No resistance, no feel of magic, no immediate complications.

Is this how easy it is to collect people against their will? Or at least without their express permission. That’s terrifying.

Just a simple scan, a few mental touches and suddenly she was connected to whatever thing was involved in my life here. Without her knowing it. I’d be able to avoid or find this woman any time I felt the need.

"It was just a test of sorts. Checking for something. Congratulations, you passed."

"A test? I’m not really a fan of those. I mean, like school ones. Whatever you were going there was... fine? Weird, but fine."

She didn’t agree she wanted a water, but I brought her a bottle anyway and sat it on the coffee table before fully curling into a seated position on the couch. Feeling even more tired after a day of being on my phone looking up so much so I’d appear competent.

I pressed my check into my knees as I watched her fidget with cables out of the interesting ’flight box’ she brought. My hands rubbed the tops of my feet, not all that sore but just... thinking.

"So about that shipping container?"

And so is she. Thinking. I suppose there are people I’ll never be able to hide it from forever, hm?

My wolf yawns, feeling a little exhausted itself. I’d been really putting it through its paces, as it were, trying every couple hours to practice that transformation technique she uses. But I just can’t get the hang of it.

"If it’s truly important to you, your boss can tell you. If she feels like it."

Hearing Claire snort, I smile. It wasn’t really meant as a joke, but I’m glad it amused her anyway.

"Right, because Kyrie is so forthcoming about you. I wouldn’t know anything if I wasn’t a... well, a snoop."

"You might be surprised. She seems to trust you with quite a lot. Perhaps you just haven’t asked her in the right way?"

"Citra, please stop trying to get me killed. I’ve seen the way you ’ask’ her to do things."

Pulling out the tablet that is supposed to be used as a remote interface - for when I need something more hands on if gestures and voice commands are not working, she taps open a few screens to get to one of the videos she had sent me.

"Alright, moment of truth time. Let’s see if my baby works. Lodestar, play video."

Without her hand on the devices, and very little lag time from when she spoke that I could tell, the overview of how electrical power systems work started up. The woman even began to fine tune the sound from the speaker bar so that it projected clearly without being too much bass or treble... she explained.

The finished arrangement was as impressive, I had to admit. The large monitor rotated smoothly on its stand along the hard floor in the space I’d cleared.

Gesture controls responded immediately to my hand movements as she walked me through them. And the registered voice commands were all fairly intuitive as well as customizable if I needed.

We spent another hour going through the features she thought I could learn and make use of, Claire explaining her security additions with the genuine enthusiasm of someone who picked the title BoundaryKeeper to interact with werewolf hunters.

Her competence was obvious, but she wore it... lightly. Without the same kind of arrogance I’d grown used to from palace advisors. I’m not sure what entity or organization the system was hiding that ’favored’ her, but they were probably correct to do so.

⧖ ☾ ❄ ☽ ⧖

I jolted awake to the sound of someone trying to break down my front door, it sounded like. Groggily, I checked the time - [5:17 AM] - and immediately felt my irritation spike. Who the hell was making this much noise in an apartment complex before sunrise?

Stumbling out of bed and dragging the sheet with me, the knocking continued. Urgent and insistent. Through the peephole, I could see a Beta’s worried face.

His neat hair from before was disheveled and his eyes were orange. But if he was here to kill me, he could have already been inside by now. That didn’t make me any less upset as I yanked the door open.

"What?"

His words came out in a rush. Ignoring my own wolf’s annoyance fully. Vrika wasn’t happy about being awake either and had taken charge of my eyes.

"Claire never made it home last night."