Chapter 230: Services Cost Money, Actually

[System: Note the specimen’s total lack of respect for private property. A predator, yes, but also and I cannot stress this enough, a massive bludger with nothing better to do at night.]

I have plenty to do. I mutter, even though I absolutely do not.

[System: Sure ya do, champ. Tell that to the empty diary.]

I coast past the giraffe pen, past some kind of sad-looking otter tank, and my tail flicks lazy figure-eights in the air behind me. Bored. The kind of bored where your brain starts whispering, do something stupid, and you just... agree with it.

That’s when I see the little sign. STAFF ONLY. Security Room, down the service corridor, past the vending machines that look older than the zoo itself.

Well, well well, don’t mind if I do.

[System: Ah, here we go. The predator’s true instinct kicks in—not hunting, not survival, just pure unfiltered mischief. Attenborough never covered this bit because Attenborough wasn’t fucking stupid.]

The door’s locked, obviously, because normal doors are locked to normal things, but I’m not normal; I’m a floating vape smoke with tendrils that can pick a lock faster than a bent wire coat hanger at two in the morning.

I jam three thin wisps of crimson gas straight into the keyhole, twist like I’m popping a bottle cap, and the brass tumbler clicks open nice and quiet. Thirty seconds later I’m inside, and the door shuts behind me without a sound.

[System: Why didn’t you just become smoke and go through the cracks?]

Let me live my dreams.

The security room smells like burnt instant coffee, cold chicken salt, and stale chip crumbs, and one guy’s slumped so far back in his swivel chair his head is practically hanging off the frame, boots propped up on the console, phone balanced on his gut while some mindless video loop plays at full volume. He’s definitely not watching the fifty different camera feeds he’s paid twenty-five bucks an hour to monitor.

Rookie mistake. I don’t even need to knock him out. I could be a ten-foot basilisk right now, and this guy wouldn’t notice. I just glide right past his chair and he doesn’t so much as twitch, just lets out a wet snore that sounds like a struggling lawnmower.

[System: Look at this bloke. Absolute unit of workplace dedication right here, give him an employee of the month badge and a pay rise immediately.]

The wall of monitors flickers in front of me, little green timecodes ticking away in the corners. Dozens of live camera feeds—enclosures, main walkways, gift shop, food court, storage sheds. My smoke tendrils stretch out and start tapping away at the mechanical keyboard, because apparently I know how to hack a zoo’s central security now, which is a specific skill I did not know I possessed until this exact second.

[System: Oh, this is going somewhere completely sideways already, isn’t it?]

Give it a second.

I click through the feeds one by one, rerouting them, adjusting camera angles with the kind of laser focus I should probably be saving for literally anything productive in my life. And then I find them. The public restrooms, the men’s and women’s, right next to the hot potato stand.

I aim both cameras square at the entrance doors.

[System: ...Matt.]

Yeah?

[System: You’re an actual child.]

I can’t help it. I start laughing, this low, raspy, hissing chuckle that echoes weirdly in the dark, empty security room. The guard in the chair doesn’t even stir, just snorts in his sleep and rolls his head to the left.

It’s funny. Are you proud of me?

[System: It’s not funny; it’s the actions of a twelve-year-old with his first phone and unfiltered Wi-Fi. You’ve got dark magic, physical invulnerability, a body that can slice through solid steel, and you’re using your authority to point 4K optical zoom cameras directly at a public dunny.]

Priorities.

[System: You’re an absolute disgrace to predators everywhere, ya wanker.]

I let the feeds sit there for a second longer, just to really appreciate my own genius, before flicking them back to normal. Mostly normal. I leave a five-second glitch loop running on the main hallway camera, and a clip of a pigeon walking backward into a glass door just because I can.

Then I drift out of the security room, glide right past the vending machines, and find myself hovering outside a heavy wooden door marked GENERAL OFFICE. Big desk energy behind that one.

[System: Oh no.]

Oh yessss, wait, can I have some IP for this? This is real indulgence.

[System: I mean, sure, you’re right, here’s 69 IP. I know that hum. You’re humming; why are you humming?]

I didn’t even notice I was doing it, but yeah, there it is—that low, tuneless hum vibrating through my coils, the one that usually means a series of terrible financial decisions is about to unfold.

I slide the office door open with a wispy tendril of smoke and float inside. Filing cabinets, a massive oak desk, and a master desktop computer that’s already logged in. Some lazy middle-manager forgot to sign out. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

They owe me.

[System: Who owes you what now?]

The zoo, think about it, Old Mate, I’ve spent three days under a glass box acting like a static statue, being an incredible specimen of predatory excellence, giving top-tier entertainment to clueless tourists. I gaslit a toddler yesterday; that’s basically high-end consulting work. Services cost money.

[System: That is the single worst piece of logic I have ever heard in my life.]

So can you get into their accounts or not?

[System: ...Yeah, nah, mate, course I can get in. Easy as. Question is whether you actually wanna commit proper grand larceny tonight instead of just being a menace to public bathrooms.]

If I ever say no to that, assume I’ve been body-swapped and kill the imposter.

[System: Which accounts? All of them?]

Are you okay?

[System: Yep, yep, yep, sorry, silly me!]