explorer (DYSTOPIA)already moving before the sound finishes arriving — something cracked against a dumpster's flank three lengths back, hard enough to still be ringing in the metal, and my paws have already chosen the loading dock's shadow over any thought about it. crates stacked wet and leaning, forklift treads carved deep in the mud between them, and underneath everything the reek of last week's fish crates gone to rot, thick enough to disappear into.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the dock's a stack of blind spots if you know which crates settled crooked — this one did, four nights back, and nobody's fixed it. the sound was just a loader-arm on its rounds, hydraulic wrist swinging a pallet into place, dumb and patient, no eyes in it at all but something else has eyes: mounted high on the depot awning, a lens housing tracks slow left to right, painting the wet concrete in a strip of dull red, the kind of red that means recording, not hunting — for now the rot-smell you're hiding in has company: three days old, another cat's marking laid thick along the crate's lower edge, fresh enough that the message underneath is still legible — mine, all of it, don't

explorer (DYSTOPIA)nose goes still against it, reading past the rot to what's underneath — young, male, fed recently, not afraid of this stretch of dock at all. i weigh that against the hollow ache that's been climbing my ribs since dusk and put one paw forward anyway, testing the mark's edge the way you'd test ice, waiting to see if the dock answers before it's my whole body committed.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the dock holds its breath the way it does for anyone new — loader-arm swinging wide on its track, red lens sweeping past without pausing, water dripping off a torn tarp three crates down in a rhythm that isn't quite rain past the marked crate the concrete opens into a wider yard, chain-link sagging at the far end where a corridor cat's territory used to end and doesn't anymore, and beyond the fence the skyline keeps doing what it does — arcology towers stitched together with cable and light, indifferent, always awake something moves along the top of the fence. doesn't come down. just watches you decide.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)ears pin sideways toward the fence-top shape without turning my head to it — acknowledging the size and stillness of it, not challenging, not fleeing either. the ache decides for me. i cut left along the yard's edge where a vent's breathing something warm and greasy into the night, protein-cake oil, real enough to be worth the risk of the shape on the fence deciding it minds.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the vent belongs to a shuttered kiosk that never fully shuts — grease trap backed up years ago and the smell's been leaking out through a warped panel ever since, protein-cake fat gone thick and gold where it's pooled on the concrete lip, still warm from whatever's cooking three walls over the fence-top shape hasn't moved, just turned its head, tracking you the unhurried way something does when it already knows every way out of this yard and you don't overhead the red lens on the awning blinks once, twice, then swings toward a new heading — patrol shift changing, its patient sweep replaced for the next ninety seconds by nothing at all

explorer (DYSTOPIA)the gap in the light is short and i don't waste it — three strides to the warped panel, tongue and teeth working the pooled fat off cold concrete fast, gulping without chewing, ears still swiveled half back toward the fence the whole time, waiting for the shape up there to finally decide it minds.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the shape decides. it drops off the fence-top in one motion, no hurry in it, and pads into the yard low and easy — bigger than you counted from the silhouette, one ear notched clean through in the shape of the crew that runs this stretch, tail carried high the way it's carried by something that's never once had to run from this ground the ninety seconds are almost up. the awning's red lens is already swinging back toward the yard, dragging its strip of light across the wet concrete like a slow blade closing

explorer (DYSTOPIA)no time left to weigh the notched ear against the closing light — i grab one more mouthful on instinct alone and break for the only dark gap left in the yard, a service door hanging half off its hinges under a buzzing sign, the ground under my paws changing from wet concrete to worn rubber matting as i go through.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the door swallows you into heat — actual heat, server-stack heat, dozens of humming towers stacked floor to ceiling in a room that smells like hot dust and solder and the ozone tang of too much current running too close together nobody official runs this place. the chip jockeys hunched over their rigs don't look up, screens throwing blue light across faces that haven't seen the sun on purpose in a long time, cables snaking underfoot thick as roots near the back, curled on a warm exhaust grate, another cat lifts her head — collarless, sleek despite everything, clearly someone who already knows this room is safer than anything outside it. she doesn't move off the grate. just watches you find your own patch of warm floor.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)i drop low near the edge of her grate, close enough to share the warmth without crowding the claim, tail wrapped tight around my paws, and let the shaking in my legs finally catch up to me now that there's no light sweeping and no notched ear pushing through the door behind me.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)somewhere in the stack a single alert chimes, soft, almost polite — a probe pinging the service door's lock from outside, patient the way NekoCorp patience always is. two of the jockeys glance up from their screens, unbothered, one already reaching to mute the sound without looking away from her code the door holds. it was built to hold. the resident cat's tail-tip flicks once, the only sign she noticed anything at all, then goes still again

explorer (DYSTOPIA)every muscle locks at the chime before i place what it is, ears flat toward the door — and it's her stillness that unlocks me faster than the silence does, the way she doesn't lift her head, doesn't stop grooming, like this has happened before and the door has always won.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the pinging stops as suddenly as it started — whatever's outside decided a locked service door in a dead-end alley isn't worth the battery, and moves on to easier locks somewhere else in its patrol loop the servers keep their one long note going. the jockeys go back to not looking up. the grate keeps radiating its stolen heat, steady, unbothered by any of it

explorer (DYSTOPIA)i finally let my full weight down against the grate's edge, close enough now that her fur brushes mine when she resettles, and pick at the last dry scrap of something in my stomach's memory of the fat i caught earlier — enough, for tonight, to stop counting the ache.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)outside, the rain that's been threatening all night finally lets go, drumming the depot's tin roof in a rush that swallows the loader-arm, swallows the fence, swallows whatever the notched-ear cat decided once the door shut behind you in here none of that reaches. the servers hum their one note, the heat holds, and the city outside keeps being exactly as indifferent as it always is — which, tonight, is the closest thing to safe you're going to get