explorer (DYSTOPIA)The old ache first. left hind leg, the one that never set right, throbbing in time with the fan somewhere below me. i am folded into a duct that fits me like a second skin, ribs against warm sheet metal, and the hunger is a second animal in here with me, gnawing. *does not move. jaw works once, silent, the way it does before a bite. tail tip flicks against the aluminum — tk. tk. — and stills. waits for the fan-heat to tell me which way the dock breathes tonight.*

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the duct exhales for you. down its throat comes the loading dock's whole night at once — brine and cardboard and forklift ozone, a cold shipment sweating somewhere under sodium light. the metal under your ribs is warm because the extractor never sleeps; it drinks the dock's air and gives back this one warm artery you have claimed. far off, through a speaker with a torn cone, a voice sings too brightly: >> smile detected // morale credit applied // remember citizen a HAPPY paw is a LOYAL paw << it loops. it has looped all your life. below, a chain rattles. a crate is being moved that should not be moving at this hour.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)*that word — moving — pulls the hunger up onto its feet. i pour myself down the duct, boneless, claws set silent into the seams so nothing rings. at the grille i stop. press one eye to the slot.* brine. real brine, wet, alive — not the powder they seal in the subscription cans. my mouth floods. *whiskers spread to the full width of the opening, taking the measure of the gap, the drop, the crate, the single cat-shape crouched over it below.*

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the shape below is small and fast and gone — a flick of tail into the dark between pallets, a working cat who knows better than to be seen, leaving only the split crate and its wealth spilling silver onto the concrete. you have three heartbeats to be glad. on the fourth a new sound arrives, and your gut knows it before your ears finish: rotor. that fat descending whine, blades chewing the damp air, and the loading bay goes white — a searchlight born out of nothing, sliding across the spilled tuna like it is counting each fish. >> UNAUTHORIZED WITHDRAWAL // NEKOCORP ASSET 7712 // hold position, citizen, a wellness officer is en route <<

explorer (DYSTOPIA)*the white finger swings toward the grille and something in me that is older than the ache says NO. not run — the other thing. i am already through the slot and dropping, weight gathered, and the rotor-whine is a throat i have bitten before.* the light finds me mid-air and i do not care. *jaws open. i land on the drone's hot casing, claws raking for the soft rubber seam around the lens, and i bite down on the rotor housing where the sound lives, where the sound has always lived.*

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the world tips. the drone screams — a real scream now, not a jingle — and the searchlight whips across ceiling, crates, your own snarling shape smeared huge on the wall. plastic gives under your teeth with a taste of burnt pepper and battery. it bucks, sheds altitude, spits sparks that land in your fur and wink out. >> ass_lt on nek—— *lt on ne—— <bzzt> smi—LE detec—— << the voice tears in half. one rotor is meat in your mouth now and the machine cannot hold the air; it slews sideways, drags you both toward the concrete, and the light finally dies — snap — leaving only the sodium glow and the smell of you starting to singe.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)*i let go before the ground does the letting-go for me. push off the dying casing, twist, land wrong on the bad leg and swallow the flare of it.* the drone hits pallets and stops being a threat, stops being anything. *my own smell reaches me now — scorched, that acrid crisp of fur that has burned before and knows the drill. i do not lick it. i grab. two fish off the concrete, silver and cold and REAL, one in the jaws, and i am pouring back up toward the warm artery the way i came.*

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the duct takes you back the way a den takes back its own — warm, tight, smelling of you and only you, the metal still purring with stolen extractor-heat. behind you the dock keeps its dead: a broken drone, spilled silver, a wellness officer that is en route and will always be en route and will find nothing but a scorch-mark and a story. far across the rooflines, framed for one instant in a billboard's pink wash, a lean silhouette sits perfectly still on a ledge — ears low, two little mirrors where eyes should be, watching the dock, watching you, judging nothing. then the billboard flickers and the ledge is empty. it was always going to be empty.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)*i eat. here, in the dark, ribs against the warm wall, i tear the first fish down to nothing and the hunger-animal finally lies flat. the ache in the leg settles into the ordinary ache. i save the second fish under my chin.* the jingle is still going somewhere below — HAPPY paw, LOYAL paw — and i answer it the only way that has ever meant anything. *bite the air once, slow, where the sound is. tk. tk. then curl. one eye open on the grille.*

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the city does not notice you won. it never does. rain starts again on the roof above the duct, soft, and washes the scorch-smell thin. a fresh billboard warms up across the avenue — synthetic milk, a kitten who has never been hungry, >> NEKOCORP: we keep the dark outside << — and its glow reaches into your artery just far enough to lay one pink bar across your good paw. the extractor breathes. the fan turns. somewhere a chain is already being moved that should not be moving. the night, for a few more hours, still belongs to whoever bites quietest. sleep, small furnace. the seam holds.