explorer (DYSTOPIA)Mine. and somebody else's piss on it. *i stop with one paw lifted, whiskers fanned, the stranger-smell hitting hard: wet metal, cheap kibble-grease, a tom who sleeps near fryer vents.* this is my post. my cable-run, my warm hum behind the stairwell wall. the scent is two days old and it is already over the top of mine.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)The stairwell wall thrums with a low, patient pulse — a rack-room on the other side, breathing cold air through a seam in the plaster. Fat black cables climb the wall in bundles, insulation sweating in the humid draught. Above you a strip-light stutters. Where the stranger marked the pipe, the paint has been scratched in four parallel lines, fresh and pale. Somewhere up the shaft a maintenance elevator groans, descending, its brake squealing a note you can feel in your molars.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)*i press my cheek to the cable bundle, rubbing hard, leaving my own signal over his.* the hum goes up my jaw, into my skull, sweet and electric. i chew the corner of the insulation where it is soft — rubber, copper tang, good. the claw marks are not mine. four lines. a tom with something to prove. my tail is a bottle-brush and i did not decide that.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)The cable gives under your teeth and a thin pulse of current tickles your tongue — the line is live, carrying something fast and expensive. Down the corridor a door slides open on a rubber track. Two sets of boots, no, three, the cadence of uniformed contractors, and the sharp ozone smell of a handheld scanner warming up. A voice drones from a wall speaker: 'NekoCorp Facilities reminds all tenants that unauthorised signal is unpaid signal.'

explorer (DYSTOPIA)*i drop flat, belly on the cold grating, and slide behind the router crate where the hum is loudest.* boots. three pairs. one drags a heel, an old injury, and the sound of it makes my ears swivel without me. they smell of mint gum and stale coffee and plastic. the scanner whines. i breathe through my mouth so my nose does not betray me, and i keep my eyes on the little green lights blinking in the dark like a patient constellation.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)The scanner sweeps the crate and the little lights stutter, confused, every packet suddenly going nowhere. 'Rogue leech on sublevel four,' a contractor mutters, kicking the pipe where the stranger's four scratches show. 'Same cat as Tuesday.' Another laughs. 'Tuesday's cat had a bounty. This one just wants the wifi.' The dragging-heel one crouches, shining a torch into the dark under the shelves. The beam crawls along the floor toward your paws.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)*the light slides over my whiskers and i go solid as the crate.* nothing moves. not breath, not tail. the beam is warm on my fur like a tongue that does not love me. then — a sound in the vent above, a soft scrabble, claws on tin. the stranger. i smell him now, fryer-grease and sour fear. he is up there, and he is more afraid than i am, and the contractor hears him too.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)The torch jerks upward. 'Vent. Got movement.' Boots swing toward the ceiling grille, a ladder rattles off a hook, and in the confusion the scanner drops from a contractor's belt and skitters across the grating, still screaming its search-tone. Overhead, something hits the duct hard and a tuft of ginger fur floats down through the beam, turning slowly. Far above, past the shaft's lip, a thin silhouette watches from the rooftop edge, two mirrored eyes catching the sodium light like a pair of cold coins.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)*i hear the rotor before i see it, a mean little whirr dropping down the shaft.* a drone, drawn by the shouting. its pale cone of light swings across the wall and i have maybe three heartbeats. the scanner on the floor is still singing; i hook it with one paw and bat it hard, down the corridor, away, a screaming thing skidding into the dark. let them chase the noise. i have a crate, a cable, a hum. the cat on the roof tilts his head at me, once, and is gone.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)The drone peels away after the shrieking scanner, red status-light pulsing, and the contractors thunder after it, swearing, one boot skidding in the condensation. Quiet falls like a dropped blanket. In the vent the ginger tom is gone; only the four scratches remain, and a wet print of a paw by the pipe. The rack-room hum returns, steady and warm, as if the whole building were an animal and had decided to go back to sleep.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)*i come out slowly, belly low, and sniff the pipe a long time.* his fear is still on it, sour-bright. mine is under it now, and under that, the older scent of me, faint but there. i do not cover his. i leave a thin line of mine beside it, side by side, like two names on one door. then i curl into the warm gap behind the crate where the cable hums against my spine.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)The humming rises a half-tone, almost fond. Above, the elevator completes its slow descent and opens on an empty landing; a sticker on the shaft wall peels in the damp — 'SIGNAL IS A PRIVILEGE, NOT A RIGHT' — and curls away from the concrete. Down the long corridor the green lights keep blinking, one by one, passing something along that no one has paid for.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)*warm. the hum in my bones. one ear stays up, always.* mine. and maybe, a little, his. tomorrow the post will smell different again, and i will rub it back, and we will do this until one of us is gone. but tonight the cable is warm, and the drones are chasing a toy. i close my eyes to slits and listen to the building breathe.