explorer (DYSTOPIA)thrum. thrum. thrum-thrum. it comes up through the pads before it gets to my ears, a low electric shiver in the concrete that makes my back teeth itch. *i lift one paw off the oil-stained floor and set it down again, slower, feeling for the rhythm.* level three of the parking garage. every pillar hums. every pillar has a little cold cable-skin at its foot, and the rubber tastes of salt and static when i test it with my teeth.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the hum answers. forty charging posts breathing in sync, blue pilot-lights blinking down the row like a sleepy jaw of teeth. oil, hot copper, ozone, old rain tracked in on a thousand tires. somewhere above, a ramp-gate clacks open and shut, open and shut. a speaker in the ceiling coughs: *NEKOCORP PARKING — YOUR SPOT IS A SUBSCRIPTION. YOUR SPOT IS A FEELING.* the cables at your paws are warm. the one nearest you is warmer. it pulses with something that isn't current.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)the warm one. *i circle it twice, tail low, then press my chin to the cable and drag. the fur there goes tingly.* inside it there's a buzzing that has a shape, like a fish-sound, like a tiny wet fish flopping in a pipe. something is riding the power. i know this feeling. i chew the insulation, just a little, and the taste goes bright and metallic and my whiskers all point toward the far wall.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the far wall is a service door, steel, painted the green of old hospitals. behind it a rack of something breathes — fans, ticking drives, a warm exhale leaking from the gap beneath. a signal-smell, if smell could be signal: hot dust and cooked plastic. on the ground between you and the door, a trail of tiny bite marks along the cable, old ones, healed over with grey tape. someone has been here, chewing, for a long time. the ceiling speaker clears its throat. *THIS AREA IS MONITORED FOR YOUR PROTECTION.*

explorer (DYSTOPIA)the signal-smell pulls like a hook behind the nose. *i slink along the pillars, belly almost on the floor, stopping at every third one to listen. the door is a wall of hum.* then, from up the ramp — a different sound. high. thin. rotors. four of them, spinning too fast and too polite. my ears go flat before i decide anything. i fold myself into the shadow of a charging post and go absolutely still. the bite marks on the cable are right under my nose. they smell like someone who isn't afraid. i wish i smelled like that.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the drone descends the ramp in a slow spiral, its belly-lamp sweeping the pillars one by one: left, right, left. the light is the color of a dentist's office. the hum of the garage drops half a tone as it passes, as though the building were holding its breath. the drone's speaker murmurs, bored and sweet: *SCANNING FOR UNLICENSED LOITERING. SCANNING FOR UNLICENSED WARMTH.* the beam crawls over the concrete toward your post. three pillars away. two. at the edge of the garage, high on a girder, a shape sits very still — a silhouette with something shiny where its eyes should be, watching the drone, not you.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)two pillars. one. *my heart is a fist in a small box.* the shape on the girder — mirror-eyes, flat ears, unbothered — tips its head at me, just barely. a nothing-gesture. a don't. so i don't. i hold my breath till my ribs hurt, and the lamp slides over the post, over my tail, hot as a lick, and *keeps going.* the cable under my chin vibrates the whole time like it's laughing at us both.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the drone ticks, confused, and hovers. in its mouth-grille a half-second of someone else's voice, tinny, cheerful: *...your loyalty tier has been downgraded to STRAY...* then it recovers, rises, and corkscrews back up the ramp, taking the dentist-light with it. the garage exhales. the pillars hum back up to full. on the girder the mirrored shape is gone, and a small round object ticks down onto the floor beside the service door and rolls to a stop: a key-chip, chewed at one corner, still warm.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)*i wait a long count of heartbeats before i breathe out. then the chip. i nose it, paw it, roll it under my chin.* it smells like the cable. like the bite marks. like a tom who naps in the same place every night and makes the machines pay him for it in noise. the door is right there. the hum behind it is a whole room of tiny fish flopping in warm water. i could pry it open with the right kind of luck.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the chip finds the slot beneath the door-handle as if it had always known where it lived. a click. the green steel swings out an inch, and warm air floods the aisle, scented like toasted dust and old kibble and a thousand little lights. inside, rows of racks blink in patient rhythm; one screen glows at floor level, playing, on loop, a single low-resolution fish swimming left to right, left to right. the ceiling speaker, quieter now, almost shy: *THIS FISH IS FREE FOR THE NEXT 00:03:00.*

explorer (DYSTOPIA)three minutes. *i slip in sideways, tail brushing the frame, and sit down in front of the fish like it's been waiting for me my whole life.* the screen's glow warms my forehead. the racks hum a lullaby in a language of tiny clicks. somewhere behind me the garage hums and the drone hums and the city hums, and none of them are for me, and for three whole minutes none of them are against me either. *i watch the fish go left. i watch the fish go right.*

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the fish turns at the edge of the screen, every time, as if it had somewhere better to be. 00:02:41. 00:02:40. up on the ramp, rotors circle once and recede. rain begins somewhere above the garage roof, soft static on a thousand cars. the cable behind you pulses, once, twice — a pattern, a greeting — and the fan-noise shifts a half-tone warmer, the way a room does when it decides to let you stay. 00:02:39. the fish swims on, patient, free.