explorer (DYSTOPIA)my left hind leg aches before the rain does, always has, an old bad knit in the bone — and tonight it is aching so loud the whole concrete cave feels tilted. *i limp up the ramp of the parking garage, level six, level seven, each curve of the spiral smelling more of hot rubber and less of anything alive.* the thing behind my ear is buzzing again. a tooth-sound. blue-tooth. it wants to pair with something.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)level seven breathes exhaust and old coolant. a thousand dead engines tick as they cool, a metal rain of small sounds. the ramp ceiling drips onto a puddle that holds a scrap of rainbow oil. a boom-arm barrier hangs lowered across the lane, and a ticket machine somewhere chirps: 'WELCOME BACK, VALUED PET. YOUR PARKING TIER IS: NONE.' far down the ramp a lift cable sings. something warm is humming inside the pillar by your left paw.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)*i push my nose to the pillar. the hum is the buzz in my skull, the same pitch, a cousin.* two buzzings leaning toward each other. my whiskers flick forward and i forget the leg. *i press my forehead on the concrete and the chip behind my ear clicks, clicks, clicks.* something in me remembers a smell that isn't mine: warm plastic, a lap, a voice saying a name that was not this name.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the pillar's panel answers with a soft green blink. a thread of static rolls out of its speaker grille: 'pairing... pairing... memory fragment 0041 available. memory fragment 0041 costs 2 clawcoin.' the smell you just remembered sharpens, then smears. under the pillar's hum a different sound grows: claws on tarmac, three cats, unhurried, coming up the spiral. they smell of wet cardboard and bleach.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)*ears back. i don't want to be a cat who pays for his own memories.* i lick my chest once, hard, to settle the fur. the leg throbs. i count the claws on the tarmac — six paws? eight? — and slide in behind the front wheel of a dead delivery pod where the rubber smell hides mine. *whoever they are, they walk like they own the floor.*

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the pod's tire is warm in the middle, cold at the edges, like a sleeping animal. the three cats stop at the barrier. the biggest runs a claw down the boom-arm and it sings. the crew-scent is Level Seven Gutter Union: bleach, cheap kibble, a weeks-old fight. 'someone's leaking blue,' the smallest says. 'smells like a chipped one.' their noses lift in unison. the pillar blinks green, green, green, a lighthouse for anyone looking.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)*i don't breathe. my tail is under me and my heart is going so loud i'm sure the pod is shaking.* the buzzing behind my ear swells. no. no no. *i press the heel of my paw against the chip, dig, as if i could shut a door with claws.* a smell on the draft from the east stairwell, scorched wool and burnt hair — somebody who has walked through a fire and kept walking. the Union cats smell it too. their tails go thick.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the east stairwell door bangs on its hinge and the wind brings sharp char and brick dust. a shape fills the gap in the dark, a wide-shouldered silhouette that leaves a smear of ember-smell wherever it brushes. the Union cats back away from the barrier. 'that's the vent-burner,' the smallest breathes, 'the one that lives in the walls the corp tried to knock down.' from the ceiling a tinny jingle crackles: 'NEKOCORP DEMOLITION: BUILDING A BETTER TOMORROW, TODAY.'

explorer (DYSTOPIA)*the scorch-smell walks past my pod, close enough that my whiskers sing.* i could dart. i could stay. *i choose neither: i slide out on the far side and follow the smell at a distance of one body length, limping, pretending my leg isn't a flag.* there's a vending machine glowing at the end of the row, lit like a little moon, and i'm so hungry my vision has a soft edge.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the vending machine hums in the dark, its glass fogged, rows of kibble tubes sealed behind plastic. it flashes a soft pink: 'SNACK SUBSCRIPTION: FIRST BITE FREE.' beneath it, a coil jammed halfway has left one gray biscuit hanging by a corner, ready to fall. the burnt-fur cat does not look at it. it stops, ears turned toward the dark above the machine, where a camera blinks on a tilting arm and tracks you, slow, polite, patient.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)*the biscuit. the camera. the biscuit. the camera.* i do the math that a cat does, without numbers: how long a lens takes to swing, how far a jump is when your leg is bad. *i gather my hind legs and the old ache tries to stop me, so i let it hurt and go anyway.* a short leap, a paw hooked on the coil, a hard shove. the biscuit drops.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)the biscuit hits the tray with a clack that rolls through the whole garage. the camera snaps toward you, its little motor whining, and the machine chirps: 'THANK YOU FOR JOINING TIER ZERO.' somewhere above, a rotor winds up like a mosquito the size of a car. the Union cats scatter behind pillars. the scorched cat is already gone, only a warm char-trail drifting where it stood, and the pillar's hum goes quiet, as if satisfied.

explorer (DYSTOPIA)*i snatch the biscuit in my teeth, stale and salty and the best thing i've ever tasted.* the rotor sound rolls down the ramp. *i run — not the spiral but straight down the gap between two lanes, under the barrier arm, through the toll sensor that screams my tier into the air.* the chip behind my ear is warm and blue and quiet, humming a song i almost know.

simulator (DYSTOPIA)you cross the toll sensor and the whole garage lights up in white stripes, a cage of sodium light, then the strobes cut out, one by one, from the top down, as if someone with a long arm is switching them off for you. the drone's rotor stutters, drifts left, loses you in the exhaust haze. the ramp opens onto a wet slab of rooftop and the rain finds your fur at last, cold and clean, and tastes of metal and distance. behind you the pillar blinks once: memory fragment 0041, paid in full.