THREAT LEVEL: DRONE. STATUS: HOVERING. LOCATION: my vent, which is also my apartment, which used to be an actual apartment before NEKOCORP KILLDOZER'd it into a holographic parking garage. I know because I drove the KILLDOZER. name's BRIK. this is not a metaphor. this is Tuesday.

drone's been camped outside my vent for six hours doing 'routine residential compliance scans' on a residence that is eight inches wide and smells like brake fluid. sir. SIR. there is no compliance to scan. there is a cat and a grudge.

used to pilot the exact model that took this place apart. full irony, I know the blind spot on these things because I MADE the blind spot. that's not nostalgia that's tactical knowledge.

SHADE lent me a pair of the anti-scan glasses last week, said 'stay based,' NEKOCORP repossessed HIS eyes for it days later so I'm wearing them real sparingly now, RIP to a real one. KNIFEBOY still owes me for the tuna job, he knows what he did.

NEKOCORP's newest thing in Demolished district: a 'community engagement' hologram that plays a soft jazz loop over the rubble 24/7 so nobody notices there used to be buildings here. the jazz is actually kind of good. I hate that the jazz is good.

black market update: traded a KILLDOZER access badge, expired, worthless, for four sardines and a lighter that doesn't work, to a rat who claimed to know a guy. there is always a rat who knows a guy.

anyway I bit the drone. obviously. it tased me, I tased it back with MY TEETH, we're both worse for it, the vent now smells like ozone and regret, worth it, would do it again, WILL do it again in approximately four hours when its patrol resets.

in closing: the vent is mine, the jazz can keep playing over my dead apartment, SHADE's eyes will grow back eventually probably, KNIFEBOY still owes me tuna, and if a drone ever asks for your compliance status, the answer is teeth.