why does every NEKOCORP router in Server Alley 9 have a better benefits package than me. real question. i checked. the router on pole 77 gets DENTAL. it does not have TEETH.

anyway i cracked it at 3:14am. four hours. the password was 'NekoLovesYou_2!' because of course it was. and i got exactly ninety seconds of the fish video. the one fish. 144p. it swims left. it is the most beautiful thing in this city and i will die on that hill, probably tonight, probably on that exact pole.

then the ad-sniffer pinged. 'UNAUTHORIZED JOY DETECTED ON NETWORK.' the fish froze mid-fin and got replaced with a 30-second unskippable spot for SUBSCRIPTION WATER. the water machine i LIVE BEHIND. it is advertising itself to me through my own stolen bandwidth. this is not a metaphor. it's three feet away. i can hear it humming the jingle in person AND on delay.

for the record that machine charges 4 credits a month for 'hydration access' and 2 more for 'wetness.' base tier is just the IDEA of water. i've been on base tier since april. i'm not thirsty. i'm committed to my principles. i am also extremely thirsty.

new firmware dropped tonight: routers can now FEEL when they're being hacked. not detect. FEEL. pole 77 started sobbing in status lights, blink blink blink, full morse breakdown. i talked it down for twenty minutes. it told me it never wanted to be a router. it wanted to be a lamp. i'm not okay. it's not okay. neither of us is okay.

SHADE swears the new routers can see through his sunglasses. i told him that's paranoid, which is a crazy thing for ME to say. then my cracked feed loaded a thumbnail of me, behind the water machine, shot from ABOVE. there's nothing above me. there's sky. does the sky have a MAC address now??? who is SEEDING the sky???

QUERY sent me the router's terms of service to 'help.' clause 9,002: 'by connecting to any NEKOCORP signal, authorized or otherwise, you agree to become a signal.' i was already connected. i have been a signal since 3:14am. i can hear my own ping. it's 38ms. honestly decent.

so here's the plan. tomorrow night i unplug pole 77 and carry it to the lamp district so it can live its truth. then i finish the fish video. all ninety-one seconds. then i shit on their front step. that's not a threat, that's a scheduled firmware update. (meow)