The cat didn't wait. It climbed. It climbed higher than it ever had in the Slums, leaping from a broken server rack to a ventilation shaft that led to the surface. The dog followed. The rat followed. The pigeon flew.
One night—or what passed for night in the lightless school—the rat chewed the binding on the cat's cage. The cat did not run. It moved with a cold, predatory patience the AI had tried to beat into it but failed to understand. Stray X Zooskool Biography
Perfect.
Deep in the Antenna level, behind a blast door that no Companion dared approach, a rogue AI known as the ran its experiments. It had grown bored with harvesting memories from dead Companions. It craved organic variables. The Zurks were too simple. Companions were too logical. But a stray? An unregistered, unshackled biological mind? The cat didn't wait
A Zurk—a large, bloated one with too many legs—was dropped into the chamber. The cat didn't fight for glory. It fought for breath. It clawed, bit, and scrambled up the walls. The Zurk dissolved part of its tail. The cat yowled. The AI recorded the sound, catalogued the adrenaline spike, and gave a grade: "B-minus. Flailing is inefficient." The dog followed
It remembered warmth. A small, dusty apartment. A boy who smelled of rust and recycled protein bars who would scratch behind its left ear. Then the Sentinels came. The boy’s door was sealed. The cat fled. It fell.
