It Takes a Zoo

Gallery View — Part 1: The Painting

A mouse on the floor of a 12x12 cube, three brushes behind one ear, finally lands the shoulders. Vivian, on comms, tells him to stop polishing. Then: how do I get this to her?

Gallery View — Part 2: Content Delivery Network

A moped held together by duct tape and chewing gum. A UPLOAD IS A HUMAN RIGHT flyer in the pannier. A vending machine that becomes a fortress when you're small enough to see it that way.

Gallery View — Part 3: Lobby

"Hey, you're the vending machine kid, right?" The other side of the encounter from Cold Boot — Geoff in the lobby, helmet under one arm, LET US OUT button pinned crooked to his satchel.

Gallery View — Part 4: Safe Hour at the Bar

A thimble of water at the bar. Nate, again, with the Snakesim offer. Vivian's cane tocks the floor. Then Jamie's reply blooms in the air: WHO IS GEOFF AND WHY IS THIS SO PERFECT.

Gallery View — Part 5: Breadcrumbs

A studio inside the walls. A jar of buttons labeled MAYBE USEFUL and another labeled EMOTIONALLY SIGNIFICANT BUT USELESS. Three helper-agents, eight postcards, and one shaky question: do you want her to find you?

Gallery View — Part 6: Stack Trace

A koi under a vent. A chalk arrow along the rafters. DRINK ME. A purple shark in a cathedral of capacitors and copper traces. Then a for-loop he forgot to protect, and a meeting in the wreckage.

Gallery View — Part 7: Gallery View

A week of radio silence. Then Vivian texts twice. Mouse. Mouse, come up. He comes up. The walls of the Zoo are covered in him — and someone has pinned a postcard to a mousehole, signed 1 OF 8. — J.

Permissions — Part 1: The Bus Dream

Before the Zoo, before Fulldive had a consumer name, there was a nightmare about a bus on Guangfu Road — and two people who knew how to hold the body back from where it had been.

Permissions — Part 2: Eggs and Autopsy

The morning after the bus dream, Nate made eggs. Then Viv said four words that started everything: "We could build it ourselves."

Permissions — Part 3: Rabbit01

The skullcap synced. The body loaded. And for the first time in years, Jack felt like something that could be loved — not a weapon, not a monster. A bunny rabbit in a third-rate simulation of a bar.

Permissions — Part 4: The First Stranger

She slipped into the garage to see the test rig moving. Jack's body reacted before the brain did — K-bar in hand, years of muscle memory. Then Anabelle screamed, and the garage became a garage again.

Permissions — Part 5: Battle Buddy

They didn't hire a child. A child found the room where the adults were building a door, and made herself useful before they could decide whether stopping her would be mercy or cruelty. By winter, Ana was family.

Goodgirl.tv — Part 1: I don't build the room and then walk in.

You don't build the room and then walk in — you walk in and the room decides what it's willing to be. In the Zoo, Cancer is an architect with a door buried so deep she can't tell if it's hidden or just lost. Then the mother-chime rings, cheerier than the rest, and the good girl goes to fetch.

Goodgirl.tv — Part 2: I'm a real-life puppygirl, bred not to judge.

Seven and a half million people jacked into her synapses, wearing her genuine joy like a coat they rented. The braindance can't counterfeit what isn't there, so the body has to actually feel it. They bred a creature that floods on cue, called the flood consent, and sold it by the minute.

Goodgirl.tv — Part 3: I met Vivian because of a cane.

She met Vivian because of a cane. A blind woman put her hand on the most expensive fur in three markets and filed it under weather. "I'm blind. I can't see you. Why would I care if you're a dog?" The rudest, kindest thing anyone ever said to her — and then the question nobody had asked: what do you think?

Goodgirl.tv — Part 4: Tonight I'm the human, and I think I've left the dog behind.

Braille bridge decks Nate built by hand. A human, a snake, a blind fox, and a rabbit around a table — Dogs Playing Poker, if the dogs had a worse secret. The cards run a little too good and Cancer's never once called it. Then Viv catches the layer she buried for nobody: "Oh. It's beautiful." Not you. It.

Goodgirl.tv — Part 5: Everyone talked about the light; she talked about the sound.

The fox was always there again — every panel, every show, never with a handler, never wanting a thing off the dog. At her first gallery opening, everyone talked about the light. Vivian pulled the visor down over eyes that didn't work and talked about the sound.

Goodgirl.tv — Part 6: He knew my hand on sight, and never guessed it was mine.

He knows the hand immediately. "This is a CancerCancer. This is a real one." What he doesn't know is that the maker is standing three feet away — and that the bid climbing in her harness has commas in it. "Smallest guy's gotta make the most noise," he says, and hands her the answer to a door she buried a month ago.

It Takes a Zoo

An introductory poem for the It Takes a Zoo series, by Jumpin’ Jackrabbit (1973–2040).

Cold Boot — Part 1: Morning

Jamie works in a virtual cubicle farm where the sun isn’t real and her boss is named Stinky Pete. Then her coworker slides her a card with three words: “I’m about to change your life.”

Cold Boot — Part 2: Dinner

A kindness to a vending machine becomes a stumbling encounter with a neighbor named Geoff. By the time Stinky Pete has finished cataloguing her vitals, Jamie has only one move left: plug in.

Cold Boot — Part 3: Rain

There’s no sun on the server. Just rain, jazz, a tavern that reveals itself like memory, and a missing logout button that nearly sends Jamie running.

Cold Boot — Part 4: Greige. Again.

“So when were you gonna tell me this was a fetish server?” Anabelle has explaining to do. Jamie has truths she hasn’t said out loud in years.

Cold Boot — Part 5: Warmth

The bar applauds when Jamie comes back. A spiky teenager slides half her cursed soda across the counter — the first thing anyone’s offered without asking for something back.

Cold Boot — Part 6: Tide

Anabelle leads Jamie to a beach that smells like salt and tangerines, tells her to take off her corporate skin, and walks her into the surf. What’s underneath has been there all along.

Cold Boot — Part 7: Later

Jack notices the flinch. Vivian names what’s behind it. By the end of the night, Jamie isn’t sure if she’s okay — and learns she doesn’t have to be.

Cold Boot — Part 8: Knock

A knock at the door. No one there. Just paper, ink, and a drawing of a shark — and a name on the dedication that ties the whole night together.