Jiang hit the grate before Gredudande could borrow Aylin's voice again.
Rust shook loose and peppered his face. The iron rectangle jumped in its frame, showed him a blade of morning, then settled with all four corners still attached.
Behind him, claws scraped inside the runoff pipe.
The rat had stopped trying to squeeze its shoulders through. It was digging now, worrying at the mineral crust with enough patience to become Jiang's problem again.
Ahead, the grate offered cold air and a world without teeth. Jiang shoved his beak beneath its lower edge and lifted. Pain pulled from his scratched shoulder into the damaged left flipper. The iron answered with a groan and held.
Somewhere below the pipe, a pump coughed awake.
Water slapped his webbed feet. It had been a trickle when he crawled in; now it climbed over his toes and brought the smell of bleach, old fish, and machinery.
Wonderful. The city had found a way to drown a penguin in a drain.
Jiang braced both feet against the curved wall and pushed his rigid torso under the grate. His belly gave him a broad point of contact, but no leverage. Iron ground against iron without opening.
The effort tore the scratch wider. Warm blood crawled beneath wet feathers and stopped in the cold.
[Penguin Camouflage Ready]
Jiang dismissed the panel. Hiding from a grate would be an achievement even the System should feel ashamed to reward, and Camouflage would spend heat he no longer had.
He lowered himself into the rising water and watched.
The pump coughed again. A surge struck the grate from below, making the upper corners tremble. The lower right corner stayed rigid. The lower left gave a tiny kick and dropped back into place.
Three corners held firm; the fourth lied with every kick.
Jiang waited through another surge. The loose corner moved again. Its hinge pin had rusted thin beneath a collar of orange scale, but the water struck too broadly to finish the job.
He wedged the tip of his beak into the hinge. It tasted of rust and whatever had died in the pipe before him.
The rat's claws came closer.
Jiang pulled sideways, not upward. Rust cracked. His beak slipped free and struck the pipe wall hard enough to flash white across his sight.
The weak pin remained in place.
He wanted hands, shoes, and a crowbar. Complaining to a maintenance department while wearing dry clothes would have been a bonus. What he had were webbed feet, a stiff body built to punch through surf, and one hinge willing to admit it was tired.
The pump drew breath beneath him.
Jiang planted his feet against a ridge in the pipe. He tucked the injured flipper close, pressed his beak back against the pin, and aimed his chest at the loose corner. Water gathered around his belly.
Blue light narrowed over the hinge.
[Adaptation Recognized: Target Selection]
[Tactical Strike Unlocked: Marks One Observed Opening | Adds No Force]
That final warning was almost insulting. Jiang was well acquainted with how little force he possessed on land.
The mark showed no path and promised no miracle. It rested on the thinnest bite of metal, exactly where he had already chosen to hit.
The next surge struck the pipe.
Jiang kicked with both feet. Water drove under his belly while he thrust his chest forward and wrenched his beak sideways. His shoulder scraped iron. The reopened cut burned, and the damaged flipper tried to spread on instinct.
The hinge pin snapped.
One corner of the grate folded outward. Jiang rammed his beak through the gap, twisted his head, and forced one shoulder after it. The opening caught his belly and shaved rust along his white feathers.
Water hit from behind.
He shot through the gap beak-first, bounced off a slanted metal screen, and dropped into a shallow concrete basin. Cold water broke his fall. A loose grate clanged down beside him.
Jiang surfaced with an outraged bark.
The room around him hummed with pumps. Thick pipes crossed painted walls, and stacked plastic tubs crowded a stainless-steel sink. Fish blood stained a cutting board. From beyond a sealed door came the layered calls of birds with voices uncomfortably like his own.
A zoo waited upstairs.
A paper schedule hung beside the sink. Most of it meant nothing from floor level, but a blue crest showed a seal, a polar bear, and a penguin beneath the words METROPOLITAN PARK ZOO.
Jiang stared at the penguin.
Of course there was a zoo at the end of the pipe. Fate had the subtlety of a man carrying a net.
The pump alarm began to chirp.
He tried to climb out of the basin. His good flipper found the rim; the left folded when he put weight on it. His feet churned uselessly against smooth concrete, leaving him chest-high and exposed.
Keys struck the other side of the door.
Jiang considered Camouflage. The room was bright, his blood marked the basin wall, and using the ability would make him colder. More important, the lidded fish tub required hands.
Help meant trusting whoever owned the keys; starvation meant pretending he could hunt a sealed tub. Jiang raised his head and let the room see him.
The door opened, and a woman in green work trousers stepped through carrying a wrench. She stopped with one boot over the threshold.
Her gaze went from the buckled screen to the grate on the floor, then to Jiang. Fatigue shadowed a broad face beneath the knit cap holding her dark curls. She moved with the stillness of someone who knew a frightened animal would read every careless gesture.
"Well," she said, "you are not the pump failure I ordered."
Jiang barked at the basin rim.
"Emperor penguin. Adult, unless you have been lying about your height." She set the wrench down slowly. "No wing band. No foot band. Bleeding. And somehow in my filtration room."
She took a folded towel from a shelf and crouched beyond beak range, leaving a strip of floor between them.
"I'm Samira. I know that introduction matters more to me than it does to you, but manners are free."
Jiang looked at the towel, the door, and the tub of fish.
Samira followed his gaze. "Food after I see where the blood is coming from. You may hate the arrangement in any language available to you."
Her voice held no baby talk and no excitement about finding an impossible animal. She sounded like a woman whose morning had already been too long and who had chosen to make room for one more problem.
Jiang put his beak on the rim and tried again.
Samira slid one forearm beneath his chest while leaving the bad flipper free. Through the towel, her other hand supported his feet. Her wrist rested close enough to bite, and the careful restraint in her grip said she knew it.
He chose not to bite.
"Good decision," she murmured, lifting him onto a rubber mat. "Please remember making it."
Warm towel closed around his feet and belly. Jiang shuddered before pride could prevent it. The heat hurt almost as much as the cold leaving.
Samira counted the torn places at his tail with her fingertips held just above the feathers. Her expression tightened when she found the scratch below his shoulder.
"Teeth or claws made those." She glanced at the twisted grate. "As for you, the universe appears to have misplaced its standards."
Jiang turned toward the loading door at the far end of the room.
Nothing had knocked. No claw had scraped. Still, the feathers along his neck lifted as the Spirit Link drew tight inside his chest.
Aylin's pain pressed through it, faint and choking.
Then someone tried the loading-door handle.
Samira rose without dropping the towel around Jiang. "Staff use the other entrance."
The handle dipped again. A wet nose appeared at the narrow safety window, followed by one red eye.
The stray dog stood outside with black tail feathers caught between its teeth. Its jaw worked once, arranging them like a gift.
"Jiang?" it called in his mother's voice. "Open the door for me."
Samira looked from the speaking dog to the penguin at her feet.
This time, she picked up the wrench.