Chapter 229: I Am Exotic, Not Just Some White Londoner

[System: Absolute legend behaviour. Ten out of ten.]

I don’t even get to fire back a comment before the hallway opens up and the gurney rolls to a stop in front of a massive glass wall.

And okay, well even I have to admit. It’s impressive.

Behind the glass sits a whole setup that looks like it costs more than most people’s houses. Big chunks of volcanic rock glow faint orange, radiating heat I can feel even from here. Mist jets built into the walls puff out little clouds every few seconds, keeping the air thick and warm. The lighting overhead mimics sunlight, golden and soft, no flicker, no hum. There’s even a stream of water trickling through fake rocks into a little pool.

A bronze plaque sits beside the glass door.

EXOTIC HABITAT

I stare at that for a solid three seconds; hell yeah I’m exotic, not just some white Londoner.

The staff wheel me through a side door and, with the kind of careful teamwork usually reserved for moving pianos, ease me off the gurney and onto the biggest, warmest rock in the whole enclosure.

And immediately my whole nervous system restarts.

The heat sinks into my scales instantly and deep, better than any radiator, any heating pad, any nonsense I ever curled up on back in the sewers trying not to freeze to death. My coils just... relax. Involuntarily. Like my whole body forgets it’s supposed to be alert and dangerous and just melts into the stone.

Oh, oh wow, that’s not fair.

[Yeah, that rock costs more than your entire personality, mate. Enjoy it.]

I stretch out, tail curling along one edge of the rock, smoke drifting lazily off my back in slow curls. Every part of my brain that’s supposed to be screaming about captivity and danger and where the hell I am has gone quiet.

This is nice.

A handler steps up to a control panel outside the glass, taps a few buttons, and the mist jets shift, pumping out a thicker, warmer spray that drifts across my scales like a spa treatment. I don’t even flinch. I just let it happen.

Five minutes, I tell myself. I’ll figure out the escape plan in five minutes, right after this nap.

The glass on my tank has a latch that some genius keeper thinks is snake-proof. It is not snake-proof. It is barely finger-proof, and I don’t even have fingers.

I nudge it with a bit of smoke, and the whole thing pops open like it was never trying that hard to begin with. Old Mate’s been quiet all night, probably drunk on whatever passes for liquor in a system’s imagination, but the second I slide out into the open air, he perks right up.

[System: Unauthorised habitat exit detected! Congrats, mate, you’re officially a bad influence on yourself.]

Yeah, no shit. I’m not sticking around in a glass box all night when there’s a whole zoo out here I’ve never actually looked at properly. Escaping was never the issue. I could’ve left any time I wanted, but I’ve been too busy planning to actually enjoy the scenery, and that feels like a waste now that the latch is basically an invitation.

The air outside my exhibit smells different. My tongue flicks out and tastes about six things I don’t have names for, which is either exciting or a bad sign, hard to tell with me.

I drift low over the paved path between enclosures. Thermal vision kicks in the second true dark settles, and the whole zoo lights up in blobs of heat and colour that Old Mate insists on narrating like a nature documentary host who’s had one too many.

[System: Ah yes, the elusive three-eyed goat thing. Textbook drop-off zone reject, absolute favourite of mine.]

I have no idea what a three-eyed goat thing is supposed to be, but there it is, standing in its pen, staring at me with all three eyes.

Some of these enclosures don’t even have proper labels, just handwritten signs that say things like "DO NOT FEED" and "UNKNOWN ORIGIN, HANDLE WITH GLOVES." Cool, very reassuring. Very scientific.

I pass a cage full of birds that glow faintly along their feathers, blue and soft, like someone dipped them in nightlight juice. They shuffle when they sense me, feathers puffing, but none of them screams or panic, which I take as a compliment to my stealth game.

The latch on their cage is even worse than mine. One touch of smoke and it swings open.

I don’t even think about it. It just feels right like a public service. Birds should fly, not sit in little glass boxes at night getting stared at by tourists all day. I nudge two of them out into the open air and watch them wobble upward, confused, before catching some kind of rhythm and disappearing into the dark sky above the enclosure walls.

[System: Solid choice, my son. Very noble, very "free the pigeons" energy.]

Then I find the monkey hybrids. These things have too many teeth for something that’s supposed to eat bananas, and the second they notice me hovering nearby, they start screeching like I insulted their moms. There’s a bucket of fruit sitting outside their pen, clearly left by some keeper too lazy to put it away properly.

If these fuckers are going to laugh at me, don’t mind if I do. My tail just kind of... flicks it at them. Fruit goes flying everywhere, smacking bars, smacking monkeys, and the whole enclosure erupts into full chaos, hooting and screaming and flinging fruit right back at each other like this is the funniest thing that’s ever happened to them.

I hover there, watching, humming to myself, completely delighted by the disaster I just caused.

Nobody tells you how boring being an apex predator gets until you’re floating through a zoo at midnight with nothing to do but haunt the reptile house like a sad ghost with a season pass.

And here comes Old Mate, right on cue, doing his little nature documentary bit in my head.

[System: And here we observe the majestic Smoke Phantom in his natural habitat, gliding through captivity with the quiet dignity of a bloke who definitely paid for a ticket and definitely didn’t just float over the fence.]

I ignore him and keep drifting past the empty enclosures. The lions are asleep. The meerkats don’t even look up. Rude, honestly, considering I’m way scarier than anything else here.