The larger rat bit the sardine.
Jiang held the tail. For one stubborn beat, penguin and rat pulled Rosa's gift between them.
He had no chance in a straight pull. The rat dug its front claws into the tunnel floor, and its yellow teeth closed far too near his beak. Rot and fish rolled off its breath.
Jiang released the sardine.
Its prize sent the rat jerking backward. Hind feet slid in the runoff and struck the second rat, which answered by biting its shoulder.
Breakfast became a family argument.
Overhead, the hatch cover scraped across concrete while Rosa's scoop struck the dog's teeth. "Lock the shop, Tomas!" she shouted. The cover slammed into place. Her boots ran toward the loading door with the dog behind her; a door struck its frame, and claws came back to scrape the metal over Jiang's head. Rosa and Tomas were inside.
Gredudande remained above. These rats had brown eyes, scarred noses, and the simple concentration of animals that wanted food. Comfort lasted almost half a second.
Jiang moved toward the pipe.
Ahead, the tunnel offered two routes: a broad way beneath the street, full of rat smell, and a low runoff pipe across the channel. Fresh air touched the pipe's rusted lip.
He chose the pipe.
Breaking from the fight, the smaller rat cut him off. It planted itself between Jiang and the channel, whiskers forward, blood bright on one ear.
Jiang's left flipper hung low. His tail burned where Gredudande had torn out feathers. He had speed in water and very little room to reach it.
Scar-ear sprang first. Penguin Reflexes pulled Jiang's head below the passing teeth and carried him under its chest, where one rear claw raked the white feathers below his shoulder. Momentum sent him into the channel belly-first while the scratch burned.
Cold runoff closed over his back. His injured flipper weakened the first stroke and curved his body left. Both feet and the good flipper corrected the turn, pushing him toward the dark space beneath a drainage pipe.
Sewer water pressed into every gap Gredudande had opened in his feathers. Jiang kept his beak high and his eyes above the worst of the floating grease. His human mind knew exactly what lived in city runoff. His penguin body cared mainly that it was water.
Scar-ear splashed after him, belly-deep water stealing its speed. Jiang gained distance with every kick until a grated wall ended the tunnel. Behind him, the low runoff pipe remained guarded by the sardine thief.
Trapped in the channel, Jiang sank until only his beak cleared the surface. His pursuer lifted its nose and tracked the ripples. Beneath the drainage pipe's shadow, Jiang's black back merged with the water while reflected maintenance light swallowed his white belly. He stopped kicking and held the damaged flipper against his side.
Stillness required more nerve than speed. Jiang had no idea how long this body could hold air, whether fear changed that limit, or whether one cough would put him between the rat's teeth. He let the water carry his weight and trusted coloring that had evolved for an ocean very far from Manhattan.
The current cooled the scratch. A loose tail feather brushed his foot and drifted away.
Brown eyes fixed on him.
Jiang kept his beak level and held his breath.
Its gaze slid past.
Blue text opened across the black water.
[Adaptation Recognized: Countershading]
[Penguin Camouflage Unlocked: 10 Minutes Active | 5 Minutes Recovery]
[Cost: Body-Heat Loss Accelerates]
Jiang almost laughed. The System had waited until a rat failed to eat him before mentioning the useful part.
He accepted the ability.
Nothing flashed. His feathers kept their ordinary black and white, but the boundary between his body and the water softened. When the current moved, his outline moved with it. When the pipe shadow crossed his back, the darkness no longer broke around him.
Cold drained through his feet and climbed his legs. Warmth from the first sardine paid for the ability one shiver at a time. Ten minutes sounded generous until he understood the currency.
When the rat sniffed again, Camouflage fooled its eyes while the blood below Jiang's shoulder pulled its nose toward him. It lunged at the smell.
Jiang kicked beneath the surface. Water filled the rat's jaws while he passed under its neck. His good flipper drove him around the animal; his feet snapped together and sent him toward the center channel.
His damaged flipper dragged. Cold pushed through the thin place in his feathers around the scratch.
Claws hooked the tunnel floor as the rat turned. Jiang changed direction in the water with one sweep of his good flipper.
For several strokes, he was the larger danger.
Fur, old nests, and more bodies waited along the easy route into the deeper tunnel. Morning air came from the low pipe, so Jiang made the harder turn toward somewhere beyond the rats' reach.
He came up behind the rat and struck the tendon above its rear paw with his beak. The animal lurched, lost the bottom, and rolled into the deeper runoff.
Its claws found Jiang's tail.
He kicked free. More feathers tore loose, and the rat went under with a mouthful of black.
At the low pipe, the sardine thief crouched with its meal hanging from one side of its mouth. It tracked the splashes behind Jiang and missed the penguin until his beak was close enough to strike. One rat-sized step blocked the exit.
Jiang stabbed the sardine, not the rat.
His beak tore the fish from its teeth. He flung his head sideways, and the sardine landed in the channel beside the struggling smaller rat.
Chasing its meal, the sardine thief entered the channel. Jiang climbed onto the pipe lip, where his feet slipped on rust and the injured flipper folded under his weight, leaving his chest open.
Scar-ear surfaced and saw him.
It abandoned the fish.
Jiang pushed into the pipe. His shoulders fit; his belly caught on a ridge of mineral crust. Webbed feet scraped without finding water. Camouflage blurred his back against the tunnel, but the rat had his blood now.
Claws struck his exposed side and forced him to twist. Jiang drove his beak down into the rat's nose, buying enough space to drag his belly over the ridge. His rigid penguin torso filled the narrowing pipe and passed where a human chest would have wedged. With both flippers tucked tight, he pushed with his feet and slid beyond the rat's reach.
Its claws scraped the pipe behind him. Clawing followed for several body lengths before shoulder bones met iron.
Scent and blood marked Jiang's path, yet iron stopped the rat's shoulders.
Jiang paused beyond its claws and looked back. The rat kept forcing its shoulders against iron, anger defeating whatever sense had kept it alive this long. He understood the feeling. Hunger, fear, and humiliation could turn a body into its own trap.
Jiang kept crawling until the fresh-air current strengthened. Ahead, the pipe rose toward a rectangle of morning light blocked by another grate.
He canceled Penguin Camouflage.
His outline returned all at once. So did the cold. It bit through his wet feathers, his scratched side, and the bare patches at his tail. Camouflage had spent the sardine's warmth.
[Penguin Camouflage Recovering: 5 Minutes]
Sitting against the pipe wall, Jiang examined what he could reach. A thin line of blood crossed the feathers below his shoulder; lifting the left flipper pulled at the joint; his tail had become a patchy insult to emperor penguins everywhere.
The wound needed cleaning, the flipper needed rest, and his mother needed a phone call from a son who currently lacked hands, money, clothes, and a human voice. Jiang placed those problems in that order because bleeding was the only one his beak might solve.
He was alive. Rosa and Tomas were above. His mother had lost the call but kept her voice.
That had to count for something.
Aylin screamed inside his head.
Jiang struck the pipe wall with his beak.
Through the Spirit Link came the impact of Aylin's knees against hard ground and the strain of both hands clawing at something around her throat. No vision accompanied it.
"Aylin, answer me right now!"
His human shout became a bark in the pipe.
Her answer arrived in broken pieces.
The feathers. He kept your feathers.
Above the runoff tunnel, Gredudande had torn part of Jiang's body free. Stolen feathers had replaced the drowned phone.
Blue panels filled his vision.
[Emergency Trial: Sever Gredudande's Spirit Link Trace Within 72 Hours]
[Failure: Linked Soul Aylin Dies]
Jiang read the last line while Aylin fought for air on the other side of the link.
Then Gredudande whispered through her voice.
"Run again, little bird."