The Great Pizza Caper

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The moment arrives the way all great moments do: without warning, without fanfare, and smelling powerfully of pepperoni. You press your nose to the cage bars and inhale. Mozzarella. Tomato sauce. Cured meat, glistening with tiny jewels of grease. The pizza box sits open on the coffee table like a treasure chest flung wide by a careless god, steam curling upward in lazy spirals. Eight slices. Eight perfect, golden, magnificent slices, each one roughly the size of your entire body. Your name is Reginald Q. Whiskers III. You are a rat of impeccable breeding, extraordinary cunning, and -- at this precise moment -- staggering hunger. Dave, the large one, has blundered into the kitchen. You can see him from the waist up beyond the half-wall counter, pawing through drawers, making his usual mouth-sounds of confusion. He is searching for something. Paper towels, probably. He will be occupied for thirty seconds, maybe forty. Dave is not a details person. Dave is also not the sort of person who latches a cage properly. You push the door with one paw. It swings open without a sound. Escape number eighteen. You step onto the bookshelf and the apartment unfolds below you: the vast carpet, the couch where Biscuit snores like a golden avalanche, the cat tree where Duchess grooms one white paw with studied indifference, and there -- center stage, bathed in lamplight -- the prize. Your whiskers twitch. Your heart hammers. This is the moment you have trained for your entire fourteen months of life. [[Survey the apartment first|Recon]] [[Consult Gerald about the plan|The Counsel of Gerald]]

<<set $stealth += 1>> You do not rush. Amateurs rush. You are a professional. From the bookshelf's edge, you catalogue the battlefield with the precision of a field marshal surveying the terrain before dawn. Every heist begins with intelligence, and intelligence begins with patience. The coffee table sits three body-lengths away, dead center of the living room. The pizza box is wide open, cheese still bubbling faintly. You count the pepperoni. Fourteen per slice. You have never wanted anything more in your life. The couch holds Biscuit, sprawled across the cushions like a fur-covered landslide, legs twitching in some dream about tennis balls or unconditional love. His snoring is rhythmic, deep, a metronome of obliviousness. He is directly between you and the target. The cat tree: Duchess sits in the top perch, one emerald eye half-open, tail draped over the edge like a question mark. She looks bored. She is never merely bored. The kitchen: Dave's shadow moves behind the counter. A cabinet door bangs. He mutters. You have time, but not much. The desk lamp: cheap metal, bendy neck, poorly balanced. One good shove and it goes down. The throw rug lies rumpled and treacherous. A death trap for small paws. And near Gerald's pot, hello, a crumb. You file that away for later. Three paths. Three possibilities. Choose wisely. [[Take the quiet route down|The Descent]] [[Look for a distraction|The Art of Chaos]] [[Consider recruiting help|A Question of Trust]]

<<set $charm += 1>> You turn to the only soul in this apartment you truly trust. "Gerald," you say, pressing one paw against his cracked terra cotta pot. "Gerald, old friend. Tonight we dine on glory. Or pepperoni. Possibly both." Gerald says nothing. Gerald is a pothos plant in the advanced stages of what can only be described as botanical despair. His leaves droop like tiny green surrender flags. His soil is dry as dust. Dave has not watered him in what appears to be a geological epoch. And yet. There is wisdom in that silence. You take Gerald's lack of objection as enthusiastic endorsement. "You are right, of course. Hesitation is the enemy of greatness. Fortune favors the bold, the hungry, and the small." You groom one whisker for emphasis. "Especially the small." The pizza smell drifts up from below -- warm dough, molten cheese, the siren song of processed meat. Your stomach growls with the urgency of destiny. You give Gerald a final nod. He lists slightly to the left, which you interpret as a salute. "Hold down the fort, old friend. When I return, I return with glory." Or at least with a slice roughly the size of your torso. [[Descend silently to the floor|The Descent]] [[Scout for distraction opportunities|The Art of Chaos]] [[Evaluate potential allies|A Question of Trust]]

<<set $approach = 'stealth'>><<set $stealth += 1>> You choose silence. You choose shadow. You choose the way of the ghost. The bookshelf is five shelves tall, and you know every inch of it. You have made this descent seventeen times before, always in darkness, always alone. Your claws find the spine of a battered paperback, some human story about a wizard, dog-eared and forgotten. You descend one shelf. Two. <<set $has_crumb = true>> On the third shelf, you pause beside Gerald's pot and pocket the crumb you spotted earlier. It is stale, unidentifiable, and absolutely might come in handy. A good operative never passes up a resource. The descent continues. Each shelf is a cliff face. Your tail swings for balance. You grip the edge of a thick hardcover, feel it shift under your weight, and freeze. It settles. You breathe. You move on. The smell of old paper and dust gives way to carpet and dog. You reach the bottom shelf and drop to the floor. The apartment transforms. From up on the bookshelf, the living room was a map. Down here, it is a continent. The carpet stretches in every direction, a vast plain of beige fiber. The coffee table towers in the distance like a monument. Dave's footsteps vibrate through the floor. A cabinet closes in the kitchen with a thud you feel in your teeth. You are committed now. There is no going back. [[Stick to the baseboards|Shadows and Silence]] [[Cross directly toward the coffee table|The Treacherous Rug]]

<<set $approach = 'distraction'>> Stealth is for rats who lack imagination. You survey the apartment with the keen eye of a demolitions expert, searching for the fulcrum on which this entire evening can pivot. And there it is, the desk lamp. Cheap metal frame, bendy neck, balanced on the edge of the desk like it is begging to be toppled. One solid shove and it crashes to the floor. Dave comes running. The path to the pizza opens wide. Of course, "wide" also means "loud." The crash will wake Biscuit, alert Duchess, and put every living creature in this apartment on high alert. Controlled chaos is an art form. Uncontrolled chaos is just a golden retriever at full speed. You glance at the couch. Biscuit's tail twitches in his sleep. There is another option: wake the beast deliberately. Direct his boundless, brainless energy toward the kitchen and Dave. Let the dog be the distraction while you slip past in the confusion. Risky. Brilliant. Possibly catastrophic. Or -- and a small, sensible voice in the back of your skull suggests this -- you could abandon the whole distraction angle and just sneak. Quietly. Like a professional. You silence the sensible voice. Sensible voices have never stolen pizza. [[Knock over the desk lamp|Controlled Chaos]] [[Wake Biscuit and direct his chaos|Unleashing the Beast]] [[Abandon this plan and sneak quietly|Shadows and Silence]]

<<set $approach = 'alliance'>> Every great heist needs a crew. The question is whether you can assemble one from the ragtag menagerie of this apartment without getting eaten, licked to death, or betrayed. You assess your options. Duchess. She sits on her cat tree like a queen on a velvet throne, grooming her white paw with surgical precision. Intelligent. Ruthless. Fast enough to kill you before your next heartbeat, and she knows it. You have history -- she tried to eat you once, you bit her nose, and the two of you have maintained an uneasy cold war ever since. But Duchess can be negotiated with. She wants something from Dave. Better food, probably. Everyone in this apartment wants better food. That is the foundation of all diplomacy. Biscuit. The golden mountain snores on the couch, a creature of pure, unfiltered enthusiasm wrapped in sixty pounds of fur and bad decisions. Biscuit loves you. Biscuit loves everyone. Biscuit would charge into traffic for a tennis ball. He is loyal, powerful, and possesses the strategic thinking of a warm pudding. Enlisting him is like strapping yourself to a rocket: exhilarating, effective, and almost certainly ending in disaster. Or you trust no one. Go solo. The lone wolf. The lone rat. The way it was always meant to be. [[Approach Duchess on her cat tree|Negotiating with the Enemy]] [[Wake Biscuit and enlist his help|Enlisting the Golden Fool]] [[Trust no one but yourself|The Descent]]

<<set $stealth += 1>> You press your body flat against the baseboard and become a shadow. This is what you were born for. Not the cage, not the exercise wheel, not the indignity of Dave's enormous fingers scratching behind your ears while he coos in that nauseating falsetto. No. You were born for //this//, the silent approach, the disciplined advance, the whisper of fur against painted wood. The carpet stretches out to your right like a desert, vast and treacherous. You ignore it. Amateurs cross open ground. Professionals hug the walls. Your whiskers brush the baseboard, mapping every crack and imperfection. You slip beneath a side table, its underside sticky with ancient soda residue, a monument to Dave's housekeeping failures, and pause. The scent trail here reads like a history book: months-old crumbs, Biscuit's paw prints baked into carpet fibers, a faint ghost of pepperoni from some long-forgotten pizza night. From the kitchen, a drawer slams shut. You freeze. Every muscle locks. Your heartbeat is a tiny drum against the floor. Dave mutters something -- mouth-sounds of frustration -- and resumes his search. You exhale. Ahead, the couch looms like a leather mountain. Biscuit's deep, rhythmic snoring vibrates through the floor. You can feel each breath in your paws. Two paths forward. The careful one, or the fast one. [[Continue the slow, careful approach|Biscuit Territory]] [[Make a quick dash across open carpet|The Gamble]]

You abandon the shadows and break for it. <<set $chaos += 1>><<set $stealth -= 1>> Every instinct screams that this is wrong. You are exposed, naked, a tiny black-and-white target on an ocean of beige carpet. But there is a clock ticking in your head, and caution is a luxury you can no longer afford. The coffee table is //right there//. You can smell the pepperoni from here, each greasy circle calling to you like a siren. You sprint. Your paws are a blur against the carpet fibers, barely making contact. Speed is your armor now. The world shrinks to a tunnel: you and the table leg ahead, nothing else. Halfway across, Dave shifts in the kitchen. A cabinet door closes. Footsteps. You drop flat. Belly to carpet. Motionless. A dust mote drifts past your nose and you do not even twitch. One second. Two. Three. The footsteps recede. Another drawer opens. You peel yourself off the carpet and cover the remaining distance in a scramble that is, if you are being honest, less elite operative and more panicked rodent. But you make it. The coffee table's shadow swallows you whole. Inelegant. But effective. [[Duck under the coffee table|The Moment of Truth]]

<<set $chaos += 1>> The throw rug stretches before you like a frozen sea, its woven surface deceptively flat. You have studied this rug from above. You know its reputation. Dave trips on it at least twice a week. If a full-grown human cannot navigate this textile death trap, what chance does a three-hundred-gram rat have? You step onto it and immediately understand the problem. The fabric shifts. Not a lot, just enough. Your front paws push forward and the weave bunches beneath you, fibers sliding over the hardwood underneath like tectonic plates in miniature. Your back legs scramble for purchase. Your claws catch in the loops and hold, then tear free with a soft //rip// that sounds, to your ears, like a gunshot. You freeze. Kitchen sounds continue. Dave has not heard. You press on, each step a negotiation between gravity and fabric. The rug bunches behind you in a visible ridge, forensic evidence if Dave had even the faintest investigative instincts. He does not. You are safe. By the time you reach the far edge, your heart is hammering and your dignity is in tatters. But you are across. The couch looms ahead. Or the baseboards offer a safer retreat. [[Press forward toward the couch|Biscuit Territory]] [[Retreat to the safer baseboard route|Shadows and Silence]]

You scale the desk like a mountaineer conquering Everest, claws finding purchase on the wood grain, muscles burning with purpose. The lamp looms above you, cheap metal, bendy neck, teetering on the edge of destiny. <<set $lamp_knocked = true>><<set $chaos += 2>><<set $biscuit_awake = true>> You plant your back legs, brace your tail against a pencil cup, and shove. The lamp topples in magnificent slow motion. It strikes the floor with a crash that reverberates through your entire skeleton, metal on hardwood, a symphony of beautiful destruction. The bulb pops. Glass tinkles. <<set $dave_location = 'returning'>> Dave makes a sharp mouth-sound from the kitchen. Alarmed. Confused. His footsteps change direction, growing louder. He is coming. On the couch, Biscuit jolts upright with a thunderous //WOOF//, ears flapping, eyes wild. On the cat tree, Duchess's head snaps toward you, emerald eyes narrowed to slits. The apartment is alive. Every creature in it is now paying attention. Perfect. You have approximately six seconds before Dave rounds the counter. Use them wisely. [[Hide under the desk until Dave passes|The Safe Shadow]] [[Sprint for the coffee table while he is distracted|The Bold Dash]]

You throw yourself off the desk and tuck into the shadow beneath it, pressing your belly flat against the cold floor. Your heart hammers so loud it could wake a second dog. <<set $stealth += 1>> Dave's feet appear. Enormous. Wearing mismatched socks, because of course he is. He stops at the fallen lamp, and you hear the confused mouth-sounds, low and bewildered. He picks it up. Sets it back. Examines the bulb. More mouth-sounds, this time with the rising pitch of suspicion. Biscuit lumbers over, nose to the ground, sniffing everything with the subtlety of a freight train. His wet nose passes within inches of your hiding spot. You do not breathe. You do not twitch. You become one with the dust and the dark. Biscuit sneezes, loses interest, and wanders toward the kitchen. Dave follows, shaking his head. You wait three more heartbeats. The living room is empty. The path to the coffee table stretches before you, wide open, and the scent of cooling pepperoni drifts toward you like a siren's song. Professional. Clean. Textbook. [[Emerge and continue toward the pizza|The Moment of Truth]]

Caution is for creatures who have never smelled pepperoni this fresh. You launch yourself off the desk and hit the carpet running. All four paws churning, tail streaming behind you like a banner of war, the coffee table growing larger with every stride. The apartment blurs. You are speed. You are purpose. You are a small black-and-white missile locked onto a cheesy target. <<set $chaos += 1>> Behind you, Dave rounds the counter. Biscuit barks once, confused, excited, unsure whether this is a game. Dave makes loud mouth-sounds directed at the lamp, at Biscuit, at the universe in general. He has not looked down. He has not seen you. You slide under the coffee table and skid to a stop against the table leg, breathing hard, fur plastered with static from the carpet. Above you, the underside of the table. Above that, the pizza box. You can feel its warmth radiating downward like a greasy sun. Your lungs burn. Your legs shake. But you are here. Bold? Reckless? Magnificent? All three. [[Catch your breath and prepare for the final move|The Moment of Truth]]

You descend from the bookshelf and cross to the couch with the grim determination of a general approaching the nuclear button. Biscuit lies before you, a golden mountain of fur, twitching paws, and thunderous snoring. <<set $biscuit_awake = true>><<set $visited_couch = true>> You climb up his flank, steady yourself in the warm canyon between his shoulder blades, and lean directly into one enormous floppy ear. You squeak. <<set $chaos += 3>> Biscuit's eyes snap open. Every muscle in his body fires at once. //SMALL FRIEND! SMALL FRIEND IS ON ME! THIS IS THE BEST THING!// He launches off the couch like a furry cannonball, and you cling to his collar for dear life as sixty pounds of golden retriever hits the floor barking, tail windmilling, paws scrabbling on the carpet. A stack of Dave's books topples. The throw rug bunches into a death trap. Dave shouts from the kitchen, alarmed mouth-sounds rising in pitch and volume. Duchess hisses from her tree, back arched, eyes blazing. The apartment has become a war zone, and you are riding the warhead. Now. What do you do with all this beautiful chaos? [[Try to direct Biscuit toward the kitchen|The Director's Cut]] [[Use the chaos to sneak toward the pizza|Eye of the Storm]]

You are a director and this golden retriever is your leading man. An unhinged, tail-wagging leading man with no concept of blocking or motivation, but you work with what you have. You leap from Biscuit's collar and land on the carpet, squeaking urgently, darting toward the kitchen in quick bursts. //This way. This way, you beautiful idiot.// <<set $chaos += 1>><<set $charm += 1>> Biscuit bounds after you. //WHERE ARE WE GOING? I LOVE GOING!// He bounds forward, and you pivot at the last second, rolling sideways under the side table. Biscuit, incapable of course corrections at speed, barrels straight into the kitchen. Dave yelps. Something clatters. Biscuit's bark echoes off the tile, followed by the unmistakable sound of a human trying to calm sixty pounds of joy with increasingly desperate mouth-sounds. You sit under the side table, catching your breath, and permit yourself a moment of admiration. The kitchen is now a containment zone of chaos. Dave is pinned. Biscuit is ecstatic. And between you and the coffee table, there is nothing but open, unguarded carpet. The stage is set. The star has been redirected. Time for the director to collect his award. [[Slip past while Dave wrangles Biscuit|The Moment of Truth]]

You release Biscuit's collar and drop silently to the carpet while the world explodes around you. <<set $stealth += 1>> Biscuit careens into the side table. A coaster launches into the air. Dave emerges from the kitchen at a jog, making sharp mouth-sounds, the ones that mean //down, boy, DOWN//, and Duchess retreats to the highest platform of her cat tree, tail puffed to twice its size, radiating disdain at the chaos below. And in the center of it all, you move like smoke. The carpet muffles your paws. Biscuit's barking covers any sound you might make. Dave's eyes track the sixty-pound tornado of golden fur, not the three-ounce shadow slipping along the baseboard. You are invisible. You are the eye of the storm -- still, focused, lethal. Well. "Lethal" might be generous. But certainly focused. You reach the coffee table without a single creature noticing. The pizza's warmth washes over you as you tuck yourself against the table leg, heart pounding, whiskers slick with adrenaline. Above you, the prize waits. Sometimes the best move is letting everyone else make noise while you say nothing at all. [[Slip under the coffee table|The Moment of Truth]]

<<set $visited_cat_tree = true>><<set $charm += 1>> You climb the cat tree. Every inch feels like ascending a castle wall to petition the queen, which, in fairness, is exactly what this is. Duchess watches you approach with those cold emerald eyes, one white paw tucked elegantly beneath her chest. She does not move. She does not need to. You both know she could end you before your next heartbeat. //How quaint.// Her tail flicks once. //The rodent has ambitions.// You hold your ground. You explain the situation with a series of urgent squeaks and emphatic whisker twitches: the pizza, the open box, Dave in the kitchen, a narrow window of opportunity. You need a distraction. You need her. Duchess yawns, showing teeth like tiny white daggers. //And what, precisely, do I gain from this arrangement?// You lay out the terms. Help you get the pizza. In exchange, you will help her knock over her food bowl, make Dave think it is broken, force him to buy the good stuff. Mutual benefit. Professional courtesy between apex predators. Her eyes narrow. She is considering it. <<if $has_crumb>>[[Offer the crumb as a sign of good faith|The Unholy Alliance]] <</if>>\ [[Promise to help her knock over her food bowl|The Unholy Alliance]] [[Argue that you both deserve better from Dave|The Cold Refusal]]

You approach the couch like a diplomat entering hostile territory, except this territory smells like kibble and drool, and the occupying force loves you unconditionally. <<set $biscuit_awake = true>><<set $biscuit_allied = true>><<set $trust += 1>><<set $chaos += 1>><<set $visited_couch = true>> You climb the couch cushion and press your nose to Biscuit's ear. A gentle squeak. A nudge. His eyes flutter open. His tail starts before his brain does, thumping the cushion like a drumbeat of pure joy. //SMALL FRIEND! YOU ARE HERE! ON THE COUCH! THIS IS AMAZING!// You place one tiny paw on his enormous nose. //Listen. I need your help. There is pizza. We can share it. But you must be quiet.// Biscuit's whole body vibrates with the effort of containing his excitement. His tail accelerates to a dangerous RPM. //PIZZA? I KNOW PIZZA! I LOVE PIZZA! WHAT IS THE PLAN? IS THERE A PLAN? I LOVE PLANS!// He does not love plans. He does not understand plans. But he understands FRIEND and PIZZA, and in Biscuit's world, that is enough. His tail thumps the couch again. Louder. Dave might hear. You need to manage this situation before it manages you. [[Try to calm Biscuit and keep him quiet|The Calming Influence]] [[Embrace the chaos and ride the golden wave|Riding the Golden Wave]]

You place both front paws on Biscuit's nose and look directly into his enormous brown eyes. You squeak, low and steady. //Easy. Easy, friend. We must be sneaky. Like shadows. Like ghosts.// Biscuit does not understand sneaky. Biscuit does not understand ghosts. But he understands the tone, soft, calm, reassuring. The tone of a friend who needs something important done quietly. <<set $trust += 2>><<set $charm += 1>><<set $chaos -= 1>> His tail slows from a jackhammer to a gentle pendulum. His panting eases. He lowers his head and regards you with the kind of trust that only a golden retriever can manufacture: total, uncomplicated, absolute. //Okay, Small Friend. I will be quiet. I will be the quietest.// He will not be the quietest. But he will try, and trying is more than you expected from a creature who once barked at his own reflection for forty minutes. You hop onto his back. He rises from the couch with surprising gentleness, carrying you like a tiny general astride a furry, panting horse. Together, you move toward the coffee table. An unlikely alliance. A beautiful one. [[Move toward the pizza together|The Moment of Truth]]

Calm the dog? Calm a golden retriever in the grip of pizza-awareness? You might as well try to calm a hurricane with a stern look. No. You will not fight the tide. You will ride it. <<set $chaos += 2>><<set $trust += 1>> //Go,// you squeak, clinging to Biscuit's collar with all four paws. //GO!// Biscuit does not need to be told twice. He launches off the couch in an explosion of golden fur and unbridled enthusiasm, paws hammering the carpet like a stampede of one. His bark shakes the windows. His tail demolishes a stack of magazines. //WE ARE GOING! I DO NOT KNOW WHERE! BUT WE ARE GOING THERE FAST!// Dave shouts from the kitchen. You hear the sharp clatter of a drawer slamming shut, the thunder of human footsteps changing direction. Duchess flattens her ears and retreats to the highest perch of her cat tree, emerald eyes tracking the mayhem below with aristocratic horror. You cling to Biscuit's neck as he bounds across the living room, a tiny rat riding a golden missile. The coffee table looms ahead. The pizza smell intensifies with every chaotic stride. This is insane. This is glorious. [[Hold on and see where this goes|The Moment of Truth]]

Duchess regards you for a long, terrible moment. Then, slowly, she blinks. Once. Twice. <<set $duchess_allied = true>><<set $trust += 2>> //Very well, rodent. I will help you.// <<if $has_crumb>>\ You offer the crumb. She sniffs it, delicately, then eats it with the precise movements of a creature who believes all food is beneath her but will accept tribute nonetheless. Her opinion of you shifts, barely, imperceptibly, but you feel it. <</if>>\ She stretches, one luxurious vertebra at a time, and lays out the terms with the brisk efficiency of a contract negotiator. When you give the signal, a specific squeak, two short, one long, she will leap from the cat tree to the kitchen counter and create a distraction. Something dramatic. She is thinking a glass, maybe a plate. Something that shatters. //You will have ten seconds,// she says, green eyes locked on yours. //Do not waste them. And remember, you owe me, Reginald. The food bowl. The good kibble. Non-negotiable.// You nod. A debt to a cat is a dangerous thing. But tonight, it is the price of pizza. You descend from the cat tree with an ally at your back and grease on the horizon. [[Proceed with Duchess's distraction plan|The Moment of Truth]]

Duchess yawns. Not a polite yawn. A deliberate, theatrical yawn that displays every one of her small sharp teeth. <<set $charm -= 1>> //I think not.// She turns away from you, presenting the back of her head with the finality of a closing door. Her tail flicks once, dismissive, contemptuous, absolute. //Your desperation amuses me, rodent, but I have no interest in your pitiful schemes. The pizza means nothing to me. You mean less.// The words sting more than they should. You are Reginald Q. Whiskers III. You do not need a cat's approval. You do not need anyone's approval. And yet. You descend the cat tree in silence, the rough carpet scratching your paws, the smell of Duchess's disdain clinging to your fur. Fine. You came to this apartment alone. You will steal this pizza alone. Or you will find another way. Every great heist has a setback. This is yours. What matters is what you do next. [[Stick to the shadows and go it alone|Shadows and Silence]] [[Fine, you will make your own chaos|The Art of Chaos]]

<<set $visited_couch = true>> The couch. Biscuit's domain. His Fortress of Solitude, if the Man of Steel were a sixty-pound golden retriever with the intellectual capacity of a tennis ball. You approach from below, craning your neck to assess the situation. Biscuit is sprawled across the cushions in a pose that defies both anatomy and dignity: legs akimbo, tongue slightly protruding, one ear folded inside-out. His breathing is deep and slow, each exhale a warm gust that ruffles the dust on the floor. The smell is overwhelming: kibble, happiness, and that particular yeasty warmth unique to sleeping dogs. His tail hangs off the edge of the couch like a furry pendulum, swaying gently with each dream-twitch. You watch it swing. Left. Right. Left. One careless wag and you are a pancake. Beneath the couch, you can see a shadowed crawlspace -- cramped, dusty, but covered. The remains of a lost civilization down there: a sock, a chew toy, what appears to be a fossilized french fry. It is the safe route. Or you could edge along the outside. Faster, but Biscuit's dangling nose is right there, sniffing even in sleep. [[Crawl through the dust under the couch|The Dust Below]] [[Creep along the edge where Biscuit might notice|The Risky Edge]]

<<set $stealth += 2>> You slip into the gap beneath the couch and the world goes dark. This is a forgotten place. A realm beneath the realm, where lost things come to rest and time moves differently. The air tastes of carpet fiber and ancient dust. Your whiskers brush cobwebs that have not been disturbed since Dave moved in, possibly since the apartment was built, possibly since the dawn of civilization itself. You navigate by touch and smell. Something crunches softly underfoot, a fossilized french fry, calcified by months of neglect. A gourmet might call it //aged//. You call it disgusting and press on. Above you, Biscuit shifts. The couch frame groans like a ship in a storm. The gap narrows as his weight redistributes, then widens again. You flatten yourself against the carpet and wait, breathing the musty air, counting Biscuit's heartbeats through the cushion springs above. He settles. The snoring resumes. You crawl forward through the dust bunny graveyard, past the chew toy, past the sock, past something unidentifiable and vaguely sticky, until gray light appears ahead. The far side. You emerge dusty, slightly disgusted, and completely undetected. A ghost. A phantom. A very dirty, very determined rat. The coffee table is close now. So close. [[Emerge near the coffee table|The Moment of Truth]]

<<set $stealth += 1>> You choose speed over safety and press along the outer edge of the couch, hugging its base where the fabric meets the floor. This is a calculated risk. Biscuit's nose hangs over the edge above you, twitching softly in his sleep. Each sniff pulls air across your fur. He is dreaming, paws paddling, lips quivering, a muffled half-bark escaping his throat. Chasing squirrels in his sleep, probably. You are smaller than a squirrel. You are //quieter// than a squirrel. You are nothing. You are air. You inch forward. Halfway past, his tail swings down like a wrecking ball in slow motion. You press flat against the couch base, making yourself as thin as physically possible, and it passes over you, a wall of golden fur that brushes your back and keeps going. Your heart stops. Restarts. Biscuit snuffles. Smacks his lips. Rolls slightly, and his nose dips lower. You can feel his breath on the back of your neck, hot and kibble-scented. You do not move. You do not breathe. You are a statue. A very small, very terrified statue. Three seconds. Five. He exhales once more, deeply, and settles. You bolt the remaining distance and clear the couch. [[Continue toward the coffee table|The Moment of Truth]]

<<set $dave_location = 'returning'>> You are here. The coffee table rises above you like a monument. From beneath it, you can see the edge of the pizza box, the cardboard dark with grease, radiating warmth and the most magnificent smell your fourteen months of existence have ever produced. Individual pepperoni circles glisten in the lamplight. Cheese, still faintly molten, stretches between slices like golden bridges. Your whiskers tremble. Your heart pounds in your tiny chest like a war drum. <<if $stealth >= 3>>\ You have moved through this apartment like a phantom. Not a single creature detected your passage. This is what perfection looks like, and it looks like a small rat crouching under a coffee table, vibrating with anticipation. <<elseif $chaos >= 3>>\ The apartment behind you is a disaster zone, overturned objects, barking, hissing, Dave making increasingly frantic mouth-sounds. But here, beneath the table, you have found stillness in the wreckage. The eye of the storm. <<else>>\ You made it. Not perfectly, not silently, but you are here and that is what counts. The pizza does not care how you arrived. The pizza only cares that you came. <</if>>\ <<if $lamp_knocked>>\ Somewhere behind you, the fallen desk lamp lies on the floor like a toppled monument to your audacity. <</if>>\ <<if $duchess_allied>>\ On the cat tree, Duchess watches you with those sharp green eyes, coiled and ready. She is waiting for your signal, two short squeaks, one long. The distraction is loaded and primed. <</if>>\ <<if $biscuit_allied>>\ Biscuit hovers nearby, tail swaying, barely containing himself. He catches your eye and his whole body wiggles. //Are we doing the thing, Small Friend? Is it time for the thing?// <</if>>\ Dave's footsteps echo from the kitchen. He is finishing up. He is coming back. You have seconds, not minutes. This is it. The moment everything has built toward. <<if $duchess_allied>>[[Signal Duchess to create a distraction|The Cat's Gambit]] <</if>>\ <<if $biscuit_allied>>[[Have Biscuit help you reach the table|The Golden Elevator]] <</if>>\ [[Make the final approach alone|The Final Sprint]]

You catch Duchess's eye across the room and flick your tail twice. The signal. She blinks once, slowly, which in cat means either //acknowledged// or //I find you tiresome//. Both, probably. But she moves. <<set $trust += 1>><<set $dave_location = 'living_room'>> Duchess rises from her cat tree with the languid grace of a predator who has never hurried for anything in her life. She stretches. She yawns. Then she launches herself onto the kitchen counter and sends a glass tumbling to the tile floor. The shatter is magnificent. A crystalline explosion that echoes through the apartment like a starting pistol. Dave's feet pound across the kitchen. "DUCHESS! What the, how did you even..." She yowls, theatrical and piercing, as if her tail were caught in a door. She has never been more convincing. Dave stumbles into the living room, waving his arms, making urgent mouth-sounds of distress and exasperation. Duchess leaps down and weaves between his legs, leading him further from the coffee table. She glances your way. Just once. //You owe me, rodent. Do not forget.// The path is clear. The pizza is yours. [[Grab a slice while Dave is focused on Duchess|The Prize]] [[Wait under the table for a safer moment|Patience of a Master]]

You press yourself flat beneath the coffee table and wait. The table legs rise around you like the columns of some ancient temple. Above, through the gap between the table edge and the pizza box, you can see the ceiling. You can smell everything. Grease. Cheese. Cardboard. Victory, warming under the lamp light. <<set $stealth += 1>> But not yet. Not yet. A master knows the difference between speed and timing. Dave's feet shuffle across the living room. He bends down, picking up whatever Duchess knocked over, or searching for the remote, or performing one of the dozen meaningless rituals humans occupy themselves with. His back is turned. His attention is elsewhere. <<set $charm += 1>> //Now.// You spring upward, claws catching the table edge, and haul yourself onto the surface in one fluid motion. The pizza box yawns open before you, a treasure chest of cheese and pepperoni, and Dave is facing the completely wrong direction. This is what separates the amateurs from the professionals. Patience. Discipline. An impeccable sense of dramatic timing. [[Strike now while his back is turned|The Prize]]

You climb onto Biscuit's head. It is warm and vast, like scaling a golden hillside that smells of kibble and unconditional love. //WE ARE DOING THE THING!// Biscuit's whole body vibrates with joy. //I AM HELPING!// <<set $chaos += 2>><<set $dave_location = 'living_room'>> He stands up. The world lurches. You grip two fistfuls of golden fur and hold on as Biscuit lumbers toward the coffee table with the unstoppable momentum of a friendly avalanche. His tail whips back and forth like a furry metronome set to //catastrophe//. Dave's head snaps up from the kitchen. "Biscuit? Biscuit, NO..." Biscuit bumps the coffee table. The pizza box slides. A stack of coasters topples. You feel the impact ripple through his skull and up through your legs. The table rocks once, twice. And you launch. You sail through the air with the grace of a tiny, determined projectile and land on the tabletop beside the pizza box. Four-point landing. Perfect form. Biscuit barks triumphantly below, tail demolishing a magazine rack. Dave is making loud mouth-sounds and moving fast. The pizza gleams before you. The clock is ticking. [[Grab a slice in the chaos|The Prize]] [[Duck inside the pizza box to hide|Into the Box]]

In the chaos of Biscuit's enthusiastic furniture rearrangement, you make a split-second decision. You dive headfirst into the pizza box. <<set $stealth += 1>> The lid flops down over you and suddenly you are in darkness. Warm, fragrant, glorious darkness. The cardboard walls glow amber with grease stains. Six remaining slices surround you like the petals of some magnificent, cheesy flower. You are inside the pizza box. This is either the greatest tactical decision of your career or the most absurd. Possibly both. Dave's footsteps thunder closer. "Biscuit, you almost knocked over the -- oh, the pizza." Enormous fingers curl around the box edges. The world tilts. You are being *lifted.* You press yourself flat between two slices, pepperoni against your back, mozzarella beneath your belly. It is disgusting. It is transcendent. Dave carries the box across the room. You feel each footstep through the cardboard. He sets the box down somewhere higher, the kitchen counter from the sound of his feet on tile. "There. Safe from you, you big dummy." //Safe.// The irony is almost too beautiful. You are alone with the pizza. All of it. In the dark. In the box. [[Seize a slice while hidden inside|The Prize]]

No allies. No distractions. No safety net. Just you, the open carpet, and destiny. <<set $stealth += 1>> You bolt from cover and sprint for the coffee table. Your paws are silent on the carpet fibers. Your body is low, streamlined, a black-and-white blur of pure determination. Every sense is firing: the vibration of Dave's weight shifting in the kitchen, the distant hum of the refrigerator, the intoxicating scent of pepperoni growing stronger with every stride. The coffee table looms. You leap. Your front claws catch the edge. Your back legs scrabble against the wood, searching for purchase, finding it. You haul yourself up -- shoulders first, then hips, then tail -- and roll onto the flat surface. You are on the table. The pizza box gapes open before you like a treasure chest in a painting, golden light practically radiating from the cheese. Eight perfect slices arranged in a circle. The steam has faded but the warmth remains, and the smell, the //smell//, is everything you imagined and more. This is what you came for. This is what you were born for. But something makes you pause. [[Take what you came for|The Prize]] [[Pause and consider what you are doing|The Pause]]

You seize the slice. <<set $pizza_grabbed = true>> Your teeth sink into the crust and the world narrows to this single, magnificent act. The cheese stretches like molten gold, pulling away from its neighbors in long, glossy strands. Grease coats your whiskers. A pepperoni disk, roughly the size of your face, glistens on top like a medal of honor. It is enormous. It is unwieldy. It is approximately seventy percent of your body weight. It is //perfect//. You clamp down and pull. The slice separates from its companions with a soft, wet tear that is the most beautiful sound you have ever heard. You drag it backward across the cardboard, leaving a trail of orange grease like a victory banner. Your back legs brace. Your jaw aches. Cheese drips onto your paws. You do not care. You have it. The prize. The culmination of every plan, every risk, every crawl through dusty couch-bottoms and treacherous rug crossings. A single perfect slice of pepperoni pizza, and it is yours. Now you just have to get out of here alive.\ <<if $chaos >= 3>> Behind you, Dave turns around. His eyes sweep the living room, drawn by some sixth sense that humans develop when their food is in danger. His gaze lands on the coffee table. On you. On the slice of pizza clamped in your tiny, determined jaws. Time stops. [[Continue|Dave Sees Everything]] <<else>> [[Drag the slice toward safety|The Great Escape]] <<if $duchess_allied or $biscuit_allied>> [[Share the victory with your allies|Unexpected Generosity]] <</if>> <</if>>

You drag the slice to the table's edge and tip it over. It lands on the carpet with a soft, greasy *thwap.* You scramble down after it, claws scraping wood, and land beside your prize. The slice is absurd. It sprawls across the carpet like a fallen kite, cheese side down, pepperoni gleaming upward. You are a tiny rat dragging a piece of food roughly the size of a welcome mat. If anyone were watching, and nobody is, because you are a professional, it would look ridiculous. You sink your teeth into the crust and haul. Your back legs dig into the carpet fibers. The slice slides, grudgingly, one inch at a time. Dave's footsteps. He is coming back. You pull harder. The bookshelf is close. Gerald is waiting. Safety is three body-lengths away and the floor is vibrating with the approach of a human who is about to discover he has been robbed by a creature the size of his hand.\ <<if $chaos >= 4>> Everything that can go wrong chooses this exact moment to go wrong simultaneously. /* Priority 1: catastrophic chaos always loses the slice */ [[Continue|The Spectacular Failure]] <<elseif $chaos >= 3 and $biscuit_allied and $stealth < 2>> Biscuit, bless his enormous golden heart, picks this moment to "help." His version of helping involves bounding toward you with the enthusiasm of a friendly earthquake. /* Priority 2: Biscuit-chaos combo also fails the heist */ [[Continue|The Spectacular Failure]] <<elseif $caught and $charm >= 2>> Dave spots you. But instead of the expected shout of outrage, something unexpected happens. His face softens. A laugh escapes him. /* Priority 3: caught but charming leads to Negotiator */ [[Continue|The Negotiator]] <<elseif $stealth >= 3 and $chaos < 3>> You are a shadow. A whisper. A legend in the making. The carpet muffles your passage, and Dave's eyes pass right over your position without registering what they see. /* Priority 4: pure stealth with low chaos yields Perfect Slice */ [[Slip away unseen with your prize|The Perfect Slice]] <<elseif $duchess_allied and $chaos < 3>> Duchess, perched on the bookshelf, catches your eye and flicks her tail toward the gap behind the furniture. A clear path. She has done her part; now you do yours. /* Priority 5: Duchess assist with low chaos also yields Perfect Slice */ [[Slip away with your prize|The Perfect Slice]] <<elseif $charm >= 3>> Dave rounds the corner and stops. His eyes find you, but his expression shifts from alarm to something softer. You are, apparently, too adorable to punish. /* Priority 6: high charm fallback to Negotiator */ [[Continue|The Negotiator]] <<else>> The universe, it seems, has no special favors for rats tonight. Dave's shadow falls across the carpet. The moment of truth arrives without ceremony. /* Final fallback: everything else fails spectacularly */ [[Continue|The Spectacular Failure]] <</if>>

You look at the slice. Then you look at them. <<set $trust += 2>>\ <<if $duchess_allied>>\ Duchess sits nearby, grooming one paw with studied indifference, but her green eyes keep darting to the cheese. She would never ask. She would never //deign// to ask. But you see it, the tiniest flick of her tail toward the pizza. <</if>>\ <<if $biscuit_allied>>\ Biscuit is beside you, vibrating with excitement, his enormous brown eyes locked on the slice with the intensity of a creature who has never wanted anything more in his entire beautiful, simple life. //Is that... is that for SHARING? I love SHARING!// <</if>>\ Something shifts inside you. Some instinct deeper than hunger. You did not get here alone. You tear the slice. The cheese pulls apart in long, gorgeous strands. You divide it, a piece for you, and pieces for those who helped you get here. It is not what you planned. A mastermind does not //share//. A mastermind hoards, gloats, monologues to houseplants. But this feels right. <<if $duchess_allied>>\ Duchess accepts her portion with one delicate bite, eyes half-closed. //Adequate,// she says, which in cat means something close to gratitude. <</if>>\ <<if $biscuit_allied>>\ Biscuit inhales his portion in approximately 0.3 seconds and looks at you like you are the greatest creature who has ever lived. <</if>> [[Feast together|Sharing Is Caring]]

Dave turns around. <<set $caught = true>> Time slows to a crawl. You see it happen in excruciating detail: his head swiveling, his eyes scanning the living room, his gaze drifting downward to the coffee table where a small black-and-white rat is attempting to drag a pizza slice roughly the size of his own body across the cardboard. Your eyes meet. Or rather, your eyes meet the vast, looming expanse of his face as it shifts from confusion to disbelief to something that might be amusement. Dave makes a sound. A single, explosive syllable of surprise, half laugh, half shout. The universal human noise for //is this actually happening right now//. You freeze. The cheese drips from your whiskers. A pepperoni slides slowly off the slice and lands on the table with a wet //plop//. It is the most dramatic sound in the history of the apartment. For one terrible, magnificent second, you hold your ground. You are Reginald Q. Whiskers III, and this is //your// pizza.\ <<if $chaos >= 4>> And then everything explodes. /* Priority 1: maximum chaos always goes to Spectacular Failure */ [[Continue|The Spectacular Failure]] <<elseif $chaos >= 3 and $charm < 2>> Dave's face hardens. His hand moves toward you. And somewhere behind him, Biscuit barks, and Duchess hisses, and the apartment descends into beautiful, catastrophic chaos. /* Priority 2: high chaos without charm also fails */ [[Continue|The Spectacular Failure]] <<elseif $charm >= 2>> But then Dave does something unexpected. His stern expression cracks. A snort escapes him, then a laugh, building until his shoulders shake with it. /* Priority 3: enough charm upgrades a catch into Negotiator */ [[Continue|The Negotiator]] <<else>> Dave's hand descends. Something crashes behind you. The moment shatters into a thousand chaotic pieces. /* Final fallback: low chaos and low charm still fail */ [[Continue|The Spectacular Failure]] <</if>>

You stand at the edge of the pizza box and you stop. Not because of Dave. Not because of danger. You stop because something inside you, some quiet voice beneath the heist-movie narration and the grandiose self-image, asks a question you were not expecting. //What happens after?// The pizza is here. Warm, golden, everything you wanted. But it is already cooling. By tomorrow it will be cold cardboard and congealed cheese. Dave will throw the box away and order something new next Friday and the cycle will continue, with or without your intervention. You look back across the living room. Your cage on the bookshelf. Gerald's drooping leaves catching the lamplight. The small, safe world you have always known. The pizza is temporary. The thrill was in the crossing. You stand there on the coffee table, a tiny rat silhouetted against the lamp glow, and for one long moment you are perfectly still. The apartment hums around you. Biscuit snores. Dave rattles something in the kitchen. The refrigerator hums its one low note. Everything is exactly as it was. Everything is different. [[Take the pizza. You have come too far|The Prize]] [[Turn back. The journey was enough|The Zen of Rat]]

You vanish behind the bookshelf like a ghost dragging a greasy, cheese-laden shadow. The slice catches once on the carpet. You wrench it free. And then you are in the dark, narrow gap between the shelf and the wall, where dust gathers and Dave's vacuum has never reached and never will. Home territory. Your territory. You drag the slice to the back corner, next to a power cable and a fossilized rubber band, and you collapse beside it, breathing hard, heart hammering, every nerve singing with the electricity of triumph. You did it. Above you, Dave's footsteps approach the coffee table. A pause. You hear him counting under his breath. A longer pause. "I swear there were eight slices." He counts again. Mutters something. Opens a kitchen drawer, finds nothing useful there either, and shrugs. He blames himself. Of course he does. Dave is not a details person. You tear into the slice. The cheese is still warm, stretching between your teeth in golden threads. The pepperoni is salty, rich, perfect beyond description. Grease coats your paws, your whiskers, your soul. You eat like a king. You eat like a god. You eat like a fourteen-month-old fancy rat who has just pulled off the greatest heist in the history of apartment 2B. Gerald watches from above, his leaves drooping in what you choose to interpret as admiration. "Gerald," you whisper between bites, licking cheese from your claws. "Some rats are born great. Others have greatness thrust upon them." You take another enormous, glorious bite. "And some -- some simply *take* it. One slice at a time." The lamp glows warm. Dave watches television. The apartment is at peace. And you have never tasted anything so magnificent in your entire life.

You feast together in the shadow behind the couch, the three of you, or two depending on who answered the call, gathered around a dismantled pizza slice like unlikely conspirators at the strangest dinner party in the history of the apartment. <<if $duchess_allied>>\ Duchess eats with precise, surgical bites, peeling pepperoni from cheese with the delicacy of a surgeon. She pauses between mouthfuls to groom her whiskers. //I suppose,// she says, licking a fleck of sauce from her perfect white paw, //that pepperoni is not entirely without merit.// From Duchess, this is practically a declaration of love. <</if>>\ <<if $biscuit_allied>>\ Biscuit inhaled his portion in a single, triumphant gulp and now sits with his tongue out, tail thumping the carpet, radiating pure golden happiness at approximately ten thousand watts. //That was the BEST THING,// he says. //Can we do it AGAIN? I love doing THINGS with SMALL FRIEND.// <</if>>\ You chew slowly, savoring each bite. The cheese has cooled but it is still extraordinary. You got what you came for. But somewhere between the planning and the execution, the heist became something else. Something you did not expect and would never admit to wanting. Company. Dave eventually wanders over and discovers the scene. His face cycles through confusion, disbelief, and a strange, helpless affection. He pulls out his phone and takes a picture instead of intervening, because some things are too absurd and too perfect to interrupt. You will think about this later, curled up in your cage next to Gerald, full and warm. You will tell yourself the solo triumph would have been better. The clean heist. The lone wolf. The legend. But you will be lying. Perhaps the greatest heist is not the one you pull off alone, but the one you share with those foolish enough to trust you. And who trusted you back.

Dave stares at you. You stare at Dave. The pizza slice sits between you like evidence at a crime scene, which technically it is. Then Dave does something unexpected. He laughs. It starts as a snort, a single burst of disbelief through his nose, and builds into a full, shaking belly laugh that makes his shoulders bounce and his eyes water. He reaches down and scoops you up in one enormous hand, lifting you away from the pizza with terrifying gentleness. "You little //troublemaker//." The mouth-sounds are warm. Amused. Not angry. "How did you even get out of your cage?" He carries you back to the bookshelf and sets you down next to Gerald. You sit up straight, maintaining what dignity you can for a rat with cheese on his whiskers and grease stains on his paws. Then Dave does something extraordinary. He walks back to the pizza, pulls a single pepperoni from a slice, pinching it free with his fingertips so the cheese stretches and snaps, and brings it to you. He sets it on the shelf next to your cage. A perfect circle of pepperoni, still glistening with oil. "There," he says, and scratches behind your ears. "Stay in your cage, buddy." He closes the cage door. This time, he latches it. You hear the click. You sit in your cage with your pepperoni and your pride. Gerald's leaves droop beside you in what you interpret as respect. The pepperoni is warm, salty, magnificent. You eat it slowly, with ceremony. Did you get the full slice? No. Did you get *caught*? Technically. But Dave now knows you can escape. He has *seen* your capabilities. And he responded not with punishment, but with tribute. Sometimes the mark gives you exactly what you want without knowing they have been played. That, Gerald, is the long con.

What happens next will be studied by future generations of apartment-dwelling rodents as a cautionary tale, a masterclass, and a work of art. Biscuit, who has been vibrating at a frequency somewhere between //excited// and //thermonuclear//, chooses this exact moment to go fully, spectacularly berserk. He barks, not a bark so much as an explosion of joy, and launches himself at the coffee table. The table rocks. The pizza box slides. Duchess, perched on the arm of the couch, hisses and swats the box with one lightning paw, and eight slices of pepperoni pizza take flight. They arc through the air in slow motion. You watch them rise and separate, trailing cheese like the tails of greasy comets, each slice spinning in its own majestic orbit. For one suspended, beautiful moment, it is raining pizza. Dave, sprinting in from the kitchen, hits the bunched throw rug at full speed. His feet go out from under him. He goes down with a crash that shakes the apartment and probably registers on seismographs two buildings over. A slice lands on Duchess. She //screams//, an unholy yowl of feline outrage, and bolts across the room with pepperoni plastered to her back like a greasy cape. Biscuit gives chase, because of course he does, barking with manic glee and trailing a strand of mozzarella from his collar. You dive for a piece. Any piece. Your head goes through a pepperoni and it settles around your neck like a saucy, savory necklace. You run in circles, blinded, bumping into table legs, until the pepperoni shifts and you can see again. Dave is on the floor. Duchess is on top of the bookshelf. Biscuit is eating pizza off the rug. The apartment looks like a crime scene in a pizzeria. You make it back to your cage, pizza-less, wearing a pepperoni collar. You sit down next to Gerald. You are breathing hard. Your fur smells like marinara. "Gerald," you say, "that did not go according to plan." Gerald says nothing. Gerald is a plant. "We go again tomorrow night."

You turn around. The pizza sits behind you, warm and waiting, and you walk away from it. One small step, then another, across the coffee table's wooden surface, past the ring stain from Dave's coffee mug, past a crumb that once would have been a treasure. You climb down. The carpet is soft under your paws. The living room stretches out around you, vast and quiet, and you cross it the way you came, along the baseboards, through the shadows, a ghost in reverse. No one sees you. No one has ever seen you. The bookshelf. The familiar smell of old paper and dust. You climb, spine by spine, until you reach your shelf. Gerald is waiting. His leaves are drooping, as always. His soil is dry, as always. He does not ask where you have been. He does not need to. You climb into your cage. The bedding is soft. The water bottle drips its one slow, rhythmic drop. Everything is exactly as you left it. Dave never knows. He will eat the pizza -- all eight slices, eventually -- and fall asleep on the couch watching something loud and bright. Tomorrow he will go to work. Friday he will order pizza again. The cycle turns. But tonight you crossed the living room. You navigated the rug, the couch, the open ground. You stood on the coffee table and looked the prize in the face and chose -- not out of fear, but out of something quieter. Something that might be wisdom. You curl up in your bedding, nose tucked under your tail. The lamp glows. The apartment hums. Some victories are measured in cheese and pepperoni. Others are measured in the courage to walk away. Tonight, you chose the latter. You sleep well.

<<nobr>> <<set $stealth = 0>> <<set $chaos = 0>> <<set $charm = 0>> <<set $trust = 0>> <<set $approach = "none">> <<set $duchess_allied = false>> <<set $biscuit_allied = false>> <<set $biscuit_awake = false>> <<set $pizza_grabbed = false>> <<set $caught = false>> <<set $has_crumb = false>> <<set $lamp_knocked = false>> <<set $dave_location = "kitchen">> <<set $visited_couch = false>> <<set $visited_cat_tree = false>> <</nobr>>