The Day the Walls Got Fancy

The ribbon hadn't even been cut yet, and already Woodland Metropolis was buzzing.

Art Gallery Thicket rose at the heart of the city like something out of a dream — curved glass walls that caught the morning light, steel beams shaped like tree branches, and a front entrance framed by two enormous painted murals. One showed a forest at dawn. The other showed the city itself, alive and glittering.

Buck stood in front of those murals and tilted his small antlers back proudly.

"Not bad," he said, grinning at his own work.

"Not bad?" A voice laughed from behind him. "Buck, those murals are *incredible.*"

That was Dara — head of the gallery, a tall humanoid doe with warm amber eyes and a sharp blazer. She checked her tablet quickly. "Three hundred guests confirmed. The mayor's coming. Press, collectors, everyone."

Buck adjusted his blue sunglass goggles. "Then let's make sure nothing goes wrong."

Dara raised an eyebrow. "What could possibly go wrong?"

Static in the Signal

Inside the gallery, everything looked perfect.

The walls held twenty-three paintings. A bronze sculpture of a running deer stood near the entrance. Soft lights made every piece glow just right.

Buck walked slowly through the main hall, hands in his pockets, goggles pushed up on his forehead. He stopped in front of a small oil painting — a fox reading a book beside a pond — and tilted his head.

"Someone moved this six inches to the left," he said.

Dara, the amber-eyed doe in her sharp blazer, glanced up from her tablet. "Does it matter?"

"It's my show."

Before she could answer, a loud metallic buzz cut through the hall — sharp and wrong, like a coffee maker trying to run a rocket ship.

Up in the glass ceiling, a brand-new automated lighting drone — the gallery's centerpiece tech feature, installed just that morning — began spinning in a tight, uncontrolled circle.

Then its lights went full white. Blinding.

Every painting on the wall flickered in the harsh glare. Gasps went up from the small crew setting up chairs below.

The drone dropped six feet before catching itself.

Dara grabbed Buck's arm. "That thing is not supposed to do that."