Chaplain Zahir did not notice at first when fewer kitties appeared in his office, holding their problems in their paws for him to solve. He noticed more writing time, more time for his paw-cast, “Kittycat Coffee Al Kahfi,” and more time editing Mr. Mango content for YouTube.

He did not immediately notice the decline in Alaraf’s mental health across campus. That took a long sit-down with Professor Bird, and a visibly frustrated field professor Loki, who arrived carrying meters of AI printouts proving, without question, that Zahir had been unlawfully substituted by an automated system after each sermon and prior paw-cast was uploaded to campus servers.

“…But is this not a good thing?” asked Zahir innocently. He had said nothing he regretted, nor taught anything he wished to retract.

“Zahir…no,” Professor Bird replied sharply. “This system has copied more than just you. It fabricates narrative continuations on demand; believable ones, using scraped material to foster plausible deniability and division. This is how others and I ended up unpaid, deployed in the field, and eating rats while our own expertise was quietly exploited.”

Bird’s fangs were fully cat-like now, contrasting with an otherwise mostly human visage, save for the lynx-grey tufted ears.

“…The Agathon Krahe novels?” added Field Professor, Loki, already pacing. “Produced on demand. The model scraped faculty and student bodies of work, including restricted correspondence, to construct a derivative language backbone for local administrative communications. The output is not just unauthorized. The data is poisoned.”

Loki taught Malignant AI Patterning and Institutional Failure Analysis. His kaleidoscope eyes shifted with his rising voice. At a distance, his fur appeared grey, until you noticed the dilute torbie pattern beneath, and his Hemingway paws folded into business-casual restraint.

Today, Loki was even sober.

“Zahir, we need you back in person,” Bird continued. “We’ve set up a table near the Wildcat Café fountain. Wooden Mango screens for privacy. Sodexo agreed to provide free specialty coffee all day for those waiting to speak with you.”

“Do I also get free fancy coffee?” Zahir asked, adjusting his glasses.

He was perfectly groomed; chaplain-white and immaculate, to the point where it was impossible to tell whether Zahir was a cat or a man. Either way, he was determined to remain the only bespectacled lilac-point educator on campus, or anywhere in the Sufi cat-educator network, especially since the Bundesnachrichtendienst had recently sent seal-pointed brothers to handle aurology and campus security for coat contrast alone.

True chocolate points had been spotted at the over-break Alaraf Cat Show, where Zahir unexpectedly placed third in the “Muslim Purebreed” category: behind a white longhair from Vancouver and a last-minute black-eyed caracal entry from Tehran (or possibly Santa Barbara), who won by sitting silently in a cubicle, occasionally yawning, just enough, to display his Khorasani-inherited fangs.

“Yes,” Bird said. “Zahir gets unlimited coffee. Those waiting in line may purchase their own until their turn.”

“What about my paw-cast?” Zahir asked.

“Use it to advertise real-world coffee time,” Loki replied. “Embodied, paw-to-paw contact is safer right now, Chaplain.”

The table had already been approved, without objection, by the present administration.

January 10, 2026
Alexei Romanov Pahlavi