The Liminal Ones
"JOC calling Dr. Thorne, Alpha-7 sector report, number 734, 'Phantom' has breached the sonic barrier fence again, trajectory pointing toward the old city ruins."
The calm, emotionless female voice from the Joint Operations Center came through Dr. Iris Thorne's earpiece. She pulled up the holographic map, where a flashing red dot was moving along the edge of a deep crimson danger zone. That was "Phantom," an adult male Rocky Mountain wolf, and the last marked wild wolf in the city.
Dr. Iris Thorne was a senior field agent with the Federal Interdepartmental Ecological Coordination Group. Her job was to manage these "liminal animals"—that ancient and precise term describing creatures that were neither domesticated nor completely wild, living in the interstices of human habitation. In this era called the "New Epoch," the previous "Anthropocene," with its irreversible transformative power, had spawned countless such existences.
She started her electric all-terrain vehicle, gliding almost silently past the skyscrapers of "Cascadia Confluence City," built from glass and recycled steel. Below stretched the "Green Veins," an ecological corridor network that connected the city's periphery to surrounding national forests and several large state parks like green blood vessels. According to the "core-corridor-predator" strategy proposed in the Jansman Report, these green veins were the city's lifelines, allowing animals to migrate between fragmented habitats. But "Phantom" was clearly unsatisfied with officially designated routes, repeatedly breaking into old city areas abandoned by humans and filled with unknown risks.
"He's searching for 'her' again," Dr. Thorne thought. The Joint Operations Center database showed that "Phantom's" mate, a female wolf marked as "Luna," had disappeared three years ago during a toxic leak incident in the old city. The official record stated "natural demise," but "Phantom" seemed never to have accepted this conclusion. His behavior, time and again, challenged humanity's definition of "wild." He wasn't wandering aimlessly; he was searching persistently, with an almost tragic intent that even humans could understand.
This perfectly illustrated the perspective of Meijer and Bovenkerk: animals are agents with capacity for action; they possess memory, intention, and even attempt cross-species communication. "Phantom's" behavior wasn't simple instinct, but "self-willed action" based on emotion and memory.
Dr. Thorne's vehicle stopped at the edge of the old city. This had once been a prosperous twenty-first-century metropolis, now swallowed by creeping vegetation and slowly rusting steel. The air was thick with the smell of damp earth and oxidized metal. She put on her augmented reality glasses and activated the life-signal scanner.
She found him. Under a half-collapsed elevated bridge pier, "Phantom" stood, looking up at an abandoned surveillance camera above the pier. His posture wasn't defensive, but rather... expectant.
Dr. Thorne didn't approach. She merely took a palm-sized device from her toolkit—a prototype "cross-species sonic translator." This was the work of a group of radical scientists at the bureau, attempting to decode and simulate the emotional base frequencies in animal expression. She aimed the device at "Phantom."
A low, trembling wolf howl was captured by the device, processed by algorithms, and converted into syllables comprehensible to human language, transmitted faintly from the speaker:
"...where...answer...back..."
Fragmentary, vague, but the sorrow and calling within it were unmistakable.
Dr. Thorne felt a tightness in her chest. She recalled the theory proposed by Donaldson and Kymlicka in Zoopolis. They viewed wolves and other wild animals as members of communities possessing "sovereignty." The relationship between humans and them should be like that between nations, respecting their autonomy. And at this moment, her city, her fellow citizens, were depriving "Phantom" of his sovereignty to pursue truth under the arrogant name of "protection."
She didn't fire a tranquilizer dart, nor did she activate the sonic dispersal device. She simply played through the translator a pre-recorded low-frequency sound wave mixed with comfort and warning. This was an extension of Martin Drenthen's concept of "fences as communicative devices" mentioned in his paper—boundaries should not merely be physical barriers, but also a means of information transmission, an attempt at mutual understanding between parallel sovereignties.
"Phantom" turned his head, his deep amber eyes meeting Dr. Thorne's. In that gaze there was no fear, no aggression, only a penetrating scrutiny. Then he turned and silently disappeared into the shadows of the ruins.
The red dot on the Joint Operations Center map stopped moving, remaining in the buffer zone. The crisis was temporarily resolved.
But Dr. Thorne knew the real crisis had never been resolved.
The Dark Side of Utopia
Returning to her apartment in the city's middle levels, Dr. Thorne wearily removed her uniform. Outside her window stretched the brightly lit urban nightscape. Flying vehicles shuttled between buildings like fireflies, holographic billboards projecting slogans about "harmonious coexistence with nature." This was "Cascadia Confluence City," the utopia humanity was trying to build after experiencing the agony of ecological collapse—a place of balanced coexistence with all earthly life.
However, utopias have their dark sides.
Her personal terminal flashed—a video request from her sister, Lena Thorne. When connected, the screen showed a tearful little girl holding a trembling North American Shorthair cat.
"Sis, 'Patches'... 'Patches' was bullied by those stray cats downstairs again! His ear is scratched!"
"Patches" had been adopted by Lena through the "Urban Cat Care Program," a typical "liminal animal"—once a house cat, then a stray, now "re-socialized" into a human household. According to research by Peter Marra and Chris Santella in Cat Wars, urban cats, especially strays, are super-predators, causing devastating impacts on local birds and small mammals.
But in the eyes of Lena and thousands of citizens like her, "Patches" wasn't the culprit of ecological disaster; he was family, an emotional anchor. This was the core conflict: the individualism versus holism debate between animal protectionists and nature conservationists. The former focused on individual animal welfare and rights, while the latter emphasized species protection and biodiversity maintenance.
The official policy on stray cats was a practice of Donaldson and Kymlicka's "denizenship" theory: they weren't viewed as domestic animals with full citizenship rights, nor as wild animals with absolute sovereignty, but were allowed to live in human communities while subject to sterilization, registration, and being encouraged in principle to live indoors.
But theory was pallid. In reality, cats like "Patches" that couldn't fully adapt to indoor life were constantly in conflict with more territorial stray cat populations. And owners like Lena were caught in a dilemma: protect their own pet, or protect the "more vulnerable" wild animals preyed upon by their pet (and its kind)?
Dr. Thorne comforted her sister, promising to take "Patches" to update his behavioral correction chip over the weekend. After hanging up, she felt a deep sense of helplessness. She could track a wolf with superior skill, yet couldn't solve the community ecological and emotional disputes brought by a single cat.
This was daily life in "Cascadia Confluence City." Every decision about animals involved a complex ethical web. Technology provided tools—sterilization chips, behavior correctors, habitat simulators—but technology couldn't provide perfect answers. As Cor van der Weele's discussion of "cultured meat" suggested: technology itself cannot resolve fundamental value conflicts; it only transfers or transforms contradictions.
The Silent Conspiracy
The next day, Dr. Thorne was assigned a new task: investigate anomalous urban crow behavior.
In Central Park in District Seven, a large crow flock had begun systematically "attacking" municipal cleaning robots. They weren't attacking indiscriminately, but precisely pecking at the optical sensors the robots used to sort recyclables, nearly paralyzing the district's waste sorting system.
The Joint Operations Center's preliminary assessment: the crows mistook the flashing sensors for hostile creatures or food. Typical "nuisance behavior," recommending upgraded sensor shields supplemented by gentle sonic dispersal.
But Dr. Thorne felt something was wrong. She reviewed surveillance footage from before the attacks. The video showed the crow flock didn't swarm all at once. They had sentries, division of labor. Several crows distracted the robots while others seized the opportunity to snatch specific items from the robots' not-yet-closed waste bins—a type of shiny metallic foil used to package high-grade synthetic foods.
Why this particular foil?
She contacted Professor Sharma Rossi, an animal behavior professor at the city university. Dr. Sharma was a pioneer in "animal culture" research. In his laboratory, he showed Dr. Thorne his findings.
"Look at this," Dr. Sharma played a video of an elderly crow marked as "leader" in the park. "It's using that foil to decorate the edges of its nest. This isn't random behavior. We believe this foil reflects specific wavelengths of ultraviolet light that, in crow vision, may be a symbol of status or mate attraction. They're using human waste to construct their own 'cultural' symbols."
This completely overturned the "mistaken identity" hypothesis. This wasn't nuisance behavior; this was a premeditated, goal-oriented "resource acquisition" operation. The crows demonstrated astonishing agency: they not only recognized the cleaning robots' operational patterns but also developed coordinated attack strategies, acting for purposes beyond immediate survival needs (food, shelter)—purposes belonging to the sociocultural level.
This confirmed academic research on animal culture and cognitive abilities. Elephants passing down migration routes, bird dialects, chimpanzee "fashion"—culture wasn't uniquely human. The crows were developing a culture belonging to their urban population.
"What should we do?" Dr. Thorne asked. "If they're after this foil, then upgrading shields will only provoke more intense confrontation. They're 'learning' how to counter us."
Dr. Sharma pondered for a moment: "Perhaps... we can try 'negotiation.'"
"Negotiation?"
"Yes. Didn't Donaldson and Kymlicka propose that domestic animals should be viewed as 'citizens' with the right to representation? Although crows are liminal animals, their intelligence and sociality give them a kind of 'quasi-political agency.' Maybe it's time to try establishing a communication mechanism."
The idea was daringly close to madness. But "Phantom's" calling still echoed in Dr. Thorne's ears. If humans always positioned themselves as superior managers, they could never truly understand these urban co-inhabitants.
Dr. Thorne didn't take dispersal measures. She designed an experiment: establishing a special "exchange station" at the park's edge. Inside were the metallic foils the crows coveted, but also small electronic waste items that municipal services hoped to collect—useless to crows but potentially environmentally harmful. The exchange station entrance had a simple shape-recognition lock; only by inserting electronic waste of a specific shape would the foil compartment door open.
Initially, the crows only observed warily. Several days later, surveillance captured a young crow attempting to insert a discarded chip into the slot. Success. Foil dropped. Soon, this behavior spread through the flock.
Attacks on cleaning robots significantly decreased. And municipal services unexpectedly recovered a batch of electronic waste that had been difficult to collect.
This wasn't control, nor domestication. This was a primitive "contract" based on recognition of each other's capabilities and needs. A clumsy yet hopeful cohabitation agreement, written together by crows and humans on the ruins of the Anthropocene.
Wild Heart
"Phantom's" alarm sounded again. This time, he had penetrated deep into the old city's core forbidden zone—the former chemical research institute. The radiation and toxin levels there were lethal to any life.
Dr. Thorne knew she couldn't hesitate any longer. She had to stop him. Not to maintain the city's rules, but for "Phantom's" own survival.
She brought heavy protective equipment and powerful sedatives, penetrating the forbidden zone. The buildings here were twisted and deformed, the air filled with visible dust. The red dot on her life-signal scanner blinked at a semi-underground laboratory door.
She approached cautiously. Through a broken observation window, she saw a sight that made her heart stop.
"Phantom" stood there. Before him, half-covered by radiation-proof cloth, lay a long-stiffened wolf skeleton. On the skeleton's collar hung a rusted but still identifiable tracker—number "Luna."
He had found her. After three years, crossing countless human-made obstacles, by some connection beyond human understanding, he had finally found his missing mate.
"Phantom" didn't howl, didn't agitate. He merely walked forward slowly, gently touching the white bones with his nose, emitting from his throat an extremely low whimper almost impossible for instruments to capture. That sound, transmitted through the translator Dr. Thorne had activated, became a chaotic noise, but the grief contained within struck Dr. Thorne like something tangible.
In this moment, all academic discussions about sovereignty, agency, and liminality vanished. What remained was only one life's most primitive, most profound mourning for another.
Dr. Thorne didn't disturb him. She quietly retreated, establishing a temporary communication shield zone, blocking the Joint Operations Center's real-time monitoring. She gave "Phantom" time.
Several hours later, "Phantom" emerged from the laboratory. He looked exhausted, some light in his eyes seemingly extinguished. But when he saw Dr. Thorne, he showed no aggression. He merely walked slowly past her, toward the buffer zone.
Dr. Thorne followed him, maintaining distance. All the way to the forbidden zone's edge, "Phantom" stopped and looked back at her. That gaze was ineffably complex—sadness, release, and perhaps... gratitude?
Then he turned and truly left.
Dr. Thorne returned to the laboratory, carefully collecting "Luna's" remains and tracker. She inserted the tracker's data chip into a reader. The last recorded position was this laboratory. Time: three years ago. But besides this, there was a brief activation of biological signals recorded after "Luna's" death—she had been pregnant at the time.
One life, in the process of pursuing another, had also completed confirmation and farewell to its own past. This wasn't merely agency; this was the wild heart playing a tragic elegy on the ruins of the Anthropocene.
A Symbiotic Future
After the "Phantom" incident, Dr. Thorne submitted a ten-thousand-word report. She didn't avoid her own violations of protocol, but detailed the emotional depth and cognitive abilities "Phantom's" behavior had demonstrated, using this as an opportunity to strongly advocate for reassessing urban wildlife management strategies.
She cited Dr. Sharma's crow research, her own encounter with "Phantom," and her sister Lena's predicament with "Patches" as case studies. She pointed out that the current management model based on "control" and "classification" could no longer address the increasingly blurred species boundaries in the Anthropocene.
She proposed establishing a "Cross-Species Urban Cohabitation Committee," incorporating ecologists, ethicists, animal behaviorists, and citizen representatives. The committee's task would no longer be to "manage" animals from above, but to attempt to "listen" and "negotiate."
For sovereign wild animals like "Phantom," intervention should be minimized, with ecological corridors and buffer zones respecting their autonomy. The "consolations of environmental philosophy" mentioned by Mateusz Tokarski might be useful—humanity needs to learn to accept the "discomfort" of coexisting with wildness and view it as part of nature.
For highly intelligent liminal animals like crows, more institutionalized "resource exchange" or "working partnerships" (such as cleaning specific waste) could be explored, ensuring mutual benefit rather than unilateral exploitation.
For the stray cat and dog problem, a difficult balance between individual welfare and ecological integrity needed to be found. Promoting indoor keeping and improving adoption and sterilization programs while also cultivating citizens' "entangled empathy" for local birds and small mammals through public education.
Her report sparked intense debate in city hall. Conservatives attacked it as "impractical romantic fantasy" that would lead to urban disorder collapse. But more and more people, especially the younger generation, began to agree with her views.
Finally, a scaled-down "Multi-Species Cohabitation Advisory Committee" was established. Dr. Thorne was among its members.
One evening, Dr. Thorne stood on her apartment balcony, overlooking the city. She saw fox shadows flashing through the green veins, heard the cawing of crow flocks in the air, thought of "Patches" sleeping peacefully in her sister's arms, and of "Phantom" forever lost in the old city's depths.
"Cascadia Confluence City" remained full of contradictions. Technological solutions coexisted with deeply rooted value conflicts. Animal agency continued to wrestle with human management desires.
But something had changed. People were beginning to realize this city didn't belong to humans alone. It was a place where countless lives struggled, adapted, and sought paths forward together in the Anthropocene's currents. These animals—these liminal ones, sovereign beings, citizens and denizens—weren't backdrop to human history; they were agents jointly shaping the future.
Humanity could not, and should not, decide this city's future alone. The future's landscape must be jointly drawn through continuous dialogue, friction, compromise, and occasional resonance with these "in-between beings."
Dr. Thorne took a deep breath, the air mixed with plant freshness and urban dust. She heard a vague wolf howl from afar—perhaps "Phantom," perhaps an illusion of wind. But that sound, like lightning cutting through the night sky, reminded her:
In this city full of echoes, every voice yearns to be heard.
References:
Jozef Keulartz & Bernice Bovenkerk. "Animals in Our Midst: The Challenges of Co-existing with Animals in the Anthropocene"
Eva Meijer & Bernice Bovenkerk. "Taking Animal Perspectives into Account in Animal Ethics"
Charlotte E. Blattner. "Turning to Animal Agency in the Anthropocene"
Sue Donaldson & Will Kymlicka. "Stray Agency and Interspecies Care: The Amsterdam Stray Cats and Their Humans"
Sue Donaldson & Will Kymlicka. "Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights"
Hugh A. H. Jansman. "Animal Conservation in the Twenty-First Century"
Martin Drenthen. "Coexisting with Wolves in Cultural Landscapes: Fences as Communicative Devices"
Mateusz Tokarski. "Consolations of Environmental Philosophy"
Cor van der Weele. "How to Save Cultured Meat from Ecomodernism?"
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