". . . I called ahead," Felicity notes to Cam.

"Oh, that makes sense. Uh, I am still moderately cash constrained but cats are not very expensive. I guess possibly you have some anti-pet-hoarder regulations."

"We super do, yeah."

"Is there a way to do this licitly, then?"

"Over the course of a few months, maybe?  Or if you wanted to involve a whole lot of other people?"

"Well, I guess we could see how urgent the cats feel about it."

"Sure, sure.  I'm uh gonna hang out out here, it's not technically my shift."

"Cool, I appreciate that." In Cam goes to talk to cats, assuming whoever is on shift will not obstruct this.

He doesn't.

"You're back?  Why are you back?  You already got a cat.  Who's that?" says the vocabulary kitten.

"I'm STARVING.  I'm hungryyyyyyy I'm going to DIE of hunger," complains the one who wanted to eat Cam, over her sibling.

"I'm back to see if any more of you would like to get out of here and how quickly would be quickly enough to suit you!" Cam replies.

"YES right NOW how about, if you have food."

". . . What's in places that aren't here?"

"Lots of stuff. I built a city, really far from here, and you could live there if you wanted to, for example. We could try to match you with humans to live with or not, whichever."

The vocabulary kitten looks pensive.  "What's a city?"

"It's a great big Twolegplace with lots of buildings!"

"Is there FOOD there."

". . . I'm also curious about the food there," admits the kittens' mother, softly.

"There is food there, yes, probably better than what you get here, not that amazing unless someone's making it right then like me or some other people like me, even then maybe not as good as live-caught I'm not sure."

She nods.

"I want to go unless you'll kill me," someone new pipes up.

"I am not going to kill you. The thing I want, here, is for all the talking cats in the world to find places where they will be happy to live; what I don't know is how quickly you all feel I should do this for you guys."

"I think the Twolegs here are going to kill us."

"I don't know if this shelter does that or not. It might. If it turns out that taking you sooner makes the difference there I will take you sooner."

"I am not very happy to live here.  I'm more happy to live anywhere than nowhere, but I would prefer a not-here place."

"Yes but does it matter to you very much how many days that takes?"

"Not really."

"Yes."

"I would like not to have any more of my kits taken away . . ."