12:47 PM. The notification said "Motion detected."
Marcus was in his third back-to-back meeting of the day when the pet cam pinged. He already knew what he'd see — Biscuit, his two-year-old border collie mix, pacing the hallway again. The same hallway. The same slow, aimless circles.

Biscuit's apartment. 12:47 PM on a Tuesday.
He muted himself. Watched for 40 seconds. Unmuted. Apologized for the "connection issue." That night, he pulled out a napkin and wrote three words: a toy that thinks.
"I didn't want to build a gadget. I wanted to give him back his afternoon."









