Down below we could see the city, the long red bridge, the tall grey buildings, the sparkling blue-green water, the crescent shaped bay with silver ships pulling in looking for anchorage. It was very early and very windy and we were up in the hills above the heavily populated city looking for strange tracks, fresh spore, or recent tailings. Every once in a while we’d hear a shrill whistle and one of the uniformed officers would gesture and the whole line of us would move off in a different direction.

I guess there were a hundred armed men in the group, searching for victims, or clues, or tracks, or tufts of golden hair, or trees with scratches etched in them, anything… anything concrete… or just… anything.

Even something merely suggestive might ultimately be of use to us. Might indicate what kind of world we were in. Might point us to the correct eigenstate.

The grass was tall. The shrubs tall. There were scattered dense clumps of trees and the terrain was very rugged. I was told horses were being sent up from the mounted division; that they would be joining us around twelve. That would help.

I was carrying a shotgun. I kept it cradled in my arms. I had a pocket full of shells and on my belt I had a nice hunting knife and on my other side a cell phone set on vibrate. I was tempted to call the institute, but knew better. They already had my number and they would have called me had they any news. I was tired. Of all the people on the hill I was probably the most tired. And probably the most confused. Certainly the one most concerned.

I counted on my fingers and confirmed the number I’d already figured out in my head. I’d been awake for almost 50 hours. I was starting to hear things that, maybe, weren’t there. I was starting to hear deep pre-historic growls and stealthy padded feet approaching me from behind. I kept turning around quickly, putting my shotgun at port arms… which greatly disturbed the sheriff’s deputy walking nearby.

They say genius and madness are both etched on the same coin. I know whose face would be on that coin after it stopping spinning. I worked for the genius I’m talking about. I worked for Robert Pearson Black. You should know the name; he’s won all kinds of awards for biological research and genetic engineering and social philosophy.

He is eccentric, his genius subject to whim.

Robert Pearson Black is eccentric; especially about cats.

Small cats first. Big cats later.

His name is often linked to a little mystery involving a series of closed doors and a hidden tiger. The hidden tiger puzzle that made its way into the papers a few years ago. Black built a long hallway and a series of doors and he paid people to enter the hallway and open doors. He told his “contestants” that they might encounter a tiger; but that when they did… and if they did… the encounter would be totally unexpected.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven people visited that hallway and none of them encountered the claws and fangs.

Only when he’d opened all ten doors and only after having the big check in his hands; only then did the seventh contestant discover the un-expected tiger. Contestant seven was opening his own mini-van door, expecting a pleasant drive home, when he went face to face with a swipe of razors that all but removed his face. What saved Robert Pearson Black from lawsuits and jail was the disclaimer signed by his various “contestants”.

I worked for Robert Black. Felt maybe it would be safe, as he hadn’t asked me to sign any disclaimers. I didn’t realize until later, I also, was in some kind of… “Is there a tiger?” experiment.

He hired me to turn valves and push levers. This experiment also, was centered about a series of doors and rooms. A very strange series of rooms. All linked to each other like dominoes. Inside the rooms; Rube Goldberg contraptions. If this happened… then that would happen… and then other processes would follow. Processes that were supposed to crawl forward all by themselves. He bought a very small amount of a radioactive isotope and mounted it near a sensor and linked it to a biological device.

But first he had to extract fossil DNA from a strange skull. A skull with huge teeth. Finally, he closed the doors and sealed them shut. He stood there with his arms crossed and smiled, “It’s all yours.” he told me. He handed me my written instructions. Then he uncrossed his arms, went off to investigate the possibility that we were all descents of a crashed space-seed-factory-civilization-initiator sent here five thousand years ago.

He moved on, but I still had tasks.

Twice a day I opened and closed a valve labeled -WATER-.

Once a day I pulled a lever marked -RED MEAT-.

Three times each day I was supposed to station myself at the wall. It was a big black wall; and piercing the wall sat two of those heavy rubber gloves, like those they use with dangerous chemicals. Only I wasn’t handling beakers or flasks.

I couldn’t see inside. I was supposed to make motions like I was stroking a cat. I was supposed to growl. Supposedly there was a microphone to pick up my growls and transmit them to the other rooms. The gloves were heavy and un-responsive. I couldn’t tell if anything was actually inside, couldn’t tell if the resistance I felt was natural or un-natural… real or imagined… it felt like I was stirring sofa cushions with a kayak paddle.

Days went by.

Then suddenly, un-expectedly, Robert Pearson Black stopped by.

He told me the experiment was about to have a conclusion.

He was very talkative.

We sat in his office.

Apropos of nothing, he just started talking.

“I’ve always been fascinated with cats…” He said, “…big cats, little cats, detective stories that involve cats, Egyptian cats, domestic cats, cats in hats, almost any kind of cats… but you know what the best cats are..?”

I shook my head.

“The best cats are tigers. And the best tigers have always been… saber tooth tigers. Did you know they hunted men..? …actually preferred them..? Did you know they helped each other..? From bones and archaeology we know that some of them lived a long time after breaking major bones… and that could only have happened if they helped each other… if they didn’t prey on their own kind… if they brought meat back to the injured.”

There was a map on his desk and he opened it.

“They used to roam all over this area.” He said while letting his hand drift across a map. “And if you go by the fossil records; they’ve appeared more than once on this Earth. Actually died out and reappeared. Not just any creatures can do that. They had the largest territories of any land animals; and I believe they went traveling not pressed by the need to migrate but just to see other places. I can almost believe they wandered and returned… and tried to report back. Like a fur-covered Marco Polo. Like wandering adventurers. Like they were writing travel articles for National Geographic. Maybe at times they sat in a big circle facing in; and the one who just came home from far away, sat there in the middle and tried to convey with his growls and grey eyes all the vast wandering episodes he’d seen. Explaining, as best he could, the taste of far rivers. The smell of strange feathers. The sound of frozen mile-thick glaciers cracking apart. And then maybe they all went away to their own lairs and told their children the width of the world.”

“Well…” I began. He wasn’t thru.

“I started feeling sorry for them. I built them another chance. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be responsible for their resurrection. I wasn’t sure I wanted to play God. So I let God play God. I built this whole complex to provide God one last chance to save the Saber tooth. If the isotope decayed… then the DNA from the old fossils was inserted into embryos. If the embryos developed they were nurtured by fluids and then planted in test tubes and birthed by machines and at that point more was needed and you helped. If the young tigers were there they needed water and food and stimulation and they needed to hear growls and they needed your touch to teach them to socialize…”

“Are you sure they were… born?” I said.

“Quit interrupting.” He said. He pulled a small electric device from his pocket. He pushed the button. “Now they are free…” He said, “…and now the rooms are being cleaned and all the evidence is being destroyed. And now the isotope is being neutralized. And the tigers (if there are tigers) are sprinting up the hill in back of us. Soon they’ll own the tree line where the farms end. And they’ll own the river banks when the water runs. And they’ll walk down paved trails and wonder what we are doing in their woods.

I got up and ran to the rooms and was pelted with water streaming down and saw the door standing open and saw the door to the outside was open. Thru the last possible door I could see the hills; the ones he was talking about. And I turned back and entered the confinement rooms and went to the very last wall. There were the gloves I’d used hundreds of times. I looked at them and they were fashioned to resemble paws and painted above the gloves was the face of a tiger. A tiger with giant incisors. The tiger that owned the ice age. The tiger that took down mastodons and hunted men. Hunted with sabers for teeth.

I called the authorities. And now we’re on the hill, wondering if the isotope decayed, wondering if we’re in the middle of a practical joke. From the corner of my eye I think I see a cat’s brown shoulder. As quick as I can I turn. The grass on the rise next to me is tall and thick, but I think I see it move and then there’s a ripple as the grass folds forward and slowly pops back up.

Then nothing.

No further motion catches my eye.

Off in the distance birds scatter into the blue sky.