Of Saber-Toothed Cats and Corporate Espionage (Inktober, Thursday, October 8)

For Inktober, Thursday, October 8, 2020. Prompt word: "teeth." Tuckerization: Tiffany Ross 

A reminder that volunteering for tuckerization only means a character in the story shares the participant's name. Other than that, there are no other similar characteristics implied. 

Of Saber-Toothed Cats and Corporate Espionage 

by Alan Loewen 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Tiffany did not care for working overtime and alone, but a significant breakthrough overcame her reluctance, especially when the quantum supercomputer was chewing on a new strand of DNA. Megatherium americanum was on the verge of becoming a new addition to Shivae Laboratories’ collection of Pleistocene megafauna and Dr. Tiffany Ross was committed to being the first scientist of the team to see the final result. 

The DNA would then be assembled by other quantum computers connected to a machine designed for artificial gene synthesis. The strand would be checked and rechecked multiple times, injected into an ovum, and then artificially inserted into the womb of a Shire horse medically adapted not to reject the growing fetus. 

Tiffany checked the computer screen. The process went too fast for her to understand what she saw as base pairs flashed across the screen, but it gave her a sense of satisfaction to watch the computer do its work. 

“Good evening.” 

Tiffany spun about to see a man dressed in black holding a small handgun. 

“I would appreciate it if you would not scream or make any sudden moves," the intruder said. "That would make me nervous, and I’m sure you would like to go home later tonight and not the morgue.” 

Tiffany felt a growing wave of anger but kept it in check. “Corporate espionage, I assume?” she asked. 

The man shrugged. “It’s a living.” 

“So, what are you here for?” 

“I’ll just take the DNA readout for the saber-toothed cat and I’ll be on my way.” He motioned toward the computer screen with his gun, “And then you can continue whatever it is you’re doing here.” 

“The information for the Smilodon is on an external drive,” Tiffany said. “It’s in the safe over there. I would have to go and open it.” 

“Of course,” the man replied. “Be my guest.” 

Tiffany went over to the safe, knelt down, and began spinning the combination lock. “Just out of curiosity, how much are they paying you?” 

“A cool $200,000,” the man said smugly. 

The safe door swung open, and Tiffany ran her finger down the stack of external drives. Each one was solid state and five terabytes in size to hold the massive amount of information. She had individual drives for wooly mammoths, dire wolves, cave lions, cave bears, and other megafauna. Still, if all he wanted was the Smilodon DNA, she was happy to give it to him. 

Slowly, she stood up and turned around, holding the drive so the intruder could see it. “Here it is.” 

“Put it on the desk there in front of me,” he said, ‘and turn around.” 

Tiffany did as instructed. 

“Now,” the man ordered, “start counting aloud to 100 and don’t turn around until you finish. You won’t know when I leave, and it won’t be healthy for you to disobey.” 

Tiffany started counting, and when she reached 100, the man was gone. 

* 

“So,” the director asked, “all he wanted was the Smilodon DNA?” 

Tiffany scratched the saber-toothed cat’s cheek avoiding the big cat’s teeth. She smiled when it flopped over onto its back for a belly rub. Tiffany obliged. 

“Yes, but I made sure I gave him the DNA without the docility modifications, Tiffany said. “Whatever lab sent him is going to discover what we discovered when we grew our first Smilodons.” She shook her head as she continued rubbing the Smilodon’s belly. “Vicious creatures and amazingly intelligent. I would even call them evil. Just have our own corporate spies keep their ears open for a lab massacre.”

The director shuffled his feet nervously as another Smilodon almost knocked him down rubbing itself against his legs. “I’m surprised we were able to keep the news of our own massacre quiet, but then nobody knew what we were doing. We operated well below the radar.” 

The director gingerly reached down with obvious trepidation and scratched the second Smilodon’s head as it twirled around his legs. “Thank heaven, they didn’t come for the Terror bird DNA. We lost an entire lab and a contingent of security personnel to that monster.” 

“True,” Tiffany said. “The only thing worse than teeth is a bulletproof beak that can crush skulls.” She gave the saber-tooth another hearty rub and stood. 

“Time to feed the dire wolves and exercise them,” she said. “You up for a really aggressive game of fetch?”