The Hunt

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Authors: Everette Morgan
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that was blocked?”
    “Two copperhead snakes, a black widow spider, and a Smilodon fatalis.”
    “What?!! Repeat please…” he exclaimed.
    “Two copperhead snakes, a black widow spider, and a Smilodon fatalis.”
    Frustrated Marcus asked, “Definition of Smilodon fatalis please.”
    Jocelyn began, “Smilodon fatalis, Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Chordata, Class: Mammalia, Order: Carnivora, Family: Felidae, Subfamily: Machairodontinae, Genus: Smilodon.  Commonly called a saber tooth cat or incorrectly called a saber tooth tiger.  It is characterized by its feline appearance and two large canine teeth protruding from its upper jaw. Generally these animals reach a weight of a thousand pounds.  There seems to be some slight genetic mutations to the one that ventured to the canopy’s exterior.  Based up on calculations of weight and volume, this cat in particular seems to weigh in excess of 1750 lbs.”
    Amazed, Marcus uttered, “Enough, I get the picture.”
    Idiot scientists, he thought to himself.  He had been lucky so far. Up until today he had not had any of the dangerous prehistoric animals on the mountain.  He had known it would happen eventually but would have preferred it be ten years from now or never as far as that was concerned.  He had seen them migrate several times through the valley but they generally never came up the mountain.  He got the coordinates from Jocelyn of where the tiger tried to come through.  The Force Canopy that he had “acquired” stretched outward in a giant circle that was two miles across, a small area compared to some of the larger military canopies but very large for a person living alone.  He had a nice size farm and still had a lot of forest where he was able to hunt and fish. And speaking of hunting, it looked like he was hunting tomorrow outside of the canopy. 
    “Perimeter cameras.”
    In an instant, the seventy-two inch flat screen display blinked on and displayed twenty smaller screens that displayed their viewpoints. 
    “Cameras twenty-one through forty.”
    The screen refreshed and showed twenty new viewpoints.  In about ten minutes he had cycled through the one hundred perimeter cameras and had also cycled through the fifty he had placed at strategic locations on the mountain and in the nearby valley; no sign of the cat appeared.
    “Is there any camera footage of the cat?” Marcus asked.
    “Camera 37 and 38 have one minute and forty-two seconds of footage.  Would you like me to play that footage sequence now?” Jocelyn asked.
    “Yes,” he stated. The screen flickered and showed a forest scene of dense foliage with the number “37” in the top right corner.  “Increase volume by twenty-five percent” Marcus added.  The forest sounds increased and he could hear the soft padded movement of something coming closer.  The normal forest ambience was quieter than normal so Marcus knew the predator was approaching.  In the small clearing to the left of center of the camera’s center point, the large cat moved out of the underbrush into the clearing. Although Marcus had seen them before in some of his travels, it still amazed him at the overall size of the big cat.  The cat was as tall as most horses and had the look of a normal mountain lion with a bobbed tail.  It had 2 giant teeth protruding from its upper jaw extending down below its lower jaw by at least twelve to fifteen inches.  It was a magnificent animal.  Once, while listening to some radio chatter he had heard about a saber-tooth taking down a large moose without even breaking a sweat.  That was in lower Montana.  As he continued watching, the tiger came right up to the edge of the invisible perimeter and stopped. He looked up and down and side to side.  It was as if he could sense the invisible barrier.  When a person was looking from the outside of the Force Canopy, the perimeter was camouflaged to blend in with the environment. From the inside you couldn’t even tell that there

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