Ryder Denton was a talented young writer, albeit a hack, living in America’s best and last boomtown, Las Vegas. Ryder had a flair for language, but was completely deadline-challenged, which meant efforts to support himself as a freelancer — a literary gun for hire — among the many Vegas entertainment magazines had largely come to nothing. He was perpetually broke and owed the government a few hundred dollars every April, the cruelest month. Thus, he had looked for work amidst the human resources departments of the major Strip hotels, hoping to secure a gig scribbling propaganda in a cubicle farm.

Eventually, his Internet job-searching persistence paid off, and the luxurious Phoenician hotel-casino hired him to write and edit an employee newsletter, The Tablet, the title of which suggested someone prominent in the company had perhaps studied a bit of the language and literature of ancient Canaan. For all the creativity allowed him, he might as well have wielded a hammer and chisel to crack cuneiform script into chunks of clay. He accepted the job under the illusion that he would spend his days interviewing chefs on how to prepare the perfect soufflé, probing French showgirls on the usefulness of classical ballet, and discussing the philosophy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War with executives. Instead, Ryder toiled endlessly on pointless memos designed to make middle managers sound like brilliant pharaohs and everyone else sound like eager slaves.

And now entertainment director Craig Felder had emailed Ryder’s supervisor one of the most humiliating assignments in the already-ignoble history of the Phoenician’s internal PR department: Felder demanded a front-page story on the new filtration system designed to remove the strongest odors in the jungle-like environs of White Lion Lair.

“Look, I’m not writing about animal-poop purifiers,” Ryder told his boss, Maureen Derry, in her office. “I want to go deeper into the myths and realities of white lions, the fact that white lions are considered divine in South Africa— ”

Maureen let out a dramatic sigh. “Craig will never go for that. Remember when you wrote that epic piece on the history of jazz? You barely mentioned the lounge.”

“Well, the lounge is called Love Supreme. After the John Coltrane album?”

“That’s not why they named it that. And take the camera for pictures.”

“I’ve got to shoot the story, too? Fine, I’ll photograph some lion butt.”

“You would. Seriously, Craig hates it when your writing gets all academic.”

“I have an MFA!”

“MFA stands for what? Mother … ”

“Maureen.”

“ … what? The trainer’s name is Alvin Powers, by the way. Call him before you waltz in there, OK? Seriously, don’t interrupt him. Powers is working with a famous biologist on lengthening the life span of our white lions.”

“Saw it on the news last night.”

“Watching TV, Mr. I’m So Literate?”

Ryder, 23, had to chuckle. He was more than a little in love with his 35-year-old boss, a divorced MILF with an ex-dancer’s still-toned body. She cursed like a sailor.

None of it, however, mitigated the genuine dread that filled his heart at the prospect of composing an article about ridding White Lion Lair of the odor of cat feces.

“Please,” he begged.

She shook her blond-highlighted head, but with a naughty smile. “Get out there and make me proud, young Ryder. Do a good job, and I’ll buy you drinks after work.”

Ryder felt his groin stirring. It was his turn to sigh dramatically.

***

Dr. Aragon sat at a table in Starbucks, sending a birthday e-card to a fellow geneticist in Oslo, Norway, and sipping greedily from a nonfat cappuccino. Afterward, he planned on replying to a number of email interview requests from prominent European science journalists, all wanting to know his expert opinion on the recent discovery of giant sea creatures in Antarctic waters. Turns out there are starfish five feet in diameter.

Since he didn’t have the organisms in front of him or in his laboratory, he didn’t have much to say except that the existence of kraken was always something he believed possible given the right set of environmental conditions. What he wouldn’t reveal, of course, was that he’d already achieved incredible results with air-breathing mammals.

The lavish funding for his dream project came from a world-renowned lion trainer and occasional environmental activist named Powers, whose awesome jungle cats had long dominated Hollywood and the Las Vegas Strip. Aragon knew that Powers, in the course of his entertainment career, had amassed a significant fortune, but the last check had bounced and, although the famous trainer had assured the mistake had occurred on the bank’s end and that the money would be forthcoming, the scientist had seen nothing corrected so far. Annoying, because he’d just bought a new jet-black Hummer.

As he sipped his hot drink, another priority email popped into his inbox with the subject line: “On the record?”

Aragon put aside the e-card and opened the message. In it, an old reporter, whom Aragon knew from the glory days of the now-defunct Omni, revealed that he’d been contacted by a publicist claiming to represent Powers and that the key to unlocking the life-expansion secrets of white lions would soon be revealed in a major academic paper. And since Aragon obviously served as Powers’ lead researcher, could the reporter acquire an exclusive interview no later than today?

Aragon felt his face getting hot. He rose from the table and dumped his still-warm cappuccino in the trash. He didn’t want the caffeine to escalate his heart rate any further. Fuming, he began violently striking the keypad of his MacBook Air and dashed off a 2,000-word screed to Powers. Reading it through again, he tweaked a few words for added vitriol and raised his hand to slam the return key … then thought better of it.

Instead, he deleted the email and took a deep breath.

Rubbing his temples, he asked himself why Powers had put them in such a wretched position. Alerting the media was tantamount to suicide for a project that hadn’t been vetted through any university or federal grant. Was Powers purposely sabotaging things? If so, for what absurd reason? If he’d gone bankrupt, why not be on the level about it? Why risk having the results fall apart and tempt a scientist to take his research elsewhere? True, Aragon had had the test results independently confirmed in Oslo, but …

Suddenly a password-protection alert, marked highest priority, arrived, flashing its warning. Answers to the scientist’s question were sitting in front of him now: Powers had somehow broken the code, downloading files from Aragon’s lab PC.

In his haste, Aragon ripped the power-supply cord from the coffee shop wall socket and slammed shut his Air too forcefully, angering a neighboring Mac fan, white ear buds in.

“Shame!” said the urban hipster, working on a MacBook and sipping from a Frappucino.

“Get a life,” sneered Aragon. He grabbed his keys and made for the exit.

***

Without even checking to see if a memory card was in the camera, Ryder strapped it over his shoulder, took an escalator up to the smoky, slot machine-beeping casino floor, and headed in the direction of White Lion Lair. He’d also left behind his notepad and digital audio recorder, but didn’t care. Phoenician employees were rarely articulate, and Ryder would end up fabricating their quotes anyway. Why bother with the empty theatrics of in-house journalism? The Police’s “Truth Hits Everybody” played on the casino sound system, and Ryder weaved through the throng of gamblers.

He’d done his homework. The beasts in question originated from a private game reserve in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. Brought to the States in the early ’70s, they lacked many of the inbreeding depressions that afflict captive lions. Extinct in the wild, white lions only numbered about 300 in the world, and at least a dozen of them were cared for by Powers right here in Vegas. He bred them for a number of Nevada entertainers, and enjoyed a reputation for well-trained, good-natured cats.

Ryder arrived at the lair at the end of a feeding. Powers, inside the lair with the gorgeous animals themselves, placed some kind of raw hamburger-like patty directly into the maw of one of the lions. Ryder knew this meant he’d have to wait for the cats to get sleepy before Powers would exit the lair and head toward the White Lion Lair Gift Shop, a place crammed with stuffed animals and T-shirts. So the young scrivener gave the tourists room to gawk and decided to pass time by chatting with a couple from —

“Albuquerque,” the man said.

“Enjoying the Phoenician?” Ryder asked, feigning curiosity.

“Humph,” said the woman, on the dowdy side, unimpressed with anything.

“Well, we were having a great time,” explained the man. “Until that trashy hooker over there asked my wife if she would be interested in a three-way.”

Ryder snorted. “Man, don’t they have security in these places?”

“Security needs to help that lion tamer,” said the woman.

Ryder turned. The same cat Powers had fed reared up on its hind legs and swatted at the trainer’s brow as if his head were a ball of string. The crowd gasped. Powers fell to the ground. A fellow trainer came to his aid, and another clapped to draw the lion’s attention.

The lion then yawned as if nothing had happened.

Gradually, Powers, leaning on his fellow trainer with what looked like a sprained ankle, exited the lair as a purple-jacketed security officer approached.

“We need to fill out a report,” the officer insisted.

“In the gift shop,” said Powers, voice hoarse, the superficial scratch on his forehead oozing slightly.

Ryder hung back for a moment and watched the trainers direct the aggressive lion into the dark recesses of the lair, probably to the loading dock. Would she be caged with a scarlet placard around her neck that read “Beware of Lion”? Ryder entered the gift shop just as an employee was printing up a piece of paper for Powers. The old man pulled a pen from his shirt pocket, clicked it. Ryder noticed his hands shook; his face was ashen.

“Frisky cat,” said Ryder. “Was that Baby? I thought she was a lioness of, you know, advanced age or something.”

“Yes, Baby’s a senior,” said Powers, refusing to look up from the paper, but not writing anything, either.

“Name’s Ryder. I’m with The Tablet,” he said, extending his hand. “Been giving Baby steroids, huh?”

Powers coughed once, looked up and squinted at Ryder without shaking his mitt. “You guys misspelled one of my employee’s names in the last issue.”

“Who, you mean Phuk? Oh, yeah.” Ryder hated it when people pointed out the newsletter’s copious errors. “Sorry about that. Vietnamese gets tricky sometimes.”

“You spelled it with an F,” said Powers, dabbing forehead with handkerchief. “And with a C and a K.”

“Yes, well, it seemed correct at the time.”

“Here for a story on the new filtration system, I imagine.”

“You got it.”

“Sorry, not installed yet. You’re early, I’m afraid. The usual ventilation fans are running now.”

“Huh. It’s just that we got an email from Craig with marching orders.”

“Craig doesn’t understand that my cats need time to adjust to the sound.”

Ryder furrowed his brow. “I thought the filters were silent.”

“They are, which is why they spook my cats. I’ve been introducing the filters to them back at my ranch.”

Ryder recalled reading somewhere — daily paper perhaps? — that Powers rotated lions every 24 hours, with three in the lair most days. Ryder recalled another thing, too: “Hey, you know, The Tablet has never published photos of the ranch. Think I could drive out there this weekend?”

Powers turned back to the document, cleared his throat. “For the newsletter?”

“Well, maybe I could profile you in a magazine like Las Vegas Limelight.”

Powers directed his gazed at Ryder and appeared to consider the idea. “You write for a real magazine, too?”

“When I need extra coin.” Ryder raised the camera. “Should I, um, photograph your wounds?”

“Prefer you didn’t.”

“No problem.”

“Tomorrow, though, might be the good opportunity to talk more about my research with Dr. Aragon,” said Powers, finally writing his name and address at the top of the accident report. He tore off a scrap, handed it to Ryder. Powers was smiling. “How about tomorrow at two?”

“Sure. May want to clean and bandage that,” Ryder added, indicating the cut on Powers’ forehead.

The trainer shrugged. “I assure you my cats are free of scratch fever.”

“Good to know,” said Ryder. “See you tomorrow.”

He returned to the office and brought Maureen up to speed — except for the Las Vegas Limelight article. She didn’t seem entirely convinced Powers was in his right mind.

“What’s he up to? As far as Craig knows, the installation is complete. How long does it take getting lions accustomed to less noise?”

“No idea. How about those drinks?”

“Take a rain check? My son is sick again, and I’m off to daycare.”

“You should sell your kids for, like, money.”

“Not until eBay says it’s legal. Speaking of, you have my permission to use the company camera tomorrow.”

“Great. You’ll get tons of cat butt, I promise.”

“I’m sure.”

***

The next day was violently windy. It took Ryder nearly an hour to reach the ranch, which bordered the neighboring town of Pahrump, and the journey completely caked his Hyundai in dust. He pulled up to a gate that said NO TRESPASSING and searched his jeans for the scrap of paper Powers had handed him, hoping for a cell number.

But Powers was already limping his way to the gate from a trailer 20 yards away, the wind threatening to let fly the Area 51s baseball cap barely covering a swath of gauze.

Ryder poked his head out the driver’s side window. “Am I early or late?”

“Early,” said Powers. “Come in.” He unwrapped chains from the gate, pushing it open.

Ryder parked next to the trailer and got out of the car. He took a moment to survey things. Aside from the trailer and Powers’ pick-up, there was a rectangular warehouse with what looked like giant Plexiglass windows on the roof.

“Sort of a greenhouse you got there,” Ryder said to Powers. “Is there vegetation?”

“Lots,” said Powers, brushing dust from his hands. “It’s called a habitat. Helps them more psychologically than anything.”

“Why waste time shooting a dust storm? Lead the way, Mr. Powers.”

“Follow me.”

Despite the sprained ankle, Powers led him to the habitat and paused before opening the door. “A flash may confuse them, so allow the lions time to adjust to your presence.”

“You bet.”

Then Powers opened the door, and all hell broke loose.

There was an eardrum-bursting roar and an odor of rot, followed by the sight of the habitat exploding in a hailstorm of particleboard smithereens and shards of fiberglass. Ryder instinctively ducked, grinding the company camera into the rocks and dust beneath him, cracking the lens. The impact of Powers’ body knocked the breath from his lungs.

Gasping for air, he crawled out from under Powers’ lifeless body and crouched low, feeling vulnerable and monkey-like as he swiveled around to catch sight of whatever had charged them. What he saw made him scramble backward, and he gouged his skull on a piece of the half-demolished habitat. Now, on top of everything else, he was bleeding.

“Oh, kitty,” said Ryder.

The perspective had to be wrong, but according to Ryder’s eyes one of the white lions had somehow grown to the size of a school bus. It raised its massive paw in the air like a guillotine, and a shadow fell over Ryder. Despite an initial roar, the cat’s expression was now serene. It gazed blankly at Ryder. In his fear, he somehow tripped the flash. The paw dropped to the ground, the cat clearly curious about the source of light.

Suddenly there was a sharp crack, and the lion flinched. It got low to the ground and roared again, this time with a bit more fear and pain than hot anger.

Without another sound, though, it blinked several times, turned and trotted off into the dust storm, stumbling into Ryder’s car and crushing the passenger side with a drugged misstep. Ryder watched on in amazement as the lion gradually lay down on its side and fell still. The animal’s chest rose and fell, which meant it was still breathing.

“Thank God,” said Ryder, his legs shaking too much to stand.

“Not God,” said a man in a lab coat. His baldness, white beard and thick glasses were the only normal things about him, especially after you noticed the smoking tube of PVC resting on his shoulder like a rocket launcher. “My name is Dr. Aragon. You’d better come along.”

Ryder saw an intimidating black Hummer, door swung wide, parked next to his own car by the trailer. “Not unless you’re headed for the hospital, Alvin here is— ” He recoiled from the dark blood pooling under Powers’s corpse. Nausea gripped his throat.

“Stone dead.” Aragon pushed at the center of his glasses. “As will be the fate of many people on the Strip if we don’t hurry.”

“The Strip?”

“White Lion Lair. Powers shipped one of the test cats there this morning.”

“Test cats? What the hell was he testing?”

“Something with which he had no business. Mainly my unpublished notes.” Aragon fitted a metallic projectile into his homemade PVC blaster and aimed it at the drowsy lion.

“Wait, what are you doing?” said Ryder, now able to stand.

“Get in the truck.”

“Man, all I wanted to do was write a magazine article.”

“Plenty to write about now.”

***

Using his cell phone in the passenger seat of Aragon’s Hummer, Ryder reached Maureen.

“Call Craig’s department,” he told her, “and have them quarantine a lion named— ”

“Lioness!” barked Aragon, gunning the engine.

“Sorry, a lioness named Baby. Under Dr. Aragon’s orders.”

“Ryder, it’s Saturday morning. I’m with my son in the walk-in clinic.”

“You’re an executive, Maureen. They’ll listen to you.”

“All right. But can you tell me what’s happening?”

“I’m riding in Dr. Aragon’s Hummer. We’re on a mission to stop a mad lion.”

“How mad?”

“We’re talking fifty feet of pissed-off puddytat.”

“I told you to stop smoking pot in the morning.”

“Make the call, Maureen.”

Ryder hung up just as Aragon screeched onto the Strip from the I-15 exit ramp, rubber tires burning grey smoke. Laying on the horn, the military scientist nearly flattened a motorcycle cop issuing a ticket with his bike parked before yanking the Hummer onto the pedestrian-heavy sidewalk. Tourists, already unnerved by the powerful winds, ran in all directions. A few even screamed epithets and threw plastic yard-long beer cups, which bounced harmlessly off the hood.

“Go back to Ohio!” Ryder screamed back at them, even as he death-gripped the truck’s oh-shit handle. “Dr. Aragon, why did Powers delay the filtration system?”

“He thought it would hamper the oxygen levels and temperature controls he needed to grow the cats in the lair and habitat. Powers was rather clumsily —

The Hummer hit a steep Phoenician property speed bump at 60 miles per hour. Ryder’s teeth rattled.

“—relying on principles outlined by those of us studying the growth rate of jungle animals. He told me he needed help extending the lifespan of his lions. I agreed, but then he kept taking strange experimental detours. I think he wanted to sell cat meat, judging by the contacts he made last month.”

“Cat meat. To whom?”

“Who knows? The Chinese, maybe.”

“Weird. He had no idea, did he?”

“No, he didn’t realize they’d grow so fantastically. Neither did I, really. Otherwise I would’ve heeded my suspicions.”

“How many monsters did Powers make?”

“He only had enough resources for two cats.”

“Valet?” asked Ryder.

Aragon looked at the writer with utter contempt. “We’re going in.”

“Going in where? Oh no— ”

The Hummer careened into the crowded Phoenician entrance, swerving through the queued taxicabs and waiting limousines and luggage-grappling tourists and around the concrete barriers and scraping a car with its metal grill and shooting off bright sparks. Valet employees and hotel guests leaped for cover, and before Ryder could fasten his seatbelt, Aragon had smashed the massive all-terrain vehicle headlong into the front entrance. Face ricocheting off the dashboard, the sound of shattered glass crashing from all directions, Ryder touched his nose to make sure it hadn’t been severed. Although Phoenician security officers weren’t armed, they were tough characters, and he was almost as scared of them as he was of another giant white lion attack.

Motoring past the tiled lobby, Aragon somehow got a back tire caught on a nest of slot machines, and the Hummer did a doughnut right there on the casino carpet before slamming its front end against the short wall of the center bar. Aragon grabbed the PVC tube from under his seat and scrambled out of the truck, running for the lair.

“Wait!” Ryder shouted, barely squeezing between the passenger door and a splintered craps table.

Apparently sensing an imminent collision, Aragon stopped dead in his tracks and — like a football lateral play — tossed the PVC tube at Ryder before getting slam-tackled by a burly Phoenician security officer.

Squelching the terror in his heart, Ryder caught the PVC.

Glasses crushed by the officer’s boots, arms wrenched behind his back, the scientist yelled at Ryder: “Take her out!”

Ryder hesitated a moment before the fear of being viciously, bone-crushingly tackled got his legs moving. He sprinted for the lair, parting the waves of patrons who likely deemed him either a casino thief or a crazed terrorist. A few screamed, but mostly they scattered, giving Ryder a wide berth. An alarm began wailing. From the corner of his eye, he discerned security officers quickly making their way toward him, but he was already at the lair.

What he saw absolutely horrified him.

An enormous lioness, Baby, had already broken through the Plexiglass and was busy gnawing with much enthusiasm on a recently deceased tamer’s mangled thighbone in the adjacent and now-empty sports book. The cat’s golden eyes pierced Ryder’s own as Baby ripped raw, bloody flesh from the bones. He fumbled with the improvised weapon Aragon had tossed him, trying to find the trigger.

A deep and deafening growl complicated Ryder’s effort to determine which end of the barrel to point at the lioness. Unsure, he made an uneducated guess, praying that he wouldn’t be launching a grenade at the officers no doubt gathering behind him. At least they weren’t piling on top of him; they’d have larger concerns if this didn’t work.

Before he could draw an exact bead, Baby leaped through the casino, her weight causing the ground to shudder and reverberate. Pursuing her, Ryder spotted a security golf cart and jumped in, slamming his foot into the electric pedal and lurching forward.

“Out of the way!” he yelled at a dazed cocktail waitress, still balancing a tray of drinks.

Baby left a sudden and merciless trail of shattered roulette wheels and poker tables in her wake. She even bowled over a candy-red sports car that had been perched atop a bank of slots, almost snuffing an old woman struggling to escape with her walker and oxygen tank. The thud of the vehicle hitting the floor and the crack of the windshield sent shivers down Ryder’s spine. How in the hell was he going to immobilize what must be a 10-ton animal? Worse, this was feeding time, which meant Baby was probably very hungry, despite the instant meal she’d made of the trainer. Christ, feeding time at a casino full of plump, juicy tourists. They’d even rubbed themselves in delicious coconut tanning oil, the fools.

Naturally, then, Baby was headed for the pool. Once outside, there was no telling how much deadly carnage the giant lioness would accomplish. He caught up to Baby poolside as she licked a paw and rubbed it against her head, basking in the light. Sunbathers hurried back inside, many of them tripping in their sandals, falling down, leaving their towels and bags behind.

“Is it the tiger that bit the gay magician?” a bikini-clad woman asked her husband.

To Ryder’s complete dismay, a crying child on a raft gingerly floated into the center of the pool. Her mother stood at the edge, screaming and gesturing for the girl to swim away. Silly woman, thought Ryder, you’re going to draw—

Sure enough, the frantic behavior caught Baby’s attention. The lioness stood on all fours now, reaching out to snag the girl’s raft with sharp claws. The child sobbed as the oversized paw descended, and Ryder brought the cart to a halt by smashing it into a lifeguard stand, knocking it into the water. The splash distracted Baby, and Ryder was once again face to face with giant feline death. Stepping out of the cart, legs shaking, hands sweating, he raised the PVC tube, squinted and clenched his jaw.

“Heavenly creature,” he said aloud, stunned for a moment by the cat’s ivory beauty.

Ryder pulled the spring-loaded trigger, launching whatever lethal rocket had been inside and leaving him engulfed in a thick cloud of acrid smoke. The projectile detonated against the lioness’ head with brutal force, and Baby emitted such a long, chilling shriek that Ryder felt compelled to drop to one knee and cross himself like a good, panic-stricken Catholic.

He lay quiet for a while, waiting for his ears to stop ringing and the smoke to dissipate.

They did, finally. News helicopters began hovering over the scene like buzzing vultures. Metro police had arrived —naturally, after all the fuss had ended — guns drawn, but they ignored Ryder. Instead, they slowly surrounded the unmoving lioness, inspecting the corpse for signs of life. In which case, they would most certainly have emptied their clips.

One of the cops prodded her burned and fractured jaw with the butt end of his flashlight. Baby stayed dead. Satisfied, the officer spoke into his shoulder radio, grabbed a spool of yellow police tape and began sealing off the pool area.

Ryder tasted blood in his mouth. He wanted a cigarette, though he didn’t smoke. He also wanted a gallon of vodka. It was almost four in the afternoon. He would invite Dr. Aragon for a drink at another casino bar — any casino but the Phoenician.

Maureen approached, an expression of horror on her face. She gently placed her hand on Ryder’s shoulder. He remained on his knees, dazed.

“How’s your kid?” he asked, speaking first.

“Fever’s down. He’s with his dad now. What about you?”

He laughed. “Writing an article on filtration doesn’t sound so bad now.”

“I bet. Let’s go, Ryder.”

“I think I love you,” he said, giving her a hug and a peck on the cheek as they left.

Later that night in his bed, feeling like Alice Cooper in Wonderland, he whispered in Maureen’s ear: “Grrr.”

***

By the time Ryder had vouched for Aragon in a written statement and in a tape-recorded interview, the scientist had already been booked, processed and released after serving 82 minutes in the Clark County Detention Center. From a table at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf across from UNLV, he answered a cell-phone call letting him know all charges had been dropped. He was using a remote server to erase files from the mainframes in Powers’ habitat. Soon he’d be taking his notes with him to Oslo, where he and a friend would get the project running again, this time with funding from an actual government zoo rather than a privately contracted, and very much glorified, zookeeper.

Testing the expansion serum on a couple of white lions would’ve been much easier had he known Powers planned on shipping one to the Phoenician that morning. And the arrival of an amateur journalist, while ultimately very opportune, had certainly added another layer of complexity he couldn’t have anticipated. Still, by and large, the whole thing had gone rather smoothly. A lion had killed Powers as hoped, and now Aragon was released from contractual obligations and free to sell his discoveries to the highest bidder.

On the negative side, a trainer was eaten, and the Hummer was totaled. Private insurance in the States would be costly from now on. Fortunately, he worked for the government and rarely paid his own coverage. He’d rely on public transportation until his flight. The weather was getting warmer, and soon Las Vegas would be nearly inhospitable.

Moving to Sin City last year, he had very much looked forward to working with and vigorously experimenting on white lions. Too bad Powers’ hunger for publicity derailed the plan. Norway would be a much different story, however. Although there was an abundance of wildlife — bears, lynx, wolves — there were no unique creatures with which to test out and confirm new gene-mutating concoctions. He sipped coffee.

Or were they?

Aragon typed “Oslo, Norway wildlife” in the Google search bar and noticed a result marked “reindeer.”

Ah, reindeer.

Aragon opened up a new message in Entourage, addressing it to his Oslo buddy. He mused on the subject line, before chuckling to himself and tapping out: “Next Xmas.”

In the body of the email, he wrote: “Santa Claus better buckle up tight.”

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