Even though the American Cheetah had never encountered these tall apes before, a deep, instinct triggered a wave of intense dread through its veins.
Yet, the raw agony of its empty stomach completely overrode its caution. Crouched high in the branches of a pine tree, using the dense green needles as a screen, the cat kept its eyes locked on the camp below, tracking the movements of the strange bipedal organisms.
Before long, the apes who had been surrounding the fire stood up in unison and retreated into the dark mouth of the limestone cave.
Perfect timing
Looking at the thick moose leg still sizzling over the embers, the cheetah could no longer contain its hunger. It slithered down the rough trunk with absolute silence, moving toward the camp like a phantom.
It advanced inch by inch, its paws touching the earth without making a single sound. Suddenly, a strange, hollow echo reverberated from the depths of the cave.
The cheetah's hair stood on end. It spun and bolted back up its security tree. It clung to the bark, scanning the camp for several long minutes, but nothing emerged from the cavern. The apes remained inside.
Gathering its resolve a second time, the cheetah began its second approach.
This time, it was infinitely more meticulous. Its belly scraped the dirt; its strides were short, its weight distributed perfectly. Step by step, it closed the distance to the open heat of the fire.
Felines possess a deep, structural terror of open flame, a fear burned into their DNA over millennia. The cheetah refused to get too close to the main coals, circling the perimeter of the pit to find a safe angle of approach.
Above the embers, the rendering fat on the moose leg split and popped, releasing a heavy wave of roasted aroma into the cold night.
The cheetah inhaled greedily. Finally, the desperation of its starvation broke through its fear of the fire. It didn't dare use its jaws directly; instead, it extended a long, clawed forepaw toward the wooden spit.
SNAP
The slight pressure from its paw was enough to disrupt the crude, asymmetrical frame holding the meat. The wooden spit collapsed with a sharp clatter.
The heavy moose leg tumbled directly into the center of the coals, kicking up a cloud of bright orange sparks. The roaring heat instantly engulfed the flesh, sending a thick scent of charred hair and burning fat into the night sky alongside a haze of wood ash.
The sudden crash outside instantly alerted the apes inside the cave. Heavy, rapid footfalls thundered against the stone, and four figures wrapped in thick animal pelts burst into the firelight.
The moment they saw the intruder hovering over their ruined dinner, they erupted into furious, rhythmic shouting.
The cheetah didn't wait around. Abandoning any hope of salvaging the meat from the fire, it spun around and exploded into a sprint toward the dark timber.
WHISTLE——
It had barely cleared three strides when a sharp, high-pitched hiss cut through the air behind it.
An arrow tore through the darkness. With a wet puncture sound, the flint point slammed clean into the cheetah's hind leg.
"REOW!!"
The cat had no comprehension of how it had been struck. The sudden, agonizing flash of pain in its rear leg drove it into a frantic, blind panic. It tore through the undergrowth at maximum output, limping violently on three legs but refusing to slow down for even a heartbeat.
Fortunately, its baseline acceleration was immense; the two-legged apes stood no chance of keeping pace and were quickly left behind in the dark.
The cheetah ran until its muscles completely misfired. Lost in a blur of panic, it had no idea where it had blundered. It looked around the dark landscape; the rock formations, the tree species, the scent lines—everything was entirely foreign.
Slowly, the throbbing pain in its hind limb faded into a cold, completely numb dead weight. It dragged itself into a small hollow, turning its head back to inspect the trauma.
It gripped the bloody shaft with its incisors and yanked the arrow free with a sharp tug.
The ragged entry wound bled freely into the open air, a heavy stream of crimson slicking its spotted fur and dripping onto the grass. While the puncture hadn't hit an artery or damaged its vitals, a leg injury for an American Cheetah was an implicit execution order.
Without its explosive velocity, it could no longer run down pronghorns or outpace deer. For a solitary hunter, a ruined leg meant only one outcome: a slow, agonizing death by starvation.
Night settled over the mountains. A bitter, icy wind swept through the valley, carrying loose dirt and dry pine needles over the struggling cat as it dragged its dead weight across the terrain, as if the landscape itself was preparing to bury it.
Thoroughly drained of energy, the cheetah finally collapsed onto a patch of scrub. It closed its eyes, its body refusing to respond to another mental command.
The midnight hours passed in absolute silence. The cat slept deeply, slipping into the cold lethargy of shock.
Through the fog of its unconsciousness, a familiar scent drifted across its nose. A moment later, it felt a heavy, blunt pressure swatting against its skull.
The cheetah jolted awake, its pupils dilating in instant alarm.
Standing directly over it in the moonlight were two massive Smilodons.
One was a ghostly white—a stranger it had never seen before. But the other cat, a broad-shouldered, compact male with a rich tawny coat, was an organism the cheetah knew immediately.
It was the golden robber who had hijacked its meals twice before.
James hadn't expected to stumble across his old hunting assistant out here.
He and Aurora had been methodically hauling the quartered sections of the Bison antiquus back toward the reservoir when he spotted the spotted shape lying motionless in the grass.
"Still breathing. Not a corpse yet."
James had initially assumed the cheetah was dead, but a closer look revealed it was simply in a deep, traumatic sleep brought on by a severe injury.
What drew James's undivided attention, however, was the discarded weapon lying a few feet away. He picked up the shaft with his teeth, examining it under the moonlight. The main body was a straight section of cured wood, but the tip was a finely knapped piece of translucent flint, lashed tightly with dried sinew.
An arrow.
The realization sent a ripple of caution through James's human mind. The Clovis hunters weren't just relying on heavy throwing spears and ambush tactics anymore; they had mastered ranged, high-velocity ballistics.
He looked down at the cheetah, guessing the scrawny cat had somehow run afoul of a human hunting party.
"What do I do with this thing?" James thought, looking at the spotted predator.
The cheetah had blindly wandered straight into the center of his private territory. He couldn't just leave it here to rot. He could dispatch it right now for a quick injection of Gene Points; if it were a strange cheetah, that's exactly what he would have done.
But this particular cheetah had a history with him. Killing it felt like throwing away a semi-functional piece of equipment.
It would be far more efficient to convert it into a legitimate asset. Ever since he integrated the Giant Beaver into his operations, James had seen the value of expanding his domestic force. Building a crew of specialized animals to handle the manual labor of the territory was a highly logical strategy.
"Wake up."
James delivered two sharp, heavy slaps to the cheetah's head with his wide paw, jarring it back into reality.
"REOW!!"
Seeing James's massive face hovering inches away, the cheetah's fur exploded into a rigid ruff, its small frame shivering uncontrollably against the dirt. The swift, arrogant predator of the open ridges looked like a terrified domestic kitten.
But the expected strike never came. Instead, James turned his head, gripped a massive, meaty section of the bison leg they had been hauling, and dropped the 30-pound slab of fat and protein directly in front of the cheetah's nose.
"ROAR~~"
James gave a low, flat rumble, gesturing toward the meat. "Eat."
The cheetah stared at the raw meat, its simple mind failing to connect the behavior. But the primal desperation of its hunger quickly overrode its confusion. It leaned forward, buried its teeth into the bison muscle, and began to tear into the fat with starved ferocity.
Grin spreading across his muzzle as he watched the cheetah bolt down the meat. "Welcome to my Crew, Let's turn this world upside down."