“Oh calm down now, Troy. It is just a tiger!” Charlie said from behind, laughing like the damn jerk that he was. The booming voice made the very large Sumatran tiger whip its head towards the two standing behind a bit, before making a pitiful retreat. Troy could only look on, flabbergasted at what just ensued before him.
It had jumped towards him. He had seen his life flash before his eyes. Very short, not nearly worth the experience, and a bit sad at the end. Overall it was five out of ten. The food was great at least.
There was not a shred of him ready to die, but it seemed like that was what was supposed to have happened not ten seconds ago. Troy saw it jump. Saw the corded muscle snatch in place, the back legs putting extreme amounts of pressure on the ground. He had seen it fly, landing just beside him.
But… he had also seen it sitting down like a dog, waiting patiently to be fed. Or would it be better to say like a cat? Troy had never owned a cat. Also not a dog, but he had fed one regularly doing his stay in the country. A stray, however rare they were nowadays. His uncle had shot it before his eyes. That had been loud.
Troy was not sure what was going through his mind, the potential near-death experience not letting the adrenaline dissipate. A good shaking of the shoulder did bring him out of the brain. Enough to look back, and see Charlie and Darlow standing there, one of them having a grin that was slightly subdued.
“You are taking this surprisingly hard,” Darlow said, getting down to Troy’s level. He had toppled over at some point. He additionally did not remember falling over. Could he have blacked out at some point? “Everything going alright in there?”
“Did you lose a few screws? Nothing to be ashamed of. Happens to the best of us,” Charlie asked from the side, the grin still holding up admirably.
Not even the side-glare from Darlow stopped it from being slipped on. The glaring got Troy right back into reality, the last bits of confusion slipping back into their usual places.
“You two knew this would happen,” Troy stated, already knowing it as fact. Pranks were fun as long as they had no lasting consequences. Well, anything other than a slight distrust, but did that one really count? The two of them knew that he was in no real danger.
“Again, I am surprised you didn't,” Charlie said, going into his renowned teaching mode. “Did you not read what was stated on all of those screens up there?”
“I did not bother, really.”
“Well, you should have. Those things had one important thing to acknowledge. Those pulse, blood, and brain readings are all just necessity. It's the more obscure ones which show more entertaining things. One of those little things would be something Darlow here calls aggressivity levels. A very complicated thing to monitor continually, and certainly one which I have helped a small bit to make into reality.”
Aggressivity levels? Monitoring how aggressive a creature is. Seeing how it was expected that it would not attack Troy in any capacity, it clearly monitors a strict maximum level. How were that even numbers? A one to a hundred. Per cent changes for how likely it would attack. Seeing the tiger run away from a raised voice, it was probably that. It would require drastic things before it would not run, such as making it unable to. Maybe torture. Though, that would be less attacking and more it flailing around in pure pain.
“So, is that what those pheromones of yours do? Make creatures less hostile, I mean,” Troy said, getting up into a standing position. Back on the regular though, he was ready to ask a few questions. There was a distinct expectation of that wish coming to fruition.
From an insignificant distance, the tiger sat as patiently as ever. While the loud sound may have scared it, the promise of food was too large to be ignored fully. Keeping distance was fine, as long as it got something in the end. Otherwise, it would likely be forced to steal. Tigers were not very good at that, too large for those of similar mind not to see it.
“You could call it that,” Darlow admitted. “It does not just make them less hostile. It removes their ability to do any hostile actions at all. A perfectly measured dose would leave them helpless, as you slowly slice up pieces of their skin. They could run, sure, but you also just hold them gently. Escaping from that would equal violence, something not able to be done by them. That tiger over there would gladly kill us normally. But, here? Here, it will not even think about harming anything. That glint in its eyes, those pupils slowly growing larger. It is not a sign of a fight. It is getting ready to it it's specially prepared food, and then sleeping for twelve hours straight.
Oh, and don't worry about any of that happening to us. Believe it or not, that massive thing there has a way lower threshold than us. A fascinating discovery, and exactly the reason it is here in the first place. If I tried giving it the dose that the formula dictates, it would be dead in mere hours. It really is fascinating…
Stolen novel; please report.
Anyway, shall we keep up the promise? Touching it is easy, as long as you're feeding it as well. It will positively fall in love with anything holding some dead meat. And not the rotten kind of course. This kitty here has standards befitting one of its class.”
Just the way he talked about it all made Troy want to wince. The description of what those pheromones could do was certainly good. He understood just how great they worked, and maybe even a small bit of what they could do. Though, that was only in the perfect scenario. Just how perfect was the dosing now, if it was still being tested?
The tiger was looking directly at him. Or, it was looking directly at what he had grappled strongly to his chest. The box, filled with whatever meat the creature would be having for its meal of the day. Well, what it would be having as its first meal today. With the size of the box, expecting it to satisfy the tiger for more than a few hours would be a dumb idea. Those beasts ate a lot when they were in such large weight-classes.
Opening the box, the inside was riddled with bite-sized pieces of meat, all cut up near-identically. Darlow was nothing but precise in that regard. Made one think why he dropped the knife immediately if the skill with the instrument was so high. One should have had enough control for that if they could cut so precisely.
Troy was a little unsure of how he was expected to feed the thing. Hand-feeding maybe. Take a fistful of meat, and hand it to the tiger? No, that idea was scrapped, thrown away, and was dutifully incinerated to ash, just as it deserved to be. Getting his hands anywhere close to its mouth would just be asking to get bit. With such large jaws, it did not need to be intentional to harm him. It would likely just see the meat, and bite into it like it usually did, no different resistance than normal.
Maybe throw the meat at it? Make it all a game of catch. Sounded fun, but with how much meat there was to throw, it would take longer than Troy wanted to be near it. Ten minutes spent playing around with it was not on the list of things that he wanted to do. And, there was so much more work after this. Spending all his energy now would just be asking to collapse later. Lunch was hours away as well.
So, by not wanting to feed it by hand, and similarly not wanting to feed it by distance, it seemed like Troy would have to do things his own way. Taking both hands on the side of the box, and taking a few steps forward, he emptied it of its contents right on the floor. The tiger had no hesitation, running dutifully over to the food, plopping down beside it, and began gobbling it all down its own throat. A grotesque thing to see. But, Troy had seen worse things in his life.
“Do hurry in petting it, Troy,” Darlow advised from behind him. “That thing gets through a boxful in mere seconds. After this, it's just gonna rest somewhere in the bushes, and then there will be no chances of you getting even slightly close to it.”
… Right. Troy had to pet it. He was bound to pet something that could wound him fatally just by stretching out its body. Fun. There was nothing dangerous about it, once you forgot about all the facts concerning the very deadly nature of tigers. Yup. Troy was not being the slightest bit scared.
A sigh finally came. One of the first that day. He was going to have to do it soon. Otherwise, they would be here all day.
With a slightly shaking hand, Troy moved to pet the creature. His fingers impacted the fur swiftly. The tiger did not react negatively, save for a slight tensing around the touched area. A normal reaction for a cat. The fur on it was like a cat as well. Maybe a little coarser if the fine criticisms had to be made, but he could not find much of a difference.
Moving the hand up the neck, rumblings could be felt coming from the massive creature. Troy first assumed it to be a growl, but that quickly stopped being so when the tiger pressed tightly against the hand. It was purring. The sheer size of the tiger made the reverberations deeper than what a cat could hope to do and a bit louder as well. It was official. He was in love.
It took too short a time before the meat was eaten. With the last push against his hand, the tiger moved away from them, ready to sleep wherever it blessed pleased. Troy was sad to see it go. He had wanted it to pet it a bit more. Just a few seconds, if that was all he could get.
Only the knowledge that the tiger would gladly kill him dulled his wishes. The pheromones were making it act like that. It was them that made it as aggressive as a household cat. Maybe even less than that. Sure, the tiger seemed to be as tame as anything he had met before, but Troy knew that it was only the air making it do it. Give it a few hours, days, or however long it took, and it would be right back in its regular moods. The jump at him would not end in it sitting down beside him. It would end up with him laying on the ground motionless.
What a comforting thing to think. It certainly brought that smile right away from Troy’s face.
Getting back to the other two, who had been patiently waiting for him, they made it to the other terrain. It was a group of birds at that time. They were fed easily enough. One even landed on Troy’s shoulder. After that, there were a pair of geckos. Small things that were hard to find. Only the food made them finally appear. They were not well-liked.
It was when they were feeding a small bunch of venomous snakes, who all had immense trouble grabbing their dead, skinned mouse, that Troy finally spoke up.
“Why are you doing this?”
“What?” Darlow asked, surprised by the sudden question. The tall man had heard it perfectly but just had to make sure. It was a weird question after all. And certainly, not one that people usually wanted to be answered.
“What is the purpose of making these animals docile? Is this all some money grab to have exotic pets or something? I would not fault the government to pay for such a thing, but that can't really be it, right?” Troy asked again. The questions had been plaguing him for so long now. Why did it all exist? What good could come out from changing the behavioural patterns of animals? A few of them were even endangered, yet they were being used to test those damned pheromones.
Darlow looked silently at Troy. The tall man was unsure if he really wanted to answer. The conclusion the younger man drew was so innocent. It would blame the right entity, but the reasoning would be different. Could he destroy yet another one’s idea of the people that they regularly trusted their lives to? He didn't have a choice. But, then again, he could always-
“The kid is higher ranked than both of us, Darlow,” Charlie said from the side, his voice serious. “If you lie to him about this, there will be consequences. Or, do you want me to tell him? It would put the blame somewhere else. Give the guilt a different source. Another one will not hurt.”
The tall man looked at the person he trusted more than anything or anyone else. When Charlie said he would take the blame, he most certainly meant it. That tone was reserved for anything not of his play. It was meant for the work that could not be ignored, no matter how one wished it could be. The part that made some give up.
“No, I can tell it. Have to bear some of it myself, after all,” Darlow said. The man straightened himself, before looking back at Troy. The younger man was slightly regretful of his question, beginning to know how strongly it was pressuring the two others.
“The animals aren't the one we intend to use the pheromones on. It is humans.
We are making a biological nuke.”