Duality (I/III)

Some time from now, geneticists made a remarkable discovery. While examining the DNA of the common housecat, a research team found a remarkable gene - a sort of 'switch' which, when activated, catapulted the cats' intellect to near-human levels. It was an ability, so far as scientists can determine, that developed in the time leading up to their encounter with humanity, but which withered, useless, as the Cat became domesticated. With no few qualms and objections from outside groups, a follow-up study modified the genes of a eight cats in utero, flipping the aforementioned gene 'on.'

One of the cats died in kittenhood, of a disease unknown to medicine; such being more commonly known in the veterinary practice than in the care of humans. The others survived and lived to feline adulthood, treated by their keepers in many ways as human children. (Government funding was, for the project, quite firmly secured.) Within five years, they were psychologically and physically adults; and the scientists were faced with a dilemma. What were they to do with these seven sentient beings, unsuited to life in human society? To keep them in the small research lab in which they'd spent most of the first five years of their lives was patently unacceptable.

Representatives of the National Park Service, who had been observing the experiment with interest, stepped forward to offer another solution. They suggested that the cats might be used to assist rangers - smelling things on the wind, such as warnings of fire or hostile animals, that human rangers could not. The cats, after consulting the scientists, agreed to a three-year test contract.

So it was that Matthew, a novice park ranger in his own right, and Georgia, the youngest of the seven cats, were partnered together. Their time together, while heartwarming, was largely uneventful; so we will not chronicle it here. Suffice it to say that, while inexperienced, the cat and the boy quickly created a strong friendship; until the end of their third year together, as the contract came to an end.