A story about... An Animal c. 1999/2000 Dan Biemer, Damon Diehl, Rachel Rosenberg, Jack Welch	DAMON	DAN	RACHEL & JACK
				JACK & RACHEL
			RACHEL	DAN & JACK
				JACK & DAN
			JACK	DAN & RACHEL
				RACHEL & DAN

Or so Harlan and Jake thought. But they had miscalculated. 

Miscalculated and miscalibrated. They thought they had gone back in time to the early 20th century, when, in fact, they had traveled to the mid 21st and had arrived at a place no history book wrote about--the secret research facility run by radical left-wing genetic engineers, who self-mockingly referred to themselves as the Green Genes--a play on words referring not only to their dual interest in genetics and environmentalism but also the revered character from the children's show Captain Kangaroo, which played continuously on cable television long after it should have died a natural death. One of the early Green Genes had joked that if a television show that should have died many decades ago could be revived and kept going well into the 21st century, surely they could save the earth for intelligent animal life. 

And thanks to these miscalculating time travelers, perhaps they had. The Green Genes had concentrated on developing special breeds of animals--animals that were 100 times smarter than humans but still retained their animal physicality and connection to natural cycles. These animals, surely, would not destroy the Earth with technology, the Green Genes thought. And the Green Genes, who also admired other aspects of late 20th century culture--in particular the suicide cults that expected to be beamed up to a better life by a fabulous space ship--believed that the Earth (Gaia) would best be left to such fabulous animals while they shipped out to another world. Ironically, it appeared that, in many regards, they would now be right. A fabulous space (and time traveling) ship might just save the earth for animal life after all of the Green Genes swallowed special genetically engineered "sleeping pills" and died.

The tiger must have been stunned rather than sedated. When the capsule's equalization light extinguished, the ancient tiger lunged at Jake, pinning his pistol against the containment field. Harlan thumbed his belt, placing the entire base on alert. He leveled his own stun pistol at the tiger, but Jake's head obstructed the shot. The residual energy in the containment field grounded out as temporal resonance faded. The tiger slammed itself against the shell, pushing the top half up. In a flash it was across the test area. Just as Mission 13 faded, the tiger jumped into its wake, also vanishing into the past.

"Oh my." Jake rubbed the arm which had gone numb against the electrostatic field.

"Wasn't mission #13 the one that was supposed to retrieve DNA from the Captain himself?" asked Harlan.

"Captain? What captain?".

Harlan looked at Jake, trying to remember what he had asked. Somehow, Jake's increasingly purple complexion seemed natural. "Come on, Jake". Harlan started walking towards pad 13. "I can't believe how lucky we were to be chosen to recover DNA from Barney himself!"

Jake agreed, smiling stupidly. "It's going to be super-de-dooper!".