Scales's Dialogue with Brutus the Mountain Lion

Scales threw the complain letter down the gully with a loud humph. Who are those carnivores to blame the goings-on in the forest on him? If they couldn't stand up to a rodent, then they shouldn't call themselves carnivores. He coiled himself on the warming rock.

A shadow fell on him and he looked up to see a golden mountain lion glaring down at him. "What do you want, Brutus?" Scales asked, his voice dripping with contempt.

"Do you realize what you have done?"

"Yes, I have improved the lives of hundreds of animals."

"No, you have not. You have made life miserable to those of us higher up in the food chain. For the first time in history, rodents are standing up to us and demanding that we respect their rights."

"The rats are omnivores. Surely you can spare them a few scrapes."

"That is not what I mean. A hare asked my youngest daughter out for a date last night. A hare! Can you imagine the nerve? What can come out of such a frivolous relationship?"

"Mountain lions that are partial to root vegetables? I don't know."

Brutus pounced on Scales. "Don't you dare even suggest that my daughter will mate with her food."

Scales whipped himself out of Brutus's grasp and raised his long body to a head's width above the mountain lion. He hissed, "I do what I have to do, just as you should do what you have to do. Your affairs are not mine. If your kind cannot manage changes, then you might as well take yourself out of the evolutionary race."

Brutus growled, "If I ever see your rabbit in my area, I will gobble that fellow faster than you can slither your way out of here."

"Be my guest. He has grown too big of himself to be my servant anyway."

Brutus lay down on his stomach with a chuckle. "Then it is true. This fellow is starting to outdo you."

"No, he has not." Scales lowered himself to a more comfortable height. "He has taken my ideas and used them to his own advantage."

"You must admit though, the information business he is doing is ruining many of us. The wolves are complaining that they can barely feed their pack anymore because the birds are giving away their position to their prey."

"Is the system really that good?"

Brutus yawned. "Oh yes. It is so good, many preys are registering themselves with the organization."

"I would have thought that nobody wants to pay for that kind of information, especially since they can't really claim back their money if they get caught by a predator."

"Apparently, Snow Ears found a way around that. He only asks the animals to pay when they are saved by a call."

Scales turned himself round and round his coil. "Very clever. Very clever indeed."

"Yes, we thought so too. But that is not the only extend of the problem." Brutus stretched. "SHRARE originally started with information on mating, mainly for the pheasants living on the forest floor, but soon they began accepting and publishing information from other animals for free. It became so popular that every hare, rat and hedgehog began to claim whole tree trunks and scratch out tips on how to solve problems, find mates and avoid predators. Obviously, the result was devastating to us. Don't tell me you don't experience it too."

"Yes, I do. My usual hunting site is oftentimes empty. I keep changing my eating schedule, but after two or three times, the animals will figure out my new schedule. I even have to change my approach because some of my preys have registered themselves with this information service."

"Why don't you just eat that rabbit?"

"Because by doing so, I may worsen the situation. I am trying to find a way to bring things back to normal."

"How about Goose? Will he not help?"

Scales scoffed. "I am afraid not. He is so excited about what is happening, he can't see how it is hurting the rest of us. After all, he is an omnivore. He doesn't need to eat meat like us."

Brutus purred thoughtfully as he looked across the gully. The day was beginning to warm, but soon it will be winter. They need extra fat to survive through the winter, but with SHRARE providing alerts to the animals, he doubted if more than half of the carnivores in the forest would survive the cold weather. "We are starving. A good business is a lot less important at this stage don't you think?"

"Snow Ears has designed a system that can work independent of him. SHRARE doesn't need him to prosper. The idea is in place, the system is solid and the animals are eager to see it work. The only way to destroy it, is to destroy Snow Ears reputation. If we can find a way to make the rodents think that he is selfish, and is a fraudster then we can destroy SHRARE and any other system that is spawned from it."

"He was in prison once, was he not?"

"Yes. I have almost forgotten about that.” Scales traced the tip of his tail on the rock surface. “Tell me, has your daughter claimed a tree trunk?"

"She has, I think. That was how she met the hare."

"Good. Tell her that Snow Ears, the founder of SHRARE, was once in prison for murder."

"But if I recall correctly, he was acquitted of the charge because Goose found out that an Owl killed Mrs. Mouse for his dinner."

"Who is to stop her from calling it a conspiracy to protect Snow Ears? After all, Snow Ears is an important rabbit, is he not? And certainly worth protecting by the powers that be."

"You think this will work?" Brutus wondered aloud.

"We have nothing to lose," Scales said before he slithered back into the shadow of the forest.

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