For about thirty years, Robert Stone went mostly silent on the public front. His face disappeared from media circuits, but his name still surfaced in the footnotes of major genetics projects—quiet, persistent, influential. Nobody knew where he was.

Rumor said he lived in the tropics—somewhere along the southeast coast of Pangaea, holed up in a hidden lair deep in the jungle, surrounded by untamed, monster-rich forest.

The monsters were a mystery. Some claimed they had always been there, ancient and territorial. Others insisted they were escapees from Stone’s labs—early prototypes or failures he dumped and let breed. There were whispers that he was directly responsible.

Stone didn’t care what they said. He traveled by private chopper, lifting straight from the jungle canopy and touching down hours later in the plains to inspect his lion range.

His lions came in all colors and patterns—black, white, brown, rust....striped, spotted, gradient. He artificially inseminated his brood of lionesses to produce mostly males. The huge, mane-framed heads made for an impressive trophy. The meat was marbled, tender, and highly prized.

It was also rumored that Stone operated a sweatshop under questionable ethics—mostly indigenous teens, stitching lion-head rugs and tanning leather. He liked to call himself an “equal opportunity employer,” but word got out: he never hired zombies, urchins, sleek ears, or harpies. Some groups found that problematic.

Stone kept under the radar as much as possible.

The lion range was his pride—an artificial hunting ground where the wealthy could pay a premium to bag a designer predator, pose with the body, and dine on wildcat pie afterward.

Stone was rich. Dirty rich. Filthy-rich-wrapped-in-meat-skins rich. And with no known relatives to inherit anything, he’d made peace with the obvious conclusion:

He’d just have to live forever.