Dr. Richard Hunter, or simply Rick, is a wildlife researcher, working for an organization that focuses on monitoring the wildlife while interesting as little as possible outside of keeping tabs on animal populations and their welfare, using catch-and-release methods to check on the animals humanely.

While hybrids aren’t unheard of among the science community, they’re an incredibly rare occurrence, and typically aren’t seen by humans, so it’s debated whether hybrids actually exist.

Rick is at the lab for another day of animal checks. He picks up his fourth containment of the day, all of them brought in that morning by the retrieval crew in the safe little habitat boxes they use to catch animals, luring them in with enough food and bedding to keep any critter happy overnight.

But when he gets back to his secure office room, Rick opens the containment box to find a small rodent hybrid curled up inside.