by Neil Leckman
The major was watching the two men as they slowly approached the car. Tim ran into his office, “Sir, we have a situation at the Lake Tanna facility. Somehow, replicates of Ruby have been able to get out of the facility. Security is trying to track down how it happened, but the more pressing problem is that they are tracking two specimens heading towards Las Vegas. A patrol tried to stop them with flame throwers and failed, everyman on the patrol is gone!!”
The major pointed at the screen in front of him and the two men who were taking something out of the trunk of the car there. Ten feet away a lump of flesh was bubbling and vibrating as it tried to morph into an optimum form. Bubbles popped allowing an ocher fluid to flow, with strings of yellow clumps, down the sides of the creature. The activity seemed to be slowing down. “Those two men may be the only chance we have of living through this.”
One of the men stepped back holding a strange gun that resembled something from a 1950’s science fiction movie. Wires hung down from the bottom of the grip, probably for the power supply. The second man reached in and pulled out a small case, solid chrome that was about the size of a briefcase. There were a couple of dials visible on the top. They both turned and sprinted towards the door of the building. As they did so the creatures activity became more frantic, and it began thrashing around, first with a tiny deformed arms, than reptile legs with owl’s talons that scraped across the concrete. An owl’s eye appeared and extended upwards on a stalk, turning to watch the two as they ran past.
11
“Hurry that thing has slowed down a bit,” turning Douglas looked back towards the car, “Damn, it’s watching us!!”
Just as he said that two bubbles appeared on the creature and popped, and two replicas of Ruby crawled out, flapping their wings to dry them, as they stared at us. One tried to rise but fell back, wings still too wet to get airborne. Running inside we slammed the door shut behind us.
“That was too close,” just as I said that one flew into the small window beside the door with enough force to make a loud thump, than fell away. The other just hovered, watching and waiting.
“I need to plug the battery into a power source to charge. That will take at least an hour to do. Do you think we’ll have enough time?”
Douglas just stood there by the window watching the two Ruby replicas as they hovered around the door examining it carefully. Behind them the larger mass was still evolving, something that resembled Mathews face roiled across the surface, followed by the face of a young girl. Something that resembled a hand, with a scorpion tail and one eye, separated from the main body and skittered off into the bushes. The two replicas of Ruby paused, and then fly away, one to either side of the building. Douglas’ phone rang, “Hello, yes sir, yes we did notice the two that just went around the corner. He told me that it would take at least an hour to charge up the gun. What, How is that even possible? OK I’ll let him know. Once we move farther into the building, cell phone reception won’t be possible. OK.”
“The major just informed me that one of those things has been trying to override the security door at the rear of the building. The nanites have breached the first layer of the security protocols and have almost entered. We need to go to our secure room downstairs, it is the most secure room in the building, in part because all security is manual in nature, so not susceptible to hacking,” grabbing the battery pack he walked farther into the building.
We arrived at a solid metal door with a combination lock similar to a safe on it. Douglas used the combination that only he knew to open the door, and once inside he spun a secondary lock on the inside, and lowed two metal bars into slots on the door. The room was stifling, and sound didn’t travel well inside, instead it seemed like it swallowed sounds. Air was supplied by tanks that were fastened to the wall, and electricity was supplied by inductance from high power lines that were outside the room. There were no openings to the outside world at all. He took the battery pack and placed it on one of the three counters that lined the walls, opening it up he pulled the power cord out and plugged it into one of only two outlets in the room. A red light on the case indicated that it was charging. When it turned green, it would be ready to go.
“Since we’re going to be stuck here at least until the battery pack is charged why don’t you fill me in on what the ‘Lake Tanna’ project was?”
Turning to look at me Douglas pondered the question a few moments, “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to let you know what we’re up against, since you’re knee deep in it now,” as he talked he walked over and sat down in one of five chairs in the room.
“When we started this project our goal was to find an alternative to pesticides for controlling pests that could destroy a harvest. Our population only gets larger daily, and without a dependable way to ensure that our food supply remains stable, we face a potential disaster of biblical proportions. I took over the research here after I found out about Ruby while dealing with my uncle’s estate.”
12
‘Lake Tanna’
My uncle was one of the only family members that I was ever really close too. When I was a teenager, I would go and spend a couple of weeks at his house every summer. When I was sixteen, he went to work at some place called Lake Tanna and I never saw him again. I always thought Lake Tanna was some exotic beachfront hotel that catered to the rich and famous. So when I was contacted by an attorney who told me that my uncle had left me his entire estate I was shocked. To be honest I thought it was some clever scam that you’re always hearing about. Heck, I’d get ten or twelve of those emails every week.
“We are sorry to inform you that a family all died in a horrible traffic accident and they only relative we could find is you. The estate is worth more than thirteen millions dollars. Just give us your bank information and we will have the funds transferred to you.”
Hell, I had relatives that lived less than a mile away who couldn’t seem to find me unless I did have thirteen million dollars. So you can see why I was hesitant to buy into the whole thing. Looking back, I would have been better off if I had.
Sitting in the attorney’s office waiting for him to come in and read me the specifics of my uncle’s will I thought back upon those summers I spent living at his house, before he left to work at Lake Tanna. During the time that he was away, the place sat all but empty. It was a house that had been built in the 1800’s by one of the original settlers in that part of the state. The part of the house that I remembered the clearest was the combination living room and library. There was a great stone fireplace that stood against one wall and reached up more than fifteen feet to the ceiling. The stones were so large that as a kid I could actually climb almost all the way to the top, if nobody was watching closely. One wall was lined with shelves from floor to ceiling that were full of books of every kind both old and new. I remember that the room always smelled of aged leather bindings and pine and on sunny days, I would sit and watch the dust as it floated through the sunlight that came in through the two small windows at the top of the fireplace. I often wondered if I looked out those windows would I see someplace different.
The attorney returned and sat down at his desk. He had a large manila envelope in his hands that he opened and poured the contents onto the table in front of me. There were two keys, one obviously the key to a house and the second a much smaller one, and an envelope. Written on it were the words, “To be opened in the event of my death”. Finally, the last item fell out. It was a small hand written note with my name and an old address and phone number of mine. The attorney opened up a drawer in his desk and withdrew a folder. Opening it, he laid it on the desktop.
“This is the formal will that I witnessed and had notarized several years ago. In it he leaves everything he owns to you and the contents of the envelope that lie before you.”
“Do you know how my uncle died?”
“I’m sorry I don’t. I was sent the formal notification of his death from someplace called Lake Tanna. I believe that he was also buried there as well. That�
�s all that I can tell you.”
Reaching down I picked up the smaller of the two keys, “Do you have any idea what this goes to?”
“No. Those are the items that he placed in that envelope years ago when he filled out his will, the summer he left”.
Picking up the items on the desk, I put them back into the manila envelope. Standing I shook his hand and thanked him.
He smiled and said, “I knew your uncle before he left and he was a good man. He always loved to go fishing on the lake every Sunday. I don’t think he ever caught anything, but he was always out there sitting in his boat early in the morning.”
“He did love to fish. In fact he taught me how one summer when I stayed up here with him a long time ago.” I didn’t say it but I also remembered getting one of those three-pronged hooks caught in my index finger. Hurt like hell when it happened and because of the barb on the end, we couldn’t pull it back out. My uncle ended up having to cut the hook with a wire cutter to remove it. I knew it was one of his favorite hooks but he never said a thing about it. The next summer I bought one exactly like it and snuck it into my uncle’s tackle box. He never said anything about that either, that’s just the way he