Lake Tanna - Ballad of Ruby Read online

my way here I went through a town that was, as far as I could tell, empty of any life. I would guess that was her work as well. I did find one man who was dying and all he said to me was, ‘Lake Tanna’. What the hell is ‘Lake Tanna’?”

  Douglas turned and looked out of the window again, “Lake Tanna, damn that explains a lot. We all worked on portions of project Ruby, our facility was responsible for programming of the nanites that make up her intelligence, so we were left out of the loop on all of the other details. Lake Tanna is a weapons research facility that I have only heard rumors about. Ruby was a project started to design an alternative to pesticides for pest control, strictly commercial applications. Someone had the bright idea of altering the venom to a rapidly acting one that propagates like a viral infection. You saw the results, which were not what we had originally planned for Ruby. The other thing came from a top-secret facility that lies somewhere north of here in the mountains, and I have no idea what it is, or what it’s capable of doing. The handheld microwave device that you’ve been working on may be able to disable the thing. That was why we called you to come here, and I apologize for the deception. Somehow we need to get to your car and get it that may be our only hope for surviving.”

  “Only one problem with that,” I said as I pointed out the window, “I handed him my keys.”

  “Damn that is a major problem!!”

  We could both see my keys lying on the ground next to what was left of Mathews and the creature on top of what remained of him gave to appearance of moving anytime soon. At that moment, my cell phone rang and we both jumped. I reached into my pocket and pulled the phone out. On the screen, it said ‘number restricted’, which didn’t help me at all. Pressing the send button on the phone, I answered it, “Hello?”

  On the other end a man who identified himself as Major Clarke repeated what I had just been told. He identified himself as the man who had originally requested my help calibrating the equipment at Cerevent, in hopes that the prototype I was working on would have other uses. I’ll admit that I got angry with him and told him in no certain terms where my prototype could be stored, and if he needed help putting it there I’d be happy to oblige, that said I hung up.

  “How did he know my cell phone number? I sure as hell never gave it to him, and he was also aware of the situation here as well. Damn, I hate dealing with the military!!”

  At that moment I heard the cell phone that Dr. Douglas had hooked to his waistband ring, as he reached down to answer it I said, “I bet I can guess who that is.”

  “Hello, yes sir I’ll ask him,” taking the phone from his ear he looked at me, “He wants to know if you want to live, or die?”

  “That’s a pretty stupid question.”

  Putting the phone back to his ear he said, “He agrees that living would be good. What, that doesn’t give us much time, if that’s true I need to get on it right now. Yes sir I will,” he clipped the phone back to his waist.

  “According to the major the thing outside will go into a dormant state for a few minutes while it uses the nanites to morph into an optimum life form. That will happen as soon as it has finished feeding,” Looking out the window he pointed to the lump of flesh that sat on top of what remained of Mathews, “That’s what we’ve been waiting for. We don’t have much time to get your prototype before that thing has finished its absorption phase and morphs into a new form.”

  Opening the door slowly he turned and whispered to me, “Go to the trunk, I’ll grab the keys and bring them to you.”

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