“Now see here, Eleven, all you have to do is follow my orders.”
“Yes, sir!” You pompous ass. Of course, I didn’t say that. After all I was only breveted to him for this assignment, then I could get back to counting lab rats, vials of distilled water, or whatever beans they needed counted.
We were signed into the secure facility and escorted to the observation area. I was curious and observant. A lot of red buttons in the observation area and in the observed are. No obvious exits from the observed area and only one entrance / exit from the observation area. Made me wonder who was the lab rat.
“Hi, I’m Kelly. Your narrator for this demonstration”, said a pretty young thing with a big smile. She had the obligatory photo id with lots of colors and letters along the bottom. “This is a demonstration of our new genetically engineered platypus. Its purpose is to infest enemy sewers and explode when needed. Needless to say everything you see here, stays here. Top Secret and all the mumbo jumbo. But then you know all that.” I thought she was very glib. Probably from repetition.
“You’ll see the tank on the other side of me with tubes and connections. For the purposes of this demo, we’re using clear water, but, in the real world, it would be sludge or human waste. Since our platypuses are blind, they are in the designed element. Observe!”
Then in the observed room, something opened and about a dozen “things” shot out and dispersed into the various tubes, tanks, connections. One tank was illuminated in red.
Kelly continued: “The red tank is the bathroom of the target. Let’s say the President of Lower Slobovia. By electronic waves, the brain of the next animal is given the target and released.” Another think opened and out shot a slightly different color animal. “The targeting changes the animals color and everyone he contacts.” Sure enough, every time those creatures bumped into one another, they assumed the new color.
Almost at random, these things ferreted out the different paths. “We change the maze for every demonstration.” Finally, one reached the red target and popped. All the creatures returned to their original color.
Then, from the popped creature, a smaller different thing emerged. It was black and had razor teeth as it chewed the carcass. When done, it moved at amazing speed. It attacked every creature it saw making short work of them. Then from the carcass of an early kill, another emerged.
I could see from the expression on Kelly’s face that this was NOT part of the show. My survival instincts kicked in and I headed for the exit. As I passed thru the door, I looked back. The tank had exploded from all these creatures multiplying. Kelly’s leg was being gnawed and she was hitting one of the many red buttons. She was yelling: “Lock it down.”
Like a guillotine, the door knifed shut as the alarms sounded. I quickly walked out the compound’s exit and back to the car. The guard towers wailed and those gates locked.
I got into the car and drove away. Never looked back and headed for the airport. I wanted to get back to bean counting where the beans didn’t eat you.
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Posted by reinkefj 
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