Cobalt: The First in the Trinity Series Novels

by CG Blade

  “No way ma’am you got orders to be here? Where are your orders?” he asked now pulling back on the butt of his rifle. His accent was typical of a Russian or Eastern European descent.

  “He must be playing for the other team.”

  “Now that is funny Ter.”

  “Thank you Petra.”

  “I think he probably wasn’t vaccinated here in the U.S. so he probably doesn’t have the brain scrambling microchip,” Petra told Ter pointing at the guard specifically and hoping for a response.

  “Who the hell are you talking to?” the same Russian sounding soldier looked for a headset or an earpiece on her head or something an enemy or a spy would have. “Do you have WASP orders ma’am?”

  The rest of the soldiers were still consumed with her visual content.

  Petra turned around and took ten steps back from the guard shack and once again turned towards all of the soldiers facing them with arms down at her sides. She removed her cap squatting and setting it down on the warm inclined blacktop next to her feet.

  “Okay now listen up!” she yelled. “If any of you were a member of the armed forces, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, or the Marines and would like an out I would suggest you come and stand next to me right now! If not I’m going to put a Cobalt bullet into each one of your foreheads with the ease of a knife through a Twinkie!”

  “I just knew there would be a Twinkie coming up soon.” Ter blurted out sarcastically.

  The soldiers were now slowly awakening from their hypnotic state and looked at each other; some of them were clicking the safeties off their rifles.

  “How do you plan to do this in your Dress Blues ma’am? With no weapons huh?” one soldier asked her with a New York or New Jersey accent.

  Petra turned her head around and noticed Harrison and Connley were now on the other side of the large swaying oak tree leaning against its shadowy trunk fixated on the events that were about to transpire one-thousand feet in front of them.

  “I used to be—in the Navy ma’am. I was an MP ma’am,” one of the girls shakily told Petra from the back of the group in a southern accent.

  “Come here miss.”

  The girl clumsily moved through the unwilling and unmoving soldiers and past the wooden blockades until she was standing in front of Petra.

  “Do you love your country miss?” Petra asked looking down on her slightly. She was dressed in the WASP colors. Her long black hair and brown face was hidden under an awful gold WASP emblem.

  “I—I—don’t know any more I’m very confused most of the time.” A single tear began to run down her smooth brown face “It hurts a lot—my head I mean—most of the time ma’am.”

  “I know. You all are under a mind altering signal to make you more compliant! You have to make a choice now! Look deep inside yourselves and your minds and find out who you really are. If you used to be an American patriot then move over here next to me. If not suffer the consequences. You only have one life to live and you cannot spend it on the fence trying to figure it all out.”

  The soldiers were now looking and staring at each other discussing in small groups the fact that maybe she was a spy or a chameleon. Some of them were staring at her trying to decide if she was full of shit or for real. Some of their heads hurt thinking about it and they were rubbing their temples and foreheads. After all she was just an Army Officer in Dress Blues standing there giving them a life altering decision in five minutes time. One of the nine soldiers left standing in the group loudly screamed “Fuck you—ma’am!” He lifted the barrel of his rifle and aimed it at her as he pulled the trigger.

  There was a loud “pop” which made everyone flinch and duck with the exception of Petra.

  “Anyone else want to try?” Petra asked them as she blew the cobalt smoke off her right Peacemaker. Her cobalt armor was now exposed to the world as she twirled the gun on her right forefinger mimicking the style of Wyatt Earp and placing it back on her hip in one fluid motion. The soldier with the cobalt blue stain on his forehead stood rigid for a split second as the other eight soldiers quickly moved out of the way. He fell over backwards hitting the bridge with a pronounced clang of his metal helmet as he hit the steel below him bouncing once before he stilled.

  “What the hell—?” one of the soldiers yelled as he dropped his gun and started running across the bridge as fast as his legs would let him never looking back.

  “Well?” Petra asked them again patiently waiting for an answer.

  “I’m with you ma’am,” a male soldier told her. “I’m a Marine. Well—used to be ma’am!”

  Still yet another female told her proudly, “Army Ranger here ma’am.” They were starting to salute her slowly and surely with eyes down as they came up one by one standing by her side. They threw their WASP helmets on the ground with resounding thuds and clangs. The group was discarding all bodily evidence of their traitorous subconscious. Their heads and minds were on fire but Petra assured them it would pass. Only one stood vigilant. He refused to move away from the guard shack. It was the man with the Russian accent.

  “I will not move and I am WASP to the end you stinking cowards!” He declared to the rest of the group in one final act of defiance. “Come back over here!” His thick black eyebrows and moustache were now starting to perspire.

  “So be it,” Petra told him calmly walking towards him now. Her beautiful Purple and blue cobalt swirled armor was shining in the sun with light reflecting prisms. Both of her Colts swayed as pounding sounds echoed the steel structures below her feet. She walked up to him grabbed the barrel of his rifle and stuck her right forefinger in the hole at the end of its metal orifice. He was shaking as he held it up to her chest. Her finger followed it as he moved it around. “Pull the damn trigger soldier!” she told him. “Don’t be weak! Choose a side and do it now!” He was sweating profusely as he tried to make a new choice. Petra knew he would die if he pulled the trigger. He had to make the right choice now. Petra eyed him down. “Are you really ready to die for a cause you have no interest in son? Well are you?” Come on do it soldier. Pull the damn trigger!” she told him slowly and methodically. Petra was inches from his red now sweating face. Her blue irises lit up piercing his in the process. He couldn’t speak as she grabbed the barrel with her gloved left hand and with her right finger still in the end of its cobalt blue steel hole, began bending the barrel until it was almost pointing back at him. The barrel looked like a modified letter “J” as it was now unusable and a piece of junkyard scrap.

  “I—I—how—what are you?” he asked in a low-keyed Russian accent barely audible now due to the sniffling.

  “I will help you understand. I will help you all understand what has happened to you!” She said, eyeing them all “You have to trust me and I know that’s asking a lot right now considering the circumstances over the last two years.” Petra put her two left forefingers together again and her lips sang out a high-pitched whistle.

  The ex-patriots before her were broken shells of themselves. They needed her to jump start them back to the proud Americans they were two years ago before they had gotten a hold of their minds and bodies for their own perverse use.

  Harrison was now driving the Hover-Buggy and pulled up next to her “Good job Lieutenant. Very nice”

  “Yes very smart of you Lieutenant Dace,” Connley told her nodding in the seat next to Harrison and saluting her in the process.

  The Vice President and the Speaker introduced themselves to the soldiers shaking their hands as well as the sweating Russian that finally gave in and succumbed to the encouragement of his former WASP associates. The eight newly promoted soldiers that were wearing t-shirts now had engraved each of their sleeves with the rank insignias of their former branches of service with magic markers and pens. Kevlar was the vest of choice for the soldiers as they crossed the 14th Street Bridge with guns locked and loaded. They were all wondering who this new dark blue swirled Army Officer was that had lead them over the river into the floral Washingt
on D. C. metro area. With drones in formation they made their way past the Thomas Jefferson Memorial and continued east next to I-395 past the Smithsonian Space and Air Museum until they were in front of the Capitol building’s Reflecting Pool. Most of the foot traffic or vehicles had come to a screeching halt long ago. The employees and politicians that used the busy streets were no longer needed or welcomed in this area anymore. Washington D.C. was a ghost town now.

  “Mr. Harrison and Mr. Connley I will meet you gentleman later,” Petra said shaking their as hands firmly as they saluted her. “The rest of you, “she was now eyeing Patrick, Thomas, and John Paul in particular, “stay with the Speaker and Vice President and protect them.” Petra held up a familiar single finger in front of them.

  Everyone nodded including the soldiers as Patrick let out a little subdued chirp in a binary “goodbye” to her and shook his hovering head up and down.

  The plan was for the Vice President to alert the media at a specified time and place they had picked earlier that day. It was almost 3:00 p.m. and getting cloudy as the group said “good luck” to one First Lieutenant Petra Kayden Dace by the Reflecting Pool and began walking up the abandoned dirty steps of the Capitol Building. This was a ragtag rebel crew of the weirdest kind. One was Republican and one was Democrat. Eight soldiers made up of four servicemen and three servicewomen and one sweaty Russian. Eight of the original founding fathers in the oddest form of digitized striped flattery followed close behind all of them chirping a binary song. The crew found the lobby and the power boxes that controlled the Capitols’ inside lights and slowly switched them on lighting up one room at a time. Most of the rooms were dusty with furniture covered in plastic.

  “You know Roger,” Connley told him whispering and standing closely to him in the Capitol Rotunda as he turned on desk lights, “we might never be able to tell her full story—to anyone.”

  “Yeah I know Rick. It’s a shame too. We’re gonna have to make something up. It’s got to be a story so fantastic the conspiracy nuts will eat it up like Roswell or something.”

  “Guess we are the starting members of the new Illuminati,” Roger said smiling coyly. “We can always tell the truth; can’t we embellish it just a little? Leave out just enough.”

  “You know Rick that just might work.” He smiled back in agreement.

  “I’ll tell you one thing we are doing,” Connley stated harshly to Harrison.

  “What’s that?” Roger asked taken back by Connley’s attitude.

  “We’re getting rid of those goddamned drones!” Connley was now eyeing a sad looking dented Patrick hovering next to him barely chirping.

  In the distance, there was a faint rumbling of thunder as a warm spring storm approached the Capitol. There would be thunder and a lot of lightning.

  Chapter 32

  ERADICATION

  The Capitol’s Reflecting Pool began to ripple tiny waves of cool water on its surface from the dark clouds leaking down from the sky above. Petra drove past it towards the south end of the White House changing from her cobalt armor into a construction worker’s uniform she had seen earlier. She wore black boots, blue coveralls, and a yellow hard hat. Her now nearly blue and purple hair was concealed under its hard plastic shield. Ter once again gave her a headful of harassment for her earlier transgression. “Using sex as a weapon should only be done in emergency situations,” she explained to her blue-blooded flesh covered host.

  Petra’s GPS was up and running as the arrow pointed to the shortest route to the back half of the world’s most well known house. The uneaten half of a Twinkie in her right hand was receiving drops of rain faster now as she quickly downed it and jumped out of the buggy. She stood in the shadow of The Ellipse the national Christmas Tree Park that hadn’t been used in years. The three-year-old dead memorial of a happier time was a montage of a single towering insect eaten beam with tiny broken arms. As rain beat harder on her yellow plastic hat Petra looked back over her shoulder admiring the Washington Monument that was lit up by distant streaks of lightning in the ever-darkening sky. She rounded The Ellipse and made her way to President’s Park where they used to give tours to people wanting an inside look into the Presidents’ view. She made her way around to the back of the South Lawn Fountain. The flowing water was now still and the pumps did not produce beauty as they once had. Spying slyly from the back of the fountain, she could see workers on the roof of the White House. Welding flames were flying with banging noises and cutting wheels producing sparks. An enormous thirty-foot structure with an elliptical dish on top of a silver metal pole was fastened into a huge tapered white steeple at the bottom. It loomed over the horizon as she spotted four construction workers in her garb talking and sometimes working. The booming thunder and lightning was getting a little closer as rain started to come down steadier now. The workers seemed to be looking at the sky in wonder rubbing their heads with their yellow helmets in hand.

  “Those workers probably don’t want to be up there next to that spire when the lightning strikes.”

  “No Petra. That would be detrimental to their health. I believe they are using that elliptical dish on the spire as their signal such as the one we saw at Stonehenge.”

  “Yes Ter they probably started out using the one in Mercury and it broke or became obsolete then decided to move it here. It’s much closer to them now. They can keep an eye on it here.”

  “Yes Petra. You need to disable the signal streaming to it. The signal from HAARP that eventually goes out to the wind generators around the country.”

  “I’m working on it Ter, I’m working on it.”

  Under the darkness of the impending storm, Petra moved close to the ground shielded by shadows from the fountain as she headed towards a crew of WASP soldiers sitting inside of and standing next to a Helo-Carrier in the Rose Garden.

  “Ter I’m going to need something a little more muffled than usual.”

  “Yes Petra.”

  Petra felt a gun in her right hand. It was a Walther PPK with a silencer attached to the end. “Nice Ter, very nice.”

  “Thank you Petra. I procured it from a movie file called ‘Bond 56’.”

  Petra quickly performed a ‘high-wire circus act’ as she silently wound around and over the dripping wet twenty-foot high Helo-Carrier balancing herself with catlike precision moves shooting and striking down five soldiers in her path to the soaked edge of the south side of the White House wall. She hugged the wall eyeing a trellis near her with newly growing vines and flowers winding up its stone and wooden tiers. Hanging on each of its ladder-like rungs, she scurried to the top of the roof. Her wet yellow hard hat peeked over the edge as the rain beat down on her coverall covered shoulders. Lightning strikes were growing ever closer to the big house and the spire on top of the roof.

  “Hey! You there—why aren’t you using the ladder in front?” one of the workers asked her in a low voice now helping her up onto the pitched white roof with his hand in hers.

  “Why thank you,” Petra said as she brushed off her coveralls.

  “Are you new?” another one of the workers asked as he cut some steel.

  “Why yes, yes I am.” She eyed their work slowly looking straight up the barrel of the spire to the dish on top.

  “What is this thing?” she asked trying to imitate a dumb blonde co-worker.

  “We’re not sure what it is all these cables and stuff attached to this thing. I know if that lightning coming hits it’s gonna be one giant lightning rod—that’s for sure!” one of the workers said as he pointed to the sky then continued to pound the base of the steeple making an awful ringing noise.

  The leader or supervisor of the crew was the only one not working. He surveyed their work and pointed to things they were doing. Petra approached him.

  “How much longer you guys going to be?” she asked now holding onto her hard hat. The wind and rain were picking up.

  “Oh, probably about ten or twenty minutes or so I think."

  “I’ve got
a question you might be able to answer.”

  “Ok shoot.”

  “Is this the same set-up that’s on the Capitol building with the spire and stuff?”

  “Yep, sure is Miss—? A crew is over there right now finishing up as we speak.” He shielded his face from the beating rain and the loud thunderous sky.

  “Hey what company are you with Miss? What subcontractor?” He was now starting to get concerned and frustrated about her elusiveness.

  “I’m with Universal Exports. What’s your name sir?”

  “Luc, Luc Matard Miss—?”

  “Hey Luc, I’m gonna have to ask you and your workers to leave the roof slowly and down the ladders …now!”

  “Hey we’re not done yet and haven’t gotten paid yet Miss—what the?” Petra quickly morphed into her cobalt armor from the feet up right in front of their waterlogged faces. The four men dropped all of their tools and quickly formed a single file line down the ladder running out of the north side of the White House lawn and into their Cruisers. If hovering vehicles could have peeled out these would have done so with authority.

  The top of the White House was a white beveled rectangle that met in the middle with a thirty-degree pitch. On top of the beveled roof was a massive white four-foot wide square white steeple with a cylindrical tapered spire with a silver elliptical dish on top. Petra started pulling and tugging on the massive cables and wiring leading to the top of the pole. To her right a hatch with a square trap door opened up to reveal another curious Kirk’s ugly head.