Cobalt: The First in the Trinity Series Novels

by CG Blade

  “The same Dreama…? Our Dreama? Dreama Vernucy, the bot we have?”

  “There is too much evidence here to think otherwise. This kid was a student at Berkeley working with her father. Now I have a big question for you—the biggest of all. What if the daughter found a way to replicate her father and we have the real Ray Nelson here—today—with me right now? That would mean that someone else is out there like a puppet master pulling the strings and replacing people with whatever these things are. Because if not then that means the inmates are running the asylum. Robots or doppelgangers would be controlling robots. We would all be in—”

  “—deep shit!” Jackie interrupted her

  “Yes. Now I need to find out how to wake up this Nelson. Can you help me? I bet he doesn’t even know what this is all about. He probably doesn’t have a clue. He was probably drugged but we can’t say for sure until he wakes from his coma.”

  “Okay let me get Emily. This is her field of expertise. I’ll be right back.”

  Petra uncovered the table next to the tank and began cleaning off some of the books and gear from around it. A couple of minutes later Jackie returned with Emily by her side.

  “Petra?”

  “Yes I’m here.”

  “I have Emily here with me Petra. She was getting ready for bed.”

  “Hi Petra” Emily was yawing wiping her eyes and wearing a nightshirt and glasses holding a fresh cup of hot coffee.

  “Whatcha got there?”

  “It’s a Cryofreeze tank with a Ray Nelson inside.”

  Emily was now wide-awake with open eyes and mouth gulping some coffee down quickly. “Oh holy wow…um…do you want to wake him up?” Emily was shocked and awed at Petra’s finding.

  “Yes. There is some kind of computer device or something hooked to him. Maybe it’s monitoring his vitals?” Petra asked quizzically.

  “Okay pan over to the computer over there on the table next to the tank.” Emily was now surveying the equipment using Petra’s eyes as her vision.

  “Oh, wow. That is an older model. Okay here is what we need to do. Touch the screen and see if anything “wakes up”. It may be in sleep mode—no pun intended.”

  “That’s funny.” Petra wiped the film of very fine specks of dust off the screen. The screen was about twenty-two inches wide and ten inches high and sat up on the top of the computing device box.

  “Welcome to Windows 47,” a digitized voice said coming out of the speakers inside the screen as a blue backsplash with a window and broken shutters at the side of it appeared.

  “What—is that the year it was made?” Petra asked Emily.

  “No that’s the version of the software. It took that many versions to get it somewhat right.”

  “Seems like a lot.”

  “Yep they had some problems back then. I think they are defunct now,” Jackie said now trying to get a look at the screen next to Emily.

  “Okay do you see an icon for the Cryofreeze Tank program on that screen?” Emily asked “Let’s see yes it looks like there is a—right there see the one with a picture of a frozen tank on it? Tap it with your fingertip.”

  Petra tapped the icon and a series of splash screens appeared with prompts and questions.

  “Do you want to shut down or repair?” it read on the screen and a male voice repeated the question through the screen speakers.

  “Shut it down maybe?” Petra asked. “Okay shut down,” she told it.

  “Yes try that,” Emily suggested, “Do you see some kind of vital monitor around? You’re going to have to check his vitals. If he wakes up”

  Petra looked around for something resembling a vital monitor. “No I see this…” Petra held up a split rubber tube with two plastic ends and a metal cylinder.

  “That’s a stethoscope Petra for reading a heartbeat. Let’s hope he’s okay. You’ve got some ancient technology there,” Emily told her half laughing while Jackie chuckled to herself in the background.

  “Do you want to continue with shutdown and decompression?” the voice continued from the screen.

  “Yes? I guess…?” Petra told it becoming tired of playing 21 questions with this metal box.

  The tank started puffing and venting an awful smell that was a combination of twenty years of impurities and body odor finally coming out of it. The vials of fluids stopped pumping next to the tank. The screen and voice told her: “Shutdown complete please Wait.”

  “I hope he wanted to wake up,” Emily stated

  “He doesn’t have a choice now,” Petra told her. “I hope he’s not like his doppelganger.”

  “You mean an asshole?” Jackie asked.

  “Yes.” Petra laughed as all three of them started giggling like schoolchildren as the tank began to crack open in the middle exposing a fouler odor and bursts of pulsing frozen noxious air towards her direction.

  “Wow he stinks something awful. Is he starting to decay?”

  “No. We fixed that little problem they had back when we started to freeze people. We had no idea what was going to happen over long periods with the air that was trapped inside. It’s built up stale air from the freezing process.”

  Petra grabbed the top half of the lid and creakily separated the hinged top from the bottom of the tank frame to allow the rest of the stale air to escape quickly. “He looks…dead,” Petra told them. Nelson was lying in the tank posed like a frozen corpse in a coffin. His usual red white and blue attire with black loafers was frosted over. His face was shaven cleanly and his hair was short black and speckled with greying streaks. Condensation from the top of the thawing lid was starting to drip on him.

  “I wonder why she just didn’t kill him if it was her that did this,” Jackie asked,

  “Not sure Jackie. Maybe she felt guilty. She already lost one parent maybe she didn’t want to lose them both.”

  There was a faint hum in the room coming from inside the tank. It was coming from the area of Ray Nelson’s face.

  “Wait a minute.” Petra put her ear on his chest. She could feel and hear his heart beating and his chest was moving up and down ever so slightly.

  “He’s awake!”

  “Ray? Ray can you hear me? Ray?” Petra asked, bending down inside the tank while Jackie and Emily stayed glued to the Vidscreen in front of them sitting on the table.

  “Petra you’d better get rid of your cobalt armor,” Jackie suggested. “You’ll scare the hell out of him.”

  “Good idea,” Ter said.

  Petra quickly changed to a lab doctor mimicking Jackie’s daily wear. She was wearing blue high heels, a black skirt, and a blue lab coat over a white button down shirt. Her strands of dark blue streaky hair now growing back into her blonde head was held back by a pair of reading glasses.

  “I—how—you—” Nelson was now moving his parched lips. His mouth was dry by the lack of fluid intake into his throat and esophagus over the years.

  “Get him some water but give it to him slowly. Ice chips would be better,” Emily told her.

  Petra ran around looking for a glass and some water. She found a sink and cleaned a glass. By the time she got back, Nelson was trying to upright himself on the edge of the tank. His eyes were trying hard to adjust to the bright light.

  “Pull the IVs and wiring out of him!” Emily yelled to her.

  Nelson was stretching the tubing coming out of his jacket arms from the hanging vials as he fell out of the tank onto the rubber-coated floor under him. The top lid of the tank came down shortly after with a loud clanking vibrating noise on top of the tubing. “Hold on Ray,” Petra told him as she unbuttoned his shirtsleeves rolled them up and began to pull out the tubing and wiring hooked to his arms and chest.

  Petra held up the glass of water to his lips and he tugged on it trying to down it all at once. “Hold up there…” Petra pulled back on the glass, “you’re going to get sick Ray,” she said giving him a little bit at a time in slow sips. Nelson took tiny gulps while Petra was squatting next to him feeding him wa
ter slowly looking him over. Was he oblivious to all of this and the last twenty years? She thought to herself. He was now sitting on the floor with his head drooping and legs spread apart slowly thawing out.

  “Get him a blanket if you can find one,” Emily suggested.

  Petra once again went through cabinets and drawers until she found two sheets and draped them over his shoulders tucking it under his body and wrapping him up like a cocoon.

  “Who—are you?” he asked with trembling lips and water dripping down his chin. His voice was shallow and dry.

  “Well Ray that’s a really long story.”

  “Where’s my daughter Dreama?”

  “That Ray is the million credit question. I think she’s been a very bad girl and she’s gonna need a spanking”

  “What’s—a—credit?” he asked now looking up at her with innocent puppy dog eyes.

  Chapter 27

  REALIZATION

  “Petra I’ve got a Helo-Carrier with Evac Personnel En route to you. I think you’re going to need it. We’ll bring him back here to the lab and do full work ups. Considering the circumstances I think we need to keep all of this as quiet as possible,” Jackie suggested to Petra, who was now helping Ray try to stand up. He was still quite wobbly from all of the sleep and drugs that had been feeding his veins for twenty plus years. His body and muscles had slight signs of atrophy.

  “Yes good thanks Jackie,” Petra told her, now looking Ray over to see how coherent he was.

  “Who are you talking to?” Ray asked her with his brow scrunched down, focusing in on her ears for an earpiece of some sort. He was now getting more curious about his surroundings.

  “That Ray is a story for another day but right now we need to get you to a hospital and get you checked out. And sir, you need a shower very badly.” Petra smelled the stench coming off him and made that face.

  “I guess you’re right about the shower. Who are you, one of my lab techs?”

  “No sir. I’m First Lieutenant Petra Kayden Dace U.S. Army.”

  “Dace—Dace? Where do I know—remember—that name from?” he asked, now eyeing her up and down curiously.

  “You murdered him, my father that is sir. Or at least your replacement accosted him and assisted with his murder.”

  “What?!” he yelled. The whole room echoed with the word “What in the hell is going on here?” he was now holding his head. His wobbly frame was freezing up and knees buckling under him. Petra grabbed a steel office chair with wheels and rolled it under Ray, catching him from falling in the process.

  “Why would I—it—do that?” His hands were now tightly holding his greasy and smelly black hair “He—the Lieutenant Colonel was my friend. Am I dreaming?”

  Petra was stunned and her mouth and eyes were open wide. Jackie and Emily were holding hot cups of coffee and slowly sipping them like it was an afternoon soap opera they were really enjoying.

  “Do you know where we are Ray? What year it is?” she asked pulling up a chair two feet in front of his knees.

  “Then you must be—Petra. Yes—little Petra, kitty. How long has it been?” He stared at her as if he was looking at a long lost relative he hadn’t seen in years.

  “Kitty Ray, you called ME kitty?”

  “Yes, that was my nickname for you when you were little. Your father didn’t like it very much.”

  “Well that explains a lot,” Petra said shaking her head while he stared at her as if she was the crazy one. “It’s 2076 Ray—2076. You’ve been frozen for twenty-one years!”

  He was jolted again and ‘frozen’ as the blood left his face. “Oh my God what happened to me, why am I here, where are we?”

  Petra tried to calm him down. She asked again about her father trying to find out what Ray knew.

  “Your father loved you so much. He used to bring you by my lab when you were, oh, my God let me think…five or six-years-old maybe. You used to run around and play with—“

  “No, no!” Petra was mortified. If she had red blood cells it would have left her face. “Dreama Ray?”

  “Yes…Dreama.”

  Petra’s numbers and calculations were reeling in her eyes as she tried to piece together what had just been said. There was a lot to calculate.

  “The year is 2076 Ray. You’ve been in Cryofreeze for twenty-one years we think.”

  “You two were inseparable—you and Dreama—for a couple of months until your father got redeployed to the Philippines. Oh God, maybe in—”

  “2050?” she asked interrupting him.

  “I…don’t…remember,” he said. The frozen suit he wore was now soaking wet dripping onto the chair and the white floor below him. “Where are we?” he asked her sternly.

  “I think Ray—and I can’t be for sure—but I think we are in your daughter’s lab in Mercury Nevada”

  “Why would I be in a freezer in Nevada?”

  “Well sir I think we need to hash that out after you get checked out by our techs.”

  “I want some answers now!” He stood up wobbling and looking around the room for some clues. Petra tried to sit him back down against his wishes. He fought her back the whole time.

  “Okay, okay Ray. Please sit down!”

  “Petra I wish you had a sedative or some kind of—” Jackie told her.

  Petra’s ears perked up as she could now hear some muffled talking and rumbling coming from the other side of the wall near the tanks.

  “Where’s Kirk?” He asked. “Doctor Kirk Arddecc my student.”

  “You mean the seven foot moron that likes to throw me around and has a steel crotch? That Kirk Arddecc you mean?”

  “What the hell are you talking about? He was a scientist and my student. He helped me discover AA5C39 back in thirty-nine, 2039.”

  Petra was taken back and stunned by this new information. She got up from her chair and moved in slow motion as Ray stood and wobbly followed her. He was holding on to various pieces of equipment to steady himself as he walked. She walked towards the other two tanks in the room that were still sealed. She picked the Cryofreeze next to Ray’s and began wiping the frosted glass surface with her sleeve.

  “Dear God. Oh my God. No, NO!” Ray screamed holding his head in his hands as the realization of the moment finally hit him.

  Kirk Arddecc was a tortured skeleton of a man. His large frame had succumbed to improper freezing during his stay at the Notel Froztel and he was mummified not unlike an Egyptian Pharaoh. Petra could see the computer screen flashing something and swiped her finger over it. “Subject deceased—subject deceased—” The male voice from the screen was monotone repeating the words.

  Petra yanked hard on the cables and tubing connecting the tank and the computer. Sparks and liquid flew out as the machines shut down. The vials of life-giving fluid spilled out all over the floor.

  “I’m sorry for your loss Ray but we have got to get you out of here.”

  Ray Nelson stood over Kirk’s icy sarcophagus staring at him as the tears streamed down his cheeks. Petra could only assist in his recovery of the present and guide him to Jackie for help. She couldn’t cry with him. This wasn’t the same Nelson the world knew. This Ray probably gave her and Dreama sweets and toys when they were little. He was someone that probably wanted to see a better world and a better life for his daughter and her. If Dreama was the one that did this to him there was going to be a lot of soul searching.

  “I hear noises again” Petra said “from behind this tank I think.”

  Petra moved Ray’s tank out of the way wheeling it towards the middle of an open isle and knocking equipment over in a crash to the floor in the process. The steel doors behind it were trying to open. Someone was jiggling the handles. She unlocked and threw open the two doors meeting in the middle and two men were crouched and pointing guns at her. She quickly and instinctively shielded Ray with her body.

  “First Lieutenant Dace?” one of the men garbed in full black armor and Kevlar asked her from a microphone in his headgear.


  “Yes!”

  “We’re here with the Helo-carrier ma’am. The doctors are right behind us,” one of the men told her now removing his headgear and lowering his weapon.

  “How did you get in here?” she asked him curiously.

  “We found an old set of construction drawings on the net from the 1950s. A door and passageway the scientists put in leading down here I guess for emergencies or something back then. It’s at the back of an abandoned General Store. How did you get down here?”

  “Stonehenge Corporal, Stonehenge.”

  “In England ma’am?” He asked confused and bewildered.

  “Long story Corporal. Thanks for getting here so soon guys.”

  The doctors looked Ray Nelson over and set him on a Hover-Gurney as he drilled them about how this thing he was strapped on was floating off the ground. They injected him with a sedative on his way out the door so he would shut up not because he needed it.

  “Wait!” Petra yelled as they pushed a strapped Ray Nelson out of the double door. Petra ran up to Ray on the gurney and bent her head down to his face. He was becoming groggier by the second. “Ray, can you remember what project you were working on after AA5C39? What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “Uh…I think…MKULTRA. Yes, that was it,” he told her with his eyes shutting slowly ”We were trying to…find a way to send signals…to…for…paraplegics the soldiers wounded…Grandfathers….notes.” He was passing out fast. The techs continued to move him to the tunnel and disappeared into the cool morning air.

  “Petra, MKULTRA was a project that DARPA the CIA and the DOD had been working on starting in the 1950s. It was April 13, 1953 to be exact. Russian scientists along with the US Government had begun brainwashing people and using sleep deprivation in their studies. Vaccines were allegedly used to inject the subjects and some of them involuntarily with various drugs to get a desired effect. Eighty Universities were assisting in this project that was supposedly ended in 1974.”