6. The Alien Electronic Plasma Sword
Roberto knew that he had to make a stop along the way before he arrived at Cynthia’s house. He had learned how to bury things so that they could be preserved for very long periods of time. Even money and all kinds of weapons could be successfully hidden, if securely wrapped in the right materials in watertight and airtight containers. It was a very short trip from his father’s house to the location, hidden from any random passers, who might turn a curious eye to his digging. He had found the corner of an abandoned estate that had been passed down from generation to generation, and years ago an old wall had been erected. Most of it had fallen into disrepair, leaving only a section of the corner still standing. Hedges and overgrowth had taken its toll, and a very secluded place had almost concealed the old piece of wall. Behind the dense thicket, he had buried a section of PVC pipe with the ends screwed down tight to prevent any moisture from damaging the few items. He had chosen to keep them secret from the rest of the world, especially from the military and industrial complex.
From his days as a gang member in New York City, Roberto had once kept hidden in his mother’s apartment, several items that almost all violent thugs kept handy in various hidden places, just for times like these. He remembered when he had placed some of these same items in a safe place among the hidden rafters of his mother’s rundown apartment. As a young teen, after the incident at the warehouse, Roberto had been taken away from his abusive mother, more or less at his own request. Chief of Detectives, Leon Alvarez, had assured him that he would be placed in a foster home that was not controlled by drug dealers and pimps, and his mother would be given the proper medical treatment for drug addiction. Roberto also recalled when he had placed his alien artifact among his other treasures in the secret place at the old apartment. He had vowed to return one day and recover the items. It happened just like he knew it might upon his return to the apartment. The rundown place had even been condemned and was due to be torn down the following week. Roberto was only fifteen, and it had been almost five years since he had placed the items among the rafters.
The taxi left him at the corner of the entrance to the apartment complex, not wanting to venture into the well-known gang territory, because the driver knew that he might not return if several thugs surrounded his taxi. Some might say that there were not any no-go zones in the United States, but anybody who had ever visited such places knew differently. The whole country was full of places like these, as most were isolated neighborhoods that had something like a cul-de-sac or a turnaround at the end of a one-way in and one-way out situation. For some reason, architects and city planners did not want a convenient way to pass through these semi-private pieces of real estate, without some difficulty. Of course there were no guards, so having a closed means of escape was a recipe for disaster with those who ventured into such dead-end gang-ridden traps.
The taxi drivers were wise to the tricks of gang members and strayed clear of such isolated pieces of inner city real estate. Many thugs just waited for the chance to overcome some driver who had gotten lost among the denizen locations of the drug trade; like normal downtown office workers, who had gone slumming after getting a tip that in a certain neighborhood you could score heavy just by driving through. It was a trap and a one-way ticket for some stupid newcomer, who had just gotten started into the deep dive of drug use. They had gotten hooked on some narcotic, and their better judgment flew out the window in their need for more and a better high.
Roberto knew all the tricks of the trade, and as soon as he walked into the neighborhood he stuck to the shadows, places where street lights were dim or nonexistent. Nobody who noticed him would think he was a downtown junky with money, who was going slumming, especially by walking into this place. Maybe they even thought he lived here, in one of the still viable buildings, a government rundown free rent location. He passed by his first lookout, a dirty kid who looked like he needed a bath and a hot meal, not someone who had been given much money by the gang’s upper echelon, just enough to make him alert to someone entering the neighborhood. He was a watchman, who simply reported back to other more elevated gang members in a matter of minutes. Roberto flashed one of the well- known gang signs, which even in the darkness of the low light back street would keep him safe for only a little while. There was traffic in and out, even among gang members, who brought in money and took out drugs on a regular basis. It was a thriving business.
He made it to the apartment building that his mother used to stay in, but it was now abandoned with the front entrance door broken and standing wide open. No family had lived there in the whole building for a long time. In three short bounds he made it to the top of the stairs and kicked a big rat on the way up, sending him squealing and diving over the last railing. Roberto knew that he only had a short time, before the rest of the gang would find him in the building. Gang signs change on a regular basis, so his time would not last long, and the dirty little guard that was playing lookout would not hesitate to tell someone that a stranger was in the area, even an old member. Roberto scrambled to reach into the ceiling tiles, where he once had hidden his most precious possessions, things that could keep him alive and get him killed at the same time. He just managed to reach his hand into the back of the rafters, where two joists came together, providing the perfect concealed space. The fingers of his extended right hand barely found the little pistol and the ammunition for the .22, when he heard steps on the first landing. He stuffed the pistol in his pants pocket and put the ammunition in the other. There was a roll of cash that he hoped was still inside the round tin snuff box that his hand retrieved.
He desperately reached a little further, straining to get to the end of the tightly concealed wooden space, not knowing if there was a black widow and a brown recluse spider, waiting to inject its rotten poison into his unseen hand. Roberto knew that he would not be able to safely make another trip back into the apartment. It would be either torn down or completely ransacked by the gang, since they had found him here. Finally, after stretching his arm and hand as far as he could and jumping a little off the heater after climbing on the toilet, he managed to touch the round pipe with the wedge tip on the end. The artifact came to life and a dim light was visible even in the darkness, as his hand gripped the tubular shape, and an electrical signal was sent throughout his entire body. He retrieved it just as three of the gang members had entered the upper floor and ran toward the dim light that his flashlight had given off. It was lying in the bathroom sink and shining its light upward toward the ceiling tiles.
Roberto jumped off the toilet and swung the extended loop of the plasma arc of the alien artifact, just as the two gang members entered the bathroom. One hand of the first assailant was cleanly sliced off, that had his fingers wrapped around a .357 magnum. It was as if a razor sharp Japanese katana had lopped it off, and the pistol and hand together dropped with a dull thud onto the wooden floor. The young gang member screamed, and the other other one had the look of shock on his face, who also lost his entire extended right arm with a hand that gripped a long six inch blade, as the figure eight of Roberto’s swing came back to complete the circle. He bolted from the bathroom, running over the two in the bloody melee, as he ran down the stairs, leaving them crying in pain and gripping their bloody arms with their good hand. Two more of his gang were on the first landing and were surprised as he bounded into them, causing confusion in the darkness. The front door was unguarded and Roberto ran out into the night, not seeing anyone else blocking his exit. As he turned the corner to the housing project, he ran into his old nemesis, the replacement for Ricky Ryan, the gang leader who had disappeared into the alien spaceship. The younger brother of Ricky was called Eduardo by his real mother but just Pitbull by the other gang members. They had not seen each other in years, but instantly they all knew who Roberto was. It was almost like they had been waiting around the corner for him.
“Look who we got here. Hey homie, where you been? I know you missed us. I don’t see you around here for years, and then all of sudden, it’s you, just like magic. My brother, Ricky, never came back from the scavenger hunt, and all of sudden we have five missing gang members, all except you. I heard they got you in a real nice foster home. Is it nice, homie, all warm and cozy, with no roaches or rats? Tell me about it puto! I’m gonna give you a bullet hole from your asshole to your ear! You tell that detective friend of yours, who brought you back, it was me who cut you, that is if you live long enough to cough up blood.” Pitbull instantly pulled out a switch- blade knife and had already hit the little button, when he was instantly sliced halfway though his torso, by Roberto with the alien plasma arc. Roberto had also taken away the short term memory of the other gang members that were surrounding Pitbull Ryan, as they became dazed and confused by the execution of their leader. Roberto left the grizzly scene of death, knowing that what he did was something necessary for his own survival. He was only seconds from death, when he had made the decision to stop the gang member in his tracks. Death came quickly at the end of the alien plasma arc. He knew now why the aliens at the warehouse had left so quickly and took the other humans into their spaceship, without even engaging him. It also leaves them stunned and unable to defend themselves. The electrical forces at work inside the artifact that coordinated his movements, also disengaged the nervous systems of the surrounding targets.
The memories of that night were still very vivid in Roberto’s mind, and he knew he had to keep a very good hiding place for the object that would become an obsession for the U.S. government.
Van Clemson had adopted Roberto for that particular reason, and it was not entirely unreasonable to him that the U.S. government would attempt such a devious plan, to obtain an artifact with truly amazing potential as a military weapon. As he put his hands around the pipe that slid from the PVC tube that he had just unearthed, it appeared to resonate in his hands. The wedge-shaped implement had two small imperfections on each side that had a blueish glow, as he gripped it tighter, and the ribbon of electrical plasma erupted from the wedge and formed an arc that completed the circuit back to the tip. It must have been primarily why Cynthia had been stunned when she had placed him into that joint lock. Some kind of bond had been formed between his brain and the electronics of the artifact, a residual effect that lasted a long time, even without the artifact in his hand. They had been locked and coded together to form one unit. He had also done the same thing to the other gang members that surrounded Pit Bull that night long ago. They fell beside him, untouched, but their minds and short-term memories deactivated, as the blood from the gang member’s divided torso flowed and soaked into their clothing. They had all been lying where they fell, together on the sidewalk of the housing complex. One was dead and the others never remembered what had happened, when the police came to interview them.
Roberto felt that tonight would be not much different from that one at the housing project. Having the artifact with him right now would make any attack on Cynthia a lot less likely. After having recovered it from the housing project, he kept the artifact hidden at a different location, quite a bit safer, until he had to move again to Texas, whereupon he found this new hiding place. He screwed the end of the PVC pipe back into place and reburied it. Later he would return the artifact if needed. But tonight, he felt that it would be given a new purpose and an extensive use. For some reason now, thinking back on the times he had used it, the artifact did not feel so alien. It somehow felt human and particularly designed to be used against aliens and not by them. Maybe their brains were biologically, chemically, and electrically completely different in their origins than humans. Why didn’t the aliens that night at the warehouse also have the artifact in their possession? It was as if it had been left there, especially for him. He didn’t see them with anything that looked similar to the plasma arc. They almost ran as soon as he opened it and began to attack them, recovering their drones as fast as they could, without having to fight against him. The gang members were also no match for his weapon.
The U.S. military surely must have thought he was completely unsuspicious of their adoption scheme. Ever since the beginning, he had known that there had to be a reason and a connection that he had been adopted by the CEO of a corporation with deep ties to the military industrial complex. They all wanted to know exactly what it was that cauterized as it sliced, leaving only major blood arteries open in the victims. It was also very unusual that all the witnesses had short-term memory loss and could recall almost nothing of what had happened. Roberto felt that the artifact also gave him enhanced memory function and the ability to visualize events as they were happening. He also knew for certain that under duress, certain mental qualities that had been enhanced by the weapon, which had been dormant upon its absence, also returned to working order in excellent form. Take for instance the time when Cynthia had been causing him extreme pain under duress; although he tried to keep his mental powers in check, they returned to protect him, causing the mental electrical signals in her brain to be deactivated. There was no long-term harm to her. He hoped not, at least. It didn’t appear so. She had soon recovered immediately, as he suppose so did the gang members on that night, ten years ago. More than likely, they wouldn’t have recounted any details to report to the investigators.
Now, he would want to put all the advantages to good use to try and protect Cynthia as much as possible. He called her cell phone and found that she had already left the house for a walk, which was not a good idea and proceeded to meet up with her at the duck pond, down the road from her house. It was a place that at least provided some cover, with its huge live oak trees that surrounded the small lake.
There had already been three attacks, which had been thwarted by the legal and legitimate government of the United States, but there were individuals on both sides that might have begun to think that the artifact would be worth a small amount of collateral damage to obtain. The Russians had newer weapons now, better than ever before, and it would be advantageous to get as far ahead as possible, even if it took using alien technology to do it.
The chosen agent for the assassination of Cynthia Urte was a man by the name of Ahman Butrogig, a known Muslim terrorist from Tehran, Iran. When former President Barry Obominar sent billions of dollars in cash to the Iranian government, they also sent him back an agent as a good will gesture. He was their best assassin, and the CIA put him immediately to work in the Middle East, taking out government officials from various different countries, who didn’t like the Arab Spring movement that President Obominar had inspired. Ahman had a team already assembled, and the new manuals at the CIA had to include Muslim agents in its core cadre, in order to comply with the new standards set forth in the Obominar administration. They were difficult to get rid of for the new incoming administration, and often the U.S. Congress kept them on the payroll, as private consultants. Since millions of dollars of taxpayer money was regularly used by Congress, within Congressional budget funds and the Treasury Department Fund called the CAA or Congressional Accountability Act, to pay off settlements in sexual harassment cases, a few million here and there could be easily diverted for black operations purposes within the ‘Deep State’. Ahman had already been paid half his fee ahead of time, and he was only waiting to send confirmation of death to receive the other half. The ‘Deep State’ U.S. government had cooperated in monitoring the movements of Cynthia by satellite, and Ahman was quickly moving in for the kill. He also noticed another player moving to intercept his target and wanted to get there first, in order to collect on his kill confirmation. Nothing additional could be received from the Congressional Budget without a valid confirmation, in the form of a quick cellphone photo, sent through encrypted channels.
Roberto was getting mental updates, through the use of the artifact, which had a range and scope that equaled or surpassed the computer readouts of the CIA. Somehow the artifact weapon had the ability to pass perceived information from possible targets and bogies directly into his brain interface. It used a series of wavelength applications to monitor the surrounding threat level. Roberto became aware of Ahman long before Ahman knew of his presence, because the artifact weapon had capabilities that even the CIA was unaware of, being able to get readouts on its own equipment. Without any hardwired circuits and only using wavelength modulations, a weapon of unseen proportions could access all known electronic measures and adapt its capabilities to the threat level.
The artifact began charging its far-reaching probes of Ahman’s weapons capabilities and quickly identified the long-range Barrett sniper rifle that the U.S. government had provided to him. Ahman had topped the ridge that overlooked the small duck pond that was a favorite gathering place of local teens in the area. Even U.S. satellite observation had given the same information to Roberto. A quick visualization put the assassin and his spotter in position, waiting for Cynthia to clear any obstacles for a clear and open shot.
Exiting his vehicle, Roberto spotted Cynthia walking in his direction up ahead, approaching the lake at a brisk pace. Before she got past the live oak trees and came into the clearing, he gripped the artifact tighter, and a loop of electric plasma erupted from the chiselled tip. It reached out and beyond at a lightning flash, closing the distance between Roberto and the two Iranian assassins, Ahman and his spotter. In a split second the thin line of plasma arc had located its target and cleanly sliced through all indicated threats that were within the mentally visualized view-field of Roberto’s mind. He had been aided by the electronics of the CIA ground crew, the U.S. government satellites, and his own weapon, completing the triangulation needed by the subatomic microprocessors of his weapon. The plasma arc returned instantly into the chiselled housing of the small tubular unit and quickly disappeared as Roberto eased his grip on the weapon. He had often practiced in isolated places and knew the extents of its power. It had reached further distances than that he required of it today, but it was not necessary to disable any of the satellites, since he had used them and the other ground crews for his own purposes. The artifact was no less an instrument of controlling multiple weapons simultaneously, just as the F-35 jet was that had observed the phenomenon and reported back what the findings were.
The CIA knew what had happened, where it all took place, and had chosen not to engage the shooter or the devastating new weapon that had been observed. The artifact had left a signature that was a familiar one, yet one that was unable to be equaled. Officials from both the ‘Deep State’ and the lawful U.S. Government both chose not to pursue Roberto at this time.
He quickly found Cynthia and wrapped his arms around her. He had killed the two assassins on the top of the little hill that overlooked the small lake. Their bodies would be taken by the CIA and disposed of, after a cleaner and crew were sent to erase all evidence of what had transpired from the vicinity.
Roberto and Cynthia drove back to her house and the two of them went out on the back porch to discuss what had just taken place.
“I know something bad happened back there and I’m sorry I got you into trouble, Roberto. I think I know that someone wants me dead, but I’m not going to accommodate them by just sitting in my house and waiting for them to blow it up. I had to get them out into the open, in order to find out who was doing this. I know that the aliens had a hand in inspiring someone in the U.S. government to target me for destruction. I have a good idea now of who wants to betray this country and turn it into a Marxist Communist Leninist State. For a long time we’ve had an alien incursion deep into our Democracy, and it appears that they now have a foothold within the Liberal left-wing government. It appears to be a big problem, but using our minds, we can focus on the solutions and easily solve this trespass into our own human Collective Mind. For a long time the aliens have had our thoughts almost secluded from our proper use, seemingly to have put an “Azrael Block” upon our collective minds. But we are stronger than they think, and I have begun instituting a progression into the machinery of thought processes and have begun attacking the lesions of inactivity that have formed. The mind is not only the neurons and dendrites that attach to nerve endings. It is a composite of thoughts and ideas that is in harmony with all of nature, which includes humanity. As we think, we become a part of everything else, for better or worse. A mental block is inactivity or fear to form correct ideas, much the same as a diabolical hypnosis, or a demonic misdirection. Even a government instituted mental block or hypnosis could not stop humans from accessing the Collective Mind now. Maybe God has done it, because I alone am not capable of something so vast. As you said, it’s even happening simultaneously on other planets too.”
“Cynthia you must be right, because I seem to have become enhanced in some way by the use of this artifact that I discovered in an alien warehouse more than ten years ago. It does something to my mind and gives me a far-reaching ability to control a battlefield. I don’t know why but I think that somehow it is not alien but human, the engineering of this plasma arc weapon. It responds to me, almost as if it was made to meld into my mind and become one with me, teaching me as I go, giving me the ability to focus on all targets and vectors of any attacking force, even so far as using the attackers’ own electronic equipment. Is that part of the Collective Mind that you are talking about? It seems to be one and the same. I don’t think that you and I are acting as two separate and distinct entities anymore, but more or less as one, acting and making progressions together.”
“No, we’re still two different people, just both having the same goals and ideals. You seem to be acting more and more alien, with that guidance system included in the artifact. You must not let yourself become too possessed by that weapon. The mind is a weapon in and of itself, working within the framework that God has given us. I was aware of the assassins located on that hill overlooking the duck pond. I’m thankful that you helped me, but I still think that God has ways of dealing with evil people, without the need for advanced weapons. Something would have happened to them anyway, even if you had not come along with your alien artifact weapon.”
“Cynthia, you do remember when I stopped you dead in your tracks on the mat, back in the dojo, don’t you? That was part of the residual effects of this artifact. I couldn’t have done that on my own.”
“No, well I think maybe you could have, if your mind had been programmed correctly. You are your own master, not the byproduct of some alien sword. That alien or human artifact as you call it, an electronic plasma weapon, is nothing more than an extension of your own mind. You’ve always been able to do the things you have done. It’s just that you were not aware until it opened the door for you. The mind is the weapon, and not the product of tools and devices. It’s the other way around, because someone fashioned that plasma arc and maybe even left it for you to find. I don’t think it was the aliens or you would already be dead. God is looking out for you, taking care of us. We should be thankful that it has helped us. Don’t be completely dependent on it. Let’s think about what our next move will be. ”
Two agents from the CIA, cleaners, began to pick up the body parts on the hill overlooking the duck pond and put them into black plastic body bags, including all military hardware that the U.S. Government had loaned to the two assassins.
“My God, No. 1, they’ve both been ripped into pieces. Their torsos have been completely cut into halves, along with the Barrett sniper rifle. What could have done this, certainly not a bullet?” asked one cleaner of the other, both professionals, who had worked at the CIA for years.
“No. 2, you know that we don’t talk about our work, while in the vicinity of a kill. But, yes and no, it was not a bullet, not natural.”
“We’ll have to give a complete report to the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee in Washington, and they won’t like this at all.”
“This doesn’t have to be passed on to anyone from the government, especially not in Congress, not at the moment. We’re usually only paid to clean up the mess that our own agents make, but in this case, I don’t think the shooter was ours. We’re always expendable and shouldn’t talk about this anymore than what we already have, since it would make for a bigger report than what I’m willing to include on my resume. We could be in danger from the private cabal that is running s