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[1]6.1[8] An Interesting New Partnership

Ellen had no idea why she had suddenly blurted out the truth about the team being imprinted clones, utilising templates based on supposedly real individuals. Program-conditioning was supposed to make it impossible for any of the team to speak of such matters to a 'Non Player Character', NPC. She had spoken of being 'expendable' as in when the mission was done the clones would be destroyed but only after the templates were 'updated' with data from the clones.

The biggest shock was that somebody, anybody, would be so angry in response to the idea of they being 'expendable' especially as the 13 psykersensed that Sarah Lyons was being very honest in her sentiments.

The TTTAs focused on the sidequest as the two groups found a temporary hiding place, shelter, and a few of them did some trading while secluded from the others. The borderguard was excluded but given food rations, coffee and pristine water.

Ellen nodded. “Two copies each of two technical manuals on US Army power armour and one NewSoviet manual on their own version of the same. Not original but perfect copies of the originals as laser printed.”

She placed the six, microdata, books forward into the trading space between herself and Sarah. Both wore their suits but with helmets either folded back-down or taken off. They sat on bits of rubble. Sarah put there two leather bound tomes.

The sentinel, a very special SteelOrderhood rank, spoke. “The Poetic License of Vague Repetitions by SMartAsset and the Way of Vogue Biting Quotes by Barry Harry Larry. Our steelsages, and steelscibes, carefully studied them and found nothing useful.”

Ellen smiled. “Go to the first page and you will see recommendations by one Adam Eve Gardener who wrote the book the Key to Secrets of Whimsical Foolhardiness. According to our information that book is necessary to breaking the hidden data in both books that must be used as references to each other. The Wizenburgs, of Bookburg, have three copies of the book and the original but it is the original that we need to look at.”

Sarah frowned. “Not all of the Postdoomsday Wizenburgs are bad but a small majority of them are very much so. The Bookrazors have been linked to the Wizenburg South Family who are said to be quite criminally insane in their efforts to control all book possession, and trade, in Bookburg. Their name comes from the fact that they dominate the southern Wizenburg Zone area. Of course that account could be a set of lies spread by the real ones linked to the Bookrazors.”

Ellen responded with a tone of thoughtful consideration. “We would meet with one Lady Sharene Wizenburg.”

Edited by Maharg67
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[1]6.2[9]

Sarah frowned. “That one is not criminally insane but she is still very dangerous. We will come with you to back you up. We are also meant to see her. Perhaps we can work together to learn the secrets of the three books.”

Ellen smiled. “Yes, that is an excellent plan.”

They began exchanging other information and it turned out that while they already had much of it in common, they also gained a good deal from each other. For instance the SteelOrderhood was busy travelling from the superstate, of California, to the superstate of District Columbia with its supercity of WashingtonDC, or at least what was left of the two after Tridoomsday. In a convoy of aircraft, land vehicles and other machines, was making a steady progress across the Wastelands of the supercontinent of North America. The basis of the convoy were massive landships, airships and hoverships following one of the very ancient, mysterious, Greyways.

“The SteelOrderhood has splintered away from the SteelBrotherhood of the LostHills of the LostValley of Western California of the coastal region.” Sarah spoke showing just some bitterness in her voice. “SteelBrothers are extremely orthodox in wanting to gather, and keep to themselves, all technologies. They dominate the LostValley but are having increasing problems with the New California Nebraska Republic, the NCNR, and Caesarara Dynastic Empire, the CDE, along with the Supreme Warlord Atillakhan. The SteelBrotherhood see us as traitors for seeking to leave them though they outnumber us in resources including people by more than three times.”

Large superconcrete chamber was well sealed off with only part being collapsed and two heavy metal doors being firmly locked. The place seemed to have been a light industrial workshop but had been long ago looted of most items. Oddly enough there were some brooms, buckets and mops in one corner next to the skeletal remains of what could have been a human looted of all gear.

Sarah frowned softly. “Why would anybody choose to leave even such petty loot behind?”

Ellen snorted. “Notice how this place looks rather neatly clean for an abandoned one. I wonder what drew us here? It seemed right to do so.”

Which was when the tall, broad shouldered, man stepped out of nothingness wearing a bathrobe over what seemed like some kind of power armour. He face showed through the transparent visor of his helmet as he smiled. “I am the Madmodder Rodegeus here to state that you TTTAs are not actually TTTAs but were created by hackers into the Gaming Networksystems where all is real and not real, is quasireal. Why me, because I owed somebody a favour whose identity I could not reveal even if I wanted to, which I do not.”

Ellen was obviously puzzled. “Why state you can not do something when you would not do that thing anyway?”

Edited by Maharg67
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[1]6.3[10]

Rodegeus smiled even more. “Unofficial protocols are, in their own way, as strong as official ones or semiofficial ones.”

Sarah snorted. “So they are not TTTAs but what is the true nature of my new friends?”

Rodegeus shrugged. “That I do not know. Ellen, your PTPO (portable transdimensional pocket outpost) needs upgrading and so consider it to be so. The LyonsPride people can now be inside it along with other lifeforms. It can now have more lifeforms in it, at any one time, is expanded in internal volume and is improved in other ways including being three times faster, timewise, inside than out. There you will find special gifts. I like you and have decided to give you 13 gifts of my own choosing. I must go but hope to meet you soon. We Madmodders have made far too many enemies, some deservedly so but too many just because we dared to be free in our creativity.”

Then he vanished away into mid air but he left behind himself 13 gifts as promised.

Edited by Maharg67
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13 Gifts From the Madmodder Rodegeus and Searching The Oddly Clean Neat Chamber

[1]7.1[11]

Thirteen cubes stood there, each being but 20cm wide, high and long. One was golden, three were silvery and nine were copperish. Ellen, and the other 'TTTAs' knew what they were, using their old title out of convenience though they now held it falsely.

Ellen had all but one coppery cube dematerialise, going to the PTPO instantly, for only that one cube had glowing green disks showing at the center of every square face that could be seen. That is it was the only giftercube ready to be activated.

Coppery giftercube #1 glowed, shimmered, and expanded in size. Then from it trudged a Power Armour Robot, PAR, also known as a PRBot. One needed to look very close, or have a special way of looking, to see that it was not somebody in power armour. It bore the markings, and colours, of the Pridetrooper power armour and was to prove to be the first of the Pridebots.

After that the giftercube shrank away to its original size and dematerialised.

Sarah spoke. “I take it as each giftercube, as you call it, needs to be recharged to a point of the disks showing green.”

Ellen nodded. “From now on the giftercubes will be activated inside the PTPO. Copper Giftercube #1, CGC01, will always materialise at least one Pridebot at a time. I do not actually know what that truly means for general information, only, has come into my mind about the 13 giftercubes. Now we send some of our people to the PTPO while choosing a team to go on with.”

Five Pridetroopers remained, along with five TTTAs and the local human whose ancestors had come out of a sheltervault, being a smaller cousin to a techvault proper.

They began to examine the big chamber more carefully except for the borderguard customs officer who was clearly puzzled at the vanishing of so many group members. He frowned softly but said nothing, especially after he was quietly bribed with a handful of EIDs, Emergency Issue Dollars, and a small bottle of prize Predoomsday whiskey.

Sentinel Sarah spoke. “All Steelfollowers have the title of 'knight' who are well trained users of standard power armour who have completed probationary time while passing the apprenticeship. Paladins utilise powermecha, Lancers powerlifters and there are other such special title castes of which some are quite exotic and-or small.”

Behind the mops, buckets, and brooms was found a basic looking, vertical lever, behind a security cover. The items were teleported to the PTPO and the lever was uncovered before it was pulled.

With a soft lurching sensation the floor began to sink, elevator fashion.

Edited by Maharg67
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Entering Bookcity Madmodders' Mods Testing Maze

[1]8.1[12]

Ellen had the local man sent to the PTPO when it soon came obvious that the team was entering a maze, of some sort, dotted with danger. Even as the elevator floor came to a halt, three eyebots attacked them with laserguns spitting pencil thin beams. The TTTAs, and Pridetroopers, had no trouble in destroying the attackers in that mostly bare, neatly clean, chamber that was identical to the elevator one.

The 10 of them entered that other chamber that held a series of six vertical storage lockers along one sidewall and opposite them, a whole lot of bits and pieces of stuff one could find in the Wastelands. Empty NukaCola bottles, lightly damaged pipeguns, slightly scorched books, empty used cans that once held food, ESFs (Emergency Survival Foods) of different kinds in of tight wrappings, spanners, kitchen knives, small boxes of muttfruit (mutated fruit), a children's bicycle and much else besides.

Sarah frowned. “To our right lockers with selected goodies and, to our left, a whole smorgasbord of possibilities. I advise caution, a checking for boobytraps.”

Ellen smiled. “We can do better than that.” Then all of the randomised items vanished away leaving there nothing. “There was a crude, home made, bomb but the teleportation to the PTPO undid the surprise. Everything now there has been carefully checked. Our special visitor is now is quarantined custody. Perhaps it is the lockers that we will have to be extra careful with.”

Knight Lieutenant Vargas, second in command to Sarah, spoke. “I suggest we EMP any attacking robots so as to salvage them for our own use. I wonder at the purpose of this place.”

A disembodied voice spoke to them, seemingly from multiple directions at once. “You have entered Bookcity Madmodders Mods Testing Mazing. I am its guardian-keeper but you may call me Bookcitybob. I have always liked 'Bob' as a name. In theory you should not have been able to know the existence of this place let alone enter it. This is most curious a puzzle.”

Sarah responded to Bookcitybob. “Perhaps you could find a way for us to leave the maze.”

Bookcitybob: “Just examined the possibility but you are locked into the maze until you find 13 particular books being one golden, three silver and nine coppery covered tomes. I can only tell you that along with the usual stuff about there being increasing threats, obstacles, challenges, rewards along with surprises, some more pleasant than others. I suggest that you assume nothing. The lockers are respawning containers.”

They checked the lockers, before opening the big, wide, utilities. They could only open certain ones in sequence, the first holding standard emergency survival supplies that automatically teleported to the transdimensional pocket zone. The second, and third, turned out to hold the same. The fourth and fifth held emergency survival equipment and related items, including some self defence weapons.

Edited by Maharg67
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[1]8.2[13]

The last locker opened up to expose three eyebots and some equipment-supplies to go with them. When all the lockers, and the wall they were fixed to, slid to one side the group moved on but now with the eyebots scouting out before them with a fairly a short distance; they were to the right, front and left of the group.

The wall-door slid closed behind them and was replaced, with a soft shimmer, by a great wall of heaped rubble including some truly impressive sized chunks of superconcrete. Upwards, tilted against it, lay a softly crashed civilian vertibird sporting deluxe air taxi logos. Ellen was surprised than an attempt to teleport it to the TPOP was successful and so were some shocked radroaches along with a few other, smaller, lifeforms.

Edited by Maharg67
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Inside the PTPO

[1]9.1[14]

Twenty-seven cubechambers made up the accessible PTPO but all but one horizontal level of nine were semiactive at best. The entrance-exit cubechamber was where Alfreno, the TTTA, was soothing a large radroach that was sure it needed to be fussed over as much as possible. The captive cockroaches were living, breeding, in a special containment area. while the other five radroaches were in another, bigger, one. The one radroach was bigger than its ' cousins' and was both smarter and more 'basic psychic' than them. Alfreno very good at psychic communicating with entities of such general nature.

The TTTA turned to look at Pridetrooper Knight Sergeant Kodiak.. "The testing maze is like a hybrid of asphalt maze with walls of impenetrable ruined city between them but with exceptions like flagstone laneways, semiruined buildings and manhole accessed tunnels. The radroach had somehow gotten even into one of the tunnels through a ground grid. There were 'things' down there that could have been robots and other ones radghoulants, according to the impressions in the mind of the quasiinsect."

Kodiak frowned. "We should be there and not here taking up time."

Alfreno responded calmly. "Do not forget that time passes three times faster inside the PTPO than outside of it, in the Wastelands."

Kodiak nodded. "Its easy to forget it and one must have to be careful to have enough sleep here."

Alfreno smiled. "The PTPO will not let you overlook such needs. Sleepiness will come to you and then you will sleep. The core network-systems have already begun to link with you to make sure you coordinate more properly with the PTPO's internal dimensional realm."

The Pridetrooper looked around at the large, mostly bare, chamber where people were resting, doing various tasks such as tending to weapons, sleeping, attending to needs such as eating or doing other activities. Good quality coffee, and tea, were being passed around. Kodiak took a thermos mug of black coffee while Alfreno had tea with fresh, tasty, milk. There were also large fruit-nut biscuits to be had along with pristine, cool, water. To everybody there such items were minor luxuries compared to what they often had to consume.

3D4Dprinted items were being assembled into mechanisms, as 3D basic objects and programmable 4D ones. Furniture, fittings and small machines were being created including remoterobots. Still, the resources used by the 3D4Dprinter, were far from abundant.

Edited by Maharg67
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[1]9.2[15]

Open shower alcoves showed both TTTAs, and Steelfollowers, washing themselves with apparently little modesty but nobody stared at anybody while physical space was respected. Toilet alcoves had some coverage to them but mostly for reasons of hygiene and odor .

The PABot had been checked over and was being run through tests to gain a greater understanding of its abilities, and limitations, which were being recorded down. A pleasing aspect of the robot was that it used mostly parts shared with power armour and more common type robots; that meant gaining spare parts would be easier along with there being other benefits.

An odd shimmering effect went, briefly, through everybody and everything. Where there had been a bare wall were 13 metallic doors being one golden, three silver and nine coppery. Each had a distinctive symbol in the center of the door but only one, the last copperish, also had a diagonal console beneath the symbol.

Edited by Maharg67
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Early In the Bookcity Madmodders' Mods Testing Maze

[1]10.1[16]

Two protectrons, gracefully clumsy robotic humanoids, attack the team even as a swarm of super sized radroaches did so from another direction. The superradroaches were not only bigger than their standard cousins but were harder to damage yet they were slower. Eyebots used their laserguns as did the TTTAs, and Pridetroopers, did their array of weapons. They stunned the superradroaches, EMPed the robots, and sent them to the PTPO.

One TTTA, plus one Pridetrooper, went. to the PTPO and were replaced with two others.

Sarah spoke. "This whole situation does not add up somehow."

Ellen responded. "Perhaps we may have been in a testing zone even before we entered the testing maze. We TTTAs having been picking up a subtle sense of 'duplicity' about this whole place ever since we materialised here."

Bookcitybob spoke from mid air. "Congratulations but that is only the start of discovering the deeper truth. Consider using your wishling."

Then his presence was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

The group kept moving, sometimes gaining useful loot to teleport to the PTPO though most of it was 'scrap'.

Edited by Maharg67
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In the PTPO

[1]11.1[17]

The use, of the wishling, fully opened up more cubechambers that also became more act. This also led to greater access to network-systems being medical, manufacturing, repair, data storage, transportation and multiple others of which some were exotic ones.

Radiroachi scuttled through the superradroach chamber, past her smaller-dumber cousins, and then through a airlock type arrangement into a second chamber where her human friend, Alfreno, was waiting for her. Soon she was carrying out tasty treat rewards tests run by the male TTTA.

Copper Giftercube #2 opened to send forth a TTTA like android wearing the gear of a TTTA and looking like a young woman. Soon she was being tested, studied, in preparations for her to start her first duties. The PRBot had already begun carrying out various tasks in the PTPO.

Vargas was with a team creating a 'concept' map of the testing maze that was also the foundation of a holographic map on a special table. They lacked data to do no more than a basic starting area while data came from the moving team. Yet it was important that the project continue.

Attempts, to get Copper Door #1 to open, failed.

Edited by Maharg67
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