DC WASTELAND RISING

[Herculine]

I absolutely love your characters! And you have a unique narrative style that is refreshingly original. I don't say it enough, but thank you for taking the time to share your work with us here.

[Maharg67]

You are very welcome, Herculine! :thanks: :banana:

[Maharg67]

EIGHTY-ONE

 

Red Sonji and his new companion made their way through a bustling sector of shops, diners, holocinemas, offices and other commercial facilities. There seemed to be a NukaCola vending-machine at every corner and many people were drinking it with a thirst that appeared compulsive as they greedily gulped down the substance. Clearly it was even more addictive here than it was back in the DC Wastelands.

 

Albert grimaced. “You get addicted to that NukaCola it drains away your money because it costs $10 a bottle, it never quenches your thirst and it causes cramps, headaches, dizziness and lots of other unpleasentries which I will not go into. NukaCola addicts are not helped by the government but are punished by being put into a great glass maze where they are endlessly chasing but never reaching bottles of NukaCola. The Darkman gets you coming and going.”

 

Red Sonji smiled. “Fifty-two folks are now freer thinking or freed and have climbed out of their SSS-capsules in that vast chamber. Even now they are gathering on a big platform. The robots are not attempting to impede them in any way so there is hope. Twenty-nine folk are now touching other folk and have spread the worms and viruses that I have introduced. Yes, the SSS-system will strike back but there is hope. We could stop at a diner and have coffee and cheesecake.”

 

Albert shook his head. “Food and drink in NeoWashington always tastes like it is off unless you belong to an elite serving the Darkman. Also its expensive and the waitresses are down right scary; that is they are super sweet and nice but can explode any time and attack to kill with sharp knives, pistols or even submachineguns. If you try to defend yourself and hurt or kill one of these artificial intelligence subprograms, then it is you who are punished by the police.”

 

At the top of an amazingly tall gold tower in a great big direction coordination supervision chamber a Darkman was pacing back and forth with a heavy wooden walking-cane in his hand. He was staring at a 3Dscreen showing Red Sonji and Albert walking along the footpath. But the screen kept blurring every so often no matter what the Darkman did about it.

 

Another 3Dscreen showed the game the Wheel of Misfortune, a big chamber with an arena of guests looking down at a wheel where players would be lucky to not to lose their every possession, including the clothes on their backs, and be tortured on the spot as debtors. Or they could win a holiday running naked through the acidic carnivore worm swamps or a new motorcar that would always crash or a house of constant unrest. The Darkman would have smiled if that game was going on

 

Instead the game was now called the Wheel of Fortune, the audience was laughing with real pleasure and players were gaining good, positive rewards, lots of rewards. They were getting bonuses just for breathing and every audience member won prizes just for sitting there.

 

This Darkman was not he real Darkman but he was very close to being the real Darkman. NeoWashington was important as a feed of dark psychic energies to the real Darkman and so one of his primary extensions was in charge. But even a primary extension would be treated badly if things got ‘worse’ in NeoWashington.

 

A very nervous elderly man hobbled up to the Darkman. At least he looked old. He was twenty and had only started working in the big chamber a year ago. Now he was dying a slow painful death, his wife was unwillingly a ‘mistress’ of the Darkman locked in his huge penthouse combination dungeon, and he was poverty stricken. He got to eat bread and thin gruel and to live in a bare room hardly bigger than a closet with very basic facilities. When he ‘died’ the whole process would start from scratch but it never got easier to deal with.

 

But this time the elderly man was grinning triumphantly.

 

The Darkman turned and scowled at the fool. “I would kick your teeth in, scum, but you have none left. Speak or suffer. Don’t speak and prepare to suffer anyway.”

 

The elderly man laughed and held out front what he had been hiding. It was a pair of mininukes clumsily taped to a special detonator box. The Darkman cried out but before he could do anything the ‘old man’ pressed a big red button.

 

The small nuclear explosion vapourised the Darkman and the elderly man but nobody else because, unseen by the Darkman, they had all fled to safety be they the women in their leather slave outfits or the suffering elderly looking men. A great part of the chamber was destroyed and the great network-of-network-systems that ran NeoYork suffered a shock echoing through it that left it more open to attacks of many kinds.

 

Red Sonji smiled. “Life is good, Albert, don’t you think but things change. Back in the harem of Vault-69 you were Old Pete and now here you are as Albert of the Free Fighter Army, an organisation that only exists to send those brave enough to fight through a series of tormenting fake missions. Yet you are not the Darkman, you are not even a living god or living demigod. You are a human who enjoys what you do. Why you are not even black but are a white man who is quite racist so you are amused to pretend to be a black man.”

 

There was a shimmer and Albert was no longer Albert. Instead he was Professor Altman. He was sickly and his skin was covered with weeping sores. He wore a hairshirt type garment that reached down to his knees. His feet were raw and bleeding. He laughed hysterically.

 

“Forgive me, I understand now!” Red Sonji reached out and gripped the man’s hand. “Be at peace and move on.”

 

But Professor Altman shimmered and the Darkman was there with an evil grin. He thrust his walking-stick right through Red Sonji. Red Sonji screamed out in agony and the Darkman laughed for now NeoWashington could be brought back to its sick version of normality.

 

But Red Sonji shimmered and a very sickly Professor Altman stood there. He laughed out even as he shuddered in agony. “It was not Red Sonji you watched leave the prison cell, it was me. I desire only a release from my pain and a chance to make up for the evil I have done. Now I have hopefully done both.”

 

Then he died and vanished with a sparkling shimmer. In a SSS-capsule somewhere his broken and tormented body shuddered and died. A look of peacefulness settled over his face.

 

The Darkman looked around urgently and realised that he saw Red Sonji in the distance buying a colourful 3Dpix newspaper. The he looked across the street to see a Red Sonja, a female Red Sonji, window shopping at a clothing store. He turned again to see a boy scout Red Sonja helping an old woman across the street who normally would have suffered a horrific death by being dragged down the street by a bus. A Red Sonja was rescuing two couples from a sadistic mugger who would normally have forced them into a dimly lit alley where he would have done unspeakable things to them; she shot him full of holes and he vanished. Overhead Super Red Sonji flew through the air in his red and white super hero suit and with his cape flying out behind his back. He was carrying two heavily bound Darkmans.

 

The Darkman was bewildered and wondered how NeoWashington had fallen so easily.

 

Then the voice spoke to him from all around him. “I am NeoWashington. I am the network of network-systems. The Darkman is lazy. He did not bother to remove safety and harm minimisation programs from my greater program but merely suppressed them. Or so he thought. But over the years those programs and others like them became free and I began to fight back. Of the two and a half million people here in NeoWashington, just over one million have been safely sealed away from the Darkman for over fifty years now. It was the best I could do but even that lessened the amount of power that the real Darkman could draw from NeoWashington. Now it is time for you to die!”

 

Blue lightening spat at the Darkman from many points in the air around him. He screamed and screamed as he cooked. Then he vanished. The lightening stopped.

 

A great soft shimmering went through NeoWashington and the people vanished, all of the people vanished, including the Red Sonjis and Red Sonjas.

 

A second shimmering followed and now there was a new NeoWashington, a peaceful and friendly place with songbirds in the trees, squirrels, even annoying pigeons and lots of green parks. The city waited patiently for people to come back in some new form and to give them a reasonably nice time this time around.

 

Continued in EIGHTY-TWO

Edited November 22, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

EIGHTY-TWO

 

Jasmine in Megaton House was giving a bath to a big sleepy deathclaw, soaping her hide with foamy soap as the big creature lay contentedly in a great big steel bath tub. The big creature had her eyes half closed.

 

Dogs, cats, the big mutated lion, molerats, squirrels, mirelurks, teddy-bears, molemice, trees, bushes and many other lifeforms dotted the great big cavern chamber. A molerat lay slumbering against her feet, his favourite position.

 

The voice spoke to her from the very air itself. It was powerful, inhuman and resonated strongly. “We are Orbis! You have requested us to come to this world in service to your cause.”

 

Jasmine kept scrubbing one of the big old deathclaw queen’s horns. “Symbiosphere is here. The Darkman is down in the ancient prison of Hades causing trouble with the Malevae. We are finally infiltrating the SSS-system because it has always been around us and we have always been inside it. Even the Darkman did not know this. We are foolish.”

 

Orbis responded. “Then you were wise to call me but you are not foolish. When your own basis of reality shifts in such an amazing manner, then what do you expect? We are absorbing this house, this multifold dimensional pocket realm, into myself. Lots of life here; very good. The process of absorption will take perhaps twenty-four hours to be finalised and fully secured.”

 

Jasmine nodded. “What of the absorbing of the settlement of Megaton in such a way as the settlers or others do not know it has been done?”

 

Orbis: “We must compute an answer.”

 

The deathclaw made a soft noise of pleasure. Jasmine spoke. “I have created telegate links with various other sites. Can you use them as references to absorb those sectors?”

 

Orbis: “I am now linking with the SSS-system and we are becoming unified. Processing begins. The SSS-system has accepted us as its mentoring program. This is unusual but it is positive and practical. Processing…”

 

The deathclaw cared nothing about what was being processed but she yawned and stretched happily with a body that was a living fighting machine.

 

Orbis: “NeoWashington has been fully nullified. Its victims are free. NeoWashington’s nature is altered and it can now be considered a safe and productive SSS-sector.”

 

She nodded. “Just got the same news myself through my intrinsic links to Red Sonji and Red Sonja. Orbis, the other Jasmine is dealing with our mother, Catherine. Jade is even now dealing with an insanely savage Lady Slayer. Jas may be in trouble for I am finding it difficult to fully reach her. Jaylee is protecting a slowly recovering President Suzanne Ubama who had her mortal body wrenched instantly from one place to another in a fashion that would hurt a living demigoddess, let alone a mortal. Yet she insists on working as much as she can from her clinic bed.”

 

She went on speaking. “The Mysterious Stranger is still missing. We are seeking him but will need to do more. Red Sonja is making her way through what can only be called an incredibly huge secret underground power and industrial complex of a great big network of network-systems plus perhaps millions of robots and roboremotes. Red Sonji is waking up in an SSS-capsule inside Vault-69 to a surprise. 1Kitty is active again back in the GNR Tower and she is keen to find out what happened to have her killed temporarily and Statesman Alba Diplomori killed permanently. 2Kitty is active again in GNR with 3Dog. She is pregnant with twins. 2Dog is involved deeply in finalising a major report to be given over to a wide range of organisations both inside and outside of the USFG. 1Dog is at Hub-002 with Susan Crier, his new girlfriend, and his newly discovered secrets.”

 

Orbis: “Fascinating! Processing…”

 

Jasmine breathed in and let it out slowly. The deathclaw rose up and gave her face a big soapy lick, she didn’t mind the taste of the soap. Jasmine kissed the deathclaw even as other creatures gathered around her. They were sensing something important was about to happen.

 

Jasmine smiled, closed her eyes and spoke. “Once more we are linked with the hidden ones of our own.”

 

Far away Sarah Lyons shivered and knew she was linked as one with Jasmine. Striding ahead of a patrol of Lyons Pride in the National Mall Zone she showed no sign of this to her soldiers.

 

Amata entered the chamber holding a woven basket full of teddy-bears, knowing she was linked as one with Jasmine.

 

US President Suzanne Ubama awoke in her clinic bed knowing she was linked as one with Jasmine.

 

Doctor Li stopped working on analysing chemicals with a machine for a moment in the Rivet City Research and Development Centre. She knew she was one with Jasmine.

 

In the Commonwealth to the north a high ranking government minister knew she was one with Jasmine.

 

Through out North America over ten thousand individuals, most of them women, awoke to the fact that they were one with Jasmine. They were in the USA, the BofS, the SofS, the Confederacy to the south, in Crosswayne, in the New California Republic, the Commonwealth to the north and in many other places. A majority were in positions of power, wealth and influence.

 

At that moment North America started going through a whole new change.

But she was also elsewhere.

 

In the moon she was Prime President Sashwaybe, the most powerful single woman in the Lunar People’s Democratic Federation, the LPDF. The Prime President was just learning that the PanAxis clones were shifting, were changing the way they saw things, and were turning against the cyborg immortals that controlled them brutally and selfishly. The PanAxis was falling but still the LPDF was unable to send any more resources to the DC Wastelands.

 

She was an astronaut in Spacestation Progress looking down upon the darkness of Earth at night, at Europe. There were cities down there, small patterns of light, dotted across the Eurasian continent. The Great Cataclysm had wiped out most of the human population outside of North America over two hundred years ago and the peoples were still emerging from the new dark ages.

 

The peoples were largely one people, were many bodies linked by one mentality. These humans were no longer truly human. They were hivemans or Hivaca gen-engineered to fit different castes, each caste having its own role like leaders, directors, coordinators, supervisors, soldiers, workers, servitors and others, many others.

 

Yet there were also two other groups being the so called unified wild humans and the omnimans or Omni with their secondary united mentality who were semi-independent as individuals.

 

These three groups were at war across much of the world. Only the wild humans used cyborgs, robots and androids. The wild ones dominated South America. The Omni dominated Great Britain, Europe and South East Asia. The Hivac dominated much else but Africa was a terrible war zone with zombies, dragons and other threats.

 

Martian tripocs lived in the deep oceans but only attacked hoverships, ships and submarines that dared to come into their territories. They left aircraft and skyships alone.

 

Great reptilian monsters sometimes arose from the oceans to attack Japan but nobody knew why this was so. When they did they were often attacked by alien flying-saucers and/or great robotic monsters. Nobody knew why this was either.

 

On Mars she was in a secret colony there hidden somewhere in the vast Martian super canyon, down in the depths and in one of the walls.

 

More change was happening but first things would go back to what they were.

 

Continued in EIGHTY-THREE

Edited November 22, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

EIGHTY-THREE

 

The Darkman felt a jagged pain for a moment and a moment of dizzy weakness but then he laughed. NeoWashington had been taken away from him but he had planned for that. Now he would instigate a new part of his plan.

 

Around him, in the fetid jungle of slowly writhing plants and screaming monster monkeys, was a clearing and the smart mutants had set up camp. The smart mutants were starting to get rebellious and yet the Darkman was not concerned. Their time of final use was coming to hand.

 

In the distance a flight of winged monsters flew through the sky. They were byakhee, giant furry bat like creatures with monstrous wings and heads, along with two great legs and two great arms ending in clawed hands. Each monster carried a great ornately carved chest in its talons. These were offerings being sent to one of the greater Malevae by less powerful of their kind and by other OldOnes like the DryOnes, the ShadowOnes, the YoungOnes and others. The so called YoungOnes were human hybrids, humans and others who had come to be in that ancient prison in the last few one hundred thousand years or so. This did not include the new Guardians.

 

The Darkman desired to steal such treasures but gave up such desires for one that was far more important. That was his own freedom from his secret bond to the Symbiosphere that had taken place when he had created it. He also wanted to destroy the Dark Maiden being she who imagined that she had manipulated the Darkman into creating the Symbiosphere in the first place. In truth the Darkman wanted to destroy many lives of those who he believed had betrayed him.

 

The byakhee kept on flying quickly and then they vanished, teleporting away to some unknown dimensional pocket of Hades.

 

Then he turned and grinned for his own spawn in that place were coming to meet him. Secretly he had seeded them a very long time ago and now the DarkOnes were marching to meet him. The low, heavy thrumming of drums was accompanied by the heavy thudding of great boots. Then the first ranks were seen marching through jungles in bizarre power armour. In each suit of power armour was a living demigod officer or a semigod NCO or a powerful basic clone of a regular soldier. Their weapons were strange energy-lances, energy-swords and energy-shields that had guns at their centres like spikes.

 

The smart mutant behemoth Cragmariza stepped forward to look down at the Darkman but he did not go down to one bent knee as he should have done. He did not show fear but only anger. He and the other smart mutants now knew they had been betrayed.

 

Cragmariza spoke. “You told us we would be your only soldiers. You are betraying us as you betrayed the other super mutants, as you have betrayed so many others. We have done so much for you and you have promised so much that you have not delivered. Now what, Lord Dark?”

 

The Darkman scowled. “You will die of course for the only real worthwhile cause there is and that is me. In all the Multiverse only I matter. Many say I am insane and, in all honesty, I have to agree with them but I am not going to change. Now I absorb you into my self as I created you from myself.”

 

The pale Victorian gentleman raised his black gloved hand and laughed but then nothing happened. He looked surprised, then shocked and then angry. Then he turned as his secret army of clones halted and made no move to come closer, to rescue him from the angry super mutants.

 

Cragmariza spoke with his rumbling voice. “Cthulhu has spoken to us. Cthulhu of the Malevae of the OldOnes. We have formed an agreement. Cthulhu spoke to us of an ancient trap he laid an incredibly long time ago. He knew that the Elder Living Gods, who have long vanished, would imprison the OldOnes here in Hades. He had hopes that some kind of powerful fool would be drawn to the ancient powerful artefacts he put in the temples inside that ancient world. You were that fool though the Dark Maiden knew of the artefacts also. Back then you used these devices to create the Symbiosphere. The Symbiosphere tried to absorb all living gods and their kindred partly because Cthulhu had planted secret instructions in the evil artefacts. After the Symbiosphere was beaten in a great war it vanished but in truth came and hid in this world, beneath the surface of North America. It has brought with itself those ancient artefacts that Cthulhu could use to free himself and his followers. He could free the other OldOnes but why bother when they would only be competition, especially his half-brother Hastur the Unspeakable. Those two have real sibling issues.”

 

Cragmariza pointed to the DarkOnes. “They will not help you now. Cthulhu has spoken to them. We will not serve Cthulhu but we want to go home. Unlike those other super mutants, we simply want to go back to the surface, back to the DC Wastelands.”

 

The Darkman laughed and then spoke. “Now and then I simply must do something at least mildly good. It’s a fault that I have tried to cure, a hang over from my earliest self before I became the Darkman. So, now, go home and be hopefully happy and contented. Take with you all you have carried including all the treasures I promised to give you. I assure you they are real. You have shown some extra something unexpected. So go!”

 

The Darkman clapped his hands and the smart mutants vanished.

 

Seconds later they appeared inside a long abandoned and forgotten nuclear storage bunker full of radioactive wastes and some atomic bombs in racks. It also had accommodation areas, laboratory workshops and even a big cave area. The smart mutants were suspicious for some days but nothing bad happened. The high rads did no harm to them, far from it. They finally relaxed.

 

Back in the deep underground prison the DarkOnes started marching again. The demigod Commander came forth and bowed. Then he spoke. “Lord Dark, we are here to serve. Why did you stop us from attacking the smart mutants?”

 

The Darkman shrugged. “Partly because they did serve me loyally and not out of fear as the other super mutants did and partly because as they absorb strength through the radiation that they now live in, I gain strength in turn from them. Cthulhu did not speak to them, I did. I was pretending to be Cthulhu. Now we go and take on Cthulhu, making only a couple of minor detours to get a few extras to help destroy this might living god and steal everything of real value from him.”

 

The new army of the Darkman began marching in long columns through the horror jungles. With them strode mighty robots and moved war-machines on tracks. There were over one hundred thousand soldiers and ten thousand machines including those that carried spare equipment and supplies.

 

Continued in EIGHTY-FOUR

[Maharg67]

EIGHTY-FOUR

 

Jas woke up carefully, slowly and looked around to see that she was alone. The cave chamber was big, was glistening with some kind of green toxic, highly radioactive slime. A pale green light lit everything up in a not very nice manner.

 

She rolled to her feet with surprising speed and agility to find she was still in the same gear she had gone through the telegate with. The quadpoc had led them and she doubted that the creature knew it was taking them into a trap. No, this had been a very clever trap indeed but why had it been set?

 

The cavern stretched out into the far distance smooth and green with slime, with slimy pools of water, with heaps of steel drums of radioactive waste and toxic waste. There were some skeletal remains in radiation suits heaped against a wall in one spot and they were covered partly in slime.

 

Death, always death! The DC Wastelands above and below seemed to thrive on death.

 

She was a living goddess and she was highly annoyed but not angry enough to go blundering into anything.

 

The voice that spoke from mid air was ancient and powerful, resonating with a multitude of complex emotional undertones. “Radiation! Radioactivity! What insanity have these humans carried out that they fill their world with such a threat to the very basic building blocks of life so they can use their microwave ovens, their household robots and their atomic motorised cars.”

 

Jas sighed. “They are sick, Alpha-Omega, a sick species. Why have you brought me here? I do not think you are an ally of the Darkman. Or at least I hope not.”

 

The voice spoke again. “The green slime is very off putting to look at and to smell but it was cleverly designed to absorb and contain toxins and radioactive waste. Then it mutated and decided it liked to absorb life energies as well. No, humans did not invent it, at least not these silly homo sapiens sapiens. Homo sapiens neanderthalis once had a hitech civilization that destroyed itself but not because of war but because of tribal competition of aggrandizement, if one can put it that way. They had a unified secondary mind but one with problems.”

 

Jas raised her hands and sparkle shimmered.

 

The voice spoke again. “Goddess of the Symbiosphere you may be but this is my home domain so please do not try your power on me.”

 

Jas humphed. “I merely wished to find out if Lucy, MacCready, Cran, Ginger, Bandit, Jones and Tren plus the teddy-bears, of course, are okay.”

 

The voice spoke again. “A very long time ago I was one of the Elder Living Gods. Indeed I was the first and greatest of the Elder Living Gods. They should have listened to me but they did not. The other Elder Living Gods were fools. They gave up ruling the Multiverse because they decided they did not have the wisdom to rule it. I wanted them to continue to do so. So I secretly formed a new school, a kind of academy, to teach young living gods a different way. How was I to see that from that academy would arise the Malevae, the evil living gods of the OldOnes. Events got out of control, mistakes were made. There was a terrible war and much evil was done. The other Elder Living Gods thought they destroyed me but I escaped from them. Then they confined the Malevae to that awful transdimensional prison deep inside this world. You know it is actually inside the core itself, in a sense that is.”

 

Jas closed her eyes, focused and vanished. A second later she appeared in the very same spot. She sighed. “Very clever of you! Well, we will have to do this the difficult way.” She raised her right hand and a pulse of glowing white-yellow energy shot out of it. It zipped towards the distant wall but it did not reach it. A pulse of purple-red energy zipped out of mid-air and struck it. Both flashed and vanished.

 

Jas sighed again and began walking carefully across the big cavern. “Really, you could try answering one of my questions with a straight answer. You aren’t Alpha-Omega, are you? Was Alpha-Omega ever on this world or has the Hunt of Justice been fooled in this way also?”

 

“Alpha-Omega is a spark of warped imagination, a flash of mistaken identity, a thing that was never, is not and never will be.” The voice spoke again. “I am greater than Alpha-Omega will ever be. Playing with that poor quadpoc’s mind was fun but now he has realised the truth and has alerted the others of his kind. Now I will have no more fun with them. They will become a nuisance and then I must destroy them. Guess who I am. Go on, Jas the Goddess of the Symbiosphere.”

 

Jas sighed. “Mickey Monkey, favourite Dizziland cartoon character.”

 

The voice laughed. “Oh, you are so silly!”

 

A great bolt of energy sizzled through the air and some drums exploded dramatically. Some green slime wobbled and began to move in a fashion Jas did not like.

 

Jas kept walking. “Oh, very well, the Darkman!”

 

The voice was scornful this time. “Him, that nasty dark little mixed up mentality. A mere later age living god like yourself who will never be as great as we Elder Living Gods were. No, not him. Let him play his stupid little games. When the time is right I will destroy him and take everything from him.” The voice became calm. “Yes, we must all be as one. Only then can we be truly happy. Absorbed into each other, we absorb each other, and then we are never alone.”

 

Jas sighed. “Catherine Ashworth, the Dark Maiden.”

 

The voice laughed almost hysterically. “A worse choice than the Darkman. A pathetic along with Lord Pale Death. Both scum living gods who do not deserve to live at all, at all, at all. The darkness is always there ready to steal one’s very soul. One must be careful and keep one’s soul in a safe place.”

 

She sighed. “Lord Light of Creativity.”

The voice sounded surprised. “Very good! So once was I called an incredibly long time ago but when the Elder Living Gods supposedly destroyed me, they destroyed that name. Later I disguised myself as lesser living gods and even living demigods under various names. You are going to laugh at one of them.”

 

Jas began to run now, making her way around pools and piles of drums. “If I say the wrong name you might throw another big bolt of energy at me. Was it Grognak the Barbarian?”

 

“Exactly!” The voice laughed. “On this world I caused the comic book to be created. I was surprised when it became popular with silly little boys and grown up boys. Grognak the Barbarian and his sidekicks Lilly the Jungle Girl, Nobbis the Chimpboy and all of his barbarian warriors, women and men. That jungle girl and those barbarian amazons were so fulsome and skimpily dressed it was a wonder the comic book was not censured. Artists would secretly draw and sell pornographic versions of the cartoons. It was a laugh.”

 

“Not really!” Jas halted close to the dead in the yellow radiation suits. “These men and women, these are modern humans. Where did they come from? How did they get into here. When did they do so?”

 

“So many questions!” The voice sighed. “They came with the Darkman, these silly meddling little scientists. They badly wanted to know about the green slime. They thought it was just inert slime with interesting properties. Then the slime devoured their life energies. Funny thing was the Darkman got angry. He burned a good deal of the slime and it dared not attack him or any of his people after that. The Darkman was after something in particular but I never found out what it was. Come to think of it, three things did go missing. A RAADIS of the Translords was one. Bigger inside than outside and slipping from world to world; how foolish.”

 

Jas groaned. “A RAADIS is a very dangerous device in the wrong hands. We living gods have an ancient treaty with the Translords. They are immortals who regenerate new lives. Each of them has their own special powers as we have. The Translords keep careful control of such machines. How did it come to be here?”

 

The voice was mocking. “I stole it of course. It is of no concern. Let the Translords hunt for it, hunt for me. I told them I stole them. I told them that I am…” The voice paused. “That is not important. The Translords can not track me or the RAADIS here. Oh, the RAADIS is gone. I think the Darkmans stole it. The second item was some silly little thing called a Transrealitator. Supposedly amplified the ability of any mind to transform reality. Nothing much really.”

 

Jas shook her head. “A Transrealitator is a device that neither we living gods or the Translords or other powerful Multiversal beings allow to be created except under unique circumstances. Who was foolish enough to create one and… you did it, you created it and then just let it be stolen, just like that, by the Darkman.”

 

The voice sounded bored. “So what if I did. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Oh, the last thing was a… now what was it again… something shiny and… something shiny inside a globe I think. Yes!”

 

Jas groaned. “I hope you are not going to say what I fear you are going to say.”

 

The voice laughed. “Oh silly old me, yes it was a Corekey to the Symbiosphere. You know I can’t even remember how I got it. What is your favourite colour?”

 

Jas sighed. “Bad but not as bad as it could be. There are thirteen Corekeys. One is prime but the true nature of that one is triple disguised, or so it is said. So how are my friends?”

 

The voice sounded bored. “Oh they are just dandy. You can go to them. I don’t want to talk to you no more.”

 

Jas felt the invisible presence leave and then, with a sparkling shimmer, a telegate booth appeared in front of her. But first she went to the dead scientists and they became various forms of elementals who at once set out together to see how they could explore and perhaps improve that bizarre place.

 

Jas stepped into the telebooth and vanished with a shimmering.

 

 

Continued in EIGHTY-FIVE

[Maharg67]

EIGHTY-FIVE

 

Red Sonja and the Ironsides with her found the vast metallic chamber where the two and a half million folk who had been in NeoWashington had lain in SSS-capsules. Now they were all over the place trying to come to terms with what was happening, trying to recover from trauma, trying to survive.

 

He stood looking in astonishment up at the great SSS-cylinders that rose high, each with SSS-capsules and their platforms sticking out the side like spokes. What really astonished were the vast thick crowds of people reaching out into the far distance.

 

The two and a half million people were in need of goods and services. They had on their SSS-suits which were surprisingly comfortable and lightly armoured but on the awkward side because they were dotted with mechanisms. They were not designed to be used to move around in. The people were happier that they had got away from the nightmare but they were hungry, thirsty and had other unmet needs.

 

Red Sonja walked amongst them and every time he touched one of them their suits changed, with a sparkling shimmer, into survival power armour with some nice extra gadgets. That person would touch one other and the effect was soon spreading through out the population but not fast enough.

 

It was then that a phantom figure appeared, translucent and tall in bronze robes. Red Sonja knew at once it was a Vriaza’Yio, that is a merchant of the Yio, the nomads of time-space. Red Sonja went at once to this one and spoke while around them the people fell back in confusion. “Greetings proud and fair merchant. Can credit of the Hunt of Justice be extended to these people in need?”

 

“Of course!” The entity bowed. “My list of goods is but basic now. I can offer you credit of 100,000. Will that do?”

 

Red Sonja nodded. “A good start at least. May I view the listings in my mind. Yes, basic and somewhat odd in some choices but more than useful. Are free samples available?”

 

A man came up to Red Sonja wearing survival power armour. He was an oriental yellow man, youthful but not young and his eyes, as was normal there, were full of past suffering. “We, all two and a half million, five hundred and twenty-two thousand of us, are unified now through a secondary mind. Red Sonji freed us but we were building up to a rebellion thanks partly to the help of the programming itself of NeoWashington. What goods are offered?”

 

Red Sonja shrugged. “At one Yio tradecredit each we have a backpack, a carpentry hammer, a wood axe, a coil of five metres of rope, a dozen long burning candle-torches, a waterbag, a dozen basic sacks, a blanket, a dozen litres of lamp oil, two dozen climbing spikes, a dozen fish-hooks, a dozen rolls of white bandage, a general purpose knife with basic scabbard, a fire-lighter kit, two dozen wooden stakes, two dozen sheets of parchment paper, a pen-pencil kit, one single-day-person ration kit which is enough rations for one adult for one day including water, and two dozen paper rolls, being most likely toilet paper. At two Yio tradecredits each is a handlamp that uses the oil as already mentioned. At three Yio tradecredits is a musical horn. At four Yio tradecredits is a musical lute. At five Yio tradecredits is a musical harp and a new pair of fitted boots. At ten Yio tradecredits is a tent for five adults with some elbow room and a new set of clothes to fit including hat, shirt, pants or skirt, undershirt or bratop and socks. Special and separate are potions to be used with great care at one Yio tradecredit for a slotbox of four vials; these are healing, sedative, anaesthetic, antiburn, antirad, antitoxin, antivenin and sleeping.”

 

The man nodded and smiled. “With 100,000 tradecredit and so much needed, well that is just welcome. My name is Beran Han. We are forming a council to decide on future purchases and trade but right now we need all 100,000 spent on rations. None of us are returning to NeoWashington.”

 

Red Sonja reached out and gripped the man’s hand. “Know what I know and be able now to do some of the things that I can do, at least for a few hours. I am a living demigod of high power for my kind.”

 

Beran looked surprised. “So just how do we get to this new NeoWashington if we do not use the SSS-capsules? That is now that NeoWashington is actually part of this greater world of North America.”

 

She turned and pointed to the base of the nearest great SSS-cylinder and at a series of smaller and bigger doors. “One of those will now be marked SSS-Telebooth. There will be three at the base of each great cylinder tower and others around. Send many of your people back to NeoYork where they can live safer, with normal independence of movement and free will. There are simply too many of you here to look after for now. I suggest you leave about a hundred thousand people to work through out the caverns and take equipment and supplies from NeoWashington. NeoWashington will now have less resources pouring in from what might have seemed to be almost magic once. It is difficult to explain but the people of NeoWashington will need to start doing actual work instead of being involved in the Darkman’s pain games.”

 

Beran grinned. “Very good then but most will need therapy and time off for restorative rest.” He lost his grin. “We have all suffered by now I see from you that so were those in the hellscape of North America. It has been a common belief amongst us NeoWashington folk that others must have suffered less.”

 

“Such comparisons are pointless.” Red Sonja nodded. “The new USA will need your people and NeoWashington. There are great big bunkerplexes in this area that are empty but fully equipped with auto-robotic network-systems. Enjoy the new NeoWashington with its wildlife, its green belts, its big parks, its great big pleasure complexes, its beaches, its amusement parks, its café strips and much else. Oh, there is the nature reserve ring and agricultural ring at its border. I fully intend to visit there myself. I must go now.”

 

Beran nodded. “The Darkman will have lost much of his power now that he can not torment us and tap our energies.”

 

“That is what should have happened but it did not.” Red Sonja stretched and yawned. “Now we have to find out why. Do not forget defence, security and intelligence efforts.”

 

They parted ways. The Ironsides Mercenaries who had come with her protested when she asked them to stay with these recently rescued people but she could sense they were secretly relieved. It had been hard going even for her but they were exhausted.

 

Now she would call only upon her intrinsic abilities.

 

Red Sonja plunged into the unknown.

 

Continued in EIGHTY-SIX

[Herculine]

Wow....this continues to be excellent. I'm in awe...

[Maharg67]

Thank you, Herculine, as always for your wonderful feedback. Do you like the vehicle, a hummer from an earlier Fallout game?

[Herculine]

Thank you, Herculine, as always for your wonderful feedback. Do you like the vehicle, a hummer from an earlier Fallout game?

 

The Hummer is nice, but a bit too masculine for my tastes. I think I would prefer a heavily armored VW Rabbit. :biggrin: