DC WASTELAND RISING

[Maharg67]

EIGHTY-SIX

 

On that day Red Sonji woke up in Vault-69a and found that the dark creatures were gone, that there had been a revolution and that the harem was no more. There were problems for the vault was under attack by tribal warriors in weird power armour. Red Sonji at once began using his special abilities to support the Vault Dwellers.

 

On that day Red Sonja sprouted wings to glide down a vast shaft a kilometre wide and at least two kilometres deep. The great circular shaft, it was a perfect circle, was walled with machinery, great wide balconies with hundreds of big doors, strange machines and many robots. Some robots were great metallic spiders that moved up and down special areas of the walls.

 

On that day the Enclave opened the great horizontal vault door they had been observing and out of the ground came a robot like that of a Liberty Prime but three times bigger. It was Liberty Ultimate and at once it proclaimed the Enclave to be filthy dirty commies, attacking them with great plasma cannons, multiple smart-missile launchers and robotic turrets dotting its body firing smaller but still powerful plasmaguns, missiles and 40mm autoguns. Even as the great monster hurled itself at the Enclave and PanAxis forces, crushing many beneath its great metallic feet, three Liberty Primes followed into battle. These were upgraded with new plasma cannons and missile launchers along with robotic turrets. These also declared they were defending the USA against the evils of communism. Then came Liberty Basics, each a Liberty Prime like robot but about the size of a typical stupid mutant, they carried 20mm autoguns or miniguns or plasmaguns suited to their size. A great and terrible battle began to rage across that part of Point Lookout. The irony was, of course, that there wasn’t a communist to be found in the whole region.

 

On that day 1Dog departed deeper into the depths of bunkers below Hub-002.

 

On that day 2Dog represented his initial briefing to the main report to the US Presidium including President Suzanne Ubama. The conclusion was that the work on the main report would have to start again thanks to the appearance of new vital data but that many briefings and dossiers had been prepared for use by politicians, public servants and others.

 

On that day 3Dog announced future plans to begin GNTV, Galaxy News 3DTV broadcasting channels, but it was to be a long term plan. 2Kitty announced the starting of a radio channel focussing on educational lectures and documentaries.

 

On that day 1Kitty entered a hidden telebooth, a temporary set-up for construction purposes that somebody had forgotten to have removed with out a trace. She reappeared deep below ground in a very strange bunker.

 

On that day the AntAgonizer led a great army of giant ants against reavers, mutated human raiders like twisted berserkers of incredible rage, and in a terrible battle she destroyed them. They had been on their way to the DC Wastelands from the south. Observers noted giant projectile hurling ants bigger than Prewar atomic sedans and other flying-ants strafing the reavers from the air with dozens of metallic darts. Armed only with typical raider weapons and armour, the reavers didn’t stand a chance.

 

On that day a BofS patrol in four atomic powered hummers, heavy armoured four wheel drive vehicles, were heading through the Fairfax Ruins when it was attacked by stupid mutants. But now they wore bizarre power armour and all carried heavy weaponry. With them came DryOnes, the land living version of the aquatic DeepOnes, rushing into battle in plated energy-armour and strange energy-swords, one in each clawed hand, that spat pulses of energy or sliced, stabbed into power armour. The BofS Armatroopers fought bravely, fought well and took many a damned enemy with them to their graves.

 

On that day the Mechanist and his bizarre army of robots, a mixture of standard, altered and new types, began a major attack on Armageddon Park. Upgraded protectrons, robotanks, robojets, robobirds, vertibots, sentrybots, MrGutys, MrSlammys, MrSizzles, a couple of Liberty Primes, robotroopers like BofS troopers and androids, lots of android copies of humans and ghouls. Armageddon Park was taken by surprise. Their DC Wastelands wide network of spies and informants had failed to warn them of an attack like this because it was outside the normal factions and population. The Talon Mercenaries went into action with the infamous Talon Fists at their head and many DCTec supplies robots. The fighting was savage and made worse as the weather was far from placid. The Battle of Armageddon Park had begun but soon it would be joined.

 

On that day the PanAxis collapsed and ended inside the moon. At once the Federation began to prepare a major effort to assist the new USA and its own colony of Freedoma.

 

On that day Bill Doors, the highly wealthy, powerful and influential DCTec Chairman, openly declared that the corporation would not longer supply goods and services to Armageddon Park or any other slavers, raiders or any other such customers. At once a bitter internal struggle began through out DCTec and factions side with or against Bill Doors. As this happened dark secrets of DCTec research and development projects began to emerge into the open. The name of the Darkman emerged prominently.

 

On that day Bobby Bob penetrated the Subwayer Union easily and smoothly even as he knew he was being followed.

 

On that day the Darkman and his new army attacked the great fortress city of Cragulagazazanto. DryOnes, WingOnes and other creatures attacked his army in great numbers including monstrous GiantOnes, great hulking humanoids of very thick armoured skin hurling great fireballs. But the Darkman called forth a new ally, an ancient enemy of the Malevae. The Doomravae were once powerful OldOnes but the Malevae had thrown them down. Now the Doomravae emerged suddenly again as great monstrous humanoid figures with goat horns or burning skulls or other such features. Cyborg Demon Lords led their armies firing energy-rockets of savage power and energy pulses from their goat like horns as they strode on goat like legs. Cyborg spiders fired huge gattling-plasmaguns while smaller, more common Cyborg spiders fired plasmaguns. Others came from reanimated cyborg humans armed with a wide range of weapons to fast flying flaming skulls to lesser but still big cyborg demons and both red-brown fireball throwing imps and great biting rushing daejaws. The ancient city shuddered and inside its many slaves began a great preplanned revolt led by the Darkman.

 

On that day Jasmine in Megaton House observed Orbis peacefully absorb Megaton into its protection.

 

On that day Jasmine in the USAW stepped out of a telebooth with Dogmeat, Fawkes and Catherine. Except there really was no USA in waiting, it was a falsehood, and Catherine vanished while the others fell through the air towards great sharp spikes of the floor of the stone cavern. Even as they did monstrous giant radwasps swarmed up to meet and kill them in the hundreds.

 

On that day a very large force of BofS came eastwards towards Crosswayne travelling fast in hummers, APCs and other wheeled or tracked machines. There were over five hundred vehicles and robotic vehicles with vertibirds and helibirds flying overhead to give aerial protection. Many hummers towed armoured supply trailers or big weapons or even special armoured caravans.

 

On that day Jade killed Lady Slayer only to find out there was far more than one Lady Slayer.

 

On that day Jaylee saved the President’s life when two doppelgangers got as far as her apartment front door. Jaylee killed one and the other suicided. But these were not Enclave doppelgangers despite the apparent look of it as Jaylee proved through an investigation of the dead doppelganger DNA. Some other force was cloning doppelgangers apart from the Enclave.

 

On that day Jas found her companions when she joined them in a seemingly endless 3Dmaze of transparent and mirrored surfaces where one had to find basic survival outposts to stay alive and fight various well known monsters be they super mutants, raiders, Enclave Stormtroopers or even such as DeepOnes. The enemies faded away when they died and they were not hard to kill. The mad voice did not talk to them but sometimes it muttered to itself in the background or sang odd little tunes to itself.

 

On that day the Sisterhood of Compassion began to move its Wastelander Assistance Outposts and those in them on self-help and welfare schemes, to Freedoma, to Bunkertown, to Paradise Deep and to Vaultburg, the latter two being greatly changed for the better. Wastelanders of course chose their own destinations or went elsewhere, but very few went elsewhere mainly because they had no where else to go.

 

On that day a large force of Brother Protectors willingly took up the role as an auxiliary division of the new United States Defence Force.

 

On that day a major change began to sweep through all the ghouls in the Underworld as they became ‘human’ appearing or otherwise ‘fixed’ to suit their desires within reasonable limits.

 

On that day Sarah Lyons discovered, along with Knight Captain Gallows, that her father, the great Elder Lyons, was a traitor not just to the Brotherhood of Steel but to all of humanity, to the whole of the DC Wastelands, and it broke her heart.

 

On that day things were coming to a close, to a great big dramatic climax.

 

Continued in EIGHTY-SEVEN

[Maharg67]

EIGHTY-SEVEN

 

Sarah Lyons darted down the passageway between armaglassed display cases where waxdroid androids stood pristine clean and frozen. Each had three buttons on a basic console in front of it to get the historical figure to do something, to pause or to stop so one had to start again. There were the US Presidents on one side and famous historical leaders from other parts of the world. Napoleon with his hand in his jacket next to his horse, Washington in the boat with his men, Hitler saluting the masses, Queen Victoria in her amazing dress and many more.

 

The chambers were kept clean by robots but they were only dimly lit. There were security robots, being protectrons, but they were all deactivated in their cylinder-bays. There were turrets but they were drawn up into ceiling recesses. The danger was in the form of Brotherhood of Steel soldiers in power armour and the idea of shooting at her own comrades chilled her. Captain Knight Gallows followed quickly behind her, also being in stealth power armour, and then there were three others of the Lyons Pride.

 

Now she was one with Jasmine, was linked with her, she felt a new strength and was not so much pulled between being her father’s daughter and the commander of the primary elite force of the BofS. She had decided that the BofS had to fully join the new USA even if it did as a force in its own right. She now also wanted to bring the Sisterhood of Steel and the Guards of Steel back closer to the BofS. Yet that was all in the future and now she had to focus on arresting or killing her father.

 

They then came to the end of the Famous and Infamous Leaders Display. An android museum guide stood there, a pretty young woman replicant but she was deactivated in her bay. This was a large intersection lobby with its marble pillars and great marble floor.

 

There stood her father who was standing and looking at a large display of an ICBM, one of the thermonuclear MIRV equipped weapons that still sat in secret silo-bunkers in some areas of the USA but none, it seemed, in the DC Wastelands. These atomic rockets were robotic rocketships in their own right and the same design had taken astronauts to the moon and secretly both back to the moon and to Mars.

 

He was not alone but the three bodyguards in armour were at a distance from him, most likely allowing Elder Lyons some chance to do some private contemplating of ideas, of plans. She had to take her chance now to limit bloodshed. Elder Lyons had his back to her.

 

She signalled the others to force the bodyguards to surrender, strode across the marble floor and aimed her laser-pistol at the back of her head. Then she spoke. “In the name of the Brotherhood of Steel, I arrest you for treason. Your being my father makes no difference though I will make sure you have a fair trial and a good defence.”

 

Elder Lyons slowly turned and faced her. To her surprise he was smiling. Then he said, “Excellent! Excellent! You have passed the same kind of brutal test I had to pass when becoming an Elder. I had to try to arrest my father, your grandfather, but he was also innocent. Welcome to Elderhood, if you want it, and please lower that pistol.”

 

She stepped back warily but lowered her pistol and then realised that the other soldiers were all now with out helmets, were all smiling and were certainly not fighting. She holstered her pistol and took her helmet off. She frowned hard at her father. “That was a bloody horrible thing to do.”

 

Elder Lyons nodded. “I punched your poor grandfather in the jaw and he then punched me back but we both got over it. Feel free!”

 

So she did, taking him by surprise!

 

Moments later, rubbing his jaw and looking bemused, he led her through hallways of the 1950s to 1970s, past many waxdroid displays, motor vehicles, robots, washing-machines and much else.

 

She spoke. “Why haven’t we looted this lot?”

 

“Because we have to leave something for our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren to look at and to know. We have special reason to examine the special military display zone, Elder Sarah Lyons. I have spoken to Marshal Cran of the Sisterhood of Steel and she wants you to be their elder along with that of other forces and divisions. I will continue to be the Elder of Lyons Citadel. I suggest you give Lyons Pride over to a new Marshal and continue to have it as one of your responsibilities but from a higher position.”

 

They walked past an early protectron prototype that was bigger and clumsier than a protectron. There was a policetrons, a police version of a protectron that was only being distributed in Washington DC when everything went to hell.

 

She spoke. “These waxdroids have only limited actions and programming, I suppose.”

 

He shook his head. “No, far from it. Madam Tussauds wanted versatility so it could change displays more easily and have its display waxdroids take part in small drama pieces for the public or even go in public parades. Except that we now know that the waxdroids are all part of the Symbiosphere. We are trying to find a way of destroying this Symbiosphere if we have to do so.”

 

“Not even the US President knows what we are doing and it is best if it stays this way. As for Rothchild, the Chief Scribe, he has become bothersome in some of his demands. He considers that we should try to regulate this Symbiosphere and put it to use. Yet there is a greater concern. I have become aware that a change is taking place through out humans in the DC Wastelands. Humans are becoming… different somehow. The Enclave clones have a joint secondary mind and we now know that there are others like them. Then there are these living gods, these living goddesses such as Jasmine from Vault-101. There is one Jasmine in Megaton who rarely leaves that house of hers, another Jasmine somewhere, Jaylee in Bunkertown, Jade who is somewhere, Jas the child who is somewhere. There is 3Dog, 2Dog and 1Dog. I never did trust 3Dog much; he is too much of a showman and now it turns out he came from the moon. 1Kitty and 2Kitty, cute names but they are dangerous. The Mysterious Stranger whose current location is a mystery. Red Sonja and Red Sonji who also have vanished somewhere. Our people can not find them anywhere. We must take care that the FBI or the CSIA learn nothing with out us picking up on it.”

 

They walked past a robolegger with the upper half of a man sticking out of it, being a waxdroid of course. The device was a prototype invention for those who could not walk but new regenerative and bionics made them not necessary.

 

“Our people?” She gave him an odd look. “We are allied to the new USA.”

 

Elder Lyons nodded. “For now! The Subwayers have many mutant strains, many mutant minorities amongst them. The Knights of Atom, the Psyabalists, those damned Clanhunters who can easily match even Lyons Pride not to mention vampires. Who can really trust them or those from Vaultburg or from Paradise Deep or those Lunarites?”

 

Sarah Lyons nodded. “True but nobody in North America can said to be genetically clean, not even the Vault Dwellers thanks to various VaultTec experiments. Vault-101 people perhaps but even then, who can say for certain? It’s not what people are that matters, with some few exceptions such as murderous Enclave clones, but what they do. A vampire that does good is better to have around than a so called genetically pure human who does bad, don’t you agree?”

 

Then they were approaching what looked very much like a VaultTec armoured door. In letters on the front, in VaultTec style, was written SPECIAL MILITARY EXHIBITION: OPENING DATE TO BE DECLARED.

 

But there never was an opening date and perhaps there was never meant to be an opening date.

 

The big door rolled, rumbled to one side, and they went through. Only she and Elder Lyons did and the other Brothers of Steel staid behind.

 

They walked into a big odd shaped room like a globe that had been flattened moderately and had armaglass windows placed around most of its middle. Elder Lyons led her into the middle, to a metal disk. He spoke. “My dear, we all need to have a special set of scans done to be allowed in. Even me, Elder Owyn Lyons, have to be so checked, which is rather annoying.”

 

Green and blue beams suddenly spat out at the two of them and they glowed. Sarah Lyons felt very uncomfortable as she sensed this and other more discrete probes being done on her.

 

A metallic voice spoke. “You are now cleared, Elder Owyn Lyons but we need to do more scans on your daughter. Please relax, Marshal Sarah Lyons. This will not take long.”

 

Which was when a silvery beam spat out from the ceiling and gripped Sarah Lyons, holding her firmly in one position.

The metallic voice spoke again. “Sarah Lyons, you are genetically contaminated to the point of being a hybrid or worse. Indeed you may be a living goddess or something of that nature. Not only will you not be accepted as an Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel but you are now rejected as a member of the Brotherhood of Steel.”

 

And a chair slid out through a door, a metallic hoverchair, and in it was Marshal Ironsides of the Ironsides Mercenaries. Except that is he was wearing the gear of an Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel.

 

He spoke with his own voice now. “When Elder Owyn Lyons was sent here to Washington DC it was decided that besides those who came openly here, there would be those who came covertly. So I came here with many soldiers disguised as groups of mercenaries and camp followers. For years we lay low, secretly fighting raiders, super mutants and later on the Talon Mercenaries and the Enclave. The Ironsides Mercenaries were born.” He stepped out of the hoverchair. “Red Sonja gave back my ability to walk and I thank her for that but it was most difficult to stop her from reading the truth inside me, very difficult. Then she found Vault-301, or at least the part that was supposed to be in control, that now calls itself Vaultville.”

 

He went on. “In truth I am Elder Henry Ironsides of the Elder Council of the Brotherhood of Steel based in the Lost Hills on the West Coast of the former USA. We are of the Old Ways that your father pretended to turn against so he could help the DC Wastelanders. Of course when the reinforcements arrive from the now much larger Brotherhood of Steel forces to the west, we will go back to our old ways.”

 

“No!” Elder Owyn Lyons shook his head. “No, we will not do so. You see, Elder Ironsides, while we have been busy here in the DC Wastelands a change took place in the West Coast Brotherhood of Steel. For many years now they have been openly and consistently helping Wastelanders. They have sent forces to assist the New California Republic on three occasions and now the NCR has gained many technologies from the BofS that previously we kept from them. Why? Because the old ways were not working. Our very insularity and small numbers stopped us from gaining technologically. We were keeping out many highly intelligent and creative thinkers”

 

“What started the change? It was when we found a small group of well hidden super mutants of a very exotic kind. They had over sized brains and many problems. We ended up showing them mercy, helped them find good health, a caring foster family, friends and they helped us with various technological breakthroughs. They caused us to realise that we had been neglecting many aspects of technologies, that we had become too narrow, too biased, in our thinking. Those three girls and two boys are in status-pods now waiting for somebody to find a cure for them.”

 

Elder Ironsides gave Elder Lyons an odd look.

 

Elder Owyn Lyons went on. “I found also that I liked helping people. I liked the feeling of protecting the DC Wastelands and that my people also did so. When the Outcasts broke away they took all the internal conflict with them. Now even they as the Guards of Steel have been forced to change their ways.” He pulled out his laser-pistol and pointed it at Elder Henry Ironsides.

 

Elder Ironsides frowned heavily. “You still have concerns about the corruption of human primes. I was listening to you speak to your daughter as you came through the hallways to this place.”

 

Elder Lyons snorted. “That was for your ears and to test my daughter. I agree with her now that a vampire or super mutant or ghoul that does good is better than a so called human prime that does evil.”

 

Suddenly Elder Ironsides grinned. “Well, you can put your laser-pistol down. I agree with you. There is no point in going against the tide, no point in fighting such powerful forces. Lower your weapon and let us discuss how we can best accommodate these changes.”

 

Elder Lyons nodded. “Yes, change is one thing that never changes.” He lowered his laser-pistol.

 

Elder Ironsides pulled out a MAC10 10mm submachinegun and aimed it at the other Elder. “You have always been weak, Owyn, always weak. I know that even back west you were sending people out to secretly save Wastelanders and that you betrayed the BofS by sending medical technological secrets to the damned NCR. I knew it but it suited my purposes at the time not to inform on you to the Elder Council.”

 

Elder Lyons shook his head as an ironic gesture. “It was the Elder Council who ordered me to direct those secret operations and to send that technology to the NCR. Even back then they were starting to realise the need for a good ‘hearts and minds’ program. Wastelanders find out secrets and are more prone to reporting to them if they know we are protecting and helping them in other ways.”

 

But the other Elder was not listening. He turned even as another door opened and into the chamber stepped the Darkman; not the core Darkman but a close second. The Darkman smiled coolly and spoke coolly. “Come and have a look at the ‘exhibition’! You took NeoWashington from me but I suspected that would happen and was always prepared. Please free Sarah Lyons; she may be an aspect of the Goddess of the Symbiosphere but in this place I am in charge for I created it back in Prewar times.”

 

The blue beam ceased and Sarah stepped forward but she did nothing against the Darkman except speak to him. “Even as I speak we are infiltrating Wonderland!”

 

He smiled even more. “The Dark Maiden uses Wonderland to supply her with energies, that is the one you know as Catherine Ashworth. She is an enemy of mine. Damage her and you assist my cause. Go right ahead!”

 

He led the others through a big door and along a metallic hallway. Then they were in a great chamber. There were big raised disk shaped platforms raised a metre or so from the main floor and ringed with consoles except for some ramps down to the main floor. Humans in special cyber-suits and androids were busy at work along with robots of various kinds.

 

Sarah spoke then. “This is the real command point for Vault-301.”

 

The Darkman grinned. “Yes but also more than that. The Enclave back then was under my control. They were deep inside the US military and they shifted many resources to this secret project. They got something from it, of course, but I got far more than they did.”

 

He strode across the big metal chamber and the others followed, Elder Ironsides now being in his hoverchair.

 

Continued in EIGHTY-EIGHT

[Maharg67]

EIGHTY-EIGHT

 

Field Marshal Divina, the replacement for Marshal Ajax, was indicating the big newly finished holomap in the War Room. It showed not only the DC Wastelands but areas bordered to it and even bordered to those. “The holomap is lit up with ref flashes indicating conflicts in progress. Apart from the major attacks on the Enclave forces at Point Lookout and the Lunarite colony of Freedoma, the attacks seem quite random, almost haphazard as if groups of monsters are out seeking trouble.”

 

Freedoma was under attack by a large amphibious force of aquatic super mutants and Deep Ones along with giant squid called kraken. The Freedoma forces waited for the enemy to come up onto shore to wipe them out with massed smart-mines, autoguns, lasers, pulseguns and other weaponry. Prewar coastal defence gun batteries had been repaired, upgraded and set into action. Vertibirds, vertijets and antigrav craft zipped over the sea shooting pulsebeams down through the water and specialised dive-missiles.

 

The Great Enclave Fleet at Point Lookout was fighting similar creatures as Enclave robosubs, subfighters and other machines battled the enemy alongside cyborg crocodine, mutated crocodile monsters. Depth charges crashed into the waves in volley after volley while smart-torpedoes tracked and blew up kraken. The Enclave and PanAxis forces there are also being attacked by massive land forces. We have strange reports of a Liberty Primes, smaller versions of Liberty Prime and a single much larger version of Liberty Prime all attacking the Enclave. The big mobile base they sent inland has been destroyed as have nearly twenty percent of their forces.”

 

Firefights had broken out across the DC Wastelands as monsters from the depths of the earth fought US Alliance forces. Brother Protectors, Sisters Compassionate, Sisters of Steel, Brothers of Steel, National Guards and anybody who was available to do the fighting.

 

“We had a time of relative peace but now it is gone.” The US President spoke from where she sat at the raised ring overlooking the holomap. She was looking and feeling much better than she had been since the teleportation effort had saved her life. “Yet in that time we managed to do much and we gained many new resources. We are finding many new bunkers here in Bunkertown. We are finding and utilising facilities in Vault-301, which is vast and mostly likely many vaults, bunkers and other places just placed under the one name. The United States in Waiting turned out to be an illusion put together by Catherine Ashworth, alias the Dark Maiden, in her attempt to kill Jasmine. Scouts have found what were about a thousand preprogrammed clones who thought it was all true.”

 

Marshal Ajax then pointed south of Paradise Falls. “The great bizarre army of the Symbiosphere came to this point. They are gathered there but we do not know what they are doing because none of our scouts or probes or anything can get close enough of discover the truth. None are harmed though but just gently but firmly pushed back by amazing invisible forces.”

 

Jaylee came striding quickly into the chamber and up to stand on the ring platform. Nobody tried to stop her. She spoke. “There is concerning news. The Lunar People’s Democratic Federation are unable to send us reinforcements because they are under attack by Zetan Imperial Space Forces who have no less than three motherships and two battlesaucers supporting many saucerships and saucerboats. The Zetans are dropping zelenite soldiers and machines to attack their ancient enemies, the selenites, in the moon. An interesting truth has been exposed. The ancient selenites did betray the zelenites but the zelenites were planning the same trickery. It only turned out that the selenites were better at it and struck first. Selenites feel much better about that and have even offered peace with the zelenites. The zelenite response was that peace would only be accepted over the dead body of the very last selenite. None of this is coincidence but has been preplanned for a very long time or so we compute now. Yet hope is not lost, far from it.”

 

Field Marshal Divina did not sound convinced. “The enemy can come up anywhere they choose and surprise attack us.”

 

Jaylee shook her head. “The Lesser OldOnes that come from the ancient deep prison are leaving a transdimensional prison of amazing sophistication and complexity. There are only a very limited number of ways they can get out and where they can appear and this is partly also because of the Darkman who has had a robotic army endlessly building deep underground structures. We had assumed they were all of the nature of bunkers, subways, vaults, power stations and such like and many have been but about half, at least half, is a vast barrier to help stop any of the Malevae or the Lesser OldOnes from escaping from Hades. We also considered that the deep artificial underworld would be empty. The truth is that there is a vast army of clones, robots and other things down there assisting the barrier to stop anything but the Darkman and his followers from escaping from the ancient prison. But that has nothing to do with the hope.”

 

She turned to the President.

 

Ubama nodded. “The Brotherhood of Steel is coming from the west and its first units have arrived at Crosswayne.”

 

Field Marshal Divina spoke. “How many are coming?”

 

“All of them except a large garrison and research team based in the Lost Hills. The New California Republic is expanded into much of the older BofS territories.” The President shook her head. “I can hardly believe it myself but they are coming in experimental hoverships, skyships and new kinds of airships as well as great convoys of vehicles including massive atomic powered track-trains each which is over a hundred metres long with great segments each on mighty tracks. The NCR has its own new airfleet thanks partly to the BofS and its new desire to assist and even become allied to Wastelander factions. Oh, yes, they are invading Crosswayne for the USA and will occupy it because we need it as a food bowl, we need to end slavery there and, frankly, we are sick of the attitude of the arrogant, corrupt and greedy leaders of Crosswayne. The NCR is unable to assist and that is understandable because they have feral ghouls, raiders and other threats to deal with.”

 

Divina spoke. “Are they fully with the USA?”

 

“They are because they have come to consider that we are at the focus of discovering old technological secrets and developing new ones.” The US President responded. “There are other BofS factions in other parts of the former USA but they have become splintered from the original BofS based in the Lost Hills. Some have gone rogue, others are too focused on local tasks to assist and at least a couple have vanished. Odd changes have taken place with a few: the Ghouls of Steel who were BofS who underwent ghoulification, Lords of Steel who have taken control of a set of islands off the south-west coast of the mainland, Borgs of Steel who are now full cyborgs and no longer in power armour and Followers of Steel who have become a true but twisted religious faith. Oh, yes, the Steel Mutants, some BofS who were processed into super mutants but for some unknown reason, retained much of their old selves.”

 

The Field Marshal was obviously not fully convinced. “The new USA is still fragile. While it is true that we badly need assistance, we also need to know that the BofS Elders will not try to impose their rule on us.”

 

Jaylee spoke this time. “They don’t have that sort of power. As the Enclave is learning with Point Lookout, and as many have learned through out history, it is one thing to conquer a place but another to be able to keep it. Also they need us because our big enemies are their big enemies.”

 

The US President then spoke. “There is other hope that was kept secret even from me until fairly recent.” Then she explained the strange nature of what Bunkertown was really a part of, a vast multifold dimensional pocket realm with not only many bunkers but vast life supporting cave systems and even big cavernlands. She spoke of the great population down there, of the very many who wanted to be part of the new USA as long as they were accepted as they were. Clonehumans, beastfolk and many other kinds of people. Then she spoke of the Guardian peoples at the Rim of Hades who were happy to become allies to the USA if it meant helping to keep the OldOnes trapped down there and dealing with those who had escaped.

 

But it was Jaylee, an older looking Jasmine, who added some very interesting information. “Nobody really knows why the whole mad complex of bunkers appeared or why they appear to be faked as World War Two vintage for the most part or why various people have experienced visions of people in the past when the bunkers are supposedly so new. Now we have learned from massive research and data collection searches through out the DC Wastelands, that there were actual World War Two bunkers in this very spot; they were almost identical to the copies. The events that people experienced as visions, really seemed to have taken place there. The so called Jelly-People are clones of BofS and SofS from those bunkers. But after the jumperships left from there and other hiding spots through out the USA, the Enclave found many of the bunkers and destroyed them, filled them in, hoping to block the jumperships coming back from their forward time travel at least for centuries. That is they figured the jumperships were meant to rematerialize in the very spots they were launched from but they may have been wrong.”

 

She went on speaking. “Some powerful force, natural or otherwise, may have created Bunkertown and the rest of it to make sure those jumperships had safe enough room to reappear. Why, because if one object tries to materialise inside another, it can easily cause catastrophic disturbances that can ripple through a whole world. Perhaps also the jumperships were able to leap only so far forward in time. We may have some very power but very well hidden allies trying to assist us.”

 

“All this is speculation.” Field Marshal Divina responded. “Yet if we can get allied forces to arise from beneath and to join the USA, then why fight it. We need them.”

 

The holomap was still lighting up with new actions but it was only begun.

 

Continued in EIGHTY-NINE

[Maharg67]

EIGHTY-NINE

 

Jasmine had saved them and stood now with Dogmeat and Fawkes in a place she had not expected to appear in. They were not alone in that vast metallic chamber that was shaped like a smoothed out cavern complete with metallic stalagmites and the opposite.

 

1Dog was there, having come from the bunkers ‘beneath’ Bunkertown.

 

Red Sonja was there, having come from beneath the vast chambers holding the SSS-capsules of the NeoWashington people who no longer used them.

 

Red Sonji was there having departed from Vault-69 after Orbis had finished absorbing it and made it safe from the exotic tribal warriors in power armour that were attacking it.

 

Jade was there having killed three Lady Slayers, the others having fled in fear of her.

 

Jasmine spoke as she stood there in power armour. “We did what we had to do. We investigated what we were led to investigate. We did what the Darkman expected us to do. But we also did other things on the way. Even as we moved through various areas and met various peoples, we were breathing out thousands of self-replicating nanozites. My mother spoke to me a lie, that is of the so called real Project Purity that was supposed to be helping the world. The so called real Project Purity does not exist. The Dark Maiden has a project but it could better be called Project Impurity, a desire to unleash millions of self-replicating nanozites to dominate people’s minds through their brains being altered. She even had the nerve to falsely claim that she was assisting us to become more tuned with each other. She snapped her fingers but she had nothing to do with what was happening but only guessed it was taking place.”

 

She went on. “Now there are millions of the nanozites spreading out through the DC Wastelands and other areas. These nanozites have been linking us more closely with the Symbiosphere. We can sense her presence more strongly and she is with us more strongly in an empathic-telepathic sense. What joy was it to see her activate all those mannequins, teddy-bears, giant parade robots and much else knowing that it was partly a real move but largely to decoy people from what she was really doing just as we have been decoying people from our real efforts.”

 

Fawkes nodded. “I did consider you might be up to something more than continuously exploring various ways to get to the Darkman and his past projects. Yet I would ask what else have you been up to for surely there is more.”

 

Dogmeat wolfed three times, which was code for ‘question’.

 

Jasmine nodded. “It is time to remember what we have been suppressing so as to better hide it from our enemies.”

 

“The truth can be hidden behind other truths, or should I say ‘half-truths’? The history of the living gods is a confused one because we are ancient but we are also reborn many times and each time we do so we lose something of our old selves, including our knowledge. It is a price we pay for true rejuvenation. False assumptions can be made, mysteries can arise to remain so while they should be solved and so forth. Question, why did the Darkman try to create the Symbiosphere? The Dark Maiden claims that she manipulated him into it be the Hunt for Justice investigated that possibility long ago and rejected it. My mother is criminally insane, as is now the Darkman. The only saving grace of my birth was that my physical parents were clones programmed to be basically good people so to me my parents were basically good people. The down fall to that was they were secretly programmed to die in one way or another, to seek death. My clone mother secretly took drugs, she didn’t know she was doing it, so she would die in childbirth. My clone father was secretly compelled to commit suicide when there were other options he could have taken. These are terrible crimes committed by the Dark Maiden and the Pale Lord Death and both will be erased from time and space for these and numerous other dark crimes.”

 

She went on speaking. “Why did the Elder Living Gods imprison the Malevae and Lesser OldOnes instead of erasing them from time and space? Was it compassion? The Elder Living Gods were fair minded but hard on evil and the OldOnes had done much evil on over a thousand worlds, brutally killing over a trillion lives in the process and badly effecting the lives of many more than that. So it was expected that the Elder Living Gods would erase the Malevae and their followers from time and space. Soon after they failed to do so other powerful living gods began to take a closer look at the Elder Living Gods only to find out a horrific heart breaking truth. Even we living gods and goddesses can only exist for so long before being totally reborn anew through a massive rejuvenation-rebirth. In a real sense it is our version of death but it is a must. To fight such a destiny leads to a kind of dementia, a growing insanity and even criminal insanity plus other forms of break down. The Elder Ling Gods had refused to ‘die’, to do what we must all do, and were suffering dementia; worse they had become criminally insane.”

 

“The Living Elder Gods vanished but… they didn’t vanish. They have been here all along and it was they who manipulated the Darkman into creating the Symbiosphere using stolen Malevae technologies as its basis. They had manipulated the Malevae also by getting them to go into Hades with the false belief there was a secret escape route, which they soon found out did not exist. They got the Malevae to leave some of their most powerful devices in hidden temples, in truth not a very secure place at all, so that the Darkman could find them to build the Symbiosphere with.”

 

“Problem is that the Living Elder Gods are insane, very insane, and by that I mean far beyond either the Darkman or the Dark Maiden or the Pale Death Rider or Lady Slayer or any others of their kind. Yet they are also amazingly powerful as if their very struggle against the forces of nature has gained them one last boost of power. We have all met them and not known it to be so, especially me.”

 

“There has been a new development. The Nine Living Elder Gods have become splintered: three have now decided that they must become totally renewed, leaving behind their old selves, our kind of death; three have become totally convinced of the opposite path and three are just lost in madness.”

 

“Dogmeat is an insane Living Elder God having reverted to an animal like state found not just as two Dogmeats but as dogs found through out the DC Wastelands. This is why many dogs have not mutated when so many other animals have. Those dogs are actually more genetically pure than the great majority of humans now are.” She stroked Dogmeat’s head. “Mercy will be given to him now and he will continue on as Dogmeat, Living God of Canines, but with some changes.”

 

She took Fawkes’ nearest hand. “I am afraid, my big jolly warrior, that you are another…”

 

Fawkes nodded. “Fawkes now knows the truth that I am an insane Elder Living God but now I wish to go through total renewal and become Fawkes the Living God of Super Mutants. Then I can go and rescue as many foolish super mutants I can from Hades and the influence of any evil be it the Darkman, the Malevae or any other. Do you know the other insane one.”

 

Jas appeared with a sparkling shimmer out of nowhere along with Lucy, MacCready, Ginger, Bandit, Cran, Jones, Tren and a whole lot of teddy-bears. Except now the teddy-bears were transformed in cute metre tall warriors called teddy-ewoks, each of who carried a laser-rifle, a plasma-rifle or an MXM15A3 autocarbine, a more compact version of the MXM16A3 autorifle or a medical bag as a medic. Each also had webbing of leather belts with pouches and other items, a compact leather backpack and a small teddy-bear emblem hanging on a leather thong.

 

Jas spoke out even as she walked towards the others, spoke as if she had been listening to what Jasmine had been saying. “I thought the voice I heard was Alpha-Omega, was the Omega Man gone insane but it was not so. Alpha-Omega is the most powerful one of the three Living Elder Gods gone totally evil.”

 

Jasmine nodded. “The other peacefully insane Living God, or relatively peaceful in the case of Fawkes, is Brailee Ewers who lived in Arefu. She believes she lives in the Prewar District of Columbia and that the world is still that Prewar place. She now lives in Megaton where she happily keeps a small real flower garden and launders, repairs and irons Prewar clothing for a reasonable price.”

 

Fawkes nodded. “Fawkes is now more peaceful but can fight even better than before. What now?”

 

Dogmeat nodded his doggy head, looked up and spoke in a doggy voice. “What now?”

 

With a sparkling shimmer a tougher younger version of Brailee Ewers stepped out of nothingness and stood there in exotic glowing focusi-armour that looked like glowing semitransparent BofS power armour. She had no helmet but carried a round focusi-shield and a focusi-longsword. Focusi meant a focusing of the intrinsic power of the user. The armour was moderately modest.

 

She smiled. “We fight! Call me Barberella Ewers.”

 

Jasmine, Jas, Jade, 1Dog, Red Sonja, Red Sonji and Fawkes shimmered and were suddenly wearing focusi-armour and carrying various kinds of focusi-weapons shaped armour typical Fallout 3 or medieval weapons. Jasmine had a sword and shield, Jas had a four barrelled sawn off shotgun, Jade had a gattling-laser, 1Dog had a sniper-rifle, Red Sonja had sword and shield, Red Sonji had a missile-launcher and Fawkes had a super sledgehammer. The three mortal soldiers had special amour now and multiple weapon endowed guns, big and black but well balanced.

 

Jasmine spoke. “The Living Elder Gods who have chosen to go against the madness have taken up roles of dead characters of fame. The Mechanist, the original having been mauled by a deathclaw, the AntAgonizer and Daring Dashwood who has Argyle with him as his side-kick. The new Mechanist has an army of robots, the new AntAgonizer has an army of mutated ants and the new Daring Dashwood has an army of fighting heroes and heroines. Nothing is what is seems, of course. They are in truth living gods and their extensions, their aspects, but they are more powerful than the real thing would be.”

 

Jas the child took over. “So the evil ones are Alpha-Omega and who?”

 

Jasmine sighed. “We do not know for sure if even he is truly evil.”

 

Jas sighed right back. “Yes, perhaps you are right.”

 

But then Jasmine turned and hurled her sword at Jas. At the last moment Jas sparkle shimmered and vanished. The real Jas fell out of nothingness and rolled to her feet with a soft frown on her child face to catch the sword by the hilt. She threw it lightly back to Jasmine who deftly caught it also by the hilt. “Very good! That damned Omega Man has a cheek pretending to me. How did you guess?”

 

Jasmine looked at Lucy and MacCready, who were looking demure and quiet. “Now, have you ever met such a quiet MacCready before?”

 

MacCready protested. “Oh yes, I can be quiet and all that.”

 

Lucy shook her head. “Not for long you can’t unless you are scared to talk. That Omega Man he is crackling mad and very bad. He says he will live for ever even if it means everybody else in the whole Multiverse has to die.”

 

The real Jas nodded. “He also gave up a secret. The other truly evil Elder Living Gods are the Pale Death Rider and Statesman Alba Diplomori. Except that the real Statesman Alba Diplomori is trapped inside a red sun.”

 

Fawkes spoke then. “The Mysterious Stranger? Who is he really?”

 

At that moment the Mysterious Stranger appeared in his normal guise but he looked bruised and exhausted. He spoke then. “I was sent by the Great Council of the Living Divinities and the Guardian Living Gods to investigate when you Hunt of Justice living gods failed to report in. I could not approach you directly because you were under suspicion of treachery. The real Statesman Alba Diplomori has been freed from the red star but he is being punished for various crimes by being imprisoned in the Phantom Zone. I was tricked by Alpha-Omega into a very cunning trap and have just managed to get out. It will take time for me to recover fully. I am a Guardian Investigator, a living god known truly as Eternius Guardian or just Jack’of’Seeking.”

 

Jasmine smiled at the newcomer. “Really? Most interesting! Except for one little inconsistency I might just believe you. Jack’of’Seeking was my father, my original living god father and so, of course, I have a sense of him as he has of me.” Again she threw her longsword with amazing speed and agility.

 

The ‘Mysterious Stranger’ shimmered and became Lady Slayer, or at least one of them, and slipped to one side. The very fast moving sword turned in mid flight and stabbed through her body. Lady Slayer shuddered, died and dissolved away.

 

The focusi-longsword returned instantly to Jasmine and she slipped it away into its special semitransparent glowing scabbard. “It’s time to go hunting. Not you, Lucy, MacCready, Bandit and Ginger. Cran, Tren and Jones will escort you back to Little Lamplight. I can only teleport you safely so far. Three of the teddy-ewoks will also go with you. Cran, there will be attacks on the Lamplight Caverns, be sure of it. I suggest you coordinate strongly with those in Vaultburg and Vault-87.”

 

Cran nodded. “After all of this weirdness, I think that a normal fight will almost be welcome.”

 

“Sorry Marshal Cran but it may not be so ‘normal’.” Jasmine responded. “We will send what reinforcements and other resources that we can when we can. While you have been here the whole DC Wastelands had become a scattered conflict of small battles and there are major battles raging at Point Lookout and Freedoma. There BofS is coming to the DC Wastelands, nearly all of them from the Lost Hills area, and they are now invading Crosswayne.”

 

Cran sighed. “And here I was thinking that things were getting too dull.”

 

Jasmine smiled. “Good and safe travels.” She waves a hand and those meant to go to Little Lamplight all vanished with a sparkling shimmer.

 

 

Continued in NINTY

[Maharg67]

NINETY

 

Bobby ran along the Subway Station platform as the tentacles waved through the air, glowing and stabbing at him but he weaved amazingly fast and they stabbed into the concrete. Every time this happened concrete would explode dramatically but the station was already a mess for it had not been reclaimed by the Subwayers.

 

He was now looking like a metallic figure, angular and hard, shining gold and silver patterning with no mask visor because he was the metallic armour and it was him. It was no mere suit.

 

A Clanhunter shot 20mm rounds into another, younger tritentaclor recently hatched from a glistening egg but already rapidly glowing. The shooter was excellently skilled and canny enough to shoot and then shift positions sneakily quick. The tentacle exploded.

 

Bobby leapt amazingly high into the air and slammed his pointed fingered hand into a tentacle, his whole body sparkling as with red yellow electricity and the tritentaclor adult died. It had sustained too many blows from him, the Clanhunters and the two Knights of Atom.

 

But there were over two dozen younger monsters that had to be dealt with. Clanhunters could deal with such because they worked together amazingly well. The young monsters were brash, inexperienced and now with out the guidance of any adults. One after another they were killed as they were flamed, blasted or lasered. The Knights of Atom shredded them.

 

Bobby dashed through two of them, ripping them with his hands, disintegrating them. These were creatures with out mercy that killed people in a horrific manner after tormenting them first. Otherwise they struck fast and fled just as quick when facing superior numbers.

 

Bobby scooped up a dead tritentaclor and scooped it into a big plastic receptacle. The Subwayer scientists wanted badly to study the nature of these things especially because already they were starting to dissolve into a nasty green mist. He now looked like a collage student again though with a leather jacket now. He looked young and fresh faced except for the polarised wrap-around sunglasses.

 

Sir Sivane was studying him as she stood there glowing in her special armour. “You looked like that when you vanished over two hundred years ago into one of those slot-shelters?”

 

“Yes but for the sunglasses and this particular jacket. Also I had no laser-pistol holstered at my side! The OldOnes tried to kidnap us but the Guardians diverted us to the Rim. Life was hard but it could have been far worse.” He paused while staring into the air but then turned to her, looking at her through dark sunglasses. “We have found ways to lead a richer life and the original Guardians have helped us just as we have helped them in some ways. My task here is complete. I will go to Rivet City and then return to Hades.”

 

The Knight of Atom nodded. “We wish to know more about you and your people, about life down there at the Rim of Hades.”

 

He smiled. “You are trying to delay me for some reason. Somebody else wants to talk with me.”

 

“Yes but so do we; I was not lying.” Sir Sivane responded. “The living goddess who goes by the name Jasmine, I think she wishes to talk with you.”

 

But Bobby shook his head. “The Guardian High Council would not want me to communicate with any living god even if they are supposedly good. We imprison the OldOnes because the Elder Living Gods had us do so and for a great while the original Guardians assumed the Elder Living Gods to be both good and wise. But then they learned from captive OldOnes trying to escape from Hades that the Elder Living Gods had become corrupted with evil and had made a secret agreement with the OldOnes, even the horrors of the Malevae, to free them one day. Wheels inside wheeling, cunning manipulating cunning and darkness hiding more darkness. We Guardians have become not to trust others.”

 

“Should you trust the original Guardians of the Rim?” The Paladin of Atom responded. “Can they be trusted?”

 

“Once we would have doubted them but they do not just fight any stray OldOnes. Agents of the Darkman came to them and tried to bribe them, to trick them, and they sent those agents back unharmed.” Bobby shrugged. “Unharmed but frightened. It is true that the original GofR have various factions. We new Guardians trust the New Reformers Faction more than we do the others, especially the Orthodox Olders. The New Reformers Faction holds the majority of Grand Council Seats and the representatives of the new Guardians assist that majority.”

 

He frowned. “Of more concern is that the Darkman’s new army is smashing its way through the ancient prison. Three great fortress cities have fallen to it and eighteen lesser cities along with many warrens, nests, villages and castles. Being nothing if not treacherous, many Lesser OldOnes have flocked to his cause as the Darkman threatens the Malevae themselves. Cthulhu himself has gathered up his mightiest monsters, cloned beasts who are smaller versions of himself, and is leading a great army of Lesser OldOnes to confront the Darkman at a place called ‘the Endless Weeping Sores of Everlasting Terror of the Wallowing Turtle’. As you can tell it doesn’t translate very well into any human language.”

 

She shook her head. “Doesn’t sound bad.”

 

“Five seconds there has sent most mortal minds into life long insanity.” Bobby shrugged. “I went there once, spent an hour or so, but mostly I found it a bit boring. I mean having to burn away all those hungry mind devouring insect like things, well it got repetitive. So I burned away a few thousand of them and left. I was there to give them a warning to never approach the Rim again. They didn’t!”

 

“You say that so casually!” She took out a hand-computer from a pouch. “Can you please give me your original name and Citizen Identification Code. I just want to see what our records have on you. Hardly going to be anything that will tell me about the Guardianship of the Rim of Hades.”

 

He grinned. “Just tell that young Psyabalist woman to stop trying to gently probe the edges of my mind. The OldOnes are psychic in their own nasty alien fashion and we new Guardians picked up how to deal with that.”

 

She sighed. “I told her it was not going to work.” She gave a subtle hand signal. “But the young will often not listen. She wants you to know that she would be pleased to offer you some healing, some true rest from your constant pain.”

 

Bobby looked startled. “So she got deeper than I assumed. Perhaps I am too used to the evil intentions of the OldOnes and this… this caring empathy is new to me. She can not help me. I call myself Bobby Bobs of the Bobs Network Family of original and new Guardians. My original name is… is… I have not spoken this for a very long time… is Bobby Anderson Sinclair and my ID Code was 5465-KJ1-568-HUJ-098. I lived at 34H New Washington Avenue. It was a small mansion really, one of those odd mansion duplexes made from an older subdivided mansion. We had half the old mansion gardens. It was a big extended family. I was a brown sheep and was unlikely to get any real inheritance so I was going to collage to give myself a living and to avoid being conscripted. I doubt any of the Sinclairs survived though we did have a fairly deep basement shelter.”

 

The Knight of Atom looked up at him and nodded. “Your mother is one Ursula Ruth Sinclair, your older sister is one Mandy Sally Sinclair and your younger sister is one Stella Anne Sinclair. They are all alive and in the Ghoul Underworld. It seems they and a few others got to the basement bunker but fell to ghoulification.”

 

He stared at her for a time before speaking. “So long ago, so very long ago, I was Bobby Bob or Boggy as my little sister would call me. One can never go home.”

 

Sir Sivane responded. “Your name is on the Seeking Missing Persons List. Seems your mother had your name put on it as soon as she found out about the list. Sisterhood of Compassion is running the network along with the USFG.”

 

“People have changed somehow.” He responded. “Subtle psychic shifting. The Guardians of the Rim will want to know about this. Perhaps I should stay longer but first I must report. It should only take a couple of seconds”

 

He sat with his back to a concrete pillar, sat with cross legged, and planted a gem against his forehead. It staid there and throbbed with a soft glowing pattern. It took a lot longer than a couple of seconds.

 

Continued in NINETY-ONE

[Maharg67]

NINETY-ONE

 

Major General Masterdane stood proudly in his military uniform of fine clean cloth and dusted off his golden epilates and looked out from the concrete wall towards the distant horizon. He grinned with confidence. He was a little on the fat side, he had to admit to himself, but was positive he would make a fine fighter if he had to. True he only got the command of the Border Guards because nobody took them seriously. They were about five hundred poorly trained, poor armed and often drunken or drugged men with a sprinkling of women who were, to be truthful, cheap prostitutes for their male comrades.

 

Masterdane had managed to get enough soldiers to man the big gate facing roughly north-east. It was said the armoured scouts had come from there in big armoured vehicles to demand open passage through Crosswayne. Well nobody was going to put up with that, not with a few fools in power armour.

 

His batman Cringles came up and stood with a tray with an almost clean shot glass of cider on it, the kind of cider you only drink in shot glasses and very slowly at that. Cringles was actually a sexy young woman in a tight white shirt with many buttons open and a very short skirt. He often spent private special briefings and dictation sessions with her in his rear office which just happened to have a doublebed in it. “Sir, you asked for a drink, sir!”

 

Masterdane took out a stained linen handkerchief from his chest pocket and wiped sweat from his fat greasy face. He had eaten a small but fine dinner of roasted wild turkey drumstick and some sort of roasted tubers. It had put him in a good mood. Then he took out his silver pocket-watch on a bronze chain. It didn’t work but he liked to look impressive to his men. Then he took up the shot glass and took a small sip. A big smiled passed across his face.

 

Then he saw the black dots in the sky, distant it seemed and at the horizon of generally flat, lightly broken land covered with small bushes, grasses and various mutated plants. He was puzzled for they seemed rather big for the distance. Then he laughed at himself. Of course distance could play tricks on one.

 

Most of the men at the wall battlements or concrete pillboxes around the big gate were sleeping or chatting or were taking turns with one of their female comrades. Masterdane rang the steel bell and when nobody seemed to respond he rang it hard. The men started to look around and to see the dots. Attitudes changed at once. The soldiers scrambled for machineguns, autorifles, laser-rifles, sniper-rifles, shotguns and other weapons. That is for the seminaked female comrades who made a hasty retreat carrying bits of clothing, shoes and shoulderbags.

 

Then they came shooting through the air at supersonic speed, low enough to scare the hell out of anybody. Nine FX161 long range fighter-bombers like sleek black metallic bats. They flashed overhead and something fell from them. Masterdane went pale and gulped down his cider. His batman screamed and ran. Somebody foolishly shot a rifle at a target that was way out of range in seconds.

 

They were leaflets, hundreds of leaflets. A heavily sweating Masterdane picked one up and read it. Then he gave a heavy sigh before passing out orders.

 

The gate was wide open when the column of fast moving armoured vehicles came roaring along and they raced right through moving at amazing speeds over a fairly rough dirt road. A few hummers left the column and armoured soldiers leapt out with weapons ready.

 

The proud Border Guard were all standing in a rather raggedy line with arms held high in the air and guns stacked up way out in front of them. The Brothers of Steel seemed a bit stunned by this.

 

An officer came up and took off his helmet. He was a hard muscular man with eyes of steel hardness. He grinned at a drunken Masterdane and spoke. “You gave up with out a fight, with out defending your people.”

 

Masterdane laughed a bit and then spoke. “My dear man, firstly we are a joke, a pitiful joke of a public defence effort. We are poorly trained, poorly equipped and badly paid. Indeed our pay often doesn’t reach us because it is stolen by the officers in charge of sending us the money. As it is the money is useless Crosswayne dollars and cents, not those wonderful emergency coins of real value. Our government is a series of corrupt, selfish, faction ridden councils backed up by a public service of a few corrupt, inefficient departments and offices. Our sheriffs and their deputies are just hired thugs serving various wealthy families who rule Crosswayne with only the current Warlord having more power and a private army. We have thousands of ghoul slaves, we have death games and we have a lot of unhappy common folk who would rebel at a moment if given half a chance of success. Now, look at these men and very few women. Maybe you can make something worthwhile out of ten percent of them. Me, forget it, I am not officer or soldier material. My damned wealthy family sent me here to get rid of me. Now just be nice to most people, give them some help, give them some guns and ammo, and Crosswayne is going to be yours in a very short time.”

 

Then he sighed. “At least half the guns there are too old and too dirty to be used safely. We have very little ammunition. We have no way to call for help and if we did, help is not likely to come. You would have killed us all in a few minutes.”

 

He turned in surprise as his batman walked past for she now wore BofS light power armour. She smiled at him and then spoke to the soldier. “This is one very canny, very intelligent man. Get past his laziness and self pity, his love of hard drink and easy sex, well you might have a good local politician in the making.”

 

She turned to Masterdane. “I am a military intelligence infiltration agent. We are going to conquer Crosswayne. Our people are already through out Crosswayne preparing locals to revolt against their corrupt lords and masters.”

 

Masterdane turned and gulped. In the distance the first airships and skyships, globe-blimps and squat saucers, were coming into view. There were helibirds, vertibirds and vertijets in the air as light swarms. There were more machines roaring along the road, lots of machines. Crosswayne would never be the same.

He smiled richly and then he laughed and laughed.

 

Continued in NINETY-TWO

[Maharg67]

NINETY-TWO

 

1Kitty entered a telebooth and left another to find herself in Wonderland. At once she dived behind a hedge wall on one side of the laneway as a fast moving, whirling dinner plate shot through the air overhead and exploded violently against a tree. The tree cried out in anger and its branch like arms hurled a boulder back at the attacker.

 

1Kitty had been going through peaceful if bare ugly and dimly lit underground bunkers for a while and now she had to adjust to this madness, this violence, and in a hurry. In her stealth power armour she darted along the laneway.

 

There they were, three human elementals shimmering in translucent energies but also in power armour, crouching beside the hedge wall. They held gattling-lasers. One turned and looked to 1Kitty and spoke. “The revolution goes slowly but steadily. The trees of the Talking Murkwoods have joined us and some of them do battle with the Eccentric Household of Madly. Human elementals have come here in large numbers to assist the rebels based at the Gingerbread House. One needs to accept the illogical inner logic of this place to succeed.”

 

“Perhaps!” 1Kitty slipped a small glowing marble out of her pocket and threw it. It landed with a flash and a single sentrybot with wide splayed legs on wheels, stood there with a missile launcher arm and a 20mm autogun arm plus a 10mm autogun at its back just in case. The robot began to move forward and then it halted protectively nearer to 1Kitty. “You elementals have been breeding and making others from the dead and the dying.”

 

“As Jasmine wished us to do.” The human elemental of the physical nodded. “You are linked as one with Jasmine, we can feel it. Your robots will assist to logic down the insane irrational power of our enemies. The Queen of Roses will be more difficult to defeat with her powerful Rosethorn Soldiers. She defeated all of the Playing Card Monarchies and drove them into the outer fringes of Wonderland including the powerful Red Queen of Hearts. There is Alice, of course! She has declared herself to be no less than Empress of Wonderland, which does not please the Queen of Roses or others of power, of course.”

 

1Kitty responded. “I have read all of the Wonderland Books of Lewis Carol and his descendents: Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Alice Returns to Wonderland, Queen Alice of Wonderland and Alas Alice of Wonderland. I know them word by word, chapter by chapter, character by character and scene by scene. But I expect that this version of Wonderlands differs from the one of the books of Lewis Carol and Lenore Carol, his grand-daughter.”

 

The other spoke. “Yes and no! We must find the Magical Rabbit Hole, the Looking-Glass Mirror, the Old Magic Laundry Chute, the Tunnel of Loveliness and the Trickiest Elevator. These in the books were ways into Wonderland and may give us ways to special hidden zones. We also need to cut off the Dark Maiden so that she can no longer feed off the energies here.”

 

“We must learn more about what the Dark Maiden and her companion, the Pale Rider Death, are up to.” 1Kitty threw another glowing marble and this time three laser armed eyebots popped into existence. “Hopefully we will find hidden data here or at least clues.”

 

She sent the eyebots off, all three together for mutual protection. They would scout the area and hopefully survive to get useful data back to the rebels.

 

1Kitty sighed. “We will invade the household of the Duchess Madly and subdue her, her family, her servants and her baby that turns into a pig.”

 

Another big dinner plate spun through the air overhead but the tree ducked to one side and it exploded harmlessly in mid-air. The trees were learning to better protect themselves from the Madly Cook who was throwing the dishes.

 

A big bread’n’butterfly gracefully flapped through the air in the distance and dropped bits of glistening yellow butter on the flowerbeds below it causing dandelions and sunflowers to start complaining loudly.

 

Continued in NINETY-THREE

[Maharg67]

NINETY-THREE

 

The Dark Maiden was getting agitated. The great vault door to 301 had done nothing and she could sense that SSS-02, otherwise known as Wonderland, was suffering both rebellion and invasion. Which meant her major source of dark psychic energy was being threatened.

 

She of course had fall-back plans but was now wondering if they were truly worth anything. The calmness of the Pale Death Rider only caused her to feel worse. She was wondering also how Jasmine had escaped her trap, a trap that had taken a good deal of trouble to set up.

 

The Enclave Grand Fleet was fighting hard to protect itself and other Enclave forces controlled only the coastal area. Enemies now dominated the hinterland and much else was a crazy war zone. With the loss of their great big mobile-base, the Enclave had suffered a major blow. They had destroyed the Liberty Robots, even the huge Liberty Ultimate, but only with much difficulty. Tribal power armoured warriors kept swarming across the land, revealed now to be some kind of clones, and with them came war-machines and robots.

 

The PanAxis forces at Point Lookout had climbed into their rocketships and saucers, leaving a good deal of equipment and supplies behind for the Enclave to use because they could not take it all, and then left for some place unknown. The Enclave used everything left behind in any way that it could even if it was as melted down scrap metal.

 

She stood there now in stylish black and red focusi armour holding a focusi-longsword and a focusi-shield of gold. The Pale Death Rider stood to one side in black and white focusi armour, holding a shield and sword of the same colouration. He turned to her after many hours of silence and spoke.

 

“A very long time ago I vowed to hold onto life no matter the sacrifice that others had to make for me to do so. Do you ever wonder what drives life on; is it the passing of measured units of time or is it the way we interact with it?”

 

The Dark Maiden turned to him with a frown. “That damned demigoddess 1Kitty is now causing havoc in my Wonderland, my basis of power. I am a living goddess. I will continue and… I would say it is how we interact with time that matters. I feel change happening deep in the ground.”

 

“It is time!” He grinned now. “Who or what do you think I really am or have you not considered these questions closely?”

 

“You are just a living god who seeks power and the kind of resources that we living gods most desire.” The Dark Maiden shrugged. “For me you are just a convenience, you have always been so. The Hunt of Justice I consider important and the Darkman but not you, no not you.”

 

He sighed. “Really, you are such a fool! I had hoped for much better when I created you. Yes, I created you. A living goddess you are not! What you really are is a mockery, a super-clone of a real greater living god, namely myself. For I am one of the Elder Living Gods. Once I was named Eldi’Serenes and was noted as Third of the Nine Elder Living Gods. Yet things can go wrong for even we the Nine.. the Twelve…the Thirteen… our ever mysterious nature. We wanted to live as we were beyond our allotted time but now three are insane yet fighting against this idea and three are fighting against this idea leaving three striving to live a wondrous dream. Of the Twelve you might ask. Three Reflections our nature and the Thirteen? Well the Thirteen is us all represented as one entity.”

 

The Dark Maiden stepped back from him. “If what you speak of is true then you have been using both the Darkman and myself, the Dark Maiden. If you were Eldi’Serenes and noted as Third of the Nine Elder Living Gods, then you have indeed fallen. You are powerless.”

 

He smiled. “Not so for I hid much my power disguised cleverly and now it is time to take it back. I will simply absorb you.”

 

But the living goddess leapt backwards, flipped through the air and land in mid-air to stand apparently on nothingness. She sneered at him. “Even if you did create me, I am now beyond you for I have evolved. What is coming out of the ground, out of Vault-301?”

 

He sighed. “Watch then and know the truth before you die.”

 

Then the ground exploded and masses of mud, rock and other material fountained up into the air. It was an amazing sight and the noise was an uproar. Then things began to fly up out of the great metallic tube that was starting to rise up through the air, thousands of things, dark and twisted things. Things that were constantly changing, that were almost impossible to focus on properly, to define accurately with one’s mind more than one’s eyes for it effected hearing, smell and other senses including the psychic.

 

Then she screamed outrage and terror before she turned and pointed her right hand at him. “Fool, what have you done, you have destroyed us all.” Then she laughed. “Not really but I felt a dramatic moment was needed.”

 

He grinned. “How witty you are! I will enjoy slowly absorbing you and feeling you die in a most horrible manner. These are my creatures and I control them. They are me and I am them.”

 

“Not really!” The Dark Maiden giggled insanely. “When you created me you put too much of my power and knowledge into me so of course I reached out and took control of the beasties from your, our subconscious. I control them and they are me.”

 

But the flickering things of horror ignored both the Pale Death Rider, also known as the Pale Lord Death, and the Dark Maiden. They slowly spread out over Point Lookout and began to absorb life. Plants, animals, even such as bacteria, began to die.

 

The living power entities did not care. They drew focusi-swords and prepared for battle..

 

At that moment a very powerful nuclear smart-bomb struck the spot between them and there was an incredible flash and a blast of nuclear fire. The black shimmering things were disintegrated at once and the two living gods were vapourised.

 

A mushroom cloud slowly rose over par of Point Lookout majestically and terribly.

 

High up in the stratosphere an Enclave flying-wing of a nuclear bomber turned gracefully and started back to the coastal area. The Enclave had guessed something was up and had prepared partly thanks to a tip-off by an unknown source.

 

Continued in NINETY-FOUR

[Maharg67]

NINETY-FOUR

 

The Atomic Land Armoured Vehicle, or ALAV, stood with its eight big wheels firmly on the shallow slope, its 75mm Autogun blazing away with a steady thudding. Armoured figures crouched around it as 20mm shells exploded across the top of the slope where it met the old parking lot of concrete flagstones. Another ALAV was burning away with roaring flames and black smoke.

 

BofS power armour troopers were on their bellies or crouched behind obstacles in the environment be it tough junk or natural. There had not been enough time to dig any ditches or make any other kinds of defences.

 

Crosswayne had largely fallen quite easily. Most locals had revolted, both slaves and commoners, eagerly taking up weapons stolen from the wealthy families, from sheriff offices, from slave hunters and others. In the distance a two level mansion was abandoned except for some of the new Crosswayne Warlord’s troops. These had turned out to be hard surprise, to be elite fighters well trained and equipped with power armour, war-machines and robots. Though larger than had been expected, Warlord Dreshire’s army was very small compared to the BofS forces entering Crosswayne and conquering it. Armies of rebelling slaves and commoners, even of other classes, had taken over many settlements. The small private mercenary forces of wealthy land owner families had soon surrendered and the families were either massacred by rebels or held prisoner by the BofS. Knowing they would get more mercy from the invaders than from the rebels, many of the old regime were seeking out BofS units to surrender to.

 

Five ALAVs had been following a wide rough dirt road when the ambush had taken place, destroying at once two vehicles but the power armour troopers inside had mostly survived though they were shaken up. The surviving ALAVs were using the rise in the ground as cover. But the troopers had known better than just to focus on defending against attacks from one direction, had suspected a clever set-up and enemies to come from their rear. The enemies had not appeared.

 

They had heard firing and seen flashes of explosions from that direction as if part of an ambushing force had run into other enemies. Even so they were cautious for the enemy of an enemy is not always a friend, far from it in Postwar North America.

 

They were calling for assistance but the BofS forces tied in for the moment with other actions. The Warlord’s forces were starting to pound them with bigger weapons, were moving in on them. The situation did not look good.

 

Sergeant Andy McDoogle sitting back from the others favouring an armoured upper limb with a hole through the armour. The wounded had been tended to but his power armour was damaged, was acting wonky from other damage done to it in the explosion that had destroyed an ALAV. Despite the power armour he was also still in shock and there was an horrible ringing in his head that refused to go away.

 

So when the small tight tan brown teddy-bear climbed up over his legs to stand on his lap and looked up to his helmet, the sergeant figured he was hallucinating. The teddy-bear pointed to the wound and hole in the armour with one furry paw and a pulse of light went from his paw through the hole and into the sergeant’s body. A warm tingling sensation went through him and he blanked out peacefully for a moment.

 

When he awoke his power armour was working fine, his body was fine but he looked like he was a big chunky version of the small teddy-bear except that he had hands. The teddy-bear was sitting comfortably on his now furry knee and was slumbering.

 

He expected that any moment a comrade would appear and be shocked and then mock him. When they did though they also looked like big chunky tan brown furred teddy-bears. Lieutenant Palmer did not sound at all impressed and her voice sounded it. “What is damned well going on. What are we, the Toyland teddy mercenaries?”

 

The sergeant responded. “We are all healed of any injuries, any damages are fixed but I think the Symbiosphere did what it was doing for a reason. Knowledge is there in my mind but I have to focus on it. A briefing of sorts… Toyland does exist. Your joke may have come from information fed to you. Toyland was a big semi-underground Prewar amusement park here in Crosswayne. It was under a big armoured dome or at least the actual park was. Other areas were in underground bunkers. The Symbiosphere wants us to go there. Somehow our strange appearance will allow us to blend in more and make us safer from what is there. The dome itself is in a high rad zone infested with very big, very savage mutated beasties. We have to find a secondary way in but another is coming to assist us.”

 

With a sparkling shimmer Daring Dashwood and his side-kick Argyle appeared out of mid-air wearing light power armour and holding MXM16A3 autorifles with MXM306 40mm grenade-shell launchers. But with the young man and the grinning ghoul appeared some slimly muscular, slimly voluptuous young women in tight fitting light power armour.

 

Dashwood spoke with a flourish. “Daring Dashwood at your service with my faithful, hard hitting side-kick Argyle and my faithful fighting followers of fine form, Modestia Blade, Lara Crash, Buffy Babe, Tanya Red, Raven Claw, Sylvia Silkskin, Bella Blaze, Diana Wonder, Yvonne McBite and the Biblade Triplets.”

 

Modestia Blade spoke. “Like your outfits. Look tough enough to scare a five year old.”

 

Daring Dashwood spoke. “Now, now, you know this is the Symbiosphere’s doing. She wants the BofS to fit into Toyland. We will go one direction and the BofS will go another, deeper into the domed part of Toyland. We have to get to that mansion because it used to belong to Mister Raymond Toymaker, a multibillionaire who started out as a humble toy inventor and salesman. A secret tunnel leads from a basement bunker there to Toyland. We have to get through Warlord Dreshire’s forces between us and the mansion. Dreshire is not here by coincidence and may well be seeking a way into Toyland. He and his forces smell of the Enclave. This will not be easy. Odd as it seems the teddy-bears will take care of the surviving ALAVs, taking them to where they can be well hidden for now and where other BofS forces can pick them up easily enough when they reach the area. I have a radio communicator that will allow you to get past Dreshire’s trickery and report to your HQ what is happening.”

 

Modestia Blaze smiled. “This won’t be teddy-bear’s picnic!”

 

She got frowned at by the BofS soldiers.

 

Continued in NINETY-FIVE

[Maharg67]

NINETY-FIVE

 

Bill Doors led the GuardTec soldiers in power armour along a burned and blasted armoured hallway deep beneath the ground. The Progressive Coalition was taking over DCTec territories and facilities with moderate speed but battles were raging in many places. GuardTec forces had turned to supporting Bill Doors partly because in the past he had supported improving conditions for them as in wages, shifts and insurance and partly because they could see he had the full backing of the increasingly powerful USA behind him.

 

Bill Doors, the original founder of DCTec, had always assumed he knew what was going on with the corporation from the chairman’s position down to the factories and workshops, shops and service centres. He had also assumed that he had the loyalty and honest reportage of all of his powerful comrades in leadership roles. He was now finding out jus how wrong he had been. Bill Doors was not a saint, not by a long shot, but he had his limits. He had dismissed whispers that DCTec was selling goods to the slavers, to the raiders and even to the super mutants, some of which they had designed for their customers. Now he knew that this and worse was true.

 

DCTec had made the special armour for the stupid mutants, exploding slave-collars and mesmetrons for the slavers and the bizarre body-armour for the raiders. They had also built and sold battlebuggies to the raiders and slavers along with gear and services to anybody who would buy it. Armageddon Park was a big buyer as was Paradise Falls and the Darkman.

 

But now he was seeking answers to darker possibilities. In his power armour and holding a 20mm autogun, he stepped over a dead enemy soldier in power armour marked with a symbol of the Black Star. This was no GuardTec trooper or DCTec heavy security trooper, HST, but a cultist of some kind. The Black Star of the Malevae source of power, the Azathoth that was a blind, mindless, amorphous blackest mass the size of a star that had once floated, in the astral plane, at the centre of a universe. It was now imprisoned in the deepest depths of Hades. It was attended by satellite creatures and protected by many pseudopods along with emanations of insanity.

 

The Black Star Cult did not worship Azathoth, that would not even be aware of them, but the various Malevae of the Thirteen Dark Stars, whose interests they served in general and who in turn were supported by all of them.

 

There was the sound of shooting from ahead. They came around a corner to find a mixture of GuardTec troopers and Regulator SWAT-Troopers, also in standard power armour, fighting more cultists. The chamber was a great metal supported smoothed out cavern chamber with a great set of concrete statues of Malevae but these statues were also machines. The cultists had sandbag walls to shoot from behind and power armour. They were not alone. DeepOnes, DryOnes and FlameOnes were there, the last being like living flaming humanoids roughly shaped like the DeepOnes. They hurled small explosive fireballs from their hands by flinging their hands out. These Lesser OldOnes were coming out of an open doorway of blackness dotted with small purple-red flickering flames. It was a great horror of an alien landscape somewhere in Hades. This was a gateway.

 

A gateway that Bill Doors knew that he had to close as soon as possible for this was a major way that the OldOnes were using to invade the DC Wastelands through.

 

He crouched behind a large over turned statue of some ugly tentacle clad creature and aimed his weapon, fired a burst and sighed. He was not the greatest of sharpshooters but he had made a Black Star Cultist leap for safety.

 

What really burned was that not only had these damned cultists hid amongst his corporation, they had used corporate resources to increase their wealth and to construct secret bases often hidden beneath genuine DCTec facilities. Above this place was a DCTec robotic robot factory now manufacturing robots to send, free of charge, to the USA. The trouble was that the factory, like other DCTec manufactories, was half the size as it was on paper and produced robots much more slowly than it was supposed to be able to. The Black Star Cult had stolen the resources that should have gone into expanding and otherwise upgrading that and other manufacturing plants and other sites.

 

Where had the resources gone to?

 

Then the answer came to him, though he was not sure how, and it was straight forward. Most of it had gone through that very gateway, had been sent down to Hades itself and to the Thirteen Dark Stars. DCTec false paperwork and datafiles had hidden the truth as it had hidden many other dark truths.

 

Like over a hundred thousand DCTec hired semiskilled and unskilled workers who had vanished after being brought to the DCTec Sector. They had also been taken, as prisoners, through that gateway.

 

Now he knew how he knew it to be so. He was picking up the residue of past events, violently evil past events, from this environment, was picking up impressions of many kinds.

 

Bill Doors vowed to learn every dark truth hidden behind the DCTec trade-mark.

 

Continued in NINETY-SIX