DC WASTELAND RISING

[Maharg67]

EIGHTEEN

 

 

The super mutant offensive halted as soon as they had control over most of the National Mall zone. They even withdrew their forces from the Lincoln Memorial Complex so that it was no longer surrounded though it was still bombarded from the front. Instead they dug in with battlements rising with amazing speed. Not just heaps of junk or sandbags but concrete, metal and even robotic turrets of many kinds. It was clear that having taken the area that the super mutants meant to keep it.

Super mutant forces were moving towards the same point from all over, from seemingly all directions. Many didn’t make it but were ambushed by various forces. Raiders, BofS, Talon Mercenaries and many others hated them.

 

The Ghoul Underworld based in the Museum of History including many basement levels and even a Subway area close to it, remained untouched. The nervous ghouls received, to their surprise, a whole lot of guns, ammo and other stuff from the BofS. So it was that the Underworld Ghouls learned that the policy of the BofS had been to try to force all ghouls to stay either in the Underworld or outside of the National Mall area altogether. The reason that the BofS were supposedly such bad shots, according to the Underworld ghouls, was really they only ever fired warning shots.

 

The situation at Vault-87 was much quieter. Marshal Hrashman's military forces there began moving towards the Central Washington area. Jas staid with the children in the Lamplight Caverns. Jasmine and her companions, including the RR platoon, kept trying to find a way through to Vault-87. To her deep annoyance but not to her surprise, Murder Pass was now partly buried under collapsed rock.

 

The Subwayers were surprised when the vampire ghoul controlled attacks of feral ghouls suddenly halted. The High Elder Councils of the Subwayers all fell under investigation and three of them were placed on Death Row. They had attempted to communicate with the Darkman but the Darkman had ignored them.

 

At the GNR Tower there was political trouble as Ajax was taken there by the FBI Triplets and met the newly appointed President. There he spoke of the secret encounter between Head Scribe Rothchild and the Darkman, or at least one of the Darkmen.

 

3Dog and 2Kitty were surprised when a large group of scholars, librarians and others arrived to assist them to go through the new GNR Archives. They had been recruited by the Mysterious Stranger who gave them resources to get to the new shelter including official passes to get them in. They brought others, refugees, with them to live in the large bunker.

 

Strange but good new came from the Commonwealth in the north. There had been an android and robotic revolution. The dictatorship was overthrown and the dictator himself had been executed. The new Androidia had arisen where androids were free citizens and free thinking humans and ghouls were welcome.

Related bad news was that the large army moving south was the last of the former dictator’s forces now controlled by a brilliant but murderous Warlord Han. With the army were many Soviet ghoul soldiers who had once been part of an invasion force of Russians, Chinese and Koreans.

 

New forces had been emerging for some time to assist Wastelanders and now were doing so in stronger numbers.

Brothers of Protection came in power armour that looked much like that of the BofS. They offered genuine protection to settlements and convoys.

Sisters of Compassion had the same sort of equipment but in light power armour. They focused on setting up Wastelander Assistance Outposts or WAOs.

The BofP often helped guard the SofC though the latter were also impressive fighters. With them came new robots and other surprises.

Rebirthers emerged in larger numbers in their oddly coloured BofS like power armour and began selling their fair priced eco-technologies to settlers and other Wastelanders.

Raiders soon learned, to their cost, that the new forces were formidable fighters.

 

Paradise Falls fell silent as the last of the slavers departed for Armageddon Park.

 

A large Rebirther group entered Oasis and formed an agreement with them to assist in having the influence of Oasis help turn the DC Wastelands once more to green.

 

Continued in NINETEEN

[Maharg67]

NINETEEN

 

 

They had found the short well hidden tunnel entrance into a cave tunnel leading to Vault-87 and then the actual secondary vault door. What had led the RRs that far were landing marks and other signs that Enclave vertibirds, four of the Jolly Grey Giants, had landed not far from the hidden vault door.

 

Jasmine, Fawkes and Dogmeat paced through the smashed open vault door that had been blasted open by Enclave plastic explosives. With them came the whole Reilly’s Ranger platoon that had come to the Lamplight Caverns. They were confronted with the same sort of neglected and dark vault facilities that Fawkes was only too familiar with.

 

There were scattered dead stupid mutants. If any Enclave soldiers had died in the attack, their bodies and other stuff had been taken away. There were stagnant bloody skeletal remains of much older horrors, of course, having been carried out in that place including gore bags.

 

Soon they were moving through the vault environment that was a abandoned and neglected looking version of Vault-101 that Jasmine had grown up in. After a while there were no more dead super mutants or any dead centaurs to be found. Fawkes growled in anger. He hated returning to that place and Jasmine could hardly blame him for that.

 

Yet Fawkes had one reason for returning because memories were returning to him that had been suppressed. He had a box full of goodies he had secretly put under his prison cell bunk. Sometimes the stupid mutants had let him out, had escorted him to a rather clean metallic room where he had met a Darkman very much identical in appearance to the fake on that Jasmine had killed off. Fawkes had been left alone with the Darkman but something had told the hulking smart mutant not to try escaping or attacking the strange figure. There was a menacing evil about the one, a terrible hidden power, that Fawkes had known was beyond him to deal with.

 

The Darkman had not harmed Fawkes, far from it. They had a fairly good time. They had played chess. The Darkman had told him dark but fascinating tales but also ones in which good had prevailed, even ones in which the Darkman had been defeated. They had drunk fine wines, eaten canned delicacies, watched classic 2D and 3D movies, listened to fine classical music and had debated various subjects. When Fawkes went back to his cell it was always with a gift.

 

Fawkes remembered these strange sessions in which he had found some pleasure but in which he had never been able to totally relax because of the certain subtle factors he could not define easily.

 

Now they were moving through the official Vault-87 which was very large with many subvaults, each with many levels, along with other sections. Though it looked familiar to both of them they were yet to be in an area they had actually been through.

 

They went through an administration area of offices, more softly humming computers, and there they met the Clerkus Brothers. The big unarmed super mutants were busy typing reports, were filing files, were going through stacks of documents. Each had a big label with big letters stuck to his oversized vault jumpsuit chest. These were not stupid mutants and not really smart mutants like Fawkes or Uncle Leo who wandered the DC Wastelands with his growing group of followers. No, these, as one of the Clerkus Brothers would state, were sensible mutants. Sensible mutants had enough smarts to get clerical work done and done well. The Darkman had left them in charge of very important paperwork.

 

Fawkes was evidently most amused but went quietly along with the Clerk Brothers. He sat and carefully filled out two forms that meant pretty much nothing. The five sensible mutants kept busy except Head Clerk Nugus who sat pompously behind his big old metal desk staring through thick metallic glass glasses.

 

Jasmine also sat down and Dogmeat sat next to her panting softly. The bemused Reilly Rangers stood in the background with weapons lowered and quietly observed what was going on.

 

Nugus nodded and spoke in a thunderous super mutant type voice. “Paperwork must always be done. Documents must always be properly filled out. Reports must be sent. Duplicates must be stored carefully away. Have you filled out Form A-001? You have to fill out Form A-001so that you can obtain Form A-002.”

 

Fawkes nodded and replied. “I take it that if I fill out Form A-002 that I can then gain access to Form A-003.”

 

Nugus nodded. “Aaahhh, you must be a sensible mutant. The Darkman said he saw our potential and the need for us to become the administrative heart of Vault-87. He sent us the necessary programming. We have a matter-former here that provides us with blank forms to be filled out. I myself have filled out forms up to Form A-101 Supplementary ABC-3. We have a series of Questionaries seeking your feedback on such as the colouration of gore bags, the most effective battle cry and the best use of nail boards in killing radroaches. We have special single choice questionaries for stupid mutants to fill out.”

 

Jasmine nodded and then spoke as she sat on a blood stained chair next to Fawkes. “How smart and clever you are, Head Clerk Nugus.” She looked into his eyes. “Do you like serving the Darkman.”

 

Nugus slumped visibly. His voice grew gravely sad angry. “The Darkman thinks we are a joke. We are one of his jokes. The Darkman likes his jokes. He has other jokes. Professor Altman is another of his jokes. Even his jokes do things for him. Sometimes we get important files and we file them for him in a special place. Sometimes we get things and we put them in the Gallery Chambers. I am not supposed to tell you about these things but I am going to tell you everything that I can.”

 

Then Nugus stood up proudly. “Please follow me.”

 

They went through a large office room full of fully functioning banks of computers where a Clerk was watching a 3DTV showing a brightly colourful children’s cartoon. The sensible mutant would chuckle and guffaw as he watched. Every often he paused to tick a box on a form he had on a clipboard.

 

Part of a wall slid back and then to one side. Then they were in a series of large fairly clean chambers with no gore and which had small roboremote units humming around looking after them. Each room had big armaglass domes to display things inside and those things rotated slowly on disk shaped display floors.

 

Firstly they came upon a room of fully functional Prewar objects such as a 3DTV set in a fancy wooden cabinet, a MrHandy bright and polished with domestic extensions, a pristine atomic motorised family sedan car, a robotic laundry-machine, a nice looking couch, a police marked protectron robot, a large bookcase full of books, a mascot robot for a gridiron football team looking like an upright furry tiger, a baseball launcher machine, an antique Model-T Ford sedan, life like mannequins in various sets of clothes from casual to uniforms, a display of sextoys that puzzled the Head Clerk, a steam gauge assembly, a display of toys including teddy-bears, a display of hunting rifles of various kinds, a World War Two Sherman battletank equipped with a large heat-beamer, a Harley Davidson atomic motorbike heavy, low and powerful plus many other displays.

 

The Head Clerk beamed with pride. “Very good this room. Better than other rooms to come. Please follow me.”

 

Jasmine smiled at Nugus. “You find some other rooms to be disturbing?”

 

Nugus nodded melodramatically. “Me don’t like them at all but this room has fun things in it. Me like the pinball machines and the dancing robot woman who says silly things.”

 

Jasmine did not point out that the dancing robot woman was a machine designed to attract customers into certain kinds of nightclubs for men.

 

As they went to leave the chamber she noted a big plush armchair against one wall with black velvet covering and red velvet cushions.

 

Nugus shivered. “The Darkman came and sat there sometimes but somehow he saw everything is room, even smallest display. Me thinks he saw into all display rooms. Next room is this way.”

 

The next room was even larger and had surprises but there were then two other ones like it.

 

A Martian mechatripod of medium height stood with flexible legs in the stable triangular formation. Its hood was high above the ground but its long metallic tentacles hung down almost to the floor. Its heat-beamers were evident as were its eye-globes, its single raised fin at the top back of the metallic hood and body. A big robotic subway digging machine stood on its crawler tracks. There was a row of basic androids including a vaultboy, a vaultgirl, a police constable, mannequin-droids, waitresses and others. There was a row of proper positioned types of power armour being heavy infantry, firefighter, heavy worker, deep sea diver, astronaut, power ball player and others. There was a row of robots be they MrGutsy, MrHandy, MissNursy, MrsWife, MissSexy, various types of protectrons, various eyebot like robots including an eyebot, animal robots and others. A big prop driven aircraft stood ready to fly being a DC3 passenger airliner.

 

There was much more.

 

Continued in TWENTY

[Maharg67]

TWENTY

 

 

Jasmine and her companions were part way through another big chamber when the attack came. They were next to a domed display of a big robotic harvester when the Reilly’s Rangers moved out into defensive formation, using the thick armaglass of display domes as protection along with their raised bases.

 

The Head Clerk crouched and Meatdog stood protectively next to him and licked his sensible mutant face.

 

Jasmine and Fawkes moved forward and suddenly they seemed very dangerous. Fawkes swung his gattling-laser around and let loose a whole lot of laser beams even as he charged into action. His weapon was more powerful than it had been. It struck down two charging soldiers in standard power armour. They wore BofS like armour but they were Talon Mercenaries. As they charged, women and men, they fired off miniguns and 20mm autoguns.

 

But most of the Talon Mercenaries there wore light power armour or even combat armour. Energy beams and bullets crisscrossed the big chamber. All of them deflected from domes which were, it seemed, proofed against energy weapons. These were excellent fighters, were the core of the Talon Corporation known as the Talon Fists. With them came sentrybots firing off small missiles and 20mm shells.

 

Jasmine ran straight at a pair of big hairless power armoured figures and she could sense their surprise and their belief that she was a fool. Then she accelerated so fast she was a blur of motion and when she struck the two Talon Fists they were hurled like plastic skittles through the air.

 

She kept on moving, diving, rolling, kicking, whirling and as she did mercenaries were hurled in all directions. The firing stopped as the hardened killers realised they faced something new and beyond them and as the RRs did not want to hit Jasmine by accident. They turned and tried to flee but somehow, impossibly, she was always there to intercept them.

 

Fawkes ceased shooting and he began to laugh. He stopped when the last Talon merc was either knocked out or, a minority, dead or dying. Amazed, the Reilly’s Ranger platoon came forward as did the nervous Head Clerk and Dogmeat who seemed to like the sensible mutant.

 

But it was not over, not the oddness, and Jasmine knelt and touched a recently dead mercenary. There was a blue glow that surrounded the heavily armoured figure, that flowed through her and then there was transformation. A blue woman figure of energy arose out of the now empty armour and rose to float in the air. She gave Jasmine an odd smile of both jubilation and sadness. Then this ex-killer spoke with a voice that sounded oddly muffled a little and oddly a little like it was in an echo chamber.

 

“The truth is not something that I ever sought. I just wanted to survive what ever the cost to others after my family was slaughtered by raiders. A second chance now to swim and fly, to float above the surfaces of ground or water, to help cleanse the world of radiation and toxins, of the mutagens and the falsely named FEV. We will meet again when the time is right.”

 

Jasmine nodded and the blue figure simply faded away.

 

The second recently dead also became a blue figure, a man this time, but just nodded and then faded away.

 

Fawkes spoke to Jasmine. “I did not know you would do that.”

 

“Neither did I! I was simply a conduit for another force that you might name Gaia, the Light, God, the Goddess, the Great Spirit or what ever you like.” She sighed. “Not all will be given a second chance as those two were. Those two have set out to join others like and unlike them to heal the world.”

 

Then she touched the last of the recently dead mercs and this one simply stood up in his power armour, took of his helmet and showed a stunned expression on his face which looked now much younger with old scars now vanished. He nodded to Jasmine. “I would join Reilly’s Rangers if they would have me and assist you with this mission.”

 

Petra, the RR Platoon Lieutenant, came forward and studied the former Talon Fist for a moment and then nodded. “You will begin as a probationary trooper but welcome to the Reilly’s Rangers. This is strange but the whole DC Wastelands is strange. Why don’t we grab some of this stuff?”

 

Jasmine shook her head. “The Darkman does not do things straight forwardly and always has multiple purposes behind any big project. This must have taken a good deal of resources to complete. There are puzzles hidden in the way the displays are put out and in the displays. Puzzle leading to answers that we need more than we need some equipment. Also the displays are booby-trapped in various nasty ways. There are also other good reasons to leave the displays as they are but I will not go into those. Now I need all of your assistance. I must rest and meditate. Even being a conduit for such energies is tiring.”

 

They placed the now all healthy but semiconscious dreaming Talon Fists in a corner. Jasmine sat in a full lotus position meditating and after a moment she lifted off the floor and floated there. Her breathing slowed and she seemed almost motionless.

 

The RRs moved out to check the area but also checked out more displays like a Formula One atomic motorised racing car, a Chinese robotic noodle cooker, more life like mannequins with Prewar clothes and other gear, a NukaCola vending machine, a stuffed bison, a fully assembled and supported T-rex dinosaur skeleton, a Captain Courage super hero outfit complete with Shield of Justice, displays of glossy 3Dpix magazines of many kinds from cheesecake to wedding clothes to women’s domestic to many others and lots of other stuff.

 

It was a glimpse of an amazing world full of fashions, working government, nine-to-five jobs, gimmicks, suburbs, consumer goods and what seemed to the Wastelanders to be a strange life. It was also a glimpse of a world with out so much radiation, with out monstrous mutations, super mutants and other threats that were part of everyday life. Yet the displays were often honest and they saw that the Prewar world had many problems also from muggers to poverty, traffic jams, natural disasters and war.

 

Continued in TWENTY-ONE

[dezdimona]

more please!.......hurry! :yes:

[Herculine]

Are you sure you don't do this for a living? If you said you did I'd have no trouble believing you. Prolific and extremely talented you are indeed!

[species5478]

Engrossing story. :mellow:

 

I feel...hypnotized...by the plot...and characters... :blink:

 

Must read more... :wacko:

 

Must read more... :wacko:

[Maharg67]

Thank you for you wonderful feedback Dezdimona, Hurculine and Species5478. Such feedback helps keep me writing.

 

 

TWENTY-ONE

 

A convoy of World War Two vintage Sherman Tanks rumbled passed the site with enhanced armour, new electronics and other changes having been made. The new armour plating made the machines less vulnerable to energy weapons and the upgraded engines made the battletanks faster but they still had to be used with care. Most of the machines had vintage 90mm autocannons, 12.7mm heavy machineguns and, now, robotic weapon turrets on back and front. But two had big experimental heat-beamers and four had pairs of experimental maxiguns, bigger versions of miniguns, that fired 12.7mm bullets. There were similar vehicles, built on the same type of bodies, which were troop carriers and they were called Kangaroos.

 

Following them came Deuce and a Half trucks, vintage American machines, rumbling along each on six wheels. They came full of newly recruited and speedily trained, equipped and sent out National Guard soldiers. Thankfully many Wastelanders were tough, grew up using weapons and were used to fighting as groups to survive. Shortages meant that many of these soldiers used WW2 body-armour, combat fatigues, combat boots, powerful semiautomatic rifles and other weapons.

 

Most of the gear came from the one amazing bunker of bunkers fairly close to the GNR Tower.

 

The site was a Wastelander Assistance Outpost, a WAO, and there stood Brother Protectors in power armour sporting squat but powerful 55zz-pulserifles or 20mm autoguns or missile-launchers. The armour was body tight and the Sisters Compassionate were shaped obviously as women.

 

The WAO was a mixture of prefab modular structures, tents, squat defensive towers, a low wide barrier wall, and Wastelander refugees. The outpost was large with many tents and supporting facilities but it was fairly crowded. There were lines of people waiting to get in but they were not being neglected.

 

While most were given water, basic food and other necessary items, a few were caught as being criminals on the run or even raider spies trying to get into the big encampment. These ended up in a prison area where they also got their needs met but their futures were not so rosy.

 

The military convoy was heading not to the National Mall Zone but to the north to join with forces there that were going to intercept and do battle with Warlord Han’s army. It was moving south as if Han was trying to take advantage of the troubles in the DC Wastelands.

 

But just beyond the WAO the convoy was called to halt by a group of Brothers of Protection. The commander climbed out and marched to confront them in anger. Then she stopped in surprise. For before her were a line of ten atomic motorised Prewar military trucks and two big atomic battletanks.

 

A Brother Protector stepped forward and spoke. “They are yours as a gesture of peaceful co-existence between the new United States of America and the Communalists of Freedoma as represented in the DC Wastelands by the Rebirthers, the Brotherhood of Protection and the Sisterhood of Compassion. There are five tankertrucks there with a great deal of fuel along with a great deal of ammunition for your weapons and other supplies. You could contact your HQ at the GNR Tower before you use them.”

 

The woman commander looked at the Brother Protector, looked at her convoy and then at the stuff that was on offer. Then she smiled at the Brother Protector. “I would do but it seems we are having trouble communicating with HQ. So we had better just take all of this just in case.”

 

The Brother Protector bowed briefly and then spoke again. “Let us all fight the good fight as best we can be it on the moon, in space or here on Earth.”

 

She snorted and pushed her helmet back. “I suppose you are going to tell me you are from the moon.”

 

He shook his head. “Yes and no. I am a cyborg with an internal altered human organism, a cyborg network-system and an set of adjusted power armour. The organism and part of the cyborg network-system come from the moon, that we call Luna, but the rest was manufactured here on the Earth, that we call Terra. I am a Cybertrooper Type-2 Model-3A1 adjusted to Terran Standard Gravity. I am expendable.”

 

She stared at him. “My name is Joyce Elvis James. I am a newly made member of the United States National Guard. You know I call myself a Captain but truth is my papers have failed to come through and I am not sure what rank I am. I am human with some ghoul type scarring and, like too many women, I am sterile. Lately the new USFG started fertility testing women and men. Women like me are considered expendable though officially they are too polite to put it that way. I am Fertility Category D. A is fully fertile and so on.”

 

The Brother Protector responded. “You are not expendable! Sterile or not you are not expendable. We can cure your sterility. Go to the Sisterhood of Compassion. They have been healing women and men of sterility all over this world. We do this both for compassionate reasons and in hopes that in return you will help us solve our own problems.”

 

She bowed. “You are not expendable. One day we will have a dance together but please do not step on my feet. I like dancing.” She turned and hurried back to the convoy.

 

Continued in TWENTY-TWO

[Maharg67]

TWENTY-TWO

 

 

Uncle Leo strode across the DC Wastelands with a new purpose to his steps. He wore robes now and carried a long wooden staff. With him came robed super mutants who had once fought for the Darkman. As Uncle Leo’s transformation took place his powers and influence grew on his own kind. Stupid mutants came with him now and their aggression became less while their intelligence and wisdom grew. Uncle Leo was no fool. His followers had weapons and armour beneath their robes but they never used them unless in self defence. A few of the very powerful super mutants pulled two wheeled carts full of equipment and supplies.

 

With them walked humans and ghouls along with various animals. Many of the ghouls had been feral ghouls and many of the humans had been savage raiders. Now they were also followers in robes. The feral ghouls grew less mindless with every passing moment that they spent with Uncle Leo.

 

It was dark and sprinkling rain. A gentle warm breeze blew as they passed through the area known as Bethesda, a place of ruined many level buildings and vehicles. Raiders peered at them nervously at the procession and either hid or even turned and fled. Then a couple came out and joined. They were handed grey hooded robes which they put on and soon they were moving peacefully with the others.

 

Lightening flashed in the sky. In the distance artillery thundered. A radscorpion, only about the size of a radroach, darted along a footpath and down a hole. A smaller copper skinned gecko darted on its hind legs across the street and vanished into an open doorway.

 

Uncle Leo and his followers went down a rampway into a big undercover parking area where they were soon settling down for a wash, a meal and a sleep. Of course there would always be sentries on duty.

Continued in TWENTY-THREE

[Maharg67]

TENTY-THREE

 

President Suzanne Ubama, tall and confident, sat in her chair and looked around at the various VIPs around the big round table. Faces had changed. Positions had shifted. The new USFG had been forced to forget grander long term plans in preference for more practical shorter term plans.

 

There was Envoy Jand from the Brotherhood of Steel. A new type of position, BofS Envoys were quite busy these days. His robes were like those of a Scribe but of a different colouration.

 

There was Field Marshal Julien Grey of the USDF that boiled down to the new National Guard. Any plans for such as the Army, Air-Force, Marines, Navy, Sky Guard and Coast Guard were on hold.

 

There was Envoy Lorral of the Guards of Steel, once known as the Outcasts.

 

There was Jackson Black from the DCTec Corporation rising out of the ruins of the DC Wastelands with research and development, factories, depots, workshops and other projects.

 

There was famous, sometimes infamous, 3Dog of GNR.

 

There was a nervous young man with thick glasses and early greyness to his hair who was the Director of the newly founded United States Demographics Department or USDD. He kept staring at the big fairly detailed holographic 3Dmap projected onto the table that was of the DC Wastelands and directly surrounding areas.

 

The President opened the file on the table in front of her and frowned softly. “The Wastelander population has turned out to be much higher than anybody assumed it would be. The truth was that many groups lived in old Subway Bunkers, a system of multiple purpose bunkers linked to the Subway Network that helped keep the Subway running but which could serve as shelters. Matter-formers, matter-manipulators, sunlight-lamps, exercise machines, security robots and clever ways of keeping contact with each other, helped thousands survive in the General Hayman to Washington II Subway Stations. These are generally not part of the Subwayer Union but have a loose mutual assistance agreement with them. Over the decades many did join the Subwayers but none were forced to do so.”

 

She frowned some more. “Vault-74 seemed to be a dead end, to be a raider outpost with only a few accessible tunnels. So when BofS sappers dug deeper into it they were surprised to find a fully functioning Vault. Vault-74 is at least as big as Vault-101 and also has over ten thousand people in it. Also like Vault-101 it had a secret secondary vault area but in this case the Vault Dwellers found it and began using it many decades ago. Their experiment was to open the vault door automatically and attract dangerous creatures into the vault using special pheromone spray devices. Yet another indicator of the sickness of the VaultTec Vault Experiments. The Overseer sacrificed his own life to collapse the tunnels from the Vault Entrance Chamber into the rest of the vault. Raiders came but could not get any further.”

 

Suzanne flicked through the glossy sheets of the report complete with 3Dpix. “The Subwayers are more open now about forming an alliance against the Darkman and other threats. They state there are a few million of them but not how many or their nature but we have good reason to believe they have some large exotic minorities so we need to be cautious.”

 

3Dog grinned. “It takes all kinds to fight the good fight.”

 

The President turned to him. “Mr 3Dog, I suggest strongly if you have nothing meaningful to add then say nothing. Security must be a primary concern of the new USA.”

 

3Dog only grinned some more. “Of course but not at the cost of basic democratic rights or safeguards against xenophobia. As for the population of DC Wastelanders, well there is the nearly million in Rivet City thanks to the joining to the settlement of two other ships plus a growing on shore settlement area. The BofS Citadel Settlement has at least half a million people. Canterbury Commons has at least that amount of folks especially now it has been revealed that there is a fully operating Vault close to it. This is Vault-Ormond built by VaultTec for the Ormon Church and had not only an amazingly large amount of supplies in its storage subvaults but a big manufacturing processing centre plus no evil experiments. From what I have seen of the Ormon Orthodoxy and the Ormon way of life, they don’t need it. Ormond is the name of the man who founded the Ormon Church who they consider to have been a Saint. The Republic of Dave has fallen to be replaced by the Cooperative Republic with now over two hundred thousand people.”

 

He shrugged. “James Ashworth, the man who helped start Project Purity and who sacrificed himself trying to stop the Enclave getting control of the project, came from Vault-Ormond that the Ormons call the Holy Vault.”

 

Jason Black then spoke with evident annoyance. “So that is how the Canterbury Commons Corporation has been able to supply all of its traders and merchants so readily with goods to sell to the DC Wastelands. This is monopolistic behaviour.”

 

The President frowned hard at the DCTec executive. “Their prices are fair and over all are comparable to those of DCTec. They have been generous with their credit to some settlements, at times to their own cost. Don’t make me regret allowing you to come to this meeting, Mr Black.” She turned back to the map. “What of this Freedoma and the various bodies serving it? What is Freedoma?”

 

3Dog responded. “Freedoma is a fortified colony found roughly to the east of here on the coast. It is a colony of people dwelling in the moon in a great network of underground structures. Their ancestors were both American Alliance and Soviet League people sent secretly to the moon who found there some surprising resources that allowed rapid expansion. When contact was lost with the home world, these Lunarites decided survival was better than old frictions and they merged. This is from the PR Briefing I got from Freedoma Central HQ just a couple of hours ago. The Lunarites are here to assist us and to gain assistance from us though what their problems are they refuse to say at this moment.”

 

Mr Black humphed. “Impossible! There are no colonies in the moon. Such a thing could never have happened. It beggars the..”

 

The President glared at the man again. “Mr Black, if you make one more outburst of this nature you will be expelled from the meeting. The Lunarites have proven themselves by placing a number of large light displays on the surface of the moon and we have seen them, have acknowledged them. I simply did not know of this Freedoma.” She turned to 3Dog. “Perhaps you should delay before broadcasting any such PR briefing.”

 

3Dog shook his head. “Sorry Madam President but you promised that GNR would remain free to broadcast anything that does not go against our agreement. Freedoma mostly spoke of goods and services provided by them free or cheap or at reasonable prices. In truth they also promised to assist GNR itself as a sponsor but everything is above board and true to our agreement.”

 

Mr Black snorted in disdain.

 

The President nodded. “I believe you just as I would like to believe that these Lunarites mean us no harm. I would like to know how they get around so very quickly, so stealthily. They seemed to come out of nowhere. Yet they use technologies that seem largely comparable to our own. Perhaps you would know something of Lunarite technologies, 3Dog.”

 

3Dog steepled his fingers in front of his face and frowned. “There is no good reason that I should do so, Madam President.”

 

But then 2Kitty entered and she looked grim and sad. She stood there as 3Dog looked at her and then looked away from her.

 

The President spoke with a warmer tone of voice now. “We have been testing you, 3Dog. Of course we will take various peoples on as allies as long as they mean us no harm. That goes for both Lunarites and Subwayers. Do not be hard on her. She simply wanted you to be safe.”

 

3Dog nodded as he stared at his fingers. “I do not talk in my sleep. I am unable to do so for I am genetically engineered. I do not snore and I do not talk in my sleep or sleep walk. Long ago I saved a young girl and she had with her two kittens. That was over a hundred years ago. Then came this young woman who looked much like a grown up version of that girl. She called herself 2Kitty.”

 

2Kitty spoke then. “I am that same girl but was rejuvenated. My cats are those two kittens for they were also rejuvenated. It was part of the agreement to keep you safe. I never said you snored because you don’t but you do talk very quietly on odd occasions in Esperanto.”

 

The President nodded. “We found her for you see we are Lunarites ourselves. We come from the Lunar People’s Democratic Federation, the LPDF. It replaced the Lunar Regulation Federation, the LRF, that you knew so well. We have been looking for you, 3Dog, or should I say Harold Q/Stane the super genius scientist and engineer. You escaped from the LRF for good reasons. They had found the Lunar Underworld and wanted to make war on the other humans already dwelling there and the aliens such as the peaceful selenites. No, do not frown so, and listen. The selenites, the humans who escaped in antigravity spaceglobes from the Martian Invasion of the 1800s and who were cloned by the selenites, along with the Uri9 Peoples, they became part of the LPDF. Then we found the others, the descendents of Nazi Germans who escaped to the moon in 1946-47 as World War Two was going through its last four years.”

 

She scowled. “They call themselves the PanAxis now and they are clones with a dark joint subconscious drive to replace all other intelligent life, to one day control the whole galaxy and beyond. Yes, they are of the same clone types who now control the Enclave here on Terra. We are at war with them inside the vast labyrinth of the Lunar Underworld. The selenites have large numbers and amazing biotechnologies. The Brotish clone-humans understand their PanAxis cousins too well and hate them. We have replicants, cyborgs and robots assisting us.”

 

“The PanAxis is much like the Enclave here on Earth because there seem to be secret links between them. Perhaps they are the one big family of extreme xenophobic, genocidal clones. They use cloned super soldiers in power armour, robots and clone-cyborgs but also new weapons. Their cyborgs are roboborgs and they also have zozoz, armoured squat saucer shaped robotic weapons with the deadly izozozi inside them.”

 

3Dog nodded. “You want super weapons to use against them?”

 

The President shook her head. “We want to be able to counter the new super weapons that they are developing against us.”

 

The famous DC Wastelands DJ frowned. “Damned, this is a dream, a very vivid dream but somehow it is also real. A form of dream based empathic-telepathy.”

 

Even as he looked around the room began to waver as did the people, the table and the holographic map. The whole scenario was suddenly seeming less solid, less real and more dream like.

 

The President nodded. “Yes. I hope to speak to you for real very soon. Yes, I am not the President of the United States of America because she, like many in the new USFG, are Subwayer infiltrators. Yet they are not out to do harm because the Subwayers, who number close to ten million people, are in truth the only ones who can really sustain a new federal government. They want democracy, a constitution and an end to the various threats that face the DC Wastelanders.”

 

3Dog woke up and sat up. 2Kitty was lying on her back next to him with her body covered by the same white sheet he had. She sighed as if expecting trouble and he leaned over and kissed her on her mouth, cheeks and forehead. Then they snuggled up together as she lay against him with her head on his chest.

 

Then he spoke. “It happened just as you warned me it would. I don’t think they realise that you told me.”

 

2Kitty sighed. “They do but they forgave me. They also cut me from the security intelligence network. I will be getting no more information as a Lunarite secret agent. I am now given only the one role and that is to assist you with Galaxy News Radio. I think that is good enough.”

 

He nodded. “I agree.”

 

Then they kissed.

 

Continued in TWENTY-FOUR

[Maharg67]

TWENTY-FOUR

 

 

Jas was at the main entrance to the Lamplight Caverns when the convoy of vehicles arrived with a few hundred former BigTown residents, animals and some children, all of the other Reilly’s Rangers including Reilly herself, along with all of the other Sisters of Steel and a couple of dozen USFG specialists. These later were a mixture of teachers, social-workers, scholars, artisans and others. The President herself had ordered that Lamplight Caverns be turned into a proper settlement.

 

The Sisterhood of Steel had been chosen to be the military force in that area to counter trouble there and, unofficially, to be there in case of future trouble with Crosswayne’s people. Reilly’s Rangers had departed permanently from their old base, now an outpost of the new National Guard, and were contracted to assist the SofS.

 

Moira Brown had come along with Bittercup, her new assistant girlfriend, and her mercenary bodyguard boyfriend. She was determined to start a whole lot of new wonderful projects to help the DC Wastelanders.

 

The children reluctantly at first blended with the adults but some knew former BigTowners and anyway the newcomers brought lots of goodies with them. Lucy and Red were soon working out a new clinic together. Mayor MacCready had been allowed to keep the title of Children’s Mayor.

 

Jas helped here and there, sorted out some arguments, talked briefly with Reilly who was bemused that Jas was actually an extension of Jasmine, and ended up in the big metal chamber examining the machines there once again.

 

She was convinced that Jas/Jasmine had overlooked something that was right in front of them. The matter-former machine was now producing goods for a bigger population including toys and other small simple gadgets.

 

The LL-serum was no longer given to the children but Jas had already analysed it while others wanted to do so. Jas considered the serum to have potentially bad terrible side-effects that had killed a fair few Little Lamplighters over the decades.

 

The medical machine was a standard roboclinic booth of a kind found in VaultTec Vaults and many other places. The children knew how to fix it and resupply it with items from the matter-former.

 

The sample taking machine was a sealable medical booth, a toilet and painless blood taker that the children liked to use simply as a toilet because it was clean, private and smelt fresh.

 

But then there was the capsule, the Pain Stimulation Feedback VR Capsule, or PSF/VRC, or so it was so labelled on the sides. The girl child walked up to the side of it, crouched and tapped an inspection panel. It clicked unlocked and slid to one side with a soft humming noise. She was looking at solid-state circuitry in the form of one big motherboard; on that were daughterboards with CPUs, SPUs, digicards and other hardware along with firmware. She had examined it before and had found nothing odd before. She had even used a handcomputer to run independent diagnostics on it.

Now she was rethinking matters and something niggled at her.

 

So she tapped the four corners of the big motherboard that covered the back of the cavity in the machine and then she carefully felt around its edge. The secret switch was easy enough to find once she sensed what she was looking for. The motherboard swung open and she stopped in surprise but not shock.

 

There was a baby figure wrapped in life-support hardware, much of it being living organic in nature being true organotech. A small robotic device stood guard over the baby figure. Next to it was an adult human brain inside a armaglass dome full of special liquid. There were plenty of solid-state motherboards, plenty of cables including fibre-optics, a console with flashing LEDs, dials, a keyboard and a small 3Dflatscreen. The baby kicked his feet a little and gurbled softly. The robot reached out and tickled his belly softly. The baby wiggled in delight and gurbled some more.

 

An electronic female voice spoke then. “Thank God! I thought nobody would open that damned fake motherboard door. My name is Elisa. I am the brain you see in front of you. I was one of the scientists working in Vault-87a hidden beneath the official Vault-87. Will you please get somebody older.”

 

Jas smiled. “I am one body of a multiple body entity. I am much older than you take me for as this is far from my first renewal. I wouldn’t blame you for not believing me as I only recently began to open up to the truth when I began to transform. I am Jas and I am also a young woman called Jasmine and another young woman called Jade. This looks to be a Draken-Sherby type set-up. This is a primitive dreamscape simulation stimulation network-system and, as far as I can note so far, intrinsically unstable and dangerous. This is the Darkman’s style of doing things.”

 

Elisa responded after a pause. “You speak as if you have seen more advanced set-ups but that is impossible. We are the Stimulation Simulation Sensoscape Project One. The Soviets had something like ours but gave up after their government focused on other forms of hitech. Even so they were way behind us for we had Professor Altman and Doctor Strangelove on our side.”

 

Jas frowned. “I am over a hundred thousand years old, in the terms of this world. Just thinking about it threatens to give me a headache. Doctor Strangelove is the name of a physically handicapped genius in a wheelchair in the movie of an alternative reality much like this world in many ways.”

 

The brain spoke again. “Yes, Doctor Strangelove was in a wheelchair and he had a hunched forward position much of the time and an arm that, well, behaved oddly. Some thought it funny but to me it was disturbing. I suppose this being Doctor Strangelove is a feature of our being an alternative reality to that other world.”

 

Jan shook her head. “No, the Darkman has used the same disguise before on other alternative Earths. He considers such acts to be funny. Doctor Strangelove is probably the Darkman.”

 

“Was the Darkman!” Elisa sighed electronically. “Professor Altman shot Doctor Strangelove dead. I was there but was too frightened to do anything. Altman was going insane but he was in control of the robots, of the turrets and he had the security forces on his side. So the Darkman must be dead.”

 

Jan sighed. “Take my word for it, please, the Darkman can not be killed so easily. Chances were that the Darkman, who is a multiple bodied entity like myself, simply sacrificed a poor cloned copy of himself. The Darkman is basically evil. He is sociopathic but at times he can be good, even very good, which makes his evil even worse in some ways. No doubt he helped create the insane VaultTec experiments and even helped cause World War Three.”

 

“World War Three!” Elisa responded. “What are you talking about?”

 

The girl child reached out and tickled a baby foot. The baby wiggled in delight. “Your reality has been in some kind of dreamscape much of the time, I take it.”

 

After a longer pause, Elisa spoke. “The baby boy and I are often in the same dreamscape of Wonderland but we are in the Gingerbread Cottage which is safe because the wicked witch was killed by Hanzel and Grettel. Sometimes the Little Lamplighters visited us when they were trying to hide from the Queen of Roses and her Rosethorn Soldiers. Wonderland is vast but is only part of that whole other world. I do not think this booth could contain it all. Even if you have to let me die, please save the child. I am only a brain in a dome. You can see me. Professor Altman stunned me and when I came to he showed me what I looked like. I screamed and he laughed.”

 

Jas sighed even more. “Really, what a very nasty cunning man. The brain here is cloned brain tissue biovat grown to fit this system. It is not your brain. Also to be more effective this system needs your whole body which is most likely in a exotank somewhere. No, he simply played on your fears.”

 

There was yet another pause before Elisa spoke. “If I get my still existing hands on him I will hurt him…”

 

Jas said; “Tell me more about what has happened and how you don’t know about World War Three.”

 

Elisa said. “Back in the early 70s the situation for research and development was difficult for a lot of scientists in the USA. There was the tension with the Soviets and with the nationalist and left wing rebels in Mexico which we had annexed by then. The stupid short sighted and narrow minded USFG was focusing its funding on military research and development of the most obvious kind. That is the United States Ministry of Research and Development was doing so. The USMRD was controlled by a pack of comic book loving war hawks who could only think of big robots, big supersonic bombers, big rockets, big atomic cannon battleships, big aircraft carriers, big battletanks, big power armour, big everything that was going to blow away the enemies of the good old USA.”

 

“Then VaultTec very quietly and unofficially began to recruit scientists, engineers and other specialists for a wide variety of secret projects. The contracts had down sides but were very generous in many ways. What clinched the deal, though, was the proof that if any of us chosen refused to go along then there was a good chance of an awful accident happening. That is we who were not on the unofficial protected list. VaultTec went after one of those and never did it again after a high ranking VaultTec executive was assassinated; he was the one who thought the protected list could be ignored. Some specialists refused and died, some refused and escaped to Canada and most caved in and went to various secret sites with people they were allowed to take. I took twenty people with me, the maximum I could take.”

 

“Then I was in Vault-87a Subvault-03 where I staid until the rebellion against Professor Altman took place. I don’t even know how things worked out. Altman stunned me and played that nasty joke on me. From then on I spent most of my time in dreamscape or peering through 3Dcams in this booth. Altman set me up so I could access only these 3Dcams for his nasty joke but since I got to see my baby it was fine. Yes he is mine. I managed to keep him alive and happy with some help from an unknown third party. One day the small robot came out of nowhere and began to look after the baby. It takes general orders from me.”

 

Jas examined the small, very sophisticated and expensive robot. “It not only looks like something the Darkman would make but it has his symbol on it. Like I said, the Darkman does some oddly good things at times for such an evil dude. But then again Darkman is the biological father, isn’t he?”

 

Elisa responded reluctantly. “I wanted a baby and Doctor Strangelove offered but he insisted we make love three times. He turned out to be an amazingly good lover though dark in some ways. I don’t mean we did nasty things. We made love many times. Then I became pregnant. That was in 1977 when things went funny in the subvault, when Professor Altman began to develop strange powers and to go insane, when he stunned me and I ended up… inside an exotank somewhere.”

 

She went on. “We worked on various aspects of the new SSSP, the Stimulation Simulation Sensoscape Program or software for the Stimulation Simulation Sensoscape Network System or SSSNS. Though some of the work was interesting it was frustrating because we were trapped in the subvault except for virtual reality and occasional trips to the Respite Subvault, a big lovely garden dome with lots of nice features. But even that was not enough after a few years. Not only that but other aspects of the research were blocked from us and sometimes we had to beg to see data that we actually needed. It was ridiculous. Oh, yes, we were not allowed to know what was happening outside the subvault or the respite place when we were there. No news, no new holomovies, no new anything. Some tried to escape but security was intense and they got caught, got punished and went back to work. Three got terminated but only because they could be spared.”

 

She went on. “There were about ten thousand of us living in our subvault alone. I don’t know how many there were altogether in Vault-87a. I must return to dreamscape. I am being drawn away…”

 

Jas returned the motherboard panel to its place and then returned the outer panel to its place. She sat there looking thoughtful for some time.

 

Continued in TWENTY-FIVE