DC WASTELAND RISING

[Maharg67]

FORTY-SIX

 

 

Two great thumping Liberty Prime robots led a large military force of BofS and NG soldiers towards Paradise Falls. Vertibirds and vertijets moved in formation overhead to provide air cover. Robotanks rumbled along on their tracks along with square box APCs on tracks. BofS Armatroopers stomped along in regular or new, bigger super power armour suits. The so called Supertroopers were hulking big in their special power armour and hauled special 40mm autoguns, big missile launchers or big laser-projectors.

 

The National Guardsmen had no power armour but there were many more of them. They rode in armoured WW2 vintage vehicles of various kinds that had been upgraded as much as possible. Sherman battletanks were there along with Pershing battletanks and armoured halftrack trucks. There were also atomic powered battletanks known as Hammerfists. Each atomic powered monster had twin 105mm cannons in a large turret and on top of that a smaller turret with twin 40mm anti-aircraft guns. National Guardsmen rode in the back of these tanks because they were designed to do so in special compartments that also could carry extra ammo.

 

From the start the battle did not go as planned.

 

They came charging out of nowhere, hundreds of them in power armour and carrying all sorts of guns. As they came in waves they screamed the one weird battle cry of ‘Gary! Gary! Here is Gary!” With them came protectrons, sentry robots and eyebots, lots of robots all fighting as they came.

 

The convoy swung into battle formation at once. Battletanks turned and fronted the charging waves of the strange attackers. The Liberty Primes began to fire their great laser and missile weapons. Explosions ripped Garys apart, shredded them as did other weaponry. Maxiguns, miniguns, heavy machineguns, autoguns, lasers, plasmaguns, cannons, anti-aircraft guns, all blazed away.

 

Armatroopers and National Guardsmen found what cover they could even as overhead the vertibirds and vertijets began a series of attacks on the thousands of insane clones attacking the United States Taskforce.

 

More and more Garys came. They came in strange rocket-platforms that flew just above the ground and supported heavier weapons. They came on big atomic motorbikes. They came in deadly waves.

 

From a distance the Darkman, or at least one of him, watched and he grinned with triumph. The Garys were all one Gary and Gary had turned out to be surprisingly easy to manipulate. The Darkman wanted the Garys to cause trouble, to draw the United States of America into using up some of its military forces away from the National Mall Zone.

 

Then he turned and he lost his grin. The Mysterious Stranger held up a very big and very powerful revolver pistol. Then he shot the Darkman in the chest. There was no talking to the Darkman, especially not a lesser Darkman. It would achieve nothing but having to listen to clever lies.

 

The Darkman shuddered and fell dead. Then he simply dissolved away into nothingness.

 

The Mysterious Stranger, alias Mr MS, turned and spoke to another figure. “I warned you not to get involved, nephew. I told you no more games. Instead you listened to the Darkman and helped set up this attack on Paradise Falls.”

 

Statesman Alba Diplomori grinned. “If you think I am going to apologise, uncle, then you are badly mistaken. I was bored and playing with the US President’s mind like that was fun. Still, you can see it will work out differently from how the Darkman wanted it to and you can thank me for that. I do not trust the Darkman either. So I arranged for a little extra surprise and here they come. Hopefully they will drive the Garys back. In some strange way I like the Garys. Perhaps because they are a primitive version of our self as chimpanzees are a primitive type of human, according to human science.”

 

Mr MS frowned. “Not any wise form of human science.”

 

Then they came to attack the Gary’s flank. Packs of Clanhunters, Knights of Atom and even Psyabalists. These forces thrust into the ranks of Garys and drove them back in confusion. Even mad Garys knew fear enough to run away from glowing Knights of Atom, the berserker fury of Clanhunters and the strange powers of the Psyabalists. But then the new attackers were forced back.

 

For thousands of more Garys were coming.

 

Far too many Garys even though many of the new ones had normal combat armour and less powerful guns.

 

When the mechatripods came striding into view from Paradise Falls it seemed that the US military taskforce was doomed. The three great Martian war-machines raised their more powerful new type heat-beamers and then… began to burn away the ranks of Garys. The sweeping heat-beams exploded robots, rocket-platforms and other machines. The Garys disintegrated in red hot flashes of energy.

 

Protobino soldiers came in odd power armour and attacked the Garys on their other flank. The charged past the mechatripods that continued to lay down covering fire. The new forces fired heavy weapons as they charged along.

 

Almost as one the surviving Garys turned and fled. As they raced away they simply vanished, each of them shimmering before they did so. The robots they left behind kept fighting. The war-machines exploded. Dying Garys died abruptly as if triggered to do so by the fleeing Garys.

 

Three hours later the underground nation of Paradise Deep was agreeing to give up slavery, to make other changes and to become a part of the new United States of America. Why? Because they knew about the Enclave and they knew that deep beneath the National Mall of Washington DC was an even greater threat than the Enclave could ever be.

 

They were also grateful that Jasmine of the USA had saved their people, most of whom were clones, from the deadly Clone Pox.

 

Continued in FORTY-SEVEN

[Maharg67]

FORTY-SEVEN

 

 

Rebirther Reconstruction Units had turned the National Mall Zone into a smooth dirt rectangle stretching out over a long distance. They had done so in surprisingly short time, filling in ditches, removing some bunkers, removing sandbag walls and much else. National Guardsmen assisted where they could but Rebirthers in work power armour or in specialised machines often did not need them. Robots often did the work.

 

When a National Guardsman complained that the Rebirthers were doing the work that the Wastelanders should be doing, a Rebirther stated that all human Lunarites had ancestors who had come from the Earth and many had come from the USA. Then she had pointed out that one of her ancestors had lived in Washington DC itself.

 

The young man stood watching from the upper floor of a wrecked skyscraper. He stood in shadow and he was indeed semitransparent inside a stealth projection field that came from a stealthboy.

 

He was an Enclave clone of a special kind, an infiltrator of a kind known as a doppelganger. The problem was that he had to kill somebody to duplicate them, had to absorb them. Strangely enough though it was painful for the one he consumed, it was far more painful for him to consume anybody. This was the dark irony for all doppelgangers. The other dark irony was that though they grew stronger with every feeding, it also lessened their life spans and so only so many duplications could be done before a doppelganger died.

 

This would be his first!

 

Narala-987 did not hate the enemies of the Enclave for Enclave clones were sociopathic. Only a few select Enclave leaders and other VIPs were allowed to have emotions so they could better understand Enclave enemies. He had no conscious, no emotions. He had only the drive to have the Enclave conquer the world.

 

Who would he kill, absorb and duplicate?

 

He needed to infiltrate deeper into the National Mall and find out just what the Rebirthers were up to. These fools from the moon were the enemies of the PanAxis who were staunch allies of the Enclave. Somehow these Lunarites had gotten through the great force field that covered North America but only in a limited fashion. Then again so had the PanAxis in a limited fashion.

 

The fear was that those on the outside of the force-field, those who dwelt on other parts of the Earth’s surface, would get through the barrier. Not all other parts of the Earth but just most of them.

 

He looked around in time to see a wrecked building swiftly and majestically collapse in on itself as it was demolished. The USFG had asked the Rebirthers to demolish most of the buildings in the area but most of them were both not famous and not repairable. Buildings built of smart materials closer to the war could be fixed with special techniques. Other buildings were just in better condition. Famous buildings would be fixed if possible or, reluctantly, demolished and then carefully rebuilt.

 

The Enclave could start an air campaign against the DC Wastelands at any time so where basements, bunkers and shelters could be saved, they were being saved. These would become shelters for people to hopefully find safety in.

 

Subway areas were being cleared up as were utility tunnels, sewer tunnels and other areas below ground. Anything that could be reused, repaired or recycled was being so from furniture to electric fans to baby carriages to ruined books and much else.

 

Prefabricated modular buildings were going up along with foam inflated dome structures. Big machines were gulping up materials brought in often by Wastelanders on casual wages plus bonuses who turned credit into goods at government depots. Surprisingly few had tried to cheat the system and they were either dead, in prison waiting trial or in working chain-gangs.

 

Raiders had vanished from the whole of the Central Washington DC area because they were outnumbered and outgunned.

 

Paid informants amongst the new USFG had sold that and other information to the Enclave but then many had fallen silent as the new CSIA had tracked them down.

 

The doppelganger slipped across the floor, avoiding a big hole with ragged edges, and then took another look down at the National Mall. There he could see odd humanoids working, dozens of them. They were called puppetnoids and they were of unknown origin, at least to the Enclave. They had grey skin, were hairless and they worked in special power suits tuned to them. There was a whisper going around that certain powerful entities known as living gods were turning folks with too much bad karma into these puppetnoids.

 

Enclavers did not believe in karma, good or bad. But the clones did believe in living gods for the Darkman had been one and once he had controlled the Enclave. When the Enclave had begun its new cloning programs the new clones had taken control of the Enclave and had found themselves immune to the Darkman’s control. They had then turned against him for they considered him to be far too emotional and erratic.

 

Then he whirled as he saw the woman standing there. She was an older looking version of Jasmine but was still very lithe and beautiful. She wore a blue vault jumpsuit but with out any numbers on it.

 

The Enclave clone wondered if she saw him until Jaylee turned and looked directly at him. Without warning his stealthboy failed and he now looked like a figure in grey stealth power armour with the helmet gone to show an oddly hairless purple head that was in other ways quite human.

 

She smiled and then spoke. “Leave! Absorb nobody. Take a message back to your Enclave Leadership. Tell them that the evil that is deep beneath the DC Wastelands is your true enemy. Not the new USA, not the Brotherhood of Steel, not the Darkman with his army of super mutants or anybody else. Down there is the true evil. It is not an evil you would wish to be allies with or even try to because it does not accept allies. It is chaotic, full of twisted emotions and sunk in strange logic. It hates your kind of entity as much as it hates things of good or neutral karma. It even hates anything of less evil karma than it and its followers, which is saying a good deal since it and its true followers are incredibly evil. It manipulates and then absorbs false followers. It would not even consider using you Enclavers.”

 

After a pause the doppelganger went to step back.

 

But Jaylee smiled and, reaching out, touched him. He shimmered and cried out. Then he was not a he any more. He looked like Jaylee. Confused he stared at her. Then he spoke. “What have you done to me?”

 

She smiled. “You are no longer a doppelganger. You are still an Enclave clone, still sociopathic, but you must remain in that shapeform until you die. You should thank me for now you are sure to live longer. Go!”

 

The copy of Jaylee nodded, turned and hurried off in her stealth power suit. Moments later her stealthboy became active again and she vanished.

 

Jaylee wondered if the message would get through.

 

Continued in FORTY-EIGHT

[Maharg67]

FORTY-EIGHT

 

 

The Garys that survived fled back to Gary’s Vault using Gary’s powers of stealthy fast running. They moved in small groups, scattered and yet coordinated for they were one Gary who was many Garys. They had only one great desire and that was to get home.

 

Gary now knew that the Darkman had tricked Gary. Yet the Garys did take much loot with them back to Gary’s Vault. Gary knew that he had made powerful enemies and that those powerful enemies would be hunting for Gary. Gary knew that they would be coming to Gary’s Vault.

 

When the first Garys fled into their vault they had a big surprise waiting for them. Mary was waiting for them. There were many Marys. They were beautiful, they were sexy, they were glad to see Gary. Gary fell in love. The Mary soon had Gary cleaning up the vault. Gary brought loot and gave many gifts to Mary. Mary and Gary buried the poor victims of Gary. Gary became less aggressive.

 

When Jade arrived with a strong force of killers, she sensed something odd. She watched Garys cleaning up the approaches to the Vault. She watched some Marys tending sheep, which they seemed to be good at. Garys stood protectively on guard but even so there were also Marys who had guns. Mary loved Gary but Mary was no fool. Jade observed through binoculars much that happened.

 

In a place where no Gary could see, Jade met a Mary. The two women looked at each other carefully as Mary stood there in a blue jumpsuit marked A/001 for she was the very first Mary, was Mary/A/001.

 

Mary sighed. “Mary controls Gary now. Gary will no longer leave the Vault and Gary will make up for the harm he has done, for the harm that all the Garys have done. Mary has some special things to tell you. Garys were a project idea to help develop a variety of clones but the Garys had one mind and could not deal with having one mind. They went insane but they only went insane because the VaultTec scientists in our vault tried to make them into killers.”

 

“There was a war going on in the vault between the Scientific Faction, the Overseer’s Faction and the People’s Faction. Each had robots, weapons, turrets, body-armour and other stuff. The Overseer’s Faction had most of the robots and turrets. The People’s Faction had most of the people including most of the security guards. The Scientific Faction created the Garys from a cloneator machine to try to use as a weapon so they could gain control of the vault. Gary went insane. Another cloneator was set up to produce Marys to help control the Garys but the machine was not turned on until recently.”

 

Jade nodded. “So the Garys took over the vault.”

 

Mary shook her head. “Only the original Vault-108. The three factions survived by withdrawing into three other vaults and locking themselves away. Their descendents are still there, I suppose. The vault experiment was to cause violent factionalism amongst the Vault Dwellers. Mary and Gary will become good citizens of the USA and will make amends what Gary has done.”

 

“I can promise nothing but I will see what I can do.” Jade nodded. “I will send an urgent communication to the Presidium. I do not think the USA wants to fight Gary right now. Quite the opposite. The USA needs the strength of both Mary and Gary for the whole of the DC Wastelands are under threat.”

 

Mary nodded. “The Darkman told Gary so and frightened Gary very much for there is a mighty monster hidden below the National Mall that is hidden in a great hell of its own making. It is a great monster that is many monsters that is one monster. It is a great monster that feeds of the evil things that happen in the DC Wastelands, that feeds off the fear, the hate, the violence. The Darkman fears and hates this great monster so much that the Darkman wants to destroy it. That is why the Darkman made his big army of super mutants and led them down, down, down, down into the great monster’s underworld to find and destroy the monster.”

Jade did not say anything for a time and then she sighed. “I meant the Enclave.”

 

But Mary shook her head. “The Darkman liked Gary in some odd way. He told Gary that the Enclave is made up of nasty clones that think that only they should live on the world and should control it. The Darkman said that he controlled the Enclave once but that they broke from his control. The Darkman said the Enclave fears the great monster buried deep beneath Washington DC as much as does the Darkman.”

 

Mary shivered. “In truth there are many dark things down there in that place. They are the Old Ones and their demented evil deities. Yog-Sothoth, the Key and Guardian of the Gate, is a great monster.”

 

Jade held up her hand. “It is best not to mention the actual names of the Old Ones. The name of the actual evil living gods are the Malevae. Old Ones are in truth the distorted creatures who served at least some of them. These ancient monsters of living gods are, I fear to say, cousins of my own peoples. They took a darker path than we did. The Darkman would not lightly go into that deep hell, as you call it. He would go seeking power and to destroy those he fears. I fear that he is going to awaken ancient evil that will arise to the surface and try to consume this world. This world has seen enough evil.”

 

Mary nodded. “True but Gary wishes me to tell you more. The Darkman wishes to destroy one great monstrous god called Cthulhu and take from him powerful ancient knowledge and strange weapons of great power. Then he will use these to take control of that strange place down there.”

 

“The Darkman is the worst kind of fool.” Jade looked up into the sky at the moon. “I have contacted a woman called Jaylee in Bunkertown where the President is. Jaylee will talk to the President about Gary and Mary.”

 

Mary also looked up at the moon. “The moon is very beautiful tonight. Sometimes it is oddly fuzzy to look at but tonight it is clear. Why is it sometimes fuzzy?”

 

Jade responded. “Because a great big force bubble covers all of North America from the Alaska to Mexico, from the West Coast to the East Coast, including the coastal waters. There are people living in the moon. They are fighting a war. One side is better and has sent people to help us though I do not know how they got through the big force bubble. The others are like the Enclave.”

 

Mary frowned. “There is too much war.”

 

Jade nodded. “I can only agree.”

 

Continued in FORTY-NINE

[Maharg67]

FORTY-NINE

 

 

Days had passed and the DC Wastelands had become strangely peaceful. A non aggression pact had been signed between the USA and the Enclave. The Enclave would not move beyond Point Lookout and the USA would not interfere with Enclave operations on Point Lookout.

 

Word did get out of Point Lookout that life there was returning to normal for the people of the coastal settlements of Point Portside, Tower Island and Carnivalia. These were human dominated settlements. The Enclave forces seemed to have a new policy of leaving people alone much of the time except for security checks, restrictions of movement and surprisingly reasonable taxation.

 

It was different with the Swampfolk and the Tribals. The Enclave troopers dealt only death to them. In the three hours of the initial invasion the Enclave had taken control but it seemed many Swampfolk and Tribals had fled down into vast labyrinth of caves beneath Lookout Point. After a while they came back up in fast savage raiding parties that attacked Enclavers and then vanished again back down into the caves. Enclave robots and troops that went down into the caves had many problems with booby-traps and ambushes. Yet there were worse things down there to deal with, things that attacked the Enclave but which tended to leave the Tribals and Swampfolk alone.

 

Enclavers were searching for something. They had already begun cultivation of punga fruit that had many fine qualities. This was done both on captured land near the coast and inside three of the Enclave ships. But punga fruit was not what they wanted.

 

Red Sonji, a male version of Red Sonja, slipped through the tunnels quickly and quietly. He wore stealth power armour from head to foot of dull grey.

 

He made his way past pools of bubbling substance from which rose, now and then, a big bubble that noisily popped out and floated upwards before sinking down again. He heard the muffled sounds of plasma weapons and lasers. An Enclave Search and Destroy Team, or ESDT, was facing a poorly armed group of Tribals but the Tribals knew the area of caves and the Enclavers did not. The fighting was brutal and with out mercy. The few prisoners that the Enclave took were sent straight to experimental stations and what happened to them was not pretty.

 

He was not there to meet the Tribals, Swampfolk or Enclavers. He was there to meet the things that were attacking the Enclavers but only now and then. The very things that the Enclavers were seeking as one of their prime objectives.

 

Red Sonji went past some disgusting arrangements of skeletons, both human and animal, dolls and sharpened sticks. An offering bowl was stained with blood. Bloody red flesh, probably human, had been left there as an offering along with jugs of moonshine. Something had come with big distorted human tracks and had taken the offerings away.

 

He followed those tracks, as no local would dare to do and no Enclaver could do, sometimes moving through up to waist deep bubbling liquid, sometimes crawling through narrow spaces and sometimes climbing up or down. He was covered with slime and mud when he found the big armoured vault door. The tracks went past the vault door in a hurry but he decided to investigate it anyway.

 

What harm could it do?

 

Vault-69!

 

He came down a tunnel that widened into a metallic surfaced area with turrets and a sentrybot. A female voice challenged him, speaking in the language called Esperanto. “Okay swamp thing you can go away now. No monsters allowed here. You should know that by now.”

 

Puzzled, Red Sonji removed his helmet and then he spoke. “Greetings, I am Red Sonji, and I am seeking…”

 

But the voice squealed out and cut him off. “A man, a mmmaaannn! Oh… you… oh you just stay there while I consult my comrades who happen to be… you know.. well I won’t be long. You don’t move. We welcome you with open arms and… you know.. open hearts.”

 

Red Sonji was starting to wonder what he had got himself into. He stepped back but a sentrybot spoke. “Do not move!”

 

The vault door rolled to one side and out stormed a whole lot of young and otherwise youthful, beautiful women all slimly muscular and lightly voluptuous. They wore dark dull pink jumpsuits with the number 69 in yellow just as other VaultTec Vaults had their numbers. Each woman was armed with a 10mmC semiautomatic or laser pistol but they remained holstered as did stunclubs. The left cheeks of the women were tattooed with elaborate, beautiful coloured images of various goddess figures, symbols or red roses.

 

It was all very tribal!

 

They swarmed him with amazing speed and efficiency. Five minutes later he was in a big shower booth being tended by two women. It was obvious what the women wanted from him and he decided to give in as long as he managed to learn something from these Vault Dwellers.

 

They were happy to tell him.

 

It was a very strange experiment but those chosen to go to the vault turned out to be only enhanced and often rejuvenated single women. There were a hundred thousand of them and for a minority of one thousand men. That was one hundred women for every man. There were three cloneator machines but they only cloned female children except on odd occasions when a male baby would appear. There were those women who loved it this way and those who hated it and many who just went along with it.

 

The men assumed they would rule and that each would have his own harem. At first this seemed to be the way it would go. That is for the minority of men who had little interest in women for various reasons. But then the Women’s Revolt took place and everything got changed.

 

Men did not rule but were the harem. Now and then a Tribal or Clanfolk man would get too close to Vault-69 and fall into a trap. The Tribal men were often very wild to handle and the Clanfolk men were too inbred and just damned crazy. Now and then would come a new clone boy but so would come many more clone girls. A few Tribal men settled in and did craft works, teaching the women of Vault-69 many survival skills and crafting skills. The women learned how to better move through the caves, to hunt, to avoid the monsters and to deal with other threats. They learned to run when the dark things came as did the Tribals and Clanfolk. The dark things never came near the vault.

 

Swampfolk women tended, oddly enough, to be very beautiful but stupidly passive or wild. Tribal women tended to be wildly cunning. When captured both tended to fit into Vault-69 society quite happily and became vault hunters, warriors and scouts. They also taught many skills to the original Vault women.

 

Thanks to hydroponics, matter-formers, matter-manipulators and other technologies plus water and air taken, then cleansed, from the cave system, Vault-69 had survived well enough and its population had stabilized at around nine hundred and twenty thousand. Punga fruit was cultivated inside the vault, in a cavern linked by a secondary vault door and just collected in gathering expeditions various mosses from the amazing caves. The mosses had turned out to have many useful properties.

 

Red Sonji did not get to see much of the vault. The harem area was fairly close to the main entrance, was heavily guarded by security guards, robots, turrets and vaultgirl androids. This was as much to keep the men in as to protect them. It soon became clear the women wanted him there for only two purposes and both were to provide sperm in two ways; sex and sperm donations into the procreation medical network-system.

 

The women soon learned that he had astonishing sexual capacity and the other men in the harem area tended to see him as a threat to their status. That is except for some friendly exceptions such as men too old to worry about such things any more, some intellectually handicapped manboys and homosexuals who didn’t care.

 

On his fifth day in the vault he was given a rest day. He sat cross legged in only shorts on a fur of a swamp-bear at the edge of the big main harem chamber. The chamber was very large and stretched out into the distance. Other groups of men kept their distance. They wore only blue shorts, as Red Sonji did, or blue jumpsuits marked with the yellow ‘69’.

 

Old Pete sat next to him and he scratched his bold head. Then he spoke. “The men get special fertility and potency rejuvenations which work but which shorten our life spans, which age us quicker. The women could just kill us but they leave us in peace in retirement and even care for us until we reach the age of 100. Then they send us to a secret place that we never come back from. What happens there we do not know and, frankly, I don’t want to. But you might want to because though you are clever at doing so, you want as much information that you can get about this place.”

 

The old man sighed. “I sired many children and once a month my daughters and sons gather with me to celebrate. It’s a quiet affair but I look forward to them. We get some genuine sweetrolls and fine quality juice to drink. If we are lucky we get a small glass of that damned fine moonshine liquor. Grow hair on a woman’s chest, that stuff could. You look about twenty-one but hour old are you really?”

 

“In a way you could say I am over a hundred thousand years old.” Red Sonji responded. “In another that I am older than time or outside of time as you know it. I am a living demigod. Yet in another I am just twenty-two years old. When was the Darkman here, the tall pale white figure in the Victorian British gentleman’s suit?”

 

The old man shuddered. “About fifty years ago. He came with a good deal of resources including a hundred young cloned men, robotrucks full of goodies, medical data, special medical technologies and knowledge. He adjusted the cloneators so that about one out of twenty clones would be male instead one out of a hundred. He also adjusted the cloneators so that fifty percent of them were no longer sterile.”

 

“The women did not tell me about the sterility factor in the cloneators or the Darkman.” Red Sonji frowned. “What else haven’t they told me?”

 

The old man shrugged. “Not all the women are privileged to know all the secrets, especially the great ones. What the Darkman got from the Matriarchs I do not know but he got something big. Whispers circulated that he made a hundred women pregnant and that they gave birth to many children. Some whispers say they were fine but others say they were all monsters or some were monsters. Vault-69 is linked, supposedly, with a secret secondary vault called Vault-69a and the Darkman revealed this to the Matriarch Council and the High Overseer herself.”

 

Old Pete stretched. “The Darkman introduced some funny machines to the vault. A drunken young woman told me what she should not have spoken of after she learned what she should not have learned. There are ten dreamscape machines, or synthetic psychic virtual reality machines, if that is what they are really called. One sits in a capsule-chair and enters Tranquillity Lane of a large Prewar Town, a big amusement park, a Swiss Alps adventure, a tropical island paradise or a version of Alice’s Wonderland. She must have been really drunk because she said that women who play any of these dangerous games, some more dangerous than others, can become pregnant but also others die. She looked kind of angry when I asked if the pregnancies were okay. Then she fell asleep. I never saw her again. Now and then, not too often thankfully, a woman will vanish or at least she is never seen in the harem again or spoken of.”

 

Then Old Pete gave a start. “Oh, I almost forgot, one special machine takes women to a place called NeoWashington or SSS01. I only heard that whisper once. Its just like Prewar Washington DC and you would figure it should be nice but it’s a nightmare. The Darkman rules there and causes much suffering. Is it true that the world was blasted by atomic bombs?”

 

“A big part of it was.” Red Sonji then told Old Pete about North America, about the DC Wastelands, about other areas but he refused to speak of the world outside of the great force field. Others started to gather as he spoke being men and then also women. A few recorded him either with audio or audio-visual means. He spoke about the various vaults he knew of, the Brotherhood of Steel, the Enclave, the coming of the Lunarites, the Subwayers and many other things. He took out coloured 3Dphotos and passed them around for people to look at. Indeed he took out an amazingly large amount of them and then did not take them back. Each 3Dphoto had time, date, location and coordinates printed on the back. Location names were in English and Esperanto.

 

Then he lay back and took a relaxing sleep.

 

Continued in FIFTY

[Maharg67]

FIFTY

 

 

Bethesda Virtual Reality Games Corporation!

 

The old neon sign was dirty and filthy but was still running on a long life atomic battery, flashing in the darkness that fell with the coming thunderstorm. It was going to be a big horror even by DC Wastelands standards. The first rains were sheeting in, were striking the ground and ruins hard. Even feral ghouls were gone into hiding, being frightened by the roaring thunder.

 

All across the DC Wastelands settlements would be getting prepared for the worst. Convoys and other travellers would be racing for cover. Eyebots would have sought cover thanks to programming. Aircraft would be grounded and in cover. Boats, ferries and riverships along the DC River would be secured and even brought out of the water if they could be.

 

Days had passed of relative peace in the DC Wastelands.

 

The vampire ghouls had vanished or at least Subwayer elite exotic forces could no longer find them be they Knights of Atom, Clanhunters or Psyabalists.

 

Raiders were gone from most of the DC Wastelands because things had become just too hot for them.

 

There were less feral ghouls as if the ghoul vampires had taken most of these pathetic monsters with them when they had left. A few were hiding amongst the ruined skyscrapers, multiple-domes and other structures of that area. They huddled together pathetically, amongst them a glowing one no less frightened than the others.

 

Four BofS atomic powered, heavily armoured four wheel drive Hummers raced along a main street, turned and shot away. They were making for a new National Guard Outpost and shelter. Their Hummers were making it well now but would not stand up to the hellish storm that was coming.

 

Metal signs rattled. An old wrecked car toppled over with a crash. Giant ants scuttled into the hole, the last ones, and quickly sealed it up.

 

With a strange thrumming noise and shimmering a blue police box appeared out of the middle of nowhere. It sat there looking out of place for it was a British Police Phonebox and was in newish looking condition. About ten minutes after it had appeared the door opened and out stepped a woman in a floppy hat, a multicoloured scarf of goodly length, a black jumpsuit of leathery appearance and black knee length boots of leather.

 

A young woman in a leather leotard stepped out, a buxom lightly muscular blonde with fierce blue eyes who wore leather tribal boots and carried a powerful composite hunting bow in a scabbard-quiver over her back. At her side was a deactivated laser-sword in a pouch. She spoke. “Doctor Cronos, this does not look right to be the jungle world of Akakakakakakatalis.”

 

Doctor Cronos shook her head. “Princess Leza, it is not the right world. So many alternatives, so many alternatives. Well, we will have to try again. Back to the RAADIS.”

 

RAADIS stood for Relativity And Alternate Dimensions In Space

 

They both went back inside, the door closed and with another set of strange noises the blue police box vanished.

 

A moment later a silver sphere sparkle shimmered into view at almost the same spot that the RAADIS had done. A silver door irised open and out came two floating elongated cones with two double jointed silver arms folded up against the sides of each one. The top of the vertical cones were cone shaped turrets with various sensor pods and the front of each strange dull, dark copper coloured machine had a gun that could swivel all around the body.

 

One spoke in an electronic voice. “The Professor enemy is not here. We must continue the chase. Quick, let us return to the ship.”

 

The zaleks slipped back into the zaleship and it vanished as fast as it had come.

 

A building abruptly collapsed across the area where both strange machine had been for just a short time. It exploded as it struck the ground that shook lightly. A big radroach flew through the air and struck the Bethesda neon sign with a splat. Dead radroach dribbled down the sign.

 

The dust was quickly swept away by the wind and rain which soon washed away the poor dead radroach.

 

Continued in FIFTY-ONE

[dezdimona]

awesome..will you marry me? :bunny:

[Maharg67]

But of course, dear heart, do you want a traditional, a goddess garden or more of a Elvis type Los Vegas type marriage. LOCL to you dezdimona!!! :wub: :bunny: :banana:

[species5478]

Good writing.

[Maharg67]

Thank you, Species5478 :thumbsup: :thanks:

 

 

FIFTY-ONE

 

Jade went with Mary down through levels of Vault-108 which were looking cleaner and neater with every passing hour. Then they were looking at a large chamber where Marys and Garys were sorting out heaps of stuff be it furniture, computer hardware, robotic parts, boxes of stuff, lockers and much else. Almost anything that one could think of was piled up in that huge metallic chamber. Car tires, mannequins, deactivated androids, robots, pool tables, wheelibins, garden gnomes, tools of all kinds, pieces of houses and much else.

 

It seemed insane that anybody would go to so much trouble to bring such stuff into that place and just heap it up like that so that it filled about half of the chamber in on great big mound in the middle of the chamber. But the stuff was useful or semi-useful. The Garys and Marys were glad to take it away with the help of robots, androids and special machines including robotrucks.

 

It seemed to be yet one more sign of VaultTec insanity.

 

Jade walked around the mound until she came back to her starting place. She turned to look at Mary as two Garys strode passed them carrying a nice shiny metal kitchen sink. Then she pointed at the mound.

 

“The mound will never grow smaller. As you take things away it moves a little but that movement is caused partly by new things appearing inside to, in a general sense, replace the mass taken away. All of this stuff is being matter-formed with the expenditure of a great deal of energy. Notice anything else about the mound?”

 

The Mary shook her head. “Apart from the clunky nature of things, nothing.”

 

Jade smiled. “You have it! The items in the mound are put together in such a way as to make it awkward to remove anything and to cause movement. Thus the appearance of new items inside the heap is more easily disguised. Of course you would have worked out sooner or later that something was strange but not perhaps what. The heap is made to stop anybody getting to the middle of it in a bizarre fashion that smells of the Darkman and his strange jokes.”

 

Mary frowned. “This is very hard for Mary to think about because Mary is still getting used to being a Mary who is many Marys who are one Mary. Yet I think I see a way that one could get through, that might be meant for one to get through. Hollow things next to hollow things. Go through hollow things that are meant for things to go through like that big pipe sticking out of the bottom of the mound.”

 

Jade kissed Mary and Mary blushed. Jade then spoke. “You and one Gary come with me so that if anything happens all of Mary and Gary will know about it.”

 

The clones put on security power armour and came armed with security guns.

 

The three of them crawled through the pipe and found a hatch leading into an empty machine case. Another hatch in this case led them into a robobus with its enclosed cabin. After clambering through more enclosed spaces they came to and entered a large dome fused to the floor. In the floor of the dome covered floor space was a circular hatch.

 

The hatch was locked but Jade got it open in seconds. The three descended down a safety railed ladder that went down a fairly long tube. Then they were inside a big chamber, a typical vault chamber, only lightly dusty and neat but quite bare. A turret was on the ceiling but it was deactivated.

 

But there was skeletal remains in a blue jumpsuit lying against a wall and on that wall was a sign painted out of blood that read in Esperanto.

 

THE PEOPLE’S FACTION WILL BE VICTORIOUS!

 

There were three metal doors in every wall. There was a circular console in one corner facing the centre where the ladder came down from above. A cleaning roboremote unit, quite large and on six wheels, was parked against one wall but was also deactivated.

 

Jade walked to the skeletal remains and crouched there. Then she sighed, closed her eyes and touched the skull. There was a sparkling shimmer and the body vanished but not the gear.

 

The air-water elemental floated in the air being a youthful looking man of blue energies. He was of the same energy based species as those that Jasmine had transformed from the Talon Fist mercenaries in Vault-87.

 

The elemental spoke. “At first we feared that the Scientific Faction had created some kind of terrible new weapon. The black smoky things that came out of the vents, each with a red purple flaming globe in the middle. Black smoky humanoids but with four arms. They touched robots and the robots were drained of electricity, were deactivated. Worse, they touched life and it was drained of life, became dead. Not every touch was fatal for life or robots. No, only a critical strike or many less successful strikes. They had to get close enough to touch.”

 

He went on. “Lasers did them most damage but high voltage electricity, plasma and electromagnetic pulses also damaged them. Bullets only did them harm if they struck the actual red purple flaming globes. A wooden spear or long stake thrust into the fiery globes did them much harm.”

 

“I died the same day that the three factions became one out of the need for survival. The Overseer was killed by his own people because he was a fool as were the leading three scientists of the Scientific Faction who had created the Garys and Marys. It was learned they had sold secrets to the Darkman about the cloning programs, about the secret genetic coding of both the Garys and Marys.”

 

He shimmered softly. “I must go. Others of my kind grow steadily in numbers in the DC Wastelands and they call for me to help them cleanse air, water and even the ground itself. Oh yes, the final plan was to set up a fortifications of electromagnetic fields, high voltage fencing and plating, wooden stakes, turrets and other defences. People would take turn using status-capsules to conserve resources. That was over a hundred years ago.”

 

Jade nodded. “Go now and do as you must. Remember that you can become human again for relatively short periods of time so you could in future visit any survivors you know.”

 

The figure shook his head. “The black smoke things did not kill me. The madness of my own people took my life. I was murdered simply because I was left handed. The survivors became convinced that the black smoke things were demons and that anybody who was left handed was secretly a demon follower. Oh yes, they claimed that the Darkman was truly the Devil and that he had sent the demons and that anybody who was left handed or who fitted into other categories was his worshipper.”

 

“They are demonic but not demons.” Jade responded. “That is they are living demons more properly known as parademons. The Darkman is not the Devil. The Darkman is an evil living god. He fears and hates demons and parademons. Those black smoke things with the red purple flaming spheres inside are only one kind of parademon. They are called shadowmen. Go now and join others of your kind.”

 

The blue figure looked around. “This chamber has been altered since my death. There were only three doors before, that is two in one wall and one in another. The doors are different now, are bigger, and those symbols were not there before.

 

The blue figure nodded and then simply faded away.

 

Mary spoke. “You are most amazing to do such things.”

 

Jade shook her head. “I am but a conduit for greater forces of the Light and of Enlightenment.”

 

Gary looked around. “What door do we go through now?”

 

They all looked around at all twelve metal doors that seemed identical to each other. On each door was a symbol. These were the nine astrological symbols of Aries the Ram, Taurus the Bull, Gemini the Twins, Cancer the Crab, Leo the Lion, Virgo the Virgin, Libra the Scale, Scorpio the Scorpion, Sagittarius the Archer, Capricorn the Seagoat, Aquarius the Water-Bearer and Pisces the Fish.

 

Jade went to each door in turn, with Gary and Mary following carefully, and touched it. She frowned softly each time. Then she went back to stand at the very centre of the room again.

 

“Powerful forces are at work here and I am having difficulty sensing the truth behind each door but I sense danger all around. Please return to the vault above and prepare defences in case the shadowmen or other threats come. The danger here is too great for you.”

 

Garry grinned. “Garys and Marys are already doing so for what we know, they know, and they are putting together high voltage spark-staffs, powerful laser-projectors and other equipment from all the stuff left from what the Darkman gave us.” He lost his grin. “The Darkman gave us Garys much stuff but only to get us into great danger. He did something that was painful but made many more Garys appear. We will no longer trust or serve the Darkman. We still have much of use like rocket-platforms, robots, crates of NukaCola, big atomic powered motorbikes, those fizzy lollies that tickle your tongue in a really great way and even SPAM, lots of wonderful SPAM that comes in a dozen wonderful flavours.”

 

Jade smiled and nodded.

 

Mary sighed. “Gary has his own special priorities and SPAM is one of them. We will go now.”

 

They departed and Jade sat in full lotus position and meditated. After a short time she began to glow softly in many colours and to float gently just above the floor.

 

Continued in FIFTY-TWO

[Maharg67]

FIFTY-TWO

 

 

The Clanhunter threw a glow-stick through the air and it landed below him at the bottom of the Subway tunnel. She was on a raised platform of the station with escalators running down to the actual station. There was no reaction, no movement and no sounds. There was only dim lighting from still working emergency solid-state lighting.

 

Go feral ghouls, no raiders, no super mutants, no threats but wild ones like mirelurks and radroaches. Then there were not so dangerous creatures like molerats that preferred running away to fighting, growths of glowing glowshooms and big armoured radbeetles. A large rhino-radbeetle crawled into view and then paused as it examined some long thin mushroom like glowshooms. Then it began to eat food that would kill a human.

 

Command Lukas spoke through the mike in her helmet of his hunter power suit. “No nothing but I still got a bad feeling about this. We make no assumptions and that means you, also, McClaren.”

 

McClaren was young and arrogantly assumed he knew enough to be a fine Clanhunter. In truth he was a good one but nowhere as good as he considered himself to be. He was also threatening to break the integrity of the taskteam by constantly questioning the commands of Lukas. It did not help that he assumed that as a man he automatically was somehow better a hunter than her.

 

Whispers were that he was on his way out, that McClaren would be quietly evicted and told that he had no future as a Clanhunter. He had only been given one more chance because he was a member of a very old and famous Hunterclan, the McClarens.

 

There was a slight breeze blowing through the subway trains still standing on the day that death came. Skeletal remains dotted the concrete. Then she smelt something odd, something that sent a icy shiver down her spine.

 

This was no normal prey of the Hunterclan of the Subwayers. She spoke again. “Start stealthy withdrawal. We will move in the two halves, step by step, covering each other as we go. Radio silence unless the need is urgent. Move!”

 

McClaren stood up as he went against orders and he spoke not through the radio link but through his speaker phones so his voice rang out through the large chamber. “I am Dave McClaren and I am a man. There is nothing here but…”

 

The long thin putrid green glowing tentacle plunged out from underneath a train and smashed straight through McClaren, killing him at once. His body withered away instantly inside his armour and the armour fell empty to the floor. Then the tentacle withdrew with amazing speed.

 

The Clanhunters aimed their 20mm autoguns and lasers carefully. When the tentacles came darting out again they were ready. They shot it and it shredded with 20mm shells and laser beams. The creature screamed bizarrely and the vibrations caused a strange trembling through out the great chamber. The big radbeetle scuttled backwards in fear away from the trains and the tentacle.

 

But then, with a flicker, the tentacle was gone. The strange disturbing smell was gone. The radbeetle went back peacefully to its normal activities.

 

They took what remained of Dave McClaren back to the nearest outpost.

Continued in FIFTY-THREE