DC WASTELAND RISING

[Maharg67]

FIFTY-FOUR

 

 

Vaultburg was Vault-87a.

 

Vault-87b was where the Gallery Chambers and the sensible mutants lived. There turned out to be more sensible mutants hidden away, about fifty of them. Some were more sensible than others.

 

They found another Gallery Chamber and walked amongst domed exhibits that were disturbing. There were males and females of animals, of so called monsters. Often there were variations, that is subspecies. There were molerats, smaller molemice, rats, big caverats, squirrels, brahmins including a big impressive bull, horses, swamp bears, yogi bears, yao-guais, deathclaws, prairie dogs, dogs, wolves, coyotes, panthers, bloatflies, centaurs, giant ants, mirelurks, nukalurks, radscorpions, radbeetles, radtermites, ghoul-horses and others, many others.

 

But then there were others. Super mutants in their normal variations, ghouls in various outfits, humans in various outfits, feral ghouls including glowing ones, protobinos and others.

 

Jasmine was there with Fawkes, Dogmeat and Cran of the Sisterhood of Steel.

 

Cran stood staring at an power armoured Sister of Steel in a dome. “Can you bring her back?”

 

“I don’t know.” Jasmine responded. “These are far more than normal museum displays, despite the appearance. They are linked to the Stimulation Simulation Sensoscape System that the Darkman created with the help of many deluded and otherwise manipulated humans along with various AI-supercomputers. The Darkman is very cunning and brutal. There are over two and a half million human minds trapped in SSS01 and now we know that they are tormented by the Darkman so that he can feed off their fear, their anger and pain. The Darkman uses them to increase his power so that he can fight the Malevae trapped in an ancient prison down way below us. Yes, the ancient evil of the Old Ones are trapped there.”

 

Cran of the Sisterhood of Steel, frowned. “Why not rescue the people?”

 

Jasmine sighed. “Because the Darkman will have booby-trapped them into place. Even if we can find them and get past his other securities and safeguards, we or he might trigger off a booby-trap that will kill them all. The Darkman is wanted for many dark crimes and has been punished before but this time, if he gets taken back to our home dimension, the Darkman will be erased from time and space. He will never have existed. This is a tricky thing to do and is only done rarely. It is a terrible punishment.”

 

“So he is desperate not to be caught.” Cran responded. “He is trying to get something of power so that he will be free even from you living gods.”

 

Jasmine nodded. “That is what seems to be a most probable an answer.”

 

Cran snorted. “That was not exactly a straight forward ‘yes’. So the Darkman caused all of our troubles in the USA.”

 

“Far from it.” Jasmine responded. “Far from it indeed. Human stupidity and greed played a very big part in what happened. There may have been other influences. We are still seeking answers.”

 

There were various groups of humanity represented such as Enclave, BofS, SofS, Tribals and many other folk including DC Wastelanders. They walked past many until Jasmine suddenly froze.

 

In one dome exhibit was the Darkman himself. He stood frozen with his normal pale white skin and Victorian British gentleman’s outfit. He was staring thoughtfully into space. Jasmine grinned, shook her head, and examined the dome on its disk shaped platform. She found a hidden switch and with humming noise the whole thing moved to one side.

 

An elevator platform took the four of them plus two other Sisters of Steel down into the depths. They found themselves in a large chamber that was a monorail station with twin platforms either side. A compact monorail train, or monotrain, was ready to take them down a long dimly lit tunnel.

 

After a pause they got in and they settled down in comfortable chairs. Dogmeat found a couch bench to lie on. The monotrain was soon humming along. It was sleek and quick. A vaultgirl asked them for tickets or credit. Jasmine touched it and then the android served them with coffee, biscuits and toasty fruit-rolls. Dogmeat licked the vaultgirl’s hand in gratitude before he ate his food.

 

The monotrain came to a halt at the next stop because Jasmine wanted to check each station as they went along. Even as they stepped out of the machine they could hear the muffled sound of gunfire.

 

They moved cautiously along the platform to a large power-door that was jammed open by a partly crushed sentrybot. There was a wide enough gap for them to see a great cavern chamber of rock, mud and glowing crystal substance growing over the ceiling in flat tentacles.

 

What they saw was a surprise but was known to Jasmine. Vance and the Family, who were now powerful vampires, were firing weapons from a crude fortifications of wrecked machinery, big metal canisters and other stuff. They were not alone for with them were many other vampires that Jasmine had not met before.

 

The attackers were waves of feral ghouls, including glowing ones, and flittering bizarrely beautiful ghoul vampires. The dreaded ghoul vampires were not only controlling the feral ghouls but enhancing them to make them stronger and faster. Yet many feral ghouls lay heaped dead or dying on the muddy, rocky outcropped, expanse of the great cavern floor.

 

In their light power armour they went into the cavern and made their way along the wall, trying to skirt around to where the Family and the other vampires were seemingly trapped by the ghoul vampires and feral ghouls. It was difficult to move over slimy slippery mud and often jagged area of rocky outcrop. They crawled around boulders more than once, even Dogmeat. The ghoul vampires did not detect them until they were almost to their target and were running across an area of open ground.

 

The Family and the other vampires all gave covering fire as Vance quickly gave out commands to everybody there. All four of them made it .

 

Vance was pleased to see Jasmine. She took off her power helmet and crouched with Vance close to a wounded Holly who lay on a make shift bed with Brianna caring for her. Like all of the vampires he was filthy dirty and in need of a feed of one kind or another.

 

“I hope you have bloodpacks on you. The ghoul vampires took us prisoner in the Subways and knocked us out. When we came to we were here with these other vampires who were also captured. It seems that the ghoul vampires want to play some crazy kind of very nasty game with us.”

 

Jasmine took out a large plastic box-bottle and flipped open its lid. Then she dropped two blood red capsules into Vance’s hand. “Bloodic is vampire food, empowering and healing serum in one. One of these capsules is the same as half a bloodpack in general value but is better than that preserved stuff in some important ways. Please, pop them if you would. Taking them with water is best.”

 

Vance studied the capsule with some evident caution, sniffed them, nodded and then washed them down with some tepid purified water from a canteen. He looked surprised and then he laughed. He shook his head. “I can feel the strength flowing through my mind, my body, my very spirit. This bloodic is amazing.”

 

Jasmine put the carefully closed the box-bottle and gave it to him. “Take this for now. We must make arrangements for you to get more but you may have to serve the USA in some fashion.”

 

They waited for the next attack to come but none came. The ghoul vampires and their feral ghouls had slipped away for some unknown reason.

 

Continued in FIFTY-FIVE

[Maharg67]

FIFTY-FIVE

 

2Dog was examining a great holographic wall display of articles, pictures and other data. He was standing back from it as if to see the forest rather than being too caught up with focusing on any tree in particular. Now and then he would use a special laser device to make some items larger and easily more viewed while shrinking others.

 

Scribe Ella Vanes of the Brotherhood of Steel was standing and examining the wall. She seemed impressed. “The Enclave was very busy in the DC area before the bombs fell and the force bubble was raised. They were working closely then with the President of the USA, one John Doe. The Pentagon was expanded downwards with extra levels being added. New bunkers were built along with monorail networks beneath the standard Subways. The problem is we have little detailed data on these and other facilities.”

 

2Dog nodded. “The Brotherhood of Steel has occupied the Citadel for a long time but is rather secretive about how it has dealt with the Pentagon, which is enclosed by an extension of the Citadel.”

 

The Scribe snorted. “As you know, the Pentagon is the administration in the upper lowers and research-development in the lower levels. The deeper the level, the greater the security clearance one needs to go there. Truth is my security clearance is not very high and doesn’t take me very low. There factions in the Scribes and loyalty to certain individuals. Rothchild was the Chief Scribe because he was brilliant and because he was very good at keeping the faction fighting down to a very reasonable limit. But now there seems to be a growing schism between Rothchild and Elder Lyons and it is causing disturbance amongst the Scribes. It is not helped by a whisper going around that Rothchild was seen secretly meeting with the Darkman. Rothchild denies there is any truth in the story.”

 

2Dog spoke. “He may be right. I checked into the story myself and at the time he was supposed to be talking to the Darkman, he was with many Scribes and Assistant Scribes, along with Cadets of course, working on a big project. Unless, of course, he is like myself and able to be in more than one place at the same time.”

 

“That never ceases to impress me.” The Scribe indicated another article, this time from an obscure 1976 military journal. “The military added their own exhibition to Washington DC Madam Madame Tussauds with its waxdroid android displays and androids. It was about the glorious history of the United States military services from the War of Independence onwards. Madam Tussauds is fairly close to Lyon’s Citadel and is now occupied by BofS forces. One might assume this would be to take hitech from there to use elsewhere but no such thing has been done. A whisper is going around that Elder Lyons took personal charge of the operation there and excluded the other Elders and also Rothchild. Question is why and what is happening there? What did Lyon’s Faction find?”

 

Jaylee walked in, like an older but still youthful version of Jasmine. She spoke. “Rothchild is not being excluded. The schism between himself and Elder Lyons is a falsehood pushed by the BofS Elders to hopefully help expose a traitor in their midst. Yes, there is a traitor and that traitor disguised him or herself as Rothchild when they met the Darkman. Or perhaps the Darkman did that. I spoke with Elder Lyons before I came here. He gave me information to share with you. Madam Tussauds was placed underground in Prewar times and is actually inside a disguised VaultTec Vault secretly code named Vault-MTDC. It turns out that other supposedly normal underground and semi-underground establishments used disguised VaultTec Vaults. Some have been taken over by DCTec which is now linked to a large faction of VaultTec, NukaTec and WarTec corporate survivors along with others. There may be Preclone Enclave people involved as well, people who were in status-capsules. DCTec is focused in the area across the river from Rivet City. They have an army of their own in the form of the GuardTec Mercenaries. There is a lack of data about their operations, their true strength and they are very secretive and deceptive.”

 

2Dog turned and nodded at Jaylee in welcome. “DCTec has been selling good quality goods to various DC Factions at reasonable prices. BofS, SofS, the USFG and the Subwayers all buy and sell goods to DCTec.”

 

He went on speaking. “DCTec may have been secretly in operation for over a hundred years now and not a fairly new organization as they like to pretend. We suspect that they traded with the Enclave, with Paradise Falls and even with raiders. They may have provided gear to the super mutants even when the BofS was fighting the big fight in National Mall Zone. They also may have helped to set up the fortified monstrous semi-underground settlement of Armageddon Park which is not far from the DCTec Zone. It seems they will sell goods and services to anybody willing to pay, that they are primarily profit focused. But there is worse for they, it seemed, both designed and sold the explosive slave collars, or ESCs, and those nasty mesmetrons to the slavers of Paradise Falls. Their traders have probably gone at least as far as the Commonwealth to the north and the Confederacy to the south, to Lookout Point and to the Pitt.”

 

2Dog gave a small whistle of surprise. “What else could they have been up to and what or even who else might be hidden inside disguised VaultTec Vaults?”

 

Scribe Ella Vanes spoke. “The Subwayers most likely have some disguised VaultTec Vaults amongst the structures they use. Paradise Deep was created by the Paradise Eternal Corporation but their bunkers were copied partly off stolen VaultTec blueprints. There is a new Paradise Deep Government, a far more democratic one, that has evicted many of the ghoul vampires and killed others. Those still in Paradise Deep have taken deep honour vows to keep the new laws for the vampire ghouls are surprisingly loyal to their own version of honour.”

 

2Dog nodded. “Jasmine, Fawkes and Dogmeat ran into rogue ghoul vampires and their poor pathetic feral ghoul puppets. Vance, the Family and other vampires were trapped by the ghoul vampires and were fighting. The ghoul vampires fled with their puppets in tow for no apparent reason when Jasmine appeared. That is somewhere below Vault-87.”

 

He went on speaking. “As a side note, Jade has found that the Garys of Vault-108 have been subdued by a whole lot of Mary clones that appeared. She has not found out who triggered them to appear but they came from a cloneator machine designed to create them. Now Jade is exploring below Vault-108 and has found some most interesting new areas.”

 

2Dog nodded. “So there is Jade exploring below Vault-108, Jasmine below Vault-87, 1Dog down deeper below Bunkertown and Red Sonja seeking a way down into Vault-301. All of them have so far made very interesting discoveries. Yet they are all seeking to go further, to find out more. So far Bunkertown proper has expanded through to Bunkers A001 as a reception visitors centre, B001 for GNR, B002 for the USFG, C001 full of WW2 vintage goods, C002 a mix of many features, C003 with WW2 vintage rows of civilian vehicles being now claimed and C004 that looks to be a WW2 vintage combination shopping complex, indoors amusement park, indoors gardens, library, museum and art-gallery. In Bunker-C002 we found Brothers and Sisters of Steel from the WW2 period but they have all gone to Lyon’s Citadel. They say that Elder Lyons himself has been speaking one on one with each of them in turn.”

 

It was at that very moment, with a soft shimmer and another vision filled the chamber according to the minds of the three people there. It was the same chamber but it had not of the modern additions or other changes. There was a big old table set up and on it were maps, black-white 2Dphotos, big reels of audio tape and much else.

 

The elegantly beautiful old woman scientist who had been in the vision of 3Dog and 2Kitty was there. She was looking concerned even as she did her long blonde hair into a more practical bun.

 

Marshal Lyons was studying a sheet of neatly typed paper and then he looked up at her and frowned. “The first three jumperships have jumped forward into the future. They were forced to leave early and in a hurry. They are carrying more people than they were meant to because those people could not otherwise get away from the Enclave killers, those damned Talon Mercenaries.”

 

The scientist nodded. “The important thing is that they got away, that the actual launch was successful. We had best be setting out for our jumpership soon or the emergency jumperboats here.”

 

The man looked up to the woman. “Agreed. There is little we can do here now but destroy a few documents, hide others and pack up the last of what we want to take with us.”

 

There was a shimmering flash of light and a tall translucent glowing figure of flowing rainbow patterned light appeared to them. It was if hundreds of small prisms were inside her to create those patterns. This one was a woman, translucent and standing just above the actual floor. The two humans stared at her in shock.

 

She spoke. “I am here only to give you a brief message. We are the elementals of time-space and we will ensure that your jumperships, jumperboats and jumperbarges will get through to your proposed destination of where and when. You must go now. One of your own has betrayed you, a man called Doctor Winston.”

 

The woman protested. “He is a loyal old friend. He would never do such a thing.”

 

“The Darkman seduced him because Doctor Winston has terminal cancer and is desperate to save his life.” The time-space elemental responded. “Please go now. Destroy, hide or load up quickly what you have to, and leave.”

 

The soldier spoke. “I find myself believing you. We will do as you say.”

 

The beautifully alien figure spoke again. “Please take all of the Specials with you, leave none behind. My people and our cousin peoples will help you in more than one way. I must go now for powerful enemies are trying to track me and if they trace me here you will be in danger even with me here to protect you.”

 

The elemental she vanished!

 

The marshal sighed. “We need to make room for all the Specials. You finally got your way, Professor Lola Lane.”

 

Lola smiled

 

With a shimmer the vision faded away.

 

2Dog grinned. “Well you don’t see that every day with the mindeye.”

 

Jaylee nodded. “Of all the elemental peoples, the time-space elementals are amongst the most powerful, refined and subtle. They rarely intervene directly so matters must be very critical indeed for them to have done so.”

 

Scribe Ella Vanes spoke then. “Back to going through the archives. Now we know information is hidden and it may well be there. We need to know much more about these jumperships. We really need to know how many of them there are, where they are heading and when they will appear.”

 

They all agreed on this.

 

Continued in FIFTY-SIX

[Herculine]

You continue to amaze and impress me!

[Maharg67]

FIFTY-SIX

 

 

A big bad storm was coming in and all across the DC Wastelands people were seeking shelter, were preparing settlements for trouble and doing what ever else they needed to. River ferries, barges, boats and small ships were being made safe as possible and, if possible, put safely onto land. Rivet City made special preparations for its safe waterborne existence.

 

Animals were also seeking safety. Giant ants were withdrawing into their nests as were other such creatures. Such as rabbits, molemice and molerats went into their warrens. Many creatures that did not dig into the ground, did so, including deathclaws. Many sought shelter in ruins or in the abandoned areas of the Subways.

 

The Sisterhood of Compassion Wastelander Assistant Outposts were already designed to withstand bad weather but they took preparations anyway. More people fled to them for such a great storm had not come in many decades. Vault-101 opened itself to taking in large numbers of refugees for the first time.

 

Project Purity kept producing purified water but the deliveries were halted.

 

Aircraft were ground except for a few available all-weather machines but soon enough they would also be grounded. Travelling was coming to a halt except for various sizes and types of heavy thick armoured stormcrawlers. There were heavy thick armoured stormbots going out. Eyebots sought shelter due to self-protection programming.

 

Even the Subwayers were making preparations because in the last super-storm they had suffered from flooding in some areas.

 

Across the river from Rivet City, well into the DCTec Zone, a young man stepped out of a slot-shelter, the common name for the small, medium and big cylinder shaped coin or card operated shelters that some corporation had built across the North America. He stepped out of a small one.

 

He stood there and the strong winds did muss him a little but that’s all. The rain splashed off him and yet he did not get more than lightly wet.

 

He stood in his original gear of a collage uniform of jacket, shirt, cap, trousers and shoes. He was neat, clean, with sandy brown hair and freckles. He was tall, lightly muscular with a little on the plump side. He had a collage backpack on his back with the East Washington Technical Collage logo on it as it was on his jacket, shirt and cap. He looked totally out of place in the DC Wastelands.

 

He was like a figment of the Prewar except for his eyes. There was something very subtle but very wrong about his eyes.

 

Around him stood ruined buildings and rubble, a wrecked street, skeletal remains, wrecked cars and a row of five shops. The shops had been rebuilt and showed VaultTec logos and advertising signs as holographic projections. Their storm shutters were down. But the shops still seemed to be open.

 

He slipped a pair of wrap-around polarised sunglasses out of a pocket and slipped them on. They looked like normal sunglasses but he looked at the shops and he could see into them, in a fashion. One shop sold food and drink. One shop sold weapons and ammo. One shop sold armours of various kind. One should sold a wide variety of other stuff. The final shop sold robots.

 

Moments later he was walking into a large, smoke filled diner, the food and drink shop, with booths running down one wall and circular tables dotting the floor. Lower level DCTec workers in overalls or cheap bizsuits or bizdresses were eating and drinking at some of the booths and tables but the place was relatively empty. Young waitresses were bustling around in miniskirts, minitops that left midriffs and cleavages bare, and mid-heel shoes plus lacy black aprons. They moved quickly and were expert at avoiding groping or pinching hands, not all of which belonged to men.

 

People noticed him though they pretended not to be looking at him. This bemused him. He sat down at a corner booth and waited quietly with his backpack on the seat beside him. He noted people were paying with USEDs, United States Emergency Issue Dollars, in both coin and note form. Yet they also used something called DCTec/credit. He had neither.

 

He slipped a hand into his backpack and pulled out a golden finger-ingot marked USFG. It was Prewar. On the blackboard up behind the diner counter were exchange rates and a golden finger-ingot was now worth 50 USEDs or 500 DCTec/credit. The finger-ingot was placed on the table.

 

A waitress bustled up to him, smiled at him with some obvious puzzlement. “Your rather young to be out by yourself.”

 

He smiled. “Call me Bobby! You are sexy looking. Want sex?”

 

At that she arched her eyebrows at him. “Watch it sunshine! Even if I was selling…”

 

Bobby thrust the golden finger-ingot towards her. “I need to impregnate you but the pregnancy will be painless, will last only nine hours and you will get some wonderful physical and mental bonuses. Also I will pay you three golden finger-ingots and some bonus gifts. Oh, yes I will also have a big mug of white coffee, a bowl of mirelurk tuber stew and an Rivet City apple, what ever Rivet City is.”

 

She sighed. “Damned, why do I always get the loonies? Listen you, you smarten up or I get Greg the bouncer to come over here and…” She stopped in astonishment for he had touched the golden finger-ingot.

 

It shimmered and changed shapeform; it flowed into the shape of a small humanoid and then began to tap dance. As it did there came tap dance music and the sound of tap shoes.

 

He took off his sunglasses, looked into her eyes and spoke. “I was walking down the sidewalk just outside this shop, back in 1977, when the sirens began to blow. I looked just like I do now except it wasn’t raining and I was dry. It was a nice summer day. Atomic sedans, electric bubblecars, monotrams, women in lovely black summer dresses, children in prams pushed by flustered mothers, young soldiers on leave, police robots marching around on their thick legs.”

 

She stood frozen in place.

 

He went on talking. “Such memories are burned into my mind. The sirens began to blare. Speakers announced it was not a drill and we were to get to the deep shelters if possible. I looked around at the rushing crowds and I knew then I could not make it. People were trampling over each other to get away. I picked up a baby apparently abandoned by its mother and I saw the very slot-shelter that is not far from here. I noticed somebody put some dollar coins in and then step inside. The door closed but a moment later it opened again and the cylinder shaped space was empty. I knew then it might just be a way to get away. Which was when the baby’s mother rushed up and took the little girl. Seems she was pulled away by the crowd against her will. She was sobbing and the baby was howling. I got them into the slot-shelter with me somehow. The door closed and, well it was like being electrocuted and burned to death at the same time.”

 

Bobby put his sunglasses back on and with a shiver the young woman unfroze.

 

He said. “Over two hundred years later I am back. So, people are divided into humans, ghouls, super mutants and some others. Ghouls live longer than humans. Rivet City is a settlement of vessels on the Potomac. Megaton is made out of aircraft parts, or at least it used to be. There are the VaultTec Vaults. The Brotherhood of Steel, the Enclave, the Subwayers and others. This is the DCTec Zone. Its pretty safe from such as raiders here thanks to the GuardTec Mercenaries and DCTec Security and wages are reasonable but work is hard, is long and security can be nasty. You, personally, haven’t seen the work places and, from what you know of them, you don’t want to. Robotic assisted sweatshops with poor safety network-systems and a poor safety record. Injured and sick workers dumped at the nearest Sisterhood of Compassion WAO for them to take care of.”

 

She blinked her eyes and then she frowned. “You had better not tell anybody else here your story. They could cause trouble for you. With the big storm coming, the shop will be closed and heavily secured before the last of us heads for shelter. You can come with me to my bedsitter. We have a deal. Three golden finger-ingots will get me as far as Rivet City and afford me a start there. I got the feeling you have been in a very strange place for over 200 years.”

 

He shrugged. “Right down deep beneath us is an ancient prison for an ancient group of evil living gods known as the Malevae of the OldOnes. They are served by various less powerful but more common entities down there. When over twenty million people went into those damned slot-shelters across the USA, we were sent into the very edges of that great prison. I suspect those slot-shelters sent out some kind of psychic attraction to draw people to them, that it took advantage of people’s panic. Later I will tell you more.”

 

She shook her head in wonder and picked up the golden finger-ingot, slipping it away. He learned that her name was Candy Sweets, or at least that was her name while she worked in the DCTec Zone. She worked as a waitress most of the time but as a skimpy barmaid when times got tough. Prostitution was rife in the DCTec Zone for the workers, guards and specialists but so far she had not gone down that path. She brought his food and coffee.

 

He ate and drank steadily everything, enjoying the coffee most of all. Then he got up, slipped on his backpack and walked out the front door. He stretched, noted nobody was observing him, and he vanished with a sparkling shimmer.

 

A second later he appeared in a dimly lit laneway close to the back door of the diner. There he waited patiently. The door opened and out crept Candy Sweets with Wastelander outdoor clothes and boots, with a backpack, a rifle and a duffel-bag. She turned and walked straight into him.

 

She gulped!

 

He held out his hand. “Either you give back the golden finger-ingot and the contract is harmlessly voided, or you carry out the contract as agreed as if you didn’t try to rob me.”

 

Candy Sweets frowned hard at him and then nodded. “Very well then I will take the three golden finger-ingots.”

 

He smiled and reaching out, touched her nose.

 

The two of them rested and played for twenty-four hours on a beautiful tropical island. They swam, they ran, they played naked and they made love. They found fresh food and drink when they wanted it on a small table. They slept peacefully on golden sands beneath a star filled skies. Beautiful clear blue oceans. Dolphins swimming in the distance and even a whale spouting out to sea. He gave her wonderful massages. They discussed many issues. Her belly got steadily bigger though it grow fastest in the last eight hours. They did many things together. Then she gave birth in a lovely tropical hut with him there assisting her with much gentle care.

 

Then it was done and they were once more standing next to the back door of the diner and in real time only one second had passed. She found herself holding a small chubby oddly muscular baby in a pouch on her front.

 

She looked at him with an odd smile. “My mind feels clear, my thinking faster and my body fitter, more healthy. He is mine now?”

 

Bobby nodded. “Your child but when you both sleep at night I will visit you and I will visit when I can in a more normal fashion. Now we will go to Rivet City.”

 

She asked. “Then what?”

 

He frowned. “Thanks to the Darkman invading the ancient prison with an army of super mutants and also other things now revealed, a monster has escaped up to the subsurface and surface areas. I am a bounty-slayer. I will track this thing, this tritentaclor and destroy it. Of course it will try to kill me but that is only to be expected.”

 

She looked at him, sighed and kissed him. Then they set out for Rivet City. Thanks to him they easily slipped past all the GuardTec and DCTec Security patrols and sentries plus the various bits of robotic trickery.

 

Continued in FIFTY-SEVEN

[Maharg67]

FIFTY-SEVEN

 

 

Red Sonji turned into a woman and slipped out of the harem when it filled with smoke thanks to his interfering with a network-system. No real damage was done either to the vault or any life. Soon she was walking through the main part of Vault-69 in a dark pink jumpsuit. Around her moved androids, both vaultboys and vaultgirls, but many more women. Globebots floated past in various configurations. Robocars were active and also bicycles, delivery tricycles and quadcycles. With so many even surfaces and rampways in a vault, using pedal transports made a lot of sense.

 

She carefully avoided security until she managed to steal some documents for just seconds, duplicating and returning them with amazing speed. Then she altered the items. Security guards, women in body-armour and with weapons, then passed her through with out any fuss at all.

 

Half an hour after she got out of the harems, the alarms began to ring. Her clever ploy of the breathing fake figure under bedclothes had at last failed. Red Sonji was surprised that it had taken so long since she, or at least he, was always under so much attention. Infiltration was an extremely old game with her and she did not worry about the alarms but just kept on moving.

 

Vault-69a was heavily secured off from the main vault. Turrets, robots, androids, security guards and armoured doors plus some other tricks were in effect. Then she was slipping through a utility hatch and wondering why even smart security experts often forgot about the indirect ways one could get through security.

 

Fifteen minutes later Red Sonji landed on the floor of a chamber in Vault-69a. She had come out of a grate-door high on one wall. The room was a simple utility one with cleaning, maintenance and other such items. A roboremote unit, a box thing on wheels, sat recharging in one corner.

 

Then she sensed danger. Something very powerful and only part human was on the other side of the door.

 

The thing exploded through the door, smashing it into so many multifibre bits, and crouched in front of her. Part Darkman and part creature known as a vorpire, it crouched like a deformed overly muscular Darkman. It was a darkpire, one of the dark creatures of the Darkman. It hurled itself at Red Sonji with pure hatred and amazing speed. Red Sonji suddenly glowed and shimmered with energies.

 

The room exploded, the explosion destroying everything in it and blackening surfaces. A slight tremor went through the whole big subvault. Some flames blasted out of the open doorway and scorched the wall on the other side of the hallway. Sirens began to ring.

 

By the time firefighters in fire fighting power armour and security guards had got there, the darkpire was destroyed and a naked Red Sonji had gone from there. The explosion had destroyed all of her clothing and other gear, including the pipboy. With a little difficulty she stole replacements from a storeroom.

 

But now something dark and powerful, far more powerful than a darkpire, knew she was there and that meant big trouble to come. Red Sonji kept on the move.

 

Continued in FIFTY-EIGHT

[Maharg67]

FIFTY-EIGHT

 

 

1Dog went with the three animamans and the awakened ‘Jelly-People’ soldiers of his group from Bunker-C002 down to the next destination.

 

It took precious time to get through each large ten level bunker, to find a new transvator to the next bunker. It was frustrating that they missed bunkers on each level and each level had more missed bunkers than the ones above it. That is there was one A-Bunker, two B-Bunkers and four C-Bunkers.

 

But then matters changed and for the transvator from C001 went to a great big Hub-Bunker that the transvators from all C-Bunkers went to. Since there were two transvators in each C-Bunker that meant a big chamber with eight transvator doors.

 

1Dog stood in the bunker that was mostly one huge chamber that spanned at in all directions and he was not the only one in the group to be impressed. Rampways, stairways, escalators and elevators linked a series of platforms held up by vertical, diagonal and horizontal beams. There were also thicker pillars and flying-buttresses that also managed to look elegantly strong. The large floor level was a series of big flowerbeds filled with large flower bushes and small squat trees. There were flowers but also fruit to be had. Small gaily coloured birds flittered around and sang sweetly.

 

Many platforms had structures on them. There were houses, shops, workshops and many other kinds. People moved around in a wide range of what looked like altered, upgraded WW2 vintage clothing and other gear. This was a full time working settlement with people. There were soldiers and what looked to be some kind of police officers in blue combat fatigues.

 

Babs the Bunny, Shag the Dog and Harold the Snake seemed to know the place quiet well. They had passed through it on their chase after Sned the Donkey and Rob the Rodent. This was Hubville where over twenty thousand people lived. They not only used the great big chamber and small chambers around its edges, but two side exits led to great suncrystal lit and warmed cavern chambers. There were other caves beyond them with their own useful resources.

 

The reception group came to meet them soon after they appeared. A very beautiful young woman led them and she wore a padded shoulder style jacket open at the front, a half-to-knee skirt and boots. But she wore nothing else, apparently, and her breasts were bare, as was her flat smooth belly. A golden chain hung around her neck with a thick golden medallion marked HUBVILLE OFFICIAL RECEPTIONIST. With her were four green clad soldiers armed with powerful semiautomatic rifles and with kevlar body-armour, both helmets and vests. There were various other folks in a variety of gear. All the soldiers were men and so were many of the others. The few other women wore pad shouldered dresses and also had bare breasts.

 

There was something odd about these people. The women had expression bordering on euphoria while the men looked as if they were almost emotionless.

 

The Official Receptionist stepped forward and smiled warmly at them. “Welcome to Hubville. You are free to go to the green marked areas but not beyond to yellow marked areas. We hope you come to buy and trade. Too few come this way these days what with all the trouble below and of course nobody comes from above unless they have been below first. I take it you passed through Hubville on your way up or found one of the secondary ways that some say exist.”

 

Shag the Dog bowed and then spoke. “We animamans did so. We were hunting for those damned followers of the Darkman, Sned the Donkey and Rob the Rodent, but the others do not come from below. They did not pass through here.”

 

Lieutenant Susan Crier stepped forward. “Sisterhood of Steel, Lieutenant Susan Crier. These are Brothers of Steel. We were in some kind of strange jelly-capsules and in suspended animation. We do not know how we got to be in them in the first place. We came from World War Two.”

 

The other woman smiled. “My name is Teresa. Why, so did my grandparents’ generation and some of those were BofS and SofS. Most of them are still alive and going strong. Perhaps you know a few of them.”

 

Susan nodded. “Then I will remind them that they are still SofS and BofS. The Darkman is still out there and we must hunt him down. We have the Enclave to deal with and other enemies.”

 

Teresa stopped smiling. “They are of Hubville now and the people of Hubville serve only the Hubville Code. The Darkman came and saved us from being embedded in those jelly capsules. He helped us in many ways. He is not our enemy. I hope you will not cause any troubles for us. All are welcome here for trade and to buy goods and services, even you beastfolk, but you are only to meet with and talk with those who are in the yellow marked areas.”

 

1Dog smiled. “I am 1Dog and I am from the surface, from what is the new USA that is arising from the DC Wastelands. The USA is on its way. Thousands will be coming here. The Darkman is the Public Number One Enemy of the USA. Why do you bare your breasts in that manner?”

 

Teresa smiled. “The Overman would have it that way. The Overman is a friend left by the Darkman to assist us in every way. The Overman is directly linked to we who run our wonderful society. He is in our minds. He enjoys our bodies. We are the Overkeepers and we are all women and all women are Overkeepers or Overmaidens. We serve only him. We give ourselves only to him. No man other than him can touch us. He fathers all of our children. The other men are happy for they accept that they are inferior to him, that they are not good enough to be with any woman. Talk to any of our men. They will tell you that they are happy.”

 

1Dog sighed. “Does the Overman deal with each baby when it is born?”

 

Teresa nodded. “Of course for he is the Overman. He prepares each girl to grow up to serve him directly and each boy to serve Hubville. When we reach he age of eleven he plants the Loyalty Bombs in us which assure our loyalty. They kill us if we dare break away from his wisdom. Enough of that for it does not concern you. You are welcome in the Yellow Zone. Men will serve you there. Feel free to abuse the waiters and barmen. The men amongst you are allowed to have sex with other men but not other women. The women amongst you are free to have sex with each other but no men, not even male visitors. If one of the few favoured men, the Overmaster or the Mastermen, come into the Yellow Zone they may freely abuse any visitor and any woman visitor must have sex with them if these men so desire it.”

 

1Dog scowled. “We are not visiting Hubville. We will return to the transvator that we came through.”

 

Teresa smiled. “That will cost you one of your women. The Overman chooses her for he desires to break what is a strong spirit.” She pointed to Lieutenant Susan Crier. “The Overman is fair and understands that he is superior to other men in all ways. Once he would have bowed before the Darkman but he is now also superior to him. The Overman walks amongst the gods and yet they bow to him.”

 

1Dog sighed. “The Overman is quite insane.” He darted forward with amazing speed and pressed his hand gently but firmly against Teresa’s forehead. A shimmering energy flowing from his hand and through her body. “A bio-implant mind-controller both crude and dangerous to the host. Yet also dangerous to the controller. The Overman is a brilliant but lazy scientist. Now, let me see.”

There was a flash of energy and almost every single person in the settlement quietly stopped moving and then either sat down or lay down. Teresa and the others in her group all lay down on the floor and looked very relaxed but they did not sleep.

 

1Dog spoke to the others in his group. “Disarm this lot and care for them. These people are all victims of an insane scientist who is the victim of the Darkman. This is one of the Darkman’s jokes in action but also may have other purposes for the Darkman. We must take care in discovering the truth. I must go ahead.”

 

He vanished with a sparkling shimmer only to reappear one second later on a platform high above the floor. It was marked red and it was a semi-enclosed area of computers, specialised hardware and consoles. A tall figure in BofS like power armour, it was painted dark dull blood red, leapt up and fired a minigun at 1Dog. But the bullets exploded off an invisible field though it drove 1Dog backwards. The living demigod fired his laser-pistol and the laser beam, amplified to greater power by 1Dog himself, burned through the Masterman’s head. The armoured figure crumpled with a crash to the floor.

 

Other Mastermen were appearing, were racing down ramps and across walkways, were crouching on platforms to take aim at him. 1Dog threw up a force-bubble, knowing that it could not last long against the heavy firepower that these armoured figures would unleash against him. He wanted himself and the equipment of the semi-enclosed platform to survive. His hands flew over a keyboard and he studied datasymbols flowing across a screen. Breaking the security barriers took precious moments even as gattling-lasers and sniper-lasers were fired at him. The laser beams were deflected harmlessly in many directions but also partly absorbed to power the force-bubble yet the bubble was starting to weaken. He felt his own energies start to drain.

The last firewall fell and he entered the right codes. All over Hubville security turrets and protectrons began to attack the Mastermen. The heavily armoured figures fell back in well trained formations, covering each other as they went. Then they were retreating through metal doors high on platforms, doors that led out of the great big chamber that contained the multiple platforms of Hubville.

 

1Dog made his way up to a door leading through a main chamber wall and then she was looking at the Overman. The wrinkled old man was mostly buried in a strange hitech contraption that looked more like a torture machine that a virtual reality one. It was clear he had been dead for a long time but that some kind of preserving solution had been sprayed onto him and pumped into his body. By the expression on his face this ‘Overman’ had died in agony and terror.

 

The Overman was part human and part alien as of the Roswell saucership. In that way he was almost identical to the dead alien human hybrid found in a secret extension of Vault-101

 

But if the Overman was dead, who had been controlling the humans of Hubville in such an oppressive, exploitative and ugly fashion? 1Dog went to a computer terminal only to find that the majority of datafiles had just recently been deleted. Yet he had a special way with computers and he found bits of data, even whole datafiles, that had not been properly dealt with.

 

What he found shocked him and concerned him. He left the chamber and found the nearest dead Masterman. Taking off the helmet he found a super human like head but this was a super mutant with all the necessary biological equipment to make a woman pregnant. This was a super mutant man. The children of a Masterman and human woman, there seemed to be no Masterwomen mentioned in the data he had found, had about forty percent chance of creating a super mutant boy of fertile nature, about a thirty percent chance of creating a super mutant man of normal human man shapeform and otherwise thirty percent for various other results.

 

Hubville had been an experimental breeding program for a new kind of super mutant or so it seemed. The Darkman was behind what had happened there in Hub-0001 of the transdimensional bunker complex, 1Dog knew it from the data he had garnered and the way the program was set up. It bore the dark humorous taint of the Darkman.

 

Then he heard noise from below and he went to the edge of the platform to see a heavily armed power armoured taskforce of BofS Armatroopers and new National Guard Power Infantry or NGPIs, entering the great hub chamber. The USA had arrived not in time for the fighting but in time to secure Hub-0001 against any counter-attack.

 

Hubville was a mess that would need a good deal of cleaning up, a good deal of healing and much else work done on it. Yet there was hope that Hubville would be soon enough a thriving settlement of the new USA.

 

Continued in FIFTY-NINE

[Maharg67]

FIFTY-NINE

 

Three dark armoured stormbirds, hard weather vertibirds, flew low with ground following radar operating to guide them. Even though they were well designed and built to fly in bad weather they shook crazy like and both the AI-supercomputers and cyberlinked pilots had to fight to keep the flight smooth.

 

An hour earlier, more or less, a radio signal had come from the Cooperative Republic that had once been the Republic of Dave. It had been as follows as a almost hysterical National Guardsman had spoken over the radio from the USNG garrison recently established there.

 

“Mayday, mayday, calling anybody who can assist. We are being attacked. I repeat, we are being attacked. This is the Cooperative Republic. We are being attacked by some kind of monsters. They came out of nowhere. They are driving us back.. the walls are falling. Hurry!”

 

Only luck had it that the stormbirds were ready to go on their first test training flight and there had been Armatroopers there to supply three platoons, one per aircraft, plus some fighting specialists. This included two tripod-launcher team and a shoulder-laser team. With them was a new Special Field Investigations Team of specialists who would try to investigate the nature of the threat; all were experienced in combat.

 

Even as they began to fly over the Chaste Acres Dairy Farm, made famous by the adventures of Jasmine Ashworth, the instrumentation of the two aircraft began to pick up some odd signals. Then they saw some odd flashes from ahead. Black dots flew through the sky, zigzagging with amazing speed and agility; they seemed to be fighting each other.

 

Commander Grahama stood half immersed into her command chair, in her power armour, as she monitored the situation through various screens and other instrumentation. The communications came straight through to her, a voice crackling over her speakers.

 

“This is Sister Protector Angelus to incoming aircraft. Please allow us to take control of your machines and bring you in safely to landing site designated Alpha-Eight. If you do not do this you will not survive. I repeat, if you do not allow us to take control, you will not survive. We need your assistance on the ground.”

 

Grahama had one of those feelings, one of those ‘gut decisions’ as her sergeant used to say, and she spoke out. “Commander Grahama speaking. Pilots to hand over controls at once.”

 

The pilot of her aircraft responded. “It has been done, Commander. There is something big moving above us, a big saucer shaped vehicle. What is a Sister Protector?”

 

The other woman’s voice responded. “The Sisterhood of Protection focuses on aerospace combat while the Brotherhood of Protection focuses on air-sea-land combat. Our areas of responsibility often overlap. BofP and SofP are both involved in the current battle as are Sisters and Brothers Compassionate.”

 

The stormbird shook as it was buffeted but now it and the other three hard weather vertibirds were flying more easily with the raging weather. They were now wrapped in some kind of fields of energy that helped protect them.

 

They came in to a hover and then landed vertically on a large, generally flat area pock marked with craters. Big three finned saucers were already landed. Two of these were burning wrecks. The rain was coming in hard and it was damned windy but less than it should have been. For overhead a huge saucer was hovering. Somehow it was lessening the weather beneath it. From the belly of the machine spat pulses of energy, plasma pulsebeams and missiles. Explosions flashed in the distance where had stood the Cooperative Republic.

 

The Armatroopers came running down ramps and across the mud in formation. Three platoons and special support elements, they headed towards the battle scene. They noted Brother and Sister Protectors in power armour operating near or in odd semi-underground bunkers that seemed to have some how dug themselves into the ground. Others were operating rocket-shell howitzers, howitzer rocket launchers and gattling-launchers. A couple of gattling-howitzers made constant loud thump, thump, thump noises. Rockets flew through the air with horrible sounds.

 

Commander Grahama moved with her two bodyguards and her aides. Even as she moved she was accessing the situation. It was then, for the first time, that she or any of the Armatroopers glimpsed the enemies.

 

The thing came rushing over the ground, glistening metallic black-grey almost like a living machine on two legs with a long tail and a jutting head with a great mouth loaded with metallic fangs. The clawed hands of the upper two bigger arms looked as if they could slice through metal. The smaller, thinner lower arms ended in clever black hands that held black metallic weapons. The thing was about three metres high, was massive and the weapons were big. But it was wounded with a great burning gash down one side and strange highly toxic green blood flowed down its side that sputtered and fumed.

 

The thing saw the Armatroopers, whirled with amazing speed and fired both black weapons at one soldier. The weapons spat weird purple-red flames in a long drawn out splashing beam and the Armatrooper literally exploded, dying at once. The other Armatroopers at once opened up with their weapons and the monster exploded as laser beams, plasma pulsebeams and 20mm shells ripped into it. To the surprise of the soldiers the body remains seemed to melt away to leave behind puddles of bubbling green substance that quickly dissolved away into nothingness.

 

There was nothing the Brothers of Steel, women or men, could do for the dead soldier so they kept on moving. Except that is the three specialists who paused enough to do some quick precise recordings of the scene of alien death.

 

The platoons reached an area of prefabricated battlements lined with semi-underground bunkers. They were met there by a Brother Protector Officer who went at once to Commander Grahama. He communicated com-to-com.

 

“The thing you saw was an OldOne of the kind called antilazies. That was an antilazi hunter-killer. The soldiers are smaller, as are the workers but you won’t be seeing no workers here. There are some specials like impregnators, medicators, crawlegtors and those damned flying wingtors.”

 

Grahama responded. “Those things up there?”

 

The Protector shook his helmeted head. “Way up there fighting our vertijets and vertibots? No! They are OldOnes of a different kind. They are sabtilazies, monsters of aerospace because they can fight in low orbit for about an hour or so. What we feared is coming true. The Malevae are starting to push against the prison boundaries that hold them. The Guardians at the Rim are finding it harder to contain them.”

 

Grahama groaned. “I think we Wastelanders have had enough troubles with out dealing with this new threat.”

 

He responded. “Firstly you Wastelanders are not the only ones to go through a great deal. We Lunarites first fought the selenites, then we and the selenites together fought the Zetan scum and then we and the selenites began to fight the horrific PanAxis that is no longer just made up of those who came from the Earth, that we call Terra.”

 

The Armatrooper Commander spoke. “I had a bad feeling when you spoke of something called an impregnator.”

 

“You had good reason to.” The Brother Protector scowled. “An impregnator would get a human woman pregnant in a fairly horrible way but would inject into a human man a larvae. The pregnancy would bring forth a bizarre antilazi-human hybrid of greater singular intelligence than any antilazi could have for they have group mentality of limited intelligence ability; they are strengthened by these and other types of hybrid. The larvae devour the man and pop out as a antilazi youngling which could then be made to develop into various kinds of adult antilazi. Sterile women and older children of a certain size get the larvae also. One of the reasons the antilazi swarm attacked the Cooperative Republic was the large number of fertile women here.”

 

Grahama scowled. “How many survivors?”

 

“Just over two thirds. We got here a fair time ago.” The Brother Protector responded. “We even saved some who were impregnated or injected though with many all we could do was to give the victims a peaceful merciful death. Some of the elements of the mutagen and FEV that the Darkman created came from the blood of the OldOnes. He found a way down to the prison. We sent the distress message that sent you rushing here. We waited until the right moment when you would be ready to come. We know many of your people have fears about us, have doubts that we are here to help you, and we can hardly blame you for that. We came from the moon, we came suddenly and with out warning. We did not have time to convince you to come. We did not make up the radio message. It was a copy of the exact message that we got about an hour earlier. The woman who sent the message strapped dynamite sticks around her body and ran straight into a swarm of antilazi soldiers. She blew them up along with herself.”

 

He went on. “Not all insect like creatures are enemies. Selenitors are here, special selenite soldiers adapted to fight in Terran conditions. You can see some selenitors over there like upright ants on two legs and with two double jointed arms. Except they are wearing energy-armour and are carrying weapons and special webbing of pouches, of useful devices. Use your night-vision.”

 

Grahama frowned. “It seems my night-vision device is not as good as yours. Aaahhh, yes, I see them. They are shooting at the enemies. No, they go funny.”

 

The Brother Protector responded. “OldOnes are trying psychic infiltration on the selenites’ nest mentality but the selenites have fought with such weapons before. They waged war with selenite like creatures called the zelenites who once dwelt inside the moon along with the selenites. Apparently the zelenites were exterminated. That was back when the selenites were more primitive and now the selenites regret the genocide. Those selenites are now moving back into the attack and they are now angry. Never make selenitors angry, especially a swarm that large.”

 

The Brother Protector staid with them in a liaison role as they attacked across another muddy area, dropping into gullies, crawling when they had to, crouching behind burned blackened machinery. The special weapons teams fired their bigger weapons to support the moves.

 

They reached broken, burned, sometimes flattened buildings and other structures of the republic. Dead human bodies littered the area and did the bodies of OldOnes. The stink of death was everywhere. The National Guard garrison that had been at the Cooperative Republic had all died fighting but their sacrifices, along with the local volunteers who fought alongside them, had helped the settlement survive until the Lunarites had arrived.

 

The fighting went on!

 

Continued in SIXTY

[Maharg67]

SIXTY

 

Below Vault-108, the Vault of the Mary and Gary clones, Jade was busy.

 

Jade faced the twelve doors and tried to decide which to choose. In the end she would choose by random choice. She had looked to see if it was a trick, if there were hidden entrances or if one of the Twelve Star-Sign Doors was different from the others. She found nothing. Nor did her own life and its relationship with the symbols help.

 

So she took out a twelve sided dice and threw it. Leo the Lion was the result. Upon opening the door a monstrous lion creature hurled itself at her, a mutated lion it was male with a great mane of fur and it was endowed not only with great sharp fangs and teeth but a long tail ending in a very hard and sharp venomous spike.

 

Jade shimmered, sparkled and her shapeform changed. Now in a smooth armoured skin of brass colouring, she held a glowing sword and shield. With these she fought the mighty beast that moved with alarming speed, agility and savagery.

 

On and on they fought as Jade dodged and deflected as the beast slashed, lunged and whirled to get her. Jade was hampered only by one thing and that was her sensing that this creature was in great pain, was driven mad by that pain. She had sympathy for it and knew the Darkman had planned on it. It seemed the creature would be ever driven to attack her but the Darkman was a complicated mentality and matters might not work out so simply.

 

The mutated lion monster suddenly stopped, its rage and pain gone, and passively waited as if ready to be killed. Jade hugged the big head to herself and then earned a huge friendly lick. Then she sent the creature to the Megaton House with a touch and a sparkling shimmer.

 

Left behind on the floor was a small glowing golden crystal with a lion symbol on it.

 

Even as she picked it up, from the floor rose a large wide cylinder that became a metre tall platform. In the top of it appeared twelve crystal shaped recesses, holes, meant for the crystals she would gain. Next to each one was a small symbol, a star sign. Into the right one went Leo the Lion.

 

The chamber from which the mutated lion had come from was a large metallic one with a big status-capsule, now empty, from which the creature had come from. There were banks of machinery humming softly away. There were lockers, consoles and a desk with a computer terminal.

 

There was a dead body lying against one wall and it was only lightly decayed. It was the Darkman, being a Darkman clone from what she sensed. It was no longer linked with the Darkman and she was given an opportunity to communicate with the clone’s own individual soul.

 

Jade crouched by the body in its paleness and Victorian Gentleman style outfit including the walking-stick. Then she touched the body. It sparkled shimmered and then the clothes collapsed empty, the body vanished, as a solar elemental arose to float in the air. It was a young translucent man surrounded by softly glowing yellow-white energies. Jade stood up to face it.

 

The man spoke in a lightly agitated tone. “I was the Darkman but I was not the Darkman. I am confused.”

 

Jade responded calmly. “Relax, the nightmare is over now. You were cloned from the Darkman and programmed to think you were the Darkman. Yet deep down you knew that you were not the Darkman and you fought for your freedom to be truly yourself. That is what killed you. You are a solar elemental now and you can join others of your kind. This is what you chose to do.”

 

The solar elemental now spoke more calmly. “I met the Garys and I convinced them to give me genetic material from their bodies. I then produced many more Garys from a cloneator machine. There is a secret door, or there was at least, in Vault-108 that leads to a very large chamber with a big cloneator and a big matter-former machine to produce many Garys and to give them equipment and supplies for battle. The cloneator can work on others than Gary.”

 

He went on. “I began to get sick. I took stimpaks and then a sleeping serum. I fell asleep lying on the floor there. I must have died in my sleep. I think the real Darkman no longer needed me and he killed me. The real Darkman is in a strange and terrible place with a big army of super mutants and other things. Yes, Zetan aliens of the kind that came with Mothership Zeta and insect creatures called zelenites who came from the moon. They were fighting something called DeepOnes like fishy reptilian humanoids with gills and the fishy reptilian monsters they controlled. They are amphibious monsters that hurl energy missiles and have amazing strength and regenerating health abilities. But they are fairly slow and lack agility. They carry weapons that look organic like they are fishy reptilian creatures. I feel the urge to leave, to join other solar elementals and to start to heal the world.”

 

Jade nodded. “Go then and be at peace.”

 

The solar elemental vanished.

 

Jade found some useful equipment and supplies in the lockers. She had Gary and Mary come down and grab what they could. They even took the stuff that the Darkman had been carrying except for three special items that Jade kept.

 

The secret door in Vault-108 did lead to the big metallic chamber with the big cloneator and matter-former along with other big impressive machines. Jade gave into the wishes of Mary and Gary by starting the cloneator producing more Marys to make up numbers for the many more Garys. Equipment and supplies came out also but now much of it was for peaceful purposes as she had done some reprogramming. The creating of clones and other stuff was slowed enough so not too much electricity was drained from the vault’s other network-systems.

 

Continued in SIXTY-ONE

[dezdimona]

so glad not to be missing out on this!

[Maharg67]

SIXTY-ONE

 

The battle for the Cooperative Republic raged on but the enemy were largely wiped out or on the retreat as they fled down into a recently created tunnel, a smoothly burned tube into the ground. The flying creatures, the sabtilazies, and the various forms antilazi had been slaughtered in large numbers but both the settlers and the rescuing military forces had suffered heavy losses. The enemy had suffered at least three times the losses of the defenders thanks to the defenders’ better firepower.

 

Wingtors swept through the air, flying antilazi with black metallic wings. One shot towards the Armatroopers and exploded as 20mm shells thudded into it. Not only had the Brother and Sister Protectors provided them with more ammo but the new ammo was upgraded types that were better than the old in many ways.

 

Armoured figures darted through the smoke and clinging green mist extruded by some of the OldOnes to slow down their enemies for it messed with radio signals and sensor readings. Platoons of Protectors and Armatroopers moving through what was left of the Cooperative Republic. Robots moved slowly with them. They got steadily closer to the big tube tunnel.

 

Suddenly there was a big explosion and those in power armour who did not crouch in time were blown over. Some MrGutsys were swept backwards. A robotank toppled over into a crater. A vertibot crashed heavily but was not destroyed. Bits of building and other material swept through the air.

 

The OldOnes were gone except for the dead and dying; the tunnel was closed.

 

But something stirred in the green mist and then things were shambling towards them. Zombies, human zombies, moving with the jerky speed of a fast walking human, their eyes vacant and their mouths gaping open. But a kind of insect like black creature rode the upper back and head of each moving corpse, poked a black sharp tipped glistening metallic head over the human head. These creatures spat small black metallic barbs from their pointed heads, from small a single hole on each tip.

 

The creatures were parasitezi, a form of antilazi, and the zombies were called zombizi but the soldiers did not know that at the time.

 

The armoured soldiers took one look and blew the zombies and their parasitic controllers away, the monsters and zombies exploding into so much flesh and blood. Flamers engulfed the bodies in flames and lasers burned into the aliens that exploded so the zombies became mere corpses and fell to the ground.

 

The metallic barbs bounced harmlessly off power armour.

 

The soldiers kept moving forward. Some got together and tipped the robotank upright because they needed its firepower and the spare supplies it carried. The soldiers moved deeper into the swirling green mist. More zombies attacked them as did antilazi soldiers with their upright metallic black bodies like smaller versions of the hunter-killers and with each a single weapon that they held rifle fashion with their two thinner arms. The other two ended in claws as those of the hunter-killers did. Gunfire flashed in the mist. Rocket-grenades and missiles exploded.

 

Then, abruptly, the fighting was over. The enemy was gone except for the dead. The dying enemy had suddenly all died for no apparent reason.

 

The Cooperative Republic was apparently no more.

 

Continued in SIXTY-TWO