The Dimensional War

[Maharg67]

In 1955 Tezzlar, Enstene, Marue, Carvus, Mezsar, the Shaze Triplets and Magnus were super geniuses who between them created a whole new series of amazing inventions that changed the USGA (United States of Greater America),

 

The atomic bomb was replaced rapidly by the AZ-bomb that destroyed people and other lifeforms with out destroying buildings, or so went the theory. Atomic generators, motors and batteries became common place. So, they could be a little unstable at times but there is always a price for progress. Robots started doing much work and if a few people were made unemployed, why there was always the new welfare system or, better, a chance to join the armed forces.

 

There was power armour for new improved soldiering, there were atomic rockets to go to the moon, there were androids for all sorts of reasons and Dizzyland had robotic cartoon creatures to amuse the kiddies. 3DTV, 3DCinema and holographic projections shot up over night. Caseless bullets were used by new military guns. Permanent spacestations appeared in low orbit, in L5 and moonbases appeared on the moon. Tiny Tim sang tiptoe through the tulips. Lasers became used for everything from cutting the Christmas turkey to killing Communist scum to cutting new mining shafts. Communications lasers and measuring lasers became common. 3Dradio became popular. 3Dphotographs filled peoples albums. Self regenerating smart-materials were used to construct new buildings. New regenerative healing processes and medicines were created. Flivvers, aircars, hovercars, fast moving landcars, these and more were very popular though many could afford no car at all. Older style but cheaper helibirds shared the skies with newer, more powerful vertibirds. Microwave ovens, replicators, duplicators and other machines made life easier. Why a cramulator could turn your old organic rubbish into almost kind of delicious new food called Cram just in a few minutes.

 

It seemed that there were only a few problems.

 

Like the radioactive toxins produced by the manufacturing of all of the wondrous atomic goods.

Like the increasing problems with grey flying-saucers abducting people or doing nasty things to cattle.

Like the appearance of strange creatures in remote parties of the USA like Bigfoot, giant ants, bands of berserk human killers and Avon Ladies.

Like the growing tensions between the USGA and other nations who wanted a bigger and better share of the new technologies such as the Soviet League of Socialist Republics, the European Commonwealth of Nations, the PanAfrican Confederation, Great Britannia, the South East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere and all 102 Ggnang Islanders.

 

In 1965 the Martian Invasion began.

In 1966 World War Three began.

In 1967 The Red Plague began.

 

 

Notes:

 

BoS = Brotherhood of Steel

OoS = Orders of Steel

SoS = Sisterhood of Steel

WoS = Workers of Steel

USGA = United States of Greater America

 

DC Citadel = Massive, mostly underground super fotress built in Washington DC protected by force-fields, robotic and automatic defence network-systems. Encompasses and protects the very large, mostly underground, Pentagon.

Edited December 7, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

One

 

'The only good thing about having so many enemies is that most often our enemies are enemies of each other.'

Marshal Sarah Lyons, Commander of Lyon's Pride, 2173

 

'When they first showed up, those big hulking armoured figures scared the willys out of me but when they started shooting all those feral ghouls, raiders and other monsters, I just wanted to kiss them.'

Nathan Riddly, Wastelander Farmer, Crosswayne, 2173

 

'Bloody damned tin cans on legs should have staid over west!'

Hacking Dan, Raider Ganger Battlebuggy Driver, 2173

 

 

Roughly two hundred years later!

 

Four power armoured figures ran slowly along the winding highway that was in surprising good condition thanks to its smart-material construction. Brotherhood of Steel in grey and brown splashwork patterned armour that helped to hide them in the bleak landscape. They ran past houses that stood well thanks to their smart-materials and others that were little more than crumbled wreckage. They ran past mail-boxes and long abandoned atomic cars, rusting tricycles and then a postal robot busy making its rounds. The robot, a mailtron, strode along on its thick legs as it carried an empty mail canister, never stopping because there was no mail to deliver and no living people to deliver it to.

 

The four carried, between them, three 15mmC heavy autorifles and one 20mmC autogun. They had back-up weapons like forearm-lasers, 10mmC autopistols and other, more individual choices.

 

Lieutenant Dolsan radioed for a Salvage Team to knock out the robot with an EMP-gun and recover the robot for useful resources.

 

Washington DC, both the capital city of the now ceased USA and the now much messed up region of Columbia (not to be mixed up with Colombia in South America), was where the Brotherhood of Steel and their allies, the Sisterhood of Steel and the other Orders of Steel, were moving into. The scouting team was checking things out. They had been moving more slowly but then an old fashion fixed wing monoplane had flown over. They had heard its internal combustion engine easily. It had no weapons but that would not stop the pilot and observer in it from warning others of the BoS. That is if the aeroplane crew had seen the armoured soldiers but one never took such things for granted if one wanted to survive.

 

They slowed and then they entered a surprisingly good condition building. They crouched resting and sucked on pristine water and food-paste of the kind designed for astronauts. They did other things in the suits that one normally would not wish to think about.

 

They were in the ruined Urban Estate of Heavenly Luxury Gardens dotted with two level houses with large double garges that most people in the USA could never afford to buy. Across the street they examined a fairly strong and fortified looking fire station. A big Red Plague sign still stood there forbidding people to not go beyond that point until their travel documents were checked. A pile of white skulls were heaped sardonically beneath it. Just beyond were abandoned army trucks were National Guardsman had probably tried to stop the spread of the plague and other invaders.

 

A radroach scuttled into view but, not being stupid, it quickly scuttled away again.

 

The lieutenant checked with her suit-computer. They were just twenty-two klicks from the air dropped beacon marking the designated target. Designated target was the home of a long dead, supposedly dead. 4-Star General Johnson Hambly. The BoS wanted to check out the house to see if there was any important data stashed there that would lead to finding long lost or hidden armouries, bunkers or other such prizes in the DC Wastelands. A fast moving supersonic drone had dropped the beacon and then had returned to the Hovership OSSS Courage that was sweeping towards the DC Wastelands. It was part of a big convoy of hoverships, airships and a couple of experimental skyships.

 

The lieutenant spoke com-to-tom to his team. "Sisters of Steel should be just north of us. Intelligence picked up local info that stated there are some chimpies in the area. Nasties with some Prewar military gear of National Guard standard. Kevlar body-armour, 7.7mm autorifles, rocket-grenade launchers, that sort of thing. We can try talk them into working for us or going away or we kill them."

 

Chimpies were chimpnoids, chimpanzee humanoids created by the warped genius of Professor Marue who also created other animal humans for the war effort. Chimpnoids turned out to be wildly erratic at times but some became deadly soldiers fighting the various enemies of the USA. But the USA was no more. Chimpnoids, like all animanoids, like humans and others, were scattered across the three land masses that, linked together, made up Greater America.

 

Locals were often very happy to sell information to the Orders of Steel in exchange for weapons, tools, medicines and other resources. Sometimes they joined the convoy, climbing on board with what ever they could take with them including vehicles, robots, livestock or even building materials. The Orders of Steel wanted to set up a military base in the DC Wastelands but they also wanted camp followers who could provide the OoS with many goods and services.

 

Elder Lyons of the BoS was determined that they reach the great fortress known as the DC Citadel and make it the DC Wastelands base for the Orders of Steel. The great hitech fortress was hopefully still sealed tight behind fully operational automatic and robotic defences. For the OoS had the codes and passwords to get into the DC Citadel thanks to an amazing stroke of luck, a find by a WoS salvage team. WoS were Workers of Steel.

 

The BoS squad set out again, this time passing through an abandoned yard, past some skeletal remains, past a slowly rusting caravan. Wild grasses grew, tough and dull green. In the distance a cloud of yellow softly glowing fog drifted over a house. Such stuff was wisely avoided even by those in power armour or sealed up vehicles. Radiation was at reasonable levels for new humanity, for other folks. They approached a garden shed.

 

They heard music, picking it up with augmented hearing though it was only being played softly. They approached the shed with care. The shed door was open a little and some light was spilling out. Private Ray opened the door and there lay a seemingly dead woman on a couch but on the bed slept a puppy dog who seemed to be well fed. Then they realised the woman was not dead at all but was a ghoul with disfigured features. She wore a lightly stained Prewar dress, knee length and flower patterned. On a small metal table was a pile of canned food, various tools, an old fashioned .32 calibre revolver pistol, a stack of paperback novels in surprisingly good condition and a closed suitcase. On the floor was a dogfood dish that was empty and an old metal bowl half full of clean water.

 

They sensored and scanned the interior of the hut, the old robotic lawn mower, the metal locker with its door open to show shelves with more items. They found no threats but took nothing for granted.

 

Lieutenant Dolsan spoke through his speaker. "Please awake. You are not in danger."

 

The ghoul woman sat up with her start. The pup woke up and upon seeing two big figures, the other Brothers of Steel were out of sight, began to bark bravely at them. The woman looked around for her pistol but then laughed sourly. She then spoke. "My little old revolver can stay where it is. Shooting at you would be as useful as spitting at you. So you don't want to kill an old ghoul woman who was alive when all the madness took place. That is very nice of you. What do you want? Information I suppose. You can't have puppy."

 

Dolsen responded. "We would appreciate information but we would appreciate it if you would join our people. We are the Brotherhood of Steel of the Orders of Steel. We are coming to the DC Wastelands in order to establish operations here. I am not at liberty to state what these will be at this time. I can tell you that we intend to create a large military base and, linked to it and protected by it, a large civilian settlement. Camp followers we need to provide goods and services to the base. Once you are invited, we take you. That's it. Are there any others in the area who could go along with you or instead of you if you do not wish to..."

 

"Not go with you, are you kidding!" The ghoul woman leapt up hugging the puppy to herself. "I was just having a nap when you caught me off guard. I have been rather tired lately. I am glad I found this poor little pup wandering not far from here. He is amazingly alike the pup I had as a little girl that my father accidentally killed by running it over with the family car. I wouldn't speak to him for a month."

 

The lieutenant nodded. "Very interesting. Amazingly alike you say and you have been getting more tired since you found him."

 

The old ghoul woman frowned. "Now, you see here sonny jim, I am much older than you, and I am no fool. My puppy is a very special kind of puppy but he only makes me a bit extra tired when he could do much more because he loves me."

 

The lieutenant nodded his helmeted head and then took his helmet off to reveal a human head but it was hairless and was metallic steel, was shiny. "We are the Brothers of Steel. I was there when the Martians invaded, when their comet-ships splashed into the seas, the oceans, or exploded into the lands. When the first of those damned biomechanical zritripods strode out of the craters and started making for the nearest seas or oceans, I helped fight them as part of the United States Marine Corps. We took down a few and they disintegrated too many of my comrades. Our projectiles and lasers often deflected from their energy-armour but just as often they got through. Outside of Baltimore we destroyed five of those damned tripods and hundreds of those tripocs in their weird energy-armour. Lucky for us they mostly just wanted to get to the big wet salty."

 

The old ghoul woman nodded. "Forgive me for my foolish presumption. Was it the FEV that did this to your people?"

 

He nodded. "Not all who belong to the Orders of Steel are of our kind, are metahumans of the kind called Steelpiens. A silly name, I think, but one thought up in a hurry by scientists who had no time to spare. There are losses but also compensations to being a Steelpien metahuman, or steelman. Some of us are humans, some are other kinds of metahumans like you ghouls who can resist high levels of radiation and even get healed from it. We have a vertibird coming this way to pick you up with your specieal puppy and your stuff. The policy is to find what ever we can take of good from the DC Wastelands and use it to make greater good."

 

The ghoul woman smiled. "Just call me Martha." She smiled some more. "Can you turn away while a modest old lady changes her clothes."

 

The lieutenant put his helmet back on, adjusted it, relinked it and turned his head away as did the other BoS soldier. Even as they did so the nice old ghoul lady shimmered and changed, grew strangely beautiful with translucent silken skin and long translucent silken hair. Her eyes shone cold and itense. Her beautiful mouth opened to show rows of amazing translucent fangs. Her old dress was now a silken transluent garb of great beauty. She dropped the now flacid puppy onto the bird in a careless fashion and its appearance changed so it was now thin as if something vital had been drawn out of it.

 

With a scream of triumph and rage, with amazing speed and power, she leapt at the two armoured figures. The 20mmC and 15mmC shells ripped through a wall as the other two BoS opened up on her with their weapons. The powerful projectiles ripped her body to shreds. The other two steel soldiers whirled with amazing speed and added their firepower to the barriage.

 

The ghoul vampire burned away and only a kind of gungy softly glowing ash fell to the floor.

 

The fast flying medium sized vertibird came in and picked up the bagged ash and the sick puppy. The puppy had been treated and sensored, scanned by the soldiers. The Orders of Steel would save the dog because it needed saving but would also try to learn from study of it more about the horror that were ghoul vampires, or ghoulzires. The dead drained body of the real old ghoul woman was found in a shallow grave close to the hut along with those of a mother dog and four other puppies. They were carefully bagged. Everything went onto the vertibird, including the old ghoul woman's property, and the vertibird sped off. There was one very exotic hope and it was in one of the hoverships.

 

The squad moved on now with a MrSensy, a bigger globe shaped robot that used antigrav pods to float. While it had two weapons, mostly it was there to help detect exotic threats. If there was one ghoul vampire in the area than there was often at least one or two other ghoulvires.

 

They continued their journey towards the 5-Star General's house.

 

 

END

[dezdimona]

cool!

[Herculine]

I don't want to create a giant ego monster here, but I can't help but continually compliment you. Your work is superb! How do you keep track of so many different story lines? I'm amazed!

[Maharg67]

Dezdimona and Hurculine, thank you very much and no I will not get a bloated ego because writing at this level is damned hard work. Soon will come a slower period.

 

I have done much writing to overcome a strong writer's block and I think it has worked, partly thanks to your positive support. Thank you again.

 

Please reread the story from the start as I have added to it from start to finish.

 

Lots of love! :bunny: :banana: :thanks: :thumbsup:

 

TWO

 

'The best way to deal with Doctor Jeckle is to kill him as quickly as possible, burn him to fine ash if you have to, scatter the ash to the four winds and then make double sure that he is really dead.'

The Omega Man, powerful enemy of Doctor Jeckle, 2173

 

Doctor Jeckle stepped out of mid air, out of a flash of light that came and went in a moment. He stood pale of eurowhite skin, almost albino, with dark almost black eyes. He wore a Victorian gentleman like outfit of black tophat, black coat, a white frill fronted shirt, long black trousers and polished black shoes. In one black gloved hand he held a large black doctor's bag and in the other a thick, dark brown walking-stick of horrible elegance.

 

A moment later he was joined by a hulking monstrosity that was like a distorted version of himself. Mr Hyde grinned and looked around in his hunched overly muscular fashion. His clothes were built tough but they looked strained anyway. The monstrous man had on his back a huge backpack of rough tough canvas like material. He was armed with a great weapon that looked like a minigun except that all the barrels ended in softly coloured gems of different colours.

 

The woman who stepped out wore a black leotard of some glistening leathery material tight against her body. But she also had a tailed jacket open at the front to show much pale white skin of her slimly voluputuous body. Her hair was long, silken and black. She was like a female version of Doctor Jeckle, was Nurse Sleek. She wore silken black gloves and a black belt around her waist from which hung two big black pistols in black holsters and a whole lot of knives.

 

The nine others who appeared were distorted overly muscular men in crude kevlar and metallic body-armour though none were any where as big or muscular as Mr Hyde was. They were of various sizes and carried a variety of weapons but each one did have an MXM16A3 autorifle of the type that was standard to the old US Army. Each had a large backpack.

 

The last to come into existence was a huge black hound with a great spiked black collar and blazing red eyes.

 

Doctor Jeckle smiled but the smile did not meet his eyes. "Thirteen of us, a very bad number and one fortelling of dark tidings ahead. We will bring others through later. We can not risk alerting any dangerous foe to our presence. What a wonderful place this is. I can already see vast possibilities for new experimentation."

 

They were at the Washington DC Harbour. It was a great big harbour and it was sheltered by a large island out to sea from the capital city. Ships floated in the waters or were half sunken. Wharfs thrust out to sea. There were warehouses and tall cranes. Skeletal remains were in some spots. Seagulls drifted overhead and in the distance a Soviet daggerbot, an infiltration and guerilla warefare robot, was floating through the air. A couple of radroaches scuttled over heaps of rubble and rubbish.

 

Doctor Jeckle set out at a good pace and the others followed him. He strode from the open concrete area they had appeared on and headed towards large vending-machine like contraption, an armoured metal cube with a fancy cartoon figure dancing in coloured 3D on its front. Rubbish lay piled up either side of it. It was a matter duplicator, an atomic powered provider of goods. But as the thirteen of them drew closer to the machine there was the sound of a gun shot. A bit of concrete exploded as a bullet struck it.

 

Mr Hyde growled and then sniffed the air. Then he growled in a talking fashion. "I will find him and kill him. Human he is but odd tainted of smell. Him faster, stronger and more resistant to damages than humans of old world we knew."

 

Doctor Jeckle held up a gloved hand. "Not quite yet, my good Mr Hyde, not quite yet."

 

Then the filthy dressed man in crude leather armour came out of the building that was behind the vending duplicator machine or VDM. The sign over the door he came out of was damaged but still showed that inside was an export import corporation specialising in cheap clothes and footwear. The man held a powerful well made crossbow with a notched bolt. At his belt was a .32 calibre revolver in a holster and a machette in a sheath. He spoke in oddly accented almost broken English. "This VDM is the property of us ladies and gents of the Slashing Man Gang. You have to pay for its use and I think we will take the woman as a down payment. Of course we will have to try her out before we sell her."

 

He grinned and wiped some dirt of his face but looked no cleaner. Another two men came out of hiding who both looked different and yet somehow the same. One carried a heavy twelve gauge combat-shotgun with its drum magazine of a type known as a RCS12a. Third had a baseball bat with a metal cap added that bristled with spikes.

 

Doctor Jeckle spoke. "Well, well, well, now what do we have here? Three experimental subjects to begin with along with the one hidden in the building's second level with a makeshift rifle. Oh, a woman! How interesting. Nurse Sleek, will you please do what you do best and go meet the young murderess."

 

Nurse Sleek smiled coldly and nodded. Then she vanished in a blur of motion.

 

The leader cursed in fear and anger. Then he raised his crossbow to fire it at Doctor Jeckle. But even as he did the evil man raised his walking-stick and there was a flash of energy. The ganger was hurled backwards to strike the VDM and slid unconscious to the ground. The man with the combat-shotgun discharged his weapon at Doctor Jeckle but the shotgun blast bounced off an invisible shield. Then Mr Hyde struck this man down. The third ganger dropped his spikebat and turned to run but Mr Hyde leapt and dropped him with one big swinging fist.

 

Nurse Sleek appeared carrying a filthy young woman over one shoulder who dressed in filthy clothes and boots but no body-armour. She lay the unconscious captive carefully on the ground and then stepped back with a cold smile on her face.

 

Doctor Jeckle laughed coldly in bemusement at the sight of the thuggish young woman lying on the ground and then he walked over to the VDM. He examined the screen, the slots for vouchers, cards, notes and coins, the keypad and the fairly big chutetray. Then he spoke. "Bring me coins, vouchers, paycards or notes you find on those thugs."

 

But between them the thugs had only a few copper and silver coins. Nurse Sleek passed over two silver and one copper coin that she had taken from the captured young woman. Doctor Jeckle pushed all the coins into a slot and then paid for some items from a menu that popped up on the order screen. A couple of ice cold bottles of NukaCola slid down the chutetray. He took one, flipped of the bottle cap with ease, and took a small gulp. Then he shivered softly and then he grinned.

 

He spoke. "Very good for me and those like me but not so good for normal humans. These NukaColas will provide us with a small but handy boost with each bottle consumed. We will make our base of operations somewhere in this building. It will be temporary until we can gain more knowledge about the nature of this fascinating world."

 

Of course nobody objected; that would be against their desires and also highly suicidal.

 

END

Edited November 3, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

THREE

 

'Bobby, even as a child, had an air about him that made people careful around him and some wary but a few fell in love with him quickly and became devoted to him. Animals, even big strong wild ones, always treated him with respect.'

Maida, Bobby's Mother, Town Welfare Administrator of Megaton, 2176

 

Bobby sat up on his old doublebed and looked around his basement bedroom. It was reasonably clean even by his mother's standards. A bookshelf with five valuable Prewar books, an audio digital cassette player-recorder, some ADCs in a stack next to it, a manniquin dressed in Bobby's nicely worn leather jacket, a molerat skin on the floor, a big old ornate Prewar wardrobe of heavy dark polished wood, two locked steel lockers, a sink with two taps in a corner that gave low pressure cold water, a shelf of his own carved wooden sculptures, a rifle rack with two locked rifles, a basket of dirty clothes, a big old dog basket complete with a big old slumbering hound, a large ginger cat sleeping on his bed, Prewar posters on the walls advertising various music albums and other stuff.

 

In one corner was a big old wardrobe, out of place, heavy wooden and elegantly carved with an amazing amount of figures from mythology, faith and others unknown. Angels, griffins, demons, giants, gnomes and more, all done with wondrous detail. Yet while it was obvious to him to others it seemed to be somehow not noticed, to be not so important. The animals took the great old wardrobe for granted.

 

Including a computer terminal on a big metal desk in one corner that had lots of computer hardware bits and software datadisks stacked against a wall. He had the computer working after a scavenger had brought a much needed part to Megaton. Moira Brown had bought it off the scavenger and had kept it for Bobby. Moira was a little on the crazy side with her Special Goods'N'Services Emporium and her various projects, but Bobby liked her. Moira liked him also and when he had turned sixteen she had taken him to her bedroom to give him the first of many special private education classes.

 

Only in shorts, Bobby stood up, stretched and looked at the slim horizontal, thick armaglass window that went across the top of one wall. Sunlight was coming in. Soon he would need to be on his way to work. He was going to assist Walter to do some work on the water pump and purification plant. At eighteen he was better at doing such work than Walter was but he hid the fact for the sake of the old man's pride.

 

On a table was a very accurate model of Megaton that was almost complete. He had been working on it for some time though he was not sure why. His father was putting pressure on him to donate it to the Town Hall to put on display in the lobby, such as it was. His father was the mayor of Megaton and Bobby did not like him at all. He was hardly alone in that. To top it off the man was not Bobby's biological father, a fact that he never let Bobby or Bobby's mother forget.

 

Megaton, a large fortified town built around a crashed nuclear armed supersonic flying-wing, a great big jet bomber armed with atomic smart-bombs that had not gone off.

 

Megaton, a town where a fifth of the population were of the Church of Atom that worshipped one of those atomic smart-bombs.

 

Megaton, a town consisting partly of a basement bunker partly uncovered by the crater made by the bomber, partly out of chambers inside the bomber, largely out of structures made of aircraft parts including many taken from a small airbase not far from the town and partly out prefab buildings found in a National Guards Base also not far away. Bits had been added, concrete reinforcing had been added.

 

The town consisted of the bunker where non-citizens were not allowed to go, the inner town behind high battlement topped walls where non-citizens were sometimes allowed to go and the outer section for the free trade zone. The Megaton FTZ was built around the actual crater and had surprisingly many buildings. There was Moiarty's Saloon, shops like Craterside Supplies and Guns'N'Slugs, a hotel, five small houses for rent, workshops of various kinds, a medical clinic run by Doctor Church, Moira Brown's Special Goods'N'Services Emporium, a trade caravan outpost, a charity shop, a commons hostel, public toilets, a public bathhouse and a few other establishments.

 

The water pump and purification plant was in the bunker in a big concrete chamber. It had come with the bunker basement. It was not far from where he lived for being in the mayor's family he got to live in part of the big three level bunker itself.

 

Bobby had first assumed the greyness of the light was because it was morning and then, with a surprise, he knew it was still dark and that he could see in the dark in a greyish fashion. Secretly he had always been able to do so but now it was sharper, less grey and more variable in colour. The exotic changes were continuing and somehow it was not just inside himself, was not just linked to him but also to others.

 

It was time to go visit that other place, his secret place.

 

He carefully picked up the cat and cradled her in one arm. She purred and shifted to lay her big old ginger head on his shoulder. Then he stroked the jolly old dog's head and he woke, stretched, licked Bobby's hand and stood up. Bobby went to the wardrobe doors and chose the only one that so far would open for him. This was not the big double doors at the centre but the single door to the left. Through this he went and the canine followed.

 

There was a normal wooden space with a couple of clothes hanging to the back and some old pairs of shoes on the wooden floor in a corner. When he and his two animal companions were inside he closed the door, waited a moment and stepped out again. But not into the bedroom inside the old basement bunker.

 

It was a great big dark wooden room, as if some force had extended the dimensions of a wardrobe space. There was a mirror on the wall that was exactly like the big mirror on the front of the door he had come through. It showed a view of his bedroom as if he was looking through from the other side of the mirror in his room. It had an ornate metal sink with two taps in one corner that gave hot and cold pristine water. Next to that was a bathtub with two taps, a water fountain, a wooden toilet cubicle, a big bookcase almost overflowing with many items. Against another wall was a big doublebed, a bookcase almost overflowing with items, a small workshop area, a small art studio area and a lounge corner with armchairs, various entertainment machines including a 3DTV and a train set. There were other items, furniture, fittings and decorations.

 

The room provided limited resources mostly basic but some special and even less exotic. He could do some special things in that room. Time passed more quickly there so while everything, in comparison, in the outer world was going real slow, he could get lots done in there. Yet it did not seem to effect his aging process any; he was still just turned eighteen in the terms of the outer world.

 

Yes, his internal clock and the big ornate grandfather clock against one wall, told him he was now eighteen. He could now vote against his father the mayor, gain a driver's license for one of the few motor vehicles found in the settlement and go into Moriarty's Saloon. The Town Council would demand he sign up for militia duty and other civic duties but that was mere formality in his case for it was well known he already did much for the settlement.

 

A light was blinking red on a strange brass and wooden machine that had come with the room. It was like an organ with out the pipes and no pedals. There was the keyboard and many brass levers, slide-switches, dials, small glass displays and much else. Of a row of coloured crystal bulbs nothing before had glowed. Indeed he had never used the machine before, sensing it might cause havoc to do so.

 

But now the red crystal bulb was blinking rapidly.On the big misty mirror like screen on the wall above the organ-console was a flashing red light in the very centre. Danger! Something dangerous had happened, was happening. Reluctantly he went to the console and touched a square button with a symbol on it that looked like the mirror outline. The screen cleared and so he saw, in a misty fashion, the appearance of Doctor Jeckle and his companions out of nothingness.

 

Then he remembered the dreaming, the flashes of imagery, of many things happening in the DC Wastelands. The coming of armoured figures from the west, raiders fighting each other for domination of great semi-underground Evergreen Mills complex, the appearance of these evil figures in the Washington DC Harbourside Zone, big aircraft sitting on the tarmacs of Washington DC Airport, a beautiful young woman in LifeVault/101, a trade convoy moving across a broken landscape, a man called 3Dog starting a radio station in Central Washington DC and much else.

 

But the Harbourside was far away from where he lived in Megaton and he was not greatly powerful. He sensed not only evil about this new comer, this Doctor Jeckle, but power. He had to think and so he began to do some work on a project, one of a few he was doing in that room where time went quicker. It would help him think and it would be immediately practical.

 

END

Edited November 3, 2009 by Maharg67

[Herculine]

Incredible work! Glad your writer's block is gone!

[dezdimona]

*sips her cognac and relishes in the fine tale being told*

[Maharg67]

FOUR

 

'A scavenger's life in the DC Wastelands is rarely easy but then again, that goes for most DC Wastelanders.'

Homer Brandic, Scavenger, 2173

 

The scavenger family moved as quickly and quietly as they could from house to house. Scavengers might have come to these buildings before, structure kept repaired by the smart-materials they were made of, by nanobots, but it was worth returning to them. Not only might something be missed but there were functioning machines like replicators and duplicators still slowly steadily producing goods. They were tough these Columbians of the District of Columbia, their bodies more resistant to radiation, toxins and much else than Prewar humans had been. They were faster, stronger, more enduring, harder to damage and they healed faster. They were also linked through a secondary mentality, a subtle form that left them still being individuals.

 

Despite this life was hard and they survived from week to week in good times and from day to day in bad times. They sometimes linked up with other scavenger families or non family groups but often they ended up going out to find enough just to survive for themselves. The grandparents and two babies were off in a safe placed guarded by communal guardians.

 

The eight of them pelted across a household garden, passed a cracked marble fountain, and frightened a bluebird to fly off. They were aiming for what looked to be a big prosperous three level house, a small urban mansion with two single level wings and a big swimming pool now full of gungy rain water. It did rain sometimes, mostly lightly, but sometimes the big storms came. Then strange things happened. Sometimes the glowing white mist came and even stranger things happened. They wore tough casual gear, much repaired, and backpacks. They carried a mixture of civilian hunting guns, a civil defence laser-carbine and two compound hunting bows. They were not a hunting family but the bows were good for hunting and for defence for the arrows could be used again.

 

A mollerat shot across the garden at top speed and leapt over a fence. The tough little beasty was running from something as fast as it could. The father, Homer, waved his family down into cover. They crouched behind what ever they could. They were in the semi-open for the gardens were full of wild grown bushes and trees, of old garden structures, of wreckage. They found the skeletal remains of some dead folk with rusting weapons who had probably been fighting during the collapse of what remained of the USGA. Many things could have killed them from raiders of many kinds to renegade soldiers to rogue robots to the Red Plague itself and much else. It simply could have been starvation or more normal diseases gone out of control.

 

The ravers came screaming, hot berserk, across the gardens. They were not chasing anything but they always acted that way. They could not help it. They were products of the Red Plague, were plague-mutants of one kind. They came men and womn, older children, with sharp teeth and lightly deformed bodies in home made armour and with a wide variety of weapons. Some women held babies or infants, as savage as the others. Ravers were great fighters and hard to kill but they lacked rationality and clear thinking which was their greatest weakness. Despite their ever present aggressive rage they could be simply bribed to go away but the scavenger family had nothing that they would want.

 

Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie, Tomson, Sabe and Jill were the eight of them from tough middle aged adult to young adult. They were facing over two dozen ravers mostly armed with spikeclubs, razorjaks, crossbows and pipeguns. Two held standard MXM16A2 autorifles, older models of a weapon made in the millions and a model often provided to National Guardsmen. There was a good chance their ancestors were NGs.

 

It looked as if the scavengers were in trouble but then it happened. Something shimmered softly in the air and a light fast invisible body hit the top of a car wreck, darted across it and was gone. Another shimmer briefly appeared the other side of the ravers. A rusty baby carriage toppled over with a loud crash for no apparent reason. The ravers fell back into defensive formation and aimed weapons all over. Some mutants had natural stealth fields and there were stories of robots and others that could do the same. Angry frightened ravers growled challenges, flashed fangs and rippled muscular bodies.

 

Then it happened! With a shimmer three crates of NukaCola appeared on the ground and with it a whole plastic carton of prepackaged preserved ration boxcans of something called Yum Yum Deviled Eggs. Only reason such foods survived was the special nature of the preservatives in them and the preserving nature of the boxcans. The taste was not great, the nutrional value was only moderate but such foods and drinks helped keep people from starving.

 

The ravers knew what to do. The growled, they hissed, but they grabbed up the prizes and they turned to rush off the way they had come from. A deal was a deal, even ravers knew that, and fighting stealth screened enemies was a stupid choice even by raver reasoning.

 

The scavengers went to sneak away, the air shimmered and they were facing five women in slim tight steel armour, a mesh skin that made it easy to notice they were women. They stood almost motionless but something about them said they could choose to move with amazing speed and agility. Each carried a 15mmC autogun, a fairly heavy weapon, with effortless ease. One stepped forward and raising her empty hand, she spoke in oddly accented English. "We mean you no harm. We are the Sisterhood of Steel. We are of the Orders of Steel who are coming from the west to settle into the DC Wastelands. We will make a deal, if you so desire. We will supply you with resources to better survive here and perhaps create a new settlement large and strong enough to survive even the ravers or other raiders or you can come with us. In exchange we need information about local conditions, as much information as we can get, even information that you might consider trivial such as odd flowers you have seen, the number of atomic powered car wrecks in the area or even how long the weeds grow in some areas."

 

Homer grinned, big and muscular, stood up and spoke. "Yeh, what sort of resources are you talking of?"

 

But Martha, his wife, stood up and shushed him. Then she spoke. "Its a done deal! We were going to that house. We heard it belonged to some sort of 5-Star General and we hoped it might have something of value in it."

 

Then four Brothers of Steel came into view, walking quickly like hairless metallic gorillas in their power armour. They approached the group. The scavenger family stared in awe and wondered just what was coming to the DC Wastelands.

 

END

:closedeyes:

[Maharg67]

ON THAT DAY

 

On that day Rivet City expanded by taking over and walling off a large jetty at the Washington DC Harbour. Now the settlement was made up of the Big Jetty, two smaller but still large jetties, the WW2 vintage aircraft-carrier the USS Enterprise, an atomic motorised missile cruiser, the luxury ocean liner the Queen Mary, two freighters, various floating harbour rigs and various newer structures linking them and built out from them. Wind-cylinders spun in the wind and big solar power arrays covered many surfaces. Greenhouses covered other decks. One freighter was the Free Trade Zone with a big rampway leading up to the main entrance to the Rivet City Markets.

 

On that day the weird and not so wonderful President Dave, of the Republic of Dave, took his ninth wife. Dave's psychic powers were growing but so was his mental instability and the growing unhappiness and anger of many of the 2,000 plus citizens of the would be repulic. For Dave was growing more demanding to feed his growing addictions and was growing harsher with his edicts, especially towards other men in the republic. He desired the women as slavish followers and saw the men as competition, as threats.

 

On that day 3Dog, 2Kitty, Jogs, the Mane Triplets, DJBot and others declared GNR to be a going concern and in the GNR Tower, a great building made of smart-materials and serviced by nanobots, they were linked with the newly named settlement of Radiotown of just over 3,000 people. This was based mainly in the basement bunker levels below the tower where there was still power and other service support network-systems in operation. GNR had yet to do its first radio broadcast.

 

On that day the first Enclave eyebot came drifting into the DC Wastelands coming from the south. It did not attack except if attacked first and it broadcast endlessly propaganda in a sweet, warm voice of a young woman, the speeches of President Eden and patriotic music of the old USGA and the new Enclave.

 

On that day Mothership Zeta/321 of the zetan aliens came into geostationary orbit over the DC Wastelands. In truth they were returning to the world. They were in sight of the twin wheels and axis shape of Spacestation Freedom, the wheels still spinning to create artifical gravity, but the zetans kept away from it. It was already occupied and the occupants had already repulsed one zetan effort to invade them. The two floated in geostationary orbit and pretended to ignore each other.

 

On that day Armageddon Park, a dark new settlement, saw the DC Syndicates form, each having its own area of profitable interest be it prostitution, slavery, drugs or others. These were ruled by the DC Syndicate Families.

 

On that day the Subwayers of the great network of fortified civilized subway tunnels, subway stations, bunkers and other structures plus cave systems, formed into the Subway Republic of States, the SRS at a great convention of leaders, diplomats and others.

 

On that day Albert, husband of Agnus, who lived in the small hidden settlement of Alberts Way, died of a heart attack. Agnus took over the broadcasting of music over the ham radio network.

 

On that day the Ghoul Underhome, based in and beneath the Washington DC Museum of American History, expanded into new parts of the old museum by finally digging clear a big old intact hallway. What they found there was to profoundly surprise the ghouls and to change their way of thinking.

 

On that day wild horses began to migrate into the DC Wastelands seeking better water to drink and grasses to eat. These were varieties of mutated horses, of subspecies, some being more like Prewar horses than others.

 

On that day refugees emerged from LifeVault/87 in a convoy of vehicles. They were fleeting horrible creatures known both as metamutants and super mutants. The 4,500+ of them were desperate, heavily armed and the raiders in the area staid back though feral ghouls, or zhouls, attacked and got shot down. They met a Sisters of Steel scouting party and an agreement was soon formed. These people would go with the Orders of Steel to the DC Citadel. The Orders of Steel learned about LifeVault/87 and the threat contained within it. They also learned about the evil work of Professors Altmans, Rosethorn and Darkra. Yet there was also much for them to learn.

 

On that day Jasmane Ashdane of LifeVault/101 had her sixteenth birthday and was given a special surprise by her father, James Ashdane.