The Dimensional War

[dezdimona]

enthralled

[Herculine]

I don't know how you do it...

[Maharg67]

FIVE

 

Doctor Jeckle smiled in a mildly predatory fashion as he looked around at the big concrete chamber. The basement shelter they had found contained a fair few resources and potential resources but only the gangers had lived there for some time. They had only used some chambers in the upper most of three levels.

 

The young woman ganger lay strapped nakedly to a table. She was semiconscious, was making some odd noises. The bad doctor had taken from her various samples which were even now being analyzed in various machines. Her body had been washed and otherwise prepared by Nurse Sleek who actually was a trained and experienced nurse just as Doctor Jeckle was a trained and experienced doctor.

 

Mr Hyde was out looking for more people for Doctor Jeckle to test and to experiment upon. But he was also seeking other kinds of lifeforms and so far he had brought back three radroaches, a molerat and some much smaller ones. He had already found traces of baseline mutagen in all of the lifeforms along with evidence of the influence of Forced Evolutionary Virus, or FEV.

 

The Moors Hound was out with Mr Hyde assisting him.

 

Nurse Sleek was doing something with a set of test tube filled with blood, was running a test of some kind on those samples.

 

The hulkmen were all either on guard duties or were sleeping or simply taking rest and recreation in their own basic fashion. They were clones produced from cells taken from Mr Hyde who had failed to be as big and strong as the original but who were still useful. They were also expendable.

 

Doctor Jeckle walked amongst workbenches now with racks of test-tubes, Bunsen burners, strange devices of many tubes, bits of hardware, testing machines and much else. A protectron stood to one side having been repaired and upgraded. Now it was called a destructron or it had improved weapons and armour.

 

The destructron spoke. “Greetings, Doctor Jeckle, all is well.”

 

Doctor Jeckle nodded. “Carry out a patrol of the inner network of hallways.”

 

The destructron acknowledged and departed. For some reason such robots could not be programmed to be silent unless they were alerting one to danger. This was annoying to the bad doctor but he was not going to destroy such robots because they would be too valuable.

 

He stood beside the young ganger woman and brushed a pale white hand, long fingered with black polished fingernails, over her lightly muscular belly. She stirred lightly but did not open her eyes. He spoke. “These humans are heavily adapted to the harsher conditions of Postwar Wastelands.”

 

Nurse Sleek slipped up to the table. “Doctor, they appear to be effected by the FEV that struck at least part of this world as the Red Plague and also a baseline mutagen. They are faster, stronger, more enduring and harder to damage than Prewar humans. They also seem to be more resistant to toxins and radiation.”

 

Doctor Jeckle nodded. “Your findings agree with mine.” He slapped Nurse Sleek hard on one buttock and she winced happily. He was rewarding her. “We need a wider diversity of samples to work upon. I would recruit this young fool, would program-condition her as a follower. A feral ghoul or zhoul, a ghoul, a chimpnoid, a zombie, a variety of humans, a deathclaw, a crocodine, varied kinds of gecko, a mirelurk, along with others. But this place is not good enough for longer term central use. We will keep it as an outpost if we can. We appear to be only a few kilometres from a large important settlement, by local standards, and we may get samples from there but we could also attract too much well organized trouble by doing so.”

 

Nurse Sleek nodded. “Rivet City! They have many operational Prewar technologies including robots, roboremotes, duplicators, replicators, regenerators, cable-3DTV, VR-loungers, hypnotraining, laser tools and weapons, some aircraft and even a small airship along with many others. Perhaps of most importance is a thriving regional market place where many come to do trade, to get things to repair, to buy goods and services. There we could obtain information at a price.”

 

“How very practical you are, as always.” Doctor Jeckle smiled at her. “I will have to punish you nicely for it.”

 

She shivered. “Thank you, Doctor Jeckle. Will you bring others through soon?”

 

“It is going to be difficult. We were tracked by various forces as soon as we entered this world. Some were more subtle and dangerous than others. My internal instrumentalities are only too limited in their capacity but one sensory sweep came from low orbit around this Alternate Earth.” His hand glowed and shimmered as he went on rubbing the young semiconscious woman’s belly. “I will impregnate this one when the time is right just as I will impregnate you again.”

 

Nurse Sleek nodded. “Thank you, Doctor Jeckle.”

 

They returned to work.

 

END

[Maharg67]

SIX

 

The general’s house turned out to be surprisingly intact and unlooted despite it having active security turrets and protectrons. The Sisters of Steel went in first in their stealth power armour and then the Brothers of Steel followed along with the scavengers. Some stuff was gone because the general and his family had gone seeking government made shelters; if they had made it was unknown. There were large bedrooms, a games room, a lounge room, two kitchens, many bathrooms, a big commonroom, a smaller sitting room, a workshop studio basement, a man’s den in the same basement and much else.

 

The scavengers got very excited about all the lovely loot be it holotapes, datadisks, computer terminals, robots, silk sheets, good quality clothes, medikits, nice quality carpet and so forth. There was even androids of high quality replicant type being a maid, a cook, a nanny, a butler, two security guards and two gardeners plus a caretaker. Then the scavengers learned that the Orders of Steel got first pick of everything but they were not surprised or angry. The OoS people were there with the armour and guns taking the brunt of any risks. They were the ones who used EMPguns to knock out any turret or protectron so it would become harmless but repairable and reprogammable.

 

In a big double garage were a small electric tricar, a three wheeled run-about for one to three folk, a big old atomic sedan of a landcar, a lighter sleeker lowing flying aircar that was a cousin to the vertibirds with their enclosed diskfans and even a flivver, a very small vertibird able to carry only four adult humans.

 

They found out why the house was supposedly unlooted when they found the remains of bodies in the lower basement with its automated robotic service support network-systems. Scavengers, merely human raiders known as gangers, some animalistic human trogs and a couple of chimpnoids. All had been ripped into, had been drained of blood, partly devoured and left to rot in the one place.

 

The Sisters of Steel cornered a child ghoul vampire in a kitchen and took it down quick by stunning it. It was savage, strong and fast but its powers were undeveloped. The Thinkers of Steel, the ToS, would study the ghoul vampire and would see if they could bring the small girl around to serving the OoS. This was not so impossible as other ghoul vampires now served the OoS because it gave them true service support, a better chance of survival, loving foster families and much else. Ghoul vampires in the wild were powerful but they often lived short lives thanks to the large amount of enemies that they made and that they faced savage competition including other wild ghoul vampires.

 

When the Transformation Mist swept across the land and engulfed places, it altered reality in various ways and often remade things, returned things and sometimes oddly changed things. For DC Wastelanders this was good and bad; good because valuable stuff for survival was often replaced and bad because dangerous things sometimes appeared out of nowhere. The TransMist was just often odd in its changes, often at a subtle level so one had to have been to a place before to know what the changes were.

 

Below the service-support basement they found five other basements that were not in the 3Dblueprints found in the general’s office-study upstairs. The OoS soldiers had found no real valuable data up in the wall safe or in the other, better hidden corner floor safe though they found some basic data of value. But now the newer created basement levels were reflections of the house and the first one was full of stuff that a 5-Star General might have. There was a big holomap projection table, a meeting room, a big mainframe full of Prewar highly classified data, a big vault room with other secrets, a military combine library-museum-gallery, armouries of amazing ranges of weapons, a kitchen, a dining room, a barracks, bedrooms and much else.

 

This basement, like the other extra five, was twice the length and width of the ones that had been originally with the house. The height of walls was also greater, doors were bigger in all dimensions and there were other surprises.

 

Lieutenant Dolsan looked around the great chamber of the gallery-library-museum, at the wallcases full of actual high quality books, at the armaglass case protected displays of historical weapons including an early version of power armour used in the closing stages of WW2 by the dreaded PanAxis Stormtroopers. He noted not just weapons like guns going back to muskets, but ration kits of WW1, an early minigun from the South East Asian War, a whole display of steel swords, basic medic’s kits from the 1800s South African War and much else.

 

He turned to the scavenger family of Homer, Marge, Lisa, Bart and Maggie. The cousin scavengers were elsewhere. Then he spoke to them. “These lower basements will be ours. You can live in the household above with other scavenger families. You can go out scavenging which will be a welcome way of helping the outpost. These lower levels will be closed to you except you may visit parts of this one under supervision. I am sorry that plans have changed.”

 

Homer grumbled. “Well, well, well, the newcomers take what’s best for themselves!”

 

Marge, with her odd mat of blue hair, elbowed her husband in the side. “Behave yourself, Homer, we are getting a great deal out of this deal. Bart has a new skateboard, Lisa has a new saxophone, Maggie has art supplies, you have beer and some horrible holotapes to watch and I have a nice handsome android butler to help me do my chores.”

 

Maggie, Bart and Lisa gave their mother an arched eyebrows look while Homer seemed oblivious of certain implications of what his wife had spoken of.

 

Dolsan smiled at Marge. “Sorry, all the replicants will be needed to assist to run the hidden outpost. Unless, of course, the information your scavenger family has to give us is of such a high accurate quality that we are caused to reconsider our options.”

 

Marge nodded. “Chimps to the north in a bed’n’breakfast place, not so aggressive as some and wearing old military uniforms and armour like they were once USSG. Maybe two hundred of them. Place is called Downs’ Haven. They got some old standard US military weapons and some home made stuff but also stuff made in places like Megaton and Rivet City.

 

He nodded. “More general knowledge of the wider DC Wastelands.”

 

She sighed. “Main settlements that we know of for sure are Megaton built around a very big crashed flying-wing, Rivet City of ships far over at DC Harbour, Paradise Falls full of nasty slavers and other trash, Armageddon Park also full of filth but bigger and meaner but also a long way from here, the Subway Union that is very secretive but can be also charitable, Vaultburg that is based on LifeVault/103, Vaultville based on LifeVault/104, that weird place the Republic of Dave made weird by President Dave, Radiotown at the GNR Tower where some crazy clever showman called 3Dog wants to start broadcasting something called GNR radio channel and DCTecburg, a big settlement across that big wide river from Rivet City run by those profiteers of DCTec. DCTec makes basically good stuff from guns to basic robots to small vehicles but it sells to anybody who can pay, no matter how evil, and gives away nothing.”

 

Then she shrugged. “Heard whispers of a place called Crosswayne, a big fertile area with less rads and less toxins, maybe less monsters, protected all around by mountains except for three passes. Another weird place based on an old half submerged domed amusement park called Dizziland up north beyond the Republic of Dave somewhere. Supposedly there is a hidden settlement called Rockopolis somewhere south west, supposedly hidden beneath lots of rock. Apart from that there is Bigtown just south of Lamplight Caverns where there is a settlement called Little Lamplight. Seems children only live and rule Little Lamplight and adults are kicked out to go live in Bigtown; story doesn’t make any sense. If there are only kids in Little Lamplight, then where do the new kids come from to replace those who become adults and go away to Bigtown?”

 

“Oh, those damned Ormons in the Holy Light Vault which is actually LifeVault/105. Strange and disturbing religion which is not like those Mormons at all. Heard all women have to go naked there or something like that. Canterbury Commons is a large fortified settlement which is the base of four trading co-ops each led by one man. They send small trading caravans and bigger trading convoys all over the DC Wastelands. Have a surprising range of stuff to sell and are very secretive about where it comes from. Whispers are that DCTec wants badly to close them down any way it can including brute force but Canterbury Commons is well guarded.”

 

She shrugged. “Whispers of hidden LifeVaults, Bunkers, other places. Lots of small settlements, nomads and seminomads. Lots of groups with no definition to them. Oh, wait, there is Tenpenny Towers, a kind of fortified rich people’s place to live. Rich tenants live in the tower and workers live in the outer buildings between the base of the great tower and the wall. Lots and lots of security. Tenpenny is linked with lots of bad people, with Armageddon Park and Paradise Falls. Oh there is the Communalists, crazy lot but nice in some ways. They dwell in some big experimental dome place south of the Washington DC Harbour.”

 

“There are some groups who have hidden places like the evil Talon Mercenaries, the wonderful Sisterhood of Compassion, Reilly’s Rangers who are one of the few mercenary groups one can trust, the also wonderful Brotherhood of Protection, the hard justice of the Regulators, the brave Antislavers, the crazy Unseen University scholars, the Android Freedom Railways helping androids escape from that damned Dominion to the north, the also trustworthy Ironsides Mercenaries, the Church of Atom weirdoes who don’t just live in Megaton, various Raiderlords, one or two Warlords and some odd whispers not worth repeating.”

 

The lieutenant smiled. “Let us interview you for details and tell us even the oddest of whispers and we will give you the android butler.”

 

Lisa snorted. “Every scavenger worth her or his salt knows that stuff though mum knows it special good. Bart and dad, well they just let mum guide them. Maggie draws and paints things so she has her own way of knowing what’s what. Me, I know what mum knows and much more but I don’t want no butler android. But I am not going to say what I know until mum tells you everything she knows and Maggie shows you her pictures she has stashed away. Oh, Homer knows where every place where you can get beer and donuts from the proper VDMs. You know, vending duplicating machines, you must have them where you came from.”

 

“Yes but they were not as common on the West Coast as they seem to be here in the DC Wastelands. That’s because they started here in the Prewar times and were still spreading across the old United States of Greater America when the end finally came to almost everybody.” The lieutenant nodded. “We will do things your way for now but when the military intelligence people arrive they may want to do things different. I am only a heavy infantry grunt when it comes down to it.”

 

Lisa shook her head. “No you aren’t.”

 

The lieutenant studied her quietly for a moment and then he laughed. “What a perceptive young woman you are, Lisa! I am also military intelligence. I have to return to my duties. I suggest the five of you return to the house above and decide what would be a fair share of living space and other resources for yourself.”

 

After they were gone, the lieutenant closed his eyes and commed with somebody outside of the room. “The girl is very perceptive and intelligent. I strongly suggest we begin efforts to recruit her.”

 

The strong voice responded. “Very good suggestion. A small taskforce is on its way to the house in a disguised convoy of civilian style vehicles. They should get there in three and a half hours if nothing goes wrong.”

 

The lieutenant responded. “Has the one in the DC Citadel commed you again?”

 

The voice responded. “Until you are in a more secure position, lieutenant, and I can return you to being the marshal you really are, the less you know the better. Still, yes, she has commed us and has assured us that the DC Citadel and attached Pentagon, Hexagon and Octagon remain secure.”

 

Communications were broken and the lieutenant stood looking around that amazing chamber and wondered what he was missing for something was telling him there was some kind of coded message right in front of him.

END

[Herculine]

Superb. Excellent. Extremely talented... what can I say that I haven't already? Professional caliber to be sure!

[Maharg67]

Dear Dezdimona, Hurculine and others, I am going to redo this story and make it basic Fallout 3 from the start while slowly, steadily adding more exotic facets. I intend to keep the new characters and to include many Fallout 3 characters and groups from at least two stories that I have started before and that you have enjoyed.

 

I hope you do not mind too much.

 

Changes:

 

Washington DC is based on its own land mass of Washington Island, a very large island off the east coast of an alternative North America. Most of the features are the same but some are changed or new.

 

Lincoln Memorial is based on a statue of Lincoln ten times the size of the current one. It is part of the Presidental Monumental Circle of many US Presidents of the United States of Greater America being made up of North, North-Eastern, Central, Southern and South-Western America.

 

The Grand National Mall is very large and is bordered by monuments, museums, libraries and other grand institutions.

 

But part of the island is a United Nations Enclave for the United Nations Government, an umbrella government of limited power.

 

to be edited/added to

[Herculine]

Of course I don't mind. I enjoy watching a work in progress mature and evolve.

[Maharg67]

Thank you, Herculine.

 

The Mysterious Stranger

 

The mushroom people

 

all will, sooner or later, come into the new story