Wastelands Chance of Revival

[Maharg67]

NOTES OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (DC WASTELANDS)

Will be edited in future!

 

 

Bandits or Raiders, the Difference

Bandits are typically just standard DC Wastelanders (Columbians) trying out a bit of robbery for the sake of survival. They tend not to be well organised or to have much courage or to be well trained or equipped.

Raiders belong to groups, take oaths, have various ways of symbolising their loyalties and are better trained, equipped and have more courage. This goes in degrees.

Gangers are above bandits and have Gang Territories, colours and badges.

Bikies are Gangers on motorbikes being seminomadic or nomadic.

Raider Mercenaries. These are often ex-soldiers or trained by soldiers. They have a raider like quality to them but are part way between raiders and mercenaries in practical terms.

Ravers, insane mutated hot berserkers. Highly dangerous.

Reavers, insane mutated cold berserkers. Extremely dangerous.

 

Ham Radio Communications

Ham and citizen band radios have become very important in the Wastelands as they have become a form of communications when so many others once taken for granted are gone. But both ham and CB radios are hampered by odd Postwar effects and can not always be relied upon. These radios are important partly because both were fairly common before the Great War, CB radios especially, and can often be found in ruins or abandoned shelters, bases etc.

Not to be confused with other radio communication systems such as military, emergency and corporate.

 

Metrification of the USA

The USA went metric in the 1960s by gradually transferring. At one stage both old Imperial and newer Metric systems were being taught. Currency of course did not have to change as it did in other nations such as the United Kingdom.

 

NukaCola Mattercators

Experimental Mattercators were being placed into service in major modern cities through out the world just before the Great War. In Washington DC over a thousand NukaCola Mattercators were put into operation to produce and sell the following items:

*

Regular List

NukaCola in 13 flavours as half, one and two litre bottles

NukaSoda in three flavours but same sizes of bottle

NukaCaff coffee in 3 flavours in self-heating cupcans

NukaWater (pristine water)

NukaCakes in five flavours

NukaRolls in 4 fruit flavours

NukaCola Tshirt, Tdress, cap, towel, tea-towel

NukaCola Toy Truck with toy, NukaCake, NukaRoll, stickers and other random

*

Special Sublist

NukaMan Tshirt, Tdress, cap, super-costume with cape, towel, tea-towel

NukaMan Toy NukaCar, NukaBike, NukaCopter, NukaJet, NukaBoat, NukaSub, NukaBot, NukaMan Action Figure, NukaBoy Action Figure, NukaGirl Action Figure

NukaMan Lucky-Dip Prize (family, boy or girl)

*

Exotic Sublist

An unknown influence added the following after the Great War

NukaBlast Survival Camping Backpack Kit (fold-overs, small tent, messkit, .22LR survival foldagun, small medikit, other)

NukaBlast Medikit (creams, bandages, pills, 4 stimpaks, 2 radaways, other)

NukaBlast Survival Hand-Laser (laser-pistol, torch, compass and laser-cutter) SHL

NukaBlast Survival Kit (emergency blankets, ponchos, food concentrate pills, other)

NukaBlast Tubegun (firing shotshells, flare-shells, marker-shells, other)

NukaBlast Survival Light Power Armour with inbuilt weapons, tools and instrumentation

 

Robots, Prewar Public

Public Prewar robots were only of basic build and sophistication compared to ones developed in secret before, during and after the Great War.

ROBOVEHICLE SERIES

*Robovehicles: small robotic people/cargo carrying vehicles, electric with 4, 6, 8 wheels. Robocars, robobuses, robovans, robotrucks, robotrols (police/security), robogolfs (golfcar) and others

TRON SERIES

*Firetron with special armour, air breathing masks, water and chemical sprayers, door smashing devices

*Policetron with stun-shotgun, electric shocker limbs and stungas sprayer

*Protectron with stun-shotgun, electric shocker limbs and stungas sprayer

*Securatron with shotgun, 5.56mm autogun and stungas sprayer

*Workertron able to carry out wide range of basic tasks with modular working-arms such as digging, carrying, sweeping, signalling traffic etc.

Other?

Edited November 17, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

FIVE

 

Bobby-Anne sat demurely in a knee length dress made from a damaged Prewar dress on an office swivel-chair before a computer terminal. The minimainframe was in one corner with its own screen and keyboard. The chamber had five work cubicles and one open working area with eight smart computer terminals. There was also a scanner, a printer, a hub and other hardware including an UPS battery. Others were working there, a mixture of visitors and Town Council clerks.

 

She sat in the corner cubicle and casually broke through another security barrier, penetrating deeper into the secrets of one of the Town Councillors, one Barry McDoogle. McDoogle was a warm smiling, charming and handsome middle aged man who smile never quite got to his eyes. It was an open secret that he wanted to be the Megaton Mayor and that he wanted to change Megaton to suit his elitist and prejudiced ways of thinking. McDoogle wanted to get rid of the Church of Atom, who worshipped the Atom, as they called their version of God, all ghouls, all zhouls and any others who did not suit his definition of true humanity, or humanity prime. He also wanted to allow slavery, that is the importation and even trading of ghoul and zhoul slaves, though not human slaves, in Outer Megaton.

 

Bobby-Anne, who looked identical to Bobby-Sue and like a female version of Bobby-Bob, got past the last barrier. The Bobby Triplets had done this before and not just with Barry McDoogle’s datafiles. Instead of viewing them on the spot, she downloaded the datafiles to a flash-drive.

 

Once out of McDoogle’s space, she slipped the flash-drive away into a pouch and went back to her work that she was doing for her mother, the Megaton Mayor. That meant doing some working on statistics and completing a briefing based on them. The stats were data sent by DCTek claiming that Megaton owed them because it had underpaid the corporation. But as she went through the stats Bobby-Anne found that the situation was not so straight forward.

 

After printing out three hard copies and passing one to an assistant accountant along with a datadisk, she walked down a fairly busy hallway in the big underground basement bunker and past Townguard sentries in body-armour and with autorifles. She turned at the big intersection lobby and brushed past Councillor McDoogle chatting in a mildly seductive manner to two young women secretaries. McDoogle had bedded a fair few office women until the Mayor and some other Councillors had warned him to stay away from all women in Megaton’s public service. There had been growing trouble with divorces, single motherhood and McDoogle’s total unwillingness to take any responsibility for the consequences of his actions. Now the man was more cautious and he was paying monies towards the upkeep of three children he had fathered. He had once tried a move on Bobby-Anne; soon after he started she took a glass of water and splashed it into his face in front of a whole lot of witnesses and then had threatened to kick his balls into low orbit if he tried it again. He hadn’t tried it again but he did glare at her when he thought she could not notice.

 

He got to his mother’s office and had to wait until the Mayor’s Bodyguard and her private secretary got permission to let her though. The office was only as big as those of the eight Councillors and even the desk was not very grand. Mayor Lucy-Anne looked up, beautiful like a more mature version of Bobby-Anne, and she smiled tiredly.

 

“What did you find?”

 

Bobby-Anne sat down on a chair. “In my official work that DCTek actually owes us ten M16A3 autorifles and ten M203 grenade-shell launchers to attach to them but we also owe them the money. The Townguard Commander was right and McDoogle was wrong. In the private datafiles of the same Councillor McDoogle I found proof that he stole the ten weapon kits and also the monies to be paid for them, that he robbed both us and DCTek. But something is not right.”

 

Her mother arched her eyebrows. “Too easy? Surely McDoogle knows about the ease at which some people, including you Bobby Triplets, can slip in and out of our joke of a computer network-system. This is either somebody trying to get McDoogle damaged or it’s McDoogle himself playing a clever game. Also why would McDoogle cheat DCTek when he has secret contacts with them and is always trying to get Megaton to either buy more stuff from them or become a DCTek commercial outpost.”

 

DCTek had dominated the supply of midtech to the DC Wastelands for decades and now that monopoly was threatened by Rivet City, Megaton and others including the mysterious Subway Union. DCTek made basic reliable goods and its service follow up was fair but it had in the past charged far too much for its goods and services. It had refused to give warranties. Now it was forced to cut prices and to promise year long warranties that it had to back up. Megaton was only a relatively small player as an industrial technological settlement and DCTek seemed to be targeting them as a start to a campaign against its competitors.

 

Bobby-Anne stood up. “I need keys to the old storerooms below in the half level.”

 

The half level was beneath the official three levels of the bunker because it was little more than a series of modified cave chambers and tunnels with some chambers added including a rampway, two staircases and some ladder-tubes. It was used to store all sorts of stuff that might be useful one day or was only useful under certain conditions.

 

Her mother took some keys out of a drawer and chucked them lightly to her daughter. “Take a torch and a Colt .45 semiautopistol from the locker over there. If somebody is up to no good down there than you might need them. Shoot to kill if you have to; I will help you bury the bodies.”

 

Bobby-Anne smiled. “Thanks, mum, but hopefully it will not have to come to that.”

 

She took the keys and went through a side door into a storeroom, unlocked a circular armoured hatch in one corner, went down a safety-ladder enough to close and lock the hatch behind herself, and then went down the tube.

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67

[Herculine]

I'm glad I've inspired you... :D o_O :rolleyes: :wacko: :biggrin:

[dezdimona]

glad I can still read this...I'd have been heartbroken if not!.Great story,you inspire and fill one with magic of your words.

[Maharg67]

Island of Columbia (District of Columbia)

east of Mainland USA and the State of Virginia.

 

Washington DC

 

Old and New Features (Will be edited in future)

 

Megaton

Inner Megaton

Middle Megaton

Holy Megaton

Outer Megaton

 

Rivet City

WW2 vintage aircraft carrier the USS Enterprise

WW2 vintage frigate the USS Charlie Brown

large freighter the CSS Catherine

small freighter the CSS Carry On Cargo

luxury liner the Princess Diana

Wharf 46

Other included added structures

 

Toytown Amusement Park

Domed Amusement Park proper

* Amusement Rides

* Toytown

* Fancy Parade and Funny Sports Arena

* Diners, Cafes, Theatre-Clubs, etc.

*Adult Amusements

Offside Underground Zones

Tourist service support including hotels, creches, shops, hostels, garage-worshops, coach ports, small airport, etc.

Service-Support Staff

Service-Support Robotic

Other Service-Support Sectors

Secured Sectors?

Beneath Toyland?

Edited November 16, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

SIX

 

Bobby-Anne had been down to the huge chamber before but she was always surprised somehow by its immense size. Great smart-concrete pillars had been constructed to help support it as it was artificially evened out and expanded. As large as it was, it was also largely filled with stuff in a barely organised manner. She made her way past a big boat in a cradle, neatly stacked metal drums of some kind of oil, wooden crates, stacks of bigger items, partly complete machines, big sets of metal shelves almost overflowing with items and some more exotic items.

 

A big zibiomechanical workermok was crouched like some bizarre biometallic humanoid with two sets of neatly folded up double jointed arms, one bigger and for blunter heavier work and the other slimmer for more careful work. Not since the zimoks of many kinds had gone rogue had any of them been trusted. The wealthy, powerful and influential Richardson Family who had owned the mansion that the basement bunker had belonged to, had clearly brought it down and parked it there.

 

She moved quickly, quietly and since the lighting was only fairly dim, she tried to keep to the shadows. The young woman slipped past some large rolls of cable, some copper pipes and planks of wood and a few old shop mannequins. She sensed the intruders before she smelt them and smelt them before she heard them with her enhanced senses.

 

There were five of them, all men and they were hidden in a space close to one wall behind a stack of old machine cases. These men were mercs in metal armour and they carried Soviet AKM-74 autorifles that fired the same upgraded 7.62mm calibre as the older American M14 autorifles did. Unlike the earliest Soviet and US Alliance 7.62mm calibres, the newer improved version could be interchanged. It was said that both sides did this so they could loot enemy arsenals in enemy territory and that strong neutral industrial nations could supply both sides more easily with bullets.

 

These men had backpacks, ammo crates and a pack of plastic-explosives. In another bag were detonators, cables and firing-control. These men were trained soldiers but not as well trained as the two women who had arrived in the Piper Cub and who had been met by Bobby-Bob. These men were murderers, rapists and torturers. All of them enjoyed having power over others and abusing it. But one was secretly a homosexual fearful that his comrades would discover the truth and then kill him in a horrible manner.

 

How did they get into the bunker sublevel? Behind them was a secret door that was open, a panel meant to look like any other that had been slid open. Through that she could sense more soldiers and various odd smells. She could not quite work out what they were.

 

These mercenaries did not seem to belong to Warlord Han/Lo. His men all wore raider style metal armour with spikes and other stupid ugly additions. There were women with them who tended to show too much skin with their armour, as if daring others to shoot them. They also had a particular almost berserk style about them that was lacking in these men.

 

Unlike most other people she had a way to alert mother. She reached out to Bobby-Bob and Bobby-Sue. They acknowledged her. Bobby-Sue began to alert mother but Bobby-Bob went to alert the Townguard Marshal.

 

Then she felt an imaginary friend of her childhood, one Bobby-Boo, become solid next to her. Bobby-Boo was a tough looking version of the triplet-sisters designed from imagination to scare of boogie monsters hiding under beds and in wardrobes or tree branches knocking against a window. When younger the triplets’ family were not in Megaton but wandered the Wastelands as survivalist scavengers.

 

Bobby-Boo had no guns or knives but she did not need them. Her skin was kevlar hard and she wore armoured grey and brown pyjamas, boots and metallic fangs could fill her mouth while metallic claws could extend from her fingers. She had other tricks also but not all were of the nasty kind.

 

Bobby-Boo gave Bobby-Anne a friendly grin and got kissed on the nearest cheek. Then Bobby-Boo became a blur as she vanished into the background with both amazing speed and agility.

 

Bobby-Anne slipped two Colt .45s out, one left handed one, and with a semiautopistol in each hand she paced towards the five mercs. They were drinking small self-heating cupcans of coffee most likely gained from a mattercator or replicator. Such so called wonder machines had their draw backs but they had helped Postwar civilization survive.

 

She simply stepped into view of the five men and aimed the pistols at them. They stared at her in surprise but then they all just started grinning. One was a sergeant and he was damned rough looking.

 

He sneered at her. “Fool girl, do you think we wouldn’t take precautions. One of our men is even now got a sniper-rifle beaded on you.”

 

But then, with a thump, the sniper’s body landed in the clear area. His sniper-rifle and his ammunition was missing which meant Bobby-Boo had them. The body had been lifted and thrown with amazing ease as if it was no more than a rag doll.

 

Then the mercs did a very stupid thing. Figuring she was just a young woman and that the real threat was the one who had hurled the body, they went for their guns. Bobby-Anne unleashed twin volleys of .45 calibre bullets and every shot hit true though she fired with each hand almost as if two people able to focus on hitting two sets of targets at one and the same time. Well aimed .308 calibre shots from the sniper-rifle shot down two of the men.

 

It was all over in an amazingly short time. All the mercs were dead from head shots because both Bobbies wanted to loot all the gear that they could for Megaton to use, even if some things had to be used as rags.

 

But she sensed that the gun shots had carried through the open secret door, along the tunnel and to other mercenaries there. They might come charging in or make a hasty retreat figuring that the mission was a failure and not worth losing any more resources for, especially their lives.

 

They chose the latter course and even as Townguards in body-armour and with autorifles arrived, the other mercs were gone.

 

But not only had a treacherous attack been averted, a whole new bunker area had been found. Bobby-Anne walked with the Townguards through a military style area of a great metal chamber with armoured locked doors on either side, each with its computer terminal. Something told her that the mercs had not managed to get through any of these doors except for one large one on the far side of the secret entrance but this, she guessed, was already open when they had arrived. The chamber was not only very big it had prizes in it.

 

Four massive atomic motorised trucks stood there, heavily armoured with weapon turrets forward on the cabin and back near to the tail. Each was up on a special cradle for long term storage and was wrapped in protective layers. The wheels were off the ground and the tires were protected.

 

But there was also a pair of big clumsy atomic motorised battletanks. The bigger one had no less than five turrets and a special space either for extra ammo, equipment or even soldiers. To the front there was a medium 40mm autogun turret to the right and a smaller 20mm autogun turret to left while this arrangement was reversed to the back. High up above the others was a main turret with a specialised pulsebeamer weapon.

 

The smaller battletank was equipped at the fore, on the hull, with two smaller 20mm autogun turrets and had a larger turret with one 75mm autogun. It could also carry extra stuff or some soldiers but less than the bigger machine could.

 

The monstrous war-machines were also carefully stored.

 

But other vehicles had not been carefully stored and were not in as good condition though, being in an underground space, they could be repaired. A big old atomic sedan, an officer’s vehicle by the look, was parked next to a courier’s motorbike of a low slung powerhouse of a machine, which was next to a pair of electric powered Mickey Jeeps with roll-bars and semi-enclosed cabin. Then there were civilian atomic motorised, internal combustion and electric vehicles being mostly sedan cars but with two stationwagon cars, two pick-up trucks and two small buses plus a big atomic motorised coach.

 

Preserved in strange jelly capsules were bodies of soldiers in light body-armour, civilians of various ages in good tough casual clothes and some guard dogs. The jelly substance was hard and nobody wanted to interfere with them. There were over a hundred people, about half soldiers, and they were of both genders. There were five guard dogs. After a more careful look they found a toy poodle and a Dalmatian pet dog also in capsules but smaller ones. Other jelly capsules held suspended in them weapons, ammo boxes, suitcases, handbags and other items that seemed, logically, to have belonged to the people.

 

It was a most exciting find and it had many ramifications to it but it would also see a big political battle start in the Megaton Town Council.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

SEVEN

 

Warlord Han/Lo was withdrawing with his soldiers, his horse drawn wagons and his few motorised vehicles. Of course the people of Megaton were not going to take any foolish risks by making assumptions. It would not be the first time attackers had tried the gambit of pretending to leaving, hiding and waiting for the settlement to open its gates. The story of St Petersburg, a fair sized settlement, and the sickening way it had fallen to the cunning of another Warlord, was wide spread.

 

It was another day and the newly found bunker was causing much excitement. Already plans were being made for the various vehicles though nobody was sure what to do with the people and the stuff in the jelly capsules. That is except a few who should have been wise enough to keep their mouths shut.

 

Bobby-Bob was standing in the Bobby Triplets’ Work Centre, a few basement bunker chambers to one side of the main levels that they had fixed up with their own efforts and other resources. There was an apartment, a workshop, a workroom, a library-study, a commonroom of many purposes and some other chambers. They were in the big commonroom. He was handing the black plastic flat rectangular box over that was designed to fit neatly into a standard Prewar briefcase.

 

“Here, it is yours.” Bobby-Bob smiled at the two women who had flown into Megaton in the aeroplane. “I take it that you did not have much justice with Moriarty.”

 

Franklin was still scowling from the encounter. “He denied making any such deal and claimed that if anything we owed him money. He claimed he was always a fair man and that he was always being cheated by other people. It was the spin of not just a conman but a one who almost believes his own lies.”

 

Bobby-Bob nodded. “Feel free to look around. Of course you will have the good manners not to try to go through locked doors or into locked safes, lockers and so forth.”

 

Franklin frowned. “We have no time for sight seeing.”

 

But her comrade spoke. “On the contrary, sister, we have plenty of time. If we try to take off now we not only face getting shot down by the Warlord scum but we have nothing to take back home with us except technologies now proven dysfunctional. Some negotiations are in order.”

 

“Very well!” The taller blonde woman looked around. “An interesting display wall there. A laser-pistol, a minigun, a 20mm autogun of a type used by power infantry, a laser-knife typical of the immediate Prewar years, a tripoc infantry heat-beamer, a Captain Cosmos atomic-blaster pistol, a can of beef SPAM, a Grognak the Barbarian comic annual, a Bloodgames power spikefist, a light power armour space suit and, yes, a .308 bolt-action hunting rifle as manufactured and sold by DCTek. How did you get such interesting items? We could negotiate for some of them.”

 

“Not for sale but we will sell you comprehensive schematics with both datafiles and hard-copy printouts for a reasonable price. Took us blood, sweat and tears to get many of those and other items in our collections.” He grinned. “As it is that is just a holographic wall display. The real items, and others like them, are well hidden and otherwise secured. Many of the displays are holographic and I assure you we do not have solid real counter parts to all of them though we would wish to. Well, not all of them.”

 

The pair of newcomers were soon looking around the commonroom with its wall displays, mostly holographic, its prints of Prewar paintings, its some salvaged paintings and paintings, drawing, sculptures done by the Bobby Triplets. There was a big old 3DTV of the coloured three dimensional television networks that were starting to arise around the world in the last few years before the Great War. It actually worked with holotapes and could act as an older style 2DTV. There were 2D and 3D posters, not all the 2D ones being Prewar.

 

There were animals roaming around or just taking it easy. Some cats, three squirrels, three dogs including a big powerful looking one with curious dark blonde coloured fur and pale blue eyes. Bobby-Blue was his name.

 

Franklin paid over a small pile of gold and silver Emergency Issue Coins onto a machine that verified their true gold and silver content, their authentic nature. Then she got the comprehensive schematics in microfilm, datadisk and concentrated hard-copy form. Then Bobby-Bob passed over a basic listing of other items for sale in basic booklet form with nothing stating what the list was about or any names or anything like that.

 

It was clear that the Bobby Triplets dealt in technological and scientific ideas, that they gained what they could from Prewar left overs and any other sources, that they then analysed them and, if they could, improved them. They worked with Professor Morton Brown and Inventor Moira Brown because, though some what eccentric, both were also brilliant in their own ways with moments of amazing insight and creativity.

 

Megaton had gained a good deal from the Bobby Triplets with improvements to its technological network-systems of communications, security, maintenance, data storage and much else. In particular they had assisted with the water plants, the cinema-theatres, the defensive turrets and robots and with the small electric gotrams that hummed along on light monorails giving public transportation through four tunnels beneath Megaton. They had also helped with the general plumbing and electrical grids of the settlement. Increasing the number of moderate sized public rain water tanks, passive solar hot water systems and solar power arrays had been partly due to them. They had insisted that Outer Megaton gain to a large degree along with the other three sectors of Megaton and that the semicitizens gain a good deal also along with citizens and had won through by giving instead of selling to Megaton various work projects.

 

“I am very impressed!” Franklin nodded. “Very impressed indeed. My people will want to make some sort of long term deal with you, especially since we are moving into the area a fair sized presence.”

 

“There are lots of areas to move into.” Bobby-Bob shrugged. “But most are ruins infested with nasties be they raveghouls, sometimes called feral ghouls, wild zhouls, tribals, raiders of varied kinds, bandits, unfriendly settlers, very territorial survivalists and lots of monsters. Oh yes, rogue robots and Soviet infiltration robots along with some left overs from the zibiomechanical madness, the Red Plague and so on. That is in the DC Wastelands. The UWG Enclave is blocked off at the border by a defence-security barrier complete with turrets, robots and other tricks.”

 

The woman frowned. “My people have already dealt with another United World Government Enclave. The result was on the messy side but we managed to form a compromise position. They stay inside their territories or we kill them. The UWG can not be trusted.”

 

“Orders of Steel!” Bobby-Bob snapped his fingers. “Finally the whispers are coming to proven true. They have been increasingly persistent. You are Sisterhood of Steel, a special aerospace service, hence the Piper Cub. Hence your soldierly way. Yet I heard other, more exotic whispers about the core of the Orders of Steel being very special, having very special abilities.”

 

Franklin frowned and closed her eyes. After a moment, with a sparkling shimmer, she became a dull steel version of herself. Even her eyes, when she opened them, seemed metallic. Her hair was frozen into place but it had already been cut short.

 

Bobby-Bob grinned. “Great and a risk deserves a risk in turn.” He closed his eyes and shimmered. Then he was dull metallic silver in the same fashion as she was dull metallic steel, a darker shade than himself. “What I am, I am not sure as yet.” He returned to normal appearance with a shimmer.

 

So did she. “Orders of Silver? More a shapeshifter I think. Or perhaps Metahumans arising from the mutagenic based Red Plague or the foolish experiments of the Prewar 1980s and the Great War 1990s? Or perhaps you are something else again. The Orders of Steel are metahumans arising out of a great bunkerplex (bunker complex) known as the Lost Hills. We have never promoted our true nature but we have never made it a super secret either since it is hard to do that while battling in the open in our steel-shapeforms. Did you really pick up whispers? We have heard none in the area?”

 

He responded. “Not at the general level but deeper, the whisper network.”

 

He indicated a map of the DC Wastelands as they were based on Columbia, the large island, with the sea channel to the west cutting it from the mainland. There was the Washington DC city proper based around the big Columbian Gulf and stretching inland. There was the massive DC Citadel, Rivet City based on ships and wharfs in the harbour, DCTektown also in the harbour but across the river from Rivet City, the marks of Subway Union outposts based in subway stations and other settlements. There were landmarks like the Statue of Democracy, similar to the Statue of Liberty, on its harbour island, the great Washington DC Harbour, the Pentagon, Washington DC University, the massive research and development Hexagon, Washington DC Airport including an airbase, the Fort Washington National Guard base and many others.

 

“Various, mostly secretive, groups and smaller networks exchanging information and rumours. The whisper network spread beyond the map, of course. If your people come here in large numbers you may well upset a careful power balance and panic various powerful factions, not all of which exist in the open. What we know is limited but it is more than you know, I suspect.”

 

So it was that he sold them datafiles of the DC Wastelands, that is the Island of Columbia also known as the District of Columbia. It including incursions and other influences from the mainland and Virginia. Fishing settlements along both coast lines of the channel were both in fairly big numbers and important sources of food for both Columbia and Virginia. It included other Outlander contacts and influences such as pirate raids and explorers coming from overseas but the latter were rare. The Atlantic Ocean was far more terrible than it once was. Mostly it focused on local factors such as settlements, factions, trade routes, the fragmented DC Economy, slavery, antislavery, political movements, the raiders, bandits, the surprisingly unified DC Law Network, military forces including military mercenaries, paramilitary forces including paramilitary mercenaries, organised crime, resources demand and supply and much else. Data came with menus, cross references, briefings, small conclusions, a major conclusion, an comprehensive index system and a bibliography. Included were such as maps, pictures and videos.

 

They paid a good pile of emergency issue gold coinage but it was more than worth it as Franklin well knew. The sort of data she was buying would otherwise take years and a great more in tradegoods or EICs than what she was paying now.

 

The two women left soon after. Bobby-Bob went to a small wall-locker and took out a small black telephone, not a fancy fibre-optic vidphone of the Prewar 1980s but a simple voice only wire job of a type that first appeared in the late 1800s. He pressed one button on a keypad and waited. Soon a woman’s voice answered him.

 

“Yes?”

 

Bobby-Bob responded. “Red Sparrow. I have $100 in EICs for you and some vital information. Meet soon.”

 

The voice responded. “Yellow Canary. One hour at the normal place.”

 

Then the communications were over.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67

[Herculine]

glad I can still read this...I'd have been heartbroken if not!.Great story,you inspire and fill one with magic of your words.

 

I'm glad you're still here too...

[Maharg67]

thanky you, Herculine

 

EIGHT

 

Mother sat at the head of the table with to her right the three Bobby Triplets and to the left their three half-siblings, an older half-sister, a younger half-brother and a very young half-sister in her high chair. There were other chairs but for now they were empty as people were away. They would come back until it was clear that the Warlord Han/Lo and his raider mercenaries were gone. Then they would probably arrive by stagecoach from Vaultville, a most underground settlement based on LifeVault/103 as designed and built by VaultTek the Prewar interplanetary corporation.

 

VaultTek had built many kinds of automated robotic multimodular vaults or ARMVs (ArmVs) before it was commissioned to build them on Luna and Mars, then inside asteroids as space settlements but then floating in space with modified outer hulls. But much of the work of VaultTek had been secretive, had been classified, sometimes very highly classified. Most of the ArmVs had been hidden and only a relatively few of those had been discovered or had announced themselves. Vaultville had announced itself thanks to a desire to escape what had become a prison after two hundred years.

 

Stagecoaches were big atomic motorised armoured Prewar coaches dotted with robotic weapon turrets and guarded by battlebuggies and armacars.

 

Mother smiled at all of them. Her name was Kylie-Jo and she, along with father, had come across from the West Virginian Highlands to escape the tribalism, blood feuds, inbreeding, hatred of outsiders or outsider ideas, cannibalism and other dark aspects of those lands. The Great War and the Red Plague had caused much harm there with many mutational strains rising there for reasons still unknown to most. It had been a hard journey with five families and others moving in a scavenger convoy. About four in ten had not survived getting to the coast, getting across the channel and then across the big island. Megaton had only taken them because they brought new skills, new knowledge and some stuff to bribe the settlement with. Soon as they got into Outer Megaton, the Harrington Family started to build for itself a new and better future. The other families also progressed but not as far or as quickly.

 

Mother then spoke. “Ten M16A3-M302 weapon kits have been stolen from DCTek and the money to pay for them has been stolen from the Megaton Town Council. Councillor McDoogle has put forward the claim that somebody is trying to frame him for the theft of both. Evidence so far seems to point to him but why would he be want to steal such items and why would he be so clumsy about doing so when it is well known that he is a rather canny man.”

 

Maggie-Jo, in her high-chair, was busy eating a piece of toast. She made a noise and stared at mummy avidly. This earned her a kiss from mummy and Maggie-Jo laughed with delight, only to gain a second kiss.

 

Annie-Jo, the older half-sister to the Bobby Triplets, shook back her blonde hair in a lovely swirling motion. “Why not just use the situation and destroy him. The way he looks at me sometimes makes me want to shoot him. I heard whispers he used to work for that monster Tenpenny at Tenpenny Towers, that he came to Megaton because Tenpenny caught him taking extras from the till.”

 

Bobby-Anne shook his head. “Not true! Tenpenny and McDoogle are still good friends, partners in love of humanity prime and hatred of anything or anybody who doesn’t fit their categories of perfection. Tenpenny has a hit list of people he wants to have killed by professional hitmen or hitwomen.”

 

The young half-brother, Benny-Abe, frowned. “Wow man, I want to be a cool dude hitman. That would be great. I’d walk around in a long black coat and big black boots with a black cowboy hat with studs.”

 

Bobby-Bob looked across to the sixteen year old, who was two years younger than himself, and he frowned. “Best way to fail as an assassin is to look like an assassin. Successful assassins look like the people around them. You are not hitman material, Benny-Abe. I suggest you stick to poetry, drawing and archery. People admire you for all of that and you hunt well with your compound bow and your composite bow. I was thinking you would make a fine bowyer.”

 

Benny-Abe frowned with displeasure. He was a younger, slimmer version of Bobby-Bob who was also less tough looking. He wanted to be seen as tougher because he had fallen in love with a young woman of a Townguard who didn’t seem to notice that he existed.

 

Bobby-Sue smiled at him. “Silly fool, do you really think that she wants to be impressed that way. Townguards hate hitmen. Just be yourself. I love your poetry and please don’t give me that ‘you’re just my sister’ bit.”

 

Benny-Abe sighed. “Yeh, well, I suppose it doesn’t make much sense. I wanna keep up my SMA training, my meditation. Maybe we could all focus on it as a family. Maggie-Jo could do some small body exercises with assistance.”

 

SMA, survival martial arts, was training to fight well but also cunningly, nastily if the need was there to do so.

 

Kylie-Jo nodded. “We could focus on it more. Yes, I have let it slip. Back to the problem at hand, children, has anybody got any ideas? A search for the money and the weapon kits has led nowhere.”

 

“Perhaps neither the weapon kits or the money existed except on paper, in the datafiles.” Bobby-Anne suggested. “Perhaps it is a decoy to take people’s minds away from what is really taking place of importance. Or perhaps it is all just a mistake.”

 

Suddenly all the triplets looked to each other in turn, looked into each other’s eyes, and then Bobby-Sue spoke. “Code, hidden code! A false order for ten additional weapon kits and a false money order sent. Look to the documentation.”

 

Mother turned her swivel-chair after wiping Maggie-Jo’s chin and picked up a hand-set of an intercomphone with its small screen. She spoke quickly and precisely to an office worker she could trust and then hung up expecting the documents to be delivered. The telephone rang soon though and she listened as the same office worker informed her that the documentation had gone missing, even copies made and stored in the Sheriff’s Office and the Mayor’s Office.

 

Mother was not too concerned. She simply gave instructions for the worker to get the back up copies. Soon the worker, one Margaret Segal, informed mother that she was on the way to the Mayor’s apartment, the very place they were dining in of course.

 

But Margaret was not to arrive. She was found semiconscious close to the apartment but clutching the documents. When she spoke she announced that a thug in black clothes and a mask had come at her with a thick plastic club but then a savage young woman, hard to see because she had moved with amazing speed, came to the rescue. The thug managed one swipe at the office worker before he vanished with a quickly cut of scream of shock and terror.

 

The thug was to turn up three hours later quite dead. The mask was gone and he was identified as a low life thug named Paul Smith who had been barred from Megaton for life over three months ago. He should not have been in Megaton at all let alone attacking any body. On his body was a fairly blunt combat knife, 18c in EICs, a pocket-watch and half a pack of long life preserved cigarettes, horrible tasting Prewar products made for the military in combat conditions.

 

There were coded messages and they spoke of the new bunker that had been found. The plastic explosives had not been meant for Megaton but to help open the big armoured doors in the big chamber dotted with vehicles and lifeforms in jelly capsules. Somebody in the service of the Megaton Town Council, or even on it, not only had known about the bunker but they were a traitor. Perhaps there was more than one traitor.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

NINE

 

 

Bobby-Boo watched from the corner of the big metal chamber and was in the open and yet invisible to the people there. As long as she focused, as long as she did not draw too much attention to herself, nobody would notice her.

 

Doctor Rathers himself had supervised the carefully moving of the people in the green jelly capsules to a big empty room close to the Megaton Hospital in the Megaton Bunker of three levels and one semi-level. He was an arrogant man, tall and angular, sharp and sometimes biting, but he cared very much for his patients. He now saw the people in the jelly-capsules as his patients and forbade anybody to do anything until more careful studies were done. As for the possessions of the people, they were now in the Sheriff’s Office vault-room, which was very large, in a caged off area that had to be first cleaned out of dust and old metal storage bins before it could be used.

 

Councillor McDoogle demanded that the jelly-capsules of possessions be somehow cut or broken or blasted or burned open to expose the items inside so that they could be better examined for security reasons. While a fair few people opposed him on grounds that these people had a right to a fairer treatment than that, the main reason it was not done was that the jelly substance turned out to be amazingly damage resistant. A small capsule holding a handbag was lasered, shot, stabbed, bashed and burned with no result, not even a marking on the surface.

 

Bobby-Boo watched as Megaton workers and soldiers went to work fixing up the vehicles that needed fixing, with preparing for use the other ones. The battletanks were of much use. Plans were being made to park the big battletank close to the main gate as a defensive position but these plans had to be finalised. It would take time and effort to get both big atomic motorised warmachines going. Bobby-Boo wondered why she sensed something about those machines, something beneath them.

 

She shimmered and vanished.

 

Then she was inside the big atomic motorised battletank, a Juggernaut Type-3A3. It was all packed up inside also and there were five crewmen in jelly-capsules, which were not jelly at all of course but were something very different indeed. She poked around lightly and then saw the floor hatch, an escape device. Through it, ghost like, she slipped downward and through an armoured section in the floor, a secret door disguised as part of the floor. The battletank helped hide it and indicated where it was.

 

Betty-Boo drifted down into a huge bunker chamber full of great massive machines, metallic and stretched out lengthwise along the space. It stretched downwards and in all directions into the distance with massive pillars helping to support it. The lighting was dim but there were robots, spiderbots, crawling along the top of the machines and brainbots, actually a type of cyborg with human cloned brains in transparent domes on top of the machines, moving along the laneways.

 

She floated down and landed gently on top of a spiderbot. It did not notice her as it rushed along the top of the machine beneath it. Betty-Boo wondered what the big machines were doing. She reached down and was surprised but not pleased; they were mattercating items, sometimes parts to be assembled, sometimes complete items.

 

The completed goods were battledroids, odd metallic skeletal humanoids each with a turret-head, six arms and two double jointed legs. Two upper arms ended in laser-guns, the middle arms ended in laser-swords and the lower two ended in clever manipulators. These battledroids could use normal or special made weapons or tools with their lower limbs. The turret-heads each had 3Dcams, mikes, sensors, scanners and one laser-gun. Each battledroid was one and a half metres tall being colour coded copper for baseline fighter, silver for coordinator-supervisor and gold for director. But in battle these colours would be covered by basic chameleon camouflage systems. The battledroids operated not alone but in fact as platoons each with one gold, three silver and six copper ranked battledroids.

 

Battledroidic hardware were BD/sleds that slid over surfaces being armoured semi-open vehicles each with a big robotic gun-turret with a gattling-laser, 20mm autoguns, ADAT missile-launchers, flamers, 12.7mm recoilless-machineguns and various specialised tools and instruments for repair work, navigation and other tasks.

 

Production was only at 25% but the automated, AI-supercomputer controlled production had been going on for over two hundred years.

 

Then she saw them, copper coloured metallic humans, standing inside an armaglassed booth overlooking the chamber. They were clearly a hairless metallic man and woman, like young beautiful adults with fine slimly muscular bodies, hers being slimly voluptuous, with silvery eyes. Their groins were smooth caps. Their breasts had no nipples but only areas of smoothness. They stood absolutely still except that their head turned slowly scanning across and both up and down as if endlessly seeking intrusion.

 

There was something very chilling about them that she did not like from the start. Though they looked like robots or androids, there was something distorted human about them, sociopathically human with some exotic form of psychic abilities.

 

They were cyberhumans and had sensed her but could not quite focus on her, could not quite target her.

 

Then a big metallic door slid open and in came marching twin ranks of copper, fewer silver and even fewer golden colour cyberhumans. They began to fan out and it was clear to Betty-Boo that they were seeking her though they probably did not know for sure what they were looking for.

 

She shot upwards right through the secret floor hatch and right into the battletank. Now she felt badly shaken up but safe. Then she reached out to the other Bobbys. There was a threat amazing close to Megaton but surely it had always been there and yet had not struck at Megaton. The last thing that was to be done was to have Megaton citizens foolishly blundering into what was a great threat and cause a catastrophe that might easily effect far more than Megaton.

 

Just what was going on?

 

She slipped out of the battletank and considered what the Bobbys might do to at least slow down the silly Megaton people from doing anything foolish.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67