Wastelands Chance of Revival

[Herculine]

This is really getting good...

[Maharg67]

TEN

 

The meeting did not take place an hour after the telephone call but the next day. The words had been a mixture of code and falsehood. By the time Bobby-Anne made it to the Sisterhood of Compassion Outpost in Outer Megaton, she had increased information to give.

 

She sat in a rude metal and rock structure that was the combination office and meeting room of the six Sisters of Compassion living and working in Megaton. There was a kitchenette in a corner, an air-conditioner high on one wall, three computer terminals, a minimainframe in another corner, two desks, four office chairs, a lounge area and a few other items of interest. The S/of/C had plans to set up a proper welfare outpost in Megaton but so far the Megaton Town Council had shown fear that such an outpost would only attract more unwanted folk to the settlement. This was despite Mayor Kylie-Jo Harrington’s support of the S/of/C and the rational argument that people would come anyway out of desperation.

 

The Sisterhood did not like to talk much about their origins or where they got most of their resources but it was an open secret that it was the mysterious Subway Union in both cases. The Sisterhood wore typical Wastelander clothes and their guards, the Sisterhood of Protection, or S/of/P, wore typical metal or leather armour and used typical Wasteland weapons. That is smokeless gunpowder propelled bullets, shells or other projectiles of standard Prewar US military type. Energy weapons such as lasers or electric stunners were not very common. There was always one Sister Protector for every Sister Compassionate and so six S/of/P amazons were living at the outpost and guarding it.

 

The number of Sisters Protectorate was another reason given to oppose a larger welfare outpost but it was a nonsense argument as it only made sense for the S/of/P to have so many guards; the welfare convoys and outposts had lots of valuable resources of the kind that attracted bandits or worse, raiders. Sometimes it was the settlements themselves who tried to steal resources. Negotiations, painful and long winded, were still going on with the Megaton Town Council about the outpost and various projects to be instigated in Megaton.

 

“The Orders of Steel are coming to the DC Wastelands, a very large force of them. There is a secret bunker with a strange enemy inside it.” The Sister Compassionate in charge of the outpost sat on her side of the desk on a swivel-chair with many patches. She wore typical Wastelander trousers, shirt, a light jacket and other gear. “Cyberhumans! Weapons Research and Development Program Gamma Five! Cyberhumans are melded clone cyborgs that go way beyond normal cyborging techniques of bonding humans or animals to cyborg parts or using cyborg implants or even whole network-systems. My people got hold of partly damaged datafiles that were a briefing on the project in its early stages. The briefing was part of a report to what was called the United States Special Technologies Research and Development Committee based in the Hexagon. The briefing had some doubts about the long term viability of the program and about its long term safety considerations but it did suggest that the next stage in R/and/D be fully funded.”

 

She sighed. “The United States of America back then was facing not just the Soviet threat but the growing power of the United World Government and its Enclaves. The UWG was growing in power because it was seen as a strong solution to the various alien threats against humanity. I am sure you know all this.”

 

Bobby-Anne nodded. “Hive minded humanoids in South America, dragons in Africa, tripocs in the Pacific Ocean and kraken in the Atlantic Ocean all resulting from what? From transdimensional gates appearing between our world and alternative historical worlds, from Alternative Earths. What caused the gateways to open? We Bobby Triplets found the books of one Gerald H Smith named the Genius Conspiracy, the Genius Conspiracy Gone Wrong, and Stopping the Genius Fools. They said that the supposed super geniuses Tezzlar, Enstene, Marue and others were together causing the alien invasions and other troubles. But thanks to all the wonder technologies the Genius Kids were giving the world, few in power wanted to listen to Gerald H Smith though he had a big cult following.”

 

The older woman then spoke. “When the X-Files Department of the FAI, the Federal Agency of Investigation, was closed down, Gerald H Smith funded them as a private organization known as the X-Files Investigation Agency, the XFIA. The ex-FBI agents who joined it were Dana Skully, Fox Mulder, Walter Skinner, John Doggett, Monica Reyes but there were others like the scientists Radman Jones, July Brady and Kerry Brady. They had the Lone Gunmen, three men and two women, who were an odd mixture of conspiracy investigators, geniuses and survivalists. Others joined but we have only found solid data on the early years of the XFIA when it was struggling to be recognised as important. I mention the XFIA because one of their own X-Files, that is it was about one of their cases, mentioned X-Files Investigators, or XFIs as the popular press liked to call them, ran into crude early forms of cyberhumans that tried to kill them but the cyberhumans were fairly clumsy and slow. Doesn’t sound like the cyberhumans that you say are hidden so amazingly close to Megaton.”

 

Bobby-Anne shrugged. “That was my information to you. Have you got anything for me?”

 

Lisa Adams was her name. She was light brown of skin and dark brown of hair. Her eyes were also brown. She sighed. “I will confirm what you have suspected, I suspect, and that is we the Sisterhood of Compassion, along with the Sisterhood of Protection, indeed do come from the Subway Union. The Subway Union is a large section of the Deep Subway Network linked with many bunkers and bunkerplexes (bunker complexes) and other structures. We have over ten million people. We are giving out this same information to many through out the DC Wastelands but to a few we are giving more information because you have assisted us greatly in the past. We have many auto-robotic network-systems, many robots and many androids.”

 

Bobby-Anne whistled softly. “Even our biggest settlements of the surface have at most over a hundred thousand like Rivet City, Vaultburg, Vaultville and, of course, Megaton.”

 

 

Lisa Adams Vaultburg and Vaultville each have hidden populations of over three hundred thousand people. Vaultville has all free citizens but Vaultburg has a hidden slave population of ghouls, zhouls and other mutants.”

 

The Bobby Triplet nodded. “We heard whispers about Vaultburg but nothing conclusive. Very well, we have picked up strong whispers of strange mutants being seen near the Eastern Lamplight Mountains where it is also whispered a major VaultTek Vault was hidden but not of what kind. Mutants are ugly with pock marked skin and no hair. They have enhanced physical strength and endurance, are harder to damage and seem to be immune to radiation as true ghouls and zhouls are. A new nickname is super mutants. Oh, they tend to be stupid but are led by smarter ones.”

 

“Most of the stupid ones are the size of very bulky muscular humans but some are perhaps one and a half times bigger. The smart ones are all slimmer, more like normal muscular humans. So they are called smart mutants and stupid mutants. One smart mutant was overhead speaking by a witness who got away; it seems that they are created by something called mutagen and so the name mutamutants has become common. Information is confusing after that. Some say the only real super mutants are the bigger stupid mutants but others say that the stupid mutants, smaller and larger, have better physical gifts but that the smart mutants have some kind of psychic gifts. All witnesses agree on one thing; these mutamutants or super mutants, are very aggressive but tend to try to capture people and animals rather than kill.”

 

Bobby-Anne paused before speaking again. “They have creatures with them called zentaurs that are like, well crawling distorted humans with tentacles that can move with surprising speed and squeeze into relatively small spaces. They like to ambush people by dropping onto them. The tentacles are very strong and the creatures are fairly hard to kill though they seem to be vulnerable to fire. None of these mutamutants, these super mutants, seem to be strong against high voltage electricity.”

 

The Sister Compassionate nodded. “We have picked up the same whispers. I suppose we have little more to add. Except that you could tell us more about the remarkable Bobby Triplets.”

 

Bobby-Anne smiled. “As you could tell us more about the Subwayers, as you call yourselves.”

 

“Subwayers, Subwayfolk!” The older woman shrugged. “Pro-Federalists who support the return of some kind of USA, the Moderates who like to see a loose federation at best and the Anti-Federalists who want the current way of things to remain much the same in Columbia. There are also the Isolationists but isolationism is pretty much an impractical idea these days with the Subway Union having been accidentally discovered by surface folk. The Moderates hold the balance of power in the Presidium, the Senate and the Represenate of the Parliament. The Subway Union President and Prime Minister are both Moderates. Moderates allow us S/of/C and the S/of/P to operate out on the surface but little more than that.”

 

Bobby-Anne nodded. “We are one who are more than one who are one. We are more than three but the others, well in time.”

 

The other woman smiled. “Excellent! Thank you for trusting us to tell us that. We sensed something fundamentally different about you. The Subway Union was a result of a deliberate program to construct the newer, more modern Deep Subway Network and all the structures it connects as a place for the USA to start from again. It was a wonderful plan and there was a few sneaky extras to it. The small, medium and large cylinder shaped slot-shelters that dot the DC Wastelands, the Puluwski Preservation Services shelters, were emergency teleportation sites for people to get down to the Subway Union. They came down in the thousands when the final sirens rang, not just those who were meant to but many others. Somehow people just knew, were informed somehow, and those who knew how, they helped the others operate the hidden systems. They even managed to send down small vehicles, animals, stuff taken from shops. People would grab up stuff from shops and bring it, often in those small robotic shopping carts, those RSCs, to prove they were worth letting in. I know because I was there. There were other teleport stations as well hidden in other ways like those Slotaway Sleep’N’Cubicles, the Convenient Coin Storage Cubicles or CCSCs, and a fair few others. ”

 

She sighed. “The teleportation network of network-system was the product of what you might call a counter conspiracy to a big conspiracy taking place in the USA and beyond; it designed and built the Subway Union and had it largely populated before the sirens rang for the final time. But it was not properly tested when the sirens went off. Something happened that should not have happened or perhaps it was planned; we do not know. Over 20% of the Subway Union population is made up of those like me.”

 

Lisa Adams suddenly glowed and became a dark purple sparkling shimmering figure, a translucent version of her old self. “We purple ones, we are human elementals of the physical, mental or spiritual realms but there are others, the air-water blues, the solar yellow-whites and the green life elementals. All of us who came through the teleports are like this though the children have grown into adults.”

 

Bobby-Anne sighed. “You were all saved! We Bobby Triplets can save people in the same fashion, even the recently dead. The teleport system was faulty somehow, accidentally or deliberately, and you were saved. You were brought through as elementals instead of as dead bodies. What happened to the none living things or the other lifeforms?”

 

“Elemental animals, elemental plants, even elemental microscopic life but the other items, the robots, the vehicles, the cans of food, all that was normal when it came through.” Lisa Adams was thoughtful for a moment before she spoke again. “We have made peaceful co-existence with the majority of human primes along with the relatively small minorities such as ghouls and zhouls. All are free voting citizens in the SWU supported by limited public services including welfare.”

 

The younger woman sat forward a little. “So what are you not saying?”

 

“When turned of the teleportation network-system as soon as we could. That is well after the last person had come through to the Deep Subway Network, the DSN.” The older woman shimmered and looked like a normal human prime again. “We even sabotaged the network-system so others could not reactivate it or so we assumed. Now we have growing evidence that the teleportation network-system has been repaired, reactivated but also reprogrammed for the people being captured and sent somewhere are not coming to the Subway Union. Our teleport receptors are still deactivated and we would not let them reactivate.”

 

Then she changed subject. “So, you can save people and make them like us?”

 

Bobby-Anne. “Not us directly! We become conduits for the Light and Enlightenment of the Multiverse. Sounds religious or something, I suppose, but it came to us in a dream. The dream spoke of a next stage of existence but did not explain too much. It seems we have to earn the right, have to grow somehow, to gain more knowledge. Perhaps we have to find it.”

 

The woman nodded. “All elementals are linked almost as one and we are aware of a newly born air-water elemental existing in Megaton. He is down in the waters below Megaton cleansing it and exploring the water filled caves. He was Rodger Harrington, a cousin of yours. He explained how he died but refused to say who ‘elemented’ him as we tend to say it. Oh, most Sisters Compassionate or Protector are human prime.”

 

A Sister Protector entered quickly carrying an M16A3 autorifle and dressed in metal armour. “Councillor Rashari is here again and again is demanding that we cease to give out blankets, foodbars and pristine water to people. He again is claiming it is unfairly competing with the merchants of Outer Megaton. Of course he means the one and only Craterside Supplies, the shop that he happens to own.”

 

The S/of/C had signed an agreement with the Megaton Town Council that allowed them to give away a short list of items including food rations, blankets, basic small tents, small bottles of purified water, toys and some others. Despite this Councillor Rashari would come down to the outpost at least once a week to make illegal demands on the Sisterhood, misquoting the agreement and showing a clear clash of personal interests with his council duties.

 

Lisa Adams stood up. “This will take a few minutes. Getting rid of Councillor Rashari has become a weekly routine. The man seems totally incapable of seeing his own selfish greed for what it is and his own manipulation of the truth to suit his greed.”

 

They parted ways and Bobby-Anne was soon making her way up around the crater that was in Outer Megaton. There were three such craters but this was the biggest of them caused by the crazy way the flying-wing had come down and other conditions. That is the big flying-wing bomber that was part of Inner Megaton.

 

Behind her the tall plump Councillor Rashari was busy ranting and raving at the calm Sister Compassionate while he waved his arms through the air. But the Bobby Triplets had already worked out that the real reason that he did this every week was to deliver information, coded information that is, to the outpost for he was some kind of infiltrator, a secret agent of some kind probably linked to the Subway Union.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

DC Wastelands in Short

Will be edited/added to in future

 

B/of/S = Brotherhood of Steel (O/of/S)

 

C/of/A = Church of Atom

 

D/of/A = Daughters of Atom (C/of/A)

 

EIC = Emergency Issue Coin

 

FACI = Federal Agency of Criminal Investigation (federal organised crime investigation body)

 

F/of/A = Followers of Atom (C/of/A)

 

FSIA = Federal Security Intelligence Agency

 

K/of/A = Knights of Atom (C/of/A)

 

MRE = Meal Ready to Eat (common type of Prewar military field ration but also being produced again)

 

O/of/S = Orders of Steel

 

PLLPM = Prepacked Long Life Preserved Mealpack

 

R/of/J = Regulators of Justice (Regulators)

 

SMA = Survival Martial Arts

 

S/of/A = Sons of Atom (C/of/A)

 

S/of/C = Sisterhood of Compassion

 

S/of/P = Sisterhood of Protection

 

S/of/S = Sisterhood of Steel (O/of/S)

 

S/of/T = Sagehood of Technology (O/of/S)

 

SWU = Subway Union

 

USA = United States of America

 

USFG = United States Federal Government (USA)

 

USNG = United States National Guard (USA)

 

XFIA = X-Files Investigation Agency

Edited November 19, 2009 by Maharg67

[Herculine]

I love the factions and politics.

[Maharg67]

Thanks, Herculine! I love creating factions, perhaps too many factions.

 

ELEVEN

 

Megaton opened up its Free Trade Zone again outside of the main gate. Townguards put up their sandbag walled positions first and robotic turrets. Deputy Weld, the protectron, was once more seen standing before the main gate. Stalls went up and a check-point for those wishing to go into Outer Megaton. Of the stalls a few were merchants but one was S/of/C and another represented the Megaton Town Council.

 

Word came by radio that the stagecoaches and trade caravans were already on their way to the town. As for Warlord Han/Lo he was busy trying to go northwards back to the great wild zone between the DC Wastelands and the DomniCommonwealth. For reasons long forgotten this was known as the Dynamite Wastelands.

 

Bobby-Bob stood away from Megaton and on the other side of the dirt clearing that the stagecoaches and trade caravan vehicles would park at. Where he stood there were raider mercenaries encamped not so long ago. He could sense their slowly fading psychic residue.

 

In his normal outdoors gear and with not only his rifle but a back-up .32 revolver pistol, he jumped down from a small rise and made his way through a ditch littered with left overs. Scavengers were already there picking up metal tins, bullet casings and other things left behind by the raider mercenaries. At first they checked him to see if he was going to hassle them but upon seeing who it was, they welcomed him warmly or at least luke warmly.

 

What drew him, he was not sure, but he moved deeper into the ditches, dirt mounds and small ruins that had been inhabited by the besieging forces. Every so often he would pause to direct a scavenger to a certain place and, from experience, they knew to go there at once. So they dug up a few copper EICs, even more Prewar coins that could be melted down, a few lost bullets, a hidden can of molerat and vegetable stew and a few other things of value to the poor scavengers. What they did not detect was how he seeded the ground with a few copper EICs every time he pointed at the ground, or at least he assumed that they did not know it.

 

Then he came upon an old woman sitting calmly on a log smoking something that smelled ghastly in an old wooden pipe. Bobby-Bob wrinkled his nose in disgust as he walked up to the woman in her ‘Raggedy Annes’, as people called the style of multiple ragged dresses she wore on top of each other. She watched him carefully with pale yellow eyes, a minor mutation, that missed very little. Slumbering on her lap, all curled up in raggedy cloth, was an old pet molemouse, a smaller cousin to the molerats. She petted it as she watched him. When it died of old age she would eat it in a stew but until then the pet was fully under her protection.

 

Bobby-Bob smiled at her. “Greetings Annie, I’m just out for a casual look around.”

 

She smiled crookedly at him. “Don’t you go p****** in Old Annie’s ears. You is on the track of something, Bobby-Bob, you has that look in your eyes. God help the Wastelands if you and your triplet sisters ever become bounty hunters. Oh, yes, the others also. Bobby-Boo comes and talks to me sometimes in her own way. Little Piggly loves her to bits.”

 

He smiled at her. “Got the sense of something that is drawing me. Somebody died here. Something happened of odd violence. You psysense anything odd, Annie?”

 

After a moment she nodded. “You Bobby Triplets must have laced the ground with hundreds of copper EICs over the years for poor scavvies to pick up. I owe you lots for that alone. Took me time to figure what you were doing but still don’t know how. Body is just over there.” She pointed. “Wrapped it and hid it for you. I sense you isn’t going to do no bad with it. Poor young woman must have been slaved. Pretty thing or at least she was, and pregnant.”

 

He walked over to where Annie had pointed and raising one hand, pointed it at the ground. At once it began to shift to one side all by itself and the cloth wrapped body emerged and slid into the clear. Even as it did the dirt shook off it. The wrappings opened to reveal a young woman’s corpse in early stages of rotting. She had been looted of valuables but was still clothed from the waist down. Her shoes were gone. All she wore was stained trousers. Her belly bulged with a dead lifeform inside her.

 

He reached down and touched her, did not fully mean it to happen, but for then there was a flash of glowing light, the body shimmered and suddenly there she stood cradling the baby in her arms. Both were glowing translucent yellow-white, were solar elementals. The woman stared in wonder around herself and then she spoke to Bobby-Bob.

 

“Thank you and thank the Goddess.”

 

Annie sighed. “Well in a hundred and ten years I thought I saw a good deal but this is brand new to me. Isn’t this gonna upset the balances or something?”

 

Bobby-Bob responded. “Balances are already upset badly, Old Annie, which is why this is happening. Not only we the Bobby Triplets but others are doing this. Things that should not have happened, have happened. Unholy, unnatural and antinatural forces have been unleashed upon this world.”

 

The young woman smiled. “I don’t know about all that but I feel freer than ever before and my baby is alive and glowing lovely. Others of my kind are calling upon me now to join them not far from here. Before I leave I want to show both of you why they shot me dead. I saw something they did not want me to see. For Warlord Han/Lo buried something in this place. He really came here to do that. Please follow.”

 

Annie stood up slowly and slipped her pet into a baby-pouch. The old molemouse yawned, stretched and wriggled around to make itself comfortable before going back to sleep. Annie kept the molemouse because for some unknown reason one day it had gone to the rescue of one of her babies. The molemouse had stood bravely between the human baby and a small but highly venomous snake. Molemice had relatively big nasty hard, quite sharp teeth, two of them, as did bigger molerats. The snake had paused and then Annie had killed it, had made it into food. Turned out that the molemouse visited the baby on a regular basis and the two got on just fine.

 

The solar elemental woman tucked her solar elemental baby inside herself for safe keeping and walked drifting over the ground. She led the two mortals across the broken ground until they came to what looked like just one more heap of broken concrete slabs. She pointed to them.

 

Bobby-Bob focused his telekinetic skills and carefully shifted slab after slab. Then he dug a hole. Soon he exposed a section of rounded steel hull. First he thought it might be a big hight explosive dumb bomb. Then he found himself looking at the markings confirming that it was a hydrogen bomb, a H-bomb.

 

Old Annie took a long puff of her pipe and then breathed it out. “Be damned but that is a surprise. I don’t expect its us poor scavengers they were after.”

 

Bobby-Bob touched the hull of the bomb. “No, the impressions I am picking up from the bomb indicate it was delivered here for somebody else to pick up. It’s a big weapon and heavy so I wonder how anybody would expect to move it. Warlord Han/Lo did not just come here as a wandering Warlord. That was his way of covering the truth, of making a delivery right out in the open; very clever.”

 

The solar elemental woman spoke. “My name was Lin Han. I was the daughter lover of Han/Lo who loved his little perversities. But when I accidentally walked into him speaking with Confessor Namira and Knight Atom Leslie from Megaton, he killed me just like that. They paid him many gold EICs to bring the H-bomb here.”

 

The Church of Atom was all fairly fanatical at least but the Knights Atom were extreme even by their standards. Confessor Namira belonged to the same extreme faction of the C/of/A. In comparison Prime Confessor Cromwell was moderate as were most of the Followers of Atom in Megaton.

 

Bobby-Bob spoke to Old Annie. “As far as I am concerned all the poor scavengers helped find this prize. You deserve new homes in Outer Megaton, if you want them.”

 

Old Annie grinned. “Some will, some won’t but I will. I need something more than a concrete hole in the ground for my old bones to rest in. Some of my children and my brother will come live with me and of course my beloved Piggly here. Yes, a big hut would do the trick but we will still want to go scavving because its our way of life.”

 

The solar elemental woman bowed. “If I had no baby to protect I would stay and assist but others of my kind call me to go and dance in the sunshine. I will visit both of you, if you do not mind.”

 

Old Annie smiled. “Anytime, my sweet, and bring the young one with you.”

 

Bobby-Bob nodded. “You always will be welcome with the Bobby Triplets and our beloved others.”

 

The solar elemental bowed and then vanished with a shimmering, taking the baby with her.

 

Bobby-Bob gave the alert and soon the area was swarming with Townguards and others from Megaton including Sisters Compassionate and Sister Protectors. There was lots of deep surprise of course and many questions. Plans were made at once to take the H-bomb into somewhere hopefully safe in Megaton

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

TWELVE

 

Megaton was in shock! Firstly the strange bunker filled with wonders and now this, the H-bomb buried on their outskirts and left by none other than the Warlord who had been laying siege to them just days ago.

 

Some of the abandoned vehicles, not the ones in preservation storage, were now being used. With some difficulty they were taken through the tunnel which led to a big artificially altered cavern chamber and to more tunnels. One of these tunnels led to a hidden surface entrance. Atomic motorised vehicles and electric, they were driven around to Outer Megaton while moves were started to secure the newly found entrance to Megaton.

 

The H-Bomb was picked up using a big industrial robot and slowly taken through to Inner Megaton where it was stored deep in the newly found series of caves. The caves were being rapidly explored and were being found to be of much value. When the Church of Atom requested that they be given the H-bomb, they were met with scorn and suspicion both.

 

The caves were a mixture of natural and seminatural spaces with glowcrystal growing over many ceilings. They were dotted with junk and semijunk left over by US Forces along with some actual carefully preserved stores. When somebody jokingly offered to let the poor scavengers live in the caves, they were surprised when the offer was rapidly taken up. But to the scavengers it was new picking grounds out of the harsh weather and hopefully with less dangers.

 

The two Sisters of Steel departed in their Piper Cub.

 

Betty-Boo returned to the chamber where the battledroids had been manufactured and there had been cyberhumans but the cyberhumans were gone, the machines were silent and no battledroids were being manufactured. It seemed that Megaton was safe.

 

Rodger the blue air-water elemental visited Doc Church a couple of times and played chess with him. He had an interesting report to give to him about something he had found down in the water filled caves below Megaton.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

THIRTEEN

 

Sheriff Lucas Simms was standing on a big metal platform on the defence-security wall overlooking the main gate to the outside world and to the Free Trade Zone. He was watching a convoy come in of two big stagecoaches and big machines of a trade caravan. There were battlebuggies, armacars and armatrucks with them including one armatruck carrying mail. The Order of Couriers, founded only a few months before, was quickly becoming known for delivering mail, both letters and parcels, along with newssheets across the DC Wastelands for surprisingly reasonable rates.

 

The sight was impressive with lots of firepower and raw motor power. Dust was thrown up and the air was full of noise. Then the machines were settling down, were parking as Megaton Traffic Wardens guided them with red and yellow signs.

 

He spoke. “So these elementals are not dangerous to Megaton.”

 

“No!” Bobby-Sue shook back her hair and looked keenly to see members of her family. She could psysense them already. “Indeed they will be of great assistance to us, to our poor sick world.”

 

For all the odd things that had happened recently, Megaton looked the same as it had done for decades. A small sea of metal, concrete and other materials. Inner Megaton based mainly around an underground bunker and a partly buried mighty flying-wing of a bomber that had crashed in some crazy manner. It had houses and other buildings, other places on the surface but Middle Megaton was much bigger. Middle Megaton was bigger than any other part of Megaton. Holy Megaton, the walled off section of the Followers of Atom, was fairly big but so was Outer Megaton, in fact about the same size both as was Inner Megaton.

 

Most of the people of Megaton, the Megatonfolk, didn’t concern themselves much with what was happening outside of their own lives but that was normal enough.

 

Lucas Simms was bemused. “So Rodger is now one of these air-water elementals as he says there are things down in the town water supply that we should check out though he is vague to what they are. I would like to know how we get down there.”

 

“Follow the pipes down!” Bobby-Sue shrugged. “The Founders of Megaton directed the pipes down there with some difficulty. Nobody has been down there for a while but there are supposed to be ladders and platforms going down with small robots keeping them in good condition.”

 

The Sheriff sighed. “Then an expedition is in order. Betty-Boo went down and found those busy machines, those battledroids being manufactured and those rather scary cyberhumans. Then she went down again to find them gone. Why would they leave? Sounds like they could have easily conquered Megaton.”

 

“Straight forwardly it doesn’t make sense.” The young woman watched as travellers started coming out of one of the big atomic motorised stagecoaches. At first they were a mixture of strangers and non related Megatonfolk but then she was waving madly at her aunty and cousins, her aunty carrying a sleeping baby figure in her arms. The aunty and first cousins waved madly back. They had been away over two months visiting Harrington relations living in Rivet City.

 

Bobby-Anne went on speaking. “These cyberhumans may not have wanted to expose themselves too much. They may have a longer term plan in mind or they may not give a damn about Megaton. They may or may not be in command. They and the battledroids, along with anything else they got from the bunkers, are probably being used or will be used for something else. All of this is speculation until we can get into the new found bunkers. I mean by the armoured doors. What else is concerning you, Sheriff?”

 

The Sheriff frowned. “The Megaton Town Council, including your wonderful mother, wants to create a new police department. The Sheriff’s Office will then be shifted to be responsible for Outer Megaton and the Free Trade Zone which is to gain its own permanent defence-security boundary. The Sheriff’s Office will have new facilities built and will not lose any staff or equipment. The new police department will look after the rest of Megaton.”

 

Bobby-Anne nodded. “Mother is only putting forward the idea so that discussion about it comes into the open. Councillor McDoogle and his allies are pushing the idea strongly mostly, I suspect, because of McDoogle’s intense dislike of you.”

 

The Sheriff had caught Councillor McDoogle’s oldest son running a racket to steal purified water from the town and sell it at high profit to other, smaller settlements. The younger McDoogle had pulled a gun on the Sheriff and had been gunned down not just by the Sheriff but by a deputy. A fair few witnesses had agreed that John McDoogle had acted stupidly and aggressively but Councillor McDoogle continued to claim that it had been murder, though not so openly these days.

 

Lucas shrugged. “I am mostly active in Outer Megaton anyway because that is where the trouble is focused as with that damned Colin Moriarty. I am glad you told me what you did and I am doubly glad that those cyberhumans went away with those battledroids with out attacking Megaton.”

 

Bobby-Anne smiled at him. “I must go and meet my aunty and cousins in Outer Megaton. We need to talk again soon. There is something not right happening in Megaton, something secret and conspiratorial. You need to be careful who you talk to and what you talk about.” She smiled, kissed him on the cheek and then departed.

 

He watched the beautiful dark blonde leave and reminded himself he was a married man with a very lovely and sexy wife. Which reminded him…

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

FOURTEEN

 

Bobby-Boo slipped through the big garage-workshop. It was dark and much of the workshop was in darkness but there were active security sensors and security turrets with night-vision. They did not pick her up, not even a trace of her. She was in the main Townguard Base in Middle Megaton where Townguard mechanics, techs and other workers were building a couple of new battlebuggies. They were using parts of vehicles that had been found in the big chamber.

 

But she was not drawn to them or by them to the base. She flittered across open floor and through a door, ghostly fashion, and then she was inside a big office. A clerical pool with typewriter-terminals and normal computer terminals on desks. It was in semidarkness but light came from an inner office.

 

She darted through the door and then watched the two adults facing each other and listened. They did not notice her though it was a fairly small office and filled with the light from a ceiling fixture and two desk-lamps. A computer monitor was showing coloured 3Ddatasymbols.

 

The man and woman were quite naked and were doing things that Betty-Boo found quite fascinating. She made mental notes. The woman was Kate Simms, the attractive wife of the sheriff, who worked as an administrative officer for the Townguards and the man was handsome and charming Councillor McDoogle.

 

Then the pair were finishing, were getting dressed and doing other things. Both wore typical Wastelander gear except that Kate wore a knee length skirt and the Councillor had trousers.

 

She was frowning softly. “That was the last time! I am not cheating on my husband any more.”

 

“Oh, yes you are!” McDoogle smiled at her. “You like cheating! It gives you a thrill. Anyway I have the photographs of us doing it in my office, in my apartment bedroom and even in my lounge room. Do as I say or your husband will find out and the hurt, the shock on his face will give me great joy. Now you will sit down and falsify the records as you did the last time with those ten weapon kits that never existed.”

 

But Bobby-Boo sensed that McDoogle was lying, that there were no photographs. She reached gently to the mind of Kate Simms and gave her the knowledge. Kate Simms scowled at the man, standing there in front of her.

 

“There are no photographs. You are lying.”

 

McDoogle grinned but there was a sign of surprise in his eyes at the confidence in her voice. “Of course I have photographs.” But then he pulled out a .32 revolver pistol and pointed it at the woman. “You will input the new data. I have invested too much time and energy in this damned project to let you get in the way.”

 

Kate Simms stared at him in puzzlement. “What are you saying? What project?”

 

McDoogle smiled. “I already knew about the hidden bunker. It’s a multiple purpose establishment. Though military it has facilities for infantry, armoured forces, AirCav and special forces. It has some R/and/D areas, manufacturing facilities and other resources. That includes lots of stored goodies. It will make Megaton great but more importantly, it will make me great. DCTek will come here and make Megaton into its colony guarded by GuardTek Mercenaries.”

 

The sheriff’s wife frowned. “Those dead mercs were GuardTek?”

 

McDoogle shook his head. “Expendable free-lancers hired by GuardTek. Telling you doesn’t matter because soon you will be dead.”

 

Betty-Boo reached out and made the revolver-pistol vanish and reappear but this time in Kate’s hand. Kate saw this happen and punched McDoogle in the guts. The man made a funny noise and doubled up. Then Kate kicked him in the head, knocking the Councillor out. She was tougher, faster than him because he had grown up sheltered in Megaton while she had grown up out in the Wastelands.

 

She looked around nervously, picked up a telephone hand-set and started making telephone calls.

 

Minutes later two Townguards came in and hauled the Councillor off to an empty storeroom as a temporary cell.

 

Sheriff Lucas Simms arrived with a grave expression on his face and had a private talk with his wife. Their marriage would survive, would have good times again, but matters would be hard between them for a few months.

 

But as for Councillor McDoogle, the real man was in his apartment and the amazingly identical impostor who had seduced Kate vanished from the cell by mysterious means. One of the Townguards near the door testified at an investigative hearing that she heard a strange humming thrumming noise before she looked through a small barred window in the door and saw that the impostor was gone.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67

[Herculine]

I just realized that your writing reminds me very much of L. Ron Hubbard's INVADERS PLAN decology. Satirical humor mixed with sci-fi and commentary. It's not an easy style to write successfully, but you do it well.

[Maharg67]

Thenk you, Herculine! Please enjoy some more of my story...

 

FIFTEEN

 

Bobby-Bob held up the compact baby like babystop, an oddly muscular little figure, and his first cousin wriggled with delight. The little boy was a baby who would not grow bigger but stronger, more aware and smarter plus more empathic. Babystops they were called, a kind of mutation.

 

Benzy-Bib had a little teddy-bear in a pouch at his front being Bobby-Bear. Like Bobby-Boo wild girl and Bobby-Blue the dog, the teddy-bear was an extension of the Bobby Triplets that in this case cared for the babystop. Benzy-Bib held up a nice plastic yellow block with numbers on the side. “Benzy-Bib got blocks!” Then he laughed happily.

 

He had not always been so healthy or happy. The Bobby Triplets had saved his life and through Bobby-Bear had cared for him since. Benzy-Bib had been found by the Harrington Family as they had landed on the western coast of Columbia Island at what seemed to be an abandoned military coastal base. Benzy-Bib was a lot older than he looked and the Harringtons were not sure how old he was since he had seemed much the same when they had found him all miserable and alone.

 

Bobby-Bob gave Benzy-Bib a big kiss and Benzy-Bib laughed again. He bopped his yellow block on Bobby-Bob’s nose and Bobby-Bob laughed. It was the sort of interaction that they could keep up for ages.

 

But mother’s younger sister, Kylie-Anne, took up the babystop because she was the adoptee mother, was mummy, and hugged the small one to herself. She was still looking tired from the long and fairly cramped journey; stagecoaches were meant for safe secure travel, not great comfort. She looked like a younger version of mother.

 

They were standing in the family commonroom, a large chamber of many purposes. The chamber was a nice mixture of practicality and homely comfortable. The harshness of the DC Wastelands was not far away but was somehow held back in that place.

 

The big old 3DTV-set was showing a holotape background of lush green parks, a pristine Prewar cityscape, light traffic, humming police robots, people moving slowly along footpaths in Prewar clothes of good casual appearance. Everybody was young or looked young thanks to new reasonably priced rejuvenation treatments. In the sky were flivvers, aircars, vertibirds and a few big airships with relatively small gasglobes of revolutionary liftergas. It was a tourism documentary that showed only a disjointed look at Prewar reality but it had been copied many times as datadisks and holotapes, had become popular through out the DC Wastelands. Kylie-Anne had bought a holotape copy at Rivet City.

 

Kylie-Anne, younger sister to Kylie-Jo, had three daughters and two sons, the sons being twins. She was only three years younger than the Mayor of Megaton. Her oldest daughter was staying in Rivet City because she was a brilliant biologist working at the science laboratory workshop complex there in one of the ships. The other two were with her as were the twins, all attractively tough looking in typical Wastelander gear.

 

In fact the whole family was there including pets. That is except for those that staid in the Bobby Triplets’ Work Centre including Bobby-Blue. Tally-Sue was in Rivet City. Sally-Sue and Sally-Kay were there showing off new tops to mother, their aunt, and the Boxbie Twins, Boxbie-Ben and Boxbie-Boe, were admiring their new .22LR bolt-action rifle. They were sixteen unlike their 19 year old triplet cousins.

 

The Boxbie Twins thought too much of themselves, were too sure of themselves, were like father and reflected his arrogance. They especially saw themselves as competing with Bobby-Bob but they both admired him and saw him as weak in some ways. The Boxbie Twins were too proud to openly have a relationship with Benzy-Bib, the babystop, but did fuss over him in secret; it was a badly kept secret. The Boxbie Twins had poorly hidden desires for Bobby-Anne and Bobby-Sue which the young women found annoying.

 

Gossip had been exchanged along with other information. The Boxbie Twins were chortling unkindly about Moira Brown being naked in her shop.

 

Boxbie-Ben grinned as he lay the new rifle on the coffee table in front of himself and his twin brother. “Probably nothing good to look at either.”

 

Bobby-Anne was kneeling on the floor at the other side of the coffee table and was examining the rifle. “Leave Moira Brown alone. She is very attractive and she is my special friend. You say you paid $420 for it in EICs from Flak and Shrapnel. Well, you could have bartered better than that and cut at least $100 from the price. It’s a good weapon but the barrel is a little worn.” She picked it up and aimed it with speed and efficiency, with long experience, at a part of the room where there was nobody. “Sights need adjusting.”

 

Boxbie-Boe protested. “We already adjusted them fine.”

 

She snorted. “You did a very poor job of it.” She lay the rifle down and began stripping it with amazing skill and speed.

 

Boxbie-Ben frowned. “What are you doing?”

 

Bobby-Anne finished stripping the .22LR rifle into its parts, all neatly laid out. She smiled at them. “Firstly, I want you to put the gun together properly. Secondly, I want you to stop staring at my body, or Bobby-Sue’s body, in the way you have been doing or one of us is going to thump you good.”

 

The mother of the twins, Kylie-Anne, was nestling a sleepy babystop against herself while Bobby-Bob was now holding his baby sister in his arms. She was very happy to be there.

 

The twins glared at her and then they began to try to put the gun together. They did so well enough in about a minute. Then they smiled smugly.

 

Bobby-Anne snorted and, closing her eyes tight, took the gun apart and put it back together in a fifteen seconds flat. Then she stood up. “You want to join the Townguards, I hear, but you do so as Cadets and do some training. There is no way they are going to take you on at any higher level.”

 

The twins glared at her with hurt pride, especially because she was female.

 

Their mother frowned. “You two go take that gun of yours and put it away in the family armoury. Use one of the empty gun lockers. I will get a padlock for you in a few minutes. I don’t want you taking the rifle out again until you prove you can use it properly. It’s not a toy. Go, quick!”

 

Looking as if they were the victims of injustice, the sixteen year olds thumped out of the room and went down a hallway that would lead to the laundry, the second bathroom, a storeroom and the armoury. But it also led to a secondary exit from the apartment.

 

Bobby-Sue looked up from where she had been looking through a small stack of fair condition Prewar books brought from River City. “The twins are heading towards the laundry side exit with the .22LR rifle.”

 

Kylie-Anne passed over the babystop to Bobby-Anne, who blew into his belly button, and shot out of the room. The muffled echo of shouting came down the hallway and then the sound of two loud, painful sounding slaps. But then there was the muffled sound of a woman crying out in shocked pain.

 

Bobby-Anne was the only Bobby Triplet not holding an infant or a babystop. She vanished with a flicker of motion. Then came two screams of male agony followed by two thumping noises as they hit the floor hard. Bobby-Anne had hit the twins with amazing speed and power. They didn’t even know what struck them.

 

When the Boxbie Twins woke up they had bruises and they were outdoors in Outer Megaton wearing only singlets and undershorts. They awoke in a painful bent over position with restrained head and arms. The two realised they were in a metal stocks being watched by Deputy Cutter, the protectron partner to Deputy Weld. Folks were gawking at the angry twins and rude comments were being made about boys who would dare to punch their mother. Not to mention that they had very bad reputations while their mother had a fine reputation. It was dark out except for a few electric lamps and burning drum-lights.

 

It was not long before the first lump of nasty, fairly hard substance flew through the air and hit one of the teenagers on the head. Soon a hailstorm of such missiles were flying at them.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67