Wastelands Chance of Revival

[dezdimona]

fasinating

[Maharg67]

Good to hear from you again, Dezdimona, and thank you. Hope you are well.

What character(s), monster(s) etc. would you like to see added to this story. I wouldn't mind the challenge and we could negotiate. What about dragons pretending to be farmers?

 

 

SIXTEEN

 

Bobby-Bob was in the big chamber with the vault doors watching as the two big atomic motorised battletanks began to move out of there. Townguards rode on their backs and others, of course, were inside. The atomic motorised army trucks were already gone except for one that was parked there in case it might be needed.

 

Twelve big armoured doors and one was coming open, swinging open to expose a great big chamber not much different from the one they were in. The green gas gushed out before anybody could do anything but dispersed harmlessly, breaking up and vanishing, with out effecting anybody there.

 

Councillor McDoogle was there all ready to lay claim to the bunker and its contents in the name of Megaton, to grab as much of the glory of doing so as possible. He had been badly shaken, it seemed, to learn that an exact double of himself had been causing trouble in the settlement, had even seduced the sheriff’s wife. That the double had vanished in a bizarre fashion from a locked empty storeroom was even worse.

 

The Mayor was more cautious. She had made sure there was a goodly number of Townguards there in armour and with automatic weapons along with her own bodyguards. Yet she didn’t want anybody to start shooting. Marshal Joseph of the Megaton Townguard was there with his aide and two bodyguards and he was also be careful.

 

Caution proved to be wise. The bunker had people in it. Waking, slightly confused but heavily armed soldiers. That is soldiers in standard power armour, which was moderate but not like the big chunky hairless metal power exo/armour. These were less bulky hairless metallic figures with 12.7mm (0.50) autoguns. They had sentrybots supporting them with 20mm autoguns and missile-launchers.

 

Councillor McDoogle was all for claiming the bunkerplex as part of Megaton and demanding these so called ‘intruders’ pass over control of the new bunkerplex. He had some support but the foolishness of such a position caused most Megatonfolk to ignore him as they often did.

 

General Benjamin Barritas stood and faced the Mayor in standard power armour with the helmet removed. He was ignoring Councillor McDoogle and was focusing on the Mayor. He was tall even with out the armour and now he fairly towered above even Kylie-Jo who was far from short.

 

“Megaton? Sounds like an interesting community that is built around three craters, a crashed flying-wing bomber and a large basement bunker.” He looked around at the big chamber they were standing in with its rows of war-machines and other vehicles. They had been in green jelly-capsules but the green substance had dispersed when the door was open. “We are the 555th United States Survival Reconstruction Taskforce, the 555th USSRT. The green jelly substance was an invention by Professor Urien Quartermass, a British scientist who studied the preservation techniques of the tripoc invaders from the Moon.”

 

The Mayor nodded. “We have folks in green jelly-capsules who we found in the outer chamber. They are safe.”

 

Barritas frowned. “They had better be.”

 

“We are not going to hold anybody hostage.” She smiled and quietly hoped that McDoogle would not openly state that he had wanted this to be done. “We could not get at them or their possessions anyway.”

 

“My people know how to bring them back to normal activity in a safe fashion.” The General responded. “Please bring all of them and their possessions.”

 

“The order has already been given.” The Mayor looked around in time to see some electric carts being driven in with green capsules stacked carefully on the back with people suspended inside. “Here they are now, or at least the first of them. The possessions should also be on their way. What year did you go into suspension?”

 

“End of 1999 when it was certain that the damned super weapons would be used by all sides in that mad war. How did the USA survive?” The General looked around at the Megatonfolk, at the rough and tough way of them. “Something tells me not very well.”

 

“There is no USA! We of Megaton are one of the more important settlements of the DC Wastelands.” She sighed. “Mutated monsters, raveghouls, ghouls, zhouls, raiders of various kinds, bandits, slavers and rogue robots are troublesome out there but we of Megaton tend to live a fair life. We could always use more resources. We have taken the vehicles we found in the outer chamber.”

 

The General frowned but then nodded. “We will concede them to you as a first gesture of friendly and productive cooperation. We have resources of many kinds. We need to further investigate for it seems that we had intruders while we were in the SJCs, which is what we call the jelly-capsules. Simply means Status Jelly Capsules. Our internal security data records have been deleted so we do not know who or what was inside our bunkerplex or how they managed to get in.”

 

Bobby-Bob was on the outskirts of the group but could see and be seen by the General clearly. He stepped forward. “General Barritas, may I speak with you?”

 

Barritas turned to look at the young man with a frown. “Boy, I am busy speaking to your elders. Perhaps I will speak with you later.”

 

The mayor sighed. “Bobby-Bob of the Bobby Triplets is somebody worth speaking to. He is my son. The Bobby Triplets like to think of themselves as typical young adults of nineteen years of age but they are in truth quite amazing. Since they have been in Megaton as children, having come here with our family, they have helped to transform Megaton greatly for the better.”

 

Bobby-Bob smiled. “In partnership with many other people, much has been achieved.” Bobby-Bob spoke to the General. “Cyberhumans were in your bunkerplex manufacturing battledroids using the big mattercators. Perhaps they were doing other things.”

 

The General looked startled, he looked at Bobby-Bob steadily and then he turned to his people. “Alert Level Red-3 now! I want the bunkerplex explored by the centimetre. I want it verified if cyberhumans were here and if battledroids were being manufactured here. Move people!!! This is cyberhumans were are speaking about.”

 

The soldiers in the bunkerplex reacted at once and soon a massive search was under way.

 

The General turned to the Mayor. “Cyberhumans are the advanced melded cyborgs, men and women, clones with special cybernetic network-systems. They are the more sophisticated form of the Cyberforce. All units of the Cyberforce are called cybernoids. Cybermen are the bigger, slower moving, more heavily armoured cyborgs that look like soldiers in heavy power armour. There are others like cybernauts, cyberhovers, cyberjets, cybertanks and many others. The Cyberforce was being developed as an amazingly intricate and interactive fighting force that could also carry out other tasks such as reconstruction, search and rescue and even hearts and minds.”

 

Bobby-Bob nodded. “Weapons Research and Development Program Gamma Five! I learned details of a fairly early briefing, a report sent to the United States Special Technologies Research and Development Committee based in the Hexagon. The committee recommended that funding continue though they had some concerns about the project. At this time I am unable to reveal the source of my information.”

 

The General snorted with disdain. “I went before the USSTRDC three times as part of a faction who wished to see the ending of Program Gamma Five and other programs like it. They were based on poorly understood alien or human alien hybrid sciences. We were successful in having some of the projects halted but not WRDP/G5. The Cyberforce was launched against Soviet forces occupying the western oil fields in Alaska and they assisted in destroying the Soviet bridgehead. But then they simply vanished. They didn’t attack US forces but one moment they were in Alaska and the next nobody could find them even with the assistance of Skynet, the big network of network-systems in low orbit as satellites, orbital watcher and weapons platforms and spacestations. Skynet should have kept the USA safe from enemy attacks while we were in the SJCs.”

 

Bobby-Bob sighed. “Skynet became active in the last great conflicts. Only problem was it struck out against almost everybody, including the good old USA. N-smartbombs, disintegration pulsebeams, infiltration attack drones of various kinds which are still out there causing trouble, other robots, robomen. They left alone only one force and that was the UWG and their Enclaves. The US Alliance and Soviets briefly united with other forces in the world and struck back at the Skynet. It was a very strange but brief alliance including various aliens. They attacked Skynet, Skynet’s forces on the world and the UWG despite that the UWG declared that it was not controlling the Skynet, that it had been set up. That claim would have been more believable if Enclave forces had not started invading other areas of the world with Skynet supporting their campaigns. We do not know the whole picture but it seems that nobody won in the end. The USSR, the USA, the EUN, the PanA, they all seem to have vanished. UWG Enclaves still exist, one is on the eastern coast of this big island, but they have been badly damaged also.”

 

The General turned as reports started coming in from his people. From the start no signs of cyberhuman activity could be found except for some datafiles recording over a hundred years of moderate level production of battledroids, workdroids, cyberman parts, weapons, tools, machine parts and a few other items. The manufactured items were all gone. Yet none of the people or stuff in the SJCs were gone and other carried stored away equipment and supplies were all intact.

 

That is with one important exception. All of the materials and other supplies stored away for mattercation and other manufacturing was gone. The mattercators and other manufacturing network-systems were useless with out such materials and supplies.

 

Thankfully the hydroponics hydrofoam agricultural and garden chambers were fully functioning and new food was growing but the supply rooms were empty as all the previously grown food had been taken.

 

The bunkerplex was officially marked as the 555th USSRB, or United States Survival and Reconstruction Bunkerplex, but soon was being called Megaton Bunkertown. It soon became clear that only a mutually respectful alliance would be practical as neither the Megatonfolk or Bunkertown folk wanted to be controlled by the other. Parts of Megaton Bunkertown were soon being open to Megatonfolk citizens and than semicitizens. Bunkertownies were soon visiting Megaton if only to look out over the Wastelands and to see just how greatly, and horribly, things had changed.

 

But the Bunkertown was accessed by six armoured doors on one side of the great chamber along with the hidden hatches, the ones that had been under the atomic motorised battletanks. The other six doors led into supposedly nothingness. The bunkers they had meant to go to had never been built.

 

Or so it was supposed to be.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

SEVENTEEN

 

The Boxbie Twins were laying on their bunks in their new home, a rented metal hut in Outer Megaton with basic facilities only. They had to use communal toilets and shower booths of basic functionality. The two of them were wearing only shorts. A radio was playing the newly established GNR radio channel with some dud called 3Dog and sometimes some young woman called 2Kitty, taking turns to DJ.

 

A grate in the floor opened and out of it slipped Bobby-Anne in shorts and a Tshirt. She stood and smiled at the two as they sat up and smiled at her in turn. There was a whole network of storm passages, small shelters and utility tunnels running under Megaton along with older sewer tunnels and even some small caves. These small caves turned out to be an outer part of the now discovered bigger set of caves including biocrystal lit caverns. Other tunnels and spaces had been added or found over the years including the Moriarty Family’s hidden treasure cache, hidden second armoury and emergency storage centres for the settlement and at least three supposedly lost treasures.

 

She spoke. “Very good performances. Mother says that she hopes you were not too bruised by being in the stocks. The word was spread quietly not to do you too much harm.” She had a basket of goodies with her. “I’ve fixed up the .22LR rifle and have the $100 from Flak and Shrapnel, the secret refund. Has anybody contacted you.”

 

Boxbie-Boe sighed. “Colin Moriarty has had his damned nephew Bruce Moriarty come and casually chat to us about committing some petty crimes to prove ourselves. We managed to have a very private moment with the sheriff. He is still smarting over Kate’s foolishness but he knows that for Kate to be so seduced was really not her at all. The vanishing copy of Councillor McDoogle is more than just a normal seducer. Kate has been acting strange for weeks now and still is.”

 

But then he smiled as the basket was opened up and the smell of cooked food filled the hut.

 

The Boxbie Twins in truth did have some of father’s arrogance and a trace of his greed but they were acting the way they did as part of a plan to find out who in the family was betraying the Harringtons. Mother and the Bobby Triplets had set up matters with the Boxbie Twins but the twins’ mother was in on it. There was also the need to find out what was happening in Megaton behind the scenes for it seemed that some kind of conspiracy was being carried out.

 

Bobby-Anne nodded. “She was mesmerized in some fashion but she refuses to admit to it. Instead Kate has started to get angry at her husband, to blame him because it is less scary to do so then to confront the dark truth that somebody was able to manipulate her mind.”

 

Boxbie-Ben frowned. “Well she isn’t the only one seduced. Whispers are going around that other women are cheating on their husbands and boyfriends, that they are meeting a man in secret. The man is well known but somehow elusive. Oh, yes, three Outer Megatonfolk have vanished and a few nights ago Harry Rash and Nobs Hankin were found dead just outside of Megaton.”

 

“Oh, that was us!” Bobby-Anne smiled. “That is Harry Rash and Nobs Hankin, not the three vanished men. Who were they?”

 

“The two older Yerry Brothers and Frank Strug. Whispers were going around that they had been seen going into Holy Megaton recently though they hardly seem the type to get religion, even that warped Faith of Atom.” Boxbie-Boe picked out a nice bit of roasted chicken from the basket and took a bite.

 

Boxbie-Ben nodded. “We would go into Holy Megaton ourselves but it would hardly fit the public picture we have spent just over a year painting for ourselves, would it?”

 

“No, not really!” She sighed. “Keep your eyes and ears open. Any sign at all that you are getting in over your heads, forget that damned pride of yours and call for assistance or just run for it.”

 

Then she handed over two boxes full of .32 bullets. They each had a .32 revolver-pistol hidden away close at hand along with a combat knife, throwing blades and some other nasties. They also had other items that were not weapons.

 

Then she slipped away, locking the grate behind her.

 

The small hut was more secure than it looked and better equipped also. It was owned by the Harrington Family and the folks of Megaton would hardly be surprised to see the twins exiled there for their sins.

 

The two young men finished their food.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

EIGHTEEN

 

Walter had insisted on leading the expedition because he had been one of those who had laid down the pipes, who had constructed the platforms, ladders and other structures. They plunged down into the depths below Megaton and were soon in a steeply slanted tunnel lit only but long life safety lamps and clumps of cultivated glowcrystal. Glowcrystal had been brought to the Earth by the tripocs who had come from the Lunar Underworld. Humans had captured samples and had soon learned how to cultivate it and use it but it had also gone wild in many places around the world.

 

Walter had a double barrelled shotgun, a double-shotter in Wastelands slang, carefully placed over his back and kevlar body-armour. Bobby-Bob followed in metal armour and with a 7.62mm M16A3 autorifle. Then came two Townguard androids being Mel/121 and Mel/123, both being shaped as young men or mandroids. Megaton only had a relatively few androids and they were all of only a baseline standard type. They did not carry or use weapons except non-lethal ones for self-defence. This time both of the androids had electric shockpistols.

 

They came to a point where nobody had gone past for years, where the tunnel broadened out and where green slimegrass grew thick down one wall. There was a metal box against the stone wall that was supposed to have a telephone with a link to the main water plant, some flare-sticks, a survival torch and a basic survival kit. Walter opened it to find the telephone was fine but that everything else had been stolen. There was an empty beer bottle of the kind often reused through out the DC Wastelands. In it was a note of paper with an IOU signed F*** you Bruce Moriarty.

 

Walter shook his head in wonder. “Would take an idiot like Bruce Moriarty to steal valuable items from the community and then leave a signed nasty note at the scene of the crime. It’s his hand writing.”

 

Bobby-Bob shook his head. “I would believe it but Bruce is claustrophobic to an extreme. He even hates going into the Megaton Bunker or the flying-wing bomber. Also he has no real head for heights. I can’t quite see him coming willingly down all of these safety-ladders. Somebody seems very excellent at faking at being others either directly or indirectly.”

 

Walter shuddered. “Well, then it must be somebody else then. Hope it ain’t one of those doppelgangers I’ve heard about.”

 

“Most Wasteland stories are either false or half truths.” Bobby-Bob shrugged. “I suggest that you report to the surface.”

 

Walter got onto one of his assistants and passed on the word about them reaching that platform and about the theft. He carried on for a few minutes giving instructions on the telephone and then hung up the hand-set.

 

Bobby-Bob noted that there was a kind of slide going down along with a set of steep stairways with plentiful safety rails to cling to. Nobody from Megaton had been further than this for many years.

 

Then they were going down to the start of the slide. Walter was leading the way but nervously. They got onto the metal slide one by one and slid down through what seemed to be a smoothly cut tunnel. They slid downwards for a long time with the chute turning at points to change their direction.

 

They came out onto a big platform of mixed solid and gridded metal flooring. Safety rails surrounded it and it was overlooking a great big glowcrystal lit cavern chamber. Stalagmites, outcrops of rock and other natural structures were there but there was also a very large machine on a bigger, lower platform. It was a massive pumping machine and it was clearly pumping water for Megaton out of a great clear blue body of water.

 

Walter frowned at Bobby-Bob. “The Founders of Megaton made an agreement with the ones we found down here. Look at that machine. Do you think we could have gotten something like that up and running? Not in a million years. The purified water of Megaton really comes from here or at least most of it does. The water machinery up there purifies the rain water that gathers in our rain water tanks.”

 

Bobby-Bob frowned. “What did you do to keep your part of the bargain?”

 

Walter frowned. “I was not there! It was before my time. My grandparents were there and so were the grandparents of others such as Manya Vargas. She lives in the crazy house made partly up of a metal caravan. The first folks of the Church of Atom were there also. It was a crazy time. Founding Confessor Haroln Cromwell was there, the grandfather of the current Prime Confessor Cromwell. Truth is there are only whispers, fragments of story, that most of us know. That pump pumps water to the newly found bunkerplex but also to another place very near it.”

 

The air-water elemental leapt out of the clear blue water, flipped gracefully through the air, and landed in front of the two humans and two androids. He spoke then. “So you came at last. What do you think of my first and second discoveries? A great big hidden pumping station and this great big underground lake. It goes beyond to a much, much larger glowcrystal lit and warmed cavern. That’s where the big forest island is but some kind of invisible dome covers it and stops me getting into it. There are lots of big green trees, grassy areas, a lovely town and some people.”

 

Walter sighed. “We must not go any further. He lives on the island. He of Many Faces! He secretly visits Megaton sometimes and plays his little games but, thankfully, not too often. He seduces women and sometimes they become pregnant. Then the women vanish. He takes them and the unborn babies. That is the price that Megaton paid and not just for water. For you see he created the basement bunker from ruins. Stories say it happened in a few days. There was a great energy cloud and when it went away the bunker was there but also more. The flying-wing was repaired and was no longer the broken wreckage it had been. We were given a chance to survive and we took it. We had resources in the bunker such as prefabricated parts, robots, rations and much else.”

 

The older man sighed. “The big airliner you see above Middle Megaton with the cockpit and cabin being still useful, with the wings stretched up and out, he put them there to show his power. Those spaces are reserved for him if he chooses to stay more openly in Megaton but he has only done so twice and that was a long time ago.”

 

Bobby-Bob nodded. “He pretended to be Councillor McDoogle and seduced Kate Simms except it was more like psychic rape than it was a game of seduction. He escaped from the locked storeroom which I personally checked later. He likes to play games.”

 

Then Bobby-Bob turned to Walter. “Walter would never willingly come down here because it is he who suffers from claustrophobia. It is he who hates heights. One of the reasons that people have not come down here for so long is that Walter was the one who was meant to come down here. You are not Walter.”

 

The air-water elemental nodded. “This one is not Walter but is an elemental of psychic energy though not of a kind familiar to me. He is projected from the hidden island somehow.”

 

Walter shimmered and suddenly there stood a black skinned old man with astonishingly white hair in a great curly mound. He wore a garish green jacket, a purple buttonshirt and brown velvet trousers with banana yellow boots. The old man peered at Bobby-Bob through dark purple glasses with butterfly shaped frames.

 

He spoke with a scowl. “Professor Agakar is my real name and over two hundred years ago I gained special powers, special knowledge, but there was an unforseen price. He tricked us. He showed us how to alter the very fabric of reality with our minds but we did not ask about the true cost of such things. I did not do so at first but then things began to go wrong. I began to go insane and I could no longer exist normally. There is much knowledge that is lost to me now.”

 

He sighed. “I built the island, put a protective dome over it, and made it my place of existence. I helped Megaton gain a real start. I showed off a bit. Truly I do not care if they go up into the aeroplane or not. Every so often I snuck into Megaton and seduced a woman the old fashioned way. I did not do anything to Kate Simms firstly because it is a kind of rape and secondly because I leave married women and other women alone who would not naturally go with a man like me. I enjoy the old ways of seduction through charm. My wives become pregnant with girls only except for every so often when they give birth to a boy who become me, who is my renewal.”

 

Agakar frowned. “Somebody both like and not like me has intruded into Megaton and is trying to get at me, is trying to absorb me. I am or was one of the Nine of Nine, the 81 geniuses who were chosen to form a partnership with him and to transform the whole world into a utopia but I can not even remember much of him now or of those times, those events. I have to return to my island. I was not a very important member of the Nine of Nine. I was only Five of Nine, at the very bottom, for One of One was the primary. Yes, I must go. The real Walter is quite safe and Bruce Moriarty really did steal that stuff, the fool.”

 

Then the false Walter faded away.

 

The air-water elemental nodded. “He has returned to his Paradise Island. Agakar, 5/of/9(9), will be hard to reach now. He is very frightened and is focusing on keeping safe. Once he was a very bad man, a fool, but now I think wisdom of sorts has been forced upon him. Down there in the waters is something I wish to show you.”

 

After having the androids stay on the platform, Bobby-Bob went down to nudity and dived into the water. As he did he morphed into a sleeker, more efficient swimming version of himself. Now he skimmed through the water with the air-water elemental beside him moving just as quickly.

 

They dived deeply and there it was on the floor of the deep blue body of water, the dark blue almost black shape of a saucerboat with its three fins. Not an alien UFO but a human copy of one. It was very big, over thirty metres wide, and sunk partly into the floor of the underground great lake.

 

Fish swam through the waters and there were thick water weeds. A big crocodile creature swam in the distance. Further was a relatively small whale moving quickly and sleekly, black and yellow.

 

They found the outer hatch to an airlock and, oddly enough, nothing stopped them from entering.

 

The saucerboat was only dimly lit and abandoned. The two moved through chamber after chamber, hallway after hallway, of efficient and bare designed spaces. Turrets staid in ceilings and security robots like nasty metallic black spheres did not react to them. In cylinder shaped status-cells were young beautiful women in tight fitting dark dull pink jumpsuits marked 5/of/9(9).

 

Then they were in the cockpit cabin, smoothly rounded off and bleakly, darkly efficient. Bobby-Bob sat into a control-chair that moved to conform to him more and the air-water elemental Rodger was more comfortable just standing there.

 

Bobby-Bob carefully activated some baseline network-systems and a 3Dflatscreen lit up. He watched datasymbols flow across it before he spoke. “What did you do with the real air-water elemental?”

 

The fake air-water elemental shimmered and now looked like Agakar. He laughed softly. “He is trapped on Paradise Island. The fool actually trusted me. These elementals can be so very gullible.”

 

Bobby-Bob’s fingers flew over a keyboard. “Elementals are always linked with other elementals. When he vanished, others of his kind communicated their concerns to me. You are weak and becoming weaker. Professor Agakar, 5/of/9(9), you are a fool. What you did to Kate Simms in order to make her pregnant with a boy that you would then savagely replace, absorb, so as to live on, was unforgivable. It would not have worked. You spent too much of your core energies establishing your island paradise and helping to establish Megaton. By the way your sense of colour coordination is awful.”

 

The professor scowled but he was looking exhausted and in pain. “I would have had so much if only ‘he’ had not betrayed us. It was ‘his’ fault. Memories are so vague now and blurred, fragmented. You hunger for my knowledge but I have none so the joke is on you. They are still hunting for me. They would absorb me to make themselves stronger but the joke is on ‘them’ as well. I will die…”

 

Then he was gone, just like that.

 

Bobby-Bob sighed and turned as the real air-water elemental appeared. “The island is no longer a prison.”

 

The air-water elemental shook his head. “Your plan worked, if one can call it a plan. What now?”

 

Bobby-Bob smiled. “Now we go to the island very slowly and carefully for the use of these human alien hybrid technologies can too easily attract the wrong kind of attention. 5/of/9(9), is gone and I am not even sure who the 9/of/9 really are. Most fascinating!”

 

The saucerboat lifted slowly from the floor of the lake and slipped quietly through the waters. Then it was gliding over a lagoon at the centre of the island. It landed quietly on a sandy clearing close to some wooden huts on stilts. There were lots of young, beautiful slimly voluptuous women wearing grass skirts and beaded leather necklaces, sandals and nothing else.

 

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

NINETEEN

 

Bobby-Bob returned from his trip looking quite pleased. He had emerged sans clothing onto the island and had been welcomed very warmly by the 32 young and youthful seminaked women there. They had needs that had not been met and he did his best. A very surprised air-water elemental found out he could still do certain old things in a new fashion.

 

His mother, the Mayor of Megaton, stood on the big well lit platform with the big pumping machinery with General Benjamin Barritas, their bodyguards and the two androids. They watched the saucerboat glide over the water and then come to a gentle halt against the lower section of the platform pylons. Then Bobby-Bob climbed up onto the platform started drying himself off with a towel.

 

The General frowned at such a show of immodesty but knew that the Wastelanders were only being practical. Anyway the sooner the young man got dried, the sooner he could clothe his slimly muscular young body and the sooner certain women would stop ogling him. Kylie-Jo was observing the saucerboat. It was a beautifully graceful machine and most likely designed for speed and stealth.

 

The One-Star General frowned softly. “Back during the Great War I saw some 3Dphotos of a captured Zetan alien saucerboat. Not all of my comrades believed that they were real but I had a sense that they were. Zetans, Greyzora, Zeavels, dragons, hivac, kraken, the Tripocica from the moon in those damned tripods, the glowing lights, the rainbow comets, the insect selenites and zelenites in the moon, we humans have had more encounters with aliens than most people would ever believe possible. Most came through the rifts caused by the some of the so called wonder technologies of the 1980s and the Great War of the 1990s. I read books written by Gerald H Smith. They were the Genius Conspiracy, the Genius Conspiracy Gone Wrong, and Stopping the Genius Fools. When I first read them I decided he was a madman and his theories were crazy. Later I read them again and wished strongly I had believed in them earlier.”

 

He suddenly laughed. “Turned out that there was no Gerald H Smith. There was a well paid actor who believed in the cause, there was a well made website on the Internet and there was a real publisher, real bank accounts and even a very good false identity including a believable history that checked out unless one dug very deeply. Gerald H Smith was the creation of a group called the Lone Gunmen being two women and three men who were crazy survivalist genius investigators of the paranormal. They stumbled accidentally on evidence that linked the growing alien invasions, weather problems and other difficulties with the wonder technologies of the Geniuses. How many geniuses? Eighty-One of them who were themselves part of an amazing conspiracy.”

 

Bobby-Bob, now fully dressed, turned to the General. “I will keep the saucerboat. It is simply too dangerous to let you have it, to let any humans have it. I suppose I can trust all those present to keep a secret.”

 

Both the general and the mayor nodded.

 

Bobby-Bob smiled. “Mother, I suppose you have always suspected we Bobby Triplets were odd.”

 

Kylie-Jo shook her head. “I tried always to keep an open mind after the three of you, at the tender age of three, killed two raiders. Well, we found you sleeping peacefully and two dead men lying on their backs with faces frozen in terror. Your cute little fingers were stained in fresh blood as were your teeth. Yet what ever clawed and bit the two men to death were much bigger than you. Shapeshifters? Werewolves? We did not know what to think but you did not cease to be family, you had never tried to hurt any of the group with your abilities and we needed your specialness.”

 

Bobby-Bob nodded and with a soft shimmer he rose slowly into the air. He reached his arms out and raised them. Then he halted in mid-air. “Not werewolves, mother, weredragons.” Then he sparkle shimmered and changed. Now a dragon, with about his body mass, was hovering there with outstretched wings. “Dragons don’t fly like birds. We push against gravity and other forces, not against the air, though we also take account of such influences.”

 

He became Bobby-Bob and dropped softly to the platform decking. “The saucerboat was created by replicating an alien saucerboat followed by a series of adjustments, enhancements and even isolating of certain alien technologies. Ironic to use an alien replicating device to replicate the alien ship of yet another species.”

 

She smiled. “Very good performance but only part of the truth. What was your real father? Oh yes, a multiple alien human hybrid with genes taken from thirteen species, the thirteenth being human. Madness! So not so much a weredragon as a multimorphic being, a multimorph, a xenomorph of many abilities. My first husband could never forgive me for being willingly seduced by your biological father. He abandoned us in the Wastelands and for that I never forgave him for many years. That is until I discovered that your biological father had influenced my first husband’s mind to drive him off and that I had been truly seduced and not ‘willingly’ seduced. By then the group needed him to survive. I never did find out what happened to my first husband but as soon as we reached Megaton I told you biological father to leave, to go away, and never return.”

 

After a pause she went on speaking. “Your biological father had a curious tattoo on his chest. It was like that one on the saucerboat there but it was 3/of/9(1) that was marked on him.”

 

Bobby-Bob repeated the information that Professor Agakar had given on what the codes meant. “So 3/of/9(1) would mean the third ranking member of the first set of nine of the nine nines that made up the 9/of/9. By what Agakar was saying, the genius behind the creation of my biological father was very high in the 9/of/9 hierarchy. But Agakar mentioned being tricked by ‘him’.”

 

General Benjamin Barritas sighed. “I suggest we make some kind of deal. We will need to create some kind of research centre down here. I want to see this island you spoke of and meet its inhabitants. No, not for the reason of seduction. How large is it?”

 

Bobby-Bob responded. “About three kilometres long west to east and two kilometres wide north to south with a fairly large lagoon in the centre, a small mountain to the west of the lagoon and a large hill to the east of the lagoon. There is Lagoon Village, the Mountain Bunker and Hilltop Town along with some other features. A simple monorail network links parts of the island and there are three helipads with some small VTOL aircraft. There are small boats and submarines at the Lagoon Wharf. There are robots and androids, all the androids being advanced femdroids like those in the saucerboat that I mentioned.”

 

He frowned. “The women on the island are mind programmed, even those that were taken from the DC Wastelands, for they were altered. Some vanished from Megaton and are still recorded as missing persons. I don’t think that it would do them good if lots of strangers go blundering onto the island.”

 

The mayor arched her eyebrows at him. “You just came from the island. Was the air-water elemental there also?”

 

“Oh, yes!” Bobby-Bob stretched and yawned. “You know I am starting to feel a little tired. Perhaps we should postpone questions until later. Really, we should get going up all those ladders and steep staircases so I can get a nice sleep when I get up top.”

 

Kylie-Jo frowned hard at him. “Ever since I almost died giving birth to you and your triplet-sisters, when I was suddenly cured by some kind of miracle, I have sensed things about you and your triplet-sisters.”

 

Bobby-Bob frowned. “Don’t I know it! We put part of ourselves into you to save you. It was impulse, unreasoned and based on desperate deep love. We were not even born yet and knew no other way as we do now. So now we have a strong link with you and now you have changed. The air-water elemental Rodger and other elementals are on the island now caring for the harem women, for that is what they are as far as they are concerned. There are auto-robotic network-systems and androids caring for them also. We do not need to go there now.”

 

His mother frowned hard at him.

 

After some inflatable kevlar boats out of the bunkerplex were sent down and inflated a small expedition set out to the island. Bobby-Bob went in the saucerboat and parked it up on a smooth shallow slope of sand at the lagoon where it was often parked. The young and youthful women raced to meet the newcomers. They were naïve, young minded, innocent and they were all slimly voluptuous and beautiful.

 

The air-water elemental stood off in the background with other elementals.

 

Kylie-Jo had a quiet talk with the women and then she watched as a doctor and two nurses, with the help of two army medics, gave the women check-ups. The general was more interested in the island, in its beauty and in Mountain Bunker and Hilltop Town. The underground great lake and the island would make great additions to the new co-settlement of Megaton Bunkertown.

 

 

But there were robots and androids standing protectively there along with turrets hidden in the top of palm-trees.

 

The general looked to the saucerboat. “Where is your son?”

 

The mayor scowled. “He locked up the saucerboat secure against us and then vanished. He won’t come near me until he knows I have calmed down. Not that I should blame him. He is his father’s son, the product of insane genetic engineering experimentation. He and the elemental have, together, as joint fathers made all the women here pregnant. Don’t ask me how that shared fatherhood works. Something I did not say before was that the triplets have two biological fathers. Both my first husband and the monster who seduced me were there fathers. Neither knew that the first husband was also the biological father unless of course the monster also lied about that. I am not sure if the triplets know that my first husband is or was, depending on if he is still alive, also their biological father.”

 

The general nodded. “32 women? 32 babies!!! A lot of new grandchildren to deal with.”

 

She sighed. “Somehow the women know how many babies each of them are going to give birth to and which of three plus genders they will be. That is each woman will being giving birth to one male, two female or three neuter or two to five of something else. It is very confusing and Bobby-Bob is reluctant to speak of it as are his triplet-sisters. There will be seven baby boys born singular, twenty-two girls born as twins, thirty neuters born as triplets and sixteen others born as triplets, quads or quins. Seventy-five babies in all. Seventy-five grandchildren. Seventy-five Harringtons especially because both biological fathers are Harringtons even if one is a nervous air-water elemental.”

 

The general shook his head. “I was never much of a father to my three children. Too busy being a military man and a cheating womaniser. Don’t even know what happened to them or my ex-wife or my mistress and the child I had with her. So really, I am not one to give anybody advise in such matters.” Then he sighed. “I suggest we let the women stay down here and help keep them safe. We need to form an agreement with the androids, the robots and most importantly, with what ever that really runs the island.”

 

“Oh Bobby-Bob will try to be a fine father, even if it does exhaust him, and if they will have him he will also willingly adopt the older girl children on the island.” She suddenly smiled. “Might get him to slow down a little.”

 

Suddenly the island’s force-dome went off and alarms began to chime. The harem women vanished with amazing speed, ushering the girl children into safety, and half reappeared in fatigues, body-armour and boots. They were toting laser-rifles and M16A3 7.62mm calibre firing autorifles but each also had a large 9mmP autopistol holstered at her side and a big combat knife. They behaved as if they knew how to use the weapons very well.

 

It seemed for a moment that the reaction was to the small expedition but an android came to them and quietly explained that a bigger threat was trying to get to the island in the form of a fast moving trio of hydrofoil gunboats. They had the codes to close down the island defences and to take over the islands AI/supercomputer run network of network-systems, but Bobby-Bob had beaten them to it. He had hacked into the island core supercomputers with amazing speed and efficiency, changing the access codes and giving the lead hydrofoil a very rude welcome. It smashed into the force-dome and top speed, exploding against it.

 

The android spoke. “Bobby-Bob states that he had best stay alone in the island bunker for a couple of days at least. The intruders are highly armed, highly aggressive Talon Mercenaries. Who they are contracted to is probably anybody’s guess. He suspects that Megaton is at the centre of a game being played by more than one powerful outside player.”

 

The general frowned. “And me with out my army.”

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67

[Herculine]

This story is so great! I love the sprinkling of humor throughout!

[Maharg67]

Thank you Herculine! I write what comes naturally to me.

What character(s), monster(s) etc. would you like to see added to this story. I wouldn't mind the challenge and we could negotiate. What about dragons pretending to be farmers?

[Maharg67]

TWENTY

 

A big public town meeting was being held in Outer Megaton so that semicitizens could attend along with citizens and newly awoken folks from the bunkerplex. Megaton Bunker and Megaton Bunkertown were now the two different bunkers by accepted name. Light from the big open doorway to the big old hanger, a structure that was used for many purposes, spilled out into the night and illuminated the line of people waiting to go in.

 

The meeting was being held to discuss a whole range of issues including the newly found bunkerplex full of people, the underground great lake, the island and others, many being related to the first three. The whole Town Council would go along with General Benjamin Barritas, Prime Confessor Cromwell, Lisa Adams of the S/of/C and various others from both Megaton and outside. The changes would effect more than Megaton, would draw attention both good and bad from all over the DC Wastelands.

 

The Boxbie Twins were hanging back from the light, were standing with their backs to the wall of the Grand Hall as it was liberally called. They were noted now as light weight trouble makers by many Megatonfolk or so went the theory. Trouble was that too many folks seemed to know or sense the truth about the Boxbie Twins only pretending to be trouble.

 

A pair of Knights of Atom strode past in light power armour and helmets. They never took off armour, not even helmets, outside of the Knights Hold of Atom, little more than a bottle-bunker with some extensions and changes. Their armour was dark gold and silver painted plus strewn with holy symbols of the Church of Atom.

 

Just before the Great War had started a quick rich expert called Prefab Jack had an idea for making more money. Prefab Jack got his earlier name and his wealth from manufacturing prefabricated swimming pools, surface emergency shelters, houses and many other structures. So he began to sell prefabricated buried shelters which came with many features included. These were like big squared off multifibre bottles with various entrance tubes like bottle necks, hence the name. Bottle-shelters dotted the whole world and the DC Wastelands had a few of them. A few were found in settlements. Too many people had died discovering the real limitations of such a form of shelter from weapons of mass destruction.

 

Megaton had three bottle-bunkers, two being in Holy Megaton and one in Outer Megaton.

 

Word was out that Bruce Moriarty had been charged, tried and chain-ganged for stealing the stuff from the box down below. His uncle had slapped him around for being a total fool. Bruce Moriarty was not pitied for apart from being stupid he was a thief, a coward and a bully. His only redeeming feature was that he was a surprisingly good artist, a portrait sketcher, but he did not use his skills very well.

 

The Boxbie Twins had been picking up lots of whispers, lots of other information, and had been analysing it carefully. Much of it was gossip and its reliability was questionable but there were certain trends worth following, certain stories that seemed of greater worth to follow up.

 

Kate Simms was in the small mental health ward of the Megaton Hospital being cared for by a very skilful and caring group of people. She no longer blamed her husband for what had happened and he had lost his anger at the learning of the truth. But now she was silent and stared into space. Now that the strange Professor Agakar was gone, the town was certain of the ending of the threat.

 

But the Bobby Triplets were not so sure, sensed something was odd about what had happened, and had warned a few individuals in Megaton and Megaton Bunkertown. The Boxbie Twins had been put on alert.

 

They could see much of the big shallow crater of Outer Megaton and the buildings, rampways, walkways and other structures built around it. There were quite a few and more was being built. There was a large rock pool of clear water at the very bottom of the crater, the water being a symbol of one factor that made the settlement successful. The pool of water was covered with a simple roof in the daytime to slow down evaporation and was recycled through a small drain and fountain set-up.

 

Then they saw her, the young woman named Shirley Annetta who had been missing for the last day or so. She was walking up to the pool and she seemed in some kind of daze. She was mesmerised somehow even as Kate Simms had been along with other women. But was it the work of Professor Agakar who was also called 5/of/9(9)?

 

Boxbie-Ben stepped forward. “We must get down there as soon as we can.”

 

Boxbie-Boe agreed. “Straight over the side and jumping down will get us there quicker.”

 

But at that moment they were attacked by a small swarm of crazily enraged thugs, men of various ages with dazed expressions of twisted hatred who charged at the twins with bare hands, copper pipes and other crude weapons. The Boxbie Twins moved with impressive speed, drawing their .32 revolver pistols and firing at the legs of the attackers. Men cried out and went down clutching their lower limbs, hitting the ground hard. But the hypnotised fools kept trying to attack anyway.

 

Other Megatonfolk joined in but in defence of the twins. There was the blast of shotguns, rifles and revolver pistols being fired.

 

Then it was over, the thugs were dead or too wounded to do any harm, but Shirley Annetta had vanished. Frustrated and angry, the Boxbie Twins asked around to see if anybody had seen what had happened to the young woman. Problem was that everybody had been drawn to look at what was happening with the thugs and the twins.

 

It was evident that it was no accident that the diversion had taken place with an attack on the two young Harrington men. They were being taunted, toyed with, and they did not like it.

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67

[Herculine]

Thank you Herculine! I write what comes naturally to me.

What character(s), monster(s) etc. would you like to see added to this story. I wouldn't mind the challenge and we could negotiate. What about dragons pretending to be farmers?

 

 

Dragons posing as farmers would be so excellent! (Reminds me of a D&D story I read once.) And little fairies posing as cosmetics sales reps! :biggrin:

[Maharg67]

Thank you, Herculine. I have some fun ideas to put in and I hope you like them. I will take into consideration the 'little fairies posing as cosmetics sales reps!" concept very carefully.

 

TWENTY-ONE

 

Mountain Bunker on Harem Island, as it was starting to be called by most folks, was actually a VaultTek designed but not a VaultTek built structure consisting of ten subvaults linked to a main vault. The main vault was huge, well stocked with resources of a wide variety, had many auto-robotic network-systems including both vault-robots and vault-androids. But it was mostly in semidarkness being closed down except for security and maintenance concerns.

 

Each subvault was the size of a normal LifeVault that could take roughly 100,000 people such as Vaultburg and Vaultville. The main vault structure could easily sustain 1,000,000,000 people.

 

Mountain Bunker’s true name was HomeVault-5/9/9.

 

Bobby-Bob had found the DCS/Chamber, the Direction Coordination Supervision Chamber, where he stopped the intruders from using codes to take over the island. He had not meant the hydrofoil to crash so violently into the force-field to kill not just Talon Mercenaries but strangers on the hitech boat, but the intruders had been over confident of success. Survivors and bodies, along with anything salvageable, had been picked up by the other hydrofoil vessels before they shot away into a maze of river tunnels and lake caverns.

 

What he learned about the ten subvaults and what was in them was most disturbing.

 

He began to search the Central HomeVault to find the big armoured vault doors to the nine subvaults in nine great lowest level chambers of the main vault. Each was bare except for the vault doors, very big weapon turrets and large battlebots like over sized sentrybots.

 

In one million capsules in the ten subvaults he found one million naked Vault Dwellers peacefully waiting to be awoken. They were all young adults or older children. Except these were not passive status-capsules and the humans had been transformed physically and mentally over decades. They were supposed to be faster, stronger, more enduring than normal Prewar humans that they had been. Instead they were monsters with deformed, twisted bodies for the whole experiment had gone horribly wrong. If these humans awoke they would do so into a world of agonising slow death or one if which they would have to be very heavily sedated just to stop them from screaming in agony.

 

For a while he just sat staring at the console in front of him that was at one side of one of the big subvault chambers. Then he cyberlinked and connected with the big AI-supercomputer that was the core of the whole vault and they communicated.

 

Bobby-Bob: “Did you instigate the transformation of these Vault Dwellers?”

 

Brainiac-5/9/9: “Negative. The source of the instigation is unknown.”

Bobby-Bob: “Full cyber-transformation is complete.”

 

Brain-5/9/9: “Affirmative!”

 

Bobby-Bob: “Is reversal of transformation possible?”

 

Brain-5/9/9: “Negative!”

 

Bobby-Bob: “Instigate Termination Program Alpha-Omega One Five One Strawberry Fields For Ever.”

 

Brain-5/9/9: “Code Word?”

 

Bobby-Bob: “Apple Sauce!”

 

Brain-5/9/9: “Affirmative! Code Word?”

 

Bobby-Bob: “Eighty-One Heroes!”

 

Brain-5/9/9: “Affirmative! Continuation?”

 

Bobby-Bob: “Instigate Termination Program One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten. For a Brave New World. Instigate Self-Destruct Program Final Assertions. Ten Nine Eight Seven Six Five Four Three Two One.”

 

Brain-5/9/9: “Termination Count Down begins for Special Subvaults One to Ten. Ten Nine Eight Seven Six Five Four Three Two One.”

 

Lethal nerve gas seeped into each capsule breathing system, poisons into food and water supply systems. Green indicators began to flash to yellow, to amber and then to stay on red.

 

Later Bobby-Bob stood outside of the bunker in a semi-balcony cleverly disguised as part of the side of the mountain. He stood quietly for a long time and studied the forest clad island, lush and green, and in the far distance the village and the fine blue lagoon. With a sparkling shimmer Bobby-Sue and Bobby-Anne appeared to stand either side of him. They stood there holding his hands and none of them said anything; they didn’t have to.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67