Wastelands Chance of Revival

[Maharg67]

Very good to hear from you, sweet Dezi, and thank you for the feedback. Hope to hear more from you in future. Email me if you feel you want to. Edited November 28, 2009 by Maharg67

[Herculine]

Thank you very much Herculine for the feedback and the picture.

 

My cybermen are based on Brotherhood of Steel soldiers in power armour and they move quicker, more agile. But still, they were inspired by the Doctor Who cybermen. Of course I am claiming no copyright.

 

You are welcome to add more pictures or change older ones anytime. LOL.

 

Below is a picture of an advanced cyberhuman attack vehicle!

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/garbagecanwithwheels.jpg

 

Yes... add some heavy artilery and I think you've got something there... :biggrin:

[Maharg67]

Thank you, wonderful Herculine. Also an Mpeg player, plush leather seat covers and an anti-missile missile missle system. Could, maybe, use some slight streamlining.

:yes: :thumbsup: :bunny: :banana: :thanks: :biggrin:

 

TWENTY-EIGHT

 

Bobby-Bob awoke in a basement chamber, brickworks and concrete with piping crisscrossing the ceiling. The androids, chingun-robot and globebots were not just waiting for him to wake, they were on sentry duty and were protecting him. He groaned softly but even as he stood his headache was slipping away. He was still in his stealth power armour and he had a big pistol holstered at his side plus other items in pouches or sheafs.

 

There was a tap-sink in one corner and it was working at moderate pressure. He took a drink of water and splashed his face. Then he dried himself before putting the helmet back into place.

 

The electronic signal was coming from a normal looking deskcomputer on a computer desk and yet it seemed to be deactivated. He sat at it on a simple metal and plastic chair and then his fingers flew over the keyboard. The 3Dscreen lit up and then he was looking at a typical CompuTek operating system, user friendly and basic but also, in this case, deceptive. A few minutes later he was into the secondary operating system, a more sophisticated one than the one hiding it, and he was activating a hidden network-system.

 

Bobby-Bob: “Hopetown, the inhabitants called this place Hopetown sometimes but also Hilltop Town in the case of older residents. The Town Council betrayed most of the people. Openly they were telling people that everything was fine while in secret they were creating a secret hiding hole for themselves, their families and a few others. They were hoping that if most people were left to die, that the attackers would decide that all had died. Indeed the Mayor went out of his way to provoke an attack that would kill most of the town’s people. Partly because he and the Town Council had been rigging elections and otherwise cheating the majority of citizens for years and knew they were about to be exposed.”

 

Bobby-Anne: “Cold blooded mass murder!”

 

Bobby-Sue: “Conspiracy to commit mass murder. The first robotic containership has reached the Pumping Station Platforms with robots and materials to assist with its expansion and speed plus efficiency of construction. When are we going to talk with the people of Megaton or those cyberhuman fake humans of Megaton Bunkertown? Then again, I can answer that. When the subtle but powerful psychic force isolating us here has been tracked down and dealt with properly.”

 

It had slowly crept up on them even as they had first come to Harem Island, a powerful and subtle psychic force that had managed to influence some of their decisions to some extent before they had detected and rejected it. But it had caused the force-shield around the island to change operational parameters in some ways to make it near impossible for the triplets or any living entity to leave the island. Robots and androids managed to do so with some difficulty. But every effort to send a message about what was happening had failed except for impressions sent through to their extensions of Bobby-Bib, Bobby-Blue, Bobby-Boo and, more recently, Bobby-Bill who was away from Megaton. The force had even destroyed solid messages, had wiped electronic data and done other tricks showing much knowledge, experience and cunning in such things.

 

They had first suspected that it was perhaps Professor Agakar, that somehow he had survived, but then they began to sense otherwise, to detect something familiar behind the psychic force.

 

Father? Not the first husband of mother who was also one of their biological fathers, but the seductive stranger, the alien-human hybrid with thirteen genetic variations of influence. They had tried to contact him directly but he had pushed them away. Perhaps this was because they had once tried to kill him to protect their mother, which was something mother did not know about. Or at least they assumed so.

 

With a soft clicking noise and then a humming noise a section of floor slid open to reveal a staircase plunging down into dimly lit depths. Bobby-Bob and his companions plunged downwards into the depths. The computer in the basement clicked back to its old state and the secret door slid closed behind them.

 

They found the big bunker chamber to be a scene of old horrors. Metal cages with skeletal remains, once naked humans in steel chains, more skeletal remains heaped in a corner, what seemed to be a butcher’s set up but for human victims. But it was long abandoned. Bullet casings littered the floor and bullet holes in walls and furniture indicated by this might be.

 

That was when the three women and one man entered the chamber holding between them a double-boomer shotgun, a 9mm semiautopistol, a basic home made zipgun and a fire-axe. They wore a motley mixture of civilian clothes, security body-armour and boots. They were filthy and looked at least mildly malnourished.

 

Bobby-Bob stopped with the androids and robots spread out to either side of him except for those who were the rear guard. He spoke. “Do not harm me, I come in peace.”

 

The pale eurowhite mature but youthful looking man, laughed sourly. “We harm you? You could blow us away in a couple of seconds and our weapons couldn’t put a scratch on any of you. So the Vault Dwellers woke at last and came to our rescue.”

 

Bobby-Bob shook his head. “We are outsiders. Or at least I am. The androids and robots do come from the Mountain Bunkerplex, if that is what you mean?”

 

The man shrugged. “Yes, that is what we mean. You have food? We are starving.”

 

Bobby-Bob nodded. “We have supplies for the mission, for me and for chance occurrences, but not a great deal. I sense you mean more than the four of you.”

 

A mature but youthful woman spoke then. “Fifty-three of us including five children and two babies.”

 

Bobby-Bob nodded thoughtfully. “I will attempt to help you as best I can. Cannibalistic butchery, slavery, what happened here?”

 

The woman shuddered. “The Cult of the Mayor. He went insane and his insanity effected his followers. They set out to cull and eat all those that the Mayor chose to see as of ‘expendable’ nature. We others had to kill him in the end, him and his followers. We shot them down in this very place. No, we did not eat them. For one thing they had eaten human brains and were suffering from some strange disease.”

 

The young man smiled. “How far away are your people?”

 

The man spoke then. “You are quite young. Perhaps you could give us control of your robots..”

 

Bobby-Bob lost his smile in an instant and cut the man off. “Condescending fool. At this moment I feel sympathy for your people but do not even attempt to get in the way of my mission. You did not answer my question.”

 

The woman silenced the man from saying anything. “Two long sloping passageways, a chamber about this size, a spiral rampway and then we would be there. Our people are hungry. We escaped the surface, the town, before the nerve gas was released by Professor Agakar. Or at least we think it was probably him. The Town Council also escaped but down into a big old bunker but it was a trap. They sent down robots with food, one way trips for the robots were to stay there and assist the Town Council group to later survive. But something was and is still down there. It knocked out the robots and consumed the food. Then it attacked the Mayor’s group, because in reality he was in control, killing and consuming many of them before they escaped.”

 

Bobby-Bob nodded and noted some 3Ddatasymbols flashing on the HUD of his helmet. They confirmed something important.

 

The woman went on speaking. “The survivors were crazy. They came to our area and attacked us, taking us by surprise. They captured some of us and ate them. You can see the evidence here. Please believe us, we are innocent. Feed us!”

 

Bobby-Bob sent out a quiet radio command. The globebots fired off special grenade-shells in a careful wide spread shifting pattern. They were stun weapons, exploding in a pattern designed to cover much of the chamber. The four humans collapsed and with a shimmer something became visible on each of them, a zibiomechanical thing that rode high on the back and flexibly clung there with tendrils vanishing into the back of the skull and the back of the neck. Zipuppetzi! Dark whispers of such experimental monstrosities had come to the Bobby Triplets years ago and then a copy of the Book of Scientific Monsters, a copy of rare Postwar publication that was a collection of incomplete subjects, written down dark whispers and much else.

 

But others had been stunned, their stealth shields had snapped off, and they lay sprawled on the floor. More humans with zipuppetzi attached, naked filthy humans who were even then starting to get not so stunned, were starting to move.

 

Then it was one of those moments when the Light acted through him, when the room became flooded with energies and then things were changed.

 

All humans had become human elementals standing translucent versions of their old selves shimmering with energies. They were healthy, fit and free now.

 

The zipuppetzi were now something new, something very new. Zibiomech elementals, humanoids of boneskin and thin strong double jointed arms, legs, elongated capsule bodies, double jointed necks and globe shaped heads. There was no more desire to dominate in them, no more all driving hunger.

 

Bobby-Bob felt drained and he crouched on the floor for a time. Then he sat cross legged and meditated on the Light.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67

[Herculine]

END? :(

[Maharg67]

Sorry about the slip-up, Herculine. No, it is to be continued as of this post.:wallbash: :thanks:

 

TWENTY-NINE

 

Kylie-Jo was sleeping with Bobby-Boo, Maggie-Jo and the babystop Benzy-Bib with her this time, the 3DTV set showing the end of a Prewar family movie that they had all fallen asleep watching. Maggie-Jo was clutching her raggedy doll and Benzy-Bib was cuddling Bobby-Bear to himself. But the powerful figure of Bobby-Boo was crouched alertly next to her mum, ready to protect her.

 

The bedroom was fairly big but far from plush. It was practical and was partly office-study with coffee and snack making facilities in the form of a basic kitchenette. A big old wooden desk was strewn with some valuable Prewar books and some more basic Postwar books. There were even a couple of Wartime books published during the midst of the Great War, during the growing madness that was engulfing the world.

 

The Mayor opened her eyes, sensing something odd, something familiar and yet also strangely disturbing. Then she saw him, her first husband, standing beside the bed. He was looking the same as he had been that very night he had run away but he was translucently ghostly and his eyes were glazed. Somehow, to the depths of her being, she knew it was really him.

 

He spoke and his voice was oddly muffled and distant. “He, the dark man, he did this to me. He made it look as if I ran away but I did not. He sent me to Limbo. I feel no pain but no pleasure either, just an endless numbness and drifting. There are many here, so many… you must help us… you must help…”

 

Then he faded away.

 

She sat up in her cotton pyjamas both the small ones stirred. An emotional weight fell from her shoulders, a weight of anger at her first husband for his desertion and a weight of guilt for her driving him away. If he had not actually run away, if the dark seducer of an alien-hybrid had done this, then she could, hopefully, start thinking afresh. The Bobby Triplets had, even when much younger, had tried to get her to talk about what had happened, as had others, but she had refused to.

 

The Bobby Triplets were in trouble of some kind! Not only she knew it somehow but so did Bobby-Boo, Bobby-Bear and Bobby-Blue along with other Harringtons. Yet she was not sure what she could do and this was due partly to the discovery that the so called humans of Megaton Bunkertown were not actually humans at all. They were infiltration cyberhumans that were also known as cyber-infiltrators. Yet they had as yet not only not made any hostile moves but had been genuinely helpful to the people of Megaton.

 

The discovery was made from many sources. Generally it was the fact that while they could look, smell, sound and even smell like normal humans, the cyber-infiltrators were only able to mimic human behaviour to a limited degree. The more they mingled with people, the harder it was to keep up the pretence. Then there was the psychic factors. Megaton was sprinkled with psychics of various degrees and focuses of psychic ability, as was normal for the Wastelands through out America and beyond. They were often sensing something amiss from the first moment of contact. Other factors were more basic. Animals often acted funny around them except for cybernized animals or those used to cyber-infiltrators. Infrared signatures were too average as were pulse rates and other medical indicators.

 

Professor Brown and the Bobby Triplets had laid a few subtle tricks that had taken deeper readings but carefully and the disturbing truth had been confirmed.

 

Megaton did not have the resources to deal with the situation on Harem Island or the cyberhumans of Bunkertown if they turned hostile. Those in the DC Wastelands that did were far away and had problems of their own to deal with. The Sisterhoods of Compassion and Protection were scattered in efficient networks but were hardly an army. The Subwayers were keen to emerge to restart the USA in future but seemed to have problems of their own down in the depths.

 

Now one more problem had been added to the others.

 

For the moment she needed rest and so she drew Bobby-Boo down to snuggle with and was soon asleep again.

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited November 29, 2009 by Maharg67

[Herculine]

:biggrin: Excellent....

[Maharg67]

:pirate: :mad: ;D :banana: :wacko: ;) :glare: :happy: ;D Thank you, Herculine! Any excuse to use more emoticons! :mage: :blink: :whistling: :thanks:

[gormonk]

trurly a marstrerpiece

i just hope theres more

[Maharg67]

Thank you gormonk, there will be.

[Maharg67]

THIRTY

 

The Brass Lantern had seen an extension with a room pushed out and more tables added along with a fully working 3Dvideo game in a corner that played a choice of twelve games, each with sub-variations. Boxbie-Boe was playing Wolfdoom3D in which JI-Joe is leading his JIs or Jet Infantry against Nazis, shambling zombies, armed and armoured zombie troopers, elemental demons, cyborg-spiders, flying flaming skulls, raging beasties with great gaping jaws and other threats. The Nazis came as Guards, Stormtroopers, Supertroopers and in other ways.

 

He played the game with a basic cyberlink and made JI Joe and his squad race through a great monstrous castle past skeletons hanging from walls, wall tapestries, suits of armour and ever burning torches in brass wall-sconces. Sometimes the suits of armour sprang into action as zombie knights and swung axes or swords at the heroes. Super tommy-guns blasted away with rocket-bullets or flameguns spat jets of fire or 8shooters fired off special shotgun shells or miniguns fired off 9mm bullets. These were special weapons Boxbie-Boe had chosen to use for there were plenty of others scattered around be they standard WW2 or special or extra exotic.

 

He slowed the JI-Squad-Alpha and they crouched at the edge of a great chamber where Nazi Stormtroopers in power armour and Supertroopers in super power armour were fighting demons. Not just zombies and zombie troopers but flaming, electrical sparking and spiked steel elemental demons. Bigger Demonlords stomped with armour, goat heads and horns, hoofed feet and mega-plasmaguns or gattling-launchers firing a mixture of small missiles and bouncing grenades. Zombie troopers were former Stormtroopers in distorted power armour and with a mixture of Nazi conventional and special weapons.

 

Trick was to let the enemy fight it out when one could.

 

That was when a thug came up behind Boxbie-Boe, pressed against his shoulder rudely and spoke. “Ya fight like a pansy. Get off you punk. I am taking over. Your treat cause I am going to use your paid up game.”

 

The twin slammed back with his elbow with great speed, power and accuracy. The thug grunted and doubled up to hit the floor. A second thug, another casual nomadic worker of the trade convoys or any other work they could get, came at Boxbie-Boe with a knife. He grunted as a throwing blade thudded into his throat and he collapsed dead to the concrete floor. The one that was groaning on the floor reached for a knife and then died as Boxbie-Boe kicked backwards and killed him.

 

The bodies were dragged out with speed and efficiency. Sheriff Simms or one of his deputies would investigate, of course, but dozens of witnesses had seen what had happened. The Boxbie Twins hated killing but the two attackers had been hell bent on murder, the twins had sensed that the thugs were very willing to do so.

 

The other twin brother came up, after getting his throwing blades back, and stood looking at the gaming screen. “Those thugs were out to pick a fight. They wanted any excuse to attack us. It was a set up but who ever did it knew we would win. We are still being played with.”

 

Boxbie-Boe responded to Boxbie-Ben. “We have that lead from Mrs Palmer. Sally Palmer wrote about meeting a tall, dark, handsome man in the Megaton Subway Station. What does that mean? Sally Palmer was not known for her loose imagination. There is…”

 

Then they both remembered, almost as one, the odd story of one Petro the Mexican who had spoken of a secretly built subway station directly below the settlement. He said this was the true reason for the town’s name and that the Founding Elders of Megaton had, for some reason, built over the only entrance to the subway station, hiding it away. Petro had said the station was big but small compared to those well known ones of the Prewar Subway or Deep Subway. The subway station was below any of the basements, away from the basement bunker of three levels and one semi-level and was well above the caves and great lake of Harem Island. People had refused to believe Petro the Mexican because it made no sense; why would the Founding Elders hide such a treasure; they would have course use it. But Petro had spoken of a dark secret down there that he had refused to speak of. Petro had never spoken of how he had obtained this information. When he vanished there had been a light search for him and then he was forgotten.

 

Boxbie-Boe had his soldiers attack the demons and Nazis. A big raging battle broke out between the three forces. He grinned. “Got close to fifteen trophies and 23,000 points so far along with $20,000 plus. Too bad it isn’t real prizes. I say we get something to eat, some coffee and then head over to talk to Manya Vargas. She should be at the Emporium getting interviewed by Moira Brown and most likely trying to get Moira to give her some sensible questions.”

 

Boxbie-Ben shrugged. “She would only give us the same old story that she has before back when we were at Megaton School. You know, people wanting to get into LifeVault-101, that is supposed to be up in those big hills behind Springvale, coming here and then the craters, the bomber, the discovered basement bunker all becoming the focus of a new settlement. The finding of those aircraft and other resources including those construction robots now supposedly stored away somewhere but nowhere I have seen. The raising of the walls and other defences to keep out raiders.”

 

Boxbie-Boe nodded. “Founding Elder Families, or what is left of them, are the Vargas Family, the Simms Family, the Cromwell Family, the Brown Family, the Stahl Family, the McDoogle Family, the Lee Family, the Marx Family and the Amos Family. Nine families but there were supposedly twelve once.”

 

Andy Stahl came up behind them and spoke quietly to them. “Maybe you shouldn’t speak so loudly about Megaton’s long lost past. Some things are best kept buried. Manya tells a good story so why not leave it at that?”

 

Boxbie-Ben turned to the newcomer who was wearing typical Wastelander gear plus a serving apron with a big pocket and was carrying a tray with empty bottles and used empty glasses. “Evil is happening and it is getting stronger. Bad things have happened and will continue to happen but more so. Way back when Megaton was settled the Founding Elders made an agreement with somebody else called Professor Agakar but he was more than just a professor. He had strange powers and other amazing resources. He created the big basement bunker and filled it with resources. He provided Megaton with its supply of water. He fixed up the flying-wing bomber from the real wreckage that it was. But he demanded a price for saving Megaton and that price has been ‘games’ with residents including the seduction, impregnating and abduction of young women over the decades.”

 

The whole room had become quiet. A few people were being ushered away and the ones remaining were an odd scattering of individuals.

 

A fletcher, a maker of arrows, spoke out as he sat with a big glass of muttfruit cider in front of her, potent stuff. “Are you Boxbie Twins trying to stir up trouble for the whole settlement? Some things are better left alone.”

 

But a woman then spoke out, one Cathy Twines who made clay pots, bowls, plates and cups. “My niece was taken and two generations back so was another woman of our family. My family got here about the same time as the Founding Elders but somehow we never got to make any of the decisions, were never given any fancy title. I can tell you there were Thirteen Elder Families back then and not twelve like most people assume but there were also eighteen other families. That’s my contribution.”

 

A murmur went through the crowd for it was clear many were surprised by this information.

 

Then a quiet old man spoke, a man called Peaceful Tom who everybody kind of noticed and even talked to at times but who mostly sat on his own chair at a small table in his corner. His voice was strong and calm but carried well. “The forces that changed Megaton were amazing. They transformed reality itself but not everything was magical. True the flying-wing and the bunker were fixed up from original structures but the resources in them came from Harem Island. I know because I was there when it was done. I am an immortal, a ghoul who does not look like a ghoul. I spoke with Professor Agakar, an Indian man from the Asian sub-continent itself, and he told me a few things but I sensed even more. He was a super genius but as a member of the 9/of/9 he was of relatively low intelligence. Same went for his powers and for the resources the 9/of/9 allocated to him especially after the Zibiomechanical creations turned out to be such a destructive failure. He was 5/9(9) and was in the bottom most Nine. Agakar did not help his own cause greatly. He was too arrogant, assumed to highly of his own abilities and was convinced he should be in the very first of the Nines, the Prime Nine itself.”

 

The man shrugged. “How do I know this? Because I was in the 9/of/9 Echelon, the elite body who closely served the 9/of/9. Though you know me as Peaceful Tom, at one time I was Secretary of Defence of the Prewar USA and for two months I was the temporary President of the USA until new elections could be held. I was President Tom Robert Hanks. I helped lead the US war effort during the Great War and was, I am afraid to say, partly responsible for many stupid decisions made under the pressures of war and the manipulations of more cunning, more intelligent minds than my own.”

 

The whole room was staring at him in amazement, including the Boxbie Twins.

 

Peaceful Tom stood up. “You Boxbie Twins, please come with me. I will need you to be my bodyguards. For tonight we will hold a big meeting and we will bring out the real story of the history of Megaton that a few people will desperately want us to stop us from doing; I assure you they will not stop at murder for in the past they murdered three whole families of the Founding Elder Families, with out hesitation, to stop elders of those families from bringing out the truth. Amongst us, as there are always in the Megaton population, are the watchers of the Megaton Secret Council that truly runs this town though its power has been undermined lately by newcomers like Mayor Kylie-Jo Harrington and other changes. They sense the power of the Harringtons, especially that of the Bobby Triplets. The appearance of the cyber-infiltrators has them frightened and who can blame them in that? They fear the Subwayers. They fear the Orders of Steel. They fear everybody. Mostly they fear the new dark entity that destroyed what was left of Professor Agakar.”

 

He sighed. “I know this because I am the Secretary of the Megaton Secret Council and he…” He pointed to Andy Stahl. “He is the Head Watcher.”

 

Andy Stahl might have laughed it off but instead he did something stupid and went for his .32 revolver pistol. Bobby-Ben dropped him with amazing speed and efficiency. Andy Stahl had proven the words of Peaceful Tom to be at least partly true.

 

The Nine Bloody Days of Megaton had begun.

 

TO BE CONTINUED