War of Realities in the DC Wastelands

[Maharg67]

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWINS IN LIFEVAULT-101

INVASION OF THE RADROACH MONSTERS

:whistling:

 

Radroaches were bad enough, swarming along the metallic hallways towards the inhabited sectors of LifeVault-101. What was worse was what came with them. Black radroach monsters, about three times larger than any mere radroach and with great jagged edged pincers, leg like appendages ending in jagged sharp blades and head tubes that fired glistening spinedarts. One good thing was the radroachaks were only a relatively few and were greatly outnumbered by the radroaches. The other was the new monsters were not bullet or flamer or laser proof.

 

Aarie aimed her 22LR foldagun and shot the charging radroachak in the head and then again. It shuddered and died, strange mandible arms going crazy, a spinedart shooting harmlessly through the air. Ammunition had to be used with care for there were only two manufactories of such in the vault and both were finding it hard to keep up with demand while emergency reserves were being kept back in case. In case of what, the twins were not sure.

 

At least their recommendations had been listened to.

 

Repeating crossbows were being manufactured, compact and lightweight but powerful enough to kill radroaches or the radroachaks. The repeater crossbows had fixed box-magazines for up to ten crossbow-darts. These darts could be and often were reclaimed, cleaned carefully and reused.

 

Laserguns were plugged into local power points and used to burn holes in many an attacking monster. Flames spouted fire and flame-bottles full of biofuel made from a type of cave-moss, exploded hot and burning. The smell was damned awful.

 

Simple hight voltage wire-web traps caused many a radroach and radroachak to sizzle away. Again there was more stink.

 

Dartguns had been found, a whole lot of them, along with the same kind of darts the repeat crossbows used. These dartpistols, dartcarbines and dartrifles were being distributed as quickly as possible.

 

Despite this many residents had to resort to home made body protection, baseball bats and other such handy items.

 

Big plan was to direct the attackers into hastily prepared kill zones while trying to stop them from coming through other areas. Protectrons and turrets were greatly effective against the monsters except there were not enough of them. Antibug roboremotes were easier to make, easier to maintain and were still effective against the monsters but decades ago some stupid Overseers had overconfidently recycled them all for some stupid project that had failed anyway. Now techs were desperately trying to turn the units back into antibug units as quickly as possible.

 

As for the Overseers, they had all reacted differently; the Defence Overseer was busy directing the defensive actions: the Security Overseer was being damned helpful; the Safety Overseer was checking other areas for future danger; the Technical Overseer was focused on producing new resources for the fight; the Civil Services Overseer was in a police cell for trying to make profit out of the disaster and his freedom was at an end; the Social Security Overseer was trying to keep moral up along with organising ongoing efforts to keep the vault functioning in a healthy manner; the Law Overseer was trying to stop panic, hoarding and other crimes linked to the crisis; the newly appointed Civil Defence Overseer was still getting fully into action, the replacement Civil Services Overseer was still being chosen and there were plans for a Special Disaster Overseer, an Agricultural Overseer, a Health Services Overseer and others. As for the High Overseer, he was generally panicking and was busy appointing lots of new Overseers so he could delegate as much responsibility to others as he could.

 

There were strong whispers of a plan to depose the High Overseer and replace him, of course, but with whom? The transferral of power from one High Overseer to another was supposed to be a smooth event and so far, in the history of LifeVault-101, it had been. Now conditions were different, were far worse. Already political factions were seeking a way to gain more power through the placing of one of their own on the throne of the High Overseer. Actually it was just a fancy office chair.

 

She turned her weapon, targeted a radroach, and shot it dead. Next to her, Aaron hurled a plastic burner-bottle and it exploded into flames as soon as its simple detonator went off. The flaming biofuel splashed all over radroaches that ran around madly, causing others to flash into flames.

 

Aaron frowned. “You sense it?”

 

Aarie nodded. “The dark, twisted mentality behind this attack. Reminds me of the brainabugs but doesn’t have their odd naivety, their eagerness to please. This mentality differs not just in mood but in the way it thinks.”

 

Aaron sighed. “Directly controls the radroachaks but indirectly drives on the radroaches through the radroachaks. Could we do something effective?”

 

Aarie nodded. “Trying is good.”

 

The other defenders were a middle aged husband and wife pair bravely clutching baseball bats and shivering only a little, a young man using a .22LR bolt-action rifle with much dedication but only fair skill and a young woman clutching a crossbow, having used up all of her crossbow-darts. None were observing the twins.

 

Aarie and Aaron focused, held hands and, very carefully, reached out with their minds. They sensed what seemed like a dark psychic thread, a puppet string, reaching out to each radroachak from some cleverly hidden source. Yet it was not too cleverly hidden for they glimpsed a mind, a face, an office.

 

The High Overseer was somehow less harmless and bumbling in his aspect now but was grinning and concentrating with his eyes tightly closed. Sweat flowed down his face as he controlled the radroachaks but he did not do so alone. A machine sat there looking like a black, altered version of a VirtualTek portable VR-console. Then they saw it, the thing perched on his back, like a brainabug was more armoured and with more savagery to its nature. The thing extruded hunger.

 

It was an open secret that psychic warfare had been researched heavily before Doomsday by the USFG and many others around the world. While much of it had gone nowhere, some of it had gained interesting results and a small number of projects had amazing results. Most of it had been heavily classified except that carried out by the European Central University and Cambridge University.

 

The twins found a weak spot in the psychic puppet strings, the place where they came out from a thicker strand leading back to the High Elder. Then they cut it.

 

The scream of psychic shock and agony had them hunching down and gripping hands hard. Psychic sensitive people through out the vault felt the shock. The radroaches turned and fled back the way they had been coming from but the radroachaks were stunned for a short time. Then they also began to flee.

 

It seemed that the battle was over!

 

The High Overseer vanished. Nothing was found of him, the thing riding his upper back or the altered VR-console. But it was found that the High Overseer had been quietly and efficiently robbing the vault of 0.1% of its valuable resources for many years. At a glance it did not seem much but it added up to a lost fortune in resources and all of it had vanished into the unknown along with the High Overseer himself.

 

In the political confusion that followed, Amata’s father, the Security Overseer, took position as High Overseer and passed over his former position to one of his loyal followers. It was done so smoothly that it was obvious then that it had all been planned as an opportunistic measure for at least a decade. But the new High Overseer did not have it all his own way; as soon as he pushed for a new set of regulations and laws that would increase his power tenfold, every single one of his motions was soundly defeated at the next Overseer Council’s meeting.

 

Life in the LifeVault improved for a fair while.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

[Maharg67]

TWENTY-EIGHT

LIFE AND DEATH IN THE DC-WASTELANDS

GARYS IN LIFEVAULT-108

:whoops:

 

 

Super strong, super fast and super hard to kill Garys came rushing along the hallway aggressive and shouting ‘Gary, Gary, Gary!” The freedom-fighters fell back shooting laserguns and autopistols. They were the last nonclones to try to hold back the swelling tide of insanely cunning and aggressive clones. Some wore Vault Guard gear, some security body-armour but most had on just jumpsuits.

 

People were fleeing from the vault in a fairly orderly manner, were making their way to the long abandoned ProjectVault-108 built to house those constructing LifeVault-108. They had destroyed most of the man made and cave tunnels between the two vaults. Only one remained. Garys numbered in the hundreds and kept being spat out by the Gary-Cloner machine. They had few guns but they used a wide range of odd weapons from metal pipes to knives of many kinds to baseball bats.

 

LifeVault-108 was mostly the territory now of wandering hordes of Garys. Sometimes a lone Gary would wander aimlessly about. Garys ate dead humans, including dead Garys, radroaches and anything else they could find.

 

Jamane was in charge now, what with higher ranks either dead or fled to the other vault. She raised her laser-rifle to her shoulder and burned a hole right into the forehead of a clone. The Gary collapsed and thrashed around horribly, words and blood bubbling from his mouth.

 

Where had the Garys come from? Experimentally they were meant to an endless supply of expendable workers for the LifeVault. At first Garys had been passive and not able to kill but then Professor Abe Adams had decided that as Science Overseer he should take over the LifeVault. He did this by injecting the Garys with something to make them able to kill and then tried to control them through special hypnotic conditioning. The slaughterer Garys had killed the professor first but for a while they had pretended to be normal as they injected other Garys with the kill-juice, as they called it. It was addictive and made Garys feel good, very good, as they did no good to others.

 

Jamane knew something else and had told others but only a few had believed it. Some dark psychic force was directing the Garys and it was hidden in the vault somewhere. The kill-juice allowed it to control the once passive and fairly simple minded clones, allowed it to direct them to take over LifeVault-108 so cleverly and systematically. Had the same mind influenced the quite insane Professor Abe Adams to inject the Gary clones with the kill juice in the first place?

 

Again she fired her laser, concerned at its reducing charge. Behind her a man signalled her and the others to fall back through the big door behind them. They did so, still firing their weapons. Then they were pushing the door closed with the help of a couple of protectron robots. Despite Garys pushing against them, they slammed the door closed and began locking it.

 

Then they turned and fled from the vault. They raced through a big secondary vault doorway, heavy and disk shaped, even as the big armoured door closed behind them. The explosives where ready. As soon as they were far enough along the tunnel, they would bring the section just outside of the gateway down with explosive force. With the protectrons following as quickly as they could, the humans moved fast.

 

No Garys followed.

 

The group slowed and walked quickly out of there. They joined a larger waiting group with small electric vehicles, androids and more robots. Jamane made sure everybody and everything was secure. Then she climbed into the first Ejeep and soon the electric four wheel drive machine was heading the convoy along the tunnel.

 

Behind them the explosives blew and the tunnel collapsed nicely and dramatically.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

[Maharg67]

TWENTY-NINE

THE MAN FROM SEARF

TRAVELLING TO THE SUPERDUPERMART

:ninja:

 

Chimpnoids and human Tribals began peace negotiations with a swapping of low ranking envoys. The way the SEARF super-soldiers had so easily taken them down had unnerved them and left them open to listening to Eddie’Jo. Also there was something special about the youthful man that gave his words greater power. He had warned them that a dark and powerful force was coming to the DC-Wastelands and that they must prepare for trouble; the Primateriarch Colonies and the NuNarli Tribes could not afford to continue fighting each other. They had to form an alliance with each other and other factions of the DC-Wastelands such as the Union of Columbia and the Orders of Steel.

 

The chimpnoid soldiers returned southwards with three tribal envoys and the tribal humans returned northwards with three chimpnoid envoys. They moved as two groups off away from the farm, following roughly the coastline. They were heading for the nearest coastal port settlements of their peoples. That meant the a lower long coastal shelf of land that gently sloped over a hundred kilometres down to the actual shoreline.

 

In the Blackfire and a stealth-slider, a sleek grey antigrav machine, Eddie’Jo and his companions headed away from the farm site. The stealth-slider was a finned machine like a low flying delta wing with a fairly small sized cabin and stubby somehow sleek winglets. They planned to send SEARF units to the farm bunker to salvage further equipment and supplies from it.

 

The sergeant sat on a front passenger seat with Lilly on her lap. The girl was quietly watching the landscape outside as rain flurried against the armaglass. It was only dim light inside. The animals were in the back all sleepy or sleeping.

 

Sergeant Kallista spoke then, quietly and calmly. “Not all of our comrades will welcome your return, though easily the majority will. Some have come to question your wisdom in turning against President James Patriot Jackson. They say he would have rewarded us well for loyalty to him.”

 

The man frowned. “They are being foolish. The Mad President, my biological father, in the end most often rewarded loyalty with betrayal. That is why the Patriot Guard was destroyed and why the Eagle-Enclave turned against him. I used to assume it was insanity that drove him erratically but I have come to think that he had some insane final scheme in mind, a grand project with himself at the core of it.”

 

Kallista nodded. “We will deal with the minority with force, if we have to.”

 

He smiled. “Better still, I will talk to them.”

 

She gave him an odd smile. “As you did with the chimpnoids and the tribals? You have a way of swaying people and even once wild animals. A killclaw addicted to SPAM and called Spammy, who would have thought it?”

 

 

He sighed. “I have tried to find out where my beloved Lilly comes from but so far, no luck. I talked with many locals and tried using the Compunetwork because some people have added data to it since Doomsday. Some of that data is quite interesting, even quite bizarre. The Church of Atom in Megaton has gained access to a terminal and one Confessor Cromwell has put a good deal of effort into writing down his theory of faith and of atomic enlightenment.”

 

Kallista frowned. “He is harmless enough but the Crusade of Atom is far from that. The Knights of Atom are dangerous, fanatical and dedicated to spreading their insane vision of atomic salvation across the world. They actually hold the Church of Atom in disdain and would burn Confessor Cromwell for his evil ‘false moderation of true faith’. They have a Chapter here in the DC-Wastelands up north somewhere.”

 

He nodded. “The DC-Wastelands has too many dangerous factions.”

 

Suddenly there was a soft sparkling shimmer and on the middle finger of each hand appeared a black ring, each fronted by a black disk. On the front of the left one was a golden shield and on the right a golden sword.

 

The sergeant looked startled. “Where did those come from and what are they?”

 

“A gift I was waiting for, a very special set of technologies, but it will take time for me to tune to them and them to tune to me fully. The right ring is prime offensive and the left ring prime defensive in nature but both also have other ‘tricks’ to them.” He steered the Blackfire around a large hole in the dirt road. “They were rewarded to me from the Centro; I had to earn them.”

 

Sensors picked up something ahead. He slowed the machine and before him the stealth-slider was already halted. Then large creatures were moving in a herd across the road, huge and transmutated, powerful and deadly oliphants. Where elephants had come from to escape into the DC-Wastelands and beyond, was unknown, but oliphants were armoured, had great bladed tusks and yet were damned fast. They were also surprisingly intelligent and canny.

 

On this occasion they were fleeing from something but not in panic.

 

Eddie’Jo got out of the fake mobile-home and went to talk with the herd matriarch as one would do with such. He learned that something very big and monstrous, something wielding terrible pain, had devoured four big bull oliphants with out any real trouble. The bull oliphants, strong and experienced, had given their lives so the rest of the herd could escape. The herd was now grieving.

 

He placed a silver orb into the air, took it out of a pouch or so it seemed, and it gleamed smoothly silvery translucent. There was a flash of dull silvery light and the oliphants vanished.

 

He returned to where a wakeful Lilly and the SEARF sergeant stared at him in wonder. Then he was driving the Blackfire again. “Orbis was given me for many purposes and one was to put samples of transmutated or other life into safe reserve. The oliphants are now in a domeland, a dome shaped land spanning three hundred kilometres plus as it slowly but steadily expanded, globe wise. The Domeland is in the ‘top’ of the globe, so to speak. Before I met Lilly I sent there many samples of life from the DC-Wastelands be they plants, animals or other things. Orbis has used them to spread life across the Domeland which is a shallow bowl with a slowly expanding great lake of fresh water at its centre that expanded as Domeland did.”

 

They moved once more along the gently winding dirt road. The vehicle moved around an obstacle on the road that looked to be a burned out battlewagon surrounded by the dead broken and burned bodies of raiders. Not just any kind of raiders but reavers, the ice cold killers. In many ways the reavers were the worst kind of raiders as gangers were the least dangerous kind. Then there was another wrecked battlewagon and then a battlebuggy. Some force had not only destroyed the convoy with deadly force but also with devastating power and speed. The vehicles had not even had time to leave the convoy.

 

Which was when the first heavy shudder hit the ground as something in the distance, something very big, began to move. It rose from the ground as if it had been crouched there and then, a great dark shape, it began to lumber across the landscape on four great single jointed legs. It had a great thick neck and a great head plus four double jointed arms that each held great smashing-cutting weapon but also a plasmagun. The arms came from the front and middle. A great flexing tail ended in some kind of big powerful plasmagun. On the head were two more big plasmaguns. Not only was it huge but on top and sides were crude metallic cabins, battlements and there were super-mutants there be they mutantors or massemoths but nothing larger than that. There were also more human sized smart-mutants.

 

Eddie’Jo sighed. “So the Mad President actually got around to having his colossus-mutants made. Or did somebody else have the same insane vision?”

 

Then the great monster turned great big plasmaguns towards the stealth-slider and the fake mobile-home. Eddie’Jo made an emergency decision and sent them and other things to Orbis. Even as they vanished, with a sparkling shimmer, great big plasma pulsebeams struck the area they had been in and exploded dramatically.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited February 21, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

THIRTY

PASSING TIMES

:bunny:

 

 

 

About nine months passed.

 

Super-mutant strike forces, some with hulking colossus-mutants, rose up seemingly from nowhere to launch a new major offensive against the Brotherhood of Steel garrisons in Grand Central Mall, based at the All Presidents Grand Memorial. This great smart-marble complex of structures engulfed the rebuilt Lincoln Memorial and had thrones for all Presidents but easily the biggest seated figure and throne was President James Patriot Jackson himself. Part service-support, part museum, part administration, part shopping complex complete with souvenir shops, it was low hulking, strong and mostly underground. It was a surprisingly ideal fortress. It not only had the HQ, a big garrison, a Sisters of Steel force but a small settlement of camp followers.

 

Lesser super-mutant offensives took place across the DC-Wastelands in the form of small savage armies that seemed, again, to come out of nowhere. One managed to reach the great Columbian Central Island of the DomniCommonwealth where it fought an army of DomniGuard Mechanised Infantry including power armour troopers, robots, androids and cyborgs but also a far greater number of unwilling conscripts. The super-mutant invaders were defeated and the survivors vanished as quickly as they had appeared. Losses were heavy on both sides and far too many DomniCommonwealth conscripts were buried in mass grave yards.

 

Eddie’Jo and his companions were trapped in Orbis because they had gone there by emergency method. Truth was Orbis was meant mostly to hold living and other samples from the Earth (Terra), was intended mainly for one way trips. They found themselves in the large, friendly settlement of NuHopetown. Humans were there and ghouls but the ghouls were slowly healing, were becoming more human in appearance. Zhouls were there but though largely mindless and sometimes wandering, their hostility was gone. Lilly went to school, made some friends, kept mostly with her animal friends except for two girls and a boy. Eddie’Jo and the SEARF force were allocated a small fortress. They trained the NuHope Guards, greatly improving fighting and survival ability but bruising a few egos. Eddie’Jo attended open Leadership Council meetings and some public meetings but did not often say anything. He gave over some resources but refused to give into settlers’ demands to give over half or even more of the SEARF resources. Yet the SEARF remained mostly removed from the other settlers.

 

The twins Aarie and Aaron, in LifeVault-101, went through a difficult time. The rebels cell-network was smashed by the vault security forces and many rebels were taken into custody. While some were given citizen arrest in neckbands that kept them to only a few areas, some ended up as convicts and five were executed. The rebel cell-network was far from finished but it was weakened for the moment and forced to go underground. High Overseer Alphonse Almodovar tried to gain an increase in power but only succeeded in a few small, non vital changes. A reformation of the Vaultgov began with the rise of a Elder Triad of High Overseer, Secondary Overseer and Guardian Overseer. Then there was the Grand Elder Council of Senior Elders, there were Junior Elders, Coordinators, Supervisors and various Offices and Services. Sector 10 was cleared of everything useful and was sealed off. The twins could not go that way any more, or at least not for now. They attended school, carried out allocated work tasks, messed around with friends and, under the disguise of hobbies, went on with their old secret activities.

 

Jack’O’Man and his people suffered a series of setbacks as he was betrayed by an old comrade. His wife was heavily wounded and was sent off to Megaton to heal properly. Jack’O’Man killed his ex-comrade but it gave him no satisfaction. Convoys were often tricks and the Talon Mercenaries were assisted by Wastelander scouts who knew the area. Yet the Antislavers were far from defeated and ex-slaves were still building up their ranks.

 

At the big SuperDuperMart a diplomatic resolution was made to the situation. SEARF, robots, bananadroids, settlers and others were at peace.

 

Captain Jane Eye kept skippering the UCCS Lucky Eddie, kept fishing in small protected convoys, despite growing troubles..

 

Giant ants not only worshipped the strange baby girl and kept her safe in their underground nest, they were joined by another nest but the different kinds of giant ants cooperated under the amazing influence of the odd little girl.

 

Deathclaws did something odd in Old Olney. They joined forces not only with each other but with smaller killclaws. Packs still kept their own territories but would assist each other or even escape freely into other territories. Then they began linking with other creatures. Yet this was only happening in Old Olney where various secretive experimental projects had once been carried out.

 

Rose’Ama continued to live in NeoWashington of NeoDC. She also continued to serve the Ministry of Reality Stability, Department of Concentric Stabilization but she also went on being a rebel. She beat up on some more evil clowns.

 

As for Sheriff Lucas Simms, he continued to be the best cowboy sheriff in the whole of the DC-Wastelands.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

[Herculine]

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

[Maharg67]

Thank you, Herculine. :thanks:

 

Truth is, sometimes I wonder how I do it. :wallbash: :banana: :no: :yes: :whistling: :thumbsup: :starwars: :bunny:

Edited February 25, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

THIRTY-ONE

LIFE AND DEATH IN THE DC-WASTELANDS

SAVAGERY IN THE GRAND NATIONAL MALL

:starwars:

 

Howitzer rockets hurled up explosions of brown smoke as 20mm shells filled the air. 10mmLR, or specialised 10mm Long Rifle rounds, were fired along with more old fashioned kinds of cartridges. The Brotherhood of Steel Knights were forced to crawl in their power armour, not something that they prided themselves in doing. Led by Paladins, they reached what had once been a beautiful rose garden, part of a memorial to the Red Plague of the first half of the Twenty-First Century. The mutated rose bushes were a great monstrous tangle of monster plants with huge hard sharp spikes and great, amazingly beautiful roses that ate anything they could. Spikeroses had become a deadly nuisance across the DC-Wastelands but they made surprisingly good barriers even against modern weapons.

 

The Brotherhood of Steel and Sisterhood of Steel were focusing many military assets in obliterating the super-mutant threat to Washington DC. Thanks to the planning of President James Patriot Jackson, to control the Grand National Mall and the Central Hub Network beneath it, was a first big step to controlling most of the ruined city. That meant controlling too many of its remaining vital resources. But it was clear to a fair few that the super-mutants seemed to be after something very important or perhaps more than one thing.

 

A long range missile came down and drilled into the ground, a so called mole-missile, then exploded as a great spouting burst of mud, dirt, super-mutant bodies and other stuff including much brown smoke.

 

Sisters of Steel still attacked but the super-mutants had come this time with more anti-aircraft weapons and weapons able to be used as such. So they had lost some of their best vertijets and vertibirds.

 

Union Guardsmen moved in platoons, one providing covering fire while another moved forward. Yet there were too many losses for relatively small areas of ground gained.

 

Fighting underground in the mazes of tunnels and chambers was, if anything, even worse. One almost felt sorry for the zhouls as they were driven by the super-mutants towards the Free Alliance forces and were slaughtered.

 

Sarah Lyons crouched in her power armour, aimed a missile-quadlauncher and fired off two multiple purpose missiles in quick succession. In the distance a colossus-mutant was stomping across the landscape, smashing over statues and firing off pulsebeams. The super-mutants on its back were firing off a whole lot of weapons but most had long jumped off, realising that while powerful, that the huge mutants were also big lumbering targets.

 

“Biomechanical constructs.” Knight Captain Gallows crawled up beside her. “The basis of the colossus-mutants maybe Soviet biomechanical science. Take a Soviet construct, a quadwalker for instant, dip it into mutagenic gunk, add weapons and, presto, a monster romper stomper.”

 

Sarah frowned. “Where are they all coming from?”

 

He managed to shrug his power armoured shoulders, a neat trick. “The problem is that there are too many possibilities. The DC-Wastelands must hold over a thousand hidden project bases, bunkers and even those damned VaultTek Vaults. The strong possibility is that they are coming from more than one place. President James Patriot Jackson focused a great deal of research and development here in the DC. While else did we Orders of Steel come here?”

 

Sarah snorted. “Sometimes I wonder. My father has so many secrets in that head of his. Another important question is what is controlling the super-mutants and the colossus-mutants. Not those less dumb smart-mutants. What stops such aggressive, wild creatures from just running off. What unites them and guides them in, admittedly, crude group tactics?”

 

That was when something dropped between them, a black plastic capsule 20cm long and 10cm wide. They both went to leap but a calm, apparently youthful female voice began speaking from it. “Hidden amongst the smart-mutants are others, far more clever and endowed with the psychic ability of psykers, having gained those abilities from the use of mutagenic gloop and FEV injections. The Master did so, the infamous monster made partly of organic growths and absorbed hardware. They are the psyker-mutants. They are not shapeshifters but generally look like smart-mutants. You should also know that there is a larger core hidden amongst the smart-mutants who are quite smart even by human standards. We have come to call them the sharp-mutants but they are just smarter smart-mutants by nature. Inside the capsule you will find datachips, microfilm flimsies and organic samples of various kinds from different kinds of super-mutants that we have captured, interrogated, tested and have done autopsies on. We lack the research resources that you have and hope that as we have chosen to provide you with this important data that you will choose to be generous in what ever results you obtain by using what we have given to you. We are the SEARF!”

 

Sarah frowned. “I have heard of them. They are supposed to be very good fighters.”

 

The other Brother of Steel laughed softly and in a bemused manner. Then he spoke. “I watched one take on five super-mutants, that is stupid-mutant mutantors, heavily armed and ready to fight. She, the gender was obvious thanks to the tightness of her armour, just stood facing them. Then she moved. I did not see what she did but then the five mutantors were dead. They were dead before they hit the ground. She was back in her former position. I thought I was well hidden as it was in the dimness of late day and I was observing her with enhanced binoculars. She turned, waggled a finger at me, and vanished. Very good fighters? They are incredible. Yet they are cursed somehow, though I do not know the nature of this supposed curse.”

 

She aimed her launcher and fired off another missile. “I suggest you take the black capsule to father. I have a platoon to lead and I am not speaking to my father at this time.”

 

He spoke with a grin in his voice. “What did he do this time?”

 

She reluctantly replied. “He is overly protective and did not want me to come to battle here in the Grand National Mall.”

 

Knight Captain Gallows began to withdraw. “Both of you are so alike in some ways it is amazing.” He gingerly picked up the capsule. “Keep fighting, keep surviving and hopefully I will see you soon.”

 

A great tremor ran through the ground. A statue toppled over in the near distance and soon after a Brother of Steel cursed something about being pinned down under a half naked woman made of smart-stone. Sarah fired her last missile and then went off to help free the unhappy trooper.

 

Knight Captain Gallows vanished into the battlescape.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

[Maharg67]

THIRTY-TWO

THE MAN FROM SEARF

TROUBLE FOR NUHOPETOWN

:confused: :down:

 

 

NuHopeland reflected the DC-Wastelands but was like a nicer, greener, less ruined version of it with a variation of some features. A copy of the towering Washington Monument, undamaged, rose above the tower at its far edges. It was used in various ways including as a watch tower. The town itself was like a nicer, cleaner and safer version of a typical DC-Wastelander settlement. Feathered wind-wheels spun slowly on their tall, slender looking towers built to bend with hard winds. Buildings were tough, fortified, in DC-Wastelander style but also had solar power panels and solar hot water systems on the rooves. Special insulated armaglass was the norm.

 

Eddie’Jo smiled at some children making their way to the NuHopetown School. They smiled back but the teacher frowned softly as if a SEARF super-soldier might be a threat to her charges. The teacher then ushered the children along a flagstone sidewalk towards the school entrance inside a stone wall that fronted the street.

 

In casual earth coloured clothes he turned and strolled towards the cinema with a pouch dotted belt and a compact backpack. People passed him, most in casual clothing or overalls or jumpsuits. Some gawked, some sped up to get past him quickly but a few just nodded greeting and moved on. Some women flirted with him in what they considered to be a discrete manner.

 

He was aware of much that happened on the busy street and yet he did not seem to look around or even move much. He just stood there, stock still, outside the sweetshop with the display of lollies of all kinds behind the big window. The owner of the sweetshop darted up to the window, peered anxiously at him as if she feared the super-soldier would scare customers away, and then darted away again.

 

Shops, workshops, offices, the school, the town hall, a cinema, a theatre, the sheriff’s station, a fire-station and other facilities ran down both sides of this, the main street of the town. He wondered if he should go see an old black-white 2Dmovie called Casablanca that was showing at the cinema but then sensed again the troublesome thing.

 

Something was not right but it was subtle, the sense of wrongness and it was focused somewhere there in the centre of NuHopetown.

 

Then he stepped into a bookshop, paced past big bookshelves almost overflowing with books and other publications of many kinds and stopped at a big wooden counter. The young woman behind it gave him a half smile and looked him straight in the eyes. She wore a much cleavage showing floral dress of light tight fitting fabric but underneath were some special hidden extras.

 

He spoke. “How is the operation going?”

 

She smiled. “The locals are wary of me though I doubt they suspect I am SEARF, that is most of them. Doctor Sarah Tyler, Sheriff Paris Hilton and Mayor Umbrae all keep giving me side looks when they think I am oblivious of them. I am still considered an outsider here and my story of being an ex-Ormon gains me some sympathy but not much more. Most people like to swap second hand books for a small fee but don’t like the fact I put on an extra fee on all popular and special books. Some take care of the free sitting library and read the publications there while reading buying our low priced drinks and snacks.”

 

Eddie’Jo smiled. “Good! They sit comfortably and read while we do sensor scans of them. Have you picked up any localised instability factor or other reason for concern?”

 

“Instrumentation here is basic but we have begun to pick up some kind of local instability factor. We are not sure of its nature. Have any more come through from the DC-Wastelands?”

 

He nodded. “Two more SEARF super-soldiers are now at NuHopeHub along with four androids come across and five more androids have been manufactured here from resources sent from the DC-Wastelands. Two more DC-Wastelanders came through being an old man and a younger but not much younger woman. They have been rejuvenated by the process of coming here. They are still being processed in the NuHopeHub Quarantine and Adjustment Centre.”

 

There were three SEARF super-soldiers, three androids and three special robots based at the bookshop, that mainly in the cellar. Eddie’Jo had set up the operation after linking with SEARF units already in Orbis who were based at the NuHopeHub. He wanted SEARF to have tighter links with the humans and to better what they were doing in NuHopetown. NuHopetown was the oldest settlement in NuHopeland, had been the biggest and most important but NewHopeburg was starting to become both easily bigger and more central. Why, because Orbis had put new limits on town growth in the matter of population and construction work. Many in the town were angry about this, especially as Orbis would not talk directly to them. What made it worse for them was that the population limit did not include zhouls or such as SEARF or others. It was one more reason to be prejudiced against SEARF, zhouls, ghouls and others.

 

Truth was that NuHopetown was in an environmentally sensitive area but most of the NuHopetownies could not, would not, see the wisdom of limiting damage to that.

 

Which was when a soft tremble went through the ground and a sparkling shimmer through the air. Then both SEARF picked up a deep throoming thrumming of Orbis giving off an alarm. Something had breached its transdimensional barriers, had come through from the DC-Wastelands or had been brought by local forces or both.

 

Which was when there was the noise of battlebuggies, of the brutal war cries of raiders, the shooting of guns and the screams of victims. He shot out of the building and shot with amazing speed along the sidewalk. The black carbine was already marking targets. He did not raise the weapon but fired it as he ran using Eye-HUD. The smallest of the three battlebuggies ran over a dead woman and shot towards him even as he killed the driver with a 10mLR caseless round. A deputy was blasted with a shotgun and his dead body hit the side of a farmtruck hard. A farmer took up a powerful bolt-action hunting-rifle and blew away a raider, a nasty clad raver woman. These were insane ravers in three battlebuggies that some fools had somehow managed to bring to NuHopetown (Orbis) from somewhere in the DC-Wastelands.

 

He leapt straight into the smallest battlebuggy and slashed the throat of the other raider in it with his carbine’s slide-bayonet. Then he was in control of the machine, was turning it in a roar towards the other two battlebuggies even as one of them exploded. The Sheriff was firing an autorifle from behind her lightly armoured police patroller vehicle, an amphibious 4x4 machine. But a raider was grabbing up a schoolgirl as hostage as the girl screamed in terror. Eddie’Jo put a neat hole in the raider’s forehead and he crashed dead to the sidewalk, letting the schoolgirl go to flee madly towards the nearest safety.

 

Eddie’Jo and two more SEARF killed the last of the raiders but five townies were dead, one a small boy, one a mother with three children and one being a such respected and liked deputy. The other two were a retired couple looking forward to a peaceful finish to their years.

 

They found the culprits in the basement of the town hall. The mayor and his five cronies were dead and the jury-rigged human-hybrid machine was little more than a few blackened, burned and melted pieces. The concrete floor was partly melted. Eddie’Jo high doubted that the foolish cunning mayor and his cronies had been able to make such a machine but investigations to discover more quickly came to nothing. Nobody knew anything and any traces that could be used to track down the true culprit or culprits, was gone.

 

The town was badly shaken up.

 

People began to gather at the grand public hall in the town hall building and began to demand answers.

 

Orbis was focusing on the town and that had all sorts of implications to it.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

[Maharg67]

THIRTY-THREE

LIFE AND DEATH IN THE DC-WASTELANDS

ABRAHAM WASHINGTON AT WORK

:geek:

 

 

Abraham finished shifting the life like mannequin of a woman and then adjusted the 2076 style summer dress, like a 1950s dress but with a higher hemline thanks to rationing of materials. He stepped back and admired the angle of the wide brimmed hat, the way the necklace emblem sat on the cleavage and the smart patterning of the dress that he had so carefully cleaned and repaired.

 

Many laughed at him behind his back and said that the DC Preservation Society was a joke and the Chamber of US History was full of rubbish. Others came down, though, to look at his stuff inside their carefully locked armaglass display cases. In the early days he had trusted people only to have things stolen. Some sat in armchairs and watched holotape programs projected into a clear area backed by a white area of wall.

 

A protectron helped to guard the chamber’s treasures.

 

The baseball display complete with autographed baseballs, baseball bats, baseball caps and some slightly stained baseball cards. Various famous documents behind armaglass wall displays. A row of NukaCola trucks, each with a slight difference in design and a different year date of manufacture on the underside. A small robotic toaster that could also make coffee and cook two poached eggs at the same time. Some stuffed animals in armglass cases, some fixed up Pre-Doomsday and others of various DC-Wastelands beasties. That is a molerat next to a Prewar dog and so on. A display of Soviet weapons, none of them functional, from the Alaska Campaign. Bookcases of books. Figurines. Other domestic hitech devices. A small electric golfcar. Other clothed mannequins of Pre-Doomsday and DC-Wastelands gear including one with raider gear. A fully functioning NukaCola vending-machine sat lit up close to some armchairs where an old woman slept, snoring lightly as she did so.

 

There was a binging noise. The mild mannered man turned and made his way to a metal door, opened it and walked into his office-study. He carefully closed and locked the door behind himself. The office-study had a bookcase half full of books, some paintings on the wall, two big metal filing cabinets, a desk with a computer terminal and a desk with a robotyper that looked like an odd typewriting machine.

 

But he walked past this and to his sleeping area behind a curtain. There was his wide cot, a tapsink, a gas-ring on a metal shelf, a small refrigerator and some other items including a large, ornate wooden wardrobe. But then he did an odd thing. He opened the far right door of the wardrobe, stepped into an empty wooden enclosed space and closed the door behind himself.

 

Moments later he finished climbing down a ladder to a much bigger, hidden metal chamber. The chamber was clearly designed to keep a small group of people contented and alive, being a combination of many things.

 

Women were active in the chamber, along with a couple of men, as the Sisterhood of Espionage functioned in the hidden outpost inside Rivet City. Abraham was the front, the apparently harmless old fool with his museum, his fanatical collecting of anything of the old USA and his otherwise dull, limited life. Yet Abraham Washington was also doing as an important task. Amongst the Sisters of Espionage were a few scholars of the Order of Sages. They saw the collecting of historical artefacts as far from futile and they carefully copied anything that came into the centre. The real items went to the DC-Citadel while the excellent fakes went on display upstairs. Sometimes the people in the outpost would sneak out and pretend to be visitors to Rivet City just so they could spend some time away from the confined chambers.

 

He went to a small, discrete meeting of individuals to one side in an antechamber used for such meetings. He sat and looked around at the local Sister of Espionage commander and her aide plus a few others. Something was up but what was it?

 

Esmeralda Tyler was the Sister Espionage commander, a tall black woman related to Star Paladin Cross. She sat forward and looked towards the newcomer though she was blind behind dark glasses. She spoke. “A scavenger found this and hoped that somebody in the Rivet City Markets might buy this from them. Our agent there did so for a generous but not too generous price.” She was holding a large datachip.

 

She meant Kim Olsen who ‘owned’ the Buy Sell Anything Emporium business in the Rivet City Open Markets. There was also the other part of the larger markets, the Rivet City Restricted Markets where restricted goods and services were traded from weapons to drugs, sex and first blood gladiator games along with many others.

 

The woman turned to a 3Dwallscreen that showed the Orders of Steel symbol. “We got the follow 3Dvideo recordings from it.”

 

The words first appeared. “Recording Coded A1-897-1 located in small portable 3Dvideo camera close to dead body of a Wastelander scavenger. Data on body is in main file. This data is to be sent at once to Port Shilling where it will be collected for transferral to the DomniCommonwealth. 2128-UJHY8-ORBIS-TY65RF-COMPLIANCE.”

 

The first recording was rather grainy at first but then cleared up. It was from an odd angle at first but then this also straightened up. It was showing, looking downwards, a courtyard surrounded by crumbling smart-concrete walls. Something was fighting down there but not anything normal to the DC-Wastelands. Figures were moving with incredible speed and agility, striking and counter striking, smashing holes in the concrete walls with near misses, running up along walls. The big surprise was that the recording was on slow-mo mode, that it was slowed down as much as it could but the figures were still mostly a blur. But suddenly there was a muffled scream and the recording went blank. Clearly somebody had not wanted the recording to take place.

 

Abraham frowned. “Met a SEARF super-soldier once. Damned frightening, damned lethal and damned aloof but not aggressive. There are SEARF troopers there fighting something that seems almost as effective as they are but in larger numbers.”

 

It was difficult to discover that Abraham was a very advanced android of the super replicant type developed by WestTek just a few years before Doomsday. Despite all of the DomniInstitute’s over confidence and bragging, the most advanced of its mechasm androids did not go close to matching the abilities of the so called super replicants. Mechasm did match standard replicants.

 

Then he frowned. “Jagware Augmented Genetic Assault Force. Cyborg clones with some alien genes but nothing like the SEARF human alien hybrids. JAGAF versus SEARF and the rest of us had better hope not to be caught between them.”

 

A man spoke, a scholar with some intelligence experience. “So the data was intended for the DomniCommonwealth, most likely the DomniInstitute.”

 

Abraham shook his head. “To the DomniCommonwealth but not, perhaps, to the DomniInstitute. The DomniInstitute is the most powerful of the factions in the commonwealth but not the only powerful faction there. There is the oligarchy of the DomniGuard, the DomniGov, the DomniChurch and the DomniCorp, that is of military, public servants, official religion and a big quasigovernment corporation. There are also the rebels who control the more remote eastern island but they are of only relatively little power. The elected President has only relatively little power as does the elected Parliament of Senate and Represenate, Prime Minister, Ministers and Members of Parliament; that is Senators and Represenators. Organised crime is divided between the DomniHand, the Mafia, the Triads and the DC-Syndicates who have a crime colony there called Armageddon Park. Then there are more exotic, more mysterious factions such as the AntiInstitute, the Future-Foundation, the Church of Atom as led by Confessor Jones, the tribals of the northern island and the clansfolk of the southern island.”

 

The Columbian Islands were big. In general area taken up, they were bigger together than the British Isles and yet had been created by monstrous robotics and other amazing technologies. The same trickeries had been used to alter the rest of the District of Columbia.

 

The second recording showed a beach scene in dim light. Palm trees and mutated palm trees were closer to the camera while the sands were in the distance. The ocean stretched outwards into the distance. Then came a large, armoured, chunky hovercraft that moved with surprising quietness. It came to a slow halt on the sand, all dark and with no lights as to blend into the dimness. Then out of it came power armoured figures with black armour trimmed with dull dark gold and the symbol of a bold eagle clutching a sword and a lightening bolt. There were many of the armoured figures and also robots such as MrGutsys, sentrybots and battlebots like bigger versions of sentrybots. Then came hovertrucks, hovertanks and other vehicles coming off the big hovercraft hauler. All were armed and armoured.

 

Then came the following words: Recording Coded A1-897-2 located in small portable 3Dvideo camera close to dead body of a Wastelander scavenger. Data on body is in main file. This data is to be sent at once to Port Shilling where it will be collected for transferral to the DomniCommonwealth. 2128-UJHY8-ORBIS-TY65RF-COMPLIANCE.

 

Abraham showed his concern in his voice. “Patriot Guards. If Patriot Guards have survived Doomsday in any real numbers, with enough resources, then we are all in big trouble. Question is do they still serve President James Patriot Jackson, a man who is still alive somehow as far as I am concerned.”

 

The Sister Espionage commander nodded. “Word came through just minutes ago stating that the Orders of Steel now believe that President James Patriot Jackson somehow escaped into some kind of super virtual reality realm, a realm where the reality is perhaps as real as ‘normal reality’ though with some variations of 'natural' laws. The whole of the DC may have been reconstructed largely to create, conceal and protect the super virtual reality realm that I speak of. All of the Elders have now endorsed this view and when the Outcasts were informed, they agreed with the assessment. Word has also been sent to the President of the Union of Columbia.”

 

Another man spoke now, a male Sister of Espionage. “SEARF and JAGAF super-soldiers, Patriot Guards, armies of super-mutants! What else could we be dealing with?”

 

The third and last recording showed them a great open valley somewhere unknown where a fortified city was lit up with bonfires, burning torches and more modern lighting. Quietness was on the big settlement with its high wall, long stake filled ditches and warning sign marked mine fields. The city was partly old structures, partly repaired ruins and partly newer built structures. The majority of metal armoured defenders, surprisingly, were often armed with swords and shields, with bows or crossbows. Others carried autorifles, autoshotguns, hunting-rifles, double-boomers and other guns. Then there were figures in exotically embellished power armour of different kinds carrying flamers, lasers, autoguns and other big weapons.

 

But the green tinged fog came drifting into the valley, moving against the strong breeze, at first in light wisps and less dangerous seeming. It grew quickly thicker and broiled as things moved inside it in a horrible jerky fashion, things that were both familiar and yet alien. Then some showed. They were zombies but not just of humans but of other creatures from molerats to big predators like deathclaws. But other things came with the horrific fog like long whip like tentacles, slimy and rotting, and skeletal like humanoids with spikes, spiky tails and weird bony claws and fangs. There were also great rolling balls of repulsive mingled rotting flesh, bone, fur and other organic matter. These things would engulf zombies sometimes, grabbing and absorbing them but the zombies put up no resistance.

 

Long range weapons struck the fog from the city. Explosions lit up the fog and incendiaries flashed into flames. Big powerful laser batteries unleashed glowing pulsebeams. A biplane flew overhead of it and dropped bombs that exploded into flames.

 

The recording ended as tentacles whipped up and dragged the biplane out of the sky with horrifying speed and power. The brave pilot and gunner fell out of it and into the glowing fog, having most likely no chance of survival.

 

Then followed the following message: Recording Coded A1-897-3 located in small portable 3Dvideo camera close to dead body of a Wastelander scavenger. Data on body is in main file. This data is to be sent at once to Port Shilling where it will be collected for transferral to the DomniCommonwealth. LOP786-UJHY9-ORBIS-FGH123F-COMPLIANCE.

 

None in the group knew what to say. No reports of anything like the deathly lights glowing fog had come to them, let alone armies of zombies invading strange cities. The symbols on the power armoured warriors were a little like various forms of South American hieroglyphics but the other language glimpsed was unknown.

 

The three separate 3Dvideo recordings left them with far more many questions than answers but all three hinted at more trouble arising in an already troubled realm, especially the undeathly fog.

 

They went back to work.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

[Maharg67]

THIRTY-FOUR

BIGGER AND BETTER THAN TRANQUILLITY LANE

ROSE’AMA GOES FOR A DRIVE

:devil: :bunny:

 

There were no traffic jams, no heavy flow of cars, out that far from the NeoWashington Hub. Rose’Ama steered her atomic family sedan through traffic that was mainly big atomic motorised haulage trucks and delivery vans. She had to be careful with the drivers of the big rigs who considered this to be their territory and who might give her trouble just because they could.

 

Manufactories, warehouse complexes, hydroponics complexes, special processing plants, they were all semi-underground, were mostly underground. Neat structures surrounded by small green park areas was the norm above ground.

 

She parked the big car amongst a row of them in a carpark shared by a row of complexes, the customers that is. The employees parked their vehicles elsewhere or came by public transit. Now in a bizdress, a minidress of a particular style with light shoulder pads, she took her matching shoulderbag, adjusted her hat, adjusted her make-up using a small mirror and then walked towards one of the complexes.

 

A couple of thuggish young men leered at her as they sat at a table outside of a small diner, under a shop canopy. In NeoWashington bad things too often happened to women but she was always capable of strong self defence on official business. She flashed her official badge at the two men and they sullenly left her alone.

 

Where was the anomaly? Instrumentation had brought her to that sector. She walked into the small, cheap diner where one waitress and a counter girl were being over worked and harassed by the male thug customers. She bought a bottle of iced tea and a banana at the counter, accidentally on purpose stepped down on the shin of a thug who went to stick his hand where it was not wanted, then smashed her elbow into a thug who was pawing at the waitress.

 

By the time she had left the diner, five thugs had been injured. The young woman made her way towards Warrington Fine Ceramic Goods Incorporated. It was a fine corporation manufacturing a deluxe range of pottery including vases, cups and even artworks. This was very true. Trucks and vans took away stock from the complex every day and many shops sold Warrington ceramics. But something more than the production of ceramic goods was going on in the building. She ate her banana and drank her iced tea, dropping the rubbish into a recycling bin.

 

The armaglass doors to the entrance lobby opened for her and for an instant she sensed something pass her with amazing speed, then another and then another. Yet Rose’Ama saw nothing. She sensed power, strength and potential danger. The young woman behind the counter, all blonde hair, cleavage and white teeth, smiled richly at her but the smile did not reach the eyes of the receptionist.

 

The voice spoke softly into her mind, strong and smooth. “Not a receptionist. Combat Type 3-211a android. You follow your senses. We follow you and protect you.”

 

Something strong and subtle inside Rose’Ama told her to go with the advise. She spoke as she passed the receptionist desk. “I must go and talk to a Doctor Adama who heads ceramic research and development!”

 

With deadly speed the receptionist android came out from behind the counter and stood in front of Rose’Ama, blocking her. “I am sorry but visitors are not allowed past this point except under exceptional circumstances. If you wish to talk to anybody you must visit our Public Relations Offices in this same complex but about 100 metres along the sidewalk. Go now or I will call security.”

 

Rose’Ama frowned softly. “That is not a nice way to treat a possible customer.”

 

The android spoke. “You are a threat to security. You are not alone.” Then she pulled out a handgun from seeming nowhere and aimed it at Rose’Ama, moving with impressive speed.

 

Something fast and hard hit the android and hurled it through the air. The android struck the desk, flipped across it, came up on her feet and fired off 10mm caseless slimshot bullets. A grey brown splashworked figure of armour came into view and then flickered. The android was hurled into the wall and this time she fell down and staid down.

 

Rose’Ama turned and found herself looking at a SEARF super-soldier in stealth power armour. It was clearly a young man by the tightness of the armour. He spoke. “Rose’Ama of the Ministry of Reality Stability, Department of Concentric Stabilization, you are also of the rebel cell/network. Know this, the rebel cell/network is a servant of the virtual reality multiple entity that is now President James Patriot Jackson. All that you send to NeoSanctuary become safer from PJP’s darker side which he, the Greater PJP, is slowly losing control of. We of SEARF who ended up coming into NeoDC when it was created, are trapped here just as much as you and many others are. Even PJP himself is ultimately trapped here, his planned temporary bolt hole becoming his permanent prison. The situation is bad enough but you need to know that PJP plans to break out even if it means risking much death and destruction to more than one realm and its life.”

 

Then the SEARF super-soldier turned. “Come with me. We will avoid the obvious elevators. They go to dead end levels which become traps against intruders. We go to the secret elevator and from there you guide us. I suspect that you do not know your true nature.”

 

Rose’Ama shrugged. “I lead a fairly simple life. It has always been so. I am the best field agent for the Ministry of Reality Stability, Department of Concentric Stabilization.”

 

He spoke. “You are the only field agent for the Ministry of Reality Stability, Department of Concentric Stabilization. You are a child of President James Patriot Jackson and your brother is our leader. He now calls himself Eddie’Jo. Now, we must go, Rose’Ama, and put a stop to what is going on inside this building.”

 

The secret elevator was hidden partly behind a huge pot-plant that lashed out green tentacles out at the two intruders. Rose’Ama told the creature to sleep and it simply stopped moving. The surprisingly large elevator took them down two levels because she sensed that is where they should go.

 

Then they were out in a huge chamber stretching out into the distance. Metallic dull silvery floor, walls and ceiling reflected many bright fluropanels. There were many heavy metallic wheel-tables and each had embedded into it a status-capsule. In each capsule was a man, woman or child. The status-capsules were semitransparent in nature. Dataplates were on both ends of each capsule.

 

The super-soldier sounded impressed. “Every person in the virtual realm is in a status-capsule that in turn is part of the super virtual realm. It is seemingly impossible, like somebody lifting themselves up into the air by their own boot laces, but somehow it has been done. NeoDC is far more than a normal virtual reality realm. Such disguised Status-Life Chambers are concealed all across NeoWashington.”

 

Rose’Ama sensed danger. In distance a worktron robot was adjusting something but it was no threat. She once again began to move in the direction that she sensed was the best one. She found herself moving down a wide clear laneway and in the distance was visible a big set of elevator doors.

 

She spoke. “I have dreamed of such places. There is trouble. Less children are born every year. All grow slowly and have long youthful life but increasingly the oldest citizens are deforming into mindless monsters, literally ceasing to be human. There are also the other strange monsters reflecting the Mad President’s fears; the clowns, the mimes, the brain eating zombies and some odder than that.”

 

She began to run, so did he and so did the two stealth invisible other super-soldiers. They were almost to the elevator when the things came rushing from their left. Each was a giant two thumbed hand with five fingers between each thumb. They came rushing with amazing speed and agility, each being of a variation of skin colours, a patchwork pattern.

 

Rose’Ama turned and frowned at the things coming at them, each of which had a great black ring on its middle finger with a black disk face and a golden symbol. The symbol was the personal symbol of President James Patriot Jackson, being a bold eagle holding a crisscross of a sword and a lightening bolt. Such was also the symbol of the Patriot Guard. Then she raised her hands and the black rings on each hand became suddenly visible with their golden symbols of a sword on the right and a shield on the left.

 

The handzrol creatures, all five of them, vanished.

 

Rose’Ama had no idea how she had done what she had done but she did know that the psychic energy creatures, psyker-elementals, would have tested even the SEARF abilities of fighting and survival hard. They were powerful monsters.

 

The elevator took them down five levels. It could have taken them down further but this was where she needed to get out. Followed now by three visible SEARF super-soldiers, two women and the man, she walked into the great dome shaped chamber of dull silvery metallic nature.

 

In its very centre a great weirdness of flickering black energies, like flashes of darkness, darted up and around a dull silvery orb. It was three metres wide and floated three metres above a three metre wide cylinder that was three metres high from the floor. There were scientists in white labcoat outfits, technicians in white coveralls, robots of various kind and cables ran from the platform to temporary set up control consoles. There was other hardware, soldiers in light power armour suits, workers in light power armour moving more hardware about and androids.

 

Professor James Patriot Jackson, a so called superclone extension of the Mad President, was overseeing the experiment. He was identical looking to the tall, handsome, charming, mature president but wore a white labcoat and other 2077 style scientist gear.

 

He turned and scowled at the newcomers. “The Ministry of Reality Stability, Department of Concentric Stabilization has no jurisdiction in this place and the SEARF are traitors. Of course, this is the work of the Prime Minister, the Minister of the Reality Stability, the supposed good conscious of the president himself.”

 

Prime Minister Elaine Patriot Jackson was Rose’Ama’s real boss. Elaine Patriot Jackson was the wife of the President and the soft nurturer of NeoDC. Or so went the Public Relations spin. But EPJ was tough, very tough, and very canny. She was slowly losing a battle against her husband’s growing madness and his desperation to escape from the virtual reality prison he had created for himself and that had ensnared so many others. The Prime Minister also held the position of Minister of the huge Ministry of Reality Stability.

 

Rose’Ama spoke. “What you are doing here must cease. You are causing dangerous instability through out this sector of NeoWashington.”

 

The Mad Scientist grinned at her. “Freedom, what price freedom? We will have freedom and power!”

 

Which was when everything seemed to explode, to implode, to go crazy with unleashed exotic energies and effects. Rose’Ama found herself being protectively wrapped by three SEARF super-soldiers even as she found herself vanishing. She heard the shouts, screams and other noises from people there. A protectron robot was attempting to calm people with its electronic voice.

 

Then there was just darkness.

 

TO BE CONTINUED