War of Realities (Redone and Improved)

[Maharg67]

82^nd

SPACE BATTLE; THE ENTERPRISE IN ACTION

LONG DISTANCE DECIMATION

 

Captain Kirk knew well enough what many excitable fans of space opera shows did not; space battles were not normally fought close up but at a big distance, way ouf of visual range or even closer instrumentation range. The SFSS Enterprise unleashed another volley of three super-missiles that were soon moving faster faster than the systemship itself could. He was lightly cyberlinked to the warship's network of network-systems, its AI-supercomputer network-systems. He was in his ship power armour as were all crew just in case he was thrown around, the atmosphere was vented or other disasters occurred.

 

There was no messing around in battle, no desire to mince words, to give too many orders. He spoke then. "Prepare SolarDan Antimissile-Missiles."

 

A cyberlinked gunner responded with a series of affirmitive clicks. They were tracking a cluster of three Venus Confederation missileships coming at the SFSS Enterprise and her three sister ships in a very clever evasive pattern. These missileships were literally missiles that shot out volleys of smaller but deadly missiles before they, themselves, impacted. Such weapons were a great surprise for in theory the Venus Confederation was not advanced enough to have any such advanced devices.

 

Kirk spoke again. "Fully activate and launch SolarDan Antimissile-Missiles. Take care with thos Rattler Interceptors."

 

Viper fighterships were already launched from the SFSS Columbia, a miniship battlecarrier that carried a squadron of Viper Fighterships but also Fang Bomberships, Rattler Interceptors and some more specialised craft. Trouble was that the enemy was outgunning the Solsystem Federation in a way that they should not have been able to do. The launching of a well planned attack of Fang Bomberships and Viper Fighterships should have, in theory, devastated the one and only smallish fleet of enemy warships approaching Terra and Luna. Instead there were two surviving Vipers and one surviving Fang that had limped back to their mothership with enemy fighterships on their tail.

 

Kirk did not show it but he was worried. He was far from the only one in the Solsystem Federation to be concerned for it seemed, against all former expectations, that the Venus Confederation might just win the war.

 

Which was when the big, strange ship began to show up on long range instrumentation. Then another joined the first and then yet another. Kirk studied the data as his intelligence people tried to work out what they could and his navigation people tried to work out where the ships had come from. Then it turned out they were coming from the direction of Jupiter, or at least from where Jupiter had been.

 

Which was when the four other big ships were detected that were coming from yet another direction.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 14, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

83^rd

IN AUSTIN, NEVADA

GREY TOWER CITY OF WINDING TUBES

 

Austin in Nevada, not to be confused with Austin in Texas, was a grey metallic monster of a city rising as a formation of great, broad towers topped with armaglass domes, sometimes cracked but often filled with dark purple mutated plant life. The noise of battle drifted to the strange little man as he strode along one of the great big metallic grey tubes that wound through the city. A sniper had gone to shoot him with a long range rocket-rifle but had suddenly decided to write poetry instead. The strange little man watched a vertijet race through the sky overhead, zigzagging in evasive manner. The Raiders of Steel were fractured. Many were now serving on the side of those who wished to end their oppression, their exploitation.

 

The rising Unity had put an end to fierce factional fighting at first but then the AntiUnity had struck. The Dazi piloted vertibird swooped around and dived towards an enemy position. Then the warmachine exploded savagely, the cyberlinked pilot dying instantly.

 

GreyMaharg had come to the city to meet somebody but that somebody had not shown up when they were supposed, the appointment was not met. Since then he had been waiting and hoping that nothing bad had happened to the other.

 

OrbisMind spoke to him. It had been doing much more of that lately as if seeking both company and reassurrance. "GreyMaharg, I have opened up OrbisSanctuary boundaries to allow peoples to begin to populate all over the world that is OrbisEarth. Another two million plus people have been picked up and sent to OrbisSanctuary in the last hour. This is a very strange city! Why is it designed so?"

 

GreyMaharg smiled, knowing that OrbisMind could work that out for itself. "My sweet Orbis, it was designed by Professor Jack Patriot Jackson himself to create a series of very hitech materials, serums and other products that in turn were sent to other parts of the USA to be turned into many more complicated products. Most of this city is one vast autorobotic machine. What are you worried about, my sweet?"

 

OrbisMind: "The darkness within."

 

The living-god nodded. "An important concern indeed. One of my aspects is always with you. Other living-god/goddesses are with you now. We have taken from you the last influence of darkness left behind by the DarkZiazin. We are ready for other dark events. We will always be with you. The DarkZiazin made you back when he was named YaoMaharg. He was my father. Now we know he was manipulated by the Lords and Ladies of Undeath in general and by Lord Greyteshuo in particular."

 

In the distance explosions rose up as brown cloudy formations. Orbis had picked up many refugees from the city already but now even soldiers were leaving for OrbisSanctuary. Then he turned as he sensed something and he smiled. There stood his mother, the living-goddess JadeMaharg. She was elegantly beautiful, short, slimly nubile and she was obviously pleased to see him. It was she he had meant to meet, that he had waited for. She came forward and he sensed her very deep worry.

 

She gripped his hands in hers and then she spoke. "We have been deeply betrayed. YaoMaharg was betrayed by somebody that he loved and trusted deeply. He was attacked in a vulnerable moment. He was made into a puppet and directed to make the Orbis, which should never have been made though I would not blame poor sweet Orbis for its creation. Later on he stole Orbis and unleashed Orbis under his control to carry out a series of great destruction acts. Why? That is still unknown. You, GreyMaharg, have deeply betrayed the living-god/goddesses. Why?"

 

He grinned. "I will show you."

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 14, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

84^th

IN AUSTIN, NEVADA

BENEATH GREY TOWER CITY OF WINDING TUBES

 

GreyMaharg and his mother, JadeMaharg, floated in a vortex of swirling energies whirling around a great sphere of more intensive energies. GreyMaharg was not a strange little man but a beautifully elegant man. He was holding hands with his mother as they staid stationery and then he was communicating.

 

"I did not betray the living-god/goddesses of our kind. We all betrayed ourselves an astonishing long time ago when we gave up natural mortality to take upon ourselves a new form of existence. Way back then we were determined to transform the whole Multiverse for the better but, mainly, to find a kind of enlightenment for ourselves. Back then we created this vortex. This is the Orbistransorbis. This is the original Orbis that we all forgot about because somehow we knew that we had made a mistake but we were not willing to face it. What father did was to try to block the memory when he realised it was starting to return to us. He wanted to preserve our way of existence even though we withdrew from the Living Multiverse a long time ago. Why did we withdraw? Because the real living-goddesses of the Multiverse, the Centro, asked us to leave. Nature created them but nature did not create us. We are the false living-gods and living-goddesses."

 

The GreyMaharg pointed to the very centre of Orbistransorbis. "Orbis, the Orbis now in transdimensional low orbit above the Earth, was meant by father to obscure the existance of Orbistransorbis to which Orbis is linked. That is Orbis, OrbisMind, OrbisHub and OrbisSanctuary. See there, in the very centre of Orbistransorbis. There is a very disturbing, distorting area of energies. There lies life, death, undeath and unlife in a way that should be impossible."

 

JadeMaharg nodded. "What of the Lords and Ladies of Undeath?"

 

GreyMaharg shrugged. "I have not worked out everything yet but you can assist me to do so. I was approached by the Centro and I agreed to give myself over to their influence so that I could then influence my father, your second husband to be, to create Orbis not as he had planned to do it but as Centro wanted to do and as I knew it had to be done. In the process I lost many memories. That had to be done so that I did not give away the truth to the DarkZiazin as he began to exist from what was my father, your second husband to be. Yet I think there was more than the Centro behind what was happening. The Lords and Ladies have Light came to assist. Do you want to hear a horrible secret that we false living-god/goddesses have kept from ourselves?"

 

JadeMaharg shrugged. "I know a few such secrets, most likely many more than you do."

 

He nodded. "Now and then one of us dies and we vanish but for thousands of years now none of us have been born. I am the last of us false living-god/goddesses to be born."

 

She nodded right back. "We have been trying to overcome that problem. After Orbis was created, we built the Orbistrans. Each of our clans has gained its own Orbistrans to assist us in our attempts to once more procreate. They are refined copies of Orbis."

 

He nodded. "I met poor mad NessaMagre close to the city of Austin in Nevada. She was still infatuated with my father, with the DarkZiazin. I wondered why she was there and she distracted me by speaking of her desires to save the DarkZiazin. There was here amazing mushroomtree forest, the mushroom-people and the peaceful rhouls that once were zhouls. She did wonderful things but why? What was she really doing? Was it all to save the DarkZiazin? No, it was not. She was there to help find a solution to our own people's inability to reproduce any longer. She was seeking solutions with the FEV and the mutagenics. It makes sense for they are powerful agents of biological change, of renewal, of control. Which reminds me that they were first created by the DarkZiazin himself. A coincidence? I have my doubts."

 

There was a sudden bright flash of energies through the Orbistransorbis. The thick swirling patterns became noticeably disturbed.

 

Then he grinned. "I have two daughters. They are named ShenaMaharg and SaffronMaharg. I have two daughters because the Lords and Ladies of Light and the Centro gifted me the right to mate with one TreshiaLevena, a true living-goddess. I will introduce them to you soon. They have been assisting me here on this poor world along with wonderful ShabMando. Remember him? I have him doing a very special task now in the DC Wastelands that is very much suited to his experience, skills, creativity and moods." Then he lost his grin. "There was a price to pay for my gaining of two daughters and perhaps a possible future for our bloodlines."

 

JadeMaharg shook her head. "You have always spent too much time and energy with the misfits and failures of our people. ShabMando is one of the worst of them. We have little time left for idle talk. We must leave this foolish little world and return at once to Orbisverse, to the newly formed OrbistransNet formed of all of the Orbistrans. The newly formed Orbisversal Council demands that you return and face judgement on a series of very serious charges."

 

He shook his head. "False charges and foolishness. My own people have come to fear me, to fear that I have come to find the ancient truth that we do not wish to face. Oh, I took all the misfits and so called failures. They are safely in the Orbis now in the OrbisSanctum. Failed to speak of that before, didn't I. Not really a mistake on my behalf. I want to show you something else."

 

Again he held both her hands and they vanished.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 14, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

85^th

RYKER BELOW PALMSIO ISLAND

DARK FINDINGS, YET MORE DARK FINDINGS

 

Ryker, Dana Troya and Professor Ableson crouched in energy armour behind a big, solid, armoured hulk of humming machinery as the zombies raced towards them and the Solsystem Federation soldiers and their allies. Undead zombies shambling quickly were meeting true death as they were blasted down by volleys of bullets, shells and pulsebeams. Flamer jets lit them up and turned them into whirling torches that set other zombies alight. The numbers coming were lessening.

 

It was the third chamber of exotic machinery that they had entered after going through two sets of thick, heavily armoured and heavily locked doors. Zombies in the rotting, ruined gear of workers, soldiers and others had attacked them along with brainbots with undead brains controlling them. Undeathobs, the sickening small creatures, came scrambling over the cracked, filthy concrete floors. There had been undead guard dogs and even some cats but the strangest attacker had been some undead pigeons.

 

Dana Troya looked sickened by what her psychic empathic abilities were picking up. She spoke. "The undead suffer incredibly for they do not belong in this side of the Multiverse. They suffer as we living would suffer if we ended up in the dimensional realms that are natural to the undeathly states. They attack out of confusion, out of a hunger for something to sustain them and for hunger for something to end their suffering. That is they attack hoping that they will be killed."

 

Away Captain Ryker aimed his weapon and fired. "I am only too happy to assist them in their desires. Two more souls freed back to the cycle of life and death."

 

She sighed. "Everything that has been happening, that began many years ago, is linked somehow. There was something about Professor Jack Patriot Jackson that made him somehow different from President James Patriot Jackson. I doubt they were really brothers. No, their relationship was much stranger than that. We must keep going forward. We must find out what is hidden here below the surface of this island."

 

Dana Troya was beautiful, buxom, lithe, with amazing hair of a brunette gone wild. She had amazing eyes. She was in love with Away Captain Ryker and he with her. They tried to keep their relationship secret for professional reasons but it was one of the worst kept secrets on the SFSS Enterprise.

 

A Brother of Steel unleashed a shortlong missile and it shot through into the next chamber by mistake. It should have exploded. The blast should have been heard or felt. Nothing happened. Which was when the strange morgue glowing fog, thick and soupy, began to flow out of that other chamber. Dana Troya leapt up and gave a warning cry but she did not have to do so. In moments the whole force was retreating rapidly before the rolling fog that was full not just of zombies but bigger, more terrible things like great rotting tentacles that lashed out whip like. The fog filled that chamber but went no further as if it had carried out its task of driving back the intruders and keeping its secrets.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 14, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

86^th

CIVIL STRIFE IN THE REPUBLIC OF DAVE

DAVE HAS A HEADACHE

 

President for Life Dave of the Republic of Dave had considered it wonderful to dominate so many women at first. They had come to worship him, to see him as a living god, and they were willing to do almost anything for him. But then the troubles had begun. The jealousy, the power struggles to get access to him, the sexual demands, the angry lesbians who resented his influence, the angry men who wanted badly to kill him.

 

President Dave huddled in his fortress tower as bullets rebounded from the thick metal shutters. Back when he was just a deluded fool, or largely that is, he had enjoyed the sunshine coming through the open window shutters but he had not dared have them open for a long time now. Exhausted, he lay seminaked on a bed covered with sweat while a dozen beautiful young women waited patiently for him to get his energy to come back, for him to 'get over his headache'. They seemed ready to spring into action, all bare of clothes, to see who would get to him first.

 

Men were fighting women on the outskirts of the settlement. Women were fighting women closer to the tower complex. The Museum of Dave was long burned down. His army was split into factions now doing much of the fighting against each other. The public service was a fragmented joke. The livestock was all stolen. The traders no longer came anywhere near the place. The UDC was threatening to invade.

 

There was the Unity that he could sense as a powerful, persistent pressure against his mind.

 

He sighed and spoke with a light croak to his voice. "A strong coffee, if there is any coffee left, and then I start again. Is that a good deal or what?"

 

Which was when, with a sparkling shimmer, SaffronMaharg appeared in the chamber. The living-goddess, not a false living-goddess, frowned softly at Dave. "No, you can not influence me to lust after you and no, I will not fall in love with you. I am taking you to somewhere you will be safe and so these people can get back to normal."

 

Dave smiled richly at her. "That is just wonderful, wonderful news. Quick, before you change your mind."

 

SaffronMaharg smiled back and stepping over to Dave she touched him and both of them vanished. The women all cried out in horror but as soon as Dave was gone they all were suddenly looking at each other in shock as if wondering just what was going on.

 

A young dark brown woman looked disgusted. "Oh, yuck, what have we been doing? Dave? Orrible President Dave of the Republic of Dave? The joke of every woman? What were we thinking?"

 

An older, more mature woman shrugged. "What is done, is done. Now I have to grab some loot, some clothes and go looking for my stupid prideful husband before he does anything very stupid. I will give him some beer money, spend the night giving him what he wants and cook him some grub. By tomorrow, if he is still alive, he will be back to ignoring me like he normally does. It will be right back to our old marriage."

 

The women spread out to seek loot while outside the firing began to ebb away and then stopped as if people out there had come to question why they were fighting and they had managed to come up with no good reasons for doing so.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 26, 2010 by Maharg67

[Herculine]

It's okay. Watching your stories evolve sometimes is like watching a living thing growing and maturing. (Meant to be a compliment. Sorry, it's the wee hours here.)

[Maharg67]

As a greenie, an artist and a dabbler in permaculture I take it as a fine compliment, Herculine.

 

87^th

IN ORBIS, IN ORBISSANCTUM

RESTING, RESTORING, REMEMBERING

 

Deep inside Orbis was OrbisSanctum and there floated semiconscious in a sea energy of protecting, healing energies the Prime Guardian and three Master Guardians of the Guardian Thirteen. But where were the others of the Guardian Thirteen? The globe shaped energy field was floating inside a vast globe shaped chamber. Observing it were GreyMaharg and his mother, JadeMaharg. They were still in their beautiful forms.

 

GreyMaharg spoke then. "In the minds of the Guardian Thirteen lie many secrets. It was from them that I confirmed much and learned more. Still, much of what is in their minds is fragmented and-or cryptic. We are the false living-god/goddesses and when we die, we become undead monsters. The most powerful of us become the most powerful of the monsters; that is we become, have become, the Lords and Ladies of Undeath. Our immortality is unnatural through the Orbistransorbis. We created the Lords and Ladies of Undeath, or at least those that belong to the most powerful Greyyorzi Orders who even other Lords and Ladies of Undeath fear. Greyyorzi are amazingly evil. Greyyorzi threaten to break out of their confines inside the transdimensional prison, the great metallic stone labyrinth. The Greyyorzi are the undeath that were, are and will be trapped in the transdimensional prison that goes beyond the time-space of this dimension."

 

JadeMaharg frowned hard at him. "You speak nonsense. Yes, we die sometimes but we die naturally."

 

But he shook his head. "No, we die unnaturally as we live unnaturally, but sometimes we were reborn as another false living-god or false living-goddess. I was but of course that escape route is not open any more for nature is closing in on us, is catching up to us, is punishing us for our crime. I was the one name Greytarkus, the super genius fool who designed the Orbistransorbis and invented the various concepts and mechanisms at its core. I was the fool who supervised the construction, refinement and then enhancements of the Orbistransorbis. At the very moment that the Orbistransorbis began to function, began to give false immortality and living-godhood to our people, I knew I had made a mistake. It was then that Evvarikas, my brother, managed to kill me to stop me from deactivating the Orbistransorbis while I was able to. Then it was too late. Ewarikas took credit for inventing the Orbistransorbis and the other leaders of our people supported his lies for their own ends."

 

His mother nodded. "Unofficially there has been doubts about the claims of Ewarikas for a very long time. I am going now back to the home realm of the Orbisverse. I have done my duty and I have passed on the message from our leaders. If you do not go willingly before the Orbisversal Council, they will soon enough strike out against you."

 

GreyMaharg sighed. "You have not been listening to me."

 

"I can not believe what you say." She observed the great globe of energies for a short while before speaking again. "I do not know if the leadership will believe that you are Greytarkus reborn but if they do, that may just give them more reason to strike out at you. Since Ewarikas died a few thousand years ago, Oombambris has become our Grand Elder as of the new Orbisversal Council. She has launched many investigations into many diverse matters of importance including yourself."

 

GreyMaharg looked disturbed. "Oombambris is more cunning and canny than she is actually intelligent. She indulges in overly elaborate games of deception that do not deceive me or many like me. Oombambris is a fool. I wonder if Oombambris knows of the true fate that overcame Ewarikas."

 

Suddenly JadeMaharg sparkle shimmered, transformed and now Oombambris was standing there with a smug smile on her face. In her right hand she held a forbidden technological weapon, a reality-nullifier. In theory even a very powerful false living-deity could not withstand the attack of such a device. "Do not concern yourself about your real mother. She is safely ensconced inside the new Confinement and Reconditioning Orbistrans itself. She dared to not only have doubts about the new direction of our people but about the new leadership and even myself."

 

"You are so very pompous." GreyMaharg gave a grin. "And stupid. I designed this place, refined this place and enhanced this place just as I did with the original Orbistransorbis. Now, go back to the others like yourself and warn them that the time of our people is almost over. Quick, leave." He clapped his hands and Oombambris vanished with a sparkling shimmer but with out the reality-nullifier which GreyMaharg grabbed quickly and put away some where safe. He had no intention of using it or letting anybody else use it.

 

He now knew that he was fighting his own mind, was fighting his own deep conditioning as given to him by his people and even his own deep fears. GreyMaharg wondered what he should do next and then he vanished with a sparkling shimmer.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 14, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

88^th

SAJOCOMBO, TABATHA AND SANDRA

HAVING DELIVERED THE SATCHEL, WHAT NEXT?

 

After the three appeared out of mid air in the middle of an important command meeting inside the Union Citadel on the Northern Patriot Island, there had been a good deal of excitement but anger but then the grey satchel was passed over. After that the three were quietly, quickly and efficiently ushered into a VIP holding area, basically a luxurious prison area. They were heavily interrogated about their experiences on the NeoSoviet Island and other matters, annoying deeply all three of them.

 

Yet Sagocombo was able to sense a great deal of activity through out the big, mostly underground fortress that was much like the DC Citadel in design but which was a little smaller. There was fear, there was anger, there was a rush to get things done but also a strong desire to work things out, to do research.

 

At last a handsome lightly muscular woman came to them and she sat behind the same table with them, facing them. She gave them a hard eyed smile and spoke. "We have considered the NeoSoviets of the People's Hegemony to be a threat for a long time but not a major one. The UC and then the UDC were both distracted, as you most likely know, by other threats and needs. Now we control most of the DC Islands including the Northern and Central Patriot Islands. Only Crosswayne, the Clansfolk, the NeoSoviets and the DomniCommonwealth now are outside of the UDC or its semiautonomous Protectorates."

 

Sajocombo snorted. "Protectorates!?"

 

Captain Stanz gave the great creature, who sat on the floor but who was still taller than the others, a dirty look. "Yes, Protectorates they are named and that is what they truly are." She looked back directly from him. "Crosswayne desires no trouble with us for now. The Clansfolk are happy to be left alone except for some trade and diplomacy. The DomniCommonwealth is always on the verge of collapse and it is the DomniInstitution itself that is the real threat there. Then what of the NeoSoviets. To our surprise they are not the real threat on their island. The real threat, as you personally witnessed, is in the ring shaped Weirding Zone of that island."

 

Tabatha frowned. "I would not so lightly dismiss the danger either of Professor Frankenfane or the NeoSoviets."

 

Stanz nodded. "We will not do so, which is why we are going to deal with both that threat and that of the undeath on the island with one blow. We are going to nuke the island. You are going to take the grey satchel to a particular place and time where a doorway will open. That will take you to meet with the living-god GreyMaharg on the NeoSoviet Island. You will give him the grey satchel. Now you may as well rest and otherwise prepare. You go in two hours."

 

She stood up while the others stared at her in shock.

 

Sajocombo scowled. "After Doomsday and all the other stupidity of history, you want to use a nuke. You can't do that!"

 

Stanz snorted. "Yes we can!" Then she abruptly turned and walked out of there. The armoured door was locked behind her.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 14, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

89^th

WOLFGANG, CROW, HOFF AND HARITH

A VITAL MEETING AND A SURPRISE

 

The first four caravan merchants to make in big working out from Canterbury Commons met in secret in the RobCo Robitic Repair Centre that had once been, briefly, the lair of the Mechanist. They were nervous and excited for at that meeting they were to gain their true rewards for years of hard work. The secret force that had assisted them to start in many ways, that had them secretly deliver special packages across the DC or to do other jobs, would finally pay them big time.

 

Crazy Wolfgang looked around at all of the types of Tron series robots on their display stands. The Robco Robotic Repair Centre had specialised in repairing trons though it had done some other kinds. There was a protectron, a worktron, a securatron, a servotron and a few other types, some quite exotic like the balltron, a ballgame playing type tron used in a popular weird sports 3DTV show. "Odd place to choose for a pay off point. Still, it is close to Canterbury Commons. We could grab all of these bots and sell them, even if they are basically sales dummies."

 

Crow snorted. "All that junk you have been selling for years has gone to your head, Wolfgang."

 

Doc Hoff snorted right back. "With all the crazy fighting going on, perhaps Wolfgang has a good idea. Me, I am going to take my reward and retire to Tenpenny Towers. I suggest that the rest of you do the same."

 

Lucky Harith nodded. "All four of us have been involved in murder, theft, kidnapping and other hard crimes. I got whispers that since Canterbury Commons joined the UDC that the UDC Police are investigating all merchants and that includes us. They is Unity and, unlike us, they can't be bought. Oh, don't give me those looks. The shadowy man chose well when he came to us. There were better traders than us who would not make deals with him."

 

"Fools, you mean!" Crow grinned. "Selling guns and ammo to the gangers and then the raiders made me a handy profit, including mininukes. Crazy Wolfgang you sold those small torture devices, the slave-collars and other nasties to the slavers. Doc Hoff, you have have most likely created at least a couple of thousand addicts. Lucky Harith you sold armour to the gangers and raiders, even power armour when you could get it."

 

"Interesting, most interesting." The voice came from a very surprising source as Herbert Daring Dashwood stepped into view and aimed two large, powerful revolver-pistols at the merchants. "Been looking for the scum behind all those crimes for ages until I was forced to go underground for a while. No, the man in Tenpenny Towers is not really me. Poor old mad duffer just needed a nice place to stay where he could live out his delusion that he is me."

 

Then out stepped Argyle the ghoul but now his face was fixed, he looked human, he was a demighoul. "Somebody very powerful rewarded me for my good deeds. He liked me more than I liked myself. The dead body in the fake Rockopolis is of course not me. You four were quite cunning but more cunning were those who worked to conceal your blunders including some corrupt Regulators who have been rounded up and locked away awaiting trial. Most likely the four of you are going to hang. The UDC simply does not have the resources to keep you in prison for years and even Death Row only lasts for three years."

 

Crow grinned and pulled out a powerful looking semiautomatic pistol. "Only two of you? You maybe the famous Dashwood and Argyle but there are four of us and all of us are experienced killers."

 

Argyle grinned his nasty grin which still looked effective enough. "So we brought some friends along we met out in the Wastelands. Super-soldiers is what they are called."

 

The SEARF super-soldiers flickered into view, five of them, three being noticeably female in the tight stealth power armour. Somehow they stood amazingly motionless and yet still managed to give the strong impression that they could inflict death and destruction very quickly and effectively.

 

Crow lowered his gun. "At least we can say we got arrested by somebody important. Not that we can tell you much of importance. We never got any important details. Still maybe we can make a deal of..."

 

Which was when his chest and the chests of the other three traders exploded and all four of them toppled over dead onto the table. Neither Dashwood or Argyle looked particularly surprised and the SEARF just stood there.

 

Dashwood turned to the SEARF. "Well, you sensed right. The fools were set up to die. Question is, who was the master traitor who was behind them? I do not think that we will ever learn the truth."

 

Lucky Eddie stepped into the chamber, being EddieJo. He had opened his visor and he smiled coldly. "Very clever! The two of you killed the real Argyle and betrayed Rockopolis before dumping Argyle's body in the part of Rockopolis that still can be reached easily. Then you placed poor Herbert Daring Dashwood into Tenpenny Towers after sending him insane. Then the two of you, who are actually one of you, replaced them. But why now did you kill the four traders when they could have gone on working for you?"

 

The false Argyle and the fake Dashwood shimmered and became one figure. The GreyZiazin looked troubled. "Had to start making amends before I loose the chance to do so. My finality is coming as is the finality of all of the false living-god/goddesses. As the DarkZiazin I turned those greedy fools into true monsters of death and destruction. Putting an end to them made sure they did no harm and that they did not give over the false information I had cunningly planted in their minds. I chose them because of their dark natures and redemption was out of the question; I know this because I tested them in their dreams, which is how I chose them in the first place."

 

Lucky Eddie nodded. "We will work together but carefully."

 

The GreyZiazin nodded with a grin of his own. "Very good and now to go to Tenpenny Towers and heal the real Herbert Daring Dashwood. Behind every truth is another truth; behind every facade is another facade." Then he vanished with a sparkling shimmer.

 

Lucky Eddie snorted. "Typical damned living-god type fairwell. Let's look around and see what we can salvage."

 

To his pleasant surprise he found that all the robots were fully working machines and that the machine had been not only made fully functional but it was full of very useful resources. The bunker below the actual shop, including its official basement levels, would be very useful to the SEARF-JAGAF. He doubted that the GreyZiazin's departing words had just been about the robots on display.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 14, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

90^th

FOCUS ON MEGATON

FLOWING TOWARDS THE ONE PLACE

 

JASMINE JADE, THE OTHER LONE WANDERER, WITH LUCKY EDDIELEE

 

Jasmine Jade, alter-ego to Clamity Jane, Charlie Jane and Lara Cleave, being one aspect of the Thirteenth of the Young Thirteen, came to Megaton with Lucky EddieLee, an alter-ego to EddieJo, and approached it via the underground areas. They came into Megaton Subway Station off-side area and there met Ironside Mercenary sentries. They were taken to the Ironsides Megaton Outpost, a large base in its own right, and took care of needs.

 

When them came Jasmine Jade's people, a whole lot of comrades of different nature, and SEARF super-soldiers in stealth power armour plue JAGAF super-soldiers in assault power armour. There were also SEARF and JAGAF robots and androids plus others. Indeed the expedition amounted to over 500 people and robots (androids being counted as people). The FreeEnclavers met with them and much discussion was undertaken. Early wariness faded as they all realised that they feared the EagleEnclave and the dark forces behind it much more than they did each other.

 

Ironsides Mercenaries had taken over guarding those of the Young Thirteen who were already in the special chamber, including the three neobabies.

 

Far away from Megaton the other three aspects of the Thirteenth of the Young Thirteen now knew they were free to continue their current missions with out returning to Megaton. As for the others of the Young Thirteen who had to reach Megaton Subway Station, they were on their way.

 

Jasmine Jade stood elegantly beautiful at the entrance to the special chamber. "This place is transformed now. All of this underground zone and above, including Megaton, are inside a special kind of transdimensional bubble of a kind called an Orbisorb. Not much of an exciting name, I know, but such Orbisorbs have formed, are forming or will soon be forming around important sites through out the DC Wastelands. So far Sugartown, Megaton, Arefu, Rivetcity, Rivertane, JettyTown, Wishram, MarinaBoa and the Potomac Isles are being inserted into Orbisorbs along with their surroundings. The same will soon happen to the DC Citadel, Girdershade, the new hidden Rockopolis, LifeVault-0101 and former Slavertown, now called its old name of Freetown. The original Freetown had been built by escaped slaves which was one of the reasons the slavers of Paradise Falls worked so heavily to take it down. Orbisorbs are not perfect protection but they must do for now until a better solution is able to be utilised."

 

Big Bill of the Ironsides Mercenaries had become a Captain after much hard fighting and some officer training gained at the DC Citiadel with the Brotherhood of Steel. So Captain Big Bill spoke as he examined the strange chamber. "They look somehow deeper than asleep."

 

"It would be near impossible to explain their true state in words but they are infiltrating the networks of network-systems right through out the DC as much as they can." Jasmine Jade nodded as if responding to a question in her own mind. "I will join them in a couple of minutes and I will boost and help guide their efforts. It is very hard work and tiring along with very dangerous. The danger lies not just in the protections of the networks of network-systems but in enemy activities and also in the damage of the networks. The SEARF-JAGAF will from now on be guarding the special chamber but you can keep sentries here also."

 

EddieLee was just like EddieJo. He radiated subtle threat but not evil. "SEARF has begun sending out stealth scouting patrols in the area. SEARF-JAGAF forces have struck and killed or captured the deformed victims from LifeVault-0101a. We will continue to work with the Ironsides."

 

Yes, amazingly enough, they had found a LifeVault-0101a. It was almost a perfect duplicate of the original LifeVault-0101 in many ways but much of it was made up of cells holding the poor monstrous results of many terrible experiments while the research and development area was much bigger. Surprisingly enough people still lived and worked there, the experimental subjects were cared for quite well complete with pain reducing treatments and even permanent treatments to alter them to better their lives. Why? Because the people had changed under the influence of the rising Unity and a dynasty of more enligthened Overseers, both men and women.

 

But there were still far too many monsters out there, underground, between the two LifeVaults and the Megaton Zone. As yet, they suspected, the combined armed taskforce had yet to meet the worst of what was hidden out there or so found clues indicated.

 

LIFEVAULT-0101 CIVIL WAR AND ESCAPE

 

Aaron and Aarie were moving as quick as they could with Aapie, Colaboy, DJgirl and others as they rushed through a utility-tunnel. The 'normal' population of the vault were changing, were becoming not monsters as the Elitors did except a small minority, but Dazi with terrible powers. There were exceptions. Amanda was one. She and a minority of others had become Mozi with special powers. Dazi and Mozi might once have been lovers, close friends or such like but now they fought each other savagely and with out mercy given or asked for. The twins' power had increased and they had begun to use them more overtly.

 

The tunnel shook with a muffled explosion. The cyborg-super-mutant was fighting on the side of the Mozi, being one himself, and had taken over many turrets and robots. Trouble was all the vault androids, or vaultdroids, were fighting on the side of the Dazi. The Overseers, including Amanda's father, were now Dazi leaders. Beatrice was the Mozi leader and was now no longer the sweet, eccentric that she had been. Or at least she no longer pretended expertly to be such for she had always been a tough agent involved with the shadier side of vault security. The Mozi were not going with the group but were fighting on. The group would try to send reinforcements, equipment and supplies to them.

 

Then they reached their destination, a secret chamber, a very hidden small telegate. Aaron went to the controls but the cyborg-super-mutant had already done that side of things. The telegate became active and they all went through it to appear in another very well hidden telegate chamber close to the special Young Thirteen chamber. It was a mildly unpleasant experience but they all got through safe and sound, the telegate closing and deactivating behind them. Yet soon it would be active and open again as military forces, equipment and supplies were sent to LifeVault-0101.

 

In a short time Aaron, Aarie and Aapie were both in the special chamber and in their special chairs, they being deep in linkage with the others. Now Jasmine Jade was there also, representing the Thirteenth, along with the three from Megaton, the three from Raven Rock and the three from VirtualVault-0112. Now there were only the six others to go, including two neobabies.

 

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 14, 2010 by Maharg67