War of Realities (Redone and Improved)

[Maharg67]

114^th

NEW EVENTS TAKING PLACE BEYOND DC

REFLECTIONS AND RAMIFICATIONS

 

Peoples in California were retreating to Orbis be they tribals or Orders of Steel or the New California Republic or others. But they were also doing so from other areas across the Americas, through out Asia, Africa and beyond. For the Mist of Death and the Fog of Undeath were clashing mindlessly but with incredible force across the world. The effect was almost haphazard. One place would remain uneffected while right next to it would be utter death and destruction. Not just peoples were being taken but equipment, supplies, livestock, pets, artworks and a great deal more. The Orbis was even taking up wildlife in the form of flora and fauna, even microbotic life.

 

The EagleEnclave gathered its forced and moved them all towards the DC while the FreeEnclave outside of the DC went up into Orbis. But many EagleEnclave forces became trapped by worse enemies than the Skynet and, surrendering, were taken up into Orbis.

 

As for the Skynet, it went on fighting and, against all expectations, threw back both the Madness of Mist and Fog. Absorbing abandoned bunkers, vaults and equipment, the Skynet began to build up its power and to make plans to conquer the DC. But none of this was coincidental for a very old, powerful but subtle force was now guiding the Skynet.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

[Maharg67]

115^th

APPROACHING SERENITY CITY

ARRIVAL NEW ALLIES

 

Calamity Jane sensed the large life force appear next to her and then she had the company of five great armoured knights on their horses. Just as suddenly she was riding a horse instead of walking though her horse had no armour. Each was a power armoured version of a quasimedieval knight and his or her horse. There was Sir Lancelot, Lady Swordwise, Sir Galahad, Lady Lunavine and Sir Blaze. Yes it was strange but in many ways less strange than the landscape that they were passing through.

 

Sir Lancelot spoke. "The magical realm of Camelot was attacked by the undeathly forces coming out of Serenity City who found a transdimensional gap to reach us. At great cost we threw them back. King Arthur himself fell and now sleeps in deep healing while Queen Genivere rules from the White Throne. For past crimes neither I or the queen are allowed to meet and so I was sent to lead the taskforce of our Knights, Archers, Pikesmen and Infanty sent here to help undo the curse on this poor world. By our law I must inform you of this at the start so as to declare my shame. In truth I find it quite annoying."

 

Sir Galahad spoke then. "Put a cork in it, Sir Lancelot; you should have kept it inside your armour. You must be the renouned Calamity Jane who destroyed the carnivore trees with those amazing sixgun pistols of yours."

 

Calamity Jane nodded. "I have spent more time saving dying rabbits than killing carnivore trees."

 

Sir Galahad nodded his helmeted head back with its splendid plume. "A nobile deed to the lowly beasts of nature. Even such as the carnivore trees suffer in this realm for they are driven to devour such as the sickened rabbits but then have painful difficulty digesting them and are infected by the diseases they carry."

 

Lady Swordwise then spoke with a hard edged honey sweet voice. "Killing is of no satisfaction here when all are victims. Calamity Jane, we must go to the city by angling away from the city in just the right way. That is why you have not yet reached Serenity City though I am not sure why anybody would want to go there."

 

But they all kept going there anyway.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 26, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

116^th

FAMILIAR CHARACTERS OF THE DC WASTELANDS

MOMENTS OF LIFE DRAMA

 

SECURITY CHIEF HARKNESS, RIVETCITY

 

Harkness knew he was an android, a highly advanced kind though not a replicant, deep down inside but at the 'surface levels' he was convinced he was a human and just the Security Chief of RivetCity. Still that was a position with much prestige, authority and oligation. The amazing events over the past year or so had in some ways effected the floating settlement of vessels and the onshore part of it and yet in many ways had not. Yes, refugees had flooded there but now there was no more room. Yes, the UDC had helped to upgrade the many network-systems of the settlement. They had overhauled a couple of vessels totally. They had turned the aircraft-carrier into a static aircraft-carrier, moving civil accomodations to a new, small river-liner.

 

Harkness was starting to fully know he was an android and he was not happy that the infamous Doctor Zimmer from the DomniCommonwealth was in RivetCity with a team of three androids and two humans. But now something new was happening that was more important. RivetCity was being turned into an active fleet. The landside areas were being turned into facilities for the UDC Defence Forces, the UDCDF, and the vessels were all being driven out to the more central part of the great river. He stood high in the tower of the aircraft-carrier and he looked out over the waters, the shoreline, as in the first time in a very long time the big military vessel began to truly move again, to do what it had been designed to do.

 

Doctor Zimmer was down in the Hydroponics Research and Development Centre giving the people there a hard time. Any time Harkness would be ordered to go down and evict him. Then Zimmer would use a very sophisticated device that would detect that Harkness was the escaped android. There would be a fight. Harkness was one of the best AWOL android hunting androids that the DomniInstitute had ever created and he would be up against only inferior grade androids like Armitage the bodyguard. But the fear was that Doctor Zimmer himself would have a special device to immobalise Harkness, to knock him helpless and unable to defend himself.

 

It was then that Memar, a talle elegant woman and close follower of the missing Abraham Washington, came up and stood next to Harkness. She smiled just a little. "Doctor Zimmer has been dealt with. He is on his way home with the deep impression that you have been destroyed. His team are going with him except the androids who now serve you. Though we would have done this anyway because we loath the DomniInstitute and how it works, we would ask a favour in return. Please come and meet android PSPa021. We wish to note how two power and very sophisticated androids of very different type development will interact. Now please do not frown so. I am a third kind of such android, a super replicant, and will join in with the process. You are not alone."

 

Harkness smiled. "That is good."

 

HAROLD, OASIS

 

Harold was a tree of sorts, or at least Bob was who had absorbed him, and he was at core of the great lush green basinland created partly by Doomsday. It was lush, it was fertile, it produced highly nutritional food and supported a thriving population of Oasisfolk who were humans, chimpnoids and gorillanoids. But Harold was tired of being mutated and engulfed by a tree. He was bored with the carry on of the various Oasis nutters including the cult known as the Treeminders. They did not do anything to relieve his boredom but read to him the same tiresome religious tracts that made him cringe. When he tried to communicate, they misunderstood and then freely translated his words into what they wanted them to be.

 

Harold was hoping that somebody would come along and kill him by finding his organs that Bob had hidden away in a big underground, watery cave infested with mirelurks. So far nobody had done so.

 

Harold would have sighed, if he had the means to do so, when she came along. NessaMagre was tall, beautiful and dressed in translucent green robes. She stepped up to him, laid a hand gently on Bob and then she spoke. "Boredom is your enemy and not being different. Be now freer to speak, freer to move, to project yourself seperately as Harold the man to walk all around Oasis and to do other things. Oasis is now inside an Orbisorb that protects it more than it has been. The DC needs you, Harold, and it needs Bob but please stop calling him Herbert as he does not like it."

 

Harold and Bob shimmered. Suddenly Harold the man was standing there in green coveralls, brown gumboots and across from him was a fair sized wooden cottage made of living plants. Inside, he knew somehow, were a bed, lots of books, an android companion, a nice larder full of vegetarian food and even a cloned pet dog along with other resources.

 

The Treeminders, with the armed and body-armoured Treeguards, came bustling towards Harold and Bob but NessaMagre met them before they could get to their destination. She quieted Tree Father Birch and Leaf Mother Laurel who had come to lead different factions, one wanting to confine Oasis influence just to itself and the other wanting it to spread beyond. They fell silent before the amazing presence of NessaMagre as she quietly informed them of their mistakes, their other mistakes and how they could make amends. They also learned of the Orbisorb and she promised them that they would learn much of what had taken place beyond the confines of Oasis itself.

 

The big happy cloned puppy dog came out and Harold gave him a warm welcome. He firmly but gently stopped Rover from cocking his leg against Harold-Bob the tree. Then the two went off together for a walk and Harold to tell the people of Oasis what he was really trying to tell them for many years.

 

Oasis would become known to the DC and would become a Protectorate of the UDC. Harold would marry Branchtender Maple, the young woman who helped guard the way into Oasis though she was not, strictly speaking, a Treeguard. They would have interesting children together.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 26, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

117^th

POPULATIONS TRIPLING AND GROWTH INCREASING

THE BABY AT THE BASE OF THE TOWER

 

Populations of people had tripled, had exploded in some places and plants, wildlife had also grown in fertile and numbers. Radioactivity had become reduced. Fertility of the ground had increased. The UDC, the Orders of the Way, the Orders of Steel and others were slow to comprehend the amazing changes. This was partly because of the patchwork nature of those changes, the suddeness of them, the other pressures on everybody and because of the sometimes overwhelming nature of those changes.

 

Megaton was now filling the whole Jagged Crater.

 

RivetCity was a fleet of over twenty big vessels and many smaller ones now moving slowly and steadily along the river towards the sea and the DC Islands.

 

Sugartown was a true thriving city now as were CanterburyCommons, Greyditch, Girdershade, Arefu that was now two great interlinked bridges and many others, including settlements once too small to truly be remembered by most and new ones such as Twinhigh, Sunniville, Port Domus, Hillttropos and Besthedaburg.

 

The Dazi and other AntiUnity forces were now pushed further into Paradise Falls where they were trapped.

 

3Dog and 2Kitty, with DJBot the MrHandy style robot with too much personality, were with the floating baby down in the basement. Not alone, though. There were the big creatures, the gorgres, of course and some wombles had appeared to play with the gorgres, cousins of theirs, and the softly glowing baby.

 

The little girl was floating upside down, which she did with natural ease and great comfort, as she examined DJBot closely. The robot was speaking. "Well, you know I am one of the reasons that GNR has thrived as much as it has, if I must say so in a most modest fashion."

 

The baby grurbled, gurbled and farted but she said nothing for she was clearly not in the mood to talk. She spun verrtically gently but still faced DJBot as she did so. Then she reached out and touched DJBot with her trigger finger. The robot shimmered softly and now it was bigger and no longer had fanjets to make it hover but just floated there like a balloon, bobbing very gently. There were neat arrangements of spigots offering all sorts of tasty treats and other services that would make such as a small floating baby living-godling happy.

 

3Dog was holding a baby womble in his arms who was exploring his ear with avid interest, having never seen one before. "The baby was here for a long time but in such a way that nobody knew of it. This great tower was constructed by MetroTek, the TekCorp who built whole cities, military bases and much else along with USTek, WestTek and VaultTek. But somehow MetroTek built around the chamber, reinforced it externally, with out ever knowing it was here. Bizarre but it goes smoothly with the rest of the bizarre real history of this world."

 

2Kitty was looking down at the floor. "So this chamber is as old as the Seal down there that for so long helped to confine the Lords and Ladies of Undeath?"

 

He nodded. "From a very long time ago this whole set of events has been set up to get to a particular outcome but by who or what and for what conclusion or goal?"

 

GreyMaharg stood there suddenly, stepping out of mid-air. He looked tired and wore battered and burned looking power-armour with out the helmet, or at least that is what it looked like. He went over to the floating baby girl who whirled and raced into his arms with many noises of happiness. Then she was in the gloved hands of her father and was looking into his eyes. "Daddy!"

 

He smiled richly. "Yes, daddy. Now it is time to go. You have been a very good special baby and you have done just what daddy asked you to do and even better than that. Since you have been only a little grumpy now and then, like a very good wonderful little girl, I have lots of treats for you." He turned to the surprised humans. "Now, the tower is going to start transforming."

 

There was a shuddering, shivering, shimmering, sparkling that went right through the chamber, through the great tower and beyond. The tower began to change shape and it began to reach upwards, to stretch upwards into the sky. It moved with amazing speed, growing thicker and shooting out great flying-buttresses but somehow nobody or nothing was hurt thanks to the amazing forces being used. The tip of the tower struck the edge of the atmosphere and then was in lower orbit. Now it shot upward further and then it halted. For a long while it strengthened itself, its foundation and changed its nature further so the new skytower would stay intact.

TO BE CONTINUED

[Maharg67]

118^th

KITTENS AND PUPPIES

OLD GRANDMA WEIRDLY

 

Knight Captain Gallows, his two soldiers, and Fawkes went deeper into complex of tunnels and chambers often partly filled with strange machinery or other devices like great bubbling transparent tubes of purple gook or big green semitransparent domes filled with disturbing shivery plasticy plants of strange colours.

 

In one chamber was only a disk shaped platform and an armglass dome over what looked like a large Nineteenth Century wardrobe. The wardrobe looked to be of oak and had many fine decorations including of fawns, giants, an evil looking witch and even lion head shaped door knobs.

 

Yet another held a terrible black creature, glistening metallic, with a strange banana shaped head and long barbed tail. The thing had extending teeth within metallic teeth and stood on two legs, having two arms with terrible talons. A sign on the outside of the dome had the warning: BEWARE OF ACID BLOOD. But the warning was mute because the creature was long dead.

 

Then they found her, the old lady sitting in her metallic wooden rocking-chair looking in many ways old, sweet and innocent with her shawl, her blanket, her grey hair done up in a bun with a pair of knitting needles thrust through it. But the tips of the knitting needles were covered with dried blood, her eyes were blood red pools and she had long, sharp teeth. She looked up from the lit up corner of the chamber where she sat fairly close to a steel fireplace that seemed to be melded out of the metal wall somehow. The fire was blazing nicely but instead of wood, it was burning bones as if they were very nice bits of fireplace wood.

 

"Grandma Weirding is my name but not my true nature. I am not your enemy or the enemy of life, far from it." She shrugged. "Once I was a false living goddess. My false immortality and nature arose from the Orbistransorbis but I began to die and as I died it came to me that I was becoming one of the Ladies of Undeath. But more than that a Lady of Undeath had been created the moment I became a false living goddess but while I was alive, she was weak. When I died, she would become strong. Instead of attacking her, of being her enemy, I reached out and we communicated. It was then that I knew that she and I were in truth but one, that we were the same entity but that was not the biggest surprise of all. Many of the Lords and Ladies of Undeath do not wish to exist. They have come to long for true death. The two of us merged and became unique; we became Grandma Weirding. We are strong in some ways, weak in others, and we like sending kittens and puppies down to the Little Lamplighters to help protect them special wise."

 

She gave a whistle and a whole lot of cats and dogs flooded into the area. They all sat or stood looking calmly at the newcomers. A cat jumped onto the old woman's lap.

 

Gallows shook his head in wonder. "What is the great plan? What is the great conspiracy behind everything that has and is happening?"

 

The old woman sighed very deeply. "There was no one great plan, what with so many powerful players involved who were often fighting each other or trying to manipulate each other. Things are not what they seem. Beware of the PJP-androids, all of them. Your friend, Uncle Leo, is with one of the PJP-androids now but Uncle Leo is far from being a fool. He sent you away so that you would be safe while he dealt with the android that is both more and less than an android."

 

Then she sighed. "Soon I am going to die. You will serve me best by taking all of my beloved pets down to the Lamplight Caverns. In dying I will attain a purpose that I have been planning for a very long time. My true name is EmeralMaharg and I am the mother-primary to GreyMaharg. The great turtles came to me, swimming through and between the dimensions, and informed me of how it can all be saved falling back to the very original mistake. Matters will be changed. The world will be renewed. Actually I really don't know what is going to happen but I have faith in the One that is in truth all of the swimming turtles and much else besides. The One that is sometimes known as God, as the Goddess, as the Universal Light and by many other names."

 

The chamber suddenly shook greatly and bits of smart-concrete fell from the ceiling.

 

The old woman smiled and gently put the cat down on the floor that had been sitting on her lap. She smiled with sharp teeth and then spoke. "Take my lovely pets to the Lamplight Caverns at once. There are more than cats and dogs but you will cope. You and they must get to the Lamplight Caverns for more than just the sake of the pets. I am going up into the great Lamplight Tower that juts so proudly above Lamplight Mountain. There already there is a great battle raging between the true natures of Uncle Leo and that android."

 

Then she vanished.

 

The pets gathered in an orderly manner, radiating sadness and anger but determination to get to Little Lamplight. There were dogs, cats, snakes, radroaches, radscorpions, deathclaws, horses and much else, many of them being Predoomsday creatures, many being Wastelands creatures but many also being of unknown kinds. A thing like wriggling, glowing rainbow spaghetti floated towards Knight Captain Gallows and he, sensing it was the right thing to do, gave it a warm stroke.

 

Along with robots of varied kinds, and androids, they were soon on their way to the Lamplight Caverns.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 30, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

119^th

FAMILIAR CHARACTERS OF THE DC WASTELANDS

MOMENTS OF LIFE DRAMA

 

SOME FOLKS AT BIGTOWN

 

It was Bittercup, the strange goth-punk young woman who was first drawn to the ugly grey black metallic building in Bigtown first. She was for once painfully aware and responsive to its presence and walked up to it with a shudder clutching a doubleboomer shotgun. But it was not long before Red, Pappy and others joined her, all now fully aware of the monster building and heavily armed. Where there had been no doors, no windows but only small heavily grated vents, there was now a big pair of armoured doors. They approached the doors not so bravely and then the great, heavy metal structures simply opened with a soft humming noise, sliding to each side and vanishing into hidden recesses.

 

Inside was what looked like a large metallic grey and black elevator chamber but in contrast to that was an old wrinkled man in an old fashioned elevator operator uniform from the very early 20th Century History of the USA. The old man gave them a very warm smile. "The threat is gone now, my wonderful Bigtowners. No more souls are becaming reclaimed and turned into clones to grow up to adulthood in the Lamplight Caverns and then from there in Bigtown to be gathered up to be turned into supermutants. Yet there were other things that were happening all this time. Perhaps you would like to come and have a look?"

 

Bittercup promptly stepped into the elevator. She spoke. "Do you think yellow candles are more spiritiual than red candles?"

 

The elevator operator smiled at her. "Depends on time and place, subject and subjective along with other factors, sweetly troubled Bittercup. If you like yellow, then it is yellow. If you like red, then the answer is red.

 

Bittercup giggled sharply. "I like green."

 

Pappy stepped into the elevator chamber. "Bittercup, I am sure the elevator man does not want to hear such rubbish."

 

The elevator operator smiled. "Then, Pappy, your sureness is wrong. Bittercup, then the answer is green candles. Hurry folks. There is at least one big surprise waiting for all of you."

 

Then they were all entering the big elevator and to the surprise of the Clearminds, some Fogminds quietly followed them into the chamber. Soon the doors were closing and then they were not only closed, they were vanished.

 

MURPHY AND BARRAT AT NORTH-WEST SENECA STATION

 

Murphy laughed with glee. The ghoul scientist had done it. He had created his first large batch of ultrajet that was like the drug jet but much stronger so that even ghouls could enjoy its effects. Ghouls were more resistant to normal jet than were humans. He stepped back and carefully examined the trays of ultrajet which to him meant plenty of profits to be made after years of hard effort. Sugar bombs had been the hardest ingredient to find, oddly enough, and he had been forced to buy the stuff from fools at the lowest price possible. Murphy smiled a crooked grinny smile. He was deeply convinced that somehow he was smarter than other people, was more cunning.

 

Murphy spoke to Barrat. "Quick, fool, get the handcart ready. I want to be ready for the arrival of our first wholesale customer."

 

Barrat replied in his normal cold, hard voice. "As you order, boss, as you order."

 

Which was when Barrat, his long time loya and very toughl bodyguard, came up behind Murphy and stabbed him to death with one cleverly aimed thrust of a combat knife. Barrat carefully lowered the dead ghoul scientist to the floor. After that he carefully gathered up all the notes and put them into a leather satchel. After that he downloaded everything from the computer terminal before he destroyed the computer, including its hard-datadisk.

 

Barrat did not have to wait for long before the others arrived. Exotic power armour clad figures, the extreme AntiUnity Brothers of Desolation, came into the chamber and the leader took from Barrat the satchel, the datadisk of downloaded data and a notepad that Barrat had previously overlooked.

 

Barrat grinned. "Now, the money that you promised."

 

The Brother of Desolation raised his tricarbine and ripped apart the ghoul bodyguard with a burst of caseless slimshot bullets. Very soon there were two dead ghouls on the smart-concrete floor. The Brother spoke. "We take everything of use and will return now to Paradise Falls."

 

They even looted the dead ghouls of useful items before they departed with other taken stuff, including the big batch of ultrajet.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

 

Edited August 1, 2010 by Maharg67

[species5478]

Consuming read. It's always interesting to see what fellow writers do with familiar people and places. Your version of Dr. Zimmer for instance, is much closer to the original portrayal found in the game.

[Maharg67]

THANK YOU!, Species5478, for the positive feedback. Though there is a big exotic (weird?) element in the story, I tried in my rewrite to balance this with the more normal portrayal of many characters. My fanfic in future will go towards more typical stuff, or at least most of it will. But then again I have made such predictions before.

 

Thanks again. :thumbsup: