It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

[Maharg67]

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time 67.1[97]

Hunting Down Conspiracies

 

Glimmerpods slid out of an AraArtifact, linked with other ancient power-artifacts, as amazingly old network-systems attempted to deal with the foolish use of quasiliving mechanisms by greedy mortals lacking any real wisdom. The glimmerpods contained transdimensional toxins that would not have been produced if the AraArtifacts were properly serviced.

 

Gravet Maharg was overseeing the attempt, in that part of the Lunar Labyrinth, to carry out emergency diagnostics, and maintainence, but it was made more difficult because at least one faction was misusing the AraArtifacts. He looked much like Graham Maharg but younger. His appearance, his shapeform, were solid illusions and that was true for the other Mahargs of the Eternal Guardian.

 

At least that stream of glimmerpods were being made harmless. The sparkly energy armored figure could easily see kelenite insectoids carrying glimmerpods to where they were dumped into a series of 100 special vats. In the vats the glimmerpods would transform, fairly slowly, into much safer substances than glimmermist and the bizarre glimmerings that were always found in glimmermist.

 

Horse soldiers, of the United Commonwealths Empire, were gathered loosely as a brigade and observing what was going on in their curious fatigues and body-armor. They carried an odd mixture of bolt-action rifles and biomechanical projectile weapons. The horses were partly covered in the same exotic kind of body-armor. It was odd to think that their ancestors had come from the British Empire in the late 1800s. While about half were human there were both non-humans and hybrids.

 

The Eternal Guardian turned to them. "Who sent you here and why? We are busy and can not afford to be interrupted."

 

The big, broad shouldered, man with striking red hair including a big mustache, he stepped forward in his uniform and body-armor. "Are you not being hasty in your actions? The Imperial Merchant Traders Company wishes to buy from you a supply of these glimmerpods to utilize as a potent power source for the United Commonwealths Empire. The Emperor would be most pleased to see such a trade take place."

 

Gravet Maharg sighed. "No, the UCE Emperor would not be at all pleased by such a deceptive action falsely done under his name. You wear the wrong armor, and uniforms while carrying odd weapons for UCE Imperial Regimental Soldiers. The non-human boneskin akumans, and akuman-human hybrids, would never end up serving the Empire who have become enemies. Savathool, and his exotic shapeshifting followers, are akumans. Savathool sent you to gain glimmerpods one way or another. He should have known better but then again, he considers you to be all expendable when it comes to his personal ambitions and his fear of the monsters you all serve."

Edited October 4, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time 67.2[98]
Hunting Down Conspiracies

The false UCE military officer scowled. "Savathool is a fool, though a useful one. Those that we serve know their true followers, such as myself, and will reward us well."

Gravet sighed softly in bored frustration. "Divide and rule. Manipulate through mind-body-spirit. Do you have any idea who, or what, really commands you? Do you consider it to be the Genius13 who have been said to be those who created the expedition, from the British Moors, to Luna."

The creature shook his head. "Are you a fool? They were never anything but puppets who were tricked into believing that they knew far more than they did."

Gravet stood higher than the imposters, on a squat block tower that was semi-enclosed at top. He frowned softly. "I am the Eternal Guardian; I suggest that you show some respect."

The fake man snorted. "We serve the purity of true life that will be our final reward for serving the Palegods."

The Eternal Guardian gave the shapeshifters a look of sadness. "Palegods are deceived puppets of another force and you are the deceived puppets of the Palegods. It is time for you to be tested. Those of you who survive, the testing, will go to Sanctum to be tested again. Those who survive the second testing will be transformed to dwell in one of the Subsanctums of Sanctum. You do not know how lucky you are!"

 

The false soldiers clearly did not think themselves lucky as they, and the real horses, vanished away with a sparkling shimmer. A few of the humanoids burned away but none of the horses did for they were not guilty of any crimes.

 

Why was Savathool interested in the glimmerpods of that place? Surely Savathool had known such a stupid ploy would fail unless Savathool had not actually known about what was going on. Had one of his cronies decided to try to make gains behind Savathool's back?

Edited October 4, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

:nuke: :down: :sweat: :thumbsup: :teehee:

[Maharg67]

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time 68.1[99]

Hunting Down Conspiracies

Armstrong, and those with him, made their way across the vast chamber past other copies of human artifacts. Even as they did so, others were arriving of the Alliance and were examining the mechanisms back there, each that turned out to be on a great square plate and which would be replaced if moved. Empress Amanda was amongst the people there examining the replicas of the limousine, the Saturn V multistage rocket and much else.

His group made their way past a replica of the Eiffel Tower, Paris France, but it was smaller than the one of the Known Ordered World though still very large. The one of the Known Ordered World had a small hotel turned into a convention centre for the UN except for a few special VIP apartments.

 

There were two twin skyscrapers, called the World Trade Centre, but the one of the Known Ordered World was three massive interlinked skyscrapers connected by large horizontal flying buttress like strut-ways that even took a light monorail network.

 

Three great stone Great Pyramids were there, all white and capped with gold alloys as they had been soon after built. They were smaller than those of the Known Ordered World and largely solid instead of having each a network of temple chambers, and tunnels, including treasury vaults and such as emergency food stores.

 

Information kept coming to Armstrong, as the Eternal Seeker, of two alternate histories of two Alternate Earths, one being smaller with out a world-bubble and the other being larger with a world-bubble.

 

There were other structures copied from that other Earth be they buildings or great statues and all had some kind of equivalent on the known Earth.

 

They were moving in, and out, of a great big building. Those giant ant-humanoid creatures going in pulled empty hand-carts but those coming out pulled hand-carts full of an amazing assortment of taken items. Armstrong knew that at a given time the US Empire State Building copy would rejuvenate-regenerate and all the items would be replaced. There was furniture, food, rolled up carpeting, artworks, small machines, reams of paper and much else. Clearly the creatures knew what they were doing, had done it before. Armstrong somehow knew that they had done it with other structures.

 

The giant ant like antenites were going to where the carts were empties by armored humans and where the antenites were given sacks, and barrels, of stuff in exchange. The antenites would take their rewards off to others of their kind and the carts would be emptied before they head back to the copy of the Empire State Building of Terra before everything had changed.

 

The armored humans had big armored tracktrucks and wheeled armored trucks. They were in crude mechasuits like those of the PanAxis Soldiers to some extent but they had a type of flag that was a Union Jack but with a thick golden border around the edges.

Edited October 4, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time 68.2[100]

Hunting Down Conspiracies

Armstrong met the leader of the Imperial Merchant Traders Company enterprise. She was tall, rugged and wore only body-armor over fatigues. She was part human and part something else that gave her light green skin and very spiky dark green hair. Her eyes were bright green. She spoke in what had probably once been English of the late 1800s. "We have laid claim to this great treasure trove and all in it. You must negotiate with us before ..."

Armstrong glowed with energies and held his hand up high. "The IMTC is little more than a rogue commercial organization working at the very edges of United Commonwealths Imperial Territories. It is not given much respect by the Empire itself and the Emperor has decreed a major imperial investigation is to be carried out into its activities. I am the Eternal Seeker and while you are paying the antenites a fair price for those goods, you could give them more and still gain big profits. The antenites do your heavy work except for your people who go into the target structures to choose items. The antenites are hardly likely to know what is valuable to humanoids."

She frowned. "I am part human and part paritant; the UCE does not accept such hybrids as citizens and so I am one of those who must survive at the edges of the UCE. The UCE becomes increasingly harder for nonhumans to dwell in, with every passing day, and the Emperor is making matters worse with his human purism and love of false traditions that are more a product of his deranged mind than of any reality. He is advised by the bizarre PaleElders whose origins are unknown to most. I do not know why I am telling you this."

Armstrong smiled. "My winning personality, of course. The PaleElders are most like of the Palelords who serve the Palegods who are not really gods but who are living vampires of great power. All of the PaleOnes are living vampires but most are not, relatively speaking, very powerful. The PaleOnes were created by a mixed influence of both glowmist and glimmermist in a series of experiments that should never have been carried out. Glimmermist comes from AraArtifacts long overdue being truly serviced but also from other sources. Glowmist arises in response to the presence of glimmermist, coming from special AraArtifacts but also from other sources. Where are the goods going to and who is buying them?"

The woman spoke. "I am Strellar and the goods are going to Tradecity that is on the very edges of the UCE. They have Borderguards, Rangers, and Police Troopers there but only some amount of real control. Many of their people there are misfits, criminals, and others sent there because they are generally unwanted by the Empire. There are also many hybrids and others who are not welcome to live, in the Empire, as citizens but have been given secondary semicitizenship or lower subcitizenship or even special demicitizenship that has some privileges that only high citizens get in the Empire. What we gain is worth much to the Empire but it is a long, dangerous, journey between here and Tradecity; there is also a big limit to what we can take with us."

 

Armstrong sighed. "Your story is very good and almost convincing; the substances that you are giving to the antenites, in exchange for the goods from the structures, is created by the vast hive empire of the selenites who number over 1,000,000,000,000 entities. Thankfully most are workers and non fighting specialists. The nearest selenite fortified outpost is much closer to here than is Tradecity."

Edited October 4, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time 68.3[101]

Hunting Down Conspiracies

Strellar shrugged. "We are selenite citizens who dwell at the outskirts of the NestEmpire, as it is often called. We are more accepted by the selenites, in their own way, than we would be by the UCE. The goods both to our people to use to serve the NestEmpire and to selenites so they can study those human items. We live in the Humatene Enclaves of the NestEmpire and the selenites know us as humatenes for their own reasons."

 

Armstrong shook his head. "As you know, all of you have some selenite gene integration bonding you to the selenites though only lightly so by selenite standards."

 

Strellar shrugged again. "The selenites would not have us if we did not go through the treatments, which are most unpleasant and which a tiny minority do not survive. We do trade with distant Tradecity, a trade that the NestEmpire and UCE both accept unofficially because it is valuable for both. Officially the two Empires are enemies though not active ones."

 

Armstrong nodded but as if to himself. "After today you will cease your operations. The Eternal Guardian will come to deal with this place. You will have enough to take with you back to the Humanete Enclaves. What I want to know is how did you get into this AraComplex?"

 

Strellar shrugged yet again. "Two Waygates and a Waygate already active for us to use. We did not activate it. According to the antenites the Waygates, and Waygateway, were activated by shadowy entities that could not quite be defined. The antenites did not like them at all. The antenites know of Shadowmen but stated that the entities were not Shadowmen."

 

"Makes logical sense; the Shadowmen can not work with AraArtifacts because of their intrinsic nature, at least not easily. They prefer not to do so because it is dangerous for them to do so." Armstrong changed subjects. "You transported glimmerpods at least once, I can 'sense' it."

 

The green woman winced. "You True Eternals are too tricky to deal with. We did it four times before deciding the profits gained were not good enough to deal with the uneasiness of being so close to those 'things'. We transported the glimmerpods from one big glowcavern to an ancient city where they were treated somehow and then we carried them onwards to some other glowcavern at the very edges of the damned PanAxis. It will cost my people not to be able to come here any further."

 

Armstrong nodded. "You allow me a light mind reading of you and you gain much. You get two golden chargecrystal, six silver chargecrystal and 18 copper chargecrystals being all fully charged primaries of high quality. You get those delivered to your people, you pay tribute to the selenites thus pleasing them greatly, making sure you give them half. Inform them of me and that I wish to trade with them directly and that what I gave to you is to remain with you or they deal with the True Eternals in a not so positive manner."

 

He spoke again after a pause. "I want to know more about where you took the glimmerpods to be 'treated' and what that meant."

 

Strellar looked wary but then, with yet another shrug, she nodded. "That is a fortune you offer us, enough to do much for the Humatene Enclaves and we humatenes. I can only accept and also I somehow know I can trust you. Go ahead but I am not sure you will gain much of use."

Edited October 4, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time 69.1[102]
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

Armstrong, Eternal Seeker, communicated with other True Eternals through ancient network-links. The information was vital being the fact that glimmerpods had been altered somehow, that something lethal had been added to each one that was strengthened by the glimmermist that was also in the glimmerpods. That so many glimmering comet projectiles crashed into the oceans, and were destroyed, was not a failure. The projectiles that struck land, that released glimmermist and caused zombies, were an effective decoy from what was the real intention of the bombardment.

'Things' were moving through the ocean but not it was not known what those things were or what their purpose was.

It became even more necessary that the SavaCompact's plan to launch more of the glimmerpods, at Terra, was foiled before it truly began.

 

Some very cunning, intelligent, mentality had managed to fool even the True Eternals enough to delay their discovery of what was really going on.

 

Gravet Maharg continued to oversee the dealing with glimmerpods as extruded from AraArtifacts, to make sure that they were safely dealt with. While most were destroyed totally, a few were transformed into useful resources to help deal with future exotic threats.

 

Grahen Maharg, who was with Jane Bond and netclone supersoldiers, kept on trying to safely reach and rescue the young woman floating in the globe of liquid, along with her three very small babies and other unseen but somehow there.

 

Graham Maharg was in one 'alternate' at the same time, was dealing with computer network-systems in a research development complex. With him was Bobbie and other netclone supersoldiers. In another alternate Graham Maharg had learned, from a frightened Shadowman, that a crazy scattered conspiracy was taking place but that it was buried in, hidden behind, decoyed by other conspiracies. While it was linked with the Cult Conspiracy, it was not the Cult Conspiracy. Nor was it the ShadowEmpire's off-on Shadow Conspiracy. Nor did it have anything to do with the mad conspiracy schemes of the Illuminati or Hydramax or the Supervillain League or anything like them.

 

War continued in the Lunar Overworld between the SavaCompact and its enemy alliance. Deserters began abandoning the SavaCompact with increasing numbers being all Lunatyr. The reason was that Savathool, and his followers, were proving to be brutal and uncaring of their general forces while the PanAxis monsters seemed to gain pleasure out of doing harm to any true Lunatyr because they considered the tall ones to be inferior.

 

Glimmermist began to emerge out of Forbidden Zones, in the Known Ordered World, bringing with them zombies and other lesser undead. Battles were waged, and won, by the living only for there to be more assaults. None could, or would, go into the Forbidden Zones or so it seemed. There was no trouble from the one Forbaden Zone in the Known Ordered World.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time 70.1[103]
Hunting Down Conspiracies

The large fisherboats moved quick despite the high choppy waves. They were cleverly designed for rough conditions but were not fishing; instead they were heading away from a big, slowly, approaching storm. They were were in United Nations Ranger monitored areas but also dangerously close to a Havenlander Outpost Colony, Havenlander Paramilitary Forces also monitoring area thanks to an agreement with the UN.

The deep sea fishing vessels were not only fishing illegally out of season but were doing so in a natural fishing reserve where all fishing was forbidden. They moved in a small fleet of five fishing vessels and two support vessels, one holding big freezer rooms for catches and the other being for technical support mainly. The first vessel had a recreation room and the second vessel had a medical room because the fleet spent many months out at sea and away from any human inhabited area.

The Fleet Captain considered her title far too grand for what she did. Nor did she like what she did and was less inclined to do so with every passing year. Despite the big profits made from fishing uncommon, and very delicious, seafood she was only too aware of the dangers. The UN Rangers were bad enough but the Havenlanders could be down right nasty with their ways of looking at nature. Her contract was ending soon and, despite offers of big increases in wages and bonuses, she was not renewing it. No, she wanted to have time off and then to start a new career as a legitimate fishing captain even if the rewards were far less. One reason was that the illegal fishing expeditions were becoming steadily more dangerous and some of the dangers were becoming steadily more weird.

Then the alarms began to sound from the fancy, highly expensive, console. The same alarms would be going on through out the fleet. Frankie quickly studied radar, sonar and other data displays including new night-vision camera views. The whole lot was acting a little odd and the radar screen was showing an approaching mass, a blank area, unlike anything she had ever experienced before; indeed she knew of no account of such a thing. It did not look right to be a tidal wave or some impossible massive human made structure or natural lifeforms.

 

The normally quiet cat began to grow crazy.

 

The pilot, who sometimes bragged about his high psychic potential, cried out in a mixture of horror and pain. Then the young black man spoke with a panicky voice. "We must get away from it as quickly as we can. If we can not do so then we must kill ourselves, release still living fish and kill all the mascots."

 

She believed him because she trusted him but also because she was starting to feel a strange surge of dread. She gave orders to other vessels, with noticeable difficulty happening with the radio communications, and very quickly the fisherboats were racing away from the bizarre mass and directly towards the storm. The strange mass was very slowly gaining.

 

Frankie did what was very drastic, what was only allowed under extreme circumstances, she broadcast for urgent assistance on all official channels available and used a power satellite link also. She was open about the alert coming from an illegal fishing fleet, using this information to confirm how important the calls were for now such fleet would normally identify itself. The experienced Fleet Captain also gave both verbal information and broaded data directly from her boat's instruments.

Edited October 4, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time 70.2[104]
Hunting Down Conspiracies

The voice spoke in the cold, hard, manner and accent of a Havenlander man. "Fleet Captain Frankie Yellen, we sorrow for you. You have encountered a glimmerfog, not a weaker glimmermist, also known as a Desolator. As it appears we may be forced to utilize special technologies to deal with the threat. If we are forced to do so, the collateral damage will include the destruction of your fleet. The alternatives to this quick, painless, form of death are suicide, agonizing death or a fate worse than death. A blackship is on its way to attempt to rescue you but be warned you will pay for your foolishness though your warning of the threat will heavily mitigate against the punishments. You have probably saved the lives of many, of much."

Frankie, who had two children and a reasonably fine husband, was not greatly mollified by the words of the man or his tone of voice.

A woman Havenlander spoke, her voice being warmer, friendlier. "We sorrow for you. The blackship will not make it in time to pick you up and no blackjet could carry such as you. Blackjets are starting to attack the glimmerfog."

A shiver went through the vessel and there were flashes of light but the great thing kept coming, though its progress was noticeably a little slower than before.

Frankie spoke, hating the sound of desperation in her voice for she was used to being confidentially in command. "There must be something you can do, anything?"

The woman's responded. "Yes, one of the blackjets can drop off a specialist with some special equipment and supplies. This one will be escorted by two elite supersoldiers so please do nothing foolish. The special technologies will be used to place you in special deep status inside capsules that will float about twenty metres below the surface of the ocean where the glimmerfog can not easily reach even with its senses and the special type of status will greatly help to hide you from it. There is always a price and it is that you may not survive and even if you do survive, you may not be as you are now."

Frankie frowned. "What of the mascots?"

The Havenlander responded. "You are special, Frankie Yellen, and we hope you will serve the Havenlands in future. We will try to rescue all life on the fisherboats, including such as the vermin and microbiological organisms."

 

So Frankie made the agreement though she felt strange doing so.

Edited October 4, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time 70.3[105]
Hunting Down Conspiracies

The feeling of wrongness grew stronger and Frankie suddenly knew that there was no attempt to rescue by Havenlanders. No, something else was going on and it was not good. How did she know this?

There was a sudden sharp horrible feeling in her head, a kind of mild 'snap', and the truth flooded back to her that had been carefully hidden behind psychic-spiritual barriers. All across the fake fishing fleet the same was happening as they all remembered that they were very special agents of the Havenlander TriEmpire. They were all omnihumans, superhumans, metahumans or powerhumans along with a couple of mentahumans with a very special focus on computational abilities.

They were the bait set for traitors in an elaborate trap that had taken a very long time to set up.

The traitors served a dark cause for a wide range of reasons but easily the biggest one was fear of 'engulfment' by what they called the 'rise of the Overmind' over all kinds of megafolk. The fear was based largely, but not always, on a selfish desire to be able to get away with carrying out negative, deceptive, aggressive and manipulative acts with out any Overmind being able to stop such acts. The irony was that there was no sign of any Overmind arising except for a vague hint that it just might arise sometime in the distant future and the 'Overmind' would not be such at all.

The closest thing to a real Overmind was that which linked all of the multihumans from above. The omnihumans had much more individuality, and independence, than did the multihumans. There had been something called an Overmind but that was a very long time ago and the Havenlanders did not wish to remember such matters except for the elites who dealt with such matters such as the Trischolars. The very existence of the TriEmpire was hidden from most for Havenlanders were but 'one' of the triple peoples that made up the TriEmpire and the link with one other was best kept hidden and the other was best kept hidden altogether.

Why the psychic-spiritual deception? Because something dark, subtle, had scanned their minds and had been fooled otherwise the trap would not work.

Frankie sent subtle, efficient, orders to supersoldiers hidden in fake areas of the fisherboats. Hidden tech was also there. She then looked out, through armored glass, at the bow of the fisherboat. Down were coming three figures, all of them in armor, and two were clearly power armored soldiers with big battlerifles. An elaborate cable like arrangement, complete with stabilizers and adjusting jets, brought them down. It was like some Havenlander tech but lacked Havenlander smooth efficiency of design typical of omnihumans. No, it was more like the way that multihumans did things, throwing together workable units almost at the last minute. The two fake supersoldiers were multihuman elite soldiers, as dangerous as standard supersoldiers, but the one figure was very hard to read in a passive manner. That one held a special kit in its right hand.

There was a dark shape hovering overhead but it was no blackjet but something trying to look like one. Could it be called a 'darkjet'? It was some kind of basic copy of a blackjet and again that 'smelt' of the multihumans. The multihumans had been expelled to the very edges of the Terran Underworld Territories but then had departed from there in a big migration to find their own homeland that, ironically, ended up being in the Terran Labyrinth that was between the Terran Overworld and Underworld.

Edited October 4, 2014 by Maharg67