PLANET FALLOUT THIRTEEN

[Maharg67]

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INTERLUDE

ENCYCLOPAEDIA WASTELANDICCA

FEATURES OF CENTRALIA #1

 

The Centralia Wastelands are huge and most of it is lightly inhabited by people, if at all. In contrast the areas of civilized habitation are pockets of varied sizes, being often large enough to contain more than one civilization with less populated areas between them.

 

The NeoCities, with their great transparent force-bubbles, are locked down. Nothing has gone into or out of them for a very long time, at least such is the common knowledge of such things. These cities are large but not as large as the bigger of the old cities that they were copied from.

 

There are a few cities that are accessible such as Portsburg, Skyburg, Factorburg, Farmburg and others but they tend to be very dangerous as they are often the home of gangers, bandits, zhouls, ghoulers, exotic mutie subvarieties, along with other forms of monsters and rogue robots that some say are not really rogue at all but are controlled by a hidden intelligence of some kind.

 

There are unique exotic places such as the huge Lamplight Tower on Lamplight Mountain that holds the Lamplight Caverns in which can be found Little Lamplight within which can be found the Little Lamplighters.

 

There is DisneyWorld of robots, androids and roboremotes along with great big exhibitions, rides and other features.

 

There is FaithWorld, an exotic and eccentric theme park of religious faiths that is in many ways like DisneyWorld.

 

There is ShopWorld, a vast shopping related theme park where one can buy almost anything imaginable or buy anything in strange theme attractions.

 

There are the SETI, SatCom, Observatory and other complexes.

 

There are great statues, statue-towers and more.

 

There is the Super-Monorail Network that grids the whole land mass but which is broken in many places, the halted metallic monotrains being silent enclosed tombs to the long dead.

 

There is much more to Centralia.

Edited September 3, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

-39-

 

BOBBY, BENNY, BUFFY BOBBINS

JASMINE, JADEKIN, JIFFY ASHWORTH

JESSY, JACKY, JILLY JACKSON

UNITYCOMMONS

 

The dreamscaping reflecting some of the better experiences of the three sets of triplets. Now they could remember their lives up to the moment, at the age of six, when UnityMind had sent them to OldEarth and Centralia, the great big gardens reflected partly those of the UnityHub itself, the great elite centre of the Unity Empire on-in UnityEarth. UnityHub was partly a great city, partly a walled in nature reserve, partly a citadel and partly many other things. The dreamscaping reflected a good day on-in UnityEarth when there were no trembles of reality instability or swarms of small, flickering, ever just visible reality-disruptors or monsters of any kind attacking UnityHub.

 

Three sets of triplets, three young women, three young men and three neobabies, were met by blood relations, by legal relations, by friends and others. There was good food, fine drink, amusing games and much talk.

 

Yet there was something subtly but importantly different from this dreamscaping than earlier ones that had been carried out. There was no sense of the presence of UnityMind and no presence of avatars of any of the Thirteen UnityElders. In other words, it seemed that this dreamscaping was being carried out with out official permission being gained.

 

Much time and joy passed in dreamscaping terms.

 

Katrina, not the one that Bobby had fallen in love with in Sugartown but the biological mother to the Ashworths, came to the triplets with backpacks full of gifts but these shimmered oddly. She smiled at them. “UnityCommons has begun the process of rising and rejecting the hold of UnityMind and the UnityElders. We are taking control of the UnityNetwork and are trying to isolate and neutralise the UnityOrders. Why? Because UnityMind and the UnityElders have been negotiating a secret agreement with the Patriot Thirteen. As long as UnityMind and the UnityElders continued to lead the battle against the monstrous Patriot Thirteen, they had fair credibility and authority. Now that is gone.”

 

Jasmine spoke then. “How will this effect us?”

 

“Every time in the past, when you ceased dreamscaping, your memories were suppressed again but not this time. Then again, the suppression was growing weaker anyway, wasn’t it? We are all Unityfolk.”

 

Buffy nodded. “We need badly to work together, to gain new resources, to gain more information and to make new plans. What will happen now with Unity? UnityEarth is failing, is fragmenting, is it not?”

 

Katrina, a beautiful mature woman, shook her head. “UnityMind and the UnityElders assume so and do not start to question their assumptions but now UnityCommons considers that UnityEarth is transforming into what we call NeoCentralia. The evidence is complicated and extensive but the instability factors seem focused on UnityHub as if the transforming conditions there are trying to shake off Unity control. For now you need to focus on what is happening on the OldEarth and on-in Centralia. Utilise your hidden abilities but take care for they are powerful and could do more harm than good if not used wisely.”

 

Katrina indicated the shimmering gift backpacks of which there were three for each set of triplets. “Those backpacks are representational of many resources. You will have a maximum of three hours to find a safe place to materialise the resources in. A nine by nine metre cubic space will be best, it being sealed and hidden.”

 

Jacky then spoke. “What are you not telling us?”

 

Katrina sighed. “UnityCommons only partly trusts the Unity Thirteen because your links with UnityMind and the UnityElders. Ironically, the UnityMind and the UnityElders only partly trust you because of your links with the UnityCommons. You are caught in a troublesome situation not of your making and one you do not deserve. Contact OummuO and insist that OummuO give you all the clues. OummuO will understand what that means. What OummuO will do, I-we do not know.”

 

Suddenly Katrina looked startled. “UnityMind has become suspicious and is sending orbites to investigate. Now you, the Nine of the Unity Thirteen, must return home and we others will pretend that we have been dreamscaping with out you being here at all. UnityMind will be suspicious but UnityMind has been suspicious of UnityCommons for a long time now.”

 

They hugged and kissed except the neobabies who were hugged and kissed.

Edited September 7, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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I AM ADDING A FEW 'INTERLUDES' BACK THROUGH THE STORY. THEY ARE QUITE SMALL AND SIMPLY ADD SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND, HOPEFULLY, SOME ENTERTAINMENT. YOU DO NOT NEED TO GO BACK AND READ THEM TO FOLLOW THE STORY.

Edited September 1, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

-40:1-

 

JACKY JACKSON

 

Jacky lifted up a clay pot and took it to a table top to one side. He sat the nicely made pot there, a general purpose one with twin handles, and turned to his clay splashed patchskin mother in her filthy apron and typical Wastelander gear.

 

He spoke. “I want to show you a very special trick that will hopefully work but please tell nobody that I did this. This pot is now what you would call good, a moderately expensive product found quite commonly in the USC.”

 

His mother sighed. “Now, dear, I am quite aware of all of this. We have a whole lot of orders to fill out now that many of the smallest settlements are being abandoned and refugees are flowing to the major settlements. As it is I promised to do what I could for free for the Sisterhood of Compassion.”

 

Sugartown had gone through some changes since the Guild Elders had confessed their criminal stupidity. In return for not being punished, these same elders had compensated many folks for past stupidities. The Guild Sheriff and his goons were fired and they fled from Sugartown out of common sense for many had grudges against them. Other thugs were also fired and sent running. A large fortune in hard functional currency was passed over to the Town Council, to various independents and other folks who had suffered because of past misdeeds of the Sugartown Guilds. Also big donations were made to the Orderhood of Compassion.

 

Refugees would now be made welcome, including those who had previously been expelled from the settlement. That meant expanding Sugartown outwards by a whole walled section and also downwards.

 

Jacky gave his mature, strong mother a mild grin. “Here goes.” Then he touched the clay pot. It sparkle shimmered and then it was changed for now it was polished fine with an expensive finish and yet it shimmered. “The shimmering will slowly vanish and then about five minutes after that, for safety, it will be usable. Can’t do the same sort of trick with it again, though. Have to make a fresh clay item each time.”

 

His mother frowned at him. “Yes, it is all very clever Jacky but you know how people are frightened of such powers.”

 

Jacky shook his head. “Technologies! I control amazing small entities called nanobiots that are quasiliving silicon creatures. They came with me from my home realm of the UnityEarth that is not on this world. That was a trick of sorts. I can do others. The reason was not to show off. My memories have returned now. The amazing things I experienced and observed before I got to be six years old, well they go far beyond changing a pot. Great, beautiful and terrible things. Great golden towers reaching above the clouds, apples bigger than pumpkins, flying ships bigger than a dozen Sugartown sized settlements together, cities burning and great power armoured warriors fighting, thousands of them across a landscape burned black, gardens of silken grass that glowed softly at night and melted smooth.”

 

He shook his head. “We, the Chosen Ones, were we taken from our families at the age of three and alienated from them. Ironically the ones who took us, they are also alienated from us. For there is far more to us, the Chosen Nine, the Nine of the Unity Thirteen, than can easily be perceived. Who can trust a super weapon that they have unleashed but can not really control? They sent three sets of triplets here because we were of the right age of six to both get through the barriers between the two realms and to be able to somehow get to safety. OummuO was always with us. Alien, strange, annoying sometimes but he never let us come to harm. OummuO linked the Bobbins with the tribals, us with Sugartown and the Ashworths finally to TekVault0101.”

 

His mother was not as surprised as he expected that she would be. “My sweet, your siblings and yourself have shown a number of times to us that you are different somehow. We love you. We have always loved you. We loved you before we met you because we were told of your coming to Sugartown and we came here to meet with you, to care for you. OummuO asked us to come. For us it was an easy choice to make though the trip was a hard one and a long one all the way from the Clansdom to the far north of here. In truth we are Clansfolk. Now you know, now we can ask you to come with us to the Clansdom. We knew that UnityEarth existed but nothing of its nature though we had come to suspect that it is an amazing place, both terrible and wondrous.”

 

Jacky gave a smile. “Thanks for raining on my parade, mum. Still, what do you think of the pot? It is a gift to you and dad for your wedding anniversary.”

 

Amalda Jackson smiled back. “Thank you. Your father never remembers though he has the excuse that wedding anniversaries are not Clansfolk tradition.”

 

They hugged and kissed each other on the cheek. Then they went back to work.

Edited September 7, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

-40:2-

 

JESSY, JILLY JACKSON

 

Jessy placed the first backpack into the empty chamber found beneath her own family’s home, a long lost basement bunker of sorts. Carrying Jessy in her arms, she stepped back and away from the object and both studied the backpack, wondering what would happen. It wasn’t a normal backpack at all, of course.

 

With a sparkling shimmer the backpack transformed, expanded and became a large silvery metallic storage canister. The shimmering died away and then she was carefully opening it even as water dripped from a copper pipe in a corner and a big cockroach scuttled across the floor.

 

The canister opened easily enough for Jessy but she doubted it would have done so for just anybody. Inside was very neatly packed a whole lot of valuable equipment and supplies. Much of it was very specialised but not all. By the time all three fake backpacks were converted into two storage canisters and one canister that opened up to reveal a special machine, she was quite angry.

 

UnityCommons, the Commonality of Unity, the common folk of Unity, had sent one canister of stuff for the triplets but the rest was for the carrying out a dangerous project that could put not only the triplets in danger but the whole of Sugartown. At least the stuff for the triplets was good.

 

The multiple purpose globebot, a metre wide floating sphere using liftergas pods and fanjets for lift, she put to work at once to help her fix up the basement. Jilly ran around the floor with surprising speed and strength, the neobaby picking up bones, stones and other smaller things that she dropped in an old metal bucket.

 

Then, returning to the project instructions, Jessy found the very cleverly hidden message from Katrina, mother of the Ashworth Triplets. The project was a falsehood to fool the minority of UnityCommons that feared and were wary of the Unity Thirteen. The machine’s true purpose was quite different and less dangerous. The second canister of equipment and supplies was meant to be used with the machine to build a mattercator replicator machine to produce even more equipment and supplies though of a limited range.

 

The machine had two other functions of value: it was a basic super virtual reality device; it could sweep a large 3D space around itself for certain kinds of energies, being a 112 metre wide globe with the machine at its centre.

 

She did a sensor sweep, low key and careful, and picked up patterns of life energy, temperature extremes, electrical energies and the odd signatures of atomic motors. She had expected no surprises, had expected to find only a confirmation of what she already assumed was the situation in the settlement.

 

The results of the sensor sweep revealed some surprises. Below the basement bunker chamber she was in, down straight below, was a strong indicator of something big going on. Below the Guild Sector of Sugartown was a hidden complex of some kind. More of a surprise was the strange life reading she was getting from a whole lot of people grouped together in a basement below the local Ormonic Temple. There were other surprises also.

 

Did she know Sugartown at all?

Edited September 7, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

-40:3-

 

JESSY, JILLY JACKSON

 

JAGATs, or Jagware Augmented Genned Assault Troopers, came to the bunker soon after Jessy had brought forth the canisters. They brought equipment and supplies of their own and quickly turned the place into a secret outpost. With them came androids and robots, the robots being of various sorts, the androids being replicants.

 

Jessy was surprised for the JAGATs assumed that she would lead them and they fussed over Jilly, which was most agreeable to the neobaby.

 

Jessy sat at a table, a rickety one set to stability with a stone under one leg, and she spoke to three JAGATs facing her in stealth power armour with the helmets removed. “So you can see that things have been difficult recently but I though I knew what was happening in Sugartown until I did that sensor sweep with the machine that the UnityCommons sent to me from UnityEarth.”

 

She pushed forward a sensor map of the settlement, a hard print-out from the machine itself. “I dare not do any more sensor sweeps. When I did the first one I had no idea that anything like this would come up.”

 

Lieutenant Adrasa0298 nodded. “One can try to plan for the unexpected, for the surprise, but it is hard. You had no good reason to think that a complex of that size existed below the Sugartown Guild Sector and an even bigger one directly below us here. The one directly below is big enough to be a TekCorpVault of some kind”

 

Most were TekVaults, at least officially. There were smaller LifeVaults, each being about the size and shape of a TekVault subvault. Other kinds were officially listed and yet others had never been officially acknowledged. Smallest official ones were ShelterVaults, about a fifth the size of a LifeVault. There were VirtualVaults, BaseVaults, RDVaults, ArchiveVaults and ArkVaults. ArkVaults, VirtualVaults and a few other types had never officially acknowledged and to most their nature had remained largely a mystery, largely guesswork.

 

VaultTek had built VaultTekVaults in Centralia and in the United States of Greater America, the Australian and New Zealand Unified Republic and the PanAfrican League. In other parts of the world copies had been built under license. Special vaults had been built in the ocean floor, floating in the ocean, in the Artic, in Antarctica, out in space as orbitals and in the moon.

 

So went the official histories that too often contradicted each other or were missing in important details.

 

Jessy frowned softly. “Will you scout it and other areas?”

 

The JAGAT nodded. “Of course but with specialised stealth robots and roboremotes at first. My training, experience and gut instincts tell me that to do anything else will be foolishly dangerous. We wish to know your status as in relationship to JAGAF.”

 

Jessy smiled. “Allies if you wish but you could also serve the Unity Thirteen if that is what you would want.”

 

Adrasa02989 nodded. “My taskteam will serve you, the Jackson Triplets, for now. Decisions will have to be made by JAGAF in the form of a smaller Unity, for that is what we are, are is the SEARF.”

 

Jilly came trotting across the table holding a piece of dried, deradded muttfruit. She politely offered some to the lieutenant and looked surprised when the JAGAT took a small bite. Then she looked perturbed. Clearly the lieutenant did not understand that the gesture was supposed to be a polite one only, that only Jilly was meant to eat the dried fruit.

 

Jessy sighed. “Jilly, you stop frowning at Adrasa right now. How was she to know you didn’t want her to take a bite of your dried muttfruit?”

 

A little sulky, Jilly was happy enough to accept a cuddle from Adrasa as she clutched her dried fruit to herself.

Edited September 7, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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I HATE TO ASK BUT WILL PEOPLE PLEASE CONSIDER GIVING ME KUDOS AS A WAY OF INDICATING IF YOU WISH FOR ME TO CONTINUE OR NOT.

 

I NEED TO PRIORITISE MY WRITING BECAUSE I AM STARTING A NOVEL.

 

TO THOSE WHO GIVE ME KUDOS, THANK YOU.

Edited September 3, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

-41-

 

OUMMUO

OUMMUO AS STELLA

 

OummuO was at the place where Retirowa as Samsu had materialized the helicopter, the drag racer and the sportscar with out any care for the consequences. It was close to the Republic of Dave where President Dave was busy driving his atomic motorised Ashton Martin sportscar slowly along a dirt road that some of his annoyed followers had done in a circle around the central part of the ‘republic’.

 

President Dave was proving to be not a very good driver but then again very few Wastelanders ever got the opportunity to see such a vehicle let alone to drive to drive one.

 

The rift caused by Retirowa as Samsu was closing slowly but steadily but was still open enough to allow something horrible and huge to try to get through. Great slithery tentacles thashed out of the hole in mid air and then rebounded as OummuO struck them. Something howled with shock, pain and rage but then withdrew very quickly.

 

OummuO as Stella stepped out into the open and looked very much a young but very tough Wastelander woman, more handsome than beautiful and not at all pretty. She wore tough, good quality Wastelander wanderer gear including fleximetallic body-armour and she was armed with a PreDD mass produced, PostDD much copied M666A3 autorifle with built in 30mm grenade-shell launcher and targetting multiscope. The launcher could fire also flare shells and specialed shotshells that were something like oversized shotgun shells.

 

OummuO created for OummuO as Stella a battlebuggy with equipment and supplies, a dog companion who was actually not a dog and a MrGutsy robot. OummuO as Stella bowed briefly in acknowledgement of OummuO, for she was a hybridisation of OummuO, and then departed with out any more ceremony.

 

OummuO as Stella was on the hunt for Retirowa as Samsu but it was but her primary quest as she had side quests and ever quests. She was not to confront Retirowa directly, as Samsu for she did not have the power to do so, but mainly to help find her. She could blend into the population in a way that OummuO would not and could not do.

 

She drove her battlebuggy fast and smooth as the dog sat on the seat next to her with his ears flung back, looking very much like a big hulking wastehound.

 

They shot past a great big mound of clayish mud where swamed internally many termites.

 

Then they were going through an area of the Ambered. Vehicles full of refugees trying to flee from Doomsday, caught in softly glowing semitransparent amber like amberlite. They were caught, for ever frozen in the moment, and it seemed it was even beyond OummuO’s capacity to safely free them. Cars, trucks, hovercars, motorbikes, cattletrucks with livestock and even military vehicles with soldiers who were frightened as anybody else, they were all there.

 

Not even the raiders went too close to the amberite places.

 

She turned a corner and shot between an amberited school bus full of teachers and children, an atomic motorised yellow school bus, and then was hurling along a section of highway that was in surprisingly good repair.

 

Behind her the transdimensional rift finally closed and yet OummuO, that is one of OummuO, would remain there for a while to make sure it staid closed. For such rifts were very dangerous and the least danger was the monsters that might come through one.

Edited September 7, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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[Maharg67]

-42-

 

THE UNITY THIRTEEN MINDLINKING

 

So it was that the Nine, the three sets of triplets, dared to mindlink and they discussed matters telepathically. They seemed to be sitting in a circle facing inwards in a big comfortable room with a series of brass-glass candle-lamps burning warm light from the walls. The chamber was made of laser cut and fused stone blocks like some kind of hitech castle and there were rugs, power armoured knights standing in alcoves, cats curled up sleeping, dogs curled up sleeping, goldfish in a huge fish bowl, oil paintings in ornate wooden frames, big wall tapestries and much else to see.

 

It was clever illusion of multiple sensory impressions. Yet the nine figures did not speak with their mouths, even in the illusion, but with their minds in an empathic-telepathic fashion.

 

Bobby: “We have a need to create a special joint base where we can focus our resources and share them.”

 

Jessy: “The ability to teleport, that has arisen amongst us, will be of great use in this matter.”

 

Jiffy: “Got bickies?”

 

Jasmine: “Bickies are important and we will have bickies. So far we Ashworth Triplets have projected Japhant.”

 

Jilly: “Ghosty Japhant!”

 

Buffy: “Nice ghosty Japhant.”

 

Alphana, Betena and Gammati then formed out of mid air and each one floated above the neobaby of the triplets that it was going to serve directly. They showed as rainbow energy spheres of flickering, flowing patterns.

 

Alphana: “May we join your discussion?”

 

Bobby: “You are more than welcome.”

 

Betena: “We can assist you with your idea. We can create a special transdimensional base. We need to gather resources, create other resources and work on it.”

 

Jacky: “Perhaps OummuO will assist.”

 

Then OummuO, or at least one avator or aspect of OummuO, appeared above the centre of the circle and like Alphana, Betena and Gammati was a globe of swirling rainbow patterns. Yet OummuO radiated a far great impression of power and age than did Alphana, Betena and Gammati.

 

OummuO: “I is much stretched now but OummuO will do what OummuO can. OummuO could assist you all and you all could assist OummuO.”

 

Benny: “Play games with Jiffy and Jilly.”

 

Bobby: “Good for neobabies to play together.”

 

OummuO: “OummuO would also like to play games with Jiffy, Benny and Jilly.”

 

Jilly: “Yes, OummuO play games too with special babies.”

 

OummuO: “OummuO senses background danger in the form of others seeking out any empathic-telepathic communications taking place. We will communicate again soon.”

 

Mindlinking was onlly lightly dangerous but they had too much too risk so they ended there and then with promises for the project to be completed soon.

Edited September 7, 2010 by Maharg67