PLANET FALLOUT THIRTEEN

[Maharg67]

-83-

 

OUMMUO

OUMMUO AS STELLA

GRAHAM MAHARG

 

OummuO knew that ZammaZ had withdrawn deep back into the Centrolis at the same time it had stopped attacking the JAGAF MultiVault Fortress. It was perhaps rebuilding its strength but OummuO did not know for sure.

 

Shaduzi was down there somewhere and OummuO sensed that it was more than upset, it was frightened of something, which was most surprising.

 

OummuO as Stella headed into the depths of what many called the 3Dradiotower where 3Dog and 2Kitty did their stuff. They passed from the normal basement levels of a great functional commercial structure to more exotic levels of vault like design down to the walls, internal horizontal armaglass windows and doors. Tover came with her and they soon sensed why others had not gone down that way for a very long time.

 

No turrets or roboremotes or robots stopped people but a powerful and subtle synthetic psychic shield did so.

 

They found themselves in a huge chamber that stretched out in all directions as a great dome. A thick vertical cylinder, the hub, was at its middle and then a great ring half as high as the cylinder was solid-state equipment. Then, stretching out from there in a great outward going spiral were thousands and thousands and thousands of tilted capsules, each in its own base. In each of these super virtual reality status capsules was a man or woman or child in a special suit and yet there were no babies or elderly people.

 

OummuO as Stella soon knew that she had found part of the foundational basis of Normalville, the super virtual reality realm, and that there was something important about Normalville that went beyond first assumptions.

 

She found there not just the Dharma Initiative symbol but one of the Guardian Thirteen itself. Hacking into the hybrid human-alien databanks was not an easy task even for her but she began to focus tightly doing so while Tover patiently staid on guard.

 

Then, suddenly, Graham Maharg was there and was assisting her quietly and efficiently. At least this was another aspect of GM

[Maharg67]

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[Maharg67]

-84:1-

 

ASHWORTH TRIPLETS

 

The Ashworth Triplets moved through the PreDD style streets of Normalville that seemed somehow more real than before, more solid, and the people much more like ‘real’ people. Jasmine and Jadekin looked around with amazement. They had gone to meet with Lizzie McQueen at the McQueen Diner, had eaten some apple pie and drank hot chocolate. Jiffy had consumed smaller amounts of both and from her pouch she was sucking her thumb while she took in the sights.

 

Then they were coming to and going beyond the old boundaries of Normalville, were passing new buildings that once were but cleverly made background cityscapes but not usable urban areas. There were robots, police in law enforcement power armour, citizens in a wider variety of clothes than they had previously wore, many new shops, electric powered vehicles of many kinds but no atomic motorised vehicles.

 

They passed a great sign stating that for various safety reasons all atomic motorised civilian vehicles were being withdrawn from use. The atomic motors and other equipment were to be recycled for use by the new defence forces against the new threat?

 

What new threat?

 

They bought a newspaper and sat on a public bench-chair. Jadekin looked around and sniffed the air. “So Mayor Elaine Harrington and Professor Gregory Brown, along with a few others, believe strongly that they are part of the Guardian Thirteen but they…”

 

Jasmine frowned softly. “They are not, not really. They serve the real Guardian Thirteen as decoys and many others did so also but have died as something has been hunting for the real Guardian Thirteen. I think people like Elaine and Gregory survived mainly because the force doing the hunting realised it was being delayed by decoys and stopped going after them.”

 

They examined a changing advertising 3Dbillboard and noted it showed up the development of new high density, high security, well service-supported residential suburbs. New, huge, nuclear powered aeroships were bringing in settlers from unspecified places of origin. The immigrants were settling happily enough into the great but expanding city. Even as this happened the military, security and police services were expanding, were having large recruiting drives.

 

Jadekin looked up to note how the tops of the great big fortified skyscrapers, with antiquake network-systems, were having weapon turrets added to the top of them.

 

Then they were confronted by a smartly uniformed young woman in a kneedress with buttons down the front, a clipboard in one hand and a small peaked cap on her head. According to the ID-badge she was one Tamara Thomson of the Department of Outsider Regulating of the Ministry of Demographic Regulating.

[Maharg67]

-84:2-

 

ASHWORTH TRIPLETS

 

Tamara smiled at them. “Though the government considers you to be far from a threat to Normalville, they feel that some sort of official dialogue should be set up. We need to ask you some questions. Indeed, many questions.”

 

Jasmine smiled at the other woman. “Department of Outsider Regulating? I suppose that is a front for some kind of intelligence service.”

 

The woman smiled slightly less warmly. “The DOR officially serves the MODR but in truth is a front for the Normalville Security Intelligence Agency, the NSIA. Please come with me. Transport will take us to a secure place where enemy infiltrators will have less chance of finding us.”

 

A black atomic motorised limo, armoured and dotted with secret weaponry and other clever devices, picked them up and hummed smoothly through the city. Most people did not own private cars in Normalville and though the car hire and taxi services were excellent, so was the public transit network so most people used that.

 

The vehicle slipped into a huge building that on the outside looked like a normal civilian structure but which was far from being so. The big car went down a ramp and then, after passing through a security airlock arrangement of two big power doors, then into a great big chamber that was a huge underground car park. There were rows of civilian, paramilitary and military vehicles. SWAT Troopers in body-armour were there along with some soldiers in power armour. Civilians were coming and going from parked cars or from other forms of transportation.

 

An electric golfcar picked up the newcomers and zipped them off to security guard and security robot protected armoured doors. Then they were going through an amazing array of great big corridors where electric golfcars of different kinds moved along as did people in other electric vehicles, people using ergonomically clever plastic bicycles and also robots of many types.

 

But it was not until Jadekin and Jasmine were sitting in a big round meeting room and were facing thirteen robed and masked figures, that they knew that they were facing the real Guardian Thirteen.

Edited November 8, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

-84:3-

 

ASHWORTH TRIPLETS

 

Jiffy was sleeping by the time the meeting began. Jadekin and Jasmine were looking around in wonder at the huge, subtly elegant chamber. Then Jasmine turned her head and spoke.

 

“What was killing your decoys, your poor expendable decoys?”

 

The one in the centre spoke with a deep, resonant male voice. “I am the Prime Guardian. We had no intention of them being expendable but we were naïve. We did our best to assist them even as we kept hidden and many who supposedly died, did not. They, like us, became hidden here in the deep core of Normalville that until fairly recently was far more realer than the rest of Normalville. It is good that your very first question expresses your genuine concern for the decoys. You are descendents of OummuO and the power of OummuO resonates in you though it has only just begun to grow in strength and maturity.”

 

Jadekin nodded. “Why here?”

 

The Prime Guardian spoke again. “We created Normalville. We manipulated the Patriot Thirteen into thinking that they did so and indeed they did unknowingly provide us with resources. We used to be Greylizen of the Zaztorians back when they were actually trying to be wiser and better, were really turning against the Darklizen and ZammaZ. When over half of the Greylizen turned to doing evil of their own, we became the Guardianlizen. We have a very loose alliance with the Lightlizen. They do not fully trust us and neither do we fully trust them.”

 

Jasmine shook her head. “Normalville is your prison. You can not leave here.”

 

There was a pause before the Prime Guardian spoke again. “Shaduzi manipulated ZammaZ, the Darklizen fools, into turning Normalville against us enough to turn it into a prison of sorts. We Zaztorians all became linked in some strange way when the Centrolis travelled through dimensions where no human should go. That is, we Zaztorians who survived alive and pretty much our old selves, did so. Most died horrifically and many were transformed into unthinkable things, pitiful monstrosities.”

 

Jadekin sighed. “So you took up being humans and other known entities here and after Doomsday you set out to learn the truth as the Guardian Thirteen. Did you not already know the truth?”

 

The Prime Guardian spoke. “No, we did not know the secret core of the truth and we still do not. Still, there is hope. As Normalville grows larger and more real, we will be able to leave here. We can become allies of the Unity Thirteen.”

 

Jasmine took a small silvery orb out of a pouch and it floated up into the air as she released it. Even as it floated upwards and began to sparkle shimmer, the thirteen robed figures tried to escape. The light flashed out and with a scream, they all vanished.

 

OummuO had warned them that they could end up confronting such falsehoods. OummuO had a special prison for such entities. They had been facing the Guardian Thirteen but the Guardian Thirteen had become evil, corrupted and insane. Yet, it seemed, they had done at least some good before this had happened.

 

They departed from the building with out any trouble at all and the young woman returned to take them to the golfcar and then to the limo. They were soon driving through the amazing super virtual reality city again.

 

They went through a drive-thru where they bought ice-creams. Jiffy got a whole ice-cream for herself, which made her both happy and sticky.

 

It was the young woman of a government official who informed them that Lightlizen of the Zaztorian Ancients had become fused with Unity and now Unity was flowing through Normalville. Normalville was becoming more real as millions of real souls, real entities, that had not truly died on Doomsday but vanished, returned to life as they returned from where they had been trapped in a quasighostly form in NeoCentralia.

 

NeoCentralia was fusing into Centralia (the Centrolis) in a fashion almost impossible to explain in human terms. NeoCentralia was ceasing to exist. Shaduzi was losing the anchor that kept it from being swept back to its own home dimension and the EomemoE law enforcers who waited to punish Shaduzi. On top of that, EomemoE had escaped from the ancient prison vessel, the PrisonArz close to the core of Centralia (the Centrolis) and were starting to come after Shaduzi.

[Maharg67]

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[Maharg67]

-85-

 

UNITY/ANTIUNITY

 

The Freedom Federation was growing in size, power, efficiency and in other ways. As the UnityCommons and the UnityFree joined it, as the Unity grew in strength, other forces were pushing out of its growing territories. Often it was a matter of joining up existing territories. FreeFed forces began to invade areas that were not so welcoming of their presence. Mostly the invaded fell with little hope of real resistance and they were offered semiautonomous membership of the FreeFed but no more than that, if they did not want full incorporation into the FreeFed.

 

The Republic of Dave fell in about half an hour and President Dave abdicated half an hour after that after accepting a special pension for life in Tenpenny Towers.

 

Sarah Lyons was there to witness the end of the famed Republic of Dave, the joke of a republic that somehow had become an almost fond part of the Wastelands to many. The soldier was wearing new upgraded and enhanced power armour that looked much the same as the older types but which was improved in many ways. She stood next to a new type mecha power suited soldier that hulked over her with heavy plasmaguns and other nasty surprises for any enemies.

 

A gentle shudder went through the ground as NeoCentralia continued to fuse into Centralia in a new fashion. It was a clear blue sky in the morning but for a moment a flicker of energies shot lightening fashion across the sky but it was not lightening, not at all.

 

In the distance was a group of ConConfed recon soldiers in scout power armour and with scout vehicles who were openly observing the FreeFed’s absorption of the Republic of Dave. They would do nothing to interfere and the FreeFed would do nothing against them but the tension between the two powers was growing stronger and one day there would be a war.

 

Everything had changed with the Orderhood of Steel no longer supporting the old Trojan Project to take over the Centrolis (Centralia) but then again neither she or her father had ever felt right about the project. Just what had they been attacking and why had they been doing so; the answers they had been given had never fully satisfied.

 

She was still pondering matters when something subtle drew her to focus on the former Republic of Dave. Even as FreeFed forces were withdrawing from there, armoured wheeled vehicles roaring towards where Sarah stood in a large column, a swarm of metallic things jetted up out of the big old building that had been the Republic of Dave. There were thousands of the black, red, grey metallic robotic things that were more than just robots but were some kind of silicon quasiliving cyborgs known as the Swarmtrolis or, more commonaly, as the swarmcybs of Swarmtrolis. How she knew this, Sarah did not know, even as she knew that swarmcybs were but one of many aspects of Swarmtrolis that served Centrolis (Centralia).

 

It seemed, for a moment, that the swarmcybs would attack the column but then they shot away towards the north and Sarah felt relieved. A single swarmcyb could be destroyed easily enough but something told her that the strength of swarmcybs grew far greater if they swarmed, that the whole of a swarm was deadlier than the parts, the individual swarmcybs.

 

At least being Unity meant she could send important information on as could other witnesses, including what they saw, heard, smelt, felt and sensed had taken place.

 

She wondered how the Contractual Confederation would react to this event. The AntiUnity were as puzzling to Unity as Unity was to the AntiUnity even if they were naturally linked.

 

 

[Maharg67]

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CLUES AS GIVEN BY OUMMUO

 

“Older clues given are OummuO of Unity Thirteen, the Nine of Unity Thirteen, Orderhood of Steel, Guardian Thirteen of Centralia, Centralia is not just Centralia but is more than Centralia, from SkyIslands looking down, Centralia above, in the middle and below; assume nothing, not even your own existence; focus Doomsday focus and count them all, list them all and network them all.”

 

“Newer clues given are Old Patriot Thirteen, the New Patriot Thirteen, the New Patriot Republic, what Nathan really knows, the Unity Thirteen, the human rot in Centralia City, the Retirowa as Samsu, what Elder Owyn Lyons knows, Datafile 768-0987-098-RAN-980-098 in the Smithsonian University Museum, SVR Normalville in TekVault0101 and the rise of UnityFree.”

[Maharg67]

-86:1-

 

FIELD MARSHAL EDDIE MCBLOODY

 

JAGAF forces came to meet the SEARF in general and Star Marshal Eddie McBloody in particular. Eddie McBloody had commanded the forces that had outwitted and outmanouvered larger and more powerful zetan fighting forces in Jovan Space. The Field-Marshal had been one of the first to enter the Grand Mothership of the enemy and had killed the zetan surpreme commander himself, cutting off his head with a laser-sword.

 

Field Marshal Eddie McBloody came back to Centralia (the Centrolis) with disturbing but enlightening information about the true history of the Centrolis.

 

Eddie wore SEARF assault energy armour that was lighter but deadlier than even battle power armour for the armour was itself a series of secondary weapons and reflex offensive defences. The SEARF had taken from the heavily defeated zetans energy armour designs plus other data and resources. Then they had improved almost everything for the genetically altered super-soldiers were much smarter than the zetans. Zetans had been given most of the technologies they had used and were content just to keep using what they had in most cases with out any real research and development. Most of the research and development they did do was done under the orders of their masters.

 

Using the upgraded and enhanced technologies, the captured zetan motherships and battlestars, the SEARF had then attacked and destroyed a great Greytorv base hidden in Jovan Space. Even so they had needed and gained assistance from CentroNeo forces who came in great saucerships and globeships to tip the scales of the battle when it turned against the SEARF due to the treachery of one of Eddie's most trusted senior officers.

 

He stood on top of a captured and altered zetan mothership while passive zetan like yetans, the former enslaved workers of the zetans, rushed around getting things done. A yetan came up to offer the beloved Eddie a nice cold beer, the yetan adored him for he had freed easily a million of their kind from horrible slavery, and Eddie smiled. The happy yetan rushed off while Eddie put the beer on a big table with all of the other cold bottles of beer. A SEARF NCO came up and took some of the bottles but nobody minded, certainly not the yetans or Eddie.

 

It was good to be back even if the Centralia he had known was gone and was replaced by one covered by Wastelands, even if he knew that Centralia as he thought of it was just a lie and a dangerous one at that. Soldiers, sappers and others in energy armour were unloading more captured zetan hardware that Eddie would have given over to the Freedom Federation as a token of gaining a new alliance with them. Dronebots were being manufactured or taken out of storage and assembled. Mostly working and maintenance models of various kinds, they were helping to construct the new underground SEARF bunker-complexes.

 

Many sappers and soldiers still wore solid power armour but it had been upgraded, enhanced and augmented from the older models.

 

In the distance JAGAF, the cousin super-soldiers to SEARF, were getting busy bringing in their own people. Vertibirds, vertijets, jumpjets, aeroships and even some SEARF shuttles and former zetan saucerboats were transferring troopers, others, equipment and supplies. The old MultiVault of the JAGAF was being given over to the growing FreeFed to use. SEARF and JAGAF were preparing to take on the Skynet Earthnet forces if they had to do so or the ConConfederate or even both.

 

Also in the distance some settlers were approaching in a convoy of their own vehicles plus SEARF hovercarriers helping them relocate to part of the new SEARF underground city. All across the Wastelands settlers were abandonning settlements though a few were refusing to move for various reasons, some wiser than others. These settlers had first assumed the super-soldiers would massacre them and were shocked when they were flooded with gifts and an offer of a better life.

 

There were others that had come home with the SEARF, some very special others being amongst the others, but for now they were not showing themselves.

Edited November 23, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

-86:2-

 

OUMMUO

FIELD MARSHAL EDDIE MCBLOODY

 

OummuO came to Star Marshal Eddie McBloody and hovered before him but the super-soldier great commander of super-soldiers had met OummuO before. It had been OummuO who had made sure that CentroNeo military forces had gone to the assistance of the SEARF after the treachery of Field Marshal Cantront and his faction. Except that less than half of Cantront's faction had actually supported his treason and the traitors had been destroyed, ironically, by the Greytorv.

 

OummuO spoke then as they floated in an energy bubble above the new SEARF and JAGAF Territories. "Cantront fell to the taint of the greys because he became bitter about your rise to the position of Star Marshal after Cheffonze died. The bitterness grew in him slowly and thus the Greytorv found a way to get at him. As for his treacherous followers, they were a mixture of his most fanatical followers and those he had brought into his faction who were treacherous anyway. Cantront was surprised that over half of his own faction turned against him and his treachery. By that time the old Cantront was gone."

 

The knowledge made matters in some way better. Eddie had not chosen to be Star Marshal. Cheffonze had left him with no alternative after her death. She had chosen him years before her final battle and had been grooming him for the position since then. Eddie missed Cheffonze greatly. She had a way of inspiring the troops that was amazing but though a great commander, she had long ago conceded that he was easily the best strategist and tactitian she had ever met, along with being brilliant at organising logistics.

 

He watched the activity before, checking on this and that, but decided to stay out of it. He had confidence in his people and they did not need him second guessing their every decision. Everything seemed to be going smoothly and that was all he could wish for. The FreeFed seemed keen to have the SEARF-JAGAF become semiautonomously linked to them but the finer details had to be worked out and Eddie was doing that with the assistance of his politically canny Adivser Marshal Vellish, a woman with a very sharp eye for hidden agendas and political trickeries. So far Vellish had found the FreeFed and the Unity to be surprisingly honest and open about what they wanted and what they were willing to give in return.

 

Eddie spoke then. "So much damage has been done to Centralia since I was here last. It is criminal. I had hoped for more, as had most SEARF. Conditions out there in space where harsh despite all our efforts to have at least a few comforts. Super virtual reality was limited because of the need to use computing power for security and defensive reasons. There was next to no privacy. There were some big empty chambers that we used for sports. Now that was not too bad at all. At least here we have more privacy, more space and more comfort despite the harsh side of the Wastelands."

 

OummuO spoke in turn. "OummuO announces that soon much will change. Be warned! Dig deep and build well with many back-ups and reserves."

 

Eddie nodded. "That is our way, anyway, but thank you for the warning. I must get back to my troops."

 

OummuO: "Yes, do so, but soon I will want to take you to an important meeting. Please be prepared. Into your mind I have put information of what you will need to bring with you."

 

The Star Marshal looked surprised and then he grinned mildly. "Yes, the Special Small Specialists will be prepared to this adventure."

 

OummuO took STar Marshal Eddie McBloody back to his headquarters.