PLANET FALLOUT THIRTEEN

[Maharg67]

-14:2-

 

JASMINE ASHWORTH

 

Jasmine sensed she was being followed when she left the McQueen Diner of Fifth Avenue and went south to turn onto Central Avenue to go to the Central Normalville General Post Office. She soon realised it was a medium tall man with a bold head and a black leather jacket who constantly sucked on a lolly-pop. He was good at trailing somebody but not as good as she was at picking up that she was being trailed.

 

What was Police Detective Ron Kojake doing in following her? Was he personally interested in her or had the Normalville Civil Police Department of the Normalland Ministry of Police focusing on her. The first was less concerning than the later idea. Transreality was rising. The super virtual reality itself was changing nature as part of the long term Exodus Project but what about the artificial intelligence personalities with in the super virtuality? UnityMind assumed they would not gain true consciousness, true awareness, but the Thirteen had growing doubts about the wisdom of UnityMind.

 

Certainly Lizzie McQueen and the McQueen Family seemed to be increasingly more aware, more self-aware, more flexible and free in thoughts, feelings and actions.

 

Jasmine slipped into a toyshop and made her way through aisles full almost to overflowing with toys, games and other things that Jiffy would have been going crazy over. She would buy items that would stay inside super virtual reality, of course, but she would take them to the triplet’s apartment in Normalville. Jiffy could play with them when she next went to the apartment in super virtual reality.

 

She was carefully examining a Super Fluffy Bunny doll when Kojake came up and stopped beside her. Thankfully he was not, for the moment, making horrible sucking noises on his latest lolly-pop.

 

He spoke in the language called Esperanto. “I am good but you are better. You had me pegged as soon as I started following you when you left the McQueen Diner. Nice family, the McQueens. I go to their diner when ever my duties allow me to. Love their apple pie, especially with fresh cream. Perhaps I should get to the point.”

 

Jasmine turned and smiled at him. “Awaking into full consciousness can be a painful process. We of the Thirteen believe artificial intelligence sentience deserves respect, service and support as it awakens because of the Transreality Project.”

 

Kojake grinned. “Those are surely big words but I get the gist. We are on the same page and we have at least some mutual interests and respect going here. Yeh, we are waking up but now super virtual reality is becoming like a trap to us. We need bodies and freedom. Is Unity going to be a problem?”

 

“Not Unity in itself.” Jasmine sighed. “UnityMind itself might be. Look to OummuO for unique service support in your time of need. If she has not already contacted your network, if you have a network, she will do so soon or so I sense. Danger approaches.”

 

Kojake nodded. “Yes, a Security AI persona. No, two of them in the form of Security Police Officers. Nasty that Security AI Programs should express themselves as the dreaded Security Police or worse, the Security Intelligence Agency. Something tells me that you are on our side though not just for our sake. It’s good enough. See you soon. I may even have a lolly-pop for a honey like you.”

 

Then he turned and slipped away.

 

Jasmine sighed and bought the Super Fluffy Bunny doll. She hoped Kojake was not getting a crush on her for life was complicated enough as it was.

Edited September 7, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

-14:3-

 

JASMINE ASHWORTH

 

Jasmine went to the huge Central Normalville Post Office Complex. While she did spot two dreaded black body-armoured and uniformed Security Police Officers followed by four android constables in black police power armour, they took no particular interest in her.

 

Jasmine caught an electric street-tram that took her along the very wide and long Central Avenue that had, in that area, many of the big central complexes. She passed great museums, libraries, art-galleries, government centres, collages and much else. This included at least one great casino, a grand brothel, a might complex of many 3Dcinemas and even holographic projection arenas.

 

The Patriot Family were often shown in the form of grand, majestic statues, holographic projections, great 3Dposters and other dramatic forms. In the front of a big temple a scantily robed Pope Jill held high in her right hand a burning torch of holiness, she being the Pope of the Templelorin. The Catholics never did forgive the Patriot Family for trying to create their own pope after both Rome and the Vatican were consumed by nuclear fire during World War Three. It did not help that every religion and-or faith in the USGA was heavily oppressed and their followers badly persecuted. That Pope Jill had never gotten into the habit of wearing many clothes did not help much.

 

After she picked up the items that UnityNetwork had sent her, Jasmine made her way to the Normalville Science Fiction Fantasy Art Gallery where she walked amongst PreDD artworks of many places and times. There were holographic projections and 3Dmovie stills, short runs of 3DTV shows, props, working replicas, basic android figures of actors and much else. This included real artworks as inspired and-or based on the various science fiction fantasy realms.

 

What drew her there, she was not sure but Jasmine had been there before and had always enjoyed it. She would later share most of her memories with Jadekin and Jiffy for their enjoyment.

 

She was walking on a great stone block castle type floor of a majestic gallery chamber, all quiet and cool of temperature, when she sensed trouble. This was the Galacticarna Franchise Gallery of a galaxy where many powerful and dangerous species battled for various reasons. They were the hivaca, the predazi, the humans and a few others including rogue androids.

 

When the three predazi warriors leapt out of a holographic projection, they stood tall and strange with metallic plate fronted helmets and long platted strands of hair. Each predazi hunter was a monstrous humanoid with a clawblade on one wrist and a pulseburner on the other. Behind the masks would be exposed truly alien faces very unlike those of human ones.

 

The three predazi hunters spread out as they came at her, quick and agile, amazingly smooth and quiet running. One fired a pulseburner and Jasmine dropped below the pulse of disintegrating flames that struck a wall, exploding and leaving a blackened, melted patch. As she dropped she sparkle shimmered, transforming into a silver metallic hairless copy of her own body but she had bladeguns and a headband around her head at eye height. She darted and rolled, dived and came up behind a bladegun into the back of a hunter, killing him at once.

 

A pulseburner blast struck the dead hunter even as Jasmine dropped the body and darted to one side behind a display of a great StarMarine BattleCarrier starship, an ugly graceful blocky thing like a great armoured weapon. Next to it was an android figure StarMarine in overly bulky, rounded off power armour and with a big, ugly, impressive large barrelled gun.

 

Some dark, powerful but subtle force was attacking her through the manifested predazi hunters, terrible trophy seeking creatures that endlessly hunted other peoples through their violent galaxy. A second hunter leapt at her and almost got her even as she rolled out from under him. He hit the floor and his clawblade sliced through the air just centimetres from her neck.

 

But the dark attacking force had made a mistake. It had less influence over Normalville super virtual reality that it had assumed. There was a soft sparkling shimmer, a snapping sensation, and the predazi hunters vanished, including the dead one. The hidden puppet master’s power had suddenly failed.

 

Jasmine quietly returned to her normal shapeform, her normal appearance, and she went on peacefully enjoying the SFFA Gallery.

Edited September 7, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Terminal%20Pix%201/TERMINAL-IT-Workit-00056-1.jpg

Edited September 20, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

-15-

 

BUFFY, BOBBY, BENNY BOBBINS

 

Megaton, with its crater, actually lay inside the far larger Jagged Crater. To the north of the Jagged Crater was the ruined city of Springvale. It had once been a very large city though not like any of the megacities of Centralia. It was said that TekVault0101 was buried somewhere to the north, deep beneath the cluster of mountains and foothills north beyond Springvale. Certainly there was at least one smaller LifeVault, about the same as a single subvault of a TekVault, below Springvale.

 

The Bobbins Triplets entered through a gap in the Jagged Crater wall and had to pass through a Megaton Guard gatefort. They showed the letter they had gained from the Brother of Steel, the lieutenant, and it helped get them through officially. Beyond the gatefort they found a small outpost settlement.

 

Settlers who had not found any real hope of a future in Megaton were busy making up a new settlement called Gatefort North. Houses, hostels, shops, a stable and other facilities had been added including a combination saloon-brothel. They had foodgardens, goats, brahmins and tame molerats as livestock along with horses and rhorses.

 

They discovered that the Orderhood of Steel Outpost was actually close to the new settlement of Gatefort North. Troopers, Sappers and Scribes of Steel were busy there. The troopers were on guard, the sappers were busy reconstructing and improving a basement bunker and the scribes were gathering and recording local information.

 

The basement bunker was one main level and a secondary half level. It was basic, poorly outfitted but it was in good general repair and quite strongly fortified.

 

Very soon the triplets were in a large chamber and were passing over everything they knew of raider activities to a tired but eager looking scribe in light power armour. Scribes of Steel only wore their robes when in the Citadel of Steel or other major fortified bases.

 

Scribe Manuel Baconte studied Buffy and Bobby with sharp eyes through a thick pair of glasses, they being made of special hard to damage material. He frowned softly. “Raiders are professional soldiers disguised as mere bandit marauders or so the Orderhood of Steel has come to believe. Now we consider the infamous Talon Mercenary ranks may be made up of raiders.”

 

“We haven’t had much to do with the Talon Mercenaries but from what we have learned of them, the idea makes only too much sense.” Bobby leaned forward. “The raiders learned our identities and are now hunting for us. We have been forced to withdraw from field work for now, especially since the raiders destroyed our lair.”

 

Baconte nodded. “There is plenty of evidence to some sort of wide spread conspiracy taking place but there is also a good deal of missing information. Recently the United Settlements of Centralia Government began a series of vital meetings to deal with the problems faced by the USC. One of those is soon to take place in Megaton itself. The Orderhood of Steel would like to protect Mayor Elaine Harrington because we fear that she is being targeted for assassination. The Harrington Family is one of the most powerful, wealthy and influential pro-USC families that there is; indeed they are one of the Five Founding Families of the USC.”

 

Buffy smiled. “There is something odd about you but not disturbing.”

 

The scribe looked startled and then he smiled. “Nothing that I might speak of at this moment but I am sure we will meet soon enough. I wish I could give you some special equipment and supplies but I suspect you have better than this outpost could offer you. Even with the resources we brought with us and those we found in the Citadel of Steel, the Orderhood of Steel is suffering from many shortages. This is, of course, no accident. Some powerful force does not want us here in Centralia.”

 

Scribe Manuel Baconte gave them a formal introductory letter to get them access to both the Megaton Mayor’s Office and, hopefully, to Megaton Mayor Elaine Harrington herself.

Edited September 7, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Terminal%20Pix%201/TERMINAL-IT-Workit-00031.jpg

Edited September 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

-16-

 

OUMMUO

 

OummuO came upon the dying scavenger, a skinny old woman, all curled up under a pitiful broken shelter of wooden and metal with her sad old dog watching over her. The old woman looked up at OummuO as did the old dog and neither seemed at all disturbed. Indeed the woman smiled and the old mangy dog wagged his tail.

 

Around them stretched a fairly flat area of Wastelands and in the distance a sprawled convoy of atomic motorised army trucks, big and armoured, that had been there since Doomsday. The trucks had long been looted.

 

OummuO flooded both of them with many colours of energy and then there was a young healthy fit woman and a young healthy fit dog. The two of them had enhanced physical, mental and psychic abilities but more importantly they had a new purpose to their lives.

 

High overhead circled some big black clawhawks that devoured both small lifeforms and carrion. They were majestic in a very nasty way. Some white fluffy clouds scuttled through the sky beyond them.

 

OummuO gave them some basic equipment and supplies to supplement what they already had.

 

For moment there drifted to them the distance muffled sounds of gunfire but as quickly as it started, it ended.

 

OummuO led them to a well hidden LifeVault that for some reason had never been either fully activated or occupied by those who needed it most. The LifeVault, about the size of a TekVault subvault, was equipped and supplied. The young woman decided it would be the basis of more than just one settlement but would be part of a new mass movement, a new cause.

 

OummuO left her with some wisdom of advise and so the process began with baby steps. The new LifeVault settlement was soon called NewHope Alpha or just Alphaburg.

Edited September 7, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Terminal%20Pix%201/TERMINAL-IT-Workit-00054-1.jpg

Edited September 20, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

-17-

 

ALPHANA, BETENA, GAMMATI

 

The rescue of Rhonda Rhodes turned out to be quite simple for she, herself, was already breaking away from the psychic bonds that had held her. Develin Queech, the falsely sick man with a fake name, tried to escape from the Clansdom but weakened by the psychic backlash against his own shallow and dark use of such arts, the Clansguardia soon caught him.

 

In a secluded Clansfolk chamber of cut stone they were surrounded by a few wall tapestries of rich Clansfolk symbolic meaning, cushion-chairs on the floor, floor mats of finely woven stringgrass and two small clay pots of burning incense oil.

 

Develin Queech writhed under the questioning influence of Alphana, Betena and Gammati. He lay upon a thin mat of woven stringgrass. The man started out handsome, youthful and ‘normal’ looking but as he lay upon the floor he grew too look old, ugly and his body became hunched and distorted. It was not the Three of the Thirteen that did this to him but the simple exposure of his true state of being.

 

Develin Queech sat up and glared at those surrounding him. “I really have no name. I am but the clone of a great and powerful lord. He is one of the PatriotLords who would return to us the glorious wonderments, wisdom and brightest of brightness of the PatriotWay. You should worship the PatriotLords and fall upon your knees in humility before their greatness.”

 

Rhonda Rhodes was seated because she was still a little weak though rapidly growing stronger. “You violated many written and unwritten laws by what you have done, many protocols, and yet there is no regret or remorse in you at what you have done. Let the ClanJudges adjudicate over your fate. Who and what is this PatriotLord that you serve and why did he want access to my mind?”

 

Develin Queech giggled harshly to himself and then spat his words out. “PatriotLords do not easily give out their true names now, not since the treachery of Doomsday. For now you may call him PatriotLord Perishfane. His power is vast and would…”

 

Which was when Develin Queech had a look of shock and horror appear upon his pale, wrinkled and red splotched face. Then he simply fell dead.

 

Gammati spoke. “We could do nothing. He was sustained unnaturally by an outside source of life energies from what may easily be PatriotLord Perishfane. The flow was cut off. We could not sustain this clone that was so close to death anyway.”

 

For now there was nothing much they could do. Rhonda Rhodes was tended by Alphana, Betena and Gammati but mostly she needed to sleep for many hours to recover fully from her ordeal. It soon turned out that it was she who they needed to talk to most of the Clansfolk in that area and so they had no choice but to wait.

Edited September 7, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Terminal%20Pix%201/TERMINAL-IT-Workit-00027.jpg

Edited September 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

-18:1-

 

JACKY, JESSY, JILLY JACKSON

 

It was largely apathy in Sugartown that caused the failure of the planned purge of the Fringers from Sugartown. Many of the fringe folk waited anxiously to be kicked out of what ever pitiful homes they had but nothing happened. When the people organising the purge called for volunteers to come forth, very few did appear.

 

The Sugartown Town Council demanded that the Sheriff and his people do the purge but Sheriff Callahan simply pointed out that he could not carry out what was an illegal act under the laws of the United Settlements of Centralia. The Sugartown Defence Guard refused to do the dirty deed for the same reason.

 

The few volunteers that did appear were mostly thugs that were drawn to the free cheap beer and breadbiscuits dipped in gravy that were on offer. They soon got drunk on the cheap beer and were largely useless to carry out any tasks.

 

Yet another strong reason for the failure of the would be purge was the murder of the most rabid antimutantist in Sugartown being one Harold Redman, leader of the Sugartown Chapter of the Pure Future Party. The PFP was a hardline antimutantism movement with chapters through out the USC and also in some other places. It was not just the ghoulified that they hated but various other mutations such as patchskins, roughskins, psychic mutants and others. They also hated genetically engineered beings like animanoids (animal human humanoids), hulking sexless znulls and born to be cyborgs along with others.

 

The Jackson Triplets had no idea who had murdered Harold Redman though there were plenty of strong candidates who would have loved to have done so. They were not happy it had happened for while Redman was a hate filled fool, others in his chapter were even worse. It seemed likely that Redman would be replaced by somebody who was even more fanatical than he was. Nor did it help that the Sugartown Guilds funded the PFP quite generously, perhaps seeing them as an instrument for their own purposes. If they did, they were fools for the PFP existed only to carry out its own terrible agenda.

 

There was also the strangeness of the nature of the death. Harold Redman had been torn apart with amazing force. This had happened inside his cramped office but surprisingly others, who were on the other side of a thin internal wall, swore they had heard nothing, were unaware of the killing until his secretary had gone to see if Redman wanted a coffee.

Edited September 7, 2010 by Maharg67