ADVENTURES IN TIME, SPACE AND TRANSDIMENSIONALITY

[Maharg67]

CITY OF CYBORGS

TALKING WITH MAGGIE

 

Maggie asked to talk with Graharg privately even as the other sliders were meeting the fake settlers, just over a hundred of them of a supposed population of over twenty thousand. The sliders would never meet the other ‘settlers’ and would somehow never get around to really wondering why, at least not for long.

 

Except that when Maggie sat down on a marble seat in an alcove of semiwild hedge walls, he sensed she suspected the truth and that the UnityFree mind influence was somehow failing on her.

 

Maggie frowned softly. “What are we?”

 

Graharg looked at her in surprise and then he spoke the truth. “Very advanced and sophisticated clones using a very advanced and sophisticated cloning process. Do you remember anything about the last Alternate Earth that you were on?”

 

She looked puzzled and then gave a start. “Yes but only after some effort as if something was trying to hide the memories from me. The world was like this one, I think, but with out Doomsday having happened. The world was much more advanced in some ways but only in some areas. Many areas were desolate, backward and…” She stopped for a moment in visible horror. “were covered with a horrible yellow morgue fog. Inside the UnuFog were undead monstrosities but mostly zombies but also other horrors. There was the EcuMist that opposed the UnuFog and both were kinds of quasilifeforms.”

 

“We were in Melbourne, just like this Melbourne, but inside a great force field bubble that kept both the UnuFog and EcuMist out but also anybody else including most of the surviving population of the world. Only the surviving Bubblecities of that world were advanced scientifically and they had their horrors. Each Bubblecity was controlled by an oppressive agency known as the Ordermation. Many people were cyborg controlled as basic cyborgs called slaveborgs. Cyborg units were everywhere to suppress any form of opposition or escape. Those cyborg units remind me very much of the Cyborgia units that you rescued us from.”

 

She shook her head as if trying to clear her mind. “Something was wrong inside the Bubblecities, something not so obvious but deadly. Maybe it was more than one thing. People seemed to be terrified of going away from the crowded sectors defended by the Ordermation. Few tried to rebel or to escape from the so called Safe Zones. Most people lived basic lives using freely given out feel good drugs provided by the Ordermation that led them to addiction and increased oppression. Yes, now I know why we were cloned and sent here to this Alternate Earth.”

 

Maggie frowned softly. “The OmniResistance cloned us after finding the dying original sliders who were then put into medical status capsules. Cannibal marauders had ambushed the real sliders and then an OmniResistance platoon came to the rescue, killing the barely human cannibals. They have exotic advanced technologies just as the Ordermation does there but of different variations. Energy armour, nanobot-guns, defensive microbot screening, mobile teleportation devices, synthetic telepathic units and much more.”

 

Graharg shrugged. “I helped to develop most of those on this Alternate Earth over five hundred years ago. Still, they could have more advanced versions of the same. We had problems with many of the prototype technologies. Many went into Skynet that turned against the world and began Doomsday.”

 

The young woman, actually very young as a clone, gave him an odd look. “On that other world it was said that Skynet tried to stop a greater doom but that a fool known as World President James Patriot Jackson stopped Skynet from doing so. One day later, the same ‘fool’ activated something called the Ever Free Mass Energy Generator Grid, the EFMEGG that was often called Efmegg for short. Efmegg opened transdimensional rifts to many dangerous realms but one, the most dangerous of all, brought forth the UnuFog and another brought forth the EcuMist that was said to come in reaction to the UnuFog.”

 

Graharg nodded as if to his own thoughts. “I did consider an invention called Efmegg as suggested by a very charming, sophisticated monster of a man. He badly wanted to instigate Efmegg, was almost obsessive about it, but I would not spend the resources and the project felt wrong somehow. His name was Professor Sebastian Sauron and there was something dark at his core that I did not like or trust. He began to hate me but he easily hated people and I was only one on a very long list. Later he took his revenge upon me in a very nasty fashion.”

 

The woman soldier gave him an odd look. “Were you World President James Patriot Jackson on this world?”

 

He nodded. “Yep, the great fool but perhaps I did something good in opposing the creation of Efmegg on this world.”

 

Maggie shrugged. “On that other world, World President Sebastian Sauron rules the Bubblecities through the World Ordermation and the Bubblecity Ordermations. He took over Skynet of that Alternate Earth, along with its subnetworks, and uses them to wage war on both the UnuFog and EcuMist. They say that he is quite insane. What happened to Sebastian Sauron on this world?”

 

Graharg responded. “Oh, him, I killed him quickly and mercifully because I did not want to give into the hatred of him that filled me. Anyway I was tired of all of the violence I had experienced and before then… I had done some bad things to people that I no longer wished to do.”

 

She shrugged. “I have done bad things as a soldier in order to carry out my duty and to survive.”

 

“But not to millions of people.” He sighed. “No, not to millions of people as I did.”

 

But she shook her head. “No, that is not true, not true at all. At least not true for the woman I was cloned from.”

Edited June 20, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CITY OF CYBORGS

EXPOSING SOME TRUTHS

 

Maggie’s previous talk with Graharg had caused changes to occur.

 

Graharg and the True Blue Ocker Mutant scouts prepared to move out as the slider clones tried to come to terms with the truth of their real nature. They cloned sliders now knew of UnityFree and were agreeing to become part of the new settlement that would become their home. They would be living with UnityNeo, folks who were on the very edge of being part of Unity. UnityNeo were much better at pretending to be ‘norms’ and the sliders would get on much better with living with them.

 

Graharg was wary of Unity in any form but he did not consider UnityFree to be a real threat or an enemy.

 

Graharg had a strong impression that what Maggie had told him about that other world, that Alternate Earth, was very important. Alternate Earth #0123456780 was a world where Doomsday had not happened but where some other great disaster had taken place anyway. Both worlds had strong links with different versions of Skynet.

 

Graharg loaded two sealed packs of dried fruit into his backpack and sealed it up. Dried fruit was considered an expensive delicacy by many people and made for good tradegoods, gifts and bribes. He slipped the special armoured backpack on and then stood to begin adjusting it to himself, to his light power armour.

 

Maggie stood there in a new jumpsuit of splashworked citrus colours, looking at him with undisguised curiosity. “What do you really look like?”

 

UnityFree had provided the clones with many new goods, including clothes.

 

Graharg gave a small start. “You can see my face behind the visor.”

 

She shook her head. “I can see a very well made holographic projection behind the visor.”

 

Graharg hesitated and then he showed his true face through the visor, switching off the illusion. His once human face was shaped much like it had been once but was made up of many thousands of tiny biometallic interwoven disks. These were of dull, dark gold and his eyes were dark, dull silver around the iris of dark, dull gold. Thousands of tiny spikes stuck out from the disks being dull, dark copperish. His mouth was partly open to show steel like teeth.

 

Then he returned the visor illusion back on. “You did not seem to be very disturbed.”

 

Maggie nodded. “No, not really, I have seen worse and that is also an illusion.”

 

So he showed her his real face and this time she did wince visibly at first but then she studied his ever shifting, slowly changing and scarred, twisted face. To his complete surprise she then smiled. “Very nice, very interesting. I do not understand.”

 

Graharg responded dryly. “I would be surprised if you did. I am here but not really here. I am constantly shifting from here to somewhere else and back. Or should I say the many versions of me are doing so.”

 

At that, Maggie nodded. “Sebastian Sauron did this to you.”

 

Graharg returned to his normal appearance. “The Sebastian Sauron that I killed, that is. Yes, I destroyed him.”

 

The woman soldier shook her head. “OmniResistance has sent me data to pass onto you. You only killed a clone sent by the real Sebastian Sauron who exists on AltEarth #0123456780. Sebastian Sauron never did exist on this world until the clone came here. World President Sebastian Sauron is actually that other world’s darker version of yourself. When you chose the name James Patriot Jackson, he chose the name Sebastian Sauron. Both of you have elaborate fake background stories, or ‘legends’ and your real backgrounds have never been discovered.”

 

He had ‘memories’ of being born in that Melbourne and growing up there with as one Graham Hamgra. He had been born and grown up a very long time ago. The concept of another version of himself from another Alternate Earth coming here to influence his life was a hard one for him to accept but he decided to be open minded about it, to examine the idea carefully.

 

Maggie then spoke again. “I would like to come with you, as would Wen, the ninja assassin. As clones we have hidden enhancements and surprise abilities as provided by OmniResistance.”

 

So it was decided and plans were changed again. UnityMentality did not seem surprised at all and most accepting of the idea but they added three human ‘operatives’ of their own to the expedition of a kind known as UnityAgents. Graharg began to wonder at the real relationship between the UnityFree of that world and the OmniResistance of the other world.

Edited June 20, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

BACKGROUND

TRIPLECITY, AUSTRALIA

 

Triplecity was a massive construction program largely carried out by armies of AI-supercomputer network-system controlled roboremotes and robots. It swallowed up the Australian cities of Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne but by the time of Doomsday, most of the actual work had been done on Melbourne. This was only for various practical reasons at the time and not because of politics.

 

The reason for the creation of Triplecity and the transformation of the three major cities, along with other settlements in the area, was given as propaganda. Except that the official stories was never quite convincing and nobody seemed to know what really was going on, at least not anybody who was talking.

 

Triplecity was heavily fortified and mostly underground with huge fortress structures above ground. It also had great big parks. Then there were the city domes meant to provide more benefits. There were the great green reserves and satellite settlements of towns and small cities. There was much else.

 

The AntiTriplecity Lobby Organization, the ATLO, widely published a series of questions it had about the Triplecity just before the ATLO was crushed by powerful and mysterious forces.

 

#1 Why was over 80% of Triplecity designated as forbidden to normal citizens?

 

#2 Why were there so many inconsistencies between the official concept, plans, of the Triplecity and the real thing?

 

#3 Why were so many prototype and exotic technologies being used in the Triplecity planning and construction?

 

#4 Why did so many structures, areas, details of Triplecity seemed to have no clear, rational reason for existing?

 

#5 Why were so many individuals, and even groups, vanishing?

 

#6 Who was actually in control of the Triplecity Project?

 

#7 Why did various powerful forces seemed opposed to the project?

 

#8 What did the Triplecity Project have in common with other such projects around the world such as those focused on Washington DC, London, Beijing, Johannesburg and others?

 

#9 What were the Mystery Nine Projects that seemed to be focused on the Triplecity?

Edited June 20, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CITY OF CYBORGS

SEEKING OUT CYBORGIA SECRETS

 

They went out onto the surface so as to avoid a zone of underground complexity. Melbournites tended to prefer to stay underground for good reasons but moving underground could be complicated and slow.

 

Mottled light splashed across the immediate area thanks to the condition of part of the dome above. A big kangaroo-mouse hopped over an overturned robotic baby’s carriage and then shot into a shadowed area. The smell of dust, of ruins, was mingled with that of mutated plant life.

 

A CAPTAIN KANGAROO sign-board showed the popular children’s 3DTV and comic book hero with his sidekicks Wallaby Girl and Boxer the Kangaroo. They were going into action with the Kangaroo Car, a strange looking armoured hovercraft, in the background. Graharg found its being there, amongst the ruined city, to be quite ironic.

 

Graharg’s group all wore light power armour and special armoured backpacks except for the hulking True Blue Ocker Mutants who wore special power armour. UnityFree had become concerned that the True Blue Ocker Mutants were not given enough protection in fighting and were providing fighting True Blue Ocker Mutants with special power armour fitted to them, as quickly as possible. They still had the same types of weapons.

 

So Graharg moved quickly across a blasted city with parts in surprisingly good condition, moving over a dam that had been created by fallen smart concrete blocking a big water channel. They passed over a waterfall that fell down into a lopsided crater in which lay a big crashed commuter vertibird with its antigrav boosters and fanjets. Mirelurks could be seen down there. It was strange how certain kinds of mutated creatures had appeared around the world about the same time.

 

In the dull sunshine of murky cloud covered sky glimpsed through the dome overhead, they passed ganger territorial markers of the SteepleMelbanors, one of the Melbanor Gangs. The Melbanors could be brutal but they were not stupidly brutal. Given ganger type respect and a good bribe, they would let most people through their territories with out a qualm. Others they would let go through because they were too tough for the Melbanors or because of some form of agreement.

 

The bridge was dotted with AuziMotors smaller machines and some American atomic motorized bigger machines. There were other vehicles of course. The nine figures kept pacing smoothly and efficiently across the landscape, always trying to be as little exposed as possible. From the bridge, hearing deathclaw territorial cries in the distance, they swept downwards into an underpass.

 

Which was where they found five dead and one dying cybdogs. It was there that Graharg healed the dying cybdog in a fashion that surprised Wen and Maggie but not the others for his hands glowed and the cybdog was healed.. The two women were even more amazed when he healed the recently killed cybdogs. Then he made each one of them vanish with a sparkling shimmer.

 

Wen spoke then through her suit. “Where did you send them?”

 

Graharg turned to her. “At this moment I have no idea for I have suppressed my memories for security purposes. The cybdogs will be safe and happier. I have also gained much general data from them. No locals did this. The Cyborgia units were ambushed by GuardTek Troopers in assault power armour but then another, more exotic force attacked them from behind.”

 

There was little remaining of the GuardTek Troopers except for broken, twisted bits of armour and other equipment along with some blood and small bits of flesh. The attack had taken place with incredible savagery, force and speed. The same force had avoided the dying Cyborgia cybdog for reasons unknown.

 

Graharg looked around the massacre area where a lightly crumpled electric delivery-trike was pressed against a wall and where there was a utility hatch-door open in one smart concrete wall. He sensed that the dark, alien force had both come out through that way and vanished back that way into the underground. There were no physical traces of its movements except some odd patterns of distortions in the light rubbish and dirt.

 

A big ugly cane-toad hopped across the smart concrete in the distance, quickly going across exposed ground. Once its toxicity would have allowed the introduced species to survive easily but many mutated predators were not effected by that defense system and they munched on plenty of cane-toads.

 

He had a bad feeling that there was something awfully familiar about the dark force because it ‘felt’ like a distorted, faded version of himself.

Edited June 20, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CITY OF CYBORGS

CYBORGIA STATION 1010A1 AND BEYOND

 

The station was hidden not far from the death scene.

 

Cyborgia Station 1010A1 was abandoned by Cyborgia. Bare smart concrete surfaces were the norm and from a corner ran metal pipes down to the corner below that gurgled constantly with flowing water. Clearly the base had been made from an abandoned shelter bunker, most likely a private one, being altered and enlarged.

 

What could be taken, had been taken and anything left over that was destructible in a hurry, had been destroyed. It was clear to Graharg that the retreat had been an odd mixture of efficiency and panic. Blast marks on the armoured doors to the station and other signs indicated a large force of fighters, with fairly advanced equipment, had attacked the station. The concealments of a maze of hallways and other tricks had failed badly.

 

The use of advanced plasmaguns indicated strong that it had been Enclavers that had attacked, most likely being elite long range Troopers of some kind. ‘Something’ told him that the Enclavers had gained nothing from the attack but that Cyborgia had suffered a major defeat in the destruction of one of its important stations.

 

The surprising find were the three cybkeys (cyborg monkeys) waiting for him, waiting to give him a high security clearance communicator. So it was that he began to speak to CyborgiaMind that seemed like a synthetic copy of the UnityMind and UnityMentality, and to form some kind of alliance. The big surprise was that CyborgiaMind knew he had been saving dying Cyborgia units and sending them to peaceful retirement; this seemed to please CyborgiaMind except now the units were needed. Cyborgia was also in need of other resources but would become less hostile to many folks in exchange for them.

 

It was only a preliminary round of negotiations but it was enough for the moment. Cyborgia had strong suspicions why powerful known forces were coming to the area to search for something they were willing to fight for. CyborgiaMind hinted it might just know more about the dark force that had wiped out the Tekker mercenaries.

 

Now the group numbered twelve, being three cyborg monkeys, three UnityAgents, three True Blue Ocker Mutant scouts, two cloned slider humans and himself. The cyborg monkeys led them down into an escape route partly made by Cyborgia and partly consisting of internal structures.

 

They did not return to the surface but moved along what was a fairly new built tunnel, though not originally done by Cyborgia. Cyborgia had improved it, making it more secure, and Graharg assumed it had once been a ganger escape tunnel. The idea was confirmed when they came upon a chamber where dead gangers lay as skeletal remains, they being killed by toxic food taken from a malfunctioning storage status-capsule. It was an ironic way to die for the Melbanor gangers who so much prided themselves on glorious death in battle.

 

They took of useful items but left most of it to be picked up later. Graharg claimed a rare leather bound book from a storage status-box and some vintage PreDoomsday holotapes that he made vanish off to that other, secret, place.

 

Yet it was something else that Graharg found that greatly interested him for one of the long dead gangers had picked up some strange items in the city and had stored them in a small storage status-box. These he kept with himself.

Edited June 20, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CITY OF CYBORGS

CYBORGIA AT WORK

 

Inside a big basement chamber they found a fairly large force of Cyborgia cyborg human soldiers, or chopshots, preparing for trouble. They were not alone as with them were not only other kinds of Cyborgia units but True Blue Ocker Mutants. They were opening metal storage status-crates to carefully remove and assemble various kinds of roboremotes, robots and worker power exosuits, WPEs. These and other long term stored items in the big chamber were tools, not weapons, but Cyborgia needed to construct new stations and perhaps something more, something special.

 

Light came from a combination of pale emergency fluroflats fused to the ceiling and portable banks of flurolamps. Cyborg monkeys, chimpanzees and gorillas moved efficiently to assist but the four legged cyborgs were mostly guards and scouts. Still, at least one cybrat and cybkey sped around with a pouch to hold small items and some big cybdogs walked around with panniers of water, drinks and food.

 

The cyborg human that came to meet Graharg, cybhuman, was no chopshot with the armour and basic swordguns of such. She wore body-armour but wore ranking symbols of a Cyborgia cybhuman Supervisor. Her skin and hair were metallic silver but her eyes were green.

 

She halted and studied Graharg carefully before speaking. “I am not one to negotiate for I am but a Supervisor. CyborgiaMind would have you know that many are now in great danger who exist in the part of the city. A dark, powerful, alien force has already struck with devastating effect at Cyborgia, GuardTek, Enclaven, FUP, ganger and other forces in the area.”

 

Other forces?

 

As if answering him, she went on. “Ghoulbanor and the PUP.”

 

Yes, the ghouls own alliance and the oppressive People’s Union of People, that was smaller and tighter than the Free Union of Peoples, the FUP. Their involvement was understandable.

 

Then she continued. “There are indications that Australian and New Zealand based powers may be interested in what is happening here such as the EarthEmpire, the ANZUR, the Aarisha and the Abano.”

 

There was already too much complexity and now there promised to be more. “Do you want something from me?”

 

She showed him a series of incomplete blueprints, plans, for a small but powerful and sophisticated manufactory complex. He quickly added the missing elements and improved the whole design using a laptop computer. UnityFree had been studying the technologies brought by the sliders and had passed on samples and data for Cyborgia to study. CyborgiaMind was impressed with the efficiency and compactness of the different form of electronics that was solid-state.

 

It was a test of sorts, the chance to help Cyborgia, but Cyborgia really did need help. Cyborgia partly existed to conceal and secure the very thing that so many forces were trying very hard to get hold of. That thing was linked to the changing in the history of that Alternate Earth and the rise of the so called Golden Age and it was buried beneath the city of Melbourne. It had been so for thousands of years and long before the city existed, of course.

 

It was a zetan mothership of the ZeZetano klanze, an ancient and powerful zetan offshoot klanze that had dared to steal forbidden technologies from the Greynari Overmasters of the zetans. Cyborgia was not really a rogue part of Earthnet; that had been a cover story. Cyborgia had been created to conceal and secure the Mothership ZeZarki0zeka.

 

Graharg had heard of whispers of the mothership before but had never gained any firm data on whether it really existed under the city or not.

 

Cyborgia had evolved away from its original self and now wished to understand what it had guarded for so long but why and how had Cyborgia changed?

 

Edited May 4, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

STORY DIRECTIONS

STORY POINTS

 

The Golden Age, Doomsday

 

 

Alternate Earths

 

# 0123456789 being the AltEarth that the story is taking place on

 

# 0123456780 being the AltEarth where the eight sliders were cloned

 

# 0123456788 being the AltEarth where the original Wen of the original eight sliders came from originally.

 

 

Alternate World Presidents

 

World President James Patriot Jackson arose on # 0123456789.

 

World President Sebastian Sauron arose on # 0123456780.

 

Apparently they were both previously alternate versions of the same individual.

 

 

A clone of Sebastian Sauron apparently went from # 0123456780 to #012345670 in order to influence or kill World President James Patriot Jackson but was killed by the intended victim.

 

 

Many powerful forces being drawn to the Central District of Melbourne apparently by the Mothership ZeZarki0zeka of the ZeZetano klanze, an ancient and powerful zetan offshoot klanze that had dared to steal forbidden technologies from the Greynari, that was buried below the city since ancient times.

 

PUP, POP, Unity, Cyborgia and other local forces.

 

Enclavers, Tekkers, EarthEmpire and other outsider forces.

 

Graharg, others like him and his secret people.

 

The dark, powerful and mysterious force that is brutally attacking a wide range of targets. Graharg ‘sensed’ a disturbing similarity between it and himself.

 

Captain Kangaroo, Wallaby Girl and Boxer the Kangaroo.

 

Edited May 4, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CITY OF CYBORGS

CYBORGIA UNDERGROUND CONVOY

 

Graharg and his group ended up going with a convoy of Cyborgia units, True Blue Ocker Mutants and six wheeled robocarrier vehicles. The convoy also had some MrPortys and robotrucks on tracks along with cybhuman driven vehicles. Everything they could salvage from the big chamber, they had salvaged from the big chamber.

 

The convoy was quite well guarded and Cyborgia knew well where it was going but they were still vulnerable to ambush. So soon Graharg and his group were out scouting ahead for the convoy in three smaller groups.

 

They came upon the remains of Enclaven Recontroopers in scout power armour, a specialised cousin to light power armour, and Graharg knew the dark force, that was so much like himself, had struck there also. It had fed physically but also on life energies in a more direct fashion, which would have meant painful death for its victims.

 

The group came together at that place that was the junction of two big gently sloping metallic tunnels decorated with what looked like vertical flying buttresses running up the walls from the floor.

 

Wen, the ninja woman, shook her head and then spoke. “This confirms it. The real Wen’s homeland on her world was attacked by terrible monsters of shadow and they were led by a most powerful force. I think this is the same as that was.”

 

Graharg looked up at the young oriental woman, who was very young as a clone. “A pattern is forming but we need more data. What was Wen’s home world like?”

 

She focused noticeably on finding an answer. “Like this one but her motherland was the Japanese Islands about a thousand years after Doomsday. People had mixed technologies but samurai and ninja were once more common and influential on the islands though they often used guns along with older type weapons like swords. Wen came from Alternate Earth #0123456788.”

 

Which meant it was in viable alternate terms a close cousin to both AltEarths #0123456789 and #0123456780.

 

Graharg showed her the items that a dead ganger had picked up from the city somewhere. They were a ninja bladepistol and small explosive shuriken, throwing-stars, along with a headband with particular markings. Wen was shocked and she openly stared at the headband a short while before she spoke.

 

“This is mine or at least identical to the headband that I have hidden away. What does this mean?”

 

Maggie stood there, frowning. “That we are not the first set of slider clones to be sent here to this AltEarth. OmniResistance even replicated personal items. Why send two teams, though?”

 

Graharg shrugged. “They may have been more than two teams of clones sent or there may be other answers. I suggest we keep on scouting but communicate with the convoy and inform them of what we have found.”

 

They did keep scouting ahead but found nothing but typical Undercity life and environments. They briefly met a group of scavenger families seeking greater security away from increasing violence by going to Hubtown. Graharg gave them some rations, stimpaks, purified water, other useful items and some small carved gifts that he had done himself from wood of mutated trees. He had a reputation for getting annoyed if people made a fuss so they quietly took the gifts and gave the usual promise to help others in turn, which is all he asked of people.

 

Edited May 4, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CITY OF CYBORGS

CYBORGIA UNDERGROUND CITY ALPHA-THREE

 

They reached Cyborgia City Alpha-Three and found themselves amongst a population of over three million cyborgs along with another two million plus others. Amongst the cyborgs were kinds that Graharg had not encountered before such as giant-ants, kangaroos and even dairy cows that took themselves to give milk when it was time. Then there were non cyborged humans and animals. There were ghouls and rhouls (tame zhouls). There were neoanimals such as neochimps and neogorillas. There were others that Graharg glimpsed moving amongst the flowing, orderly crowds.

 

Then there were the many robots: a few were such a protectrons, securetrons, sentrybots, MrHandys and eyebots but most were wheelbots on two or four wheels, being square bases with turret-heads on telescopic cylinders with double-jointed manipulator arms. Hoverbots were much the same but hovered instead of used wheels.

 

The androids were basic duplicants, more sophisticated and realistic appearing replicants and the amazingly realistic simulicants. There were many of them.

 

But what gave the truth away were the large number of True Blue Ocker Mutants in the underground city. It was proving to be that UnityFree was the true power behind Cyborgia or was the situation that simple? Certainly Graharg could sense that there were many Unityfolk amongst the crowds, be they human or otherwise.

 

At the core of it was the Great Cylinder that was once used to construct robotic rocketships; with antigrav boosters and fusion drives these would travel between the Earth and the space colonies of L5, Lunar and Mars including the two Martian Moon Bases. It had been closed down long before Doomsday as being too dangerous to use with so many people living close to it.

 

Graharg was impressed with the great vertical cylinder design that held a series of great garden platforms in the great central shaft along with big elevators, roadways and rampways as part of the structure of buttresses, beams, girders and grids. From where he stood close to the top of the cylinder, at an observation platform on one side, he could see much.

 

The UnityFree Coordinator came to him and she stood close by in her silver metallic jumpsuit. She spoke in a voice with some undertone of pride. “UnityFree and Unityfolk are one of the three forces that direct Cyborgia in its many operations. Another is CyborgiaMind and the third is yourself.”

 

Into Graharg’s mind flooded the truth that he had suppressed and he laughed softly. He had been going through the motions of trying to find a Cyborgia station and fighting Cyborgia units while in truth the fighting was very cleverly faked. He had killed no Cyborgia units, not even when supposedly saving the slider clones.

 

So why had he taken such efforts to conceal the truth even from himself? So that he could allow the dark, powerful, alien psychic force to glimpse some traces of his mind and get the very wrong idea about him. This was so that very force would underestimate him and attack him; Graharg would be waiting to trick the attacker into a Cyborgia and UnityFree based ambush. Somehow the dark entity had ‘sensed’ that something was wrong and had avoided Graharg.

 

His real mission had been to track, learn more about and destroy the dark, destructive and murderous entity that was striking at even heavily armed groups in that part of the city.

 

So who were the people like himself? They were such as Gramarg, Gratarg, Gravarg and others, all linked at core to himself but right now all resting-restoring in deep status.

 

And his secret people? They were UnityFree!

 

“All that effort, all that deception and the mission failed except for one break through.” Graharg spoke after a long pause of reflection and watching some pigeons on a metal cable pecking away at bird seed. “The Shadowthing reflects my own nature in a distorted sense and may be linked with a World President Sebastian Sauron of another Alternate Earth who is an alternate version of myself.”

 

The UnityFree Coordinator responded. “What will you do now?”

 

Graharg frowned for he had no real idea, which was something rare for him and not something that he liked.

Edited May 4, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

BACK STORY

DREAMING OF A SUMMERTIME BEACH SCENE, 1944

 

His name was not Graharg back then and he was a mere mortal back then. The teenage boy, slimly muscular, a little on the skinny side, was feeling a little sunburned as his mother rubbed some suntan oil into his back. He was Irish Australian and it was Saint Patrick’s Day so his family had decided to have a picnic at the local beach despite rationing and other obstacles of war time.

 

His father, a port worker, had gotten some bottles of American CokaCola from somewhere as he had some good quality ham. Otherwise they had some biscuits, home made lemonade, some local grown fruit and home made jam to put on the biscuits.

 

Back then, as an eighteen year old, he looked like any typical young adult in his bathing shorts but already the government had discovered his genius. He was going into a speed education program and then into doing research and development for new technologies to use against the evil Axis.

 

Crabs scuttled on the beach. Children built sand castles. A couple of young women in bathing suits walked hand in hand along the sand with two American sailors. From somewhere unseen came drifting big-band music.

 

His mother was proud of him but his father, well he was more convinced than ever that his first born son was not his biological son. Still, Irish as he was, he loved his son anyway and forgave his wife in his heart. His suspicions were both true and not true.

 

Not that the teenager thought about such things too much. He spent his time there on the beach mildly flirting with some female teens and waiting for his girlfriend to show up so he could inform her that the relationship was over. She had done more than flirting with a couple of American GIs and now she was pregnant. So to his mind it was all over, of course. His mother’s advise that he be forgiving had fallen on deaf ears.

 

Still, he wondered.

 

A flight of American fighter planes shot overhead, going fast out to sea, and he wondered why he sensed that this was no normal patrol. Then came three more American aircraft, light bombers this time, and then three Australian fighters of the RAAF.

 

His baby brother was wiggling all four limbs in his carrycot as his young and younger sisters teased him. They had on fairly modest single piece bathing suits but his baby brother had on a nappy, of course.

 

Mother and father were lying on beach towels with books open over their faces.

 

People were gathering down at the edge of the surf, on the golden sands of the beach proper, and staring out to sea. Something was moving towards the beach, the cliff faces and beyond it to the small city that was the home of him and his family.

 

A glowing fog, a thing not of evil but of very alien nature, it flowed against the wind and it moved amazingly fast. Amongst it were just visible lifeforms and other shapeforms including what seemed to be a fishing boat and an American fighter plane, perhaps one of those that had just flown overhead.

 

Before he could even think of anything to do, so shocked was he, the glowing mist had swept up the beach to engulf him and his family, along with all of the others on the beach and beyond.

 

He fell into darkness.

Edited May 4, 2011 by Maharg67