GAME WORLDS ADVENTURES

[Maharg67]

INFORMATION AREA

WILL BE EXPANDED, EDITED, UPGRADED

 

HOME DOMINION

 

Human Colonies struggling to survive in a semi-arid, semifertile set of vast suncaverlands, smaller but still great big suncaverns and glowcrystal cave systems. Refugees through the Stargate of the Ancients as found on-in the Lost Earth.

 

Fled from invading Martians and other threats in the 1940s.

 

Mixed technologies: Lost Earth based and some more exotic ones.

 

OTHER EARTH

 

The 2020s Alternate Earth of the Transshifters and some of the Players.

[Maharg67]

001

JAKE MAHARG

ORASCU

 

*****

 

Jake assumed it was a dream at first even though it was an amazingly vivid one, with added feel, smell, sound and what not. He awoke in a cave chamber in his 'going to university' clothes, boots, pouchbelt, one of his small collection of caps, one of his three types of cool sunglasses (according to him) and a backpack full of university items, some useful stuff and rather unusual items that would prove surprising useful in time to come.

 

The cave was big, was slanted, was odd shaped but caves tended to be that way. There were no such things as stalagmites, though, and it was dimly lit but he was surprised at the metallic stone nature of its surfaces. There was also the strange upright cylinder of the same material ending in a beautiful dark crystal sphere. The column had a disk shaped base that was melded into the general floor of the cave chamber. The artifact was very big.

 

A very strange dream indeed.

 

*****

 

Then something gave him a nasty little bite and he sat up with a cry of surprise and pain. The small spider like creature was flung through the air to land and scuttle away. It was spider like because he noted that it seemed to have ten legs instead of eight. He rubbed at his small bite mark and felt sorry for himself. Then he examined it more closely and realized it was not harmful at all. Or at least somehow he 'sensed' that this was the case.

 

The voice spoke seemingly out of mid air. It was friendly, warm, female but not quite human sounding. "The spidger was trying to determine, in its own way, if you were dangerous. Spidgers can be rather foolish."

 

"I am late for university... well I will be late for a university lecture." He looked around even as he fished out his handy survival torch, tough and waterproof with a solar power panel. Some of his friends liked to joke that he was an amateur survivalist and maybe he was but there were signs back home that things were going bad. Some of his friends, increasingly nervous at world events, were starting to copy him. Jake switched on the torch and though its beam was fairly strong, he wished it was stronger. "Where are you? Are you hiding behind that column thing? If you are you have a wonderful way of throwing your voice."

 

The voice sounded amused. "No, I am the 'column thing', I am named OrasculllaTiaTiaTurennenna from ancient times but you may call be Orascu. We can be friends. I have not had a chance to talk to anybody for a long time, not even a 'primitive self aware intelligence' as you are, though I suspect there actually may be something more to you."

 

Jake snorted. "Normally I would assume you were toying with me but 'something' tells me that you are real, are telling me the truth and this is no dream. The spidger bite helped me get over the last delusion. I am still going to be late for lectures, Orascu."

 

*****

 

Orascu responded. "Perhaps you should focus on current concerns for now. You will be able to return to your home world in about another two and a half local hours."

 

He frowned softly. "Old Jones Henry is going to fry my a*** for this. Still, it is easy to get on his bad side. Physics you know, I think it does something to people that is not always good. I study physics and creative writing at university. I play computer games on line, multiplayer, single player and co-op." He looked around. "I have some water but I prefer to keep it in reserve. Is there any here?"

 

Orascu spoke again. "Come to the column and I will open up an alcove in my side. In it you will find identical copies of every item that you brought with you. Cap, wrap-around sunglasses, Betty Boop Tshirt, light denim jacket, three Betty badges on the jacket, cargo trousers with plenty of pockets, socks, boots, jocks, digital wrist-watch, mobile telephone with extras, E-reader, digital camera, survival knife in sheaf, survival compass in pouch, survival torch in sheaf, survival medikit in pouch, one litre survival canteen in pouch, survival radio set, a stun device with double action, food rations, vitamin-mineral pills, your wallet, some loose coins, a plastic $5-note of the Australian and New Zealand Unified Republic., the ANZUR, a sealed condom, a pair of six sided dice, some lint, a couple of small coffee toffees, five university physics textbooks, one graphic novel, one comic book, a thick folder-file, some pens, some pencils, an eraser, a compact laptop computer, four mini-DVDs, two keydrives, some assorted keys on a key-ring with a Betty Boop figurine and a paperback novel."

 

So he went to the column, it turned out to be even much bigger than he had previously thought, and was dwarfed by it as he stood next on the great, wide, disk shaped base. The alcove was very large and filled with a strange glowing green light. Most of the noted items were inside the clothes, the backpack and pouchbelt that floated in the glowing air. Yes, they were duplicates of his own items but everything seemed cleaner, neater and in better condition. The cargo trousers lacked the stain on one knee that the original ones had. The backpack lacked the big leather patch of the original one.

 

'Sensing' it was safe to do, that it was the best action to take, he began to carefully pull all of the items out of the alcove.

Edited August 17, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

002

JAKE MAHARG

ORASCU

 

*****

 

Jake drank water from one of the canteens to slake his thirst and then put the items he had taken from the 'glowing air' alcove into another, empty alcove that was just a space that had appeared in the side of the column. Orascu increased the amount of light in the chamber by causing the crystal globe to glow brighter and yet a large part of the very big cave chamber remained dimly lit and some more isolated areas were darker.

 

Clear, cool, healthy to drink water flowed from a hole in one wall, down a slope in a canal and across the chamber in the same canal to end in a shallow bowl of a pool. It was shallow but very wide. The bottom was dark earth growing water plants of various kinds and part of the shoreline was earth, was dotted with odd pale plants and what looked like big mushrooms. Small frogs, roaches and other critters could be glimpsed there and in the water. There were also fish in the water, pale white or yellow with big black bulbous eyes.

 

He had no desire to damage, to over exploit, to intrude on this small, precious ecosystem. He was an active ecowarrior back on his home world. The use of the term 'home world' did not seem to come as a surprise to him, did not seem to raise doubts in his mind as he somehow 'sensed' he was no longer on Terra that was also known as the Earth or Sol-3. So he took some digital photos, often using the zoom but being careful how he used the flash. Then he took more photos of the rest of the chamber, including the ancient artifact that was Orascu.

 

He suddenly felt very tired and so he climbed into another alcove that had appeared, only to find it had a thin padded floor of surprising comfort. Soon he was asleep.

 

When he awoke, he was back on the public transit bus that he had fallen asleep on.

 

*****

 

He knew somehow that it had not really been a dream, the spidger sting was faded but still there but he did not even need that evidence, even though his more 'rational side' wanted badly to refute the whole idea. The old public transit bus had broken down briefly but now, repaired by some overworked field crew, it was on its way again. He sat by himself at the middle of the bus, it being only lightly populated by hot, lightly hungry people like himself. Sure there was food and other needs being met but there was strict rationing and the flourishing black market was damned expensive to buy from. The green house effect, partly human caused and partly natural cycle caused, was having a terrible impact on the world. Australia was no exception.

 

The south was drying up and the north was getting wetter; both were getting hotter. When rain came to the south, it more often came in the form of terrible storms and floods. Cyclones were increasing both in number and strength as hurricanes were in the Northern Hemisphere. Outside of Australia, ironically enough, Great Britain was getting colder as was North America. The effects of the changes were not straight forward on a world wide basis.

 

It was a surprise to him that he had lost weight, felt fitter and healthier and felt no hunger or thirst.

 

Curtis University Central Campus came into view, a dirty complex of buildings, many of them prefabs, with most long dead lawns and gardens. Only about 10% of the old lawns and gardens were now watered, kept alive, as a longer term policy to do with strict water rationing. Even with three big solar powered desalination plants in operation, and a recent small rain storm, the city of Purth was lacking water. Rationing was a must. Public rainwater tanks, recycling of water and even sewerage, had helped.

 

A gust of warm air shook the vehicle.

 

Then an ambulance raced past, sirens wailing, but it was not alone. With it were two customized police cars with added armour, armaglass and grids along with one of the new SWAT vans. SWAT stood for Special Weapons, Armour and Tactics. As he watched the vehicles race past, a horrible queasy feeling of fear went through his guts. Was it happening there in Purth at last? Was there an outbreak of Red Plague or worse?

 

Ragers, they were berserker insane victims of the Red Plague with enhanced physical power and strange changes to mind and body. They did not use weapons but were harder to kill than normal people. They were very much alive but not as normal humans were. Then there were ravers who were less berserker, easier to kill but who could and did use weapons in their lesser berserker rage. The other categories survived with changes but were not berserker crazy to any degree.

 

*****

 

He had survived the Red Plague but his family and friends had not done so; that is except for one estranged sister, some more distant relations and a single on-off male friend. Sometimes the sadness, the pain, got to him but he just took some semilegal pills and slept it off. Not progressive maybe but therapists were in shortage, as were all types of doctors, so he had little chance of getting professional help. Nor did he have much faith in the so called alternative healers.

 

Since then he had been less sociable, more isolated, less successful with getting dates with female students and more intent on the still function aspects of the world wide internet. Playing games was good like Warcraft, Fallout Earth, Ages of Tamriel, Ultimate Doom, Sims Life and the meeting, chatting, flirting, swapping avatar zones of Second Life. Only he was running out of money. Which was when his mobile-phone rang. This was something of a surprise since most of the time he did not use it and he did not get calls, which was good for his credit.

 

The woman sounded warm, a little sexy, professional and strong. "You are Jake Maharg?"

 

He responded. "Yes I am. What would you like? You should know I do not have much money so you may as well not bother trying to sell me anything."

 

The voice sounded slightly amused. "No, I do not wish to sell you anything. My name is Rhonda Rhodes. I represent the Maharg Foundation of Special Projects and Institutions. It is often called just the 'Maharg Foundation'. It is no coincidence that it shares the same name as your surname. It appears that you have become of interest to the Maharg Foundation and that we wish to fund you, to support you, for a special project."

 

He almost dealt with it as he might some stupid joke as cooked up by his arch enemies, the McDonald Brothers, but again 'something' told him it was real, as unlikely as that seemed. Yet it was a good deal less strange than the experience in the exotic cave with the alien Orascu. After a brief pause he spoke. "So do you want to meet somewhere."

 

"You have doubts of the authenticity of what I am saying. Very interesting!" Rhonda Rhodes went on. "After you have gone to the lecture that you are due to attend, I will shout you lunch and one of those ice-coffees you like so much, in the Curtis Cafe. I will be wearing a red minidress with black high-heel shoes, a black leather belt and I will have a large black shoulderbag. I am lightly tanned white, have very reddish red hair and I have a very sexy body with quite large breasts, just as you like women to have."

 

He blushed slightly. "So you checked up on me in a very professional manner. No surprise, I suppose. I will see you at the cafe."

Edited August 17, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

003

ECCIE, EDDIE, ELLIE, EMMIE MAHARG

 

*****

 

Eccie, Eddie, Ellie and Emmie made their way quietly through the edges of the town of Port Matilda. It was populated by a mixture of white Auzilanders and Azorines of various shades of brown or black. They passed rows of motorcars parked over the street from the pubs, dance-clubs, movie theatres, gaming-halls, music-halls, TV-clubs, restaurants and other facilities visited by their drivers and passengers. A couple of burly looking thuggies, in cheap 'parking attendant' uniforms, were looking after the vehicles because privately owned cars were uncommon in the Havenlands; they were a big target for automobile crime rings.

 

Eccie slept in his pouch against Emmie's chest. The bigger, 'younger' quads took turns in holding him when he slept all chubby muscular and grumpily adorable. They wore tough, enduring work clothes and acted as if they were members of the working class on their way to night shift work in the growing darkness. This was not true. They were freedom-fighters, or what the TripleEmpire would call rebels. There was no real sign in that part of the town of TripleImperial rule except for some cheap propaganda posters on some walls and a single TripleStar emblazoned flag on a single white flag-pole in the centre of a small, basic ring-garden.

 

Except that the 'younger' quads, being born but a very few minutes after Eccie, 'sensed' there were some secret police hired observers in the area. The TripleImperial Security Intelligence Department of the TripleImperial Ministry of Security, was the dreaded 'secret police'. The observers had only basic mindcaps infused into their scalps and skulls. They were commoners, were just part of the exploited masses partly controlled by the mindcap network of network-systems. The higher up in the pyramid one got, the more controlled one was but the more official authority, unofficial influence and wealth one gained along with bonus luxuries. There were exceptions to the rule, some of them quite dangerous.

 

Then there were the mysterious MindcapMasters at the very top.

 

Music came through the open windows of a dance-hall, being a big-band number from the Lost Earth. The mindcapping technologies brought law, order, calmness and efficiency to the people but they also tended to suppress the creative side. Anyway the TripleEmpire frowned on too much change taking place too quickly, often to a ridiculous degree.

 

Somebody lay slumped against a wall. At first glance she could be taken for a drunk having come out of one of the 'adult entertainment' establishments in the area. The older quads 'sensed' otherwise and then Eccie awoke, grumpy but concerned, alerted by his deep empathic senses. He confirmed what his 'little-big' sisters and brothers already 'sensed'. The woman had begun a mental fight against her basic mindcap and the results were that, while she had gained some freedom, she was in a helpless state. The quads wanted to get to her, wanted to try and free her, before the TripleImperial mindcap specialists and paramedics came racing to 'rescue' her. That is to reprogram, recondition her or, if that failed, to painlessly terminate her life. At least half of such cases led to termination as the subjects were either too damaged to heal or would not return to be mindcapped puppets of the TripleEmpire.

 

*****

 

When, where and how did it all go wrong for many of the human refugees who came flooding through three Stargates from the Lost Earth?

 

At first there was just the struggle to survive, to establish viable settlements, to grow food, to bring law and order to the new colonies along with security of other kinds. The Citystates and Townstates had arisen around the strongest, central cities or towns. Then came outpost-colonies, forts, highways, railways, air transportation and the build up of police, paramilitary and military services. Telephone lines were laid. Electricity power grids became more common, though in the form of networked subgrids. Piped burnable gas was used commonly for varied reasons, for cooking and heating. Plumbing was common. There was much to do but it seemed the scattered colonies would do fine in the longer term even if they had some monstrous local lifeforms and other difficulties to deal with. Anyway they had some wonderful, alien exotic assistance.

 

Nobody was sure when, where or how the first humans came to be mindcapped, to be turned into puppets. The mindcapped captured others to mindcap them. As always, some died or became handicapped or went insane during the mindcapping process but most survived as puppets though with dulled mentalities in most cases. The armies of the mindcapped grew and with them swarmed the others of the TripleEmpire that made up the two other TripleImperial Thirds. That is the quasiliving bioplastic autons and the multiple modular quasiliving biometallic modulaorgs. The autons came in human and other replicated shapeforms. The modulaorgs came as exotic copies of free human machines but also robotic like bipeds, quadrupeds and other shapeforms.

 

Vulnerable as they were, and betrayed by the mindcapped who had a good deal of dangerous data to hand over to their new masters, the human forces fought bravely, with much determination but they crumbled too quickly, were isolated and cut off, were captured and converted. The Exodus took place and many free humans managed to escape to a free domain where they still struggled to stay free. For now the TripleEmpire did not seem interested in making any great effort to conquer them, which was probably the main reason they remained free. The rest of humanity, except for scattered free immunes, was enslaved as were some kind of animals.

 

*****

 

The woman not only lived, she became immune to future mindcapping control. She kept the enhanced physical and mental abilities of being mindcapped but also gained 'spirit' enhancements of psychic-psionic abilities. They half carried her, led her, along a sidewalk and she went along with the story that she had drunk too much cheap gin and that her nieces and nephews were taking her home. To help with the story, Ellie splashed some cheap gin down the front of the woman's shirt and had her take a small mouthful to swirl around her mouth and then swallow. It was nasty stuff and the woman grimaced as she swallowed it.

 

At first the quads had no idea of just how great their gain was but they soon enough did as the woman revealed to them that she was a dreaded agent of the secret police, of the TISID. She grinned and promised that she had some very important information to give over to them. That Eccie accepted her positively was good proof but of course they would have to be careful. There had been those who had become free of their mindcaps only to treacherously try to betray the Resistance Alliance for their own personal gains.

 

A rather beaten up looking workvan, decorated with fading symbols of the TriImperial Ministry of Public Works, picked them up on a corner where there was an empty lot with the rusting hulk of a burned out battletank. It had been destroyed during the War of Enslavement. There were also some old couches, of course, and some empty, dirty beer bottles.

Edited August 17, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

004

JAKE MAHARG

RHONDA RHODES

 

*****

 

Jake went to the lecture on 'Hyperspacial Theory' that was a new development, a kind of theoretical leap aside from Quantum Mechanics, that was fascinating. He took it in much better than he usually took in the difficult to understand data as dished out by the brilliant but eccentric Professor Jones Henry. He found himself understanding not just the lecture information with amazing clarity but also stuff he had memorized in the first half of the year, the first semester of physics, that he had barely passed. Now puzzlement was replaced by startling understanding. His hand and pen flew over page after page, leaving equations, diagrams, notes and small drawings.

 

It was 2023AD and funding for sciences such as physics was suffering as precious resources were increasingly spent on survival but physics was still fairly well funded thanks to the International Space Colonies Program. So progress was still being made, of sorts.

 

Then he was still making notes, was considering matters, when he was alone in the lecture theatre except for Professor Jones Henry, a big imposing man with broad shoulders who had been fat but, like most people who had been, had lost weight thanks to the shortages and the rationing.

 

*****

 

Jones arched his eyebrows. "Jake Maharg, you seem very much improved in your work. May I have a look?"

 

Jake shrugged and handed over the file. He was sure that the genius would not find much of interest in the notes of a mere undergraduate student who was barely getting enough grades to pass. At first it seemed that his guesses were true but then the professor was skimming through the notes faster and faster, his expression turning from mild disdain, his typical expression, to one was surprise and then amazement. Then he halted abruptly, handed the file back to Jake and scowled. "Where did you copy it all from? Those ideas are amazing. The equations are... break throughs."

 

Jake frowned in annoyance. "I had a break through of my own, if you can call it that. Suddenly things began to fall into place as they never had done before. Back in senior high school I always got very high marks but back in the first semester, well my mind was occupied by too many other matters. I was being called up to do interviews about the Red Plague outbreak that wiped out almost the whole population of five towns in the South West of WA."

 

The professor shook his head in wonder. "I gave you a hard time but if you had told me about the other 'pressures' I would have understood. Why were you testifying?"

 

Jake did not like talking about it and his face showed it. "I was born near and grew up there Walderton, a very small rural town that was dying. It was down to about half a thousand people when the Red Plague struck it. It was not good!"

 

The professor frowned. "How many survived?"

 

"You are looking at him! Some turned into ragers and a couple into ravers. I killed them!" He shrugged, stood up and put his pen and the file-folder into his backpack. "Most died of the plague. I woke up from going through the plague in my own bed. My dog, Rusty, he survived. I still have him at the old house I rent along with two other dogs, two cats, a canary, two budgies, a rabbit, five hens and a ferret I saved. Problem is I am having increasing problems feeding them."

 

The professor was obviously not interested much in Jake's animal companions. "I have another lecture to attend to but I wish to speak to you later today. Can you come and see me at my office at about 15:00, I mean 3pm."

 

"I know what 15 hundred hours means, professor, I was an army cadet." Jake stood up and slipped his backpack on in one smooth motion. "It was par of the reason I survived. That and learning to shoot as a rural townie and being a Boy Scout for a couple of years."

 

*****

 

As promised, Rhonda Rhodes was a beautiful, sexy redhead wearing a rather fashionable, expensive minidress. It had a high hem, was low cut and cleverly cut out disk spaces showed her tummy, including belly button, her lower back and her sides. It was all as subtle as a car crash. Almost every man, and a few women, were secretly admiring her. She smiled at him and ushered him to a seat at her table.

 

It would do no harm to his reputation that certain students were observing him and would pass what they had seen on in the form of gossip but he did not care how others saw him, especially those doing the gossiping.

 

She smiled and he looked at her beautiful green eyes, admiring them more than he did her smooth rounded cleavage. She spoke. "My name is Rhonda Rhodes and the Maharg Foundation sent me to meet you with a proposal that I hope you find agreeable. We want you to work for us on a basis of twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, at a rate of one ANZUR dollar per second. That is $60 a minute, $3,600 an hour, $86,400 a day and $604,800 a week. It is, I think, a good starting rate. As a sign of the strength of our desire to hire you, we will also buy for you the house and property that you live in and start you off with a boost of $100,000."

 

"Roughly $22,0147,200 a year. Not bad at all." He strummed the table lightly. "You said something about an ice-coffee before?"

 

She smiled. "Money is not the most important goal in your life! This is very good. The Foundation wants to help you, along with others, to help save this world. We expect that you will be spending the money, and other resources, you gain on meeting your real goals. I have a feeling that you have already accepted the proposal."

 

Jake nodded. "You have it. Something tells me, though I do not know what it is, that I need to accept this proposal of yours but could you make the starting boost $200,000 because I wish to donate some cash to a few worthwhile causes. Green Peace, Doctors Without Frontiers, the Ecological Resistance Alliance, the Red Plague Survivors Agency and the People Helping People movement."

 

She smiled and gave a tired looking young waitress an order, an undergraduate student of the name of Wendy Hammer who went to some of his creative writing courses. They had rabbit pie, lettuce, a small amount of cheese and while she drank black percolated coffee, he had his iced-coffee with a small amount of cream.

 

He signed a couple of documents and she counter signed them. She scanned his Drivers License and his ANZUR ID-Card using a fancy hand-computer with special extras. They had finished eating and drinking, Rhonda Rhodes was zipping up her black leather briefcase, when the sirens began to clang harshly through out the university campus.

Edited August 17, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/Photo-One/CameraUploads050-1.jpg

Edited August 14, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

005

ECCIE, EDDIE, ELLIE, EMMIE MAHARG

 

*****

 

The worn out looking workvan, from the outside, was not what it seemed. It was lightly armoured and fairly well equipped inside with a range of semilegal and illegal hitech devices. There were well secured lockers full of spare equipment and supplies along with some spare parts. Three freedom-fighters were in the van, all disguised in working jumpsuits and pouchbelts, along with safety work boots. They were armed with a variety of illegal automatic weapons. One was a woman, one was a man and the other was a null, a sexless gender born seemingly as a result of mindcapping. Nulls used male prefixes such as he, him and his.

 

The freedom-fighter in command, highest ranking and seniority, was warily excited by the successful freedom-conversion of the woman, a high ranking and important member of the secret police, but was determined the normal procedure would be followed.

 

The woman lay back on an unfolded camping-mattress on the floor of the fake workvan even as it kept moving at a legal speed through the city of Port Matilda. The members of the Freedom Army, of the Resistance Alliance, could not afford to draw any official attention to themselves. Even the more common and less powerful Civil Police were more strongly mindcapped than were the common masses, which meant more chance that the secretive and hidden MindcapCore-Network would have more chance on discovering that something was wrong. It would alert those who would come after the fake workvan and those in it.

 

She shuddered lightly, looked exhausted, and then she spoke. "The TripleEmpire is planning to do something truly evil. The mysterious TripleEmperors have come to believe that passive resistance is the great threat against them from the mindcapped. It is very difficult to deal with passive resistance or even passive aggression in the form of quiet active rebellion. Working slowly, deliberate mistakes, accidents on purpose, call it what you may but the TripleEmpire sees it all as a threat."

 

Emmie looked to the woman, who was named Katrina Arbish, with open concern. "So what would the TripleEmpire do that is so terrible?"

 

Katrina suddenly looked ready to slip into restorative sleep. She spoke with deep tiredness. "Something called Project Optimum Thirteen. Part of it is... the intention to use up the mindcapped human population by waging a large scale war of some kind in which the mindcapped humans are used up as cannon fodder or as slave labour supporting the war effort. Another is to create some kind of replacement to we humans..... for new improved mindcapping... as 'they' would put it. Go speak to Brent Stoker."

 

Then she fell deeply asleep. She never woke up because seconds later a set of carefully placed microbombs, embedded in her brain, exploded and killed her. The Resistance Alliance had never encountered the use of such 'microbombs' before which were of technologies far more sophisticated and advanced than they had access to. Yes, they had learned something from the dead secret police officer but not enough. The only specific clues they had were the name of the TripleEmpire's dark plan, that is 'Project Optimum Thirteen', and the name of one 'Brent Stoker' that they should 'speak to'. But who was Brent Stoker?"

 

*****

 

The quads were dropped off close to a secondary transit rail network, an old fashioned double-rail network not to be confused with the newer monorail network of the prime transit rail network. The train station was little more than two platforms, one either side of double double-rails, three concrete buildings of which one was abandoned, and such features as public lighting, bicycle racks and a couple of telephone-booths. Mindcapped station-guards, conductors and porters worked there in theory but in practice much of the time they had little work to actually do. One way they got over their boredom was to hassle young people as much as they could get away with doing under mindcap restrictions.

 

An old guy leered at Emmie and Ellie, not knowing that either one could have killed him in a few seconds with her bare hands. He grinned at Eddie as if daring him to do anything, again not realizing he was facing a very well skilled and experienced killer. Yet there was something so very calm and confident about the three bigger quads that the man soon backed off with a slight look of puzzlement on his face.

 

Ellie bought some mildly flavoured food-sticks from a vending-machine. She used some ration-credit to obtain the items because that is how the TripleEmpire worked its rationing system of certain goods and services. They would, hopefully, take a public transit train to a target station on the secondary network and from there be able to slip away into semiwilderness of long abandoned urban areas. The mindcapped population had been very slowly but steadily decreasing in size thanks to the birth of sexless nulls, the increase in incurable sterility even by TripleImperial technologies and other problems like suicidal escape and other self damaging attempts to escape from the mindcaps.

 

They shared the food-sticks, Eccie chewing on just one food-stick with evident satisfaction, which he clutched in one chubby muscular hand.

 

It was Emmie who first noted, amongst all of the mixed quality graffiti on one whitewashed wall, a small but high quality bit of graffiti art. What drew her interest, and then that of Eddie and Ellie, was the name marked in paint there as if daring the TripleImperials to come and get him. It was Brent Stoker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 19, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

 

006

 

JAKE MAHARG

RHONDA RHODES

 

*****

 

Bullets exploded off a fine finished university wall that was suddenly pock marked with bullet holes. Jake pulled the wounded student back into cover and a shaking woman, a receptionist, began to give first aid to the student. Jake rose quickly, but not too far, from behind the thick ornate concrete flower-bed with its thick bushes that were most protective against bullets. He aimed at a rager, once a student, racing over the grass with her distorted body all flushed red and with claws and fangs. Red Plague was not a virus but a very exotic, alien, form of parasitic entity that transformed its host to meet its own ends of gaining nourishment or new hosts to spread its kind. Mostly ragers, and more human like ravers, wanted nourishment, to devour their victims.

 

Curtis University boasted security guards with body-armour, revolver-pistols, police batons and electric-stunners, but they were already overworked and in too few numbers to cope with normal problems. They had quickly become overwhelmed by the sudden attack of ragers and ravers on the university's main campus. He fired the 10mm semiautomatic pistol that Rhonda Rhodes had given him to use, and blew a hole in the rager's forehead. She dropped and her body danced crazy on the pale green lawn. Then she lay still, was dead, as was the parasitic entity that had taken over her body so that she had no longer been the person that was infected. Even much of her appearance had changed with red distorted skin, the fangs and the claws.

 

The lawn grass was of a kind that needed less water to survive but was less impressive looking than traditional forms of heavier water using lawn grass.

 

He fired again and another rager went down, a former tutor this time, a youngish man. Like the student, he had really died before that moment of physical death. Now his soul was free to move on or so believed Jake Maharg. With surprising ease he had started using the powerful handgun and had quickly become amazingly good with it, as was Rhonda Rhodes who had an identical type of pistol. Rhonda Rhodes fired her pistol and a raver fell this time, hatred twisting his face, and he dropped a cricket-bat as he fell. In death he also did a crazy dance thanks partly to the dying of the parasite that was inside him.

 

Muffled by distance, and by buildings, could be heard the place where a mixture of security guards, campus based Civil Police and Defense Force Cadets were desperately holding off a large number of ragers attacking them and fewer ravers doing the same. But the attack was dying down for the ragers and ravers were losing, especially as they could not get into most of the fortified buildings that had been sealed off against them, armaglass and armoured shutters included. Remote controlled gun turrets were also wiping the ragers out and the ravers were starting to make an angry retreat because they had more free will than did the helplessly driven ragers.

 

The university had suffered losses but had been mostly lucky because somebody of strong authority had given warning before the attack began and the university people with the right authority had been willing to listen with only three exceptions; of those two were dead and the third was under arrest facing charges of multiple murder through negligence of duty of care and failure to follow official procedures.

 

Then the last rager was dead and the last raver was dead or fled.

 

*****

 

Professor Jones Henry was dead, half eaten by a rager before it had been killed by having its head cut off with a fire-axe. Johnnie was angry, was sad, because of this needless death and because he had almost liked the professor, had certainly admired him. Johnnie decided, and Rhonda agreed with him, to make sure he kept his amazing new higher intelligence to himself. Yes, his marks would improve but steadily until he was a High Distinction student. He hoped that Professor Jones Henry had not told the 'wrong people' about the changes in Johnnie.

 

Rhonda took back the pistol from Johnnie and put it into the secret compartment of her briefcase. She had already had to thrust an official badge into the faces of a university security officer, not a security guard, who had hidden in his office during the fighting. The fool had wanted to take the pistols off Rhonda and Johnnie, no doubt to try to sell them on the secret market because he was extremely corrupt. The secret market was not about rationed goods and services but about regulated or even so called semilegal or even illegal items from drugs to guns to dark pornography to a whole wide range of goods and services. The security officer had one look at the badge and backed off with amazing speed.

 

Johnnie and Rhonda both worked as volunteers with the injured. Thankfully help had arrived in the form of paramedics, Civil Police and a Special Investigation and Regulation Team, or SIRT. The SIRTs, like the SWATs, and other special teams, dealt large with the Red Plague and its effects. SIRT specialists were the ones who quietly terminated those unlucky enough to gain the parasitic infection despite the vaccine they had been freely given. Some were naturally resistant or even immune to the Red Plague, hence the ravers but also the carriers. The vaccine was a hit and miss affair and so was the antidote even if given fairly early. In this case a few victims were saved but at least half would have lasting physical and-or psychological damage.

 

Johnnie had gained monies, and the house with property, from the mysterious Maharg Foundation. As other professionals and volunteers arrived to help deal with the victims of the Red Plague, and with those suffering from trauma from the experience, he gave over $1,000 as a donation to the Red Plague Victims Assistance Agency, an agency that Rhonda Rhodes assured him was genuine. It was his first meeting with Helga Brant, a major player in the RPVAA, and a person noted for her kindness but also for her strength and canniness in dealing with the complicated system of government, NGOs, corporations and other factions.

 

Rhonda Rhodes took him home in her sporty four door sedan and after making sure the animals were well, and having dinner, they made love in his big old lumpy bed before she departed back to where ever she had come from.

Edited August 19, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/ForumAddit0026.jpg

[Maharg67]

007

ECCIE, EDDIE, ELLIE, EMMIE MAHARG

 

*****

 

The quads departed from the city and went into the semiwilderness of large areas that were largely abandoned by people. Mindcapped Military Police patrols moved through the area in small aircraft, in four wheel drive vehicles or on foot. They made their way past the ruins of some houses, partly looted by scavengers and partly salvaged by mindcapped salvage teams. There were more signs of the War of Enslavement such as the burned out wreckage of a convoy of trucks, some trenches with rusting entanglements of barbed wire and even some crude military grave signs. The Army of Freedom had fought and lost a savage battle in that area; it had lost but the TripleEmpire had achieved a costly victory with the loss of many autons, modulaorgs and mindcapped puppet-soldiers in the fighting. Some of the mindcapped soldiers had gone berserker crazy, striking out against everybody around themselves. The battle had slowed the TripleImperial military advance and had allowed many more free humans to escape, taking many more valuable resources with them, than otherwise would have been possible.

 

The quads met up with a patrol of free-fighters sent out to both do some recon and to pick up the quads. Thus it was that they headed towards the nearest Freedom Army outpost in the area that was actually the sealed off basement levels of a crushed corporate complex. The outpost was fairly small but also fairly important. Nobody wore uniforms and nobody had official ranks. Some military equipment was used but so was much civilian stuff. The idea was to be disguised as one of the isolationist survivalist groups that still clung to freedom in the TripleImperial Territories.

 

They debriefed in a small, bare chamber with only five different types of office and dining chairs, a basic wooden table and a big reel-to-reel tape player recorder. An intelligence officer, a second lieutenant, looked bored until the matter of the freed woman's words came up. Then the woman was sharply interested. The discovery of one 'Brent Stoker' as the name the freed former mindcapped woman mentioned, as that was in the form of graffiti on a wall of a train station, was interesting but the intelligence woman was wary. She had good reason to be for the TripleImperials had tried some very cunning tricks in the past though not as many as the free humans did.

 

*****

 

The intelligence officer had the four take some R-and-R. They had something to eat in the form of some rabbit, mushroom and bush vegetable stew, buttered sourbread and brown coffee. Even the neobaby drank some coffee because neobabies were less baby like the older they got. The outpost was fairly busy. Auton soldiers had appeared in the area, quasiliving bioplastic figures that were harder to kill than standard humans. They had to be shot hard in the head or chest or dealt with by some specialized weapons of which the free humans had too few of. Too soon reports came in of massive hulking quad-walker modulaorgs moving in assistance with some of the autons. Something was up!

 

When reports came in of mindcapped soldiers parachuting into the area, dropped by two and four engined aeroplanes, of the TripleImperial Guard Army, the general army of the mindcapped. The paratroopers landed on and around what had been a sporting arena. At once they were gathering together, were taking battle formation. There was at least one brigade of paratroopers with the support of small, special minimodulaorgs giving them special weapon support and other service support.

 

The Freedom Army would not willingly go up against TripleImperial forces in a conventional battle simply because they would be slaughtered.

 

None of the TripleImperial forces headed anywhere near the hidden outpost but moved steadily towards the north-west, towards long abandoned territories except for a some activity of free humans, mindcapped special forces and ooman intruders.

 

*****

 

Emmie picked up her 9mm semiautomatic pistol and slipped it into her shoulder holster. The 9mm calibre bullets were of a special kind that did kill autons at close enough range, if they hit the right targets, and which could even wipe out a minimultimodulorg with some close, lucky strikes. They were moving out! Orders had come through from the Freedom Army High Command. With increasing TripleImperial military activity in the area, the outpost was not being abandoned but it was being left with a small operating team only.

 

They were in a concrete chamber dotted with an odd array of items. Boxes of books, tapes, small artworks, tools, photographs and other items were going to be smuggled into the Free Zone because they were valuable in knowledge, cultural and other ways. There was a bulky white refrigerator, looking a little dented, a metal tap-sink, a stove-oven, a large expensive coffee-machine as scavenged from a ruined mansion, a couple of odd tables, some odd chairs, a bookcase full of an odd array of items and a globe of the Lost Earth.

 

She spoke to the other quads. "They want us to go back in and find this Brent Stoker but not yet. We must meet with Captain Karl Hashari at coordinates close to the ghost town of Briggin Falls. We have been given no information why we need to meet with this man or anything about him except a basic description and a password to present him with. We are also largely on our own when it comes to getting to Briggin Falls with out being detected by TripleImperials or running into trouble with survivalist marauders or ooman raiders or other threats."

 

Just because they were free humans, not all survivalist groups were to be trusted and some were very dangerous. As for oomans, they were always dangerous, being amazingly xenophobic to any non-ooman peoples and aggressive towards any and all humans. Oomans were carnivores and ate humans, considering them to be a kind of legitimate prey. Humans had long ago gained the custom of dealing mercilessly with oomans.

 

None of them were truly happy at how they were being treated but the Freedom Army lacked resources to really assist them any more than they were. The quads were getting some extra equipment and supplies. They were also being shown data on a network of tunnels, and underground spaces, that would give them a much greater chance of getting safely to the target coordinates.

 

The quads could have done with a longer rest but everybody in the outpost were tired and could have used more R-and-R. Eccie slept in his pouch but he too would have liked some more chances to play with his little-big brother and sisters.

Edited August 22, 2011 by Maharg67