THIRTEEN OF THIRTEEN

[Maharg67]

0104

PART ONE: THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!?

AARAA AARAO AARON AARIE OF THE ZAVID THIRTEEN

 

Deciding that the chamber, and mechanisms, need more careful investigating later, the triplets lead the group to where the big power-door is that has resisted attempts to get past it. Even as they enter the huge airlock style chamber, going through another identical power-door, Aarao, Aaron and Aarie can 'sense' that something very unnatural and dangerous is beyond the massive armoured power-door.

 

Aarao investigates a console and quickly realizes that the power-gate can not be opened because of the instigation of extreme security protocols. The great big power gate has basically become melded into the wall around it so it can not be opened. Such extreme measures speak of extreme danger as feared even by the deadly Perfectus Thirteen.

 

They do manage to get a 3Dwallscreen to show what lies beyond the melded power door and they are soon very glad that nobody could get the power door open. The strange thick fog is active and yet not 'alive'. It glimmers as if with morgue lights and in it move things, humanoid things that can barely be discerned.

 

Deeper into the fog there is a glowing vertical ring of some kind whose light is dimmed by the glimmering fog itself. Inside the archway seems to be a circle of dimmed pulsating glowing energies.

 

Aarie frowns hard. “We must double check to make sure that nothing can get out of that chamber or any other areas that also have that glimmering fog in them.”

 

Amata shuddered. “There is something extremely unnatural about it.”

 

Aarie turned to Amata. “The GlimmeringFog is what turned the brilliant, if arrogant, silvertori into the monstrous greytori. Or at least a small majority of them. The process sent the surviving silvertori briefly insane until they could cut away from the old group mentality and form a new one independent of the greytori. 'Antinatural' is the term you are seeking for the GlimmeringFog comes from.”

 

Amata nodded. “You triplets know so very much about odd things.”

 

Aarie responded with a tone of irony. “Our knowledge of 'odd things' is fragmented, not always trustworthy, vague at times and sometimes contradictory.”

 

One of the things emerged into visibility and turned out to be a real zombie, an ever rotting-regenerating undead corpse that had once been human. It wore tatters of a jumpsuit of some kind and its body had become almost skeletal with tightened undead flesh and no obvious secondary sexual or racial or other human features. This was no cap-zombie, not reanimant, but a true zombie. Its seeing unseeing eyes stared intently at nothing in particular. Then it shambled back into the GlimmeringFog that sustained it.

 

Amata looked as if she might throw up and Aarie gave her a reassuring hug.

Edited November 30, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0105

PART ONE: THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!?

AARAA AARAO AARON AARIE OF THE ZAVID THIRTEEN

 

News came to LifeVault0101A2 that the Subways Unified Republic and the New DC Republic were going to unite into one nation to be called the Unified Republic of DC or the URDC. Megaton was relenting on its old neutrality and was going to join the new republic as were other settlements, the League of Survivalist Settlements, the Triple Settlements and a few other settlements.

 

What was just as big a surprise as Megaton joining the URDC was that Canterbury Commons was also going to do so when it had been just as adamant as Megaton that it would stay neutral.

 

Then it was decided that LifeVault0101A2 would join the URDC and that it would be a travel trade and diplomatic hub between the Sublands and the Wastelands, the old SUR Territories and the old NDCR Territories.

 

Synthetic manifesticants were produced and tested in small numbers by a team led by Aarao and a Science Officer of the new Department of Research and Development. There were still Thirteen Overseers but now also Thirteen Senators, Thirteen Directors, Thirteen Coordinators, Thirteen Representatives and Thirteen Supervisors of the higher levels of higher levels of Overseers Government. The Senators were elected by the citizens. The Peoples Representatives were chosen by the Senators. There were still new developments taking place or yet to take place.

 

Aarao did not like the tight scrutiny she was put under as she tested a series of basic synthetic manifesticants being crude humanoids. They were tested scientifically in different ways, were put through a fair sized testing maze, were recorded in many ways. Aarao soon recommended against the use of any synthecants until far more testing was carried out; a slight but important amount of instability had been detected in the creations. The Overseers Government supported her decision.

 

That is except for Science Office Patrick Abel who had worked with her. He insisted that she was being overly cautious, that the first batches of synthetic manifesticants, synthecants, could be created at once. He insisted also that the slight instability that had been detected was partly unimportant and partly either a fiction or a mistake by Aarao.

 

Aarao physically kicked him, and his cronies, out of the manifesticants testing chambers. On the slim chance of gaining fame and material rewards, the fool had called that she was either incompetent or a fraud. She asked the OSIO to do some further checking on Patrick Abel. It turned out that the man was already under investigation for corruption and was said to have links with vault organized crime, such as it was.

 

A day later the dead, desiccated body of Patrick Abel was found in a storage locker, the smell attracting a patrol-dog of the newly created Overseers Civil Police Department. Except that tests soon indicated the dead man had been dead for months.

 

The fake Patrick Abel was taken into custody by the OSIO, as were his cronies but the cronies were soon released as being just sycophantic followers of the main man. Aaron and Aarie went to the interrogation sessions with the fake Patrick Abel and watched him simply fall over dead in the middle of uttering yet another total refusal to accept that he was anything but the real Patrick Abel.

Edited November 30, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0106

PART ONE: THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!?

AARAA AARAO AARON AARIE OF THE ZAVID THIRTEEN

 

The Zavid Triplets made their way through utility ways and secondary ways to avoid active security network-systems and patrols. Upon learning from Amata that her father was going to pass them over to the rising Unified Republican Government of the URDC, she had warned the triplets to get away. They had done so very efficiently, grabbing up hidden stockpiles left there in case such a need ever came up.

 

Very soon the Overseers Government was alerting the whole of LifeVault0101A2 to be on the look out for the dangerous Zavid Triplets and to alert authorities if the triplets were spotted. Problem for the government was that many vaultfolk knew the truth, the triplets were popular, so the government was not getting a great deal of citizen cooperation. Even some security officers and security guards were helping them to escape.

 

The triplets halted abruptly in a utility hallway tunnel next to gurgling water pipes running along one wall. Why did they halt? Because they 'sensed' some sort of powerful psychic change take place through out the vault, through out the UnityNeofolk of LifeVault0101A2. It was not 'evil' but it was 'controlling' though not oppressively so.

 

Aaraa appeared as a projection avatar to look like them in their survival power armour and other gear. She frowned through her now transparent helmet visor. “Something calling itself the Prima Thirteen has taken over the secondary unified mentality of most of UnityNeo, though not all of them. Some are resisting either passively or actively but most have become either passive, or even active, supporters of the Prima Thirteen.”

 

Aaron expressed the puzzlement of the triplets. “Who are these Prima Thirteen?”

 

“I have no idea.” Aaraa sighed. “I do know that Amata and her father are both actively supporting the Prima Thirteen. I have a 'sense' of these Prima Thirteen. I doubt any of them are even physically close to this vault and I doubt that they are the Fragmentori Thirteen or Perfectus Thirteen taking up a fraudulent front.”

 

Aarao snorted. “We need to find a safe place to go to where there are no UnityNeo or where the UnityNeo are resisting these Prima Thirteen. We must learn their identity, their nature and just how they seemed to have gained so much control of UnityNeo so quickly.”

 

Aaraa sighed. “It may have not been quick at all. It may have been planned a long time ago and preparations carried out carefully for years before the final take over was carried out.”

 

They started out in a careful rush again.

 

Edited November 30, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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[Maharg67]

0107

PART ONE: THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!?

AARAA AARAO AARON AARIE OF THE ZAVID THIRTEEN

 

Information came from the AlphaOmega Thirteen that there was rising tensions between the newly arising URDC and factions such as the Orders of Steel DC, the Outcasts of Steel, the Ironsides Mercenaries, the powerful DC Guilds based primarily in the Mutual Contract Settlements of Towertown, Sugartown, RiverTane and Arefu, the monstrous DC Syndicates based in Paradise Falls and the Followers of Atom based in Holy Megaton of Megaton.

 

The triplets, and Aaraa, would remain in LifeVault0101A2 until they could resolve some problems before they happened. They brought forth three prime- avatars who brought forth three auxiliary-avatars each as a human shapeform in survival power armour. Aaraa vanished as a projection avatar to save on energy expenditure.

 

The nine of them moved quickly as three semiautonomous trios, each with a triplet, a prime-avatar and an auxiliary-avatar. They went deeper down into the depths of LifeVault0101A2 until they were running through the horizontal Rimzone levels of the floor of the main vault. It was dark and mostly bare here with only a scattering of cheap, solid-state fluroflats lighting up areas. Machinery hummed softly in the background and radroaches scuttled along in the distance, appearing and vanishing quickly.

 

Twice they met maintenance roboremotes, one scuttling along on double jointed legs and the other using its six wheel drive, six wheel arrangement. Both times they screened themselves from the 3Deyes and other instrumentalities of the robotic devices. Both devices were doing typical maintenance duties but that did not stop them also being used to watch out for the triplets or others running and hiding from the Prima Thirteen.

 

They had to take care with remote 3Deyes, some being better concealed than others, motion detectors, life sensors and even roboremote turrets, some having lethal weapons.

 

They found the first of the dead, naked human bodies in basic status-coffins stacked up neatly in an antechamber with an open doorway. There were exactly one hundred of them in five stacks each of twenty status-coffins. Small roboremotes, of different kinds, serve-supported the status-coffins, the bodies and the network-systems powering and regulating the status-coffins.

 

There were ten such alcoves, each with a hundred bodies in basic status-coffins and that made a thousand bodies, of course. The idea was quite macabre enough and then the triplets hacked into a network-system to discover that the bodies had never lived. They were grown in vats, were dead-cloned, as the inaccurate general term went.

 

So why had they been created, where had they created, why had they been put there and so forth? There were no answers to be found in the antechambers or in the databanks of the computer network-systems.

Edited November 30, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0108

PART ONE: THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!?

AARAA AARAO AARON AARIE OF THE ZAVID THIRTEEN

GLORIA GODDESS THE GODDESS

 

The transition from the dimly lit underbelly of the LifeVault, into the exotic chamber, was abrupt as they passed through an archway of softly shimmering energies. The triplets stood looking around in astonishment at the vast domechamber that was far too big too fit naturally into the LifeVault for it expanded out into the very far distant sloping wall that was barely visible. It was three kilometres wide and half that high in the centre. A great and beautiful garden stretched out into the distance, a lightly regulated and maintained semiwilderness of forest groves, grassy fields, small rivers, small hills, gulleys and other naturalistic features.

 

The nine felt the odd sensation of transition, 'sensed' that they passed transdimensionally into another dimensional zone but one transdimensionally very close to that of LifeVault0101A2. Aaraa soon informed them that they were in a dimensional pocket zone, tiny in comparison to the greater one of Divinaedra proper, but still very large for that. The pocket zone was far larger than that one domechamber.

 

The naked woman came dancing out of the semiwilderness except that she was so covered with swirling patterns of body-paint that she may as well have had clothes on. The body-paint swirling as she whirled and then she came to a halt but it kept swirling around her body in rainbow patterns.

 

She smiled richly and her eyes sparkled insanely at them. “I am Goddess Gloria. Look upon my wondrous self, my wondrous gardens, and weep with desire and jealousy for you will never be as beautiful as either. Do you wish to have me for yourself? Of course you do but you can not. If you realize the futility of it all, you may kill yourself here and now, I do not mind.”

 

Aarie sighed. “Aaahhh, no thanks. As truly gorgeous as you are, we fully intend to stay alive. What is this place and why is it transdimensionally linked to LifeVault0101A2?”

 

Goddess Gloria giggled crazily, her eyes whirled and then her body whirled to follow it. She was truly beautiful, slimly voluptuous and lightly muscular. She could have been a supermodel athlete or gladiator as favoured in the PreDoomsday Amtriel Empire.

 

Then she was whirling away into the distance. Soon she was gone from sight.

 

They began to follow one of a whole lot of wide flagstone paths snaking out from the door they had come through, all of them going in different directions. Soon they were passing through a thick forest grove and into shadow.

Edited November 30, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0109

PART ONE: THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!?

AARAA AARAO AARON AARIE OF THE ZAVID THIRTEEN

LUCKY EDDIE

 

They did not realize that they had been tricked for some time. Aaraa appeared as a projection-avatar and walked beside Aarao. She spoke as she did so. “The door closed behind us and this domechamber shifted transdimensionally. It is a trap and we have walked into it, the whole of the Zavid Thirteen.”

 

Aaron spoke in response. “We 'sense' no danger and only flora-fauna. There are roboremotes moving out there but they are service-support devices with only light security ones amongst them.”

 

The BigBadWolf leapt out from behind a tree, the great wolf standing on its hind legs in a very clever manner, took one look at them and fled at once. Then it was gone.

 

Aarie gave a mild grin. “Exotic, sophisticated synthecant (synthetic manifesticant). There seems to be some kind of data projection field of synthetic telepathic form here that feeds data to the synthecants. Thus the BigBadWolf was warning we are too dangerous for it.”

 

Aaron spoke again. “Many would like to trap us but why so peacefully and who or what could do so in this amazing fashion?”

 

Aarao made a contribution. “Gloria Goddess might have done it. We 'sensed' great power in her though also great instability.”

 

Then they came across Lucky Eddie who now wore a floral evening dress that went down to his ankles, gumboots and a cowboy hat. He was whistling happily as he gently, carefully cut fruit-babies from a special fleshy tree. As he placed each ripe fruit-baby on the ground the chubby muscular figure would begin to run around playing with other fruit-babies.

 

Aarao sighed. “Alice, of Wonderland fame, would feel quite at home here.”

 

Lucky Eddie turned and smiled. “Oh, yes she would, but she is happier in Wonderland, her own domain. Please do not try to eat the fruit-babies. They are slightly over ripe and will cause explosive flatulence.”

 

Aaron frowned softly at the idea that he would even want to eat one of the fruit-babies. “Just what is going on?”

 

“Why much is going on.” Lucky Eddie cut the last fruit-baby away from the fruit-baby tree and placed it carefully on the ground. It went off to play at once. “Much always goes on and off. Of course fruit-babies were meant to be eaten but who has the heart to let them meat that fate? Not me!”

 

He tapped the fruit-baby and it sparkled, became more solid flesh state and so did all the others, becoming little girl or boy neobabies wearing fluffy fruit coloured nappies.

 

Lucky Eddie sighed. “Goddess Gloria the Goddess created fruit-babies so she could eat them and... well the seeds would later be planted to grow more fruit-baby trees that would produce yet more fruit-babies. She forgot her fruitful plans, as she nearly always does. Ironic to think that she is almost as insane as I am.” He grinned a little. “This is not a trap but a rescue from a trap. You betray yourself because you are manipulated just as the Brownstone Thirteen were manipulated into sabotaging the MultiTransCubeShip. You triplets look to your middle fingers to see there something that was always there but not there.”

 

The triplets did look and saw now a dull black ring on each middle finger with a black disk face and on it a strange blood red symbol, elaborate and garish in nature. At once each of them removed the strange rings and dropped them to the ground. Even as they did, they felt a great freedom of mind, body and spirit come to them; they had not known that they had suffered a subtle, cunning but limited influence until then. They were very angry and also both shocked and frightened that they had been so tricked and manipulated.

Edited November 30, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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[Maharg67]

0110

PART ONE: THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH!?

OUTSIDE OF OUTSIDE

 

The alien transformed Bo747 Jumbojet flew through the stormy sky in conditions that the pretransformed machine could never have safely flown in. With new smart-materials, deflective energy screens, antigrav boosters and other new tricks, it landed. It landed with electric-jets humming and took a far shorter distance to come to a halt inside a big dome shaped hanger, the door irising closed behind it.

 

Moments later United Nations Special Investigations Agency, UNSIA, Special Agents Olivia Dunham, Walter Bishop, Peter Bishop, Stan Brown and Sue Hanz were moving across the domechamber floor away from the direction most of the passengers were taking. People were moving quickly and the luggage was being unloaded quickly including live freight of pets from their special pressurized cabin.

 

The UNSIA Special Agents climbed into a lightly armoured six wheel drive, six wheeled minibus and the machine sped away with humming electric motors as soon as all luggage was loaded along with two special trained dogs.

 

Five minutes later they went through a teleport-sender and arrived three seconds later, through a teleport-receptor, inside the Lunar Labyrinth. Even with very advanced LifeProclamation alien technologies in use, the trip caused some nausea and dizziness.

 

When this passed, both humans and dogs climbed out of the vehicle to find themselves on a great natural rock terrace jutting out from the side of of mountain. It was but one of many such terraces running staircase fashion down the side of the mountain. Ancient alien structures of metallic stone were melded into the cliff faces and parts of the terrace floors like a great crazy puzzle of balconies, open doorways, metallic doors, rampways, walkways, roadways, statues, statue-towers, bay-windows, windows, cube buildings, globes and much else besides.

 

Humans were using part of the vast ancient alien city, a relatively tiny part, all around them and there was already a thriving settlement. The ancient solid-state mechanisms provided electricity, fresh water, air, food-paste, healing-paste, fuel-paste and other basic substances. How it was done was beyond human knowledge as it simply materialized, in storage containers, inside special alcoves or came from various kinds of taps.

 

Walter grinned away with eager enthusiasm. He rubbed his head and spoke. “They fixed my head up some more, the LifeProclamation, and I feel good. So we put up our new laboratory workshop in there somewhere. I hope everything was moved as I asked.”

 

“Isolation tank, cow, old style equipment, the lot.” Peter Bishop sighed and shook his head. “Those LifeProclamation aliens seem to like you a lot, Walter.”

 

Walter grinned. “What's not to like?”

 

Olivia shook her head. “Rejuvenation has dangerously inflated your ego, Walter. What would Astrid say?”

 

It was becoming common knowledge that Walter was very interested in Astrid in more than a professional way and that Astrid seemed pleased by these fairly clumsy intentions and advances.

 

Walter frowned, visibly disturbed. Clearly he wanted to have Astrid with him again, had missed her being away from himself for too many days. “You say that Astrid is here somewhere?”

 

Then there she was, making her way across the domechamber to the group. She paused to kiss Walter on the cheek, causing the genius to smile richly, and then she spoke to all of them. After some social pleasantries, and exchange of some basic information, Astrid spoke. “The UNLRA has messed up again and our special vehicles were delivered to the wrong spot. Our people caught up with them, thankfully, before they could be stolen, but we can not use them to get to our special outpost base at Moontown. Instead we will be going in a normal convoy of all terrain vehicles, some of those big wheeled LAVs transformed by the LifeProclamation. It will take some days of travel because of the nature of the terrain. We must leave the Lunar Labyrinth and go into the Lunar Caverns.”

 

The UNLRA was the United Nations Lunar Regulation Authority as hastily organized through the United Nations to run the Lunar Operations in general. It had quickly become known as inefficient, prone to mistakes, top heavy and lightly corrupt.

 

It was ironic that they had taken seconds to go from the Earth to the Moon but would take days to get a few hundred kilometres to their final destination.

Edited November 30, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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