Fallout Mars Doom

[Maharg67]

01-08 (0008)

FALLOUT MARS DOOM: SEEKING THE CONTROLLING PRESENCE

GRAHARG THIRTEEN

JONNI THIRTEEN

 

The expedition set out in three groups with Jonni's Platoon scouting ahead, Graharg being with them along with three UOR Special Forces cyborg-troopers. They made good time along a series of gently zigzagging tunnels, each zig or zag being a whole prefabricated tunnel section.

 

PreDoomsday Mars, or Lost Mars, had held a population of over twenty-one billion people, not including cyborgs, genetically enhanced chimpanzees, citizen androids or others. With them it had been closer to thirty billion. On Doomsday most had vanished, once assumed destroyed but that assumption was no longer accepted by most. Many others had perished or had been distorted. Perhaps nine billion, at most, survived thanks to the Havenlands and the deep underground Midworld of the Sublands as squeezed between the Overworld above and the cut off Underworld below. A huge amount of people of Lost Mars had dwelt underground as the Terraforming Project of the Red Planet continued and then began to fail.

 

So such tunnels were amazingly common, especially in the Domain of Centros as centred on Marstropolis proper with its TripleDome.

 

Sometimes they came across long decayed human remains but most of the time they found only the soft energy marks of the Great Vanishing. Even such markings did not explain what had happened to most of the humans. It seemed most non-humans had been left behind except for a large number 'animals and plants'.

 

The first trouble was minor as three supersoldiers took down a security turret by knocking it out with an EMPgun. They hacked into a local security computer terminal and gained some valuable data on the local network of chambers and tunnels. They were in a security complex that had once overseen a large underground refugee camp of the kind known as a SSE, a Safe Secure Enclave. Conditions in the overcrowded SSEs had been hard but not horrific. Refugees from the Lost Earth, who had failed to get into any of the SSEs, generally ended up in far worse conditions.

 

SSE0A01113A1, or Samson Enclave, lay ahead that had once housed over three million people though it had been planned originally to hold a million people. It was originally designed as a prefabricated modular complex but was added to over the years by the Enclaven, the government within a government, that ran the vast Expatriate Project. The Enclaven of the SSEs, sometimes known as the 'Enclave' became infamous for its petty corruption, not so petty brutality and its autocratic false democratic stance along with a string of other transgressions. Yet Samson Enclave was supposed to have been one of the better SSEs to live in.

 

The scouting platoon reached the first security-safety airlock of Samson Enclave that was two big armoured wheel-doors, of VaultTek design, with a large chamber between them. Both wheel-doors were open and the big airlock chamber was dotted with dead zhouls riddled with bullet holes of 10mm caseless slimshot bullets.

 

Superfolk supersoldiers reconned the area ahead with roboremote microdrones, not a great audio-visual advantage but enough to be useful. They withdrew the microdrones knowing that an old Enclaven security turret, armed with twin assault-machineguns, was guarding the chamber. They suspected at first suspected it was active since Doomsday but then noted that all of the zhoul bodies were 'fresh kills'.

 

Corporal Janine shot the turret with a powerful but compact EMPgun (electromagnetic pulse gun). They entered the chamber carefully and deactivated a fine wire trip-wired booby-trap. The trap was well set up but lacked the refinement of anything the supersoldiers would have done. They found evidence of fairly recent intruders, having come that way, in the form of a small heap of discarded ration packs. This was unprofessional and was something the superfolk would never have done.

Edited December 23, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

01-09(0009)

FALLOUT MARS DOOM: SEEKING THE CONTROLLING PRESENCE

GRAHARG THIRTEEN

JONNI THIRTEEN

 

Graharg himself studied the dropped ration containers and then spoke. “This is a trick. Somebody wishes you to become overconfident that you are dealing with enemies who are amateurish to a degree. This also the start of a trail meant to lead you into a trap.”

 

Jonni stood there in her stealth power armour, holding her 3B1carbine, and nodded. “We 'sense' other superfolk, other supersoldiers, but they are not like us in some way. They have become 'troublesome'. They also have brainbugs that help control them. Still, we have a subtle way that we can influence them. With them are aliens of some kind.”

 

Graharg scowled. “Human zetan hybrids of a kind known as zetamans, others that are known as abominants and some actual zetans.”

 

Zetan aliens were a well known menace to the home solar system of Solsystem. Their saucerboats could sometimes get through the dysfunctional World Bubble; this was dangerous and sometimes zetan vessels were lost or were so damaged that they crash landed or crashed more violently.

 

Zetans abducted people and certain kinds of animals. They converted abducted children, and young animals, in their special capsules. Others they experimented on or otherwise exploited in various ways. The worst fate for abductees was to be sent onwards to the greytori monsters who ruled the zetans in an exotic alien fashion.

 

The zetans were a seminomadic people based in semipermanent world bases and nomadic motherships with the exception of their thirteen core worlds including the one well hidden home world.

 

For Jonni, and her supersoldiers, the idea of confronting zetans was a chance to strike back at the monsters who had done so much evil to them. On the other hand, confronting other supersoldiers, that were under zetan control, was problematic. They were mind-linked in some ways, the enemy supersoldiers were themselves victims and yet they were as dangerous as Jonni's own people.

 

Jonni spoke. “We will need a capture team.”

 

Graharg smiled, shook his head. “I will be your capture team. I can not work miracles, the victims need to be willing to convert, but I can do a good deal.”

 

Jonni nodded. “You secretly helped us superfolk, and the brainbugs, break free from the hold of the controlling presence.”

 

“So you came to know that! Very good.” Graharg smiled. “I am Graharg of Graharg Thirteen. You are Jonni of Jonni Thirteen. You are my daughter.”

 

Jonni's biggest surprise was that this came as no real surprise at all. She now clearly remembered the shared dreams in which she grew as just a normal girl with out the accelerated growth and enhancements of the zetan transformation capsule. In standard human terms she looked to be about twenty years old but she was eleven years old. In her most recent special dreams she was a standard eleven year old girl. Graharg, and others, had always been there including many superfolk as standard humans or animals.

 

Another term for the transformation capsule process, which also involved specialized super virtual reality programs, was the transzizcapsulation process. The process was also called transzizens or, for short, zizens. Thus the results were officially known as transziz-superfolk or transzezans for short or even zezans for shorter.

 

Jonni nodded. “Very good! Do I call your Commander Dad?”

 

He smiled at her. “No, just either 'dad' or Graharg. You supersoldiers have a very interesting form of humour.”

Edited December 23, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

FALLOUT MARS DOOM

ON GOING NOTES: THE POPULATION OF MARS?

 

Once Mars had held a population of over twenty-one billion people. Why so many? Because of the billions that had come from the Lost Earth, the home world of the humans, but also the three billion who came from space in six hulking arkstars escorted by three hulking battlestars and huge but nine smaller gunstars along with one mighty warstar and three carrystars plus a fleet of over 100 other large spaceships often piggy-backing smaller vessels. These humans, and others with them, had been escaping from the android-robotic Cylonic Imperium.

 

The origins of many people remained a mystery.

 

Most of the population of 'people' vanished on Doomsday.

 

About a billion survived in the relatively civilized and secure Havenlands but under the hard rule of a militaristic semidemocracy known as Havenlordia under the control of the Havenlords.

 

About another billion, at least, were in the Midworld between the Overworld and the long cut off Underworld of supposed utopian escape. They dwelt in many structures and quasinatural Sublands, often linked by special networks. There were huge TekVaults, smaller LifeVaults and even smaller ShelterVaults along with BunkerBases, ArchiveVaults, the mysterious ArkVaults and other structures including at least three very huge VaultCities.

 

Over another billion were supposed to be in the Underworld.

 

Over another billion were in the exotic, mysterious Mistlands.

 

Of the dreaded Direlands, known quite knew but it was estimated at least another billion were there.

 

The Wastelands held at least three billion people, not including the zhouls or other extreme mutations. Of those just over a billion had become zhouls.

 

Figures rounded up, and others populations added, indicated that about ten billion, at least, survived through out the Marslands. As for the wilderness beyond, nobody knew.

 

But what had happened to at least another ten billion people, was not known.

 

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/screen38B-4-1.jpg

Edited December 21, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

01-10(0010)

FALLOUT MARS DOOM: SEEKING THE CONTROLLING PRESENCE

GRAHARG THIRTEEN

JONNI THIRTEEN

 

Jonni gave a mild grin. “Yes, perhaps.” She lost the mild grin. “I used to live in a settlement and then came human soldiers. They were brutal monsters, though human. Somebody let them into the settlement of Bethesdatown. There was fighting and they grabbed me up, along with some other people and some dogs. They fled. Some of them were shot down. One of the soldiers hyposhot me with something. Next thing I knew I was having an awful nightmare about being handled by strange looking humans and zetans. They put me naked into a capsule. Then the burning began.”

 

Graharg nodded. “The settlers were betrayed by some of their own. The traitors were seduced by the promise of Emergency Issue Dollars and valuable tradegoods. The soldiers were Talon Mercenaries of the infamous TalonCorp. The traitors got paid with betrayal for the Talon Mercs shot them down rather than pay what was promised. The mercenaries delivered the abductees, including canines, to a zetan retrieval landing party and were paid in ways we do not know. The mercenaries traveled to the TalonCorp main base known as Fort Bannister, a Mars Defense Force base destroyed mostly above but which survived with its deeper levels mostly intact.”

 

“The Talon Mercenaries are brutal killers of thug, regular and elite classes whose main mission seems to be to attack any force that tries to bring law, order and real recovery to the DC. They are linked with the infamous Thirteen Families such as the Known Nine, being the Moriartys, the Yans, the Marls, the Tenpennys, the Rothdanes, the Yurls, the Powells, the Rockamans, and the Cartwanes. The other four families remain secret.”

 

Jonni frowned. “We are just north of Bethesdatown and are going southwards. Are we heading to Bethesdatown?”

 

Graharg sighed. “My computations, my 'instinct', tells me that the controlling presence wanted us to come here, has led us here, wants to meet both you and I. Somehow I doubt that this is for any good reason. Yet we need to learn more about this controlling presence, about its true identity and nature. We need to know if it is working for, with, others and who or what they are. You want to know more about me. As for now I can not tell you anything because that knowledge has been removed from my mind; what I do not know, I can not be forced or tricked into giving up to others.”

 

“Need to know; that makes sense.” Yet she showed some frustration. “We should get going soon.”

 

“Patience, daughter.” Graharg looked around the chamber. “Something strong, but subtle, tells me that I must investigate this area more. The false clues trying to lead us away were partly put here to stop me from examining this area too closely. This chamber has been altered in a... a very subtle and powerful manner. The very reality of this place has been altered in a fashion both clever and unwise. There is impaired localized reality here that will revert back to its old self in about three and a half hours time, at most. Somebody, something, is playing god who has no good reason and no real capacity to do so.”

 

Jonni frowned. “The controlling presence?”

 

“Yes, very much so!” Graharg stood up. “I have suspected the true identity of the controlling presence for some time but only recently have I come to feel that I can name it. CrazyManPoe of the Fragmentori Thirteen that was once one of the original Thirteen of Thirteen. The Patriot Thirteen were part of the Thirteen of Thirteen, one of them being President James Patriot Jackson himself. We, the Graharg Thirteen, were also part of the insanity that was the Thirteen of Thirteen.”

Edited December 23, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

01-11(0011)

FALLOUT MARS DOOM: SEEKING THE CONTROLLING PRESENCE

GRAHARG THIRTEEN

JONNI THIRTEEN

 

Then he stood up and strode over to a blank area of metallic wall. He lay his left ear against it, listened carefully for a moment, and then stepped back from it. Out of a big pouch he took a small white gold coloured rod with a crystal tip on the front. He aimed it at the wall, the crystal tip glowed green, the rod hummed softly, and then the crystal tip changed to glowing red. Graharg frowned hard and put the small rod away. Then he took out a white gold metallic disk with a crystal dome inset into one side. He placed the flat featureless side against the wall and the small crystal dome glowed green for a moment, the disk device hummed, and then the glow turned to red. He then put the disk away.

 

Graharg stepped back and struck the wall with his fist, moving so fast that the motion was invisible. There was a thudding noise, a soft cracking sound, and he jumped to one side as a large metal panel fell away from the wall. It exposed a standard type metallic doorway and basic sliding power-door. Yet the controlling presence had gone to great efforts to conceal it.

 

Graharg reached out to touch the door controls, seemed to think better of it, closed his eyes and focused on something. Seconds later he gave a sour laugh and walked away from the exposed door. He signaled Jonni, and others in the chamber, to do the same. Jonni was puzzled and yet somehow 'sensed' that Graharg was being wise.

 

Graharg turned and punched his left hand through the air towards the door. At once it exploded violently open with a horrific blast and even as it blew open, through the air flew thousands of metallic spikes that slammed into the metallic wall opposite. The spike went quite deep even into the thick armouring of the wall.

 

Through the doorway stepped a big, low hulking humanoid monster of copperish metallic armoured appearance, with one big black orb-eye up towards its big forehead and a round metallic plate where a mouth might have been. The voice that issued from the disk-mouth was strangely inhuman, metallic in tone. “CrazyManPoe and TechoDocFo, greet you and laugh in your face with abstract disdain. May the flowers of Spring drop gently upon you and crush you to death! Intertwined with truth is always falsehood but can the same be said for the rabbit that lives high on the Mountain of Love? CrazyManPoe is, and is not, the controlling presence. All the world is a stage but all suffer from stage fright so what is the point that lays at the end of a sharp pencil?”

 

Then the big, hulking creature shimmered and changed into a stack of metallic storage cubeboxes, each one metre wide and high. The fake wall section shimmered and became an untidy heap of metal bits and pieces.

 

Graharg spoke. “Well the localized reality distortion has gone back to its true nature. My hopes for finding an easier solution to the puzzle, of the controlling presence, are dashed.” Yet he did not seem either surprised or upset at this discovery.

 

Jonni showed her puzzlement. “What did this CrazyManPoe mean when he spoke of being and not being the controlling presence?”

 

Graharg frowned. “That the controlling presence has been manipulating him, that it has used him as a focus point and a bait to draw us here. The ancient golemite entity was created by the controlling presence to attack me if I detected some sort of false reality in this chamber. As for the message from CrazyManPoe, I 'sense' that was his way of warning me of what was happening. CrazyManPoe would not welcome being exploited by the controlling process. Now to find out what is on the other side of that door.”

Edited December 23, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

01-12(0012)

FALLOUT MARS DOOM: SEEKING THE CONTROLLING PRESENCE

GRAHARG THIRTEEN

JONNI THIRTEEN

 

Zezan supersoldiers entered with Graharg into a large metallic chamber that had once been a typical utility space. It had been quickly and efficiently modified with some machinery and other items removed. The multimodular machine had been assembled and was semiactive, its main cube structure humming while the vertical metallic loop was glowing softly with its inner, inward facing, crystal surface.

 

Graharg studied the device for a short moment and then he cursed softly. “You are looking at a product of one of the Thirteen Wonder Technologies as given to humanity of the Lost Earth by the LifeProclamation aliens. That device is an AlternateGate able to send people between one Universal Alternate and another. Most dangerous if not used with extreme care. The LifeProclamation only gave over the AlternateGate Technologies with great reluctance in order to savage billions of humans who came through from an Alternate Mars to this version of Mars.”

 

Jonni nodded. “Was that not a good thing?”

 

Graharg nodded. “A good thing and necessary for reasons that for now I can not give you because I do not have them in my mind. What I do know is that this AlternateGate was put here fairly recently and has been used at least once. The odd tingle and smell in the air, slight but telling, indicate it was used only a couple of hours ago at most.”

 

Jonni frowned. “So something or somebody came through from an Alternate Mars or went to one?”

 

Graharg nodded just a little. “Could be but AlternateGates can also be used to gain access to limbo zones and quasiviable alternates that lie between viable alternates. There are very many quasiviable alternates for every viable alternate. Quasiviable alternates, and limbo zones, can be very useful but dangerous to access. That is why the LifeProclamation tried to take back the AlternateGates Technologies, along with all wonder technologies, when the need for them was finished. But they were betrayed! Of this betrayal I can not speak more of at this moment.”

 

Graharg went to the control console and checked for booby-traps before he began to use it. The zezans, supersoldiers, moved around the chamber with extreme care, checking everything else. In their tight stealth power armour it was fairly obvious who were male and who were female.

 

Graharg spoke after a while. “Very very clever and very dangerous! This AlternateGate was used to link to another AlternateGate to create a quasiviable alternate pathway between the two.”

 

He brought up a scene on a big 3Dviewscreen showing a Marstropolis not destroyed by any Doomsday but one where pink candy-floss trees grew and gingerbread people rushed in large crowds along slightly sticky candy sidewalks. Car like vehicles moved in quick stop starts along the streets, sometimes pausing to gobble up gingerbread people but the victims did not seem to mind and other gingerbread folk did not seem to rush away to avoid the same fate. The sky above was an upside down ocean of great blue grey waves and huge whale like fish would leap downwards and then fall back upwards into the wild waters.

 

Something appeared in the distance, briefly, a great big tripod mechanism that strode across the landscape. As it moved, it spat heat-rays down at some kind of targets and the air shimmering around it as if with some kind of force-field. Then the mechatripod was gone as quickly as it had appeared in the first place.

 

Jonni did not focus too much on that brief sighting and yet she was to remember it, storing it in a special place in her memories as she 'sensed' that it was important to do so.

Edited December 23, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

FALLOUT MARS DOOM

ON GOING NOTES: SOME FACTIONS OF MARS DC

 

EXILES OF STEEL

A group of Brotherhood of Steel extremists who arrived earlier on in the DC before the OSDC did and before the Schism of Steel caused the creation of the Outcasts of Steel in the Domain of Centros. Fairly small faction but dangerous with some extreme views of the role of the Orders of Steel. Linked strongly to the Reavers of the DC.

 

ORDERHOOD OF STEEL(OSDC)

Italics Equals Special Orders or Smaller Units

ARTISANS OF STEEL: Special Industry

BEASTS OF STEEL: Special Order of Mech Power Armour

BROTHERHOOD OF STEEL: Heavier Power Armour Warfare, Aquatic Warfare

CITIZENS OF STEEL: 'Civilians' that are 'inside' the Orders of Steel DC (as compared to the FOLLOWERS OF STEEL)

ELDERHOOD OF STEEL: Leadership (Direction, Coordination, Supervision)

EYES OF STEEL: Classified

ECHELONS OF STEEL: Classified

HEALERS OF STEEL: Medical Health

LYONS PRIDE: Elite Special Forces Unit

RESCUERS OF STEEL: Search and Rescue.

SAGES OF STEEL: Scientists, Research and Development

SALVAGERS OF STEEL: Special Salvage Brigade

SAPPERS OF STEEL: Engineers, Constructors, Deconstructors.

SCRIBES OF STEEL: Archivists, Researchers, Recorders of Events

SEEKERS OF STEEL: Specialists in seeking out artifacts and data.

SHERIFFS OF STEEL: Law Service Operating Inside Outside of OSDC

SISTERHOOD OF STEEL: Lighter Power Armour, Air Warfare

STORMERS OF STEEL: Elite mecha battle unit.

STRIKERS OF STEEL: Elite attack-escort vertibird Unit

TECHNOHOOD OF STEEL: Technical Service-Support.

TRANSPORTERS OF STEEL: Transportation, Logistics.

WARDENS OF STEEL: Special Prison Operators Guards

WATCHERS OF STEEL: Security Intelligence, Reconnaissance.

Possible Others!?

 

Semiautonomous Factions Linked to the OSDC.

COUSINS OF STEEL: Androids

FOLLOWERS OF STEEL: Camp Followers (As compared to the CITIZENS OF STEEL)

GHOULS OF STEEL: Ghoulified Order of ghoulimans, rhouls

MUTANTS OF STEEL: Supermutants, metamutants, zenmutants other

NETWORK DC OF STEEL: Network of DC Factions, settlements etc. treaty contracted to the OSDC.

WAYS OF STEEL: Classified

Possible Others!?

 

OUTCASTS OF STEEL

Former Order of Steel split from the Orderhood of Steel DC during the Schism of Steel. Smaller than the OSDC but still quite large and powerful.

 

REAVERS

DC Faction of these Orders of Steel like scavengers and users of hitech taking a tribalistic religious approach to such. An offshoot from the Exiles of Steel but still with links to the other faction.

 

 

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Edited December 21, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

01-13(0013)

FALLOUT MARS DOOM: SEEKING THE CONTROLLING PRESENCE

GRAHARG THIRTEEN

JONNI THIRTEEN

 

Jonni shook her head in amazement. “Quasiviable appears to be a good term for that place. Only one who is mad would choose to use such a realm to get from one place to another.”

 

Graharg nodded in thought. “Except that this could also be a way to get past the dysfunctional World Bubble.”

 

“Out to Free Space, to the Greater Solsystem.” Jonni watched a small sun float through the sky between the upside down ocean and the crazy city with its buildings of white chalk, yellow cheddar cheese and hard translucent green jelly. “That is another version of Mars DC?”

 

“Yes and no; it is only quasiviable as a reality goes and already is starting to fracture, to disintegrate though it is only about a thousand or so years old.” Graharg went on reading data. “A vehicle of sorts passed from another AlternateGate into that realm and then through this gate back to this dimension. It came from the Unified Orbital Republic but did so in just a matter of a couple of minutes at most. In doing so it has caused great problems. That quasiviable alternate has gained more solidity and the entities in it will now suffer more terribly as that alternate reality disintegrates. Worse still, something else came through the AlternateGate when the 'vehicle' did so. That means something is here that should not be and that a troubling link has been formed between the two alternates.”

 

At that moment they heard the strange wailing scream of entities in pain, in fear and in panic. Jonni took three of her supersoldiers and moved quickly to see what was happening.

 

They chased away the radroaches trying to eat the five poor, unfortunate gingerbread people. Jonni's presence seemed to calm them and she led them through to Graharg. Graharg examined each odd looking humanoid, each shaped like a man or woman and then shook his head. “They can not go back home. They are now tuned to this alternate but not enough to survive either here or there. They badly need Transformation of the Light.”

 

Jonni was puzzled. “Of the 'Light'?”

 

“Of the Lords and Ladies of the Light!” He smiled. “That is but one term for them. I will tell you more later.”

 

So he touched each in turn. The first turned into a green plant like humanoid, a thing that it chose. The same occurred to the next one. The next became human like, in this case a woman. The fourth also became as a human as did the fifth. Yet these two kinds of entities, these giamans or giaplants, were linked with a secondary mentality as Unityfolk were.

 

Graharg sighed. “Graharg must be in two places at once and so it shall be.”

 

With a sparkling shimmer he became two of himself except the other was a woman and she was named Gratarg. So it was that the woman, Gratarg, took care of the situation with the quasiviable alternate reality. She did so with the assistance, the presence, the flowing powers of the mysterious Lords and Ladies of the Light. Jonni wanted to know more, as did her comrades, but 'sensed' that they would have to be patient.

 

Something good had come of the controlling presence's playing around with dangerous wonder technologies and other forces. Gratarg and Graharg were able to establish an energy trail of sorts left behind by the target, a trail of energy residue left from going through the quasiviable alternative existence.

Edited December 23, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

01-14(0014)

FALLOUT MARS DOOM: SEEKING THE CONTROLLING PRESENCE

GRAHARG THIRTEEN

JONNI THIRTEEN

 

Gratarg frowned softly as she faced Jonni. “The fool, or fools, took a dangerous short cut to get here from low orbit but in doing so they have, with the help of the Lords and Ladies of the Light, given us a stronger chance of tracking them down.” She smiled. “I will adopt you and your young comrades and will be a mother to you.”

 

The supersoldiers were surprised but made no resistance to this idea, realizing then that Graharg had adopted them as as a kind of father figure. When Gratarg hugged and kissed each upon the forehead, she was tall as wall Graharg, each was transformed. They gained some enhancements of mind and body but mostly of spirit. They also gained a stronger 'unity' with each other along with an awareness of a history of the Solsystem, the home solar system as orbiting the home sun of Sol. The knowledge they gained would need to be absorbed fully and utilized properly over time.

 

Jonni was to find herself becoming a leader of the superfolk as if they became aware of her special nature. Yet, at that time, she remained but the leader of a platoon of zezan supersoldiers.

 

Jonni had become more accepting of Graharg as her father, was surprised to learn that she had two biological fathers, wondering how this could be. Graharg only spoke of he, and another man, impregnating her mother in turn in a honest arrangement. There had been no falsehood. Why had the father agreed? Wastelanders suffered from fertility problems but the special arrangement led to the other man both having his first children and becoming healthier, fitter, and fertile.

 

Jonni remembered her other father as being lukewarm, a little aloof and more interested in his other, younger, children. Her mother had divorced him when Jonni was but four years old after a huge fight that Jonni did not know much about except that it had been focused on her. When Jonni was five years old, her other father had been forced to leave Bethesdatown in a hurry. The Bethesdatown Sheriff had escorted him to the territorial boundary of the township. 'Township' meant not just the town type settlement proper but the territories that it had official authority and control over.

 

Then, just after she turned six, the traitors had betrayed the settlement and the Talon Mercenaries had attacked being thug-mercenaries, the lowest and most common kind of the Talon Mercs. Had her other father been one of the traitors, one who knew a good deal about the security arrangements and defenses of Bethesdatown because he had once been Captain of the Bethesdatown Militia? From her memories, she had seen him amongst the traitors but not amongst the dead traitors heaped carelessly to one side after the mercs had looted them of anything of any real value.

 

Other, odder memories were starting to emerge. Yet she did not focus on these for she still had a mission to carry out, she still had to help track down the controlling presence and discover its true nature and intentions.

 

To the surprise of the zezans, and the unityfolk with the scouting group, that is the three cyborg-troopers, they did not rush out to go after the zetan infiltration force or the controlling presence.

 

The cyborg-troopers had kept low key in their activity, moving both with and separate from the zezan supersoldiers. Now they began to take a stronger role, proving themselves to be very capable scouts and fighters.

Edited December 23, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

01-15(0015)

FALLOUT MARS DOOM: SEEKING THE CONTROLLING PRESENCE

GRAHARG THIRTEEN

JONNI THIRTEEN

 

Graharg and the zetan supersoldiers headed out while the three cyborg-troopers remained to assist Gratarg. Graharg led them away from what Jonni would have assumed to be the smart course but which Graharg assured her was a trail designed to lead to a trap. They were soon in the great big chambers of the Refugee Enclave, each monstrous space subdivided by thinner curtain walls and cubicle areas along with alcoves. Though there some skeletal remains and some strange energy patches, the biggest surprise was the lack of remains of all those three million plus refugees. On Doomsday the Safe Secure Enclave of Samson Enclave had been full almost to overflowing but even the remains of possessions, of basic equipment and supplies, seemed to be missing.

 

They went through a mass showering area dotted with 3Deyes that allowed for no real privacy. Enclaven employees had been charged with selling 3Dvideos of naked, attractive adults in the showering areas in some SSEs but not in that particular SSE.

 

They came to a great big range of super virtual reality booths, each with a basic SVR-chair and terminal. Rationed super virtual reality, used with compressed relative time, had been one of the few saving graces for people in the SSEs. Education, entertainment and therapy programs were freely available to people.

 

Graharg had the platoon pause while he accessed a particular terminal and was soon doing the seemingly impossible as he hacked deep into the computer network of network-systems of the Enclave. Frowning, he accessed deeply classified databanks full of datafiles that were supposedly inaccessible from such a basic terminal.

 

Graharg spoke to Jonni, who crouched beside him with her 3B1carbine ready to use. “There was a big hidden agenda behind the SSEs and the sheltering of the refugees in them. The Enclaven was more than just a government agency meant to run the SSEs. It was a government hidden inside a government that even the Patriot Thirteen were not fully aware of until too late. The Enclaven was secretly linked to the zetans and, through them, to the greytori. The Enclavers carried out a series of projects such as experiments on refugees and secretly sent many other refugees into zetan captivity. Yet the great majority of refugees were left untouched.”

 

Graharg shook his head. “All of this we already knew. This data gives us no new...” He paused before speaking again. “I am wrong. Samson Enclave appears to hold a special secret in its very depths. I suggest we keep on moving. I 'sense' increasing danger.”

 

So did Jonni and her comrades. She found that she could 'sense' other zezan supersoldiers along with zetamans, abominants and zetan soldiers. With them were zetan dronebots, hovering robots with different sets of zetan weapons. The 'sensing' of the approaching enemies was not precise.

 

Through more great metallic chambers they went, including one that still held tough genetically engineered crop plants that had become a semiwilderness long ago. Roboremotes kept serve-supporting the plants, harvesting pods, fruits and leaves.

 

They were soon passing through huge storage chambers filled with great stacks of big storage cubeboxes and wheel-tubs full of produce. These chambers were full of preserving gas and the zezans needed their helmets while Graharg did not seem effected by the gas. Workers would have needed to use helmets.

 

It was then that they heard the sounds of fighting taking place. The muffled noises of small explosions, of the humming of energy weapons, the blast of projectile weapons and others. They moved more quickly until they were coming into the edges of the battle scene.

Edited December 23, 2011 by Maharg67