MultipleEarth Saga

[Maharg67]

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01-01 (0001)

MultipleEarth Saga: Seeking Freedom and a New Home

Here Starts the Story of 'Seeking Freedom and a New Home'

 

There were the Skylands, enclosed islands, continents that floated not on water but high up in the sky itself, high above the devastated world. The ancient Barriers protected people from outsiders and from falling to their death but had become a prison for the Skylanders who had long become isolated from each other.

 

Shazz stepped up to the wheelcart, on its twin rails, and shoveled into it a heap of claytol, a clay soil like substance that was something very different. He was a clone, a so called metaclone, created from a clone-generator, and that meant official slavery. The smell of the claytol was cloying but he had gotten used to it as had all of the body, mind, spirit enhanced metaclones there. It was ironic that the so called superhumans, the elites who ruled the great SkyIsland of Koombrasa, did not guess just how much more enhanced metaclones were than they were supposed to be.

 

Soon there would be the uprising! He stood, stretched in his stained, much repaired work-jumpsuit and looked past the ancient metal sign showing a faded SkyTek logo. The superclone supervisor was busy harassing a young woman of a metaclone. Some standard human guards, enhanced but not to the extent of the clones, stood in the background in body-armour suits and holding 25zz pulserifles but they were lazy and complacent. There were also animal-humans being worked hard, being heavily exploited. They were also going to be part of the rebellion.

 

There was a good chance that the rebellion would fail but the enslaved peoples were desperate for the regime got more corrupt, stupid and oppressive with every passing year. Every passing year saw the demand for productivity rise and the input of resources decrease. Some said the superhumans were slowly, steadily, going insane including the Grand Thirteens who ruled everything.

 

The voice spoke deep in his mind.

 

=-Concerns are growing that the Grand Security Thirteen know of the plans for rebellion, that there has been treachery amongst the rebel ranks.

 

That did not surprise him in the least. The enslaved were frightened, desperate and the superhumans were good at manipulating such folk. The Grand Security Thirteen were infamously 'good' at it.

 

Not wishing to be struck by an energy pain-bolt, he began shoveling up another small heap of the lightly toxic claytol, a self-regenerating substance that had poisoned much of the SkyIsland, killing flora and killing or driving off fauna. It had also caused the destruction of good farming and grazing lands so now food was increasingly in shortage. Yet the demand, by the regime, for the substance was ever increasing despite its detrimental effects. The superhuman scientists sponsored the growth of the claytol instead of trying to slow, or even stop, its destructive impact.

 

He look up to the shimmering skydome high overhead, at a circling hawk between it and himself, and then back to his work. Shazz longed for the freedom that such birds had. They flew wild and free.

 

At that very moment there was a great explosion in the far distance and he was thrown heavily to the ground, as the others were. In one instant everything had changed!

Edited April 9, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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01-02 (0002)

MultipleEarth Saga: Seeking Freedom and a New Home

 

Bigtropolis was like a mad mixture of different great cities of history with extreme variations of general culture and subcultures. Bigtropolis did have its quiet majority, its normies, but it also had its minorities, its exotics and even its fringe peoples.

 

Shazz awoke to strange noises of strange machines and found himself lying curled up in a small grassy clearing in a small semiwilderness garden filled with bushes, trees and grasses. Carefully he sat up and looked around, bewildered at what he saw. Humans, hairy humans in strange costumes, were busy in a big grassy clearing beyond a line of bushes and trees. It was a storm of sound, of music, of conversations, of singing by exotic bards. To his great surprise he understood the language.

 

A young man was standing closer to where he was, wearing a Tshirt with multiple rainbow coloring, was holding a strange thick cigarette in one hand. His greasy hair hung down around his shoulders. His skin was pink-white, his eyes green and he had a slightly sick complexion. He spoke. "Bingoman got me some stash-bags, fifty grams each, for a good price but then he failed to show up at the meeting place on time; that's not like him at all, not at all. He has a good rep for being reliable. One has to have a good rep in this biz."

 

The young woman wore a pair of tight denim shorts and leather sandals along with a string bikini top. She seemed half asleep and not quite aware of what was going on around herself. She was also pink-white of skin but lightly tanned brown. The man kept looking at her breasts as he talked to her so that Shazz wondered if this was a social convention of some sort.

 

The woman frowned at her male partner. "Stop gawking at my t**s will you. You are not getting any money from me if you haven't got any goods to sell. Still, you are right about Bingoman! I also got the word that he was very reliable. You say you should have met him in the smaller clearing over there."

 

Two things struck Shazz at that moment, of great importance; firstly that the young woman was far more alert and awake than she seemed outwardly to be and that she meant the clearing that he was at the edge of, the one that he had woken in. A multitude of smells were now striking at him from the crazy markets, they seemed like markets, much of it from being from unwashed or underwashed human bodies.

 

=-You are on-in a different AlternateEarth of the MultipleEarth. You know the basic theories of the MultipleEarth that were created during the Doomsdays.

 

Yes but basic theories only. The superhumans did not like their slaves to know too much about much at all. The wayfolk, metaclones and others, had taught themselves what they could but often it was not much or was not very reliable. MultipleEarth was made up of AlternateEarths closely tied to each in special ways. The superhumans could travel between some AlternateEarths, with differing degrees of difficulty, but had they gone to that world? Something told him, he was not sure what, that they had not.

 

The woman frowned. "Follow me but don't get any stupid ideas. I have a gun, a stunner and a knife."

 

The young man looked angry and sulky. "You a copper or something?"

 

She shook her head and suddenly was icy calm and threatening. "No, something far worse than a Civil Police Officer in an undercover operation. Now, take me to where you tried to meet with Bingoman and where he failed to show up."

Edited March 19, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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01-03(0003)

MultipleEarth Saga: Seeking Freedom and a New Home

 

Shazz managed to produce a weak cloaking shield, to make himself translucent, and crouched in shadow of some tall trees. The local woman and man came through, the woman now holding a primitive but dangerous looking semiautomatic pistol. From the appearance he suspected it would fire cased bullets of some standardized calibre. The woman handled the gun as if she knew well how to use it and would not hesitate to use it on the man she was with or anybody else.

 

=-9mm calibre semiautomatic pistol of a kind manufactured in large numbers in Bigtropolis and issued to many government people or sold to many others or simply stolen.

 

He watched the locals walk across the grassy clearing and then stop on the other side of it where there was a curious black mark on the ground. Shazz had seen it before but only now did he start to 'sense' any real importance with it. Then he remembered the terrible explosion that had thrown him to the ground back on-in his home SkyIsland. The small black patch had some connection with that great big explosion but again he did not know how he 'sensed' this or what it really meant. Except, perhaps, that there was some subtle, but strong, link between that place and the SkyIsland that was his homeland.

 

The woman frowned and indicated the strange black patch, it was roughly disk shaped. "Was that the spot where you were meant to meet with Bingoman?"

 

The man nodded nervously. "Bingoman said it was his lucky meeting place because it had good vibes, it made his lucky finger tingle. Bingoman was a strange dude in some ways but who isn't in this game? You going to let me go now?"

 

The woman nodded. "Go, go now!"

 

She thrust a $20 note at him, good Bigtropolis cash, and the man grabbed it before starting to run across the grassy clearing. Moments before it happened,

 

Shazz 'sensed' great danger to the running fool but he had no time or means to do anything about it. The man suddenly halted, as if hitting a wall, and was wrapped in a savage pattern of burning, crackling red-purple energies like crazy lightening dancing and forking around and through his thrashing body. The poor fool screamed and then his body disintegrated. The energies ceased. The clothes and other gear of the man, dropped to the ground. Some of it was only slightly burned looking.

 

Shazz knew what had killed the man, had seen this sort of thing happen before, and knew the woman would be the next victim to be 'fed' upon. He dashed, with enhanced speed, across the clearing and grabbed the woman. She cried out in shock and anger but then both of them vanished with a sparkling shimmer. Shazz did not know how he had done it but he had saved both himself and the pink-white skinned woman.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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01-04 (0004)

MultipleEarth Saga: Seeking Freedom and a New Home

 

Shazz was back in the claytol fields but seemingly hours had passed while he had been only a relatively short time on-in that other AlternateEarth. He crouched now with his cloaking field deactivated, showing his dull, dark copperish metallic skin and hairless features. The strange woman was staring around in shock but she was not the only one surprised. The claytol working fields looked as if they had been hit by a savage storm. Metallic wheelcarts were tipped over, having been knocked off their twin rails. A guard tower in the distance was knocked over. Some bodies of humans, of clones, lay scattered and were obviously dead. Yet he saw that most of those who had been there were not in evidence, dead or alive. He wondered if they had fled to the emergency shelters.

 

The woman spoke. "Damned it, where are we and how dare you kidnap me like that?"

 

Shazz frowned softly at her. "If I had not 'kidnapped' you, we would both be dead by now. The thing that 'fed upon' the other man, that absorbed him mind, body and spirit but not soul, it would have struck at you next and then at me. We, my people, call them elemental vampires or just vampironers. Some say they devour souls but this is a dark falsehood. Souls are inviolate. Welcome to Koombrasa! I wish I could say it is some kind of utopian paradise where all are equal but I would be lying. Hopefully we can get you back to home, to that strange place you call home, soon."

 

She shook her head. "Bigtropolis, the BigBright, a supercity is what home is. We were at a park close to the very edge of the supercity and those were ferals and other fringers. I am a special investigations operative investigating reports of paranormal type activity in that area. The way you moved, are you are genetically engineered supersoldier or something?"

 

"Metaclone!" He picked up a dropped shovel and stood up. "My people are enslaved by an autocratic, hierarchical caste organized civilization with superhumans at the top and most people being lightly enhanced normies."

 

"Then it is just like Bigtropolis of the BigState!" She frowned hard. "We are ruled by superhumans also known as the Grand Immortals. Most of our people are lightly enhanced normies. I am a cyborg with both special enhancements and augmentations. My name is Derra. Where is this place relative to Bigtropolis?"

 

"Another AlternateEarth, or so I am informed." He began to walk carefully across the claytol fields. "Be careful where you step. Avoid the squat, glowing mushrooms. They are claytol mutated mushrooms and highly toxic. You are in the Skylands, islands and continents floating very high in the atmosphere of the world known as Korra. Long ago there was a terrible cataclysm and the Barriers that protect each Skyland turned each of them into a prison. With out resources coming to the SkyIsland, our old society here collapsed and so the superhumans turned to the use of highly toxic claytol to power a new civilization. Problem is that it has been slowly expanding and poisoning much of Koombrasa and causing many problems. The superhumans, Lords and Ladies, refuse to listen to the people. We planned a rebellion, or at least many of us did, but then came a terrible explosion. I was working here, enslaved to the claytol fields, when I was suddenly transported to your world, to your supercity."

 

Derra was in no real position to refute the story as she followed him carefully in her leather shoes that were not suited to being used in a claytol field, unlike his boots. They passed a dead chimpanzee-human lying curled up against a stack of metal ration containers. The top container was open to reveal foodbars, boxbottles of water and cupcans of coffee like coffu. He paused to grab some rations, passing some to her for her to put into her shoulderbag.

 

She spoke. "What about the chimpanzee man? We have chimpanzee-humans in Bigtropolis!"

 

"Resurrection is likely to be successful if a proper medical team can get to him in time." Then he shook his head in wonder. "I do not know what I am doing or why I am doing it."

 

He knelt and touched the dead chimpanzee-man. With a sparkling shimmer the humanoid sat up but clearly was rejuvenated and changed. His fur, his skin, his eyes, all were green now and he was clearly healthier, more youthful and even fitter. Shazz was just as startled, by what had happened, then were the chimpman and the woman from another world.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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01-05 (0005)

MultipleEarth Saga: Seeking Freedom and a New Home

 

Some of the 'resurrections' failed and but the bodies became fresher, as if preserved for a while, somehow. Of the successful ones, at least half were brought back as healthier, fitter versions of their old selves. Then there were who looked like their old selves but with specialized enhancements of mind or body or spirit. The green, blue and yellow versions, of animal-humans and clone-humans, stood out more as did their special 'elemental abilities'.

 

Derra had found the civilization of the 'slaves' to be very basic and hard. They had few complexities in life and spent much time and energies working. Recreation was spent often just being relaxed in one of the big commonrooms, with other people, or in one of the pleasure-cells. Derra admitted she did like sinking into the strange energy fields of the pleasure-cells but also found the experience to be a little disturbing. She did not like the fact that the slavefolk were forbidden to have many items, or do things, that she took for granted as part of her life such as music, books, sex, dancing and much else.

 

Something fundamental had changed. The ever present mind control influence, of the superhumans, was gone! Derra was surrounded by animal-humans, chimps and gorillas, and humans in shock including some normies who had been captured. The normies, standard humans with light enhancements, were soon released. They did not seem to know what to do with out the constant psychic guidance of the superhumans, the Guiding Ones, in their minds.

 

Derra was happy enough for the locals to examine most of her stuff and even to examine her but something called 'tampons' she seemed hesitant about. These puzzled the locals muchly. They showed Derra a transduplicator device that had been built by the AncientOnes, not by the superhumans who had come much later though some superhumans tried to claim credit. Everything she had with her, except her bionics and other cybernetics, ended up being duplicated, rejuvenated and multiplied by nine, apart from the rejuvenated originals. Derra put one copy of her clothes, and other items, back on. It seemed modesty for her was not so important after being an operative for many years but she still preferred to be clothed.

 

In a bare chamber of a commonroom, that slavefolk had dared to try to brighten up with splashes of colour and some other decorations, she sat back as people examined her gun, electric stunner, small combat knife in its sheaf, tampons, very small medical kit, spare magazines of bullets, an AV mobile phone, a handcomputer, make-up, light pain suppression pills, a small glossy photobook, a small infobook on Bigtropolis North-East, a packet of bubblegum and a purse with cards, coins, notes and more cards.

 

Communications had been lost with the nearest outpost to those claytol working fields. The usual transport bringing the weekly supply run, had failed to arrive. The people were trying to work out what had happened to cause such amazingly powerful disruption to everything. It seemed that the whole system was down but they simply did not know. The 'voice' kept telling them that it was still trying to find out what was going on in its own way. The slavefolk, now calling themselves 'freefolk', even the normies that had been guards, were trying hard to come to terms with all of the changes.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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01-06 (0006)

MultipleEarth Saga: Seeking Freedom and a New Home

 

Derra awoke to find that Shazz had 'transformed' the normies and former slavefolk. He sat on a flat cushion of a kind known as a cushionmat. These cushionmats were multiple purpose use items gained from the service-support dispensers and, sometimes, by being transported in. The dispensers were amazing devices of the AncientOnes but they were not fully functioning and were slow to recharge so as to provide new items of choice.

 

Shazz looked sleepy as he finished drinking a cupcan of coffu, sitting there in a typical set of slavefolk gear. "The superhumans are vanished, dead, dying or have gone insane. Normies have become very confused in the supercity, the cities, the towns, the villages, the thorps and work-zones like this one. The normies have always had the psychic guidance of the superhumans, that is for centuries now, but now it is gone. Animal-humans, clones, subhumans and semihumans are just as confused but more determined to take advantage of the situation to make great changes. Nobody seems to know just what happened but the Grand Central Tower Complex is completely gone, leaving behind a great smooth bowl shaped crater behind."

 

Derra sighed. "I need a shower or a bath, not one of those body-cleaner fields you people have here."

 

"Water is claytol toxic around here and needs much treatment before it is safe to shower with or to use in other ways." Shazz sighed. "Green elemental empowered individuals seem able to cleanse, to alter, the claytol to make it less dangerous, less toxic. The claytol becomes less potent as a source of power but is still very useful as one. The phase elemental individuals, the blue ones, can more directly cleanse toxicified grounds, waters and air. The solar elemental individuals burn away the toxic glowing mushrooms safely. It is as if some force, some entity or entities, has given us the means to undo the dangerous destructive effects of the claytol but I suspect that these 'gifts' are to do more than that."

 

"We have no such 'elemental power individuals' in Bigtropolis or in the larger BigState or so I know but my knowledge could easily be remiss. There are too many secrets in Bigtropolis and out in the semiwilderness and tame zones of BigState." Derra looked thoughtful. "You spoke of individuals with special enhancements of mind, body and spirit, what ever the last means."

 

"Spirit is psychic-psionics, as we know them. Mind is psychic-menta as we know them. Body is boost-enhancement. We are still trying to understand these things ourselves." Shazz held up his light copper coloured hands and examined them in wonder. "As yet I do not really begin to understand how I have changed and why I am now able to do amazing things." Then he gave a start. "The transport is arriving, much later than it should have and slower, lower, being full of refugees."

 

So they went out into the claytol fields where freefolk were busy cleansing the fields, altering the nature of the claytol and burning away the deadly toxic mushrooms. Derra was amazed at the nature of the transport, which was very different from the transport machines of her world. She was used to cars, aeroplanes, cabincruisers, bicycles and much of that kind. The transport was a great flat disk with a bubble shaped cabin structure in the middle, with goods strapped to the great disk and refugees held there in harnesses. As carefully as possible the stuff and the people, on the great disk, had been carefully distributed to allow for proper balance of the vehicle.

 

"We call them globedisks because they are made up of a horizontal disk with a globe in the centre. Sounds like wild imagination at work, doesn't it?" Shazz grinned mildly at Derra. "They are dispensed by a machine of the AncientOnes in the supercity of Centrosaza. The superhumans, and their specialists, created other machines but none close to being as advanced as such as the globedisks."

 

The great globedisk landed as gently as possible. It did so into-onto a kind of round metallic cradle designed to hold a large globedisk and to enable loading and unloading. Shazz noted that all coming off the disk, or out of the globe, were either former slavefolk workers or were normies such as guards, soldiers, techies, mechies or others. There were even some big mean looking guard dogs and some saddle horses for patrolling. The superhuman run civilization had always had shortages of various kinds of technologies.

 

Shazz saw a tall, hulking metaclone man getting off the globedisk and knew that there was going to be trouble with this one as there had been in the past.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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01-07 (0007)

MultipleEarth Saga: Seeking Freedom and a New Home

 

Garazk was a metaclone man who assumed he was right just because he was Garazk and according to him, Garazk was never wrong. Garazk scowled as he watched the cleaning, the detoxing, of the claytol fields. Clearly he was angry with what was happening but why so, well Shazz did not really care. Garazk did not like Shazz for the simple reason that Shazz was smarter than he was and had more influence upon the metaclone population. Garazk was taller, broader, stronger but slower but much less skilled a fighter yet he seemed convinced he could defeat Shazz any time in combat.

 

Garazk spoke. "A waste of time, of energy, of new resources! There is no need to clean up claytol poisons when we could be attacking the real enemy of the people."

 

"What enemy of the people?" Shazz sighed. "Superhumans are vanished, dead, dying or crazed. They do not appear to be a threat any longer. We need to form an alliance with other former slavefolk and with the normies, to form a new and better civilization. There is no enemy to strike at, no threat to deal with but the claytol poisoning of the lands, water and air. With the transformations of people there is new hope of dealing with the claytol toxins."

 

Shazz may as well have been speaking to a brick wall.

 

Garazk grinned and spoke. "We attack the normies before they can organize themselves properly, kill many of them and enslave the others. Yes, the normies are the true enemy now that the superhumans are no longer a threat. We could raid that place, the one called Bigtropolis, and take loot and slaves. We will be the slave masters for once. We will be able to show who has the real power instead of being on the bottom of the heap."

 

Shazz shook his head. "None of this is going to happen, Garazk, and you do not have the resources, the influence, to make it do so. If you try anything of the kind, I will oppose you."

 

Garazk had been preparing to physically attack and suddenly swung his fist at Shazz with great skill and power but his opponent had been ready. The next moment Garazk was flying through the air. He struck the ground heavily with a cry of pain, landing wrongly for a fighter. Then another metaclone shot the fool with a stun-pulse from a pulserifle that had once been used by a guard. Shazz studied the stunned, semiconscious fool and wondered just what they would do with him. Then another crisis arose that took his attention so he forgot Garazk for a time. Later he would regret this.

 

Derra came running across the fields, gripping a semiautomatic pistol. She shouted. "The preserved corpses, the ones that did not resurrect before, are becoming active. They are transforming and are going crazy, are attacking people."

 

Shazz ran towards the woman, from another world, and soon reached her. Then they were racing into the metallic stone hardness of the shelter-complex to confront the new threat. Even as they reached the large, main entrance out of it came rushing a distorted man with bulging muscles, a mouth full of fangs and great claws on his hands. The man rushed straight at Shazz and Derra only to be met by a hail of energy pulses and bullets. The creature shuddered, died and burned away as if by spontaneous combustion. Then it was gone except for a small lot of greasy dust.

 

There was other fighting inside but the metaclones, animal-humans and normies seemed to be handling the threat well. This was partly because it turned out that not all of the transformed, reanimated corpses were monsters trying to attack people. Some were demonic but others were weirdly angelic. The demonic creatures and angelic creatures fought each other savagely but the angelic creatures were soon fighting on the same side as the mortals.

 

It was very weird but, then again, much Shazz's reality was just as strange.

 

When Shazz learned that Garazk had vanished, taking a small group of followers and some stolen valuable resources with him, there was nothing he could do but quietly curse. They simply did not have the resources to go after the fool and his followers or the stuff that they had stolen. Shazz hoped that Garazk would fail in any dark plans, would perhaps be killed off before he or his followers could do any real harm.

 

Then he went to speak to the angelic reanimated.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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01-08 (0008)

MultipleEarth Saga: Seeking Freedom and a New Home

 

They were in a big metallic stone commonroom with its splashes of colour and other attempts at decoration.

 

"We angelics, along with the demonics, are from the Living Spiritual Realms that reflect the True Spiritual Realms. Or that is how we see the situation. We should not have been drawn here the way we were, drawn into those bodies the way we were. Something is very wrong." The angelic was in the body of a gorilla-human woman. She was examining a handcomputer with some interest. "A very interesting device indeed." She looked up as she passed the handcomputer to a metaclone woman. "The explosion changed things, so you say, but the truth is more like that what ever caused the explosion here, was what caused the other changes. Wild doorways, or rifts, have appeared between this AlternateEarth and other AlternateEarths. Yet we angelics come from a plain of existence outside of any normal AlternateEarths, just as the demonics do, so how we came to be drawn through the rifts is a great mystery and very disturbing."

 

They lacked information and needed to learn much more about what had happened to their world. Indeed they needed to know much more about the world before the explosion had taken place. They would need to go seeking information. That meant even going to the very far off supercity. Now that the whole system seemed to have collapsed, such an undertaking would be much more difficult.

 

The angelic spoke again. "There is something very unusual about you, Shazz, as if you are far more than you seem to be but even I can not seem to 'see' the truth of it in you. This body is starting to fail for it is mortal and never meant to sustain an angelic like myself. The other angelic inhabited bodies are also failing. We must go soon and when we are gone, you must destroy the bodies that we leave behind in case... in case something else is drawn to inhabit them. Why these particular bodies were so easy to possess is unknown to we angelics and we doubt that the demonics had any real idea of the truth. We can assist you before we go by making you a series of special items from local materials, from some of your devices. As for these ancient devices of the AncientOnes, we would best not touch them. The AncientOnes were of great power, intelligence, cleverness and creativity but had relatively little wisdom and common sense."

 

Shazz only felt out of his depth as he faced mysteries beyond his experience, knowledge and comprehension. If anything, Derra seemed even more overwhelmed by it all.

 

"What is the secret of the superhumans?" Derra spoke to the angelic leader, or at least to one that seemed to be taking that role for the moment. "They rule Bigtropolis of my AlternateEarth and the Skylands of this AlternateEarth, or so it seems."

 

The angelic sighed. "It would appear that they once served the AncientOnes as elite servitors, soldiers, servants and workers. The AncientOnes had an empire that spanned many AlternateEarths that were the core of their territories in many Alternate Universes. Which is why their abrupt, and dramatic ending, had such a great effect on both many Alternate Earths and, through them, on many Alternate Universes. We have little time left. Bring me the following items, please."

 

So it was that the angelics altered some devices to create wondrous ones and made other items from raw materials. When they departed, the bodies fell lifeless to the floor and at once Shazz had them destroyed so that they would not be possessed again. He knew the next time he did his amazing 'resurrection' trick, that he would have to somehow do something different though he was not sure what that different thing would be. In truth he was inclined strongly to leave such things alone but 'sensed' somehow that he was serving a greater cause than himself and that this cause might be called 'God' by some or the 'Goddess' by others. Shazz had never really considered himself either religious or spiritual and was finding these new challenges to be very 'challenging'.

 

Yet he knew deeply, somehow, that he could trust the angelics and needed the use of the gifts that they had left behind.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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01-09 (0009)

MultipleEarth Saga: Seeking Freedom and a New Home

 

Derra wanted to go home, back to Bigtropolis, but not just for her own sake. She figured that she could get some valuable resources together to take back to the SkyIsland with her. The angelics had created two stabilization navigational devices for use with traveling between AlternateEarths. These former handcomputers would make the journeys safer and more reliable timespace wise. She was surprised that she had soon felt comfortable in the bleak landscape of the claytol working fields and the, mostly underground, shelter-complex there. Soon she realized this was mainly because she liked the people there, they being quieter, more accepting, less abrasive than many of the people she had dealt with back in Bigtropolis.

 

Derra studied one of the four transformed handcomputers. "Have you had any more success with communicating with other settlements?"

 

Shazz was busy examining a strange metallic boxy device, with a brassy look, that the angelics had created from claytol, some scrap metal, some bioplastic and a handcomputer. Now there were only four actual handcomputers left, along with the original locked inside the exotic device of the AncientOnes. The rejuvenation-duplicator had not yet recharged enough to generate more duplicated items. He gave a mild grin. "This is a special two-way radio communicator receptor station as created by the angelics." He pressed one of nine neatly placed square buttons in a three by three square pattern, each button having its own unique symbol.

 

The voice spoke urgently. "Emergency, emergency, we need assistance. This is Minehold Gaedric0987 broadcasting to all possible points of reception. We need to abandon the minehold for we have come under the attack of claytol toxin mutated entities. There are hundreds of the muties, hundreds of them. So far our electrified barriers and deflection fields have held them back, along with our pulsegun turrets, but they seem to be getting more determined as if driven by some force. There are hundreds of miners here, along with families, that need saving."

 

Shazz nodded to himself as if confirming something; he knew where Gaedric0987 was and it was only about a hundred kilometres away from the claytol working fields. Yet he had his own ideas of what should be done. So he spoke to what he 'sensed' was a normie. "This is the Blyte0989 Claytol Working Fields. Your minehold is far too valuable to abandon so we will send resources to assist you, including people. Is this acceptable to you?"

 

The voice responded quickly, showing a little panic. "Yes, more than acceptable, but please hurry. Do you have transport?"

 

He grinned. "Only some all terrain ground vehicles but we will get there as soon as we can. Please expect us to get there in about five days. Can you hold on for that long?"

 

The voice spoke. "Yes, we can, just hurry."

 

Shazz switched off the communicator and turned to the puzzled Derra. "I suppose you are wondering why I did not mention the big globedisk. The reason is that we are facing a trap. Gaedric0987 was closed down some fifteen years ago except for a skeleton crew of some dozen normies. The biometallic nodes there needed to regenerate back to fuller size and richness to be worth mining again. The regeneration was slowed down by claytol toxic effects which was also making many miners sick. Muties were also becoming a problem. My guess is that some muties, more intelligent than the mindless average kind, have taken over the minehold and are holding the normies hostage. So we go in the globedisk, now with a normal cargo so as not to slow it down, getting there in a day at most. Of course you have a choice of coming with a group, and myself, or going back to Bigtropolis."

 

Shazz realized then that they was getting to like Derra more than he had expected he would. He felt an odd nervousness of a kind new to him. He wondered if it was anything to do with the transformation he had gone through and the lack of influence by the superhumans.

 

Derra responded with a mild grin. "I need to return to Bigtropolis. I will get back here as soon as I can."

 

Then, to both their surprise, she kissed him lightly on the mouth.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/Overtop-002-1-1.jpg

 

01-10 (0010)

MultipleEarth Saga: Seeking Freedom and a New Home

 

Derra left quickly for her home AlternateEarth, as if embarrassed by her moment of intimacy with Shazz. With her angelic altered handcomputer, she appeared again in the same small grassy clearing close to the larger grass clearing of the markets. It was daytime, bright and warm with sunshine, and things had changed for the worst. The markets were a site of destruction but also of death. The smell of rotting bodies mingled with that of burned materials, including flesh. The sounds of battle drifted towards her, muffled by distance. She could hear the distinctive noise of assault-rifles, of machineguns, of rocket-grenades being fired and exploding and other explosions. A full scale battle was taking place.

 

A helicopter gunship flew overhead, 20mm autoguns and rocket-tubes blazing away. It vanished from sight as quickly as it had come into site. The Bigtropolis CityGuard was in action with CityGuardsmen striking hard at something that was invading the city but what was it that would cause such heavy firepower to be used?

 

Deciding not to stay around too long to find out, Derra set out at a run towards what she hoped was the front lines of the battle, was safety. She avoided the markets and headed along a flagstone footpath. She was glad of her enhancements, her cybernetic augmentations, but also of the way the transformation process had made her faster and more perceptive. Somehow she also ran more quietly and left fewer traces behind of her passing.

 

Then she was halting at a site of four dead humans, scattered across the footpath, their bodies marked strangely with red blotches and areas of burn marks. They had been shot, the bullet wounds were easy enough to see, and had taken a few bullets each before dying. She remembered the dead demonic infested bodies back at the shelter-complex, on the other AlternateEarth, and how they had looked the same as these when dead. These humans had been possessed by demonics, an idea that chilled her. It came to her, somehow, that these were willingly possessed humans and they had paid the price for some kind of dark contract that they had entered into knowingly. Yet she had no real idea where such knowledge came from.

 

The warm voice spoke deep in her mind.

 

=The Angelics touched your mind, as they touched the minds of others, providing you with much needed knowledge and I have arisen within you and others to assist you. You will need my assistance for you, the others, your worlds, are under great threat. The threat is linked with both the explosion back at the SkyIsland of Koombrasa, with the cause of that explosion, and what is happening here in the supercity of Bigtropolis. Now the demonics and angelics are involved, matters have become much more complicated and dangerous. These humans were willingly possessed but not fully absorbed humans. The absorbed are much more dangerous in some ways but have strange weaknesses that can be exploited.

 

She looted the dead demonic humans, not totally absorbed but willingly possessed, of anything useful which including an assault-rifle, some ammo, cash, rings, savory chewbars, a big combat-knife, a couple of hand-computers, a pocket digital camera and some other items. She took digital photos of the dead bodies from different angles before she went and also took IDcards to pass onto the authorities. Then she was on the move again.

 

But when she heard the crying baby, with her enhanced hearing, her plans suddenly changed.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Maharg67