There Is Always Hope!

[Maharg67]

1.20.4[31] VENTURER'S FIRST MISSION: WELCOME TO REJECTVILLE

 

The Venturers, with OldPedro, entered Rejectville through a secondary gateway, the main one being only used for larger convoys. Even as they did so, they learned that blops had been attacking smaller settlements along with outposts. Armed with some antiblop gear, along with more standard stuff, patrols and reinforcement garrisons, had helped. High voltage electricity, and intensely hot flames, drove the blops back or even damaged them, sometimes destroying them.

 

What was the faction that was stealing the antiblop gear? A common answer was one of the darkest of the SecretMarket factions that was intending to on sell the gear, at a high profit, to an unknown purchaser. Yet the SecretMarketeers were quick to reject such an idea because of the SecretAgreement.

 

In the ordered chaos, of the settlement, they made their way through multiple use areas and then into the public markets. Mostly zonefolk dwelt in the town but there was a small minority of vaultfolk. Most were so called feral vaultfolk visiting from the twixtvault-rimvault. The majority of them, in patchwork clothes, did not look kindly upon other vaultfolk but one could hardly blame them for that; that was despite unofficial main vaultfolk programs to assist the twixtfolk-rimfolk with goods-services; those program-projects had been taking place for over 100 years with on-off support by the Overseers. More recently the twixtfolk-rimfolk had been assisted by the mysterious benefactors including Harry and the HarryLifecube.

 

They sat in an empty dining chamber, serviced by a diner, where they were soon consuming food-drink. A few street urchins were invited along along with street animals that came with the urchins. Except that there were also three teenage children, three robots, three dogs and three cats who were quite distinctive as a group. Then there was another, a very small baby like figure sleeping soundly in a pouch on Chloe's chest.

 

Chloe, the amazingly freckled teenwoman, spoke. "Those blops are quite easy to deal with if people have the smarts to do the right thing to deal with them by dealing with them properly."

 

Jasmine nodded. "Very astute, of you, to say that. That goes for dealing with any kind of challenge, or threat even."

 

Chloe smiled. "Some blops have converted, for reasons that we RankScavvies most likely do not probably know, and have started devouring other blops. They are antiblops."

 

Josylin smiled. "Could be that the little one has probably, maybe, something to do with them."

 

Chloe blushed softly. "Yes, most probably maybe yes. She converts blops into antiblops who consume blops and then splinter into three or more smaller antiblops. Her name is secret."

 

Tinlegs, a vaguely protectron like junkbot, made some ding ding sounds. A door opened, a tray slid out, and there was one very large cookie. The robot spoke in a squeaky low voice. "One TinziCookie is made being peanut paste, fruity bits, metal bits, phase crystalics, bits of superconcrete and choc bites in rock-flour. Is Supertinzi ready to eat her tasty snack?"

 

Chloe sighed. "Her name is Supertinzi. She has a cape and everything except she doesn't really need it to fly. The RankCookies are designed for her digestive system because nobody else can eat them."

 

The big TinziCookie vanished with a soft shimmering and, seconds later, Supertinzi gave off a very small burp of satisfaction. Tinlegs' chest cookie compartment closed up. It was interesting to note that the TinziCookie had been bigger than she was.

 

Another teenwoman, Tabatha the golden blonde, shook back her beautiful hair. "We have other friends also. A radcrow, a radcow, a molerat, three radroaches, and three radmans along with yet others. We live together with UncleLeo's people and a few others. Lilly is a most wondrous ballet dancer and very lithe for a supermutant behamoth."

 

Chloe sighed. "Supertinzi gets curious, sometimes too curious, and she accessed a piece of ancient tech which then opened up a gateway to a world from which the blops began to come. She closed the gate up but the blops have been coming from at least one other active gate."

 

The SQuadruplets, and ETriplets, came into visible presence and took up seats at the big table.

 

OldPedro shook his head. "Thought I sensed something unusual, that is apart from all the other things I sensed as unusual with you people."

 

Juniper frowned softly at him. "We have been drawn to this place for a reason, to meet together for a reason, and that includes you. You can not be immune from such influences as given off by such entities as you are now mingling with."

 

OldPedro frowned softly back at her. "Meaning that you all started out, as more than you appear to be, or have been becoming that way for some time at least, and that I am also under such influences. What will be will be, as my mother always said."

 

Young waitresses delivered more food, drink and water. They wore low cut kneedress, apronetts, silken slip-stockings and midheel shoes. They had amazing slimly voluptuous bodies and identical bodies despite having different colours of hair, eyes and skin; they were replicant androids.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

2.1.1[32] A DESTROYED SPACE BUOY; THE SOLAR FEDERATION INVESTIGATES

 

With a blast of retrorockets, the SFSS Enterprise slowed as the spacebattleship approached the burned wreckage of Navigation Space Buoy 11134S. The space buoys were supposed to be neutral and none of the known factions, even enemy ones, harmed them because they were too useful to all. It had been an old United Nations Aerospace Agency one but in some ways more advanced than SolFed tech; trouble was it was well secured solidstate tech too useful to interfere with.

 

When the consistent navigational signals had ceased to go out, carrying with them important navigational information, the SolFed had sent a Aerospace Naval force to investigate.

 

The worldbubble wrapped Terra, or Earth as it was called mostly by its peoples, was large in the distance. The coordinates were in low orbit, a safe distance from the forbidden zone of the low orbit hugging autorobotic Skynet. Even after the Doomswar, and the 3Doomsdays, it remained quite a beautiful vision.

 

The sphere, of the Solar Federation Aerospace Force, was accompanied by two smaller, but still very big, spheres of escort battlecruisers. Missile launcher, multiple rocket launchers, lasers, blasters, railguns, autocannons, battledrones, force bubbles and deflector fields, the vessels had them all and more.

 

Yet Admiral Jane Kirk was only too aware that SolFed technologies were less advanced-effective than those of zetans and that Skynet had much heavier offensive-defensive capacities. Yet Skynet had never before attacked any of the old United Nations buoys, having at times even repaired them.

 

The Venus centered Solar Confederation was hardly going to attack buoys or even get that close to SolFed territories so as to do so. SolFed was based on Luna and Mars along with orbital habitats of miniworlds on-in shifted asteroids. The female only Lunar Collectives Union was also based on-in Luna. SolCon was based around Venus and on-in other miniworlds. Both had territories in the Solar Belt as did the Solar Belt Union. There were the nomadic junkspacers with the big, clumsy, powerful spacestationships. There were zetans who had some outposts amongst the Jovian Moons. There were whispers of the strange off-phase worlds such as Pandora, Skaro and a few others.

 

Kirk was wearing a shipsuit that was an emergency survival power spacesuit with moderate armour. Yet she was also ensconced on-in a command version of a battlechair that was also a limited vehicle. Through out all three ships the only ones moving were in heavy power armour spacesuits. Synthetic gravity was down to half one G to conserve on precious electricity.

 

She spoke. "Passive scans, and sensor sweeps, of the destroyed buoy have picked up valuable data but we will have to risk active scans, sensor sweeps." She tapped some buttons.

 

Crews, of military vessels, were relatively small thanks to heavy use of megacomputers backed up by supercomputers and autorobotics. There were garrisons of defensive guards, along with marines and specialists along with cyborg fighter pilots and other flight crew.

 

A detection operator spoke. "Radar is picked up UFOs approaching in an unusual formation. They have no identification recognition. There are 13 of them and there is something about them that is strangely familiar."

 

Admiral Kirk: "Please explain!"

 

The operator responded. "A very popular SSVR game is From Deep Space Invaders. The scan-probes are picking up shapeform impressions that fit basic enemy attack drones. Part of the game is to be what I am in reality."

 

Admiral Kirk studied data, of the kind that the younger operator was viewing. "A game played by many civilians but also by many in the SFASN, as you know. Prep for battle! This is a red alert, all hands to battle stations. This is not a drill. I repeat, all hands to battle stations. Launch first wave interceptors and drones."

 

The enemy attack drones were fairly small, and weak, but at least twice as fast as any SolFed spacecraft except for specials such as speed courier craft, fast recon craft and racers. They were also suicidal weapons that intended to hit targets as much as shooting them with small missiles and blaster beams; they were nuclear drones.

 

Their shapes were bizarrely triple dart, melded together, like. All were metallic copperish colour coded as attackdroza. They zipped, with terrible speed, towards the three relatively massive ships.

 

Everybody knew this but it was unreal that something from a game was threatening a real SFASN force. They also knew that as long as enemy waves kept coming, they would be increasingly varied and powerful as threats including some very exotic tricks.

 

Longer range weapons wiped out the 13 Droza basic attackdroza. No more Droza came and it was a seeming anticlimax but the admiral had a strong sense that it had been a warning of some kind of worse to come. Perhaps it had not even been the Droza who had sent the warning. It was an odd idea but it persisted.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

2.1.2[33] A DESTROYED SPACE BUOY; AFTERMATH OF THE STRANGE ATTACK

 

After dropping off a new navigation buoy, to replace the destroyed one, the buoy was activated. Then the three vessels turned and went heading back to Luna at moderate speed. They were moving steadily when a fleet of 13 UFOs went moving past, in the distance. Then identification was made much to the unhappiness of the Aerospacers for they were Greynari saucerships being one himastership, three smaller mimasterships and nine even smaller trimasterships, the last being able to split into three simasterships. With them travelled three berserker Greytari atimasterships, each about the size-shape of a mimimastership.

 

They were fast, by Spacer standards, but were moving slow by Greyyari standards. Antinatural toxic vapour jetted from rear tubes but quickly became dispersed-destroyed in zergrav vacuum. Greyyari were infested-infected by necrospores but did not seem to be in a great hurry to infest-infect others.

 

Though they must have known the SFASN was there, the insanely criminal Greys ignored the three vessels that they could have wiped out with little difficulty. Instead they kept heading towards Terra and Skynet that surrounded it with a scattered bubble formation of spacestations, spaceforts, battleplatforms and other structures being mostly smaller satellites and drones.

 

It was next to impossible to work out the reasons that the true Greynari did anything; this did not include the cloned expendables like Greyvari scouts and Greyrari workers-guards-servitors, who thought much like humans or zetans. Zetans were greyrari-human hybrids.

 

The Greyyari vessels vanished with a sparkling shimmer, a sharp sparkling, and then were gone!

 

Admiral Jane Kirk sat considering matters while Science Officer Spock went over the data with his sharp Vulcan mind, he being a native of the off-phase world of Vulcanna. He had green skin, was hairless and had pointy ears along with a computer like mind.

 

Lots of questions presented themselves but no answers!

 

Always large, in view, Luna loomed steadily larger in the big optic feed screens and 3Dwallscreens.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Note; Changed Story 0 to Story Two in the two posts proceeding this one.

Edited March 24, 2018 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0.1.1[34] A GREATGAME!?

 

In a great chamber, with apparently no limits, at great table that was more than just a table, giant figures played a game that was far more than a game. Each had three heads, six arms, great bodies and no visible legs as they floated in mid air. There were, clockwise, the GreatBalancer, the GreatFriend, the GreatNeutral, the GreatEnemy, the GreatFool, the GreatWisdom, the GreatObserver, the GreatAdjudicator and others less visible, less defined, as they had yet to come fully forth to take part in the GreatGame in its current sequence.

 

Limbs moved with amazing speed, agility, stretching out as ever changing 4Dsymbols were shifted, altered, made to materialise or dematerialise. Across the 4Dmap 4Dmarkers were shifted and shifted again. 4Ddice were thrown. 4Dcards were lain out in ever shifting formations. Multiple figurines, other markers, environments, changed.

 

The 13GreatOnes13 manifested there, in ordered chaos verging on berserk insanity, an almost frantic desire not just to win the unwinnable game, as individuals, but to bring the game to a close; that is a game that they had created, launched and then started to lose control of it even as it steadily gained greater control over them. Or was there more to the story than that?

 

In the background lurked a shadowy thing with darker shadowy entities inside it. There was a cloud of rainbow butterflies, a formation of glowing spheres and more than that. The LittleFateWoman sat in her self rocking rocking chair, a plump cheery old maid busy knitting some small moons to add to a solar system so as to further stabilise it safely. The rainbow butterflies staid very close to her and one sat on her grey haired head; it was much bigger than the others.

 

Others were there, also, back away from the main action. They were also observing.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

1.21.1[35] TUNNELSNAKES IN TROUBLING TROUBLES; HOW IT BEGAN

 

Butch DeLoria, Wally Mack and Paul Hannon Junior were the Founding Members of the TunnelSnakes gang of young vaultfolk. Freddie Gomez, the two Handy Brothers and Tim Robbins were newer, The so called female auxiliaries were Trisha DeLoria, Sally Mack, Susie Mack, Sherry Almodovar, the three Salt Sisters and Betty Freeman. With them was an old vaulttron robot with some extra equipment-supplies.

 

The girls were dressed in short skirts and Tshirts instead of the jeans and Tshirts of the boys. Susie despised the TunnelSnakes but was protective of Sally and Trisha while having a secret crush on Freddie Gomez. That is why she put up with wearing a skirt.

 

The TunnelSnakes made their way through AuxiVault101C, going through a sequence of tunnels and other spaces along with using two elevators. Butch had become convinced, somehow, that there was treasure to be found somewhere there. The others went along with him except for Wally Mack who was dubious and Susie Mack who was even more so.

 

Wally Mack was obviously nervous as he shifted his small backpack of hopefully useful items. "So you had a dream in which a really handsome guy, in a fancy leather jacket, promised you lots of goodies if you found an item and brought it to him."

 

Butch nodded. "Sounds crazy, I know, but it felt really real. We go into the area where the RedZone used to be but MrLeather assured me it is safe now."

 

Susie Mack shook her head. "Never known you to believe in dream messages before, Butch. Sounds like something Beatrice Armstrong would come up with."

 

Butch scowled. "She's nuts! Anyway, we are coming to the right place."

 

There was a small red mark on a wall, as promised. Butch grinned and adjusted his backpack. About five metres on, along the same hallway, was a standard powerdoor with another red mark. Butch carefully opened it up, proving he was less confident than he had been pretending to be. They walked into a fairly large, empty, chamber.

 

Wally frowned. "There is no MrLeather here, Butch. So much for your dream!"

 

Which was when the powerdoor closed behind them, vents opened in the wall and a slightly blue tinted gas began to jet into the chamber. Very soon all of the humans lay semiconsciously on the floor and the robot was semiactive only.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

1.21.2[36] TUNNELSNAKES IN TROUBLING TROUBLES; UPON WAKING

 

The 14 TunnelSnakes, including female auxiliaries, woke nakedly in another chamber to find themselves splayed out on slanting, lightly padded, platforms. There were no visible means of keeping them bound but they were unable to move. The robot sat in a odd looking cell of semitransparent crystalic glass.

 

The nudity might have been of more concern, to the TunnelSnakes, if not for the diversion of the metallic tentacles coming out of the walls of the chamber that ended in amazing intricate sets of eight triple jointed fingers each. The greater influence was some kind of 'calming effect' that had their minds dulled down. They gently probed in certain places, ran instruments over the bodies, took samples of different kinds by different means. Some of what happened would have been highly embarrassing under different conditions but the 14 endured all passively and with only some curiosity.

 

Again came unconsciousness and then... they awoke one year, one month and one day later.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

1.22.1[37] WATCHING BIGLILLY DANCE IN REJECTSANCTUARY

 

UncleLeo was massive, being a hulkamoth supermutant, but BigLilly was even more so being a behamoth supermutant. She was dancing in a big superconcrete arena where the audience was behind massively thick barriers of metal bars. Elegantly, by her standard, she swivelled and stomped, causing the floor to vibrate softly. Everybody clapped, cheered and staid back away from the barriers.

 

The audience was made up of radhumans, from the Wastelands, humans, some friendly supermutants, some escaped replicant androids from the NewBritish Commonwealth, some escaped Grade C synths from the same, ghoulmans, rougher radghoulmans and generally peaceful radghouls (not to be mistaken for savage radghoulers) along with some others not of those categories. While many represented factions that were not allowed into Rejectville by it elitist leadership, an dark irony considering history, many others were willingly there. There were a few political exiles, from Rejectville, and even a few escapees from false justice.

 

In her mind BigLilly was still 9 years old, dancing as a child ballerina, as before the 3Doomsdays struck the supposedly safe domecity where she had dwelt. UncleLeo really was her uncle. He had protected her ever since they had both survived the supermutagenic experiments being carried out in TechVault083. He had managed to lead an escape from that techvault, going underground all the way to the outskirts of TechVault101. There was another way into Zone101 that no isolation barrier had ever sealed off or meant to seal off.

 

UncleLeo spoke. "A bunch of VaultTech employees made sure that there was a way into Zone101 even after the isolation experiment began. They wanted to have a back up plan for families, friends, others and themselves to find safety if they had to. Its a tricky way, that got trickier, but over 200,000 people got through it from the surface to become zonefolk. They brought other lifeforms with them. They are in the Wildzone101 that is in the TechZone101 but outside of OrderZone101 that in theory is regulated under the SecretAgreement, being a dubious claim at best."

 

OldPedro snorted. "Any idea of government in the so called Controlzone101, outside of TechVault101 proper, is a joke. Locals are too factionalised, too criminalised, too stupid in many cases, to get their act together; there is some hope in the growing movement to create the TechVault101 aligned Republic101. One of the reasons is a growing recognition that the zonefolk, of OrderZone101, that they need the techvault as much as the techvault needs them, if not more so; another reason is that there the dark stories from across the Wild Barrier where the mysterious Strongvault Alliance has been conquering other territories of other peoples."

 

He frowned. "It gets worse. There appears to be treachery inside TechVault101 as linked to remnants of the Founder Families, and IEN101, along with other factions such as those opposed to democratic reform, as limited as that has been in the techvault. There also seems to be links with them, with dark twixtvault-rimvault factions, and the Strongvaulters. Refugees are coming across the Wild Barrier in increasing numbers and with growing frequency. They bring with them disturbing stories of Strongvault Alliance armies and atrocities."

 

Jasmine frowned. "I do not know if it is linked, with what has been spoken of, but the not so infamous TunnelSnakes have vanished."

 

Then she had to explain who the young adult gang were and how they were nowhere near as tough as their male leaders considered them to be. The PrimeOverseer was concerned for one of the 'TunnelSnake Auxiliaries' was his niece, being Amata's cousin. Yet there was as much concern for the others of whom some were relatives to Alan Mack, the Security Overseer."

 

UncleLeo spoke. "Jasmine, do you think there is a link?"

 

Juniper spoke for her. "We JQuintuplets grow stronger every day and our abilities become more subtle. We psyker sense a link between the vanishing of the TunnelSnakes and the dark stories coming out of the twixtvault-rimvault, in particular. Refugees are coming out of more isolated parts of the twixtvault-rimvault and into less isolated ones where they are being assisted by increasingly public TechVault101 programs. People have once more been vanishing in the infamous area of AuxiVault101C but before this it was individuals. 14 vanishing at once is a big increase. Question is, why did the TunnelSnakes go there in the first place? They are hardly the most venturous of people or the most courageous, in general terms."

 

BigLilly farted, a great blast of sound and gas, but this was typical of her dance routines and everybody clapped and cheered.

 

Only a few seemed to really take note of the big rainbow butterfly sitting firmly on her head.

 

OldPedro frowned. "The 'links' may well stretch to the corrupted elite now controlling most of Rejectville."

 

There were growing tensions in Rejectville as the Democratic Leadership Council continued to grow more aggressive, arrogant and autocratic while refusing to hold the elections that the Rejectville Constitution insisted in should do. Since peaceful protests were being met with increasing force, by the elite, protesters had begun protecting themselves better while rebels increasingly skirmished with the heavily armed Rejectville Sheriff and his force of deputies, constables and robots.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

1.23.1[38] SEARCHING FOR THE TUNNELSNAKES; A STRANGELY DISTURBING FIND

 

The original SQuadruplets had been joined by nine clone-daughters of themselves. Because of greater experience, the SQuadruplets were the lieutenant, sublieutenant, sergeant and corporal while the newbies were the subtroopers. Three were specitroopers as a communicator, a techie and a field-doctor. Juniper, from the original JQuintuplets, moved with them and was ever ready to use her evolving powers. Then there was Cleopatra and the five agents she had brought with her. All were well hitech armoured-armed.

 

They moved through a familiar, slightly warped, former RedZone area that was heavily restricted again, having become less restricted. They travelled fast and efficiently but also quietly. Five individuals had vanished in the area, before the TunnelSnakes did, but they had strong reasons to be there. Three had been members of a maintenance team carrying out regular checks and two had been SecretMarket smugglers working together.

 

Then they came upon what Catherine's visioning, and Harry, had warned them would greet them.

 

A glowing-glistening red-purple-black webwork of crystalic substance blocked their progress. Beyond it, further along the hallway, were two cocoon like structures hanging from the ceiling and hanging out of one was a naked, shrivelled, human arm.

 

There was no need of discussion. They attacked carefully, despite fearing that the destruction of the bizarre webwall would alert the entity-entities that had created it. It was easy enough to destroy but even as lasers caused it to vanish away, they all psyker sensed an alarm going out from it.

 

The two men were shown to be close to death as they were freed from the webcocoons. Medical attention was given to them at once.

 

Juniper spoke. "This is was partly a brutal diversion-alarm. The two men are the missing SecretMarket smugglers in this case sneaking illegal drugs from the outside. The entity that carried out the ambush has also been feeding on their blood, life energies and liquefied flesh. It has made a mistake by leaving psychic traces, dark karmic tracks, behind itself."

 

Harry/2 materialised with a soft shimmering, almost as if he had always been there. He managed to frown-smile. "I will lead you there but first we must rescue other victims of the SecretEnemy's monstrous creation of a bloodcrystallicha; its a destructive, parasitic type of monster first created during an incredibly ancient war. While powerful in some ways, bloodcrystallicha have some odd weaknesses that make them quite vulnerable. It has been created, and placed here, for cunning reasons for it is not the real threat that we face."

 

Harry/2 then teleported the two victims to HarryLifecube for quarantined secured treatment.

[Maharg67]

1.23.2[39] SEARCHING FOR THE TUNNELSNAKES; FOLLOWING AN EXOTIC LEAD

 

News came that 13 new metallic Giftcubes had materialised in CoreVault101 and that the remaining metallic Giftcubes, now in HarryLifecube, had gone back to being 13 in number and of the same arrangement.

 

Yet there were also two sets of 13 other kinds of Giftcubes, with different colour coding. Each of these non metallic looking 13s, one in the CoreVault101 and one in HarryLifecube, was made up of one rainbow, three dark pink-brown, three yellow, three green and three blue.

 

To make matters even more interesting, there were also two sets, each of 13 dull grey with no apparent differences to each other except for numbers. One was in each Giftcubes location.

 

The search-rescue mission continued but the information was of great interest. The implications were great.

 

Harry/2 led them on an odd, ever changing course, and then they vanished through a phasehole that was a temporary, dangerously unstable, creation of one minor aspect of the SecretEnemy; or so Harry/2 stated though he would not go into further detail at that time. Harry/2 made the phasehole vanish, after they had all gone through it, because it was dangerously unstable and for other reasons unspecified.

 

They made their way through a dimly lit, off phase, version of TechVault101 full of stale air and glimpses of phase echoes from the real techvault; these were distorted impressions of sound, sight and smell but also of other sensory kinds.. Going through it was disturbing for all there but they easily dealt with it because they were all more than mortal.

 

The group came upon other webwalls and destroyed them as they were dangerous. Harry freed up some radroaches and teleported them to HarryLifecube.

 

It was too late to save the lives of the three maintenance workers, by the time they were found, but Harry/2 somehow saved them so they resurrected into HarryLifecube; that is into the new HarryVault that was based on TechVault101 but with some important differences. Trouble was that the resurrected ones could not leave HarryLifecube ever.

 

Another phasehole took them back to TechVault101 proper. Harry/2 ended this phasehole as he had the first. They paused for a rest and to discuss various matters.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Maharg67