Two Steps Forward - One Step Back

[Maharg67]

0010: Of Tommy Tomkins and Others

 

The ten level building was constructed for a very special reason way back when the Great Bubble began to expand out of the ground, steadily and slowly enough for humanity of that world to react early to the appearance of the very alien presence. In typical human fashion they had failed largely to take advantage of this period of grace before the venting tubes appeared. The Royal Australian Army had attacked the Alien Dome with explosives, with artillery and the Royal Australian Air Force had bombed it with no result except the wasting of valuable resources. The Australian Prime Minister had been forced to step in a put a halt to the fruitless attacks and had ordered the focus become one of scientific research and charting of the alien structure's progress, along with its growing effects on the world. When the United States of America, the British Commonwealth Empire and even the Soviets had stepped in to assist, the special taskforce went quickly from being national to international based.

 

The ten level building had been an important local research building and the town's airport had been expanded to take scientific aircraft that would fly high over the dome taking measurements. When some humans, in special suits, had been dropped on top of the dome, nothing had happened to them. They found the surface of the dome to be impenetrable to all human tools and attempts to probe it otherwise. It was a little slippery to walk on. It was not magnetic at all. A camp was established on the dome, a kind of outpost, but had to be abandoned when air began to blow over the dome as slowly increasingly powerful winds.

 

Tommy had fixed up what he could in the building, had resealed it, had carefully buried eight bodies of people that had died of the Z-virus, who had not been immune or had become life distorted or had become the undead or anything else. He had cleaned up the area and had fixed up the shelter. Then he had found some friendly zombies and damphirs, taking them in and both sheltering and befriending them. Tommy had a way of bonding with such entities that was quite impressive. The zomans, friendly thinking zombies, had become aware of the subtle presence of the vampire. For unknown reasons zomans were immune to such influences. The almost mindless, harmless zombies went into huddling in corners behind things out of fear though they were also immune from being controlled.

 

Tommy spoke quickly with the zomans and some of the more intelligent damphirs before he went to a semi-enclosed balcony on the fifth level above ground level. There he focused on the still approaching newcomers while two zomans set up a special signal lamp placed in the building in case of emergencies. The former occupants had been forced to use it a few times, especially when two-way radio communications became more difficult. He took over the device and began flashing, in rapid Morse Code, a warning to those in the machine and outside of it. After a short time the vehicle came to a halt, there was a small flurry of activity. Then a signal-lamp began to respond, also in rapid Morse Code. Identification and clarification were demanded. Tommy Tomkins responded with his name and, in brief, that he had 'sensed' the presence of the vampire. The response annoyed him for it was basically that the commander of the other group had no time for such 'nonsense' and that Tommy Tomkins, and his people, must surrender or face harsh consequences.

 

He closed his eyes and dared try to spy on the newcomers with his mindeye. At once he confirmed what he had already suspected; there were three strong and two weaker psychics in the group of newcomers.

 

Close to the vehicle, where the signal lamp was set up on a tripod, a fairly high ranking officer was arguing with a scientist and what seemed to be a government diplomat of some kind titled as a field-envoy. The field-envoy was a hard eyed middle aged white woman in military fatigues and he scientist was a middle aged man in hard wearing outdoor clothes and other gear. The woman was speaking in Australian accented English.

 

"Marshal Adams, you are not in the British Empire now. You are not in charge of this expedition. I am! Now, have another message transmitted at once that we wish to negotiate on good terms, that the previous threatening message was an error of judgement."

 

The officer scowled. "The empire should never given you Australians your independence after the Great War. I am damned tired of dealing with these survivalists, renegades and rebels claiming they were abandoned and now they want to speak independently."

 

The woman snorted in disdain. "They were abandoned but I have the feeling that this is a very unique situation that we are confronting right here and now. This Tommy Tomkins is 'very important' and very 'dangerous'. Nor do I think that he is alone, far from it, as the triplets have already alerted me. In the building we got the signals from are damphirs, zomans and perhaps some passive friendly zombies. The hardest to 'read' is Tommy Tomkins himself. The triplets dared not even do a strong psychic probe in case he picked them up."

 

Marshal Adams scowled some more. "Unscientific nonsense, that what it is."

 

The scientist frowned softly. He was a distinguished looking gentleman with hard eyes, who had experienced a good deal of horror and pain as many on that world had done since the coming of the alien structure and the Z-virus. He spoke calmly but with a barely hidden hardness. "Not only are psychic abilities and events scientifically proven, Marshal, but they are proven to have become enhanced, altered, since the arising of the Great Dome that we suspect is really a Great Bubble plunged deep into the world."

 

Tommy reached out, carefully and gently, to the triplets to find a teenage boy and girl along with a sleepy, grumpy quasibaby. He gave them some empathic-telepathic impressions of who he was, generally, and what was going on in the town and the ten level building. The triplets gave him in return some basic, general impressions of a difficult expedition moving through the Australian Outback towards the Great Dome. The actual expedition was much larger but the smaller group had been sent ahead to check out the town. Marshal Adams had insisted on coming along though he should have remained with the main group and carried out his responsibilities there.

 

It was then that Tommy began to 'sense' that there was something 'wrong' with Marshal Adams and four other soldiers in the group and yet he could not quite define what that 'wrongness' indicated at first.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0011: Of Tommy Tomkins and Others

 

Tommy Tomkins met the newcomers in a big concrete garage chamber after a big powered armored door was used to let in the newcomers and the big electric vehicle. There were some other vehicles in the large chamber, a workshop area to care for vehicles, a storage area of big metal sets of shelves and some other facilities. As the big power-door closed Tommy stood out in the open, apparently alone, in the same gear he had worn before. He had his katana sword on his back and two large, powerful revolver-pistols holstered at his sides along with a big combat knife sheaved at his belt.

 

When the field-envoy approached, he smiled at her, along with the distinguished looking scientist. Marshal Adams seemed to hang back as he frowned at Tommy suspiciously. Tommy spoke. "You had a hard journey to this area or so the triplets let me know, in their own special way. The coming of the Great Bubble has caused much death and devastation to these lands. My name is Tommy Tomkins and I have made a kind of sanctuary and base here. Others have come to shelter here with me. There is a dangerous threat in the area being at least one vampire of at least moderate power for such a one. As you can see I have had some bunks brought down here, there are toilets and showers over behind that door and the kitchenette there now has some coffee, tea, boxcans of bully beef, instant milk powder and some other stuff. Nothing fancy."

 

"I am Stella Ketchen, Field-Envoy for the League of Nations Protectorates Regulation Government. This region has been declared officially to be a League of Nations Protectorate. The Australian Government lacks the resources to do more than care for the region of South Eastern Australia and Tasmania that it still has any rule control over, that is has secured." The woman gave a hard smile. "The triplets informed us you have zomans, damphirs and even some passive friendly zombies here that we call zombats. I think it is an Australian joke rhyming the word with 'wombat'."

 

"I like the sound of it." Tommy frowned softly. "Tell me, did Marshal Adams disappear recently for a while off somewhere in the Outback?"

 

The scientist spoke quietly. "I suggest we speak of that later, in a better place. My name is Professor Bernard Quatermass. I have been sent here with others to investigate the situation here. I was here before the Z-virus came and was lucky enough to find that I was not only immune to it but was not a carrier. Many others were not so lucky though at least half of the population managed to escape the virus and the things that came out of the Green Fogs. I had a laboratory workshop here in this building but it was down in the basement levels."

 

"You mean the basement levels or the hidden bunker down there." Tommy Tomkins nodded. "Your science and technologies are most interesting. The discovery of N-rays and the use of them is most fascinating. Your computers are very advanced for valve using machines. The body-armor you use appears to be made from some kind of flexible biometallic substance. Again, fascinating! The vehicle you came in has very good rechargeable batteries for your general development. You have greyscale television broadcasting, analog of course. I suppose you know that the televisions here pick up some very odd audio visual signals."

 

"Greyscale? You mean black and white, don't you? Boxcans? You say that you find 'our' science and technologies to be most interesting." The professor gave Tommy a curious look. "Just where do you come from? You do have an Australian accent, a fairly strong one."

 

Tommy nodded as if to himself. "I come from what is known as an AlternateEarth, that is a world like this one but where history turned out differently. This town was completely abandoned by humans not too long ago."

 

Stella nodded. "Yes, there was a small garrison of soldiers here along with a salvage team, search and rescue people and some others keeping together an outpost. They were pulled out of here thanks to growing troubles in the Australian city of Adelaide and the increase of alien threats in the area. Thankfully Adelaide has largely survived as a heavily fortified settlement. They used to call it the City of Churches but now they call it the City of Cemeteries. The expeditionary taskforce came by railway to halt east of here. I would like to know more about this 'AlternateEarth' that you speak of. Perhaps we could become allies. Did that world suffer from the Z-Plague?"

 

Tommy shook his head. "No, not as such, though we did have difficulties. I suggest we discuss your world first, the situation you find yourself in, since I am here on your world. I suggest that firstly you might set up here in this chamber while I carry out some tasks in other parts of this building. We could hold a meeting in... say one hour. I would like to meet the triplets face to face."

 

The field-envoy and scientist were eager to learn more but clearly Tommy was not going to go along with their desires, at least for the moment. He turned and walked away, soon went through an armored that clicked, locked, behind himself.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0012: Of Tommy Tomkins and Others

 

Tommy met Edward the zoman, smart friendly zombie, in the Central Security Chamber that was linked by greyscale monitors to large video cameras through out the complex. They were all 'hitech' by local world standards and had been found inside the complex by Tommy Tomkins when he had first taken it over as a base of operations. He had utilized what he could of the resources he had found in that place that had been deserted in a hurry, leaving much of value behind. While much of it was of more general, older type technologies by the standards of that AlternateEarth, much of it had been advanced or even prototype level by those same standards. While the technologies of the world he had come from were much more advanced in many ways, they had no N-ray based technologies or some others that the locals had in that place.

 

Tommy Tomkins kept all of his off-world higher technologies as concealed as possible with some of it being hidden away.

 

There were three big greyscale video cameras in the garage, all of them being as well hidden as possible, along with five microphones. Local technologies were just too big and clumsy to do more than that. He watched as Marshal Adams and four other soldiers sat alone together, quietly drinking coffee. The other soldiers seemed to keep a fair distance from them, clustering closer to one Captain Jones. There were also the crew of the big electric machine being a driver, a co-driver who could drive it in reverse if retreat was needed, a mechanic, a radio operator and four gunners. The co-driver, mechanic and radio operator could also act as gunners with removable medium machineguns. Then there was the field-envoy, her assistant-bodyguard, the scientist, his assistant, the triplets and their three assistant-bodyguards along with the damphir and his keeper.

 

They were all trying to relax. Some were in the bathroom toilets room where, out of respect, there were no cameras or microphones. Anyway there had been no way to hide them in there.

 

Tommy sat on a swivel office chair and scanned the big clumsy looking greyscale monitor screens. He spoke as he did so. "You were a teacher at a high school in the town of Alice Springs!"

 

A railway line linked Adelaide with Alice Springs and another one had gone all the way to small city of Darwin on the northern coast of Australia. That second railway line vanished into the Great Dome. Edward had been living in Alice Springs when the Green Fogs first appeared, when the first zombies arose into existence. That was before the other green fog monsters had arisen, when the only way to get the Z-virus was to be bitten by the zombified or a savage damphir or to become trapped in a Green Fog so as to perish inside it. That is until the first immune carriers appeared and a couple gave blood, for emergency blood transfusions, at the Alice Springs Hospital. Edward had been lucky enough to get blood to save his life after having a car accident, caused by panic arising from the Z-Plague; he had been unlucky enough to get the Z-virus and then to become a zoman. When panicky locals began killing all of the zombified, and damphirs, no matter how friendly they were, many fled eastwards towards the Great Dome. Savage wild zombies, and damphirs, did not attack either damphirs or the zombified unless under exceptional circumstances. Zombies wanted the right flesh to eat, blood to drink, and other zombies could not provide that. Neither could the damphirs.

 

When damphirs and the undead were declared to be nonlegal entities with out any rights to property or representation or anything else including legal survival, the irony was that they became safer in what became known as the Z-Zones of red, amber and yellow color coded zones. Only the Green Zones were considered to be officially free of Z-Threats or Z-monsters.

 

"As I have already told you." Edward sighed. "Yes, you want me to speak as if this is a fresh subject. Yes I taught political theory, political history and general history at the Alice Spring High School. Often I wondered why I wasted my time but there were some promising students that made it worth while... at least more worth while. It was a very isolated place but I did my best to keep in touch with the rest of the world. A friend of mine operated a ham radio set and I would sit with him at times talking with people around the world. When the Pan European War happened, the one that destroyed Hitler and the Nazis, that ended the Fascist regimes in Italy and Spain, we managed to speak with people who were far closer to the war zones. Far too close, some times. One ham radio operator, a woman, was killed when the Germans and Austrians were pushed out of Poland. There had been dark whispers of Soviet Russian forces building up on the Polish eastern border but there was no Soviet invasion of Poland."

 

Tommy frowned softly. "Exactly. As you know the Soviet Russians and Nazi Germans, with Austrian assistance, did invade Poland at the same time, in the history of the AlternateEarth that I came from. Out there are four humans who are not quite human. I suspect they have something malignant planted inside them, that has control of them, that has infested them. Yet I do not think it has anything to do with the Z-virus. I told you of the strangely changed humans back in the survivalist settlement of Jack's Hill. These and they are the same, I can 'sense' it and I am starting to 'sense' that the others in the group know it. Note how the five soldiers, including Marshal Adams, are isolated from the rest of the group."

 

Edward was thoughtful. "So there are hidden agendas in the group and not everything is straight forward."

 

Tommy nodded. "There is a deeper concern suggested by what is happening here. How long have such kinds of entities been active and how far across the world? Were they here before the Great Bubble began to emerge on this world? Were they on that other AlternateEarth before the Great Bubble began to emerge there?"

 

It was at that moment that alarms began to clang through out the building; they were under attack by a large and powerful force of some kind.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0013: Of SamWaSam and Others

 

SamWaSam stood behind a lightly armored sedan car, unmarked but of a kind often used by police in HarmonyCity. He, and two other HarmonyGuardians, were in body-armor and fatigues but with no markings indicating what branch of government service they belonged to, if any. They had been called to a part of HarmonyCity that SamWaSam had not even known existed. It was informally known as the Rejection Zone or the Reject Slums. Those who did not fit into society, who could not be considered citizens or even classified officially as humans, were sent there.

 

Not that it was a living hell but it was far from being a living paradise. Semihumans, semihumans and demihumans had hard lives working in various ways in big assembly plants, work yard complexes and other places doing mostly tedious basic work. These were visibly different from humans but there were also relatively fewer rejected humans working amongst them.

 

From the vehicle, parked at the edge of a paved secondary highway, the HarmonyGuardians could see a large group of agitated subhumans, hulking strong but less intelligent, and semihumans being less hulking strong but more intelligent, huddled in basic tough coveralls, other clothes, boots and holding various tools or other items as weapons. They were frightened, angry and something not good was happening in the basic rugged complex they had come out of. The HarmonyGuardians were more interested in what was happening in the complex than with the workers clustered just outside of the big, open, power-gate. The semihumans and subhumans wore control-caps that gave them basic program-conditioning and instructions. Clearly they had been told to come out of the complex and wait but the 'weapons' seemed to be their own idea. For the semihumans and subhumans to dare take such an action indicated that they were truly frightened.

 

It was all new to SamWaSam and to TelPoTae, a young woman HarmonyGuardian standing next to her, but not so unknown to the third. The young man was a little older than either SamWaSam, had more experience but not a great deal more. The three of them had been sent to park close to the gateway, to keep an eye on what was happening there while more special 'resources' were sent to the place. SamWaSam had no real idea what was happening there but something told him it was far from good.

 

According to the big sign, beside the gateway, the complex recycled the corpses of subhumans, semihumans, demihumans and bigger animals that died in the, officially named, Refunctional Zone that was the Reject Slums. Looking at the height and thickness of the walls, the heavy armor of the big power gate, SamWaSam was impressed with the security of a place that basically recycled dead flesh. That there were also heavy, squat guard-towers and visible roboremote gun-turrets seemed like an 'overkill'. Yet, perhaps not for there was something that he did not quite 'like' about the complex.

 

At that moment he heard gunfire as a gun-turret opened up with 20mm calibre caseless bullets but it was firing into the complex's walled up area. He realized that the gun-turrets were positioned so they could fire, easily, inwards as well as outwards, as if the threat could come from either direction.

 

The voice came to him through hidden devices in his head. "The three of you are to move closer to the gateway. Do nothing to frighten the low level workers of the complex. They have been informed that they can keep, can use, the weapons they hold against officially designated threats of which you three are not. Please take all of your primary armaments and equipment along with the special devices you were equipped with.

 

SamWaSam made sure he had his special compact backpack in place along with his compact, powerful triplegun that fired 10mm calibre caseless bullets, 20mm caseless grenadeshells and xolasergun pulsebeams. He had wondered about the last type of weapon that would not seemingly do a great deal of damage against renegades, criminals, rebels or other such threats. They walked quickly and the large group of semihumans and subhumans only got a little more agitated than they were. Another weapon began firing but this time it was the strange hissing-sizzle noise of a powerful xolasergun that was heard. There were naked corpses, mostly being subhumans and semihumans, but with some humans and more exotic demihumans. Yet there were also some zombified workers, being subhumans or semihumans in

 

When the three reached the gateway, SamWaSam got to see the threat for the first time and he was not pleased. A strange green fog was floating in patches across a concrete paved car-park and complex fronted area with some basic lawn in a large square along with some basic standard bushes. The shambling humanoids puzzled him but not for long for he 'sensed' the awful truth in a moment. He was looking at a whole lot of what could only be called 'zombies' as they moved towards the wall, the open gateway. 20mm caseless shells exploded heads and chests, killing zombies at once, or xolaser pulsebeams burned them down just as efficiently.

 

SamWaSam, and his two comrades, crouched and aimed their weapons. They had some other 'standard special' devices but also each had two 'non-standard special' devices. For now they fired 10mm caseless bullets, or brief flashes of pulsebeams, striking chests or heads to destroy the zombies at once. They fired off grenadeshells that exploded with flaming napalm or bright UV light, both doing much destruction to the undead things. The problem was that hundreds of the zombies kept coming out of the complex.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0014: Of SamWaSam and Others

 

HarmonyGuards, the fighting grunts serving the HarmonyGuardians, arrived in assault power armor suits and with powerful weapons designed to be used with power armor. Armored fighting hovercraft and big eight wheeled, or six wheeled, machines halted and out came platoons of HarmonyGuards. More HarmonyGuardians arrived also, this time in assault power armor. SamWaSam were ordered to switch into assault power armor and to take up powerful battlerifles, powerful automatic rifles meant to be used with power armor.

 

The fighting was heavy as they moved in through the main gateway and two secondary gateways. Armored gravity-copters darted through the air, blasting at the zombies with 20mm autocannons, multiple rocket launchers and arrays of powerful xolaserguns.

 

Then came the tall, angular breings in strange power armor, each moving in a strangely graceful jerky fashion. Platoons were formed each with one breing Officer, three HarmonyGuardians and nine HarmonyGuards.

 

SamWaSam went into the complex through a concrete box structure out away from the main building that turned out to be an elevator and a spiral rampway going down around the elevator shaft. They began to run into small fragments of glowing green fog substance that they burned away with xolaserguns and special flamers. With the platoon went special armored roboremotes armed only with powerful xolaserguns or the big, special flamers. The roboremotes focused on destroyed the patches of strange, deeply disturbing green fog while the humans remained on guard. Each breing was immune to the Green Fog, was able to detect the Green Fogs in very efficient manner even before one would appear.

 

Breings had strange and deadly powers or so SamWaSam had heard many whispers of but no clear knowledge of.

 

Most of the semihuman and subhuman workers in the corpse recycling complex had escaped from the Green Fog but there had been thousands of corpses being sent into the recycling network-systems where they would be broken down and transformed into useful materials of many kinds. These corpses had become zombies, along with those workers who had failed to get into the sealed off, armored safety chambers. A Green Fog filled much of the big nine chambers, laid out in a neat three by three square pattern, but where it had come from was a mystery. The whole complex was sealed off so how had it got in past the walls, the airlock double doors, the filters and many other special network-systems?

 

Breings stood in a scattered line, raised their hands up at the Green Fog and spat strange glowing pulses of energy that struck the Green Fog and both destroyed and threw it back. The special roboremotes fired flamer pulses and xolasergun pulsebeams at the unnatural fog. The HarmonyGuardians and HarmonyGuardians focused their firepower on the zombies.

 

When the last bit of Green Fog was gone and the last zombie was destroyed, apparently it was a victory but SamWaSam could not shake the feeling that the truth was otherwise. The breings kept chattering with each other excitedly and even fearfully though they were well known to be a very calm, even taciturn, people. They used their own native language that they willingly shared with none but SamWaSam found, to his own great surprise, that he understood the language though not what all of the words meant for some seemed to be jargon of some kind.

 

He was standing beside a heap of dead zombies when a high ranking pair of HarmonyGuardian Officers came to stand close to him. Marshal PayaZoPar had taken off her helmet to reveal her golden skinned head. She was speaking quietly to a golden skinned man, ViceMarshal KarlVoKa. "I would love to know what those breings are getting so agitated about. It is not like them at all."

 

KarlVoKa snorted. "None are taught the breing native language except the breings, of course, and those who we will not name."

 

SamWaSam wondered what prompted him but he dared to speak. "Sirs, the breings are greatly puzzled to how the Green Undeath, as they call it, has come to penetrate what they call the MultipleBarrier, as they call it. Some words are unknown to me but they speak of something called the Fragmentation as caused by the foolishness of something called the Worthy Unworthys. They quietly curse that they were drawn into dealing with the Worth Unworthys with trickery and threats."

 

Marshal PayaZoPar, who was closest to him of the Alphas, turned and looked at him with out any expression of surprise. "Good, we chose well when your very well hidden hybrid nature was detected. Breings have a collective central mentality secondary to their semiautonomous individual mentalities. Since you are a small part breing, you have gained some of their knowledge. We must be careful that the breings do not detect you as they might just do anything, even try to destroy you. We deliberately brought you here to test you and were intending to question you but you volunteered your understanding of the breing native language. It is interesting that you did so. Is there anything else that you can tell us of use?"

 

SamWaSam shook his head. "Only that they are soon to celebrate something called the Bringing of the One Two Three Holy Egg to the Great Birthing Flower of Truthful Harmony. It translates poorly being much shorter in native breing."

 

The marshal frowned softly, as if to her own thoughts, but did not clarify what those were. "Private SamWaSam, for now you will return to your standard duties. We will make indirect contact with you, with special instructions. You are to to keep what happened to today, and your special nature, a secret from all others. Dismissed."

 

There were some salutes and, feeling confused but curious, SamWaSam departed to find his comrades.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0015: Of Others

 

The fighting was going on in parts of the settlement but the sudden arrival of fifty Combined Special Forces Soldiers from outside of the survivalist settlement of Jack's Hill, had crushed the enemy quickly. The taskforce had only been part of a much larger force for it had been suspected for a long time that something was very wrong with the survivalist settlement. CSFT Soldiers had secretly taken up position around the settlement, four teams of them, and had prepared to come storming in when commanded to do so.

 

Prisoners, ill treated and drained of blood, of life energies in some bizarre fashion, had been found. They were a mixture of survivalist settlers, some from another local settlement, and members of a private enterprise investigations team that had been foolish enough to come into the area, along with some captured nomadic humans. The bizarre, unnatural shapeshifters had drawn blood out of their victims, but also the life energies, through strange claw-needles that had come out of the fingers of either hand. The victims had all been locked away in a series of basement and other underground chambers.

 

Walter Bishop, Peter Bishop, Astrid and others investigated the sick prisoners and the bodies of three dead 'puppets', humans controlled by strange things growing inside their brains and down their spinal columns. There was also a single dead shapeshifter that had returned to its bizarre normal shapeform upon death. The shapeshifters appeared to be transformed humans, having suffered and survived a very unnatural and terrible process.

 

Olivia Dunham had played an interesting game of deception with the Barnabys for she had picked up that something was very wrong with the fake Stella Barnaby and that Adrian Barnaby was lying heavily. Yet both also had suffered from psychic damage and had gained psychic healing of some kind. The real Stella Barnaby had apparently escaped from the settlement, along with other people and some animals they had taken with them. It was unknown where they had gone to. Special Forces Soldiers were scouting the area, were making contact with other locals, and were gaining as much information as they could. A few were former members of the Australian Special Air Service, the SAS, who had once trained and then served in the area when the crisis had begun.

 

Adrian Barnaby, and others, had vanished with the mysterious three who had led the invaders, who had been different from the shapeshifters and the puppet-humans controlled by what came to be called brainbugs. Nobody seemed to know anything about the three except they were generally human in appearance, being two beautiful women and a beautiful man who were horribly disturbing somehow to be close to though none could quite say how or why this was so.

 

Peter, Olivia and Jacko went into the bunker to there meet with those who had survived the strange invaders by being in the bunker. Annie led the visitors to meet about two dozen humans, about twice that many dogs and cats, along with some humans and animals who had transformed strangely since the Great Globe had come.

 

Olivia, Peter and Jacko found themselves in a very big chamber of carved out rock complete with great rock columns. The place was very old and had been secretly created in the late 1800s by a rather mysterious and eccentric scientific cult known as the True Illuminati. They had differed, it seemed, from the 'False Illuminati' of the Satanic Cultists of the 13Families. In that, and other chambers of the great complex, they had carried out a series of strange experiments. Not much had remained of their work except for some great big machines, some big part machines, metal furniture, fittings and some big storage boxes of a great clutter. Tommy Tomkins had reactivated some of the strange machines that then provided water, air and some other resources to the bunker by 'drawing' them from some other place.

 

A great machine, like multiple steel boxes with hundreds of brass pipes and thinner cable tubes, was humming softly. Fresh air came out of a great big vent box thing, water streamed slowly out of a pipe and a thick, grey sludge came out of another pipe that could be, was, turned into various useful products. A couple of big hulking humanoids, sexless and covered with thick leathery skin, moved large containers easily, with great physical power. Once they had been two typical young Aboriginal men who had been out hunting kangaroos when they had been engulfed by a glowing mist. Many hours later they had come awake to find themselves transformed. Their people had fled from the area and the two had wandered until they had been detected by Tommy Tomkins. Tommy had drawn them to safety inside the settlement of Jack's Hill.

 

A dingo had become a creature three times larger, huge and sleek with much deadly power but generally very peaceful. She lay sleeping next to some children who were sleepily watching the newcomers with much curiosity. Tommy had also drawn her into the settlement, had learned from her memories that a glowing white mist had transformed her also.

 

"Walter will want to examine the machines and the transformed men and dingo." Peter looked around. "Distortions, I 'sense' odd transdimensional distortions here. What do you know of the glowing White Mists?"

 

Annie was there but so was a tall, angular man called Harris. Harris was very quiet, almost taciturn, and had been since his whole town of people had vanished. This had included family, friends, a girlfriend and almost everybody else that he had known. Yet it was Harris who spoke.

 

"When I went into my home town, as I rode into it on my motorbike, I thought I glimpsed glowing white mist moving through the town. When I got into the town it was gone and so were all the humans and most of the animals, many of the plants. All of the pets were gone except my dog, Brownie, who was riding on the back of my motorbike. We staid in town, there being plenty of resources there, until we had to flee from marauders who took over the town. We headed across the outback until Tommy drew us to the settlement."

 

Next to Harris sat quietly a part dingo dog who was Brownie.

 

Olivia nodded. "There have been other stories of the White Glowing Mists as often linked with the vanishing of people, plants and animals."

Edited June 10, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0016: Of Others

 

Walter Bishop had everything brought down to the Tommy Bunker that could be, that was useful or to be examined. Dead bodies were placed in a chamber that was ever cool and Walter planned to further study the corpses there, with the assistance of Astrid. The genius also examined the peaceful transformed dingo and the two humanoids along with the strange True Illuminati created machines. He gained far more questions from the basic, preliminary investigations than he gained any answers.

 

The last of the puppet-humans were dead. They had killed themselves rather than become prisoners. The shapeshifters were gone. Traitors were found pretending not to be so, five of them, and imprisoned. Others, formerly under a dark psychic influence, needed healing and time to recover.

 

Walter, Peter, Olivia, Peter and Astrid stood in a great stone carved chamber along with some CSFT Soldiers in body-armor and with automatic weapons. What stood there, in the center of that great chamber, seemed impossible. It was a great sphere of swirling, glowing energies around a great horizontal ring of metallic stone dotted with softly glowing emblems. Except one gained the impression it was both there and yet not there. Walter held out a box like device at the great shape and he spoke. "That is a gateway between AlternateEarths, a very advanced one, but an unstable one. Or so is my guess. The True Illuminati that were here, I doubt that they came from our AlternateEarth. They had technologies far more advanced than anything that we have on our world and they left in a great hurry, leaving some of those machines behind themselves."

 

So the True Illuminati did not come from that world! Just where did they come from? Where, also, had they gone to and why? Why had they come to that place in the first place? Did that bunker, and what was in it, have anything to do with the appearance of the Great Sphere on that world? What of the White Glowing Mist and the vanishings?

 

Annie showed up, walking quickly across the room. She held a crooked looking wooden staff that was a thin trunk with some carving done to it and some painting of symbols on it. She smiled proudly. "This is my Summoning Staff. Tommy Tomkins showed me how to use it to summon up good useful things for us bunker people to use. Before that I could only summon up bad useless things that melted into nasty messes that smelt bad and were poisonous. Tommy can help people adjust their powers. He says he helps people help themselves, that this is all he can do for people must need cooperate with him."

 

Annie turned and looked to the alien structure. "Tommy went through that to go to another world to look for something special. He said nobody was to try to follow for only he could use the AlternateGate while it remains unstable like it is. I don't think you can use it either. If you get too close it messes with electronics but does not hurt them permanently. Have you seen the other chambers, the other wonder-machines?"

 

Walter shook his head in wonder. "Did Tommy ever say where the True Illuminati came from?"

 

Annie looked thoughtful. "They came from the same AlternateEarth that he came from, that was his home world. He did not say much about them but mainly because his memories were not very good when it came to his life before he wandered into the settlement as a child."

 

Peter spoke. "I suspect that Tommy Tomkins keeps much knowledge to himself."

 

"If he does, he has good reason to do so." Annie snorted. "He has terrible nightmares sometimes and speaks in strange languages that one can not understand but if anybody with strong psychic potential stands near him, when he is having such a nightmare, they can pick up strange and terrible psychic impressions. I have done so twice before Tommy made sure people kept away from him, or woke him, at such times. Tommy said that there is another gateway here, somewhere, that can be used to travel to other strange gates like it around this world. All of them are very well hidden. He said you might wish to use them but said you should be careful, very careful. When the others came, about three years ago, the people from MassDynamic, he got very angry with them when they came through the teleport-gate and tried to take over the bunker. He sent them away, fast and hard, but they left some stuff behind them."

 

Olivia shook her head. "MassDynamic did survive and continues to be a troublesome renegade but that hardly surprises one since Nina Sharp, and her people, lost control of the corporation to Randsom and his crazy power hungry faction with their twisted utopian future vision."

 

Nina Sharp, along with other former MassDynamic people, worked with the Fringe people back in what was left of the former United States of America. Fringe was still based in Boston, one of the East Coast Cities that still functioned to a large extent though with only about one fifth of its former population. Around the world people were steadily abandoning some regions to more heavily populate others and the population of Boston, of Massachusetts, was growing steadily. New England was becoming more like part of the old United States with every passing day.

 

A powerful, twisted MassDynamic had gained access to hidden artifacts of some kind, had tried to invade the bunker through some kind of 'teleport-gate'. It was strange, surprising and unwelcome news!

Edited June 10, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0017: Of Others

 

Annie guided the newcomers through more bunker spaces, along corridors, through some chambers, into and out of other chambers along with antechambers. Much of it was quite bare while some of it was more inhabited and used seeming. Areas had mixtures of fittings, furniture, decorations and other items from what the True Illuminati left behind and what Tommy's people had bought there along with some other. The other were a series of odd but useful items generated by three exotic mechanisms and basic duplicates gained from using another two exotic mechanisms. There were restrictive limitations to the use of these mechanisms, some due to their intrinsic nature and some due to restrictions that Tommy Tomkins had put into place for safety security reasons.

 

So it was that items like bullets, bandages, coal bricks, notebooks, empty journal books, pencils were produced directly from templates programed into wonder-mechanisms by Tommy Tomkins. Items duplicated were of a far greater range but the more complicated, the larger and the heavier mass they had, the longer they took to generate and the more energy they used to generate. There were limits of what could be duplicated due to such as mass, volume and complexity. Some materials were also easier to duplicate than others. Organic stuff, especial such as food, was more tricky to duplicate. Food had to be safe to consume along with medicines.

 

Walter was quite excited by the amazing wonder-mechanisms. He noted the way that people were working with them, were testing items to make sure they were safe to use before storing them in various ways in a depot area that took up a large corner area of the huge chamber with its many thick columns.

 

Peter was amazed but showed some concern. "When government and corporate people learn about this place, about these 'wonder-machines', there will be a rush to learn their secrets, to secure this place; greed will once again show its ugly face."

 

Olivia nodded. "Then we had best keep these devices a secret, at least until we learn more about them. If Tommy Tomkins came from the same AlternateEarth that the True Illuminati did, then clearly he came from a much more advanced world than our own. One can understand why MassDynamic wants so badly to control this place and what is in it. I am surprised they have not shown up here in a more conventional fashion."

 

Walter spoke. "Perhaps they simply do not know where here is. Just because they reached it through the teleport-gate, does not automatically mean they knew where it is on this world or even if it is on this world."

 

It was a good point.

 

Jacko smiled and nodded. "It is an interesting story that you have told us, Annie. It is too bad that it, like you, is false. You are both like me and yet not like me as a quasiliving shapeshifter quite unlike the transformed humans of shapeshifters that we dealt with up in the settlement proper. MassDynamic did come through the teleport-gate but took over the bunker, indicating that Tommy Tomkins was not here to drive you off. All the humans and animals we have met down in the bunker, so far, have been shapeshifters of your kind. MassDynamic studied many dead shapeshifters of my kind, perhaps secretly captured some live ones, and found a way to create shapeshifters of its own kind."

 

Annie frowned. "Right but only in some ways; Tommy Tomkins created us using a wonder-mechanism to protect the original inhabitants of this place. The big hulking humanoids are not shapeshifters but fixed into that type of shapeform as strong, enduring but slow workers. The big creature, that I said was formerly a dingo, is another kind of fixed shapeform. Some of those men and women there are fixed shapeforms. Only some of us can actually shapeshift, are actually shapeshifters. There was an attack by MassDynamic and Tommy Tomkins drove it back but he gained samples of the shapeshifter quasi-DNA. MassDynamic now has the use of shapeshifters like yourself, Jacko."

 

Jacko frowned softly. "That is not good news! Where are the original occupants of this place?"

 

"They used the teleport-gate to go to a much larger and friendlier bunker complex in Cheyenne Mountain. I suggest that you that I escort you to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex that was once the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Centre back when the USA still existed and they ran the place." She smiled and reached out a hand as if to shake Jacko by the hand.

 

Jacko kicked aside the fake Annie's hand even as a long spine came shooting out of the middle finger. Then she punched the fake Annie in the chest, sending her flying backwards. It seemed Jacko's kind of shapeshifter was much more stronger than was Annie's type of shapeshifter though Annie's kind seemed to have some nasty extras, like the finger spine. Even as fake Annie slid on her back across the floor, she shimmered and transformed to become in appearance a strange, sexless, mottle skinned humanoid. The finger-spine slid away to vanish.

 

Olivia frowned hard. "Both Peter and I can now detect such shapeshifters as yourself or Jacko or those like the shaperzae who are carbon based lifeforms, though we do so in very different ways. I picked up Peter's concerns, he wanted me to do so, and I managed to communicate those concerns to the others using my psychic abilities. Jacko was correct! MassDynamic did take over this place from a teleport-gate situated inside the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. You wanted us to go there to fall under the control of MassDynamic."

 

The humanoid, that had been pretending to be Annie, jumped lightly to its feet as if unconcerned about the attack that had been made against it. "We are ModtransB1-Units and ModtransB2-Units, unlike Jacko who is a mere ModtransA1-Unit. You are surrounded and are helpless. You only have these few mere human soldiers to protect you."

Edited June 10, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0018: Of Others

 

Jacko gave a mild grin. "No, I am am a ModtransA2-Unit as upgraded and augmented beyond the ModtransA1-Unit type shapeshifters and so are the five soldiers here, who are all shapeshifters like myself. The difference is that they have used special cloaking devices to disguise their true natures and, though I have one, have not been using one. I let you discover me and jump to conclusions."

 

"So there are six of you ModtransA2-Units to deal with. You are still outnumbered and outgunned." The fake Annie signaled the others who began to take very powerful 12.7mm calibre automatic weapons out being bullpup configured, black compact devices of strong, light weight materials that were well balanced with with various attachments. They were known as BN44A1s. "You may be familiar with these guns. Your own people were equipped with them."

 

Jacko nodded. "The AlternateEarth that first produced our kinds of shapeshifter, that sent the ModtransA1-Units to this AlternateEarth, did manufacture such guns but they replaced in special operations by newer kinds of 10mm caseless bullet firing automatic weapons such as those that these soldiers have that are known as BN68A2s. More than one form of cloaking technology was produced."

 

With a soft shimmering a dozen more ModtransA2s appeared out of seemingly nowhere. While many had BN68A2s, some had strange looking devices ending in what looked like metallic tripods each tipped by a small crystal.

 

The fake Annie took one look at the strange devices and raised its hands into the air. "We surrender. Put down your weapons, my people! Those are X1scramblerguns as theorized but never successfully made, as far as I knew. They are an very quick but very nasty way for our kind of quasiliving entities to die. Considering how the MassDynamic's people betrayed us, abandoning us here, when Tommy Tomkins trapped us in this part of the bunker, we do not owe them that much loyalty."

 

So the truth came out at last, or at least part of it as to what had really happened in Tommy's Bunker.

 

Tommy Tomkins had been there and had also gone. That is a Tommy Tomkins Clone, named TT-John, had operated the sophisticated booby-trap that had entrapped the invading shapeshifters, and non-shapeshifter comrades, in part of the bunker complex and isolated them from the teleport-gate. There was a real Annie somewhere, beyond a force field blocked set of tunnels, along with TT-John and many others. The trapped shapeshifters and non shapeshifter shapenoids, had survived as best as they could. MassDynamic had not tried to save them, as far as they knew, and had sent a self destruct signal at them which, for some unknown reason, had failed. Fake Annie, and her people, had since removed the self-destruct devices, both the false ones and the better hidden real ones.

 

It did not take long to realize that the two forces needed each other, needed to form an alliance, against the threats of both MassDynamic and the faction of the altered human shapeshifters.

 

Annitro, the former fake Annie who had taken a new name, changed to look a taller, slimmer version of Annie. She put on a tough, efficient jumpsuit as made by one of the wonder-machines and led the newcomers through some hallway tunnels to where the force fields were to be found. They appeared to be fully functioning and it seemed that nothing could get through one of them. Then Peter Bishop walked up to the force field, touched it, nodded as if to himself, and then walked through the energy barrier as if it did not exist.

 

Peter met a sleepy sentry, a middle aged man holding a pump-action shotgun, and spoke before he got shot at. "I come from the outside, from North America. There is much to speak of."

 

The man frowned. "About time you people showed up to help us locals. What's been taking you so long? I thought at least the good old USA could help us, them being the Ally of Australia."

 

Peter shook his head. "There is no USA any more. There is no Australian Commonwealth any more. Roughly three and a half to four billion people vanished around the world. There was political failure, economic collapse, war, famine, plague, savage climate changes and much else that happened. Much of the world is now classed as Abandoned Zones. What government, and other large bodies, that exist are struggling with many difficult problems."

 

The man sighed. "I used to be a Catholic Priest."

 

"The Catholic Church has ceased to exist except as a number of smaller religious networks though it is said that there is still a Pope in the Vatican in the city of Rome." Peter smiled. "Is that bad news?"

 

"No, I got married since and now I know I can not be excommunicated." The man stood up and pressed a green button of a box of buttons on the wall near him. "We set up the color coded button system in case friendlies managed to get through the force fields. Tommy said it might be you, Peter Bishop, who would do such a thing, if not Olivia Dunham in a different way."

 

It turned out that the area of bunker complex that they moved into was much bigger and more complex than had been guessed at, then Annitro and her people had known it was; there were also a lot more people including those changed by the GlowingMist, as it was becoming known by more people. The real Annie was there, TT-John the clone was there and so was the real Stella Barnaby. That part of Tommy's Bunker, not a name that Tommy had chosen, was open to the outside through over three tunnels; the people there would only speak of three. Stella Barnaby, and her group, had pretended to flee beyond Jack's Hill only to go to the tunnel entrance farthermost from the settlement and to use that tunnel to go to the bunker complex.

 

Many came into that area of the bunker complex, including Annitro and some of her people. There were other wonder-machines there, some interesting hybrid technologies and much else of interest. Again Walter was amazed and eager to study all that he could. Yet he was also very interested in the metallic teleport-gate of a vertical ring half sunken into a horizontal disk platform. It was very large and only semiactive. Controls were in the form of an odd square shaped console with over a dozen buttons, switches and dials of odd design along with a mirror like viewscreen.

 

The real Annie stood there in a jumpsuit and was very thoughtful. "According to Tommy there are three secret teleport-gates deep beneath North America somewhere, in a hidden chambers, apart from the one in the Cheyenne Mountain Centre as controlled by MassDynamic. One is in Washington DC somewhere. Another is in New England, in the area known as Massachusetts and is fairly close to a city called Boston. The third is in Death Valley. There may easily be others but Tommy left before he could find any more in North America through the teleport-gate network. TT-John has been too busy with other, more pressing projects to do any searching."

 

TT-John was like Tommy Tomkins in many ways but was different enough to be distinctive. He smiled. "Annie is being kind; I might be Tommy Tomkin's clone but I am not as brilliant as he is though far from stupid. Perhaps it is time for a round table discussion, for a new agreement to be formed."

Edited June 10, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0019: Tommy Tomkins and Others

 

There had been an attack on the building but it had been brief, a testing raid. The zombies had failed against the passive defenses of armored doors and gates, of thick walls and other barriers. Tommy Tomkins made sure the building did not seem to be occupied and that no active defense was undertaken unless necessary; it turned out to be unnecessary.

 

Professor Quatermass, and others, stared in amazement at the opened up laptop computer with its 3Dscreen showing a slideshow of 3Dphotos of the AlternateEarth that Tommy Tomkins had grown up on before that world had experienced the appearance of the Great Sphere. Tommy finished explaining the processing power and other facts about the computer.

 

Stella Ketchen shook her head in wonder. "So this must be an elite machine, a special device for a chosen few to use."

 

"This is a high end model but such laptop computers, along with palmtop computers and desktop computers, were being manufactured in the many millions. You can see that that world suffered from many problems. The computers were made by virtual slave labor in some countries to be sold to people in richer countries. Natural resources were being consumed in a great rush. The world's natural environment was being destroyed. There was over population. Many millions of people were dying of curable diseases. The climate changes were leading to a great danger."

 

Quatermass shook his head in wonder. "There is more computing power in that little box than there is in the BigBrainiac we are developing in London and that fills up a large chamber."

 

Tommy Tomkins smiled. "I can help you there. You have some forms of science and technology that have arisen here that never appeared on that other AlternateEarth, the one I grew up on. That is such as antigravity cells, liftergas, N-ray machines and those quasiliving devices you are developing. That other AlternateEarth would very much desire and need them. The two worlds could gain much from each other. I fear, though, that the other world may try to put pressure on your world to create unfair advantages for them and that some factions may want to invade. One main reason for that is that this world has vast amounts of natural resources that have been used up on the other AlternateEarth. Your people need to be careful how you approach that other world if you get the chance to do so. There is an operational gateway between that world and this one! It is situated in a secret bunker complex found about a hundred kilometres from here but the gateway is unstable and only such as I can use it safely for now."

 

Quatermass suddenly gave Tommy an odd look. "You say you grew up on that AlternateEarth but it isn't your home world, is it?"

 

"My home world, my AlternateEarth, suffered a great catastrophe a long time ago. I do not know if anybody has survived there or how they have survived. That was five rejuvenations and one rebirth ago." Tommy shrugged. "I am just over three thousand years old but many of those years have been spent in status or in status virtual reality, as you might call the two states. I have not been to my home world in over two thousand years. While my home world was extremely advanced in sciences and technologies, it was generally an arrogantly cold society that suffered for its lack of common sense wisdom, awareness and self-awareness. I am forbidden to say much and much knowledge has been blocked from me of the knowledge of that world. I can tell you that it was a faction of my home world that created the Great Bubble, the Great Sphere or what ever else you want to call it. That is they created it and then lost control of it as it began to expand across the 'alternates', appearing on more and more AlternateEarths in spurts of activity."

 

Stella Ketchen frowned. "Then your people are responsible for all of the death and destruction done to our world, to our people."

 

"Not my faction or most factions of my people; we all tried to stop the project, as far as I know. We failed to do so." Tommy Tomkins frowned softly as if in response to some deep thoughts and then he turned to give a mild grin to the others. "Now, we need to deal with the puppet intruders amongst your people. They will have things inside them that are often called brainbugs."

 

"We call them that!" Quatermass shuddered softly. "Strange little monsters they are."

 

"The brainbugs are not monsters but were first developed for good purposes." Tommy Tomkins frowned. "Except these ones have been distorted to turn them into forms of terrible enslavement. The brainbugs do not enslave; they are as exploited as are the slaves. Have mercy upon the brainbugs."

 

Professor Quatermass smiled, as if pleased by what Tommy had said. "I always do." Then he frowned. "Others of this world have not been so considerate. They call themselves the PanAxis, a neofascist power rising out of the ruins of Europe, the Balkans and parts of the old Soviet Union. Then there is the Soviet Empire based in Russia, in Moscow. The United States of Earth is rising also. The British Commonwealth Empire is growing once more in strength but now has an Empress instead of a queen at its head."

 

"Do not forget the Japanese Empire." Stella frowned. "We need to focus on more immediate concerns. Firstly, we must deal with any infiltrators into the group."

 

"Of course!" Tommy Tomkins took out an odd device and shot Stella with a pulse of energy. She fell to the floor and came to look like a shapeshifter creature inside the clothing and other gear of the real Stella Ketchen.

 

Quatermass frowned hard. "I met the real Stella Ketchen and was most disturbed by the knowledge of her death."

 

"Probably not dead but in a special cell of some kind to give the fake Stella Ketchen a greater chance of being real seeming. That cell could not be too far away; the effective range is up to about sixty kilometres but I would say that she is much closer than that. Indeed she may be in the big bulky electric vehicle right next to the real Professor Quatermass." Tommy aimed the device at the shapeshifter. "You almost started to convince me that you were real."

 

The fake Quatermass shrugged. "You can not win against our masters. They have great powers and many tricks."

 

"Yes, the Deathless Ones." Tommy Tomkins did not seem impressed. "The very faction on my home world that created the Great Bubble in the first place. Except that they lost control of the Great Bubble to the secret entity that manipulated them into creating it. That secretive force took control of the Great Bubble, though not total control. The Deathless Ones got their false immortality and paid a terrible price for doing so. They are a threat but not a great threat or the prime threat."

 

The fake Quatermass sighed. "Yes, you are correct. They grow increasingly insane and inefficient with every passing century. You can zap me now and try to free me from their control. For we did not choose to become shapeshifter servants of the Deathless Ones and would like to be treated with care, just like those brainbugs."

 

Before a self-destruct mechanism could function inside the fake professor, Tommy zapped the entity and it fell to the floor. The shapeshifters were damned tough and falling to the floor did them no real harm at all.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Maharg67