Two Steps Forward - One Step Back

[Maharg67]

0030: Of Others

 

National Guardsmen armed with older type M16A2s, and newer XM8, assault-rifles were holding off a zombie horde that had come out from a floating glowing green fog, emerging from it with out apparently entering it, being far too many in number to have been just standing there in the GlimmeringFog that came from seemingly nowhere. A Heavy Browning Machinegun hammered away, blasting zombie chests and heads, destroying them at once. The zombies were transformed walking corpses covered with ugly leathery skin, were sexless, had no features indicating sexuality. Their mouths had mutated bigger with bigger teeth, jaggedly sharp, and they moved in a fast shambling fashion. From hands grew strange claws, once normal human nails.

 

A National Guardsman, in advanced kevlar body-armor, crouched close to Peter with his XM8. In theory the light weight assault-rifles had not been bought by the United States Defense Force in large numbers. In practice, during the growing troubles of the decades going up to the appearance of the Great Sphere, the USDF had grabbed what it could of what was available. By the coming of the 2020sAD the USA was unofficially manufacturing XM8 assault-rifles, and related weapons, in autorobotic factories in Washington DC and California. M16 assault-rifles, and M4 carbines, were also being manufactured to supplement older stocks of such weapons. California was still functioning strongly and was part of the American Union, which was the non New Confederate part of the former USA.

 

The National Guardsman fired off a grenadeshell launcher attached to his rifle and blew some zombies over. They were damaged but started getting up again. Zombies did regenerate damage, slowly and unnaturally unless they fed which sped up the regeneration. Peter aimed his more advanced rifle and blew the head off a zombie, the corpse soon hitting the ground. Zombies did feed on 'dead' zombies, though they did not attack active zombies, and soon two were eating the headless corpse. Was it some kind of recycling at work?

 

Olivia was crouched and was rubbing her temples softly, her weapon close to her feet. She spoke enough to be heard by Peter, and some others. "A twisted intelligence is guiding the zombies, is using their 'senses' to see, to hear, to smell the world. Those zombies are nearly mindless but are moving in a coordinated manner. That GlimmeringFog conceals the unnatural thinking of something inside it that directs the zombies and... other things that have yet to emerge." She took her hands away from her head and grimaced. "I can do no more with out endangering my own mind."

 

Technological developments had advanced in many ways around the world, thanks to a variety of factors, but generally things had staid the same or, had in many areas, gone backwards. People were still going into space and manufacturing in the Lunar Colonies meant some products were being sent to the home world in one way shuttles. The shuttles were themselves turned into basic gliderjets to use in Terran atmosphere. The National Guardsmen, of that brigade, had some more modern weapons and other devices but mostly they had copies of older type stuff. They also had to use civilian gear from pickup trucks to powerful telescopic hunting-rifles to high voltage electric cattleprods. High voltage electricity did greater damage to the undead than it did to the living. Militia volunteers were even more poorly equipped.

 

The shapeshifters, with their more advanced gear and special abilities, had been destroying many zombies but they were in small numbers and running out of advanced ammunition. As quasiliving entities they did not attract zombies easily and could not be infected-infested. They were far more immune to the effects of the glowing green fog but still hated even going near it, let alone into it.

 

Washington DC National Guard HQ was sending reinforcements. The Union American Army had many units facing the possible threat of the Confederates but was also sending what it could. The Union American Government was also sending leather-necks of the Union American Marine Corps, being what remained of the US Marine Corps. Canada had ceased to be a functioning nation and surviving Canadian civilization was no threat to the American Union. Indeed trade was going fairly strong between the two groupings.

 

Peter frowned. "That fog exists both on this AlternateEarth but also on another one. It is acting partly as a gateway between AlternateEarths. This is very bad! Somehow we have to destroy that glowing green fog and as quickly as we can. Ultraviolet light will do it. They were developing UV-laser technologies in Washington DC for a variety of advanced industrial reasons. Such could do great damage to the green glowing fog. I do not know how I know that."

 

Fighting was still going on but the zombies were increasingly expanding their capture zone. Three 105mm howitzers were firing HE shells into the zombie hordes, blasting many apart and killing them or at least making them unable to do any real harm. Concussion did less damage to the zombies than it did to humans but still did them strong damage. Trouble was that the local forces were running out of howitzer shells.

 

Which was when everything changed! Zombies, that could, began to return to the green glowing fog. They shambled quickly as if being invisibly recalled, and they were. Relieved that the attack seemed to be over, the human defenders stopped firing and then all were ordered to do so to conserve ammo. When the last zombie had vanished back into the green glowing fog, it simply vanished. It left behind sickly looking plants and not much else. The antinatural fog was gone and the gateway was closed but none there assumed it was all over, far from it.

Edited June 10, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0031: Of Tommy Tomkins and Others

 

The real Professor Quatermass looked at the open laptop computer, with its 3Dflatscreen, and shook his head in wonder. Then he looked around at the largely bare silvery metallic chamber of the TransCube. "You say that this laptop computer is as powerful as the big computer we are busy developing in London but that this 'TransCube' is way beyond anything we know. You will freely speak of the laptop, and the world it came from, but not about the TransCube and the world it came from."

 

"I could not do so even if I wanted to." Tommy Tomkins studied the professor with obvious concern. "You went through traumas of many kinds in that bizarre capsule as made by the technologies of the DeathlessLords and DeathlessOnes, being followers of the Deathless Lord and Lady. I removed memories simply to keep you sane. I did the same for Stella Ketchen, Donald Friday and Alison Wilson. Donald Friday is a former elite assassin become bodyguard and Alison Wilson is a security intelligence operative. Why would they be with you?"

 

"They were captured along with the rest of us." The British professor shrugged. "We were in a scientific research station that was supposed to be very secure when out of nowhere comes an attack from what were supposed to be our own soldiers. We had no idea of shapeshifters, were not prepared for such an attack. Those brainbugs also sound quite terrible even if you say that they themselves are but victims. Why do I have knowledge that... that is more advanced than I am used to?"

 

"Because I dared to put a large reserve of advanced knowledge, on slow release, that will feed into your awareness so that you can better catch up to 2020sAD scientific knowledge and technological advancements from genetic engineering to supercomputers to smart materials to regenerative gels to ramjet rockets and much else." Tommy Tomkins clicked fingers together and a silver metallic wall became like a single glass pane window looking out over a great city of skyscrapers, a huge bridge and overhead a great dome. "That is part of HarmonyCity which lies inside HarmonyEarth that is inside the Great Bubble, also known as the Great Sphere or even the Great Globe, amongst other names. Mostly it is mortal humans who live there, most of them whose ancestors were abducted from an AlternateEarth much like both the one I grew up on and this one except more advanced than both for it was 2111AD there when the Great Sphere first appeared there."

 

"You have enhanced my mental and physical abilities somehow." The professor sighed. "Made me younger appearing, fitter and healthier. I keep thinking unsuitable thoughts about Stella Ketchen."

 

"Which is good because she is very much attracted to you but you were quite blind to it." Tommy Tomkins had the view slowly shift, as if the window was gliding over HarmonyCity. "This is not a current view of HarmonyCity. Last time I spied upon them, the HarmonyLords detected me and have managed to cut me off ever since. That was about three and a half centuries ago. The DeathlessLords were tricked into creating the Great Sphere, or so goes the story, and then the HarmonyLords took it over. Yet their control was never total and has been slipping away ever since. I am coming to question the generally accepted story more greatly but have had doubts about it for easily a thousand five hundred years."

 

"I owe you for what you have done for me." Quatermass studied the strangely complex, and yet basic, supercity. "I have come to distrust the British Empire, or British Commonwealth Empire as they are often called. They are not the British Empire that existed before the green glowing fogs and Z-Plague struck."

 

"That is probably truer than you know." Tommy Tomkins changed the view and it showed London, or at least one version of it. "They call themselves the True Illuminati but they have used many names, many false and puppet factions, to carry out their endless conspiracy of conspiracies spanning across AlternateEarths and beyond, into space. They appear to be trying to understand the Great Sphere in order to infiltrate it and take it over. Perhaps they imagine defeating the HarmonyLords in order to do so. I do not know if they know that the HarmonyLords are losing control of the Great Sphere."

 

Tommy Tomkins turned to the professor. "You owe me nothing, as far as I am concerned, but I could more than use your help. You will need to remain here for some time but time passes faster here than outside of the TransCube though you will not age faster thanks to the rejuvenating effect of the TransCube. Stella Ketchen will be up and about soon. One of the clone-humans will show you to your new set of rooms for the two of you and the two others. All four of you will have to stay in the set of rooms but those include a big domechamber garden that is a kilometre wide, a big library-study, a gymnasium and other resources that you will find very useful."

 

Quatermass smiled. "Amazing, simply amazing. It is too bad you could not help others also in this place."

 

Tommy Tomkins only smiled. "I will see you soon enough, professor." A copper clone-human appeared, a young woman in shapeform in a tight jumpsuit, and led the tired Professor Quatermass away.

 

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Terminal%20Pix%201/TERMINAL-IT-Workit-00006.jpg

Edited July 20, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0032: Of Tommy Tomkins and Others

 

Tommy Tomkins left the TransCube and returned to the ten level building after leaving the bunker. The town of Robertville had become a ghost town again with no zombies moving in it. Some stray cats had appeared before, savage and feral, but were now in the TransCube becoming friendlier, fitter and healthier. Tommy gathered up such as dogs and cats not just for their sake but in hope that this would help the natural environment recover the more. That Australia had not suffered the devastations of rabbit and cane toad plagues that the AlternateEarth had done, the one he had grown up on. It was dark with night but there were few clouds, it was cold, and the moon was big, bright and full.

 

His people had detected a BISAS platoon, of Special Forces Soldiers, moving stealthily through the semiwilderness as they came in from, roughly, the east. With them were some Aboriginal trackers. The Aboriginal people had discovered, to their great surprise, that much of their beliefs, even their 'magic', actually worked against the undead if it had enough strong faith behind it. The soldiers were a mixture of Australian and British white men who did not care as long as it helped get the mission complete and helped them survive.

 

Tommy departed from the ten level building alone, vanishing into the semiwilderness as if to become a ghost.

 

When he came seemingly out of nowhere, even the Aboriginals were startled. They studied him carefully as Tommy stood there almost casually holding a LeeEnfield bolt-action rifle with the barrel aimed at the ground. He was in tough, practical outdoor civilian gear of dull dark browns including the combat boots. The lieutenant in charge of the platoon came forward and stood frowning at the newcomer. He held a light machinegun, a Brengun, in his hands. It was a very reliable, accurate type of gun that fired the same calibre of bullet as did Tommy's rifle.

 

The man spoke. "Who are you and how is it that you move as quick, as quiet, as you do?"

 

Tommy smiled. "Name is Tommy Tomkins and, as for the other things, well we all have our secrets we like to keep. My people, and I, rescued Professor Bernard Quatermass, Stella Ketchen, Alison Wilson and Donald Friday from a group that were enemies but are now allies."

 

"Monster shapeshifters!" The tall, slimly muscular man scowled some more. "You have become allied with monster shapeshifters."

 

"Like us they tend to vary in their goodness. They were also abducted humans transformed against their wishes into mind controlled killer puppets. They are called shaperzae and with them are non shapeshifting variants known as shapenoids. They served the DeathlessLords, the Deathless Lord and Lady, the DeathlessOnes. The shaperzae and shapenoids are away for the moment, along with people who were controlled by brainbugs. The brainbugs are as much victims as are the brainbugged." Tommy looked around at the soldiers. "They are not amongst you."

 

The lieutenant snorted. "Well, I know my people and we have been tested but who can speak for the rest of the empire, let alone the rest of the world? Dogs can detect them, if properly trained. Same dogs can detect all sorts of things pretending to be normal human. Our task is to take over that building, the big one in Robertville, and use it as a base of operations."

 

Tommy shook his head. "Sorry, that is my base of operations but there is a good strong three level building in the same town that, if anything, will make a better fortress. What you need to know is that there is a vampire in the area, a powerful one, able to control zombies and to influence zombers. Perhaps you could help me destroy them."

 

The man scowled even some more. "We follow our orders and you are on British Imperial Territory for this is now a British Imperial Protectorate. Now, you might be good at sneaking around but you don't want us to get rough with you."

 

One of the Aboriginal men, an older man, shook his head rapidly and spoke. "No, no, lieutenant, you don't want him to get rough with us. Tommy Tomkins has power, ancient type power. We need him! He can help us plenty!"

 

The British Officer scowled at the black man. "Keep your mouth shut, boy, unless it is about tracking."

 

Tommy didn't seem to move but the lieutenant flew through the air and struck the ground hard, sliding across on his back. None of the others seemed concerned or came to his rescue. Tommy walked up to the man and crouched next to him. Then he tapped the man very lightly on the forehead and the lieutenant became unconscious. He looked up and around at the soldiers.

 

A second lieutenant spoke. "Carlton started going strange over two weeks ago. He was always a bastard but he got worse. If we were not so short on experienced special forces soldiers, he would have been gotten rid of. The Marshal did not like it but Canberra House ordered that he keep his rank, along with others like him."

 

"Then Canberra House has also been compromised." Tommy thrust his hand, ghost like, into the head of the man and moments later drew out a brainbug, ugly and gnarly looking but peaceful in his hand. Tommy opened up his jacket and slipped the creature away so that it vanished though it, in theory, went seemingly nowhere. Then he put his hand back onto the lieutenant's head. "He will need some healing but soon he will be back to his ordinary nasty self."

 

The second lieutenant shook his head. "Oh, good! Well, we can't have everything. How did the brainbug get into his head?"

 

Tommy stood up. "That is for you to answer since you knocked him unconscious and fed the brainbug larvae into his nostril about two months ago. I wonder what you were offered to turn you into a traitor."

 

The second lieutenant grinned. "Glory to the DeathlessOnes who will send my soul into the ever blessed unlife." Then he collapsed to the ground, writhed and died. Clearly he had died from some kind of hidden poison.

 

Tommy looked around at the others. "Greetings, Unity! All of you are unityfolk, including you Aboriginal people. Are you running the British Commonwealth Empire now?"

 

The sergeant spoke then with a mild wariness, as if doing so out of habit. "Far from it! Strange immortal humans have been taking over the empire. The Empress and Emperor are of them as are many others. They know of unityfolk and are forcing us to come to Australia and to go to New Zealand to get rid of us but also to have us confront growing troubles here in Australia and in New Zealand. They secretly call themselves the UtopianLords and UtopianOnes. We actually know very little about them. They seek to destroy the Deathless Forces, an enemy faction to them."

 

Tommy nodded, as if to both himself and the sergeant. "Also known as the New Utopians, the True Illuminati and by many other names on many other worlds. I suggest that we go to Robertville."

Edited June 21, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0033: Of Tommy Tomkins and Others

 

Unityfolk existing on that AlternateEarth could be seen as a complication but Tommy Tomkins welcomed it as a helpful sign. At least he could form an alliance with these unityfolk. It seemed that there were at least over two million unityfolk in Australia and about another million in New Zealand, having been sent there by the UtopianLords or, as a minority, having already been there. If there were more than that the unityfolk were not telling Tommy and he did not press them to do so. The BISAS, British Imperial Special Assault Service, Soldiers were glad to rest in the Robertville Compound, now the official name for the ten level building and its yards but not the bunker beneath it; that was called, in a burst of imagination, the Robertville Bunker.

 

"The True Illuminati may have begun infiltrating the superpowers of this world as far back as the early 19th Century, when they first emerged on this world. Perhaps they were more successful in the British Commonwealth Empire than they were in any other of the great powers." Tommy Tomkins had spread out a map of the world that showed it as it was back a couple of years ago. A great disk shaped area marked where the Great Sphere had stopped growing in the centre of the continent of Australia. "The map is out of date but the newest one that I found here in the Robertville Compound, as you call it."

 

The sergeant pointed to Adelaide. "We arrived there in a British Imperial Air Service liftergas airship come in from British Imperial India, which now holds the tip of the Indian subcontinent, a large chunk of it but most of India is no longer under the control of the empire. Hindu, Sikhism and Muslim Warlords operate to the northern areas. Many refugees have been fleeing to the relative safety of the British Commonwealth Empire. Those UtopianLords do treat people very fairly compared to most human leaders."

 

"They are not intentionally evil but have the notion that they have the right to control all for the good of all." Tommy Tomkins. "So, as far as we have worked out, the lieutenant got infested with the brainbug close to the town of Alice Springs, that he was betrayed by the second lieutenant who was a brain washed follower of the DeathlessLords." He frowned softly. "What of undeath and green fog monster activities?"

 

"The green glowing fogs show up sometimes but ways have been found to quickly destroy them. They always seem to be fairly small and weak." Sergeant Benjamin Rand shook his head. "Too many people have grown complacent, have come to assume that the problem of the undead and the green monsters is over but others consider that the threat has not even really begun to manifest yet. The UtopianLords are pushing the line that danger still exists. Then there is the Soviet Empire, the United States of Earth, the Japanese Empire and the damned PanAxis. If the DeathlessLords have taken control of any super power, it is probably that one. Still, that is only a guess."

 

Tommy Tomkins frowned. "From what I have learned of the PanAxis, largely from Professor Quatermass and Field-Envoy Stella Ketchen, it would be an extremely good guess. What you have added, in the way of more recent data, just strengthens the idea. You say that the PanAxis are using strange transformed humans and animals, strange biomechanical warmachines and swarms of reanimated dead soldiers and beasts to fight the British Redcoats and Free European Forces in Normandy, along with more conventional weapons of this world."

 

"The British Imperial Air Force is fighting the PanAxis in the skies over Normandy." The sergeant turned as a friendly smart zombie, a zoman, walked into the room pushing a large trolley loaded with heavy boxes but doing so with out apparent effort. "The British Imperial Government has been recruiting zomans, zombats and friendly damphirs, has even been protecting them in law. The PanAxis reanimants appear to be different from the Z-virus caused zombies and damphirs."

 

"It is not really a just a virus but a cooperative biological package, an infection-infestation, that creates the zombies. If humans catch the virus with out the rest of the 'package' they can die with out a chance of becoming undead. That is why many people died of the Z-Plague as they might from any virus pandemic. On the other hand if people get just the virus they have a better chance of surviving and become more resistant, or even immune, from the Z-Plague." Tommy Tomkins indicated the western coast city of Perth, of Australia. "I went visiting the version of Perth on another AlternateEarth, when I was young. My family went there by advanced jet-airliner."

 

"We unityfolk could use some of the advanced technologies that come from that other AlternateEarth." Benjamin frowned softly. "Advanced automatic guns, computer chips, carbon fiber, power-exoskeletons, supersonic jumpjets, subsonic jet-airliners, advanced antibiotics and the other stuff you mentioned."

 

"You are hardly in a position to take advantage of such scientific and technological data." Tommy frowned. "I did not mention all of that to you, so how did you know about it?"

 

The sergeant frowned, realizing that he had slipped up. Then he shrugged. "Unity made a deal with the UtopianLords. We were given some details of what to expect, were told that we could find one or more people from a more advanced AlternateEarth. We were only given some brief descriptions. The city of Perth is going surprisingly strong, on this world. Flying-boats and airships land there that come across the Indian Ocean. Convoys of ships port there. Then the railways take people and goods eastwards to Adelaide and further on to Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra. Of course the traffic also goes the other way. Perth is being built up as a strong industrial city with a large military presence, including a naval and aeronaval one. There is one more thing that we were told to learn about. That is the underground chambers long ago abandoned by the True Illuminati, the UtopianLords by another name. I do not understand why they would do such a thing."

 

"Neither do I!" Tommy Tomkins was examining the map closely. "They also abandoned their central chambers complex on the world that I grew up on. As you may know, each central complex has not just a gateway to other AlternateEarths but teleport-gates to other parts of the same world it is on. The central complex of chambers, on this world, is about a hundred kilometres from here. I intend to return there soon since it was there that I came through from the other AlternateEarth. You may come with me, if you wish to do so."

 

The man nodded. "We could take the whole platoon, at least what remains of it, and some of your curious followers."

 

Tommy frowned. "Not my followers, my comrades."

 

The zombat was unloading the boxes, effortlessly, against a wall from the trolley. It stopped, looked to Tommy for a short moment, and then went back to working. Tommy 'sensed' the zombat was pleased at what he had said.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/800px-Boys_Mk_I_AT_Rifle.jpg

Edited July 13, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0034: Of Tommy Tomkins and Others

 

The Boys Antitank Rifle was just an over sized bolt-action rifle that fired large, powerful 0.55 inch (13.9mm) calibre bullets from a five shot magazine. Against the lumbering superzombies, monstrous hulking humanoids, it did deadly damage as the large bullets exploded brains and brain nodes. The major attack had begun against the Robertville Compound at midnight. Psychic directed zombies had came shambling alone holding power line poles that were just tree trunks cut smooth of branches and roots. Smarter zombers fired guns at the compound being an odd mixture of civilian and military weapons but most of the zombers used such as kitchen knives, fire-axes and other tools or anything else that could be grabbed up. There were hunched, shrunken fleshed skeletal like, winged subvampires but, thankfully, not too many of them.

 

Stingerbugs had come swarming and the humans wore special head to foot body-armor. They did not go after the undead or the damphirs, there being no real point in doing so.

 

Tommy aimed his LeeEnfield rifle and shot another zombie down. Lieutenant Carlton had recovered enough to fire a gun from a stationary position so he did so, firing off short bursts of bullets with his Brengun. When Tommy revealed he had created a constant, if small, flow of supplies from the TransCube, the BISAS Soldiers were impressed. Amongst the supplies were more .303 (7.7mm) calibre bullets and other ammo as used by the British Imperials and their Commonwealth Allies along with a range of guns. Zomans used the guns as effectively as any humans did. Zombats carried supplies to the fighters and did other tricks like pressing against armored gates to help keep back the zombies, the zombats also having great strength and endurance. The few friendly damphirs were out moving through the town, doing hit and run attacks against the enemy in small groups. They were very 'good' at that sort of thing.

 

A Vickers Machinegun opened up to fire .303 calibre bullets from an armored, semi-enclosed balcony, chopping a semivampire right out of the air. A fragmentation rifle-grenade exploded amongst some zombies, shredding them. The vampire that controlled the zombies had staid away from the fighting not out of cowardliness but because it could not both fight directly and control the hordes of fast shambling lesser undead. It made no attempt to control the zombers, or subvampires, did not need to do so. There were no semivampires, undead between subvampires and vampires in nature, or at least none showed up to do any fighting.

 

The noises of shooting came from not only the compound but from the zombers shooting at it. There were sometimes the howling roar of the more beastly kinds of damphirs. More human like damphirs used guns but also hatchets and machetes with deadly effect. Explosions erupted at times as grenades exploded.

 

When more BISAS Soldiers began to arrive, arriving as four platoons plus two four man squads, they came fast from two directions. There were women soldiers amongst them, thanks to Unity influence. Some of the fighters were Aboriginals, one was a Black African woman. They came in special body-armor and with a mixture of older and newer type weapons. TT-Jane had gone out to meet them with zoman soldiers and zombats pulling handcarts full of extra equipment and supplies. The Tommy Tomkin female clone-human had been spending a good deal of time out charting the area, finding valuable resources, making rescues and spotting what needed to be spotted.

 

The newcomers took zombers by surprise, slaughtering them, caught subvampires in crossfire and shot down zombies from the rear.

 

When the vampire withdrew this time, it did not bother to save any of the zombies. Instead it had the subvampires and zombers flee as best they could. One by one the few superzombies died as they tried to lumber away, the great gross humanoid bodies falling heavily to the ground. The zombies became almost mindless again, suddenly confused, and went fast shambling in all directions as they were shot down. They were still dangerous, though less so, and they were all killed even as they stumbled and crashed into each other.

 

Tommy Tomkins helped clear away the now dead undead bodies, dumping them into lined fire pits to burn their bodies. Undead bodies were best destroyed that way just in case anything malignant survived inside them. Oddly enough zombats and zomans never contained such threats, which might have helped explain their 'friendly' nature.

 

Why had the vampire attacked the Robertville Compound when it had and then fled to leave the basic shamblers behind? Was the vampire working alone or was it taking orders from a more powerful undead entity? Tommy had never known of the DeathlessLords having anything to do with the general undead unless fighting them but perhaps they had managed to take control of at least some of the undead. There had been stories of human necromancers gaining control of the undead; could that be true?

 

Tommy Tomkins made a decision; it was time to begin to do something extra special, in the TransCube, for the zombats, zombers and friendly damphirs. Perhaps something special could also be done for the Unity humans also.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0035: Of Others

 

Marshal Harry Nelson watched as Bethena became a refugee settlement for the green glowing fogs had begun to emerge larger, stronger and more resistant to damage, from the Great Sphere. Items were taken from the autodispenser down in the Great Labyrinth that seemed to be designed for human like humanoids, if not for humans. The list was generally good but had some odd choices of items and some odd lacking of items that could have been there. Food rations were powdered, dried, compressed and highly nutritional but only dull flavored; the flavors were not quite familiar to local human tastes. The tents were curious dome-tents big enough each for at least seven adult humans. The blankets were easily big enough for a 'queen' sized bed and were water resistant and very effective while being fairly soft. The backpacks were adjustable with built in frames and belly-belts. The multiple purpose knives were well made and were actually good for many purposes. Other items were just as fine made and were very useful.

 

Marshal Harry Nelson was unityfolk, was of Unity, but he kept this from most people for sensible reasons, they not being of Unity. The Marshal had no real loyalty to the new British Empire which was New Utopian dominated, which had replaced the old British Royalty with a new British Imperial Family and Court. Not only had they taken advantage of world troubles to take over his beloved homeland, they had then expelled all of Unity, that they knew of, to Australia and New Zealand, from Imperial Territories around the world. At least they cared for people, in general, more than did the old empire so he gave them support for doing that. The British Imperial Welfare Network was slowly, but steadily, growing bigger and more effective while managing to have only a very minimum of corruption and other problems. The new empire did tend to be efficient and honest but the big problem was how this was being achieved and why.

 

A smaller unit had gone eastward, roughly, further towards Robertville so as to establish an outpost and to wage skirmishes with roving undead and glowing green monsters, for they did glow a little. Not just stingerbugs were out bug bigger, nastier but slower stingerbats that only vaguely looked like bats were flying in swarms in dim sunlight or darker. Slasherbugs darted across the land, also in swarms but did not fly. Only good thing was some kinds of local predator could, and did, devour them with out any chance of getting zombification. Some had started to become damphirs but this was not common and damphirs were even more successful at killing and consuming the smaller green glowing monsters.

 

The Marshal stopped looking out of the second level window of the three level building, the biggest and tallest in town, and turned his eyes to the big map spread out on a wooden dining room table. The map was an older one crudely adapted, as much as possible, to changes. A big disk area was greyed out, indicating the Great Sphere. Small flags and other items were used to indicate various points of interest including school room stuff and cheap chess pieces. A liftergas airship, airboat, convoy was coming from the city of Adelaide but would take at least two days to get there moving at convoy speed. Convoys, on water or in the air, moved at the speed of the slowest vessel and in this case it meant big hulking airships hauling larger machines, many personnel or lots of smaller equipment and supplies. A bigger, slower convoy was coming by railway and then by dirt highway, to reach Bethena. Faster aeroplanes had come to Bethena, including some to stay there, but most flew back and forth between the town and distant Adelaide. This included three DC3s, also known as Dakotas, which were good reliable aeroplanes to carry freight and-or passengers.

 

More battletanks were on their way being five Vickers A1E2 multiple turrets tanks, each Independent having one 3-pounder canon and four .303 calibre Vickers Machineguns. More importantly there were half-track trucks with some armoring more soldiers along with more specialists. There were also civilian specialists and workers on their way. Whispers also spoke of camp followers from laundry washers to prostitutes to tailors and much else. Marshal Nelson would not try to stop such a thing but would make sure that the camp followers, and the soldiers using their services, were policed as much as possible. He was getting regular British Imperial Army people, Greencoats, instead of the elite Redcoats now fighting the PanAxis in Normandy. There were far more Greencoats than Redcoats but they were trained less, paid less, given more basic equipment and generally considered of less importance except for a small number of Greencoat elite units.

 

Antizombie equipment and supplies were being sent to help secure the town along with antizombie specialists. The special, secretive agency known as Torchwood had sent a team of science officers, their official designation and field operatives. There were also Greycoats, elite military forces specializing in dealing with the undead and other paranormal threats. The Greycoats gained special training, equipment, supplies and training along with excellent pay but so did the Torchwood people.

 

Professor Quatermass had worked with Torchwood a few times but refused to speak of them except to shake his head with a rueful expression on his face. Stella Ketchen also knew of them and was wary of them, did not like the way they operated, but the professor was far more accepting of oddities in others; he had been forced to become so because of a series of strange, disturbing and very challenging experiences he had gone through with such people as his associates; more than once they saved his life, sometimes putting their own lives at risk to do so. Marshal Nelson did not know either person well though he had been to one big meeting that Stella Ketchen had also attended and he had read extensive briefings on both.

 

Lieutenant Crale entered, not Unity but at the very fringe of it; perhaps one day he would become of Unity. He spoke with some tiredness showing in his voice. "Marshal, the use of the alien autodispenser is confirmed to need transcredit that appears automatically for every individual being topped up steadily at one transcredit every ten minutes, that is six per hour, 144 a day, until the maximum total for each person is reached. Most individuals go no higher than 288, which would take two days to regenerate. At the moment any individual first activates the autodispenser, they gain their maximum transcredit amount, being mostly 288tc. The everfolk vanished into the Great Labyrinth with amazing speed and there seems to be no chance of tracking where they went."

 

The Marshal frowned hard. "There has been some big trouble off in Canberra. Seems there has been some kind of unfriendly infiltration taking place. Our Imperial Masters have taken care of it but they suggest we be very careful."

 

Crale knew about the UtopianLords, about the DeathlessLords, but he was not going to speak such names openly when and where others might hear them.

 

The Marshal changed subjects. "Have you found any exceptions with the transcredit? I have a balance of 288tc and so do you."

 

"A small boy named Allan Pale has a balance of 432, which would take three days to regenerate for him. This is of no real advantage since there are no real transcredit expensive items to buy from the autodispenser." Crale shrugged. "Still, in case that changes we are keeping the boy, and his family, in secure control. They are being paid a small allowance, the parents have been given work and they have gained a dome-tent as a home. We need more ablutions facilities or hygiene is going to become a bad problem soon."

 

"We need a great deal including a civil administration to help run and serve-support this place." Marshal Nelson. "I have sent information about the existence of the autodispenser to both Adelaide and to Canberra. One can only imagine what their responses will be and what orders will be sent. A seemingly endless flow of valuable supplies in a resources starved world? I do not look forward to dealing with the nonsense that will rise from this situation."

 

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Edited July 20, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0036: Of Tammy Tomkins and Others

 

Tammy Tomkins cursed softly to herself as the LandRover hit yet another pothole. She was growing sure that the driver had it in for her personally. The soldiers with her in the back of the vehicle did not seem so concerned but they were far more used to such things. As the four wheel drive machine moved it did so with two other LandRovers, one of them actually having six wheels so it was actually a four wheel drive, six wheeled machine. Tammy Tomkins wondered what the expedition was supposed to achieve. It was the 1980sAD of a world that seemed to be going crazy.

 

They had been heading inland for many hours, had been following a sealed secondary highway in bad need of repair. There was some traffic but it moved in guarded convoys. Most were commercial convoys, guarded by mercenaries, taking timber or dug up minerals to the east. Some were refugee columns fleeing from where the Great Sphere was growing. They stopped at struggling towns who were suffering from the world wide economic and other troubles along with a civil war shattered Australia.

 

Tammy was glad to feel the vehicles slowing, turning and coming to a halt. Outside of the windows she saw a large clearing dotted with curious buildings at the edges and seminaked people in not very much, very colorful clothing of a rather hippie kind. She figured it was one of the fringe eco-communes that had begun to appear in the rain-forests in the late 1960s; some had somehow survived the civil war and other troubles. Yet as she looked she noted a few adults actually carried guns and that the eco-commune was surrounded by a hulking defensive boundary including high voltage electric fencing.

 

But Tammy 'sensed' something more disturbing; there were other strong deep psychics there. She clambered out of the machine, thankful to get away from the rather crude humor of the soldiers who had gotten used to ignoring her, though sometimes they ogled her in a way they assumed she did not notice. Why they had stopped, she did not know. Nor did her handler, Lisa Evans. Lisa came over to Tammy, wiping sweat from her face with a sweat soaked cotton handkerchief. The more time passed, the more keen Lisa seemed to keep a distance from Tammy. Now she was acting like the good handler she was supposed to be.

 

Tammy looked around at the people and knew there was something unusual about them, knew that they were subtly different from other humans. Had she ever met others of their kind? Tammy could not remember doing so. She spoke to the other woman. "Are you ever going to sit with me again?"

 

Lisa frowned. "The officer in charge of the mission has ordered me to do so. He has said that I am failing at my duty and if I continue to do so he will make sure I pay for it in more than one way. You look right into me, right through me! It spooks me out. None of the other psychics I have worked with have been like you. None have been as close to powerful as you are."

 

Tammy shrugged. "If you want to keep your distance, do so. Your foolish, shallow, fears are getting to be very annoying." Tammy looked up at the quite bright sky dotted with only a few big white fluffy clouds. I wonder how the invasion of the Moon is going."

 

Lisa shrugged. "Last I heard was the same as you last heard. The first of the new ramjet-shuttles has reached lower orbit to speed up the construction of the UNSS Avenger."

 

The Avenger was a multiple purpose vessel meant to go from low orbit to higher orbit and the Moon. Much was classified and kept heavily secret but stories abounded anyway of everything from super cyborg soldiers to battle remote-robots to astronaut soldiers in powered space armor. Some whispers spoke of nuclear weapons being taken along. The Avenger was not the only project being supported. There were special super long range missiles being created that could send nuclear warheads all the way to the Lunar Surface. Also low orbital defenses and special ground defenses were being beefed up. Yet there was far more hype than there was concrete news so that Tammy wondered just how much of it was dependable. What was really going on?

 

The small girl surprised Tammy by gripping her hand. Tammy turned and looked into the girl's big beautiful brown eyes. The girl spoke. "You do not have to be afraid! Unity will not try to hurt you."

 

Tammy showed her puzzlement. "Who, what, is Unity?"

 

"We are, I am, Unity!" The girl wore nice purple bib-bob overalls. "Our people are semiautonomous to the whole, to the group mentality. Our people are all over the world except in the TripleEmpire. They do not like us because the TripleLords can not control us or even heavily influence us. The TripleEmpire helped start the Australian Civil War so they could send aid here, so they could smuggle in some strange people and things or so my people tell me. You can help us and we can help you. That Lisa is frightened of you but it is partly your fault because you project your anger at her."

 

Tammy was not surprised by what the girl said of the TripleEmpire. Only once had she met one of the TripleOnes, the high ranking servants of the TripleLords, and she had felt very uneasy. The TripleEmpire was a mystery inside three great dome covered islands that were very close together in a triangle formation. It was said the 'triple' meant land, sea and air but many had openly doubted this explanation. Some spoke of flying, amphibious and ground digging human subspecies. Others had mentioned strange, advanced machines and genetically engineered creatures. Nobody seemed to know for sure. The TripleEmpire had sold some of its secrets to the world in the way of goods and services. Some islands, secondary to the TripleIslands, had people visiting to pay for, or get for free special medical treatments. The TripleEmpire had helped to cure various diseases that made many people happy but lost big profits for some pharmaceutical transnational corporations.

 

Tammy felt a surge of guilt. Perhaps she had been largely responsible for how Lisa acted. She sighed and wondered what she could do about it. The little girl turned and ran off, having not even exchanged names with Tammy but she knew that they would soon enough meet again.

 

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Terminal%20Pix%201/TERMINAL-IT-Workit-00095.jpg

Edited July 20, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0037: Of Tammy Tomkins and Others

 

Tammy tried to make peace with Lisa and, to her surprise, it worked quite well. Lisa became more comfortable with being with Tammy and Tammy found herself becoming less critical of Lisa. They sat together in a kind of gazebo structure having a cup of tea with canned milk, along with large square biscuits of a kind called army-crackers. The army-crackers were quite hard and dry, being made to endure. Rationing had begun in the Australian Civil War and was still going strong, in the nation, with many products. The black market prospered, as did the big corporations, and a few others but most not so much.

 

Tammy looked out to the rain-forest around the eco-commune as she 'sensed' that something odd was out there. Could it be wildfolk? There might be wozzles in the area.

 

Lisa was looking at an old newspaper, two months old, having been published in Adelaide. "The Premier of the State of South Australia wanted more independence and wanted to overturn the Australian Civil War Amnesty so he could imprison some former Republican fighters."

 

Tammy snorted a little. "Not only did the fool fail but he was removed from office by a popular push. The great majority of Australians want to steer clear of another war and get well away from the last one. I wonder what the delay is. We do not seem to be moving off in a hurry."

 

It was true! She had expected that the convoy would soon be on the move again but the soldiers, and others, were looking relaxed as they waited. Some more vehicles had come into the compound but this time from the west. They were four wheel drive British vehicles of different kinds. With them had come paramilitary Forest Rangers, militia soldiers and some locals. She 'sensed' most were of Unity and others were linked with them. Unity was up to something. Were they just reacting to the appearance of the Great Sphere or was it something more?"

 

Lisa sighed. "I just want to go back to civilization where they have air-conditioning, where portable telephones work properly and where one can go to a good cinema movie."

 

Tammy had grown up in Adelaide, the City of Churches, and liked it well enough but had no real liking for 'civilization' or 'modern urban life' in general. In truth she had been found as a toddler wandering in the rain-forest and had been sent to Adelaide where she had been adopted by the very family who had found her. They were loving, caring but quite conservative in some ways though they had supported the Republican Cause in the civil war. Lisa was an Adelaide girl born and reared there.

 

The sergeant came over to them, the one who had gone with them in the expedition. She was a tough oriental woman with a faded scar down one cheek. She had a big FN-FAL 7.62mm calibre autorifle slung over one shoulder and she wore combat fatigues, boots and even a kevlar helmet. Sergeant Bright was not too excited by having to protect a 'psychic' and her 'handler'. She frowned at both Tammy and Lisa.

 

"A lot of trouble has broken out ahead of us. There is a lot of fighting going on but nobody seems to know just what is happening. Both of you are to remain here. Reinforcements are on their way from the east. The Union Americans and the British Imperials are being given permission to land military forces at Perth and Melbourne so things must be serious." She shook her head in wonder. "Don't know why they sent you here in the first place."

 

"Because I can 'sense' things about the Great Sphere that normies can not." Tammy stated. "I can tell you always what direction it lies in and I can tell you how fast it is growing even from here. I even have a strong 'sense' of just how big it is and how much energies it is putting out. You know there are ways of collecting electricity from the air since the Great Sphere appeared. Experimentation has proven it but I always 'sensed' it to be so. I, and other people like me, were a major reason why the experiments were done in the first place. Seems we can get free electricity from their air itself if the right rig is set up but not masses of it, not yet anyway. The bigger the Great Sphere gets, the more electricity we can get but the more dangerous to our world it gets."

 

Sergeant Ash Bright gave Tammy an intense look for a moment and then nodded to herself. "So that is why the big people think you are so damned important. On the other hand, why did they send you out here with so little protection?"

 

"Because the so called 'big people' fear me, fear that I will read their grubby little minds and learn their grubby little secrets. They consider me to be ultimately expendable and secretly hope I will get killed." Tammy shrugged. "They are not important! There are changes happening, forces on the move, that will sweep them away, along with the narrow minded focus on life and shallow ambitions."

 

At that moment some large, slow aircraft lumbered overhead through the sky along with some smaller, still large, DC3s. There were at least fifty aircraft. The sergeant looked as surprised as everybody else did. Most of the aircraft bore the markings of the Royal Australian Air Force, the RAAF, except a few who still had the markings of the Australian Republican Air Force, the ARAF. There were some that seemed to be chartered civilian machines.

 

The sergeant cursed. "Fools, they are doing a big parachute drop right into dangerous, unsecured conditions."

 

But Tammy pointed upwards, beyond the subsonic jet and prop driven aeroplanes to where some huge aeroships flew like gracefully ugly elongated saucers that bore a particular TripleCircle symbol. "TripleEmpire! If anybody knows what is going on, it is the TripleEmpire."

 

The sergeant, for good reasons, looked even less happy with what was going on. Tammy was not happy about what was going on either and 'sensed' that neither was Unity. As for Lisa, she just looked confused.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0038: Of the OmniObserver and the Observed

 

The OmniObserver noted the activities of SamWaSam, of Tammy Tompkins, of Tommy Tomkins and others. The OmniObserver watched the Elder Factions at work be they the HarmonyLords or the UtopianLords or the DeathlessLords or the TripleLords or others. The real story had begun a long time ago and the noted individuals and factions had been there from the beginning. Now they struggled against each other, struggled against the power of the Great Sphere, struggled to master it and the Great Labyrinth and struggled to survive.

 

The OmniObserver glimpsed the future but did not read it as a whole, was careful in how it interpreted what it glimpsed.

 

Three AlternateEarths were, so far, at centre of the appearance and growth of the Great Sphere but there would be others. One was of the 1940s, was where Tommy was; one was of the 1980s, was where Tammy had grown up, where she was, and one was of the 2030s, was where Tommy had grown up. Then there was HarmonyCity inside the Great Sphere, where SamWaSam was. There was more to the 'interior' of the Great Sphere than SamWaSam knew of, or that others knew of.

 

On the AlternateEarth of the 1950s the glowing green fogs began to emerge, larger and stronger, more lethal, from the Great Sphere. British Imperial and Australian military forces were being prepared and sent to deal with this threat along with some special others, including Torchwood. Battles raged between strange entities. The DeathlessLords had appeared there and so, it seemed, had the True Illuminati.

 

On the AlternateEarth of the 1980s, where the Great Sphere was still in its first stage of growth, there was also conflict as the TripleEmpire intervened directly in what was going on. The True Illuminati had been there and were perhaps still active on that world. There was also the threat on the Moon (Luna).

 

On the AlternateEarth of the 2030s, a greatly disrupted world of both humanity and nature, was struggling to come to terms with many problems including the continuing influences of the Great Sphere. On that world there were the New Utopians operating as a known nation but being active very secretively.

 

Unity was active on all three AlternateEarths and in HarmonyCity but was it acting as one 'Unity' or as different 'fragments of Unity'?

 

On all three AlternateEarths, and seemingly in HarmonyCity, the threats of the undead, of the damphirs and the glowing green monsters had emerged, were emerging and-or would emerge.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Maharg67