Fallout Oblivion Wanderer

[Maharg67]

14.1[18]

 

The knowledge that the XFAIA had not been the original taskforce, in the big submarine and bunker complex, changed everything as far as the non XFAIA people were considered. The Rivetboffins sent people to the new XFAIA Base and in turn a group went to the research vessel where the Rivetboffins were based. It soon turned out that Harkness did not know certain important facts about the Rivetboffins, including Pinkerton; they were busy working on ways to detect escapee androids, synths and other entities from the NewEngland Commonwealth (NEC) and Pinkerton was at core of this very important program. Professor Walter Bishop was soon to be proven to be a boon to that and other projects.

 

The BSoS sent a envoy group, arriving in a big Vertaeagle type vertibird with two smaller, more agile, Vertihawk virtabirds. The three machines landed on the big flightdeck, of the battlecarrier, and out of them came power armoured soldiers and body-armoured others including a robed Elder. He was chosen for his diplomatic strong experience, and skill, or so it soon became clear to the reception committee.

 

Elder Gainen was a man of mixed eurowhite and oriental inheritence. He was tall, a little angular, and very charismatic. He looked around the flightdeck. "The BrotherSisterhood of Steel could offer a great deal in exchange for the use of the battlecarrier."

 

Harkness frowned. "That is not going to happen. The battlecarrier is too important to the settlement. You may land your clumsy, loud, flying machines here and even have some parking space down in one of the bays. It surprises me that you would come on so strong upon first meeting us lowly RivetCityfolk. I am sure that there are many ways in which we can assist each other and gain in mutuel trade."

 

That was the moment in which a second envoy group arrived from the DCCitadel being the 'real one'. The first one fled away, in their three virtabirds, heading towards somewhere clearly not being the DCCitadel. An airboat, armoured and armed, was filled with synthetic aerogas enough to raise it above any storms and it was clumsily graceful as it landed. With it came three Vertiahawks.

 

Elder Envoy Shantkie was calm in her response to what had happened and neither did she seem surprised. "Synth infiltrators, more officially known as synthdroids, have been pretending to be of the BSofS. The Outcasts of Steel, who recently broke away from the BSoS, also had to deal with them. The Sisterhood of Steel has had no troubles, becoming alerted to the threat early on. There are ways of detecting the most sophisticated of synthdroids. Androids, because of the way they are made, can be more difficult to discover if they are attempting to pretend to be human. Androids are harder to make, more intricate, and their programming is deeper but they are generally more stable than are synthdroids."

 

Then she turned to Harkness. "You are an android."

 

Harkness frowned and looked around at the other RivetCity people there along with those of the DCFA. None of them looked surprised.

 

Recently appointed temporary councillor Arista, who had been appointed thanks to some troubles in the current RivetCity leadership, shrugged his broad shoulders. "Our security chief is honest, hard working and diligent against threats. We enjoy watching him try to blend and protect him from any that would do him harm."

 

Shantkie nodded. "Excellent! I am also an android and yet you can see I have gained important status amongst the BSofS. One major reason for the splintering of the LBofS and our faction is that they would never accept androids into the ranks and many of the so called 'loyalists' consider that androids are only good for target practise, being the targets of course."

 

Harkness smiled. "Welcome to RivetCity!"

 

Then all hell broke out!

Edited January 10, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

15.1[19]

 

If it had not been for the recent ugrades in defensive capacity, RivetCity may have fallen, but as the fleet of attackboats, gunboats and other vessels rushed towards the settlement, they were met with a massive counter attack. Missles, rockets, shells, laser beams and bullets met them. Vessels exploded, sank, burned and fired back with fuility. The surviving vessels turned back and were soon fleeing back the way that they had come from, only a minority bothering to pause to pick up survivors.

 

Over 25% of tha attacking vessels were soon sunken or were floating wreckage to various degrees. Survivors, who had not escaped, were soon being taken prisoner.

 

It was very quickly discovered that they were from a surprising source. They were not TriInstitute synthdroids or Talon Mercenaries; instead they were a core DCCommonwealth special forces soldiers along with many blanksheild mercenaries, most of them being lowly thugmercs. Yet the truth was not so straight forward that the DCC Government had ordered the attack for it was the work of a rogue faction.

 

DCRegulators were excellent at getting people to give forth information and rarely had to resort to torture to do so and Jack was even more so. So it was that they learned that the TriInstitute had promised to pay a large amount of tech resources to the rogue faction if they captured RivetCity, having already gained some resources to better carry out the attack with.

 

Jack sat in the DCRegulator outpost, in the battlecarrier, at his almost neatly cluttered desk and held a Grognak the Barbarian bobblehead figure in his hand. "While the prisoners think that it was the TriInstitute that made the bargain with them, I have doubts that the explanation is so simple. I know this because I am an aspect of the Wanderer being one MasterLaw. I just remembered my true nature as it was important that I truly sink into my role because 'something' evil out there attempted to deepscan my mind, along with many others, more than once but with mixed success."

 

Jack: "The TriInstitute is neither truly good or evil but it was infiltrated by a faction, from the ShadowInstitute that was sundered from it. That is the ShadowInstitute left behind people who had theoretically changed sides but who continued to cause trouble; the TriInstitute Leadership Triade had them executed as soon as the Wanderer informed him of the truth. The Wanderer infiltrated the TriInstitute enough to learn this, and more, but not as much as one would like to have done. The ShadowInstitute remains a malignant mystery to the Wanderer who later departed, from the TriInstitute, taking the GaiaInstitute Faction with her as MissGaia."

 

Sanshaw, who sat at her own desk, it was much neater, spoke. "That does not surprise me at all and now many little puzzles have been solved but not all of them. I take it that ShadowInstitute has been causing trouble while doing so in the name of the TriInstitute. That is like creating-sending synth human cyborg infiltrators as Mantca."

 

Jack nodded. "Along with yourself but I semiconsciously transformed you."

 

Sanshaw frowned. "Well... I am glad you have told me. Who was I?"

 

Jack sighed. "Unlike Mantca who was born as a settlement human, you are a biocapsule clone who is about half the age you think you are. Yes, you are about 15 years old instead of being about 30 years old. The ShadowInstitute most likely created you but I do not know for certain if that is true. You were serving them but were starting to break away from their control. Transforming you, with the help of a Rainbowsphere, was quite easy thanks to that factor."

 

Then he sighed. "It is too bad others tried to betray RivetCity and the DCFA for the river attack was an attempt to decoy defensive efforts away from the real threat that was aimed at the bunker complex and the Trident Submarine."

Edited January 10, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

15.2[20]

 

Sanshaw responded. "I take it that the real attack was not successful."

 

Jack nodded. "It was halted before it really got underway. A large Enclaven type stealth-attack submarine approached, was detected, was warned not to attack and then turned to move away. The EagleEnclaven does not have possession of such vessels, as far as the Wanderer knows, but the more international spread EarthEnclaven does. Yet the threatening vessel was heavily modified in a fashion that the EarthEnclaven would not likely do. We are getting into deep, dangerous, affairs here involving elite factions with hitech and even, in some cases, supertech or even exottech. I just got this information and have not been holding back on you."

 

Sanshaw smiled. "Jack, I am only 15 which makes you a dirty old man."

 

Jack snorted. "Considering my true age is impossible, by mortal standards, I would be to you a dirty old man even if you were 15,00 years old."

 

Sanshaw smiled. "Then its okay, dear old sweetie, for me to seduce you again. Now what do we do?"

 

Jack grinsmiled. "How about a dirty weekend away in the depths of the GrandMallDC to see if we can learn more about what is going on there."

 

Sanshaw smiled. "You have a date, you dirty, impossibly old, man."

Edited January 10, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

16.1[21]

 

A cache was found in the containership where a great, grid contained, set of modular shipping containers had supposedly been placed empty to display to museum visitors. Some had been turned into storage areas but deeper into the great number were MSCs (modular shipping containers) that were full. There was an odd mixture of more specialised tech, general equipment-supplies and oddities.

 

There were sets of firefighter power armour of the kind used against the firestorms of the 21st Century both natural and artificially induced. There were 20mm portable autocannons along with jetpack power armour. Three robocops stood in special bays being clone human cyborgs. Robocops had been used against crazed mobs gone berserk beyond just normal mob rage. There was a whole book set of Encylopedia Americana and another of Encylopedia Brittanica.

 

The rainbow coloured RollsRoyce SilverShadow had been the property of one famed John Lennon of the just as famous SilverBeatles consisting of four men and three women. Inside the machine as a whole lot of SilverBeatles merchandise including mugs, teatowels, Tshirts, posters and even very small basic androids of the band; they were miniandroids.

 

The biggest surprise was the elevator hidden inside the gridstack. Diverted from preparing for an expedition into the depths of the GrandMall, Jack hacked its security and then they were on their way downwards to a cache full of even greater surprises. Two GECKs (Genesis Engineering Creation Kits) being one B1 and one C2. Two portable fusion generators, elite quality, along twith two portable fusion batteries of the same advanced sophistication. One LibertyBattle robot being a smaller version of the LibertyPrime superrobots. A masercannon with incredible cutting power but also great hunger for electricity. A whole lot of modular sections, parts and related equipment-supplies for what was a highly sophisticated project of some kind.

 

And the office chamber made out of two containers.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

16.2[22]

 

Professor William Bell had worked in the hidden office along with somebody named Associate Professor Gwenda Swansea. Both were genetically enhanced geniuses of similar careers but Bell was both more elite and experienced than his partner. In that strangely mixed office they found midtech office furniture-fittings but also hitech computers except that two solidstate databoxes were missing and the two computers had been formatted and reformatted.

 

3Dphotos, on the big wall covering board, shared room with maps, diagrams, sticky notes and computer print outs but much had been removed leaving blank spaces. The 3Dphotos showed strange diagrams, alien looking symbols, and map layouts. Jack knew that he was looking at the work of the DarkOnes that dwelt deep beneath the surface of the world, and still did though they were long forgotten by the great majority of those who survived on the surface. Where the DarkOnes dwelt was way deeper than the deepest vault, bunker, mine or other human complex.

 

Jack, but not as Jack, had been to the Underworld and had found it a very challenging place to be where the DarkOnes dwelt in the massive Internexus and where dinosaurs-dragons were common.

 

Jack spoke. "So Bell was here and he was involved in a project to do with something hidden deep beneath the DCGrandMall."

 

Sanshaw looked around. "There is something odd about this place, something that is missing."

 

Jack nodded and with a soft scraping noise a large metal locker shifted to one side to reveal a door. He went to it, opened it, and revealed the long dead body of a woman in a scientist outfit. It was soon revealed that it had been Associate Professor Gwenda Swansea. Jack knelt close to the corpse, took out a Rainbowsphere and touched the body with the sphere. There was a sparkling shimmer and then Gwenda was sitting up with a look of confusion on his face.

 

She spoke. "I have to warn the others that William Bell is a traitor to the project and that the project itself is dangerous. The fools want to detonate a large nuclear bomb inside at Alpha Point Zero. They are insane!"

 

Sanshaw sighed. "Your warning may just be a little too late to be useful. My name is Sanshaw and this is Jack; we are DCRegulators of the DCWastelands."

 

Gwenda frowned. "Too late! What do you mean 'too late'?"

 

Sanshaw responded. "Over 200 years too late!"

 

Gwenda moaned. "I have been dead for over 200 years. Most strange it was like I lived a mixed, vivid dream like experience all that time along with billions of others."

 

Then she fainted with Jack catching her before she could hit her head against the floor.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

16.3[23]

 

Professor Walter Bishop knew enough about William Bell to discover where the former friend, if he had ever really been such, had concealed some very important information.

 

The real amphibious submarines had departed with the expedition who had left behind false clues that it had failed to start. That is a major mission as compared to the scouting missions undertaken earlier in a smaller scouting amphibious submarine. Called tracksubs, there were two small along with one medium and a large one. The expedition had headed to go deeper into the depths of an ancient labyrinth way below the GrandHall with its monoliths, museums and other features.

 

Why such efforts to mislead any others? It appeared that there were other factions out there that even such as William Bell feared but for good reason. Even back then the TriInstitute existed in its first form though under the more innocent name of the Futures Investment Development Institute. The FIDI was linked with other, very shady, factions such the TechCorps, the EarthEnclaven, the Illuminati, the Pennymasons and the Burgerbuilders.

 

Walter sighed. "William stole many of my ideas to use in further research projects that I would never have supported if I had known what he was up to. He even had a hand in the development of NukaCola Quantum but not the much more innocent NukaCola Original whose only real sin was that it had too much sugar in it. I had assumed, at one stage, that my old associate was after just his own gains but later I came to question that. He was part of a select elite of supposed supergeniuses who wished for something special, well at least special for them."

 

Others were in the hidden offices, listening but Jack had departed already, with a select group, having already heard what the professor had to say. They had more reason to go because more information had come from the DCWastelands that had changed matters. The Talon Mercenary Corporation had nothing to do with the strange Talon Mercenaries active in the DCGrandMall. In other words they were fakes and there was some reason to believe that they were synths. The real TMC was sending its real mercs into the GrandMall being power armoured Talontroopers and body-armour suited Talonguards; attempts had been made to strengthen the far more common Talonthugs.

 

A small recon combat mercenaries group, Reilly's Rangers, had found 'dead' Talonmercs that had proven to be synths on closer examination.

 

To make matters worse both the BSoS and a large supermutant force were also moving into the GrandMall in a big way. Fighting had already broken out betwen them in the form of a series of skirmishes.

 

Jack was going to have to be careful in how he made his way through to where he needed to go, along with his comrades. Then again that was hardly a new situation for him or the DCRegulators.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

17.1[24]

 

Jack lowered himself even further into hiding, behind a small wall of rubble, as did Sanshaw and a DCRegulator named Ablegram. Ablegram was one of 25 clones loaned to serve as DCRegulators by the Wanderer. 10 were generalists, 10 were generalists with some specialist focus and the other five were specialists.

 

Marshal Grandsmash, a hulkamoth of the class just one down from the behemoths in size, was an unusually brilliant supermutant even by the standards of humans. He, and his supermutants did not come from the infamous TechVault083 that was at least half full of supermutants along with others, being deep inside-beneath Lamplight Mountain. According to what data, that the Wanderer had managed to pick up, they came from another vault that had not even been on the official VaultTech techvault listings or at least not the publically available ones that had given only general details. The Wanderer only knew the mysterious techvault was somewhere in DC but perhaps not in WashingtonDC.

 

It was a well organised force with quiet discipline unusual for supermutants. They carried big, powerful, supermutant favoured spikeguns, handcannons, longclubs, heavy crossbows and other weapons but mostly big double barrelled combinations of rifle and shotgun. The bigger the supermutant, the less there were, was the general rule and it rang true there. There were only a sprinkling of massive behemoths with very big weapons, not many more hulkamoths, about twice that many massamoths and mostly big, powerful, human sized megamoths. There were only savage mutthounds and bizarre tentacled zyclops but new to the DCRegulators were bigger muttmules hauling packs of equipment-supplies along with zyclops style humanoids known as zyclonoids. The last had their own adapted guns and other weapons.

 

Jack frowned softly. "The Wanderer has known of zyclonoids, and muttmules, for over 50 years though they are far less common than the general castes of supermutants, zyclops and mutthounds. We suspect that they also come from the mysterious techvault somewhere in DC. Do you notice something odd about all of those entities that makes them different from those from TechVault083? That is apart from the quiet disclipline."

 

Sanshaw frowned. "They are far too regular in their sizes and shapes like they are... clones or synths or..."

 

Jack snorted. "Mutagenic clones being cloned from original type supermutants but with a cloning process involving the careful use of more mutagenics. They mimic true supermutants and yet are probably mutually antagonistic with them. The EarthEnclaven focuses heavily on utilising cloning and clones but so did one of the TechCorps known as CloneTech."

 

Sanshaw frowned. "Provided clonemeat to the masses until it proved to be dangerously cancerous and was forced to be recalled, and destroyed, by the US Federal Government. Did provide cloned transplants that did save many lives. Were said to be attempting to clone soldiers for the US war effort due to the heavy losses of nonclone military personnel."

 

Jack scowled. "All being part of the one big, wary, conspiracy alliance."

 

Another surprise came with many big supermutants carrying tools rather than weapons, along with supermutant type backpacks that they all carried. With them were big mutagenic creatures like great naked molerats but covered with leathery skin. These were supermutant versions of working creatures or so Jack surmised.

 

MasterLaw, alias Jack, shook his head. "Vague whispers of something called muttmoles being mutagenic working creatures. Seems that these folk want to do so digging, some displacement of rubble, and are after something just as the synths, pretending to be Talon Mercenaries, are."

 

Soon the large military force had gone past. After enough time had passed, while Jack sensed supermutant scouts moving past, the DCRegulators did restart their journey. Somehow, as MasterLaw, Jack had helped stop the enemy from detecting the much smaller group of DCRegulators.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

18.1[25]

 

When Gwenda was ready to talk, of her experiences with Bell and others before Doomsday, she gave much valuable information but did not fill in a few important gaps. William Bell had turned out to be so secretive as to be labelled paranoid but perhaps he had good reason to be so. It had been he who had insisted that the real expedition depart but only after leaving behind many forms of deception. That had been over 200 years ago.

 

A large cache was found in the research ship containing about half general equipment-supplies with the rest being focused for scientific research use. It caused a boost in the research development projects on that vessel.

 

A BSoS contingent came to RivetCity and there set up a large outpost. Fuller negotiations began after the newcomers gave over sets of armoursuits and power armour. The RivetGuards were greatly strengthened to become the major force of actual defence and leaving security to do what they did best which was to guard against intruders and infiltrators while also guarding certain parts of the settlement. A garrison of 13 Steelguards, not to be confused with the power armoured Steeltroopers, was set to help protect RivetCity.

 

Security Guard Mullen walked along a display area of a museum that still held in display cases mannequins dressed in Predoomsday maratime gear, getting more bored and kind of wondering why none of the items there had been salvaged for all of the mannequins wore gear. Yet old signs, from the earliest years of the settlement, warned people not to interfere with those very items. Not that Mullen had any desire to try for he could not see the effort was worth any potential prize, the display cases were heavily armoured, and the potential punishment too great.

 

Lazily holding his pump-action shotgun, he was passing a display case when there was a flickering inside it and then the holographic project, concealing what was really in the case was evident. Mullen had fought river pirates, had dropped drunken fools and had been close to death more than once but this was different. It did not take long for him, almost panicking, to reach an alarm switch and to press it repeatedly, perhaps too many times.

 

Security reinforcements went rushing to the scene and if the officer, in charge, had meant to lecture Mullen about his abuse of the security switch, it did not happen. For they all were shocked to take a look at the black biometallic twisted humanoid creature with its bizarre elongated curving head, long tail, six limbs and other features. Two upper arms ended in open ended tubes and the others in strange clawed hands that were much like the feet but shorter. There was no information that came with it.

 

When the scientists arrived, Walter Bishop had one look at the creature and shook his head with a deep look of concern on his face. "This is no result of the FEV or high radiation or any combination of the two or even human experimentation. The bugliens are hive creatures of a hivemind through the various levels of queens. There are many kinds from the rarest hiqueens right down to common workers, guards and jellers. We gained data about the bugliens from a crashed gravity-saucer, what people often mistakenly call a flying-saucer, along with other data. There might be other creatures hidden inside holographic projections."

 

There were three zetans, a zetaman zetan-human hybrid, a massive armoured predatorcon, four greyliclones that were not full greyliens along with five humans that, according to Walter, were no not actually human; they had nothing to do with synths or any Terran research-development. Strangely enough, to others there, the eccentric scientist was most concerned about the five strange bold men in their black business suits and bowler hats complete with briefcases and walking-sticks. He called them the observero.

 

There were revealed also alien artefacts, hybrid tech devices and odds-ends including solidstate databanks. At once a search began to see if other such items were hidden in display boxes by the use of holographic projections; the holographic projectors had not been serviced for a very long time so it was generally assumed that one had failed enough to show the security guard a glimpse of the truth.

 

There were other puzzles such as who, in the early years of the settlement, had ordered that the displays remain untouched? Also did this have any relation to the mystery of what lay deep beneath the GrandMall?

 

From then on security patrols, into more isolated areas, would always have at least two security guards just in case.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

19.1[26]

 

Jack, alias MasterLaw, frowned strongly. "Bugliens, Greyyari, zetans and predatorcon are bad enough but those timespace travelling observoro are very troublesome for they have exotic abilities able to greatly challenge even the twisted psychic powers of the buglien queens, true Greys, hizetans and elite master predatorcons. The Wanderer can deal with them and has done so to the extent of helping to destroy their homebase on their original home world. A small minority of reformation observero have turned upon the main faction, going against some kind of terrible plan that the orthodox observero have."

 

Jack crouched in the back of a surprisingly intact area, of diner, that was concealed by the crushed part. He had found a way in as MasterLaw. Sanshaw, and the others, were there also. They had found an intact, functioning, statuscanister full of fresh food. There were also longlife processed cans of edible-drinkable goodies. Still, they did test everything before consuming some of it.

 

Ablegram sat quietly eating a BLT on soy while the female Simonsas Triplets, identical triplet style clones, consumed their apple pie slices with 'fresh' cream. In the Wastelands such was a precious gift to be enjoyed. The others were nonclone DCRegulators being the male Homer, the female Hagrin, the male Jollis, the male Seshae and the female Bresk. There was always at least three of the group on sentry duty but this time at the edges of the group.

 

A very soft shudder went through the building as rocketshells struck the area. Even Jack (Wanderer) did not know who was firing the artillery projectiles or why they were doing so but it was clearly more like harrassing fire than any true intense barrage. Radmolerats, radroaches and other radcritters had gone to ground; even radghouls seemed to be smart enough to leave the area and go into the subsurface depths.

 

Jack sighed softly. "We could return to the surface but I have detected a better way in the form of a hidden hatch right here in the unsmashed part of this diner."

 

None of the others were surprised that MasterLaw had found something without apparently taking any effort to find it. It was the sort of thing that Jack was becoming famous for amongst some groups and networks.

 

The statuscanister was sealed up again with most of its contents unused so that in future others might enjoy them. Other intact resources were left there for others to use as the DCRegulators could not use them. They had plenty with them including compact, valuable, tradegoods. Except that two bottles of wine were taken for the purposes of being gifts of a petty bribery status.

 

The hatch opened downwards into a not so great surprise of a hidden black market supplied speakeasy. Rationing had been going strong when the 'speakeasy' was allowing certain patrons to spend extra on untaxed, unregulated, food items often stolen from the military services. There should have been the dead and such as abandoned meals but it had been all cleaned up and sorted out. There were even more useful resources there than had been above.

 

Virtual reality game booths lined one wall along with bays holding fancy looking serving remoterobots. A large 3Dscreen dominated one wall, being semiactive and showing a 3D commercial logo.

 

There were six doors in three of the walls, four being wooden and two being armoured metal.

 

Sitting on a table were thirteen odd long, flat, metallic cases being one golden, three silvery and nine copperish but there were also 13 other items. Jack, alias MasterLaw, did not seem surprised at all.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

I will not go into details but some kind of 'attack' had me blocked from Nexus for some weeks but now I am back and will soon be adding once more to the story.