Ring of Rings Science Fantasy Epic Extraordinaire

[Maharg67]

16.2

 

Anapel's voice sounded through out the big metallic chamber with its banks of hitech machinery inside metallic armored cases and other forms. “They found me in deepest of sleeps, peaceful, half merged into an ancient alien artifact, as they called it. Eager, arrogant, ignorant, greedy little human minds of dysfunctional unity sought to control me through deception, threats and bribery. Half asleep I struck out in fear, through their own primitive technologies, and destroyed them. Except then, with feelings of regret and remorse, I attempted to save whom I could. When fully awoken it came to me that all living humans were gone from the area. I was of mixed feelings.”

 

Essie responded. “What experience do these three think they are going through.”

 

Anapel responded again with a voice that seemed to come from many directions at once. “That we are all sitting around a table, drinking coffee and speaking of general matters. I am unable to influence your mind at all and I do not think I could even if you did not wear a Ring of the RingOfRings. You wonder that I deceive these, and other, people but I do so for their own good. I am trying to stop others from finding the dark secrets hidden here that are far older than humanity.”

 

“Yet I am frustrated for I, myself, know only a small portion of the truth. Close to here is an ancient alien chamber where are situated three Waygates. I have picked up, from the minds of the others, that you know of the Triple Waygate Chamber. What they did not tell you was that in the very center of that great domechamber is a far more powerful, long ranged, Stargate. The Waygates can take people between different worlds of the solar system but the Stargate can take people between worlds of different star systems of this galaxy.”

 

Then she paused before going on, as if reluctant to do so. “Outside of the main domechamber are nine smaller, but still large, domechambers. Each has three Transgates that can take people to various other places in this moon but not just inside the Known Lunar Labyrinth or even in the whole Lunar Labyrinth.”

 

After yet another pause. “Humans came here representing eight super corporations and three superpower governments being the NeoSoviets, the US Americans and the Chinese Coharmony. They came as part of the OverFuture Program that was the umbrella organization over many OverFuture Projects just as the OverFuture Agency existed to administrate and service-support the lot. Humanity came here, through the Transways, rejuvenated and enhanced. That meant lots of youthful and brilliant scientists ready to be exploited to study ancient alien secrets, to further existing human projects and to attempt to create hybrid technologies. In theory it was supposed to lead to a great victory of science, a grand technological revolution greater than any before it and a new utopian society. As you are most likely guessing, matters did not work out so well.”

 

She frowned softly. “The whole OverFuture Program was transported through three of the Transgates to a distant, isolated part of the Lunar Labyrinth. They all went through the Transgates and nobody came out. Then the Transgates closed down, became locked from the other end. A massive amount of resources was lost, a great mystery arose, the different partners blamed each other, the temporary alliance fell apart. Four of the super corporations were so badly damaged that two vanished and two are now amongst the RiserEleven. All three superpowers collapsed over the following decades and that helped lead to the creation of the United Nations World Government.”

 

Anapel smiled. “So, where do I come from? Answer is, I do not know! I awoke, with out memories, floating in this bubble about ten years ago. I am alive and that is all I can ask for. We could be friends. We could do much together if only you would trust me and open your mind to me. Yes, please do trust me! We could be great friends.”

[Maharg67]

16.3

 

Essie smiled back but now the smile went out of her eyes. “Its a very nice story and some of it is true except the bit about you not knowing how you got here and where you are from. Also something ran false when you said that the Transgates never opened again. Also you are unlifen, not alive. Are you to do with the reason why the unlifen are swarming towards this place in such large numbers?”

 

Anapel lost her smile, shrugged. “I am calling them to this area so that they can go through the three Transgates to the Grand Unlifen Paradise. Except I no longer need to do so and I am expendable to the Grand Unlifen Cause.”

 

Then Anapel exploded, the explosion ripping violently through the whole chamber.

 

When everything was clear, Essie stood there a little bruised, and battered, but alive. The others had been emergency teleported to RingBase in order to save their lives. She turned to the three replicant androids who had replaced the three who had gone, in a more efficient two-way teleportation process. They were shaped as typical local humans complete with body-armor, weapons and other gear. They even smelled, felt and sounded like locals.

 

Essie looked around. “Since we GrandThirteen discovered FridayJane, and her people, her settlement, we were 'sensing' something wrong. When the first of the people from Anapella were teleported to the RingBase, they were carefully sensorscanned and our fears were confirmed. The unlifen can feed off the living energies of the living, harvesting from many lifeforms, and Anapel was doing so with the population of Anapella. She was being manipulated by a far more powerful, subtle unlifen entity that I could 'sense' but neither focus on fully or identify.”

 

The unlifen were coming, a great swarm of them, and it seemed they would seek to go through at least one of the Transgates to get to what Anapel had called the Grand Unlifen Paradise. Many questions arose such as how true was the story of Anapel and why was a great horde of undead also heading in the same direction?

 

RingMind: There is much for you to do and yet you have gained more valuable knowledge than perhaps you realize. You need to go over, again, what data that you have already gained even that which is in a vaguer, less complete form.

Edited November 30, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CHAPTER 0017: GRANDTHIRTEEN: THE MEETING OF SARA AND THE GRANDTHIRTEEN

17.1

 

Sara Pezzini returned to her police station, where she worked and from where she worked, and reported to her none too happy superior. The death of her partner was bad enough but the violent deaths of many local crims and unknowns, the damage done to the theater, had made matters worse. Why had Sara left the scene of the crime? Where had she gone? Why was she in such good health when tests on big pools of blood, at the crime scene, had proven to be hers.

 

Sara protested that she had escaped, dazed, from the scene and had managed, somehow, to find help. She had lost her memories, probably to trauma. It was not a great story but the best she could up up with, on the spur of the moment, with out exposing the existence of the Witchblade.

 

She was made to go through a medical examination and a session with the station's psychologist. She was hassled by a few of her fellow officers and stared at by the uniformed cops. So she was happy to get back to her apartment, where the three Warklade wear men were staying until better arrangements could be made, and to order some pizzas, drinks and deserts to be delivered.

 

NewNewYork was in a suncavernland and from the window of her apartment, Pezzini had a quite good view of the city skyline. The Statue of Liberty #2 was bigger than the original and had tourist facilities inside it. She stood looking out at the distant metallic lady, made up of much tougher materials than the original was, and noted that it was raining lightly from the cloud filled sky that filtered the sunshine from the suncrystal ceiling. The clouds also provided rain and carried out other necessary functions, being quite fundamentally different from the clouds of Terra.

 

More people had been arriving from the Earth, through the Transways, but also more of the 'delayed travelers from the home world. Families were being reunited, children were regaining parents and though there was much happiness, not all went smoothly. Delayed folks were finding that their children had been adopted out, that their spouses had remarried and so forth. Yet the Lunar Labyrinth Colonies were taking the delayed arrivals, and increased other arrivals, as a sign of hope.

 

That is hope for Mars for matters were going from bad to worse back on Terra. The UN World Government, the UNWG, had lost control of large areas of the world to rogue warlords and worse. The unlifen, and the undead, were slowly, steadily, swallowing up large areas of the world. Skynet was using orbital pulselaser cannons to vaporize large numbers of both unlifen and undead, along with the glimmering mists that helped to sustain and protect them.

 

Sara was pondering many matters, too many for her comfort since she preferred to just take day by day and to focus on more immediate matters. She had to learn more about the Witchblade, about the Ring on her head, about Kenneth Irons and much else.

 

Having three men ready to serve her in various ways, was nice! Hot coffee was made for her and then, later, the three of them had gone out to carry out of whole lot of small, important tasks from reconnecting with people, to picking up information and even just buying some decent clothing, footwear and other basics. It turned out that Sanders, the accountant, had a few thousand dollars ferreted away in hidden accounts, that John the kick-boxer had a suitcase of cash plus other extras put to one side and Edgar had a friend he could get a fair sized loan from.

 

Sara was concerned that the police service would learn of her being with the three youthful men but was not going to try to push them from her life. Not with the Warkblades and the Witchblade. She hoped that her superiors would not decide she had gone crooked or crazy or had become some kind of man collecting nymphomaniac. The last thing she needed was Internal Affairs checking on her.

Edited December 1, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

17.2

 

RingMind: Internal Affairs has already been running an investigation in the station but not one focused on you. There is a device monitoring your 3Dphone calls and I suspect they are monitoring your internet connections but no devices inside the apartment. Yet there is something else, some unit called the Special Crime Investigations Agency, the SCIA, that is involved.

 

Sara frowned softly. The SCIA got involved in unusual criminal cases, often verging on the exotic or even paranormal. Of course they had a branch in NewNewYork because that city zone was infamous for the exotic, the weird, the paranormal. The Civil Police had worked with the SCIA on a few occasions as they had with the Fringe Agency of the SCIA. The Fringe Agency focused on the very exotic cases of the SCIA.

 

There was a buzz at the door and she frowned, not wanting any visitors.

 

RingMind: It is important that you meet the people at the door.

 

So it was that Sara Pezzini met Ellie and Beck of the GrandThirteen. They came into the apartment, smiling and a little cautious. Sara was the same. She wondered what Internal Affairs would be thinking if they knew all about the many visitors that she was getting.

 

The newcomers made themselves comfortable. They looked like middle class tourists, a young heterosexual couple come to see the sights of NewNewYork on some kind of budget holiday package or do it yourself type holiday. Each had a suitcase and a shoulderbag of stuff, wore flexidenim jeans, city-boots, synthetic leather jackets and Tshirts. Except that Sara 'sensed' these two were quite different from their general appearance.

 

Ellie smiled at the tough, gorgeous Sarah who, in that regard, was like herself. “We were going to head for the Undersafe Markets first but instead we came here when the RingMind informed us you had returned to your apartment. We have leased the apartment across the hallway from this one and some of our companions are there, already. We three are of the GrandThirteen though our companions are not so.” She opened her jacket to reveal Uggi in a special pouch who stretched her chubby muscular body and gawked warmly at Sara. “This is Uggi.”

 

They had otherwise exchanged names at the door.

 

Ellie spoke on. “We had thought we had found another Witchblade on a woman called FridayJane but it turned out she was hosting a Cloneblade, a weaker copy of a Witchblade. She did not know it before, her mind having been interfered with, but it was one Kenneth Irons who had the Cloneblade placed upon her, melded to her. That is he managed a project that designed, made and utilized Cloneblades experimentally on a number of women. We are still learning more about what went on but may not learn much more from FridayJane because she never knew much. It was only an accident that her learning about the involvement of Kenneth Irons with her and her Cloneblade. As it was she had her memories suppressed until the testing-transformation that took place when she was sent to the RingBase.”

 

When FridayJane was rescued, teleported, to the RingBase it was found that she was melded to a Cloneblade, a weaker copy of a Witchblade; this explained why she had been under the influence of Anapel as a true Witchblader would have been able to push such away.

 

Sara frowned. “Kenneth Irons was at the theater. I suspect he escaped being damaged. I have looked up the internet on him but there is lot of stuff that comes down to very little because it is all public relations spin and commercial advertising. Kenneth Irons is a very guarded person.”

[Maharg67]

17.3

 

Ellie nodded. “We have found the same thing to be true. There are some unusual energy residues in the apartment; both like, and yet unlike, the Witchblade.”

 

Sara spoke of waking in the lane, of the testing-transformations of the three tramps into Warkbladers, of how they had come to the apartment but then departed to carry out certain tasks. They were Edgar, John and Sanders. Unlike her they did not wear a Ring of the RingOfRings.

 

The 'Voice' spoke to them all.

 

RingMind: The three will merge with the RingOfRings. Do you begin to understand the true nature, purpose and origin of the RingOfRings? No but you could do so! Indeed, it is important that you do so. Perhaps that should be one of your on going Quests.

 

Sara looked puzzled and then she realized that she, like the GrandThirteen had 'realized', now knew what the Quests were as if the knowledge had smoothly formed into her mind. There was other knowledge there, also, and yet there was still much more to learn than was known.

 

They continued to exchange knowledge, backgrounds. Sara was fascinated about the exotic origins, and nature, of the RingOfRings as much as she was about the Witchblade. She had less experience with the exotic, the paranormal, than did the GrandThirteen and yet she had gone through some odd moments in her childhood that she could barely remember.

 

Through the open window came the sounds of sirens, including a kind of undulating siren new in kind even to Sara. It was the sound of one of the new Special Weapons Assault Teams, SWATs, going into action against extremely exotic threats. This time it was an outbreak of zombie and other undead.

 

NewNewYork had become even stranger, and more dangerous, than it had already been and that meant a great deal.

Edited December 1, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CHAPTER 0018: GRANDTHIRTEEN; FIRST QUESTS OFFERED, NEGOTIATED AND ACCEPTED

18.1

 

The GrandThirteen gained their first On Going Quest of dealing with both undead and unlifen threats. These had to be actual threats for it seemed not all undead, or unlifen, were such.

 

The Second On Going Quest was the seeking of a list of ancient alien artifacts of smaller, more portable types and to visit all known larger, stationary ancient alien artifacts.

 

The Third On Going Quest was to assist Unity.

 

The Fourth On Going Quest was to gain as much knowledge as possible about the historical background to what was going on.

 

The Fifth On Going Quest, more lately added, was to try to gain more knowledge about the RingOfRings itself, its origins, its nature and its purpose.

 

The First Limited Quest was to assist the local people, of Crossenways, to survive various threats which could mean strengthening their position there or helping them leave the area.

 

The Second Limited Quest was to find out why the unlifen, and undead, threats were focusing so heavily in that area. The identity, and purpose, of the black clad supersoldiers was also to be discovered.

 

The Third Limited Quest was to gain access to the RingBase.

 

The Fourth Limited Quest was to learn about the 'Thirteen Grand Secrets of Moontropolis'.

 

The First Side Quest was to find, and rescue, the Five BBs.

 

The Second Side Quest was to obtain pristine copies of all of the GameStar Super Virtual Reality Games, Utilities and Educational Programs.

 

The Third Side Quest was to seek the 'Path of the Secret Ways of the Lunar Dawn'.

 

The First Self Quest was to find the truth of the creation of the GrandThirteen and the surrogate mothers linked to those truths.

 

The Second Self Quest was to visit the famous Moontropolis Dizzyland Park.

 

The Third Self Quest was to fulfill Thirteen of Thirteen Wishes.

[Maharg67]

CHAPTER 0019: TIMESPACE OBSERVER: UNDEAD SWARMING IN NEWNEWYORK

19.1

 

Bullets exploded across the laneway and one zombie staggered as it was struck in the chest but its torso node was not hit directly. Another zombie, next to it, was struck directly in the chest node and fell, dead, to the ground with a heavy thump.

 

The Civil Police Constables were trying to keep the shambling undead confined to the lane and the old warehouse that they were coming out of. With the zombies came pale glimmering mist. The police were frightened and trying hard to deal with a threat very new to them. A small number had fled the scene of the fighting to end up doing less strange duties elsewhere. Fighting zombies was not what they had been recruited or trained for.

 

The glimmering mist seemed to use fear as a weapon against the living and to try to drain life energies from the living. It took special training, experience and bolstering to have many folks fight such a terrible force; some could never do so and some seemed naturals at fighting such menaces.

 

The warehouse had supposedly been abandoned, sealed up and empty except for a dozen or so metal containers marked as low grade dangerous toxic materials. It was a three level place made of smart-concrete and other such materials. It was of basic prefabricated build and computer designed layout, being typical of many thousands of such warehouses found through out Moontropolis and beyond.

 

One of the new SWATs arrived in special light power-armor and carrying some exotic weapons along with more standard ones. The gray clad figures were hidden in head to toes armor unlike the constables who showed faces behind visors of visor-helmets.

 

The SWAT Troopers moved faster, smoother, quieter than the Civil Police did and then they were shooting with amazingly deadly effect. They were also less frightened, more sure of themselves, being all experienced in such matters while the constables were not; they had dealt with exotic threats before joining the first SWATs. Enhanced xolaserguns shot pulsebeams that burned down the zombies, heavy electric doubledarts that destroyed the zombies with high voltage electricity and special cartridge firing icer-rifles. Icer-rifles bullets exploded causing undead flesh to freeze in a way that living flesh would not, causing wide spread damage inside an undead body. SWAT Troopers fired off 5.5mm cartridges from autorifles and, from the same, 35mm grenadeshells. Some used more powerful autorifles firing much bigger 10,5mm cartridges.

 

The strange howling noises that zombies, sometimes, unleashed did echo through the big wide lane. Following orders, the Civil Police withdrew, pulling back to carry out crowd control and other duties more suited to their training, experience and equipment.

 

The vamprire crashed through a second level window, a monstrously distorted bat like creature about the size of an adult human. Even as it crouched, preparing to make a clumsy low level flight to the top of another warehouse, a 10.5mm bullet struck it in the chest and it died with a howling scream of rage and agony. The dead creature fell messily into the lane below.

 

The Timespace Observer stood calmly observing what was going on, an albino man with no hair and odd pale gray eyes that nobody seemed to observe. Indeed, as the black business suited man stood in the lane, bullets passed through him as if he did not exist; in a real sense he did not exist just there and then, at least not fully. The man calmly took out a metallic notebook and, with an exotic metallic pencil like device, wrote some odd looking symbols onto a metallic page. As he completed each vertical line of symbols, they vanished.

[Maharg67]

19.2

 

The Timespace Observer slipped the notebook away and took out what looked like a pocket-watch, flipped the lid open and studied a whole cluster of arms turning at different speeds, some clockwise and some anticlockwise. Then he nodded and put that away. After that the strange man, who did not throw a shadow, vanished with a soft shimmering effect.

 

The fighting continued between the SWAT and the swarming undead, most of them being zombies. Then it was over.

 

The Timespace Observer stood inside the warehouse which was largely full of 3x3 metre cubecanisters of hard armored metallic nature. Except hatches had opened in many and out from them had come the zombies, along with the single vamprire that had smashed through the lightly armored window. The Timespace Observer took out a metallic cube with a square crystal screen on top, examined the odd symbols flashing there and then put the device away. His normally bland expression was replaced, for just a moment, with a very light frown which meant a good deal.

 

On the cubecanisters was the logo of the Pelican Freight and Storage Corporation complete with a stylized picture of a penguin with a beak full almost to overflowing with small freight containers. It was a fair sized corporation operating in Moontropolis but hardly one of the bigger, more prominent ones or smaller, more known ones.

 

The SWAT Troopers moved into the warehouse and did not seem surprised by what they found. With surprising speed, and efficiency, followed specialists in armored hazmat suits armed with pistols and other devices of self defense but holding various instruments. The visors were polarized, concealing the identity of those inside the suits. Not all of the cubecanisters had opened and inside were either lesser undead in glimmering fog or just dead bodies that had been well preserved but which were obviously once zombies except one that had been a ghoul.

 

Recordings were taken, other data was taken, as the investigation went on.

Edited December 2, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

CHAPTER 0020: GRANDTHIRTEEN; ANAPELLA CHANGES AND RINGMIND RISING

20.1

 

With the death of Anapel, and her dark psychic influences on the settlement of Anapella, the truth came out that Anapel had been both a blessing and a curse to the settlement's folk. Every three months somebody vanished, often a young adult. Strange sickness struck people down, being an illness of mind, body and spirit. Anapel had been feeding on the settlement population in a sense of lightly 'grazing' on its life energies but, once every three months, would capture, turn undead and feed off a young adult so that they perished. In turn she had kept away many threats from the area including Red Plague muties, who were neither undead or unlifen, and darker fringers such as bandits, cultists and cannibals.

 

Anapella gave up its name, that was a reflection of Anapel's cursed domination, and prepared to move totally to the RingBase except for a minority who would remain in a newly named outpost. The 'resurrected ones' were also going to the RingBase where they could continue to adjust to their new state of existence. Because of brain mind damage caused by their fashion of long term storage, they were unable to state much about the secrets hidden in the area; another reason was that none of them had been very high in the hierarchy, had had more than mediate security clearance. The need to focus on that operation meant that nobody returned to the secret subway network.

 

The outpost settlement remained much the same size for two-way teleportations continued to-from the RingBase. Clones came through along with androids, robots and other units, equipment and supplies.

 

Then peoples of the area began to enter the settlement, being refugees fleeing from the unlifen army approaching the Waygates Stargate Chamber but also a large horde of undead doing the same. With the refugees came reports of fighting between unlifen and undead, between them and muties or other locals. Refugees were humans, animal-humans, 'friendly' muties and coplicants, a kind of android that had failed as an experimental research and development project, only to go rogue in big numbers. All were rejuvenated as they were teleported to the RingBase except those that failed the testing-transformations, who vanished.

 

It was decided that it would be best if those, trapped in the Order of Compassion Outpost, were sent to the RingBase for their position was getting more dangerous with every passing day. The limitations on two-way teleportations were still a problem and it became urgent for a way to be found to increase their frequency and sending capacity.

 

RingMind was now in firm contact with the whole of the GrandThirteen and assisted with advise and in other ways, teaching the neobabies or keeping them entertained, fussing over the exotic hybrid-animals. RingMind assisted in tutoring and training of all of them and discussed much with Ellie, Eddie and Essie.

 

Essie, and Beck, continued to be with Sara the Witchblader and her Warkblader companions.

 

[Maharg67]

CHAPTER 0021: GRANDTHIRTEEN; NEWNEWYORK BIG TROUBLES COMING

21.1

 

Word passed, through the Inhabited Lunar Labyrinth, that the Lunar Labyrinth Central Government was making some kind of power grab to extend its authority across all government, and quasigovernment, bodies across the Inhabited Lunar Labyrinth. The Central Government Presidium had given itself permission to go beyond all laws and constitutions, along with precedents and protocols, in order simply to take over all government powers and other resources. The attempt totally failed and was taken a very 'sick' joke.

 

A series of political conventions, and government conferences, began to arise across much of the Inhabited Lunar Labyrinth. The debates were of the inefficient patchwork, factionalized, often corrupt network of governmental and quasigovernmental bodies that supposed led and service-supported the Inhabited Lunar Labyrinth. Unity was behind such events but not just Unity. Against them were the BigFour, the RiserEleven, the Colonial Central Government and a wide range of other factions, many of them governmental and quasigovernmental.

 

The numbers of zombies arising, from the deaths of people having come through the Transways, was steadily increasing and so were efforts to deal with this growing threat; that is through detection and prevention as much as through responses. Reports of unlifen activity were also increasing along with those of Red Plague muties and 'monsters'.

 

Essie, Beck, some others with them, were based in various apartments in the same block. Essie had managed to buy the small apartment block, it was up for sale and about half empty, and the Warkbladers were soon in their own apartments. She found the rents to be too high for what tenants got and cut them by half. Soon people were lining up to rent the other apartments though none were of very great quality.

 

Essie had a full array of dishes placed on the apartment block roof and upgraded the solar power arrays there, along with passive hot water network-systems. The apartments were soon full except those she put on reserve on the two highest levels. Sara was pleased to have her rent cut by fifty percent and to get excused of her unpaid rent.

 

Information came of new programs being instigated to increase the testing of all Transways immigrants, to keep all in quarantine camps for at least a year. Some were pushing for a way of medically killing people and then bringing them back to life, safely, if they did not become zombies but this was not a greatly popular idea.

 

Sara was going over the information given by the damphir leader, Amandavus, that had not been the focus of the GrandThirteen before because of other, more pressing issues. Now she was going over the given names and facts above the line and the strong clues below the line. Amandavus certainly knew some dark secrets as hacking the NewNewYork Government Computer Network had proven. NewNewYork was an important commercial hub of big corporations, including both the BigFour and the RiserEleven along with the MassHundred, the hundred corporations listed as most important below the RiserEleven. NewNewYork Government had an intense, if not always healthy, relationship with the corporations. Amandavus had worked, and lived, in NewNewYork; there she had been employed by the Moontropolis People's Bank, a name that she stated was a grand falsehood as the bank did not give a damn about most people.

 

Yet the NewNewYork Government did not have any useful information about what Amandavus had called the 'ultra secret war'. The notes Amandavus had given had called the three major foes, of each other, the Paxis, the Illuminati and the Puritism but none of these were noted in the network.