Me, Myself and I

[Maharg67]

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0001 I WAS JAKEMAN

I fired the .38 Magnum revolver-pistol and got the Raider point blank in the chest. He fell backwards, tumbling down the hill of rubble in his bizarre black synthetic leather body-armor. As he did, the dead berserker lost his AKM16 assault-rifle, a standard weapon of both the Soviets and the Alliance that fired the universal 5,56mm calibre cartridges. Already on the move, even as the killer's body reached the bottom of the rubble slant, I grabbed up the assault-rifle and slipped my pistol away. The gun had an almost full 20 shot magazine, as I had 'sensed' it did but I was glad I had picked up two other full magazines from a dead Raider.

Its odd that very few have picked up that Raiders are not just humans gone wild, at least not real Raiders, but berserker clones come from some deeply hidden TekVault somewhere.

Three down, two to go! My body ached mildly from having hiked a long way across the Wastelands but I was more than capable of dealing with the Raiders though they were the real thing with enhanced physical capacities. I rolled down slope, but not in the same direction as the dead clone had taken. Instead a rolled down, through a hole in a slanted concrete roof section and into a big old chamber. It was partly full of more rubble and my armored body rolled over a dead radroach with a ghastly crunching sound. Then I was coming up into a run. I was enhanced of mind, body and spirit.

Survival was important and that meant also Wastelands economics; I could trade looted stuff from the dead Raiders, even Raider armor that were a favored collectors' item. Some bought such so they could pretend they had killed, had looted, Raiders.

Real Raiders, not copycat fools or mercenaries in disguise, never gave up on a fight. The other two were stalking me, I could 'sense' it. I dived behind a large overturned, half buried chunk of machinery. It was just in time as two fragmentation hand-grenades were dropped down into the chamber, both coming into the space the same way I had. Dropping in the grenades was smart, even into a big chamber like that, but I had been there before. Behind the big chunk of machinery was a concrete pipe that formed a neat escape tunnel. I had cleared the pipe myself so I could use the space, behind the machine, as a hiding resting place with two exits. Removing a slab revealed the cache there with some hand-grenades, some foodbars and some other useful items. I doubted I would be going there again so I slipped away all the stuff, in the cache, into pouches. My Kevlar backpack was stashed elsewhere.

The double blast of two grenades would have shaken the place but one of the hand-grenades 'dudded' and did not explode. That was one problem with relying on aging stocks of weapons and ammunition. Not that it was such a problem any more which was why I was in the DC. Even the one blast was enough to cause concern, sending fragments flying in all direction, but nothing touched me.

I shot down the woman Raider as she came down first with her M16A4 assault-rifle blazing away. I did not have much respect for the M16 range of guns, in general, but the M16A4 was a great improvement over earlier versions because it was easier to maintain, was far less prone to jamming and had some nice extra tricks to it. I wanted it so I could trade it off or even give it to some special people I knew who would make great use of it.

A burst of 5.56mm bullets struck the berserker b****, dropping her nicely. Real Raiders were harder to kill than normal humans, even very tough typical Wastelanders who had passed the test of 'survival of the fittest'. The berserker shuddered, screamed agony and hate, then collapsed dead.

The last of the Raiders dropped into sight, took one look at me, and surrendered!

This took me so much by surprise that I failed to kill the man. I just gaped in shock. Never, ever, before had I even a hint of a story of a real Raider clone giving up. Yet I 'sensed' this clone was doing just that, his hands held up in the air. He looked grimly at me. "You are Jakeman! I was sent to give you some very important information of matters that will change the very nature of the Wastelands and the future of the Wastelanders. I can tell you where the Raider clones are coming from and why they are coming; I can tell you where all the new weapons, armor and ammunition supplies are coming from. I can also tell you that there are three threats that are coming that are each greater than the Marsclave could ever hope to be or Caesar's Empire or any other." Edited March 9, 2013 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0002 I WAS JAKEMAN

 

I was not sure I wanted to know such news. No, what I wanted was some good news for once. The Wastelands, DC and I, deserved something good to happen. The DC was in the middle of a savage three way war between the Brotherhood of Steel, the Marsclave and the Supermutant army from TekVaultDC087. The rather weak New DC Republic was not able to take on either the Marsclave or the supermutants and relied on the Brotherhood of Steel for protection. To top it off the real Raiders had become an increasingly dangerous menace to the DC in numbers, frequency and firepower.

 

We sat outside on a typical Martian day. Phobos, a Martian Moon, was above us but one had to strain to see it. Terraforming had made Mars liveable for humans but had failed to make it anything near to being a paradise. Then had come the Big War to End All Wars and most of Mars had been blasted into Wastelands. Some was worse, was Doomlands, and some was better, was Havenlands. No Wastelanders normally went willingly to the Doomlands and no Wastelanders were allowed, normally, into the Havenlands.

 

His Raider name was Bloody Jarisha but his official clone designation was KLJ0121abe. He scowled and spoke with a scowl in his voice. "Vaultburg is where I come from, a big network of TekVaults and LifeVaults. None of it was made official. None of it was on the VaultTek Corporate lists. Vaultburg is deeper than any typical vault, much deeper. It is also heavily populated, at least half by clones, and is very secure. The TekCorporations survive down there. That is VaultTek, WestTek, RoboTek, WarTek and lots more. They made sure they were safe under the umbrella of MarsTek, the mother corporation. It is too bad they did not do as good a job with Terraforming Mars as they did protecting themselves."

 

I frowned softly. "You were going to tell me about the real Raiders."

 

Jarisha snorted, he preferred to be called that and did not care to have the 'Bloody' added to the front. "CloneTek, a special purpose created TekCorp, has been trying to create an army of enhanced human clone supersoldiers with out a conscious. They have been quite successful so far but passive, berserker and insane failures occur. The passives are turned into workers, the berserkers go to the games as gladiators or are sent up here as Raiders, and the insane are either experimented on or used for spare parts or both. The reason they are sending the berserker clones up here is to do with a contract that Vaultburg has with an unknown faction. That unknown faction has been supplying Vaultburg with a flow of valuable resources in exchange for the 'Raider Project'. Vaultburg, the TekCorps, are not one of the three big threats that I spoke of earlier."

 

Of course not! That would have made matters simpler! It was a consistent factor of my life that matters tended to get more complicated, often at the worst possible moment.

 

The distance muffled sound, of a big deathclaw, drifted to us from a distance. It was getting darker which meant that savage radghouls would start coming out from the sewers, subways and other underground areas that they preferred to remain in while the sunshine was too burning for their damaged skin.

 

The landscape stretched outwards as mainly broken, barren cityscape but parts of it looked to be in very good condition and some of it was actually in surprisingly good condition. In the far distance was a copy of the George Washington Monument but much bigger than the original one on the Earth. The District of Centropolis included Centropolis proper, Outer Centropolis and the District Sectors. A raised monorail, again in the distance, had upon it a centuries stalled monorail train like a dull, dark silvery metallic worm with squarish portholes. Birds flew high in the sky and mutated radhorses ran, as a wild herd, in the distance.

 

I spoke with some reluctance. "Who are the three big enemies that will menace us?"

 

"My people only know some solid details but the names speak much. They are the Earth, the Zetans and the Tripodic Martians." Jarisha shook his head but more as if to thoughts, in his mind, than to me. "The Wastelands are terrible in many ways but, in some important ways, life as a clone slave in Vaultburg is far harder. The TekCorps treat cloned humans as property as they do true androids, TAI-supercomputers and smart-robots. They are no better with the genetically engineered animal-humans. Up here you at least have some freedom, some chance to fight back. In Vaultburg there is a growing resistance movement against the oppressive, greedy, inefficient and corrupt system there as run by MarsTek. The Free Resistance Front, the FRF, includes freeborn humans along with clones and animal-humans. The FRF sent disguised me as a berserker and so I came here to find you. It was a terrible experience to be amongst the real berserker clones but they did not attempt to harm me though they did discover I was no berserker. Very odd, that! I was given instructions how to find you but you ran right into me."

 

I have never believed in coincidences so I was not sure how to take his last words.

Edited December 27, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0003 I WAS JAKEMAN

 

We followed my original plan, that is we looted the dead Raiders and gave them a decent burial. Knowing that real Raiders were victims, of a cloning experiment, had me thinking differently of them. My mind was pacing in interesting directions and I was not sure I liked where those thoughts were going. The loot was good but we ended up hiding much of it at my niche because there was too much to carry safely, with enough ease and speed for the Wastelands. We were on our feet and had to be able to move quickly, to climb, to go down below ground, to get through tight spaces and to get away from threats.

 

In the growing dark we threaded through the dreaded landscape. Red lights of barrel fires struck up like dots in the darkness as smarter radghouls lit them up. They seemed to serve both many purposes and no real purpose at all. One sometimes came upon abandoned barrel fires burning merrily away but just as often ones surrounded by crouched radghouls half hidden in the darkness. To think they were once human or, less often, animal-humans such as chimpmen. While there were berserker radghouls, or zhouls, there were also passive defensive ones known as rhouls that could be traded with. Unfortunately the zhouls outnumbered the rhouls more than three to one; fortunately, the rhouls were smarter than zhouls and looked different enough, from their savage cousins, to be easily told apart from them. We slipped past a bunch of zhouls battling over some dead radroaches, the fighting being more ritualistic than real, and were soon amongst upright smart-concrete buildings.

 

Smart-concrete was self repairing but had not always repaired back to usable, or even sane shapes. Yet those buildings looked very intact and very usable. This was both good news, we could seek shelter or even loot, but also bad news as others would have the same idea. Supermutants had been seen, in the area, in well armed groups. Not just the more human sized metamoths but double sized massamoths, triple sized megamoths and truly hulking behemoths. The smaller the kind of supermutant, the more common it tended to be and, thankfully, only two behemoths had been spotted.

 

We threaded past a partly toppled 3Dsignpost showing an faded 3D advertisement for Captain Cosmos 3DTV shows, 3Dmovies, toys, posters, robotic action-figures and other overly priced merchandise. With handsome, space armor clad Captain Cosmos was Cosmic Girl, who was more scantily clad, the cyborg space monkey and the CosmicBots of three sidekick robots.The CosmicBots were something like taller, thinner protectron robots that were common dumb-robots found through out the Martian Colonies. Protectrons were guided by stationary true artificial intelligence supercomputers, TAI-supercomputer network-systems. The signboard looked very out of place in the Wastelands but I figured that it would have seemed very normal back before everything had gone to hell.

 

Captain Cosmos, and his companions, would be of great help in the Wastelands if they did really exist.

 

As if that was going to happen! I tried to ignore the strange voice, that appeared in my mind at times, and yet often found myself listening avidly to it. It was just one of many of my personal contradictions that I had come to live with, one of my individualistic ironies. Was I mad? In truth I did not really care how 'sane' I was. I just lived day by day, survived and tried to live as best I could. In this I was like the great majority of Wastelanders.

 

We rested in some rubble next to a big Red Rocket device sticking up into the air. It was close to a half demolished smart-materials built recharging refueling station. A group of Wastelander human hunters were there, patchskins with their odd mixture of racial skin colors. We did not go near them because there was something disturbing about them. They were most likely cannibal hunters seeking out human meat. While such hunters did live partly on human flesh, they tended to hunt more than they needed and it was a mystery to where the excess human meat went to. We quietly observed the cannibals but they, as sneaky as they were, did not even know we were there.

 

I frowned. "We will need to kill those cannibals. They have the mind sickness of cannibalism, the addiction that seems to come from some kind of genetic inherited defect that came from the Big War to End All Wars. If we do not kill them, then they will attack some local settlers or seminomads or nomads. I have been mulling over what you have told me. I can understand the Tripodic Martians being a threat for they did once invade the Earth, back in the late 19^th Century and only bacteria destroyed them. I can understand the Zetans being a threat since humanity fought them in the Big War. But the Earth as a threat, what does that mean? The Earth is humanity's original home world and it was supposedly destroyed or at least made uninhabitable."

 

Jarisha frowned. "I do not know the answer to that question and I was sent to give you the information in hope that you, or other Wastelanders, might be able to answer that and other questions."

 

I took up an AKM16 assault-rifle and made sure its integral grenadeshell launcher was loaded, along with its main 5.56mm rifle. "Well, at this moment, I would state it is others who would provide answers, if they can. Still, with my mind, I suppose I might remember something important sooner or later."

Edited December 27, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0004 I WAS JAKEMAN

 

Killing the cannibals had not been something I had wanted to do but such creatures were driven by genetically inherited addictions to human flesh along with a brutal form of upbringing that heavily reinforced such behavior. The Wastelands did not have the resources to deal with such 'people' in a more 'civilized' manner. We took some items but mostly we put looted items to one side and left the bodies out, knowing that they would soon be devoured.

 

We were soon moving towards RivetCity, a big battle-carrier parked permanently at dock at the DC River. The river was very wide, was flowing strong, and the damaged battle-carrier was very useful to the RivetCityfolk and others of the DC. Aeroboats, aerobarges and aeroships landed at the big decks of the carrier. Boats, riverships, ferries used the riverside jetties while trade caravans, stagecoaches, and other travelers went to the shore side of the great vessel. We made our way through broken suburbs, through open shopping malls and through semi-enclosed shopping arcades.

 

In the darkness we found easy concealment but so did others, including some who would threaten us.

 

We came upon a big death scene where radghouls, zhouls, had been butchered by gangers. The zhouls lay sprawled pathetically across an open mall, between a clothing boutique and a unisex hairdressers. The gangers had saved their bullets and had used crossbows and knives, including machetes, to carry out their massacre. I was angry because I quickly picked up, from clues, that the zhouls had been deliberately drawn into an ambush to be butchered. To my way of thinking even zhouls did not deserve that sort of treatment.

 

Then I found a torn of emblem-badge and I knew what gangers had done this; the BladeSiders were a murderous bunch of cowards who prided themselves on killing zhouls and, even worse, rhouls. They made an income, of sorts, from draining radghoul blood into thermos bottles and selling it, while it was still reasonably fresh, to biochemists. Radghoul blood had some very interesting qualities that made it useful in making some kinds of biotech products, many of them of dubious use. The DC Syndicates were the organized crime networks of the DC, each having its own vested interest of profitability. The so called Bloodmaker Syndicate bought lots of fresh radghoul blood.

 

Jarisha gave me an odd look. "You seem oddly disturbed about these dead zhouls. Aren't they just mindless killing machines?"

 

I shook my head. "They were just people once, were mostly humans but all were people. They did not ask to be turned into zhouls." Suddenly something came to disturb me and I rolled a zhoul onto its back. The stomach bulged as if the zhoul was pregnant. If I had not been 'sensing' something most strange, I might have taken it as a bizarre side effect of being a radghoul. Such things were not common but had been reported on a few times. I took some digital 3Dphotos and a short 3Dvideo run. Then I crouched cautiously beside the dead zhoul, giving a warning signal to my new companion. He must have also 'sensed' something wrong because he held an M16A4 aimed straight at the bulging belly.

 

Something moved inside the bulge and then came exploding out of it, a twisted thing like a distorted radghoul version of an alien zetan. Distorted, yes, with over sized fangs and claws, and some kind of spine shooting device on its head. It was like a zetan monkey but far far more deadly and armored with thick leathery skin. Then Jarisha blew it apart, literally, with a point blank range fired burst of 5.56mm bullets. Even as he did so, I leapt backwards so as not to be covered with a shower of blood and gore. Then we were both staring at the horrific scene with sheer astonishment.

 

I spoke to the clone. "Well, you did say that the zetans would be a threat."

 

He shook his head. "I assumed it would be in a more traditional fashion of them coming, raiding, out of the sky in those damned saucerboats, dropships and teleport-drops."

 

Zetans had tried to invade Mars during the Big War. They had learned, the hard way, just what a savagely militaristic species humanity could be. They also faced combat androids, battle robots, animal-human soldiers and power armored soldiers along with much else. RivetCity, as a low flying battle-carrier also capable of aquatic operations, had taken a major part in the major DC Battles, both of them. The battles had been crazy as Soviet and Alliance forces had first battled each other only to then join forces against the zetans. Then other factions had joined the fight and matters had become truly hellish and chaotic. Too little real data remained of just what happened in the months leading up to Mars Doomsday and during Mars Doomsday or the decades following it. The zetans had suffered great losses and the wreckage of their machines, including two motherships, could be found scattered across parts of the Martian Wastelands.

Edited December 27, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0005 I WAS JAKEMAN

 

There is something quite unique about the smell of the Wastelands, in general, and particular parts of the Wastelands in particular. The DC Wastelands seemed to have its own range of smells, at least to me it did. It was the scent of grand, troubled and often murderous history. It was reflected in the great big strange statues that dotted Centropolis, also called DC-City. It was reflected in the great big complexes, clusters and other smart-materials built structures that still survived. Some were well used such as the DC-Citadel where the Brotherhood of Steel was situated and the 3DTower from which the famous 3Dog Station broadcast both 3Dradio and less 3DTV. Then there was the Grand River Jetties where RivetCity was situated, the GRJ being officially part of RivetCity.

 

The two of us stood at the edge of a Subway Station Entrance, close to a bank of vending-machines and one of those strange cylinder shaped coin operated shelters that many assumed had been some kind of sick joke. A big atomic motorized CityLiner was rumbling past, much repaired and altered with additions of armor and weapon turrets. Two such CityLiners passed, being called stagecoaches because of some supposed link with the Wild West of the Earth. The caravan, of two stagecoaches and four gunbuggies, was heading for RivetCity and proudly flew the banners of the DC Trade Travel Corporation, the DCTTC. The DCTTC was based in the large fortified settlement of Canterbury Commons.

 

The heavy plastic body-bag smelled awful but did not carry a heavy stink, thanks to our efforts. It had the dead zhoul and what was of the dead zetan thing. RivetCity was not far away but I could 'sense' growing danger. I spoke. "You know something has been following us for some fifteen minutes."

 

The clone supersoldier nodded. "I was about to speak of it, myself. I was not certain because I am still adjusting to Wastelands conditions."

 

I heard a distinct sound, something small but disturbingly out of place. That was one important trick of detecting danger; that was to detect something out of place, whether seeing, smelling or otherwise sensing it. Something was damned good at moving silently but I was damned good at detecting such. I gave a quick nod to my companion and he drew up his assault-rifle just as I did mine. We moved closer into the Subway Station Entrance structure, to where a bank of power-ramps ran down into the underground, vanishing from sight. The power-ramps were basically flattened out escalators, being easier to use with robots and small handcarts or prams or wheelchairs.

 

Something came darting up one of the power-ramps, a figure in chameleon armor that helped it blend into the background but not enough that time. The lightly power armored fighter aimed, and fired, a compact black weapon of a kind previously unseen by me. Pulses of energy spat from it and I barely dropped back in time to avoid them, despite my enhanced physical abilities. The pulses slammed into Jarisha and dropped him, heavily stunned, to the smart-concrete ground. So they, for others appeared, were trying to capture us and not kill us.

 

I leapt upwards, grabbed part of a Subway Entrance roof at the edge and shot over onto the roof. Dropping a stunflash grenade, I kept moving, darting across the roof. I had left behind both the body-bag and Jarisha but had no choice for now. The attackers were enhanced supersoldiers, just as Jarisha was. The hitech energy weapons, and chameleon power armor, indicated that they were backed by a very advanced faction. It did not appear to be any faction that I knew of and I knew of very many of them. Still, I had not known of Vaultburg or the surviving TekCorps.

 

I dropped down beside the roof and found that Jarisha was dead and that the body-bag was gone, along with the attackers. I was angry but the attackers had not known about a very exotic trick of mine that was linked to the very alien aspect to my nature. I could 'resurrect' people though the results could be rather exotic at times. It was not something I liked to do for it drained much life energy from me. This time, though, I felt that I had failed Jarisha and also Jarisha had much knowledge that was needed by friendly factions and myself.

 

I lay my bare hand, fingers flayed out, on his bare chest and another on his bare forehead. Then I focused, doing something that I never quite understood. It worked as he shimmered and then, with a gentle start, opened his eyes. He sat up, doing up his gear to hide his chest, and looked at me with an odd expression. I was quite used to getting such looks from those I had helped to resurrect, other forces were involved in the process, and just smiled.

 

He shook his head. "I am enhanced of mind, body and spirit. I now have special abilities of 'spirit', what ever that means."

 

I shrugged. "Have you heard of the Wastelands magefolk, the users of auric magic?"

 

At that he nodded. "We were taught that such is just Wastelands mythologies, is nonsense because it is illogical. Now, of course, I know that Vaultburg Academy has proven to be wrong yet again. Either wrong, that is, or lying."

 

 

 

Edited December 27, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0006 I WAS JAKEMAN

 

Losing the dead stuff, in the body-bag, was far from a total loss because I had taken samples, had done various measurements and had digital recordings.

 

As they got closer to RivetCity, in the far distance, eastwards across the great wide river, we saw a flight of helicopters flying with their semi-enclosed rotors and light metallic armor. They bore the battle logo of the Sisterhood of Steel, a cousin to the Brotherhood of Steel. The Sisterhood of Steel operated a fleet of aircraft in DC but also had other services complimenting those of the Brotherhood of Steel. Helicopters lacked the power, armor and firepower of vertibirds but they were easier to manufacture and to maintain. Also the type of helicopters, that the Sisterhood of Steel used, were very quiet running hybrid-electric jobs unlike the comparatively noisy atomic motorized vertibirds.

 

As I watched the distant machines, with enhanced vision, I wondered what the Orders of Steel were up to. That is the Loyalists and not the Outcasts of Steel who were also in the DC, the ones who had turned against Elder Lyons and his change in policies for the DC. I did not think the Marsclave had forces to the east of RivetCity and the supermutants were focused in the direction of TekVaultDC087 that was below Lamplight Mountain. Lamplight Mountain was roughly north-west from RivetCity and a long way away from where the helicopters were operating.

 

When we got to RivetCity, we went through security quickly because I was well known by RivetCity Security. RivetCity was part of the New DC Republic, the NDCR, but took care of most of its own security. There was a small garrison of Republican Guardsmen there but they were mostly posted to RivetCity on unofficial rest and recreation. As it was the NDCR Guard and the RivetCity Security had little real regard for each other.

 

Two Security Guards escorted us to the Science Research and Development Centre. Professor Madison Li was the one I wished to talk to. She had come, like many scientists of the Wastelands, from TekVaultDC021 that was a place that none liked to speak of. The only good think about TekVaultDC021, ScienceCity, was the high quality training of their scientists and other specialists. Others had escaped from there, also, including James and Catherine Parker. I remembered them, and others, from the Project Purity days in the hidden research and development base beneath the Jefferson Memorial. The memorial commemorated Commander John Jefferson who had led the first manned mission to Mars and who had saved the mission at the cost of his own life. The actual rocketship was to be found in the memorial complex along with a statue of the Texas born hero.

 

Madison Li was at first angry at being dragged away from important work on a hydroponics project but she was soon totally drawn to the new discovery. The oriental woman was also much concerned and greatly mystified. She, and others in a laboratory, soon got to work analyzing the sample I had gained and studying the other data also. Li knew I was a good general scientist and soon had me assisting while Jarisha was milked for all the knowledge he could give about Vaultburg and their sciences, their technologies. As a clone supersoldier he ended up giving various samples, a young woman assistant carrying out the necessary procedures.

 

Much was learned, from the first, but many tests would take longer to complete. I went and took a sleep on a bed in the shared living quarters of some centre staff. After catching some Zs, I went to Muddy Rudder Club with We drank some coffee, which was uncommon but far from rare, and ate hydroponics grown vegetables, fruit and roasted giant molerat meat. Wasteland menus tended to be very basic and changed often according to what food, drink, was available. The new RivetCity Hydroponics Centre was helping to make RivetCity more self reliant with food and made good trade-goods.

 

Jarisha spoke. "I do not think those supersoldiers, the ones who killed me, came from Vaultburg. There was something disturbing about them. You left me there, stunned, why?"

 

I sighed. "I made a mistake in thinking they might not kill you and that I could sneak up on them before they vanished. Then I helped to resurrect you. Question is, why did you choose to get killed. I gain some access to the minds of those I help to resurrect, especially when it comes to deceit. You did not run into me by accident. Somebody told your people that I was in the area."

 

Jarisha shrugged. "Truth is that I do not know the truth! Seems I was heavily program-conditioned to believe that what I told you was the truth. Perhaps the reason the Raider clones did not kill me was that they were deeply program-conditioned not to do so and were also deeply program-conditioned to die while fighting you. Though, considering how amazingly well you do fight, that would not be necessary."

 

After a pause he went on. "I chose to die because those strange super-soldiers wanted to take knowledge from me using some kind of weird hitech device like nothing I have ever seen before. The stun effect was wearing off so I did something that would force them to kill me, I went to pull a safety pin from one of my hand-grenades. To save their own lives, one of them killed me. Being dead I did not, of course, observe how they managed to depart so quickly from the scene. Remiss of me, I know."

 

I gave him a mild grin. "Yes, very tardy."

Edited December 27, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Terminals%20Used/TERMINAL-IT-Workit-00096.jpg

 

Simple Feedback: :thumbsup: = okay :thumbsup: :thumbsup: = good :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: = very good :dance: = so good I want to dance

 

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Terminals%20Used/TERMINAL-IT-Workit-new020.jpg

Edited December 27, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0007 I WAS JAKEMAN

 

As I slept on my bunk, I also drifted across the broken cityscape of Centropolis as above me the artificially enlarged moons, of Phobos and Deimos, shone pale. Huge space-robots had built up the two moons, hollowing out part of Earth's moon to do so. The hollows of Luna had become the basis of huge underground cities there and artificial cavernlands. Yet materials for the enlarging of the moons had also come from space asteroids. I floated beneath the moons, above the city buildings, and observed much with open awareness.

 

I noted RivetCity and, not very far away, another battle-carrier but this one broken and half sunken into the river waters. Salvage teams, from RivetCity, had taken as much as they safely could from it but the wreck was infested with dangerous mirelurks and other Wastelands threats, including rogue robots. During the Big War the Rogue AI Virus, the RAIV, had caused much chaos amongst smart-robots and smart-supercomputer network-systems just as the Forced Evolutionary Virus, FEV, had caused so much trouble with living things. In many places such rogue AIs had been dealt with but in much of the Wastelands they were still prominent threats. The wrecked battle-carrier showed no lights, unlike its sister ship.

 

Then I was near the massive, low hulking DC-Citadel that was actually a fortified base constructed before the Big War, before Mars Doomsday, and claimed by the Brotherhood of Steel. They had done much with it, had rebuilt parts of it and upgraded other areas but mostly it was much the same as it had been. If anything the DC-Citadel was too big for the Brotherhood of Steel to use and part of it had been given over to the use of the Sisterhood of Steel while another part of a settlement of camp followers known as Citadel Town.

 

What was I seeking, what was I being drawn towards?

 

A huge, partly rubble buried, SuperDuperMart complex housed many factions and I 'sensed' them in constant struggle to survive, often fighting each other.

 

In the Centropolis Grand Mall an army of supermutants had seemingly come out of nowhere and were fighting a large force of Brothers of Steel, Sisters of Steel, Republican Guardsmen, mercenaries and local militias along with anything else that wanted to fight them. To the northern edge of DC proper a big conflict was being waged between Marsclave forces and supermutants. Was it possible that so many supermutants had just come from TekVaultDC0087, as big as that TekVault actually was? Or was there another source of supermutants, either inside or outside of the DC?

 

Peoples and creatures struggled for life in broken landscapes where tough mutated plants provided food and other resources along with many kinds of critters that were hunted, some critters hunting other critters.

 

Killclaw packs, smaller cousins to deathclaws, moved amongst the rubble as did savage dogs and big cats of varied kinds. Humble house cats of former times had become small feline monsters.

 

Rhouls and zhouls moved through the city, mostly underground though it was night.

 

Things lived in the river be it massive schools of smaller radfish or great big diresharks that could bite a good sized boat in half or other kinds of life.

 

Giant ants, that were not really ants, guarded their nests carefully and menacing radscorpions crawled through smashed urban landscape.

 

There were radhumans, more human like radghouls, dwelling in the Ghoul Undercity with rhouls and tamed zhouls.They made a fairly good life, for themselves, in that place and none disturbed them there, not even the supermutants. The Ghoul Undercity was was both the lowest levels of the massive Centropolis Cultural Centre and areas beneath it. The CCC was made up of museums, souvenir shops, a zoo, art galleries, libraries, a special super virtual reality complex and much more. Parts of it were collapsed and other parts heavily sealed off by collapsed areas.

 

Megaton was a city in, outside of and under a huge smooth bomb crater made by an F-bomb during the Big War. F-bombs left no radiation and the crater had become a basis for good shelter. Added were walls built from materials taken from a smashed airport fairly close by, including whole aircraft. Below was the Megaton Subway Station and a LifeVault, a big civil bunker as built by VaultTek that had built all of the TekVaults. It was a bustling, struggling city of tough survivors and was where I had been reborn, yet again.

 

Then I, Jakeman, found what I really did not want to find and I found it more than once in more than one place.

Edited December 27, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0008 I WAS JAKEMAN

 

My name was Jakeman and I woke in my bed in the Weatherly Hotel, of RivetCity, sat up in the small hotel room and drew my .38 magnum revolver in one fluid motion but then I relaxed. The Mysterious Stranger was sitting on a chair at a wooden table. He smiled at my seminaked body that now devoid of armor and other gear showed that I was a woman rather than the man I was generally assumed to be. I lowered the gun and frowned. "Still not into knocking, I see!"

 

He smiled lightly in his trench coat. "I 'sense' you are quite well. Did your special dreaming reveal anything to you?"

 

I sighed and adjusted my bra. Then I slipped on a shirt and flexible jeans. "Yes, three things, none of which I wanted to know about. I need to travel to a nasty area known as Zhouls' End, to beneath the Centropolis Grand Mall and to the DC-Citadel. Zhouls' End is closest, though deepest, and is fairly near to the mysterious realm of the Subwayers."

 

Subwayers were a rather reclusive society, a DC Faction, that had taken over a whole subnetwork of the Centropolis Subway including some stations and surrounding networks. I had visited them at times, finding them to be friendly but only after proving myself trustworthy, which had not been easy. Fastest way to get to Zhouls' End was to go through part of the Subway Union Territories.

 

The Mysterious Stranger had placed some food and drink on the table including a large pie, some mashed potato, a jug of hot coffee, a smaller jug of soya milk and some water. I joined him at the table and noted a stack of Emergency Issue Dollar coins and cards. These would be for me. The food and drink was also for me except the MS had a tall glass of clear, cool water in front of him and a large mug of strong, black coffee.

 

He spoke. "What have you learned of the mysterious new flow of equipment, and supplies, entering the DC."

 

I frowned, finished eating what was in my mouth, and spoke. "That the cheaply sold, sometimes freely given, goods are going to a wide range of factions that include traditional enemies of each other. There seems to be little rhyme, or reason, to what is going on. The Outcasts of Steel made a big gain and then so did the Talon Mercenaries that they have often fought. Then the NDCR made a big gain but then also the TekVaultDC0087 supermutants. The Enclaves gained and then so did the Brotherhood, and Sisterhood, of Steel. Other factions have had the same benefits including the real Raiders. I have learned that the real Raiders are cloned supersoldiers from Vaultburg."

 

After eating some more food, and gulping down some coffee, I told the MS about had happened with Jarisha and the real Raiders, with the finding of the strange zetan like creature inside the dead zhoul, about the 'strange' supersoldiers who had stolen the body-bag and its contents. The Mysterious Stranger just patiently listened. I also spoke of the idea of great threats coming from the Zetan Nomadic Empire, the Tripodic Martians and the 'Earth'.

 

My puzzlement showed in my voice. "I can understand the threats of the zetans and the tripodics but of the Earth?"

 

The tough, quiet man took a small gulp of water and then sighed. "Two centuries have passed since Mars Doomsday and over a hundred and thirty years took place between that and Earth Doomsday. That means over 330 standardized years have passed since any real communications was had between Earth and Mars. Communications was lost with the Spacers, as based on-in Luna, on Mars Doomsday. A great deal can happen in 330 years, especially under extreme exotic conditions. The 'threat come from the Earth'? Just what does that mean? It says very little. It could be human survivors but it could easily mean something else."

 

I frowned. "I am facing a range of strange facts, of clues, and I 'sense' some kind of link between them. I have need of much more information before I can begin to clarify the picture, to expand on it. As for Jarisha, I think it no accident that he found me the way he did, smack out in the midst of the DC Wastelands with the knowledge that he had. What do you know of Vaultburg?"

 

He frowned. "About as much as Jarisha told you. The TekCorps betrayed others of Mars to make sure that they got a nice, secure place to hide away in. Except that their secret paradise has not worked out so well for them. Their networks, of network-systems, are breaking down and they are finding it increasingly difficult to keep control of their clones, androids, robots and other enslaved peoples. You say that the Berserker Clone Program, the real Raiders, was paid for by somebody with goods and equipment. That would link that with what is happening with other DC Factions."

 

I told the Mysterious Strange about how I had helped to resurrect Jarisha and how he had become an auric mage.

 

The MS shook his head but as if to his own thoughts rather than to anything I had said. I wondered what he was thinking.

Edited December 27, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Simple Feedback: :thumbsup: = okay :thumbsup: :thumbsup: = good :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: = very good :dance: = so good I want to dance

0009 I WAS JACK

I had always been in Megaton, as Jack, while as Jakeman I had wandered the Mars Wastelands. Me, myself and I were three almost as one. There was another of us, of me, out there.

As Jack I stood with sexy, eccentric Moira Brown in her shop of the Craterside Exotic Emporium, not to be confused with her family's shop of Craterside Supplies. I smiled and examined the dartrifle on the counter before both of us. The new style dartrifle, the MoiraJack Type-1, had a fixed magazine for five darts. These were of a fairly common kind found through out the Wastelands. They could be fired with tranquilizers, various forms of lethal poison or other substances. "Very good! Between us we have adapted an old style dartgun to become a far more versatile device."

Moira wore a tight, white Tshirt that did little for her modesty. Lots of older boys came into Moira's shop at any excuse just to ogle her. Moira thought they were 'lovely'. Others, and myself, firmly removed them on a consistent basis.

She smiled warmly at me, at her 'Handsome Jack'. "We will make many of them through the CoOp you helped set up. The profits will go to the CoOp and to the Emporium. What did you think of my love serum idea to deal with deathclaws?"

I smiled at Moira, looked very thoughtful. "You mean shooting deathclaws with 'love darts' so they love people instead of trying to kill them. I suspect, strongly, that it might not work so well in practice as it did in your wondrous theory. I'm afraid its an idea that may have to be put aside along with your explosive decompression toilet, catapult courier delivery system and trained guard radroaches."

Moira looked surprised as if she could not see why one more of her wonderful ideas could not be taken a both practical and innovative. In truth she did come up with amazing ideas at times but most of her ideas need the input of others such as Professor Brown, Sheriff Lucas Simms, Maria of the FixItShop, myself and yet others. She had helped to design the first of the cottage industry gadgebots, basic robots designed to carry out many tasks in Megaton of which there were now a few models of five types. Other gadgetechs had arisen.

The CoOp manufactured, maintained, these and other tech along with growing food and doing other cottage industry in Inner Megaton. Inner Megaton was in the crater, inside the Megaton Inner Wall. Outer Megaton was between the Megaton Outer Wall and Megaton Inner Wall. Deep Megaton was underground in the Megaton Subway Station, the LifeVault and other areas. A hierarchy, of sorts, had arisen in Megaton over the decades and the Founding Families were a kind of elite dwelling in Deep Megaton except for a few odd ones out such as the Brown Family. My family, the Harringtons, dwelt in their own small bunker between Inner and Deep Megaton. That area was sometimes called Middle Megaton.

I, Jack, did all sorts of odd jobs for the Harrington Family, for the CoOp, for the Emporium, for the Sheriff, for Professor Brown and a select few others. I refused to work for others such as the Moriarty Family, the Cashman Family, the Talon Mercenaries and a fairly long list of others who were either in Megaton or had some kind of presence there.

Megaton was undergoing changes, and challenges, as the New DC Republic put growing pressure on the settlement to join the republic, as the slavery debate got hotter in the slowly expanding republic, as the Three Way War grew more savage in DC. As yet no supermutants, or Enclavers, had threatened the settlement and the Orders of Steel were not a threat. The Regulators had set up an outpost at Megaton. They were specialists in hunting down cannibals, slavers, Raiders and others but also in dealing with more exotic threats. The Founding Families were under pressure to loosen up their monopoly on positions in the Megaton Town Council, to make the settlement more democratic, to open up more areas in Middle Megaton, even Deep Megaton, to newcomers and with a whole lot of other issues. One issue was that the Megaton Sheriff's Office had no legal jurisdiction over Deep Megaton and this was not considered to be fair or rational by most. Another issue was concerns over growing corruption amongst some of the Founding Families and their growing links with shadowy families like the Moriartys and the Cashmans. I had other, deeper, concerns with Megaton, with its history, and was not the only one.

I smiled at Moira. "I think its time we had another look at your put a side projects to see what we can do with them."

Moira smiled richly and jumped with joy causing her breasts to bounce. Two older boys stared at her in amazement, clutching some coins to buy some of Moira's home made sweets. Thanks to others, they were rather tasty. At least the ogling older boys did manage to help give the Emporium some profits. I sighed, knowing full well that Moira and bras would never get along. Edited March 21, 2013 by Maharg67