Me, Myself and I

[Maharg67]

0129: I WAS THE EYE

 

The strange, terrible, battle began in the falling of darkness and took almost all night. People could see the battle but, somehow, not get close to it and nobody seemed to be able to define 'just where' it was taking place in the DC Wastelands.

 

He-she-it was being attacked savagely, brutally, by another powerful dark force.

 

Great bolts of elemental energies made for beautiful, terrible patterns through the air. Great explosions ripped up ground and mighty beasts clashed against each other in great bizarre banks of smoke and mist. There were roars of rage, hatred, fear and pain. A massive ugly humanoid hurled itself at its enemies, swinging mighty weapons at them that were fashioned of local substances reshaped.

 

Observers wondered why the DC Wastelands did not shake with such forces but somehow the battle was both there and yet removed.

 

I, the Eye, could not get very close to what was happening and that was the sort of thing I was designed to do. It was both frustrating and yet a relief because I suspected I really did not want to observe too many of the nasty details: even my curiosity had its limits.

 

Blasts of flame rose high into the air along with billowing black smoke and big clouds of brown dirt.

 

Then it came to me that the TwistedGod, the real thing so ancient and fallen, was attacking he-she-it and was after the OmegaKey that he-she-it was holding. Why? I had no idea! Why did not the TwistedGod ask for the OmegaKey or negotiate? Because it was the 'TwistedGod' and brutal treachery, aggression, were part of its core nature.

 

He-she-it collapsed and cried out for mercy with a sudden moment of relative sanity. Then a great white glowing sphere of energy arose and then vanished, taking he-she-it with it. He-she-it had been rescued and somehow I knew it was God-Goddess that had done so, that it was to do with the LittleFatFolk.

 

The great, bizarre, conflict ended and there stood the TwistedGod but in a way that flickered constantly from shapeform to shapeform in a way that was disturbing to even to try to define. The TwistedGod held both an AlphaKey and an OmegaKey.

 

Then it howled with hate filled triumph and was gone with a disturbing, flickering, of reality.

Edited March 21, 2013 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0130: I WAS THE EYE

 

It was with a profound shock that I realized that the vast majority of Wastelanders did not know that the AlphaOmegata existed except as a great big set of PreDoomsday buildings that nobody went near for vague reasons that nobody quite got around to investigating more closely. So when the AlphaOmegata vanished it left behind real buildings that were identical to what people had assumed was there all along. Now life began to move into that area, starting with such as radroaches, cockroaches, killclaws, giant molerats and such like.

 

The AlphaOmegata had shifted but was still influencing the Marslands in a positive manner.

 

Six groups, each of six parachute-canisters, landed in the DC Wastelands. By then the special force, the Salvagers of Steel, had taken on the task of collecting up such parachute-canisters in Free Alliance Territories. They were often assisted by other FA Forces. If any locals went along with passing over the canisters, they were given generous compensation; on the other hand, if they resisted they were dealt with harshly.

 

Yet others were also seeking the parachute-canisters and especially the exotic helmet-backpack-gloves devices in them. The Sages of Steel began to open up one such set of devices only to have the male Mysterious Stranger appear to warn them not to. For the first time such devices were named as the 'reflectivatons' but the Mysterious Stranger would not explain what the name meant, only that each one had in it a booby-trap of an explosive equal to a small nuclear bomb.

 

It was all too clear that as the number of appearing parachute-canisters increasing with each drop, that it was going to become harder to police them in any real way. What would happen when a hundred groups, each of a hundred parachute-canisters, fell from the sky. Yet it was extremely important to get all of the canisters, and the reflectivatons. The Mysterious Stranger did not explain what was important about the canisters; perhaps he did not know.

 

One hope he did give was that he promised to find a way to safely remove a reflectivaton from its host, though each was melded not just to but into its host. Trying to remove a reflectivaton, from a host, would detonate the booby-trap bomb inside it.

 

Another hope that he brought was a large amount of advanced tech gear, with related supplies, to assist in the understanding of the reflectivatons and the canisters.

 

A small nuclear explosion destroyed a very small settlement southwards of the fairly large settlement of Grayditch.

Edited March 21, 2013 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0131: I WAS JACKOMAN

 

I, Jackoman, led a group through the huge underground museum complex. There was an on going fight between those who wanted to loot the museum complex of anything useful and those who wanted to preserve almost everything as the heritage of the people. So far no looting had been allowed but some things had been sent to assist the Free Alliance.

 

We made our way past display-cases of Bronze Age artifacts from the Earth, including basic mannequin androids outfitted with gear of that age. I was being drawn towards something that I could not 'sense' the nature of except that it was profoundly disturbing. With me were cloned supersoldiers, in assault power armor, and Troopers of Steel, along with some specialists who would better understand something like a museum.

 

Traxa, one of the specialists, was looking puzzled through his power helmet visor. "The museum complex is not what it should be. Openly it looks like a series of display rooms, archival areas and other expected areas but the whole layout is wrong. The old maps are useless except as relative guides."

 

I just nodded. "Yes, I know, but you can still assist in trying to gain some idea of why such changes might have been made."

 

Traxa frowned softly. "The more modern the artifacts, and historical age, shown the more centrally are they shown. The Earth stuff is all now in secondary areas but once it was proudly of primary importance. No, what ever changed this huge place is far more interested in human history in space, and on Mars, than our much longer history back on the Earth."

 

"Almost as if somebody, something, was trying to use the restructuring of the whole complex as if to work out ideas of its own as in arranging data into patterns that it could study?" I turned to examine more displays as we kept going. A cleverly made 'primitive' boat was placed with some big wooden oars. "What are you really, Traxa? You are not what you pretend to be."

 

Traxa was not even human, let alone a museum specialist. He smiled and became the TallThinMan with a soft shimmering effect. "Well done! That was a test! The JaeiouThirteen is growing stronger and more able. I am here to assist you as much as I can because something lurks here beyond your power and experience to deal with."

 

I snorted. "Hardly a new thing to happen to us. We always seem to be out of our depth."

 

The TallThinMan shook his head. "That is far from the case. Prepare yourself for we are almost at the meeting point with the lurking 'thing'. It is not evil but it has to be treated with care."

 

We walked through a big hallway dotted with posters, of paintings, that were so old that they had become historical artifacts in their own right. Then I felt a moment of odd dizziness as we all stepped into a place that should not have been able to exist inside the great big underground complex.

Edited March 23, 2013 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0132: I WAS JACKOMAN

 

Through a wavering sensation we went and then we seemed to be standing in the DC but not the Wastelands for this was the DC before Doomsday. We looked out over a landscape of buildings, other structures and general environment in a thriving condition. It seemed to stretch outwards so that there were no walls, no ceiling, no floor as one would expect there to be inside a museum complex.

 

A man stood there, tall, broad shouldered and in a finely made official suit. He was the World President Graham Maharg, a troubled figure of history who had helped create the Marslands and, as many claimed, helped to destroy them. Though emanating strength, he also looked exhausted.

 

Standing next to him was the LittleFatWoman, who was holding one his hands in one of hers. She was looking into his eyes and they were communicating in some mysterious fashion. Then Graham Maharg nodded, looking troubled, turned and smiled warmly at the newcomers.

 

"Greetings, I am Graham Maharg!" He said unnecessarily as his statues dotted the Marslands as did other images of him, including a small mountain carved to look like his head. "I have been trapped 'inside', as part of, he-she-it for centuries. It was my fault that I became absorbed in such a fashion. You, the JaeiouThirteen, have some of my genetic inheritance in you."

 

"Whose genetic inheritance don't we have?" Jackoman bowed briefly with respect. "Did you really help destroy the Marslands?"

 

"Yes, but not intentionally! I was manipulated, turned into a scapegoat, by a far more cunning entity than myself who is also much more powerful." The tall figure grinned. "Yes, you really do have a strange, and marvelous, genetic stew. Too many genetic cooks but despite that the dish was not spoiled, far from it. In attacking he-she-it in such a treacherous, aggressive, fashion the TwistedGod has done itself a disservice. I was freed but not only that, Brother Rogue has been freed of the last of the TwistedGod's dark influence. You JaeiouThirteen are now fully free of the TwistedGod, which you were not until now. Others are free, that I can not, and will not, speak of."

 

I shrugged. "I am used to be kept in the dark!"

 

Graham Maharg grinned. "So am I!" He lost his grin. "All of the major players have returned to the scene of the crime. That is AlphaOmega, the Living Goddess Wannabe Empress and the real TwistedGod. It hurts my pride to admit it but I was just a puppet though a powerful one for a lesser immortal. So was the GeniusThirteen and you, the JaeiouThirteen. I have to go somewhere for a while but I will be returning. Before I go, and this wonderful solid illusion ends, I have a some gifts for you."

 

The former World President, of Mars, took out of soft shimmering cube from a pouch and threw it lightly to me. I caught it easily and slipped it away at once, into a pouch, 'sensing' it was better to conceal it. He threw me two more such small cubes and some other small objects. I also 'sensed' that the gifts were of great value and importance to what was happening.

 

Graham Maharg bowed to me, to the others, smiled at the LittleFatWoman and then he vanished with a soft shimmering effect.

Edited March 24, 2013 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0133: I WAS JACKOMAN

 

The wonderful solid illusion did vanish, soon after Graham Maharg did, and now we stood in a great museum chamber.

 

There was the big ocean liner, the SS Titanic II that could also hover up to twenty metres from the surface of land or water. It was largely a replica of the original Earth SS Titanic but with far more efficient safety and other technologies. Yet it had only made its maiden voyage before being put into the museum.

 

There were other big machines there, from both the histories of Mars and Earth along with other areas of the solar system.

 

A space only Earth-Mars shuttle lay in a big cradle alongside.

 

A Martian war-tripod from the 1895 Tripodic invasion of the Earth was standing tall and threateningly as if it was about to strike with its heat-ray or other weapons.

 

There were five big Mars Terraforming machines, metal monsters on tracks.

 

There was also a luxurious orbital shuttle designed to travel between the Marslands and the Moons of Mars.

 

Two versions of Liberty Prime were there but designed as working machines, not to fight. They were known as Liberty Workers. They did not have the strong armor or force-field projectors of the Liberty Primes.

 

A zetan daughtership lay there also, being smaller than a mothership but still very large and dangerous. Except not so dangerous then and there.

 

There were other such machines and I wondered if we had been guided to that place for a reason.

 

The LittleFatWoman smiled and pointed, with out pointing, to a big machine-vehicle on tracks. "That is a very special, experimental prototype cloning machine and it was in there that you, the JaeiouThirteen, were created. I suggest strongly that you have a look in there."

 

Then she was gone, almost as if she had never been there, and I knew that I had to go into that place that, for unknown reasons, caused me much unease and a strange feeling of longing.

Edited March 25, 2013 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0134: I WAS JACKOMAN

The mobile cloning centre was, to we JaeiouThirteen, a place of great importance. We had been genetically engineered there, cloned and born from surrogate mothers. The surrogate mothers were genetically engineered clones as were the midwives, doctors and other specialists. They were in status-capsules in the huge tracked vehicle that was in two sections jointed together in a special way.

Nothing had been removed from the mobile cloning centre except for we JaeiouThirteen, or so it seemed to be.

Feeling many mixed emotions, I walked amongst the status-capsule and studied the cloned humans. It was while I was doing this that the strange, mildly disturbing shimmering went through everything. The whole museum complex had been moved to the RingBase but a changed copy of it had replaced it. Now the vast museum complex, under the National Mall, was organized the way it had been before Doomsday except for a few missing items.

=-=The groups searching the museum will be sure that they were always in the original type museum. Their experience, their memories, are altered. It is best that most people do not know what has been done or why. After Doomsday items were brought into the museum complex of special status, such as this cloning vehicle. It was best they be moved so as not to be found by such as the Orders of Steel, such as all the items in the same chamber you found this machine in.

That puzzled me for the other devices seemed to be special but not exotically so.

=-=Appearances can be deceptive. None of those other mechanisms is what they seem to be, on the surface.

I was not sure what to do next. Then it came to me that we, the JaeiouThirteen, needed to meet or perhaps even have a melding of minds.

=-=It is not safe for you, yet, to have a melding of minds. You need more healing.

Then it would just be a meeting or so I was sure.

Walking back into the big chamber, I saw that there some big devices that had been hidden from me somehow. This was despite them being massive beyond the size of the devices I had seen.

There was a massive robotic dragon, a huge mobile shuttle boost-launcher, a monstrous aeroship of a sleek saucer, a sleek look systemship (designed to travel through the solar system) called the Enterprise and a great cage like device on a great big tracked platform-vehicle.

I was damned curious and eager to discover more about everything in the chamber, including items I had yet to see, to identify, properly.

Edited March 26, 2013 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0135: I WAS THE EYE

 

Troopers of Steel surged from ditches and moved carefully, as possible, across that area of the Wastelands. Heat-rays sizzled through the air and a long crumbling house exploded dramatically. Energy weapons, and projectile weapons, were being used by both sides with deadly effect but also with a cautious use of ammo and energy charges. A power armored soldier fell and a field medic went to him quickly but it was the suit, and not the human, that was damaged; so a field techie was soon working on repairing the power armor suit.

 

Broadcast Tower KB5 stood massive, fortified, in the distance. Both sides wanted to capture it, for various strategic reasons, and did not wish to damage it. A detachment of cybermen, cyberbots and cyberdroids were making an attempt to get to the site but were being hammered by 105mm howitzers, copies of historical Earth weapons with some improvements.

 

Republican Guardsmen, atomic motorized, battletanks rumbled across the broken landscape in a counter-attack of some sort. The machines ranged from big multiple turreted monsters to smaller, faster single turreted war-machines that were still large.

 

A big sinkhole opened up beneath a battletank and the machine vanished down into the hole with a series of crashing noises almost totally lost thanks to the sounds of battle. Nobody inside were hurt but the war-machine was now useless for combat.

 

Overhead the air was dotted with dog fighting supersonic jumpjets, agile and deadly with cyberlinked pilots thinking faster than normal. Flying combat drones were up there also, fighting with the unfeeling mercilessness of such machines.

 

The battle was proving to be largely a stalemate between MP and FA Forces. It was also proving to be a slogging fight for every metre gained, or lost, despite the high mobility capacity of many machines. The ruined landscape was working against many of the abilities of the military technologies there.

 

Overhead the jumpjets only fought sporadically, retreating to refuel and rearm or even to be repaired. Every fallen pilot, or machine, was a big loss to either side.

 

Heavy machineguns hammered away as did autocannons. As darkness fell, pulsebeams flashed brighter through the air.

 

It was then that the 'small' nuclear bomb was detonated inside Broadcast Tower KB5. The advanced form of nuclear weapon unleashed a terrible blast of force and heat but no fallout. Everything caught in the inner effect of the bomb literally disintegrated including a whole lot of cybermen and two supersonic jumpjet fighters. Battletanks were picked up and hurled through the air as if they were small toys and three tripods toppled backwards, one of them burning away with its hooded creature being quite dead. Lots of power armored figures were hurled through the air along with cybermen and low floating tripocs in their exotic energy armor.

 

Many died, robotic AIs were destroyed, but many more survived thanks to modern armor and forms of energy defenses.

 

The battle was over thanks to the losses, the shocking surprise of the attack and the destruction of the target prize itself.

Edited March 27, 2013 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0136: I WAS THE EYE

 

Seven groups, each of seven parachute-canisters, floated down from the sky and landed in seven different places across the DC Wastelands. That meant 49 more canisters and 49 more reflectivatons, each capable of exploding as a 'small' nuclear weapon of an unknown kind.

 

The Marsclave Pact and Free Alliance Forces were scattered more to make them less vulnerable to nuclear attacks. Many theories, on what had destroyed Broadcast Tower KB5 were brought forth but suspicions often fell upon the strange parachute-canisters and what came from them.

 

Security was already tight with settlements but was increased. Yet it was soon evident that anybody wearing a reflectivaton could, with out too much effort, hide it wearing certain kinds of Wastelander gear. Soon people were being forced to reveal hands and heads.

 

A long distance war began between the MP and FA Forces using supersonic aircraft, long range missiles, kamikaze robots and other means. Special Forces units skirmished in the areas now between the two sides. The high commands, of both sides, struggled to come up with new strategies to deal with the new threat of nuclear destruction.

 

I followed a white glowing orb as it zipped through the air and somehow knew that it knew I was there. It could have made itself hidden to me but did not do so. That is until it suddenly vanished, having allowed only a glimpse of it. I knew that it was doing something important, and that it was linked to the LittleFatFolk, but I was not aware of how I gained this knowledge. Yet I found myself pleased that some positive forces were doing something good for the Marslands.

 

Above, way above, in low orbit of Mars there was the flashes of energy, moving lights and other signs of a large scale space battle taking place. Shocked, amazed, I managed to see military spaceships fighting big space robots; the Solar System Federation, as mentioned by Benjamin Washington, was fighting the Skynet. Except that the Skynet was not supposed to be in any condition to fight anybody, anything. Bigger flashes took place of nuclear explosions. A huge SSF battlestar was destroyed in awful glory but even as it met its doom, it took eight massive Space Hunter-Destroyers with it.

 

And on one of those SHDs I managed to note the same kind of YingYang symbol that was on the side of the exotic parachute-canisters. Could the Skynet be producing and dropping the parachute-canisters down from orbit? It seemed to be a straight forward, logical, answer to the mystery.

Edited March 29, 2013 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0137: I WAS THE EYE

The TwistedGod, the real one, made no attempt to use its captured AncientLord artifacts to free Brother Rogue from the core of the TransSphere. I was surprised by this, as were the rest of us JaeiouThirteen. Had the TwistedGod exhausted itself attacking, and destroying, he-she-it?

Scattered fighting continued between the MP and the FA Forces despite the ever present threat of more nuclear explosions taking place. Marsclave Pact Forces took control of one of the SatCom Arrays, killing fake raiders in the process or driving them off. Then MP techies were fixing up the big array tower complex and it seemed that they were attempting to make contact with something in Mars Low orbit.

From the museum complex, beneath the Grand Centropolis Mall, great machines were brought to the surface along with other resources. A luxury hovership was converted into a more useful transport of both freight and people along with anything else that needed moving. A big Terran Terraformer machine was soon rumbling across the landscape repairing roads and doing other works.

Professor James, the father of Jasmine, turned up briefly at RivetCity to gain some information from the scientists there. He seemed to be in a strange way, amazingly intense and even aggressive at times. He was quietly, but firmly, ejected from RivetCity. He was gone before a party of Republican Law Marshals arrived who had been chasing him because of a series of gristly murders, and other crimes, that James was suspected of being linked to. I could not even find James, myself, when I searched for him.

I found myself being drawn to the RingBase, of the Ringdom, to be part of a full meeting of the JaeiouThirteen. Even as I went, I kept noting other events in the DC Wastelands. Even as I vanished from the DC Wastelands, I glimpsed something that caused me much puzzlement. I assumed that I would have another chance to observe it and did not fight the pull taking me to the RingBase.

Then I was falling into the black whirlpool of some kind of bizarre anti-energy antimatter trap. It had already claimed the rest of us JaeiouThirteen.

Edited March 30, 2013 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0138: I WAS MAHARGIARTA

 

I, Mahargiarta awoke knowing a bizarre form of treachery had been carried out while I recovered from an equally bizarre form of treacherous attack. Mars Doomsday had taken place, centuries had passed and I was in a TransOrb hidden in the DC Wastelands.

 

What had happened? The LittleFatMan had abruptly turned upon me, had attacked me, but as he had done so he had changed appearance. For a moment he had worn a hooded robe, had held a mighty staff, was not like a small fat man in appearance and on his robe was a YingYang symbol. Except that it was not black and white but black and blood red in colors.

 

I had been fooled by the general kindliness of the LittleFatFolk and yet, somehow, I 'sensed' that the treachery had not been of rational choice or true awareness. There was a very deep sickness involved, a sickness of mind-body-spirit.

 

In super power armor, I inspected the TransOrb and found that it was fully regenerated from the attack by the LittleFatMan. I tuned some of the instrumentalities and then began to remember.

 

Just before the LittleFatMan had attacked me, I had dared to question him on some of the oddities of behavior by the LittleFatFolk. At first he had calmly, quietly, tried to divert the subject of conversation but then he had turned towards me, transformed and attacked.

 

=-=At last I can communicate with somebody clearly and consistently with out dealing with the TwistedGod's pressures. I was always having troubles communicating with the JaeiouThirteen in the Marslands and the GrandThirteen in Marstopia. From the start, of this whole mess, it has been the TwistedGod fighting other forces but also itself, its own fragmented sick self. I, the RingMind, was created by the AncientGod, who was the old, healthier form of the TwistedGod. That has given the TwistedGod the means to make matters difficult for me and for the whole Ringdom.

 

I looked around the big domechamber, of the TransOrb, and at the few special trophies there of various adventures I had undertaken on Mars before the treacherous attack and Doomsday had taken place on Mars. Then I quietly pushed the RingMind away for it was part of the madness of the TwistedGod and it had been the TwistedGod that had created it, not the far more ancient AncientGod..

 

I was the real 'Graham Maharg' and it had been the fake Graham Maharg, as created by the LittleFatFolk, that had given cursed gifts to the JaeiouThirteen. When the supposed gifts had been activated, they had activated the trap for the whole of the JaeiouThirteen, including the Eye. The RingMind was assisting in trapping the JaeiouThirteen but not in any fully aware, healthy manner as it was being cruelly manipulated by the TwistedGod.

 

What now? What was the best move to make? The situation was grim and I had no easy answers but there were strong possibilities, some hope.

Edited March 30, 2013 by Maharg67