Me, Myself and I

[Maharg67]

0168: I WAS MAHARGIARTA

“In all honesty I am not totally sure. There is also the factors of great complexity and very potent forces that continue to conceal parts of the truth.” The LittleFatMan sighed heavily. “We have not so much diverted disaster totally as we have given the masses of Mars, Marstopia and Marshaven a greater chance for a truly better future.”

I was puzzled. “Marshaven?”

He responded calmly. “The BubbleWorld of the Living-Goddess Children and others that dwell with them. It is now just as big as the Marslands and Marstopia, even having its own two moons. The JaeiouThirteen began to 'resurrect' people, to test-transform them, which was good in some ways but not all good. They were using abilities of the AncientGod, that had become the TwistedGod, and it was what helped to cause growing instability in the Marslands and, more so, in Marstopia.”

A good thing in the wrong time and place became a bad thing.

The LittleFatMan spoke again. “We influenced the JaeiouThirteen, in a subtle fashion, to stop them instigating any more resurrections or other such acts. The JaeiouThirteen's nature is transformed now and we, the LittleFatFolk, do not fully understand it yet. Our powers have become positive, stable but have also lessened in potency and range. It is a price we have been very happy to pay but now we are of less assistance to those who must continue to find the truth of what really has been taking place.”

A sparkling shimmer, a soft shivering, went through everything and that included us. We were both taken by surprise, partly because neither of us could fully identify what it was. It was at least partly a reality shift of some kind but it was not like any reality shift that we had experienced before. Yet we could perceive no changes around us.

Then the strong, stable voice spoke in my mind.

=-=I am RingMind of the RingOfRings and the Ringdom. The insanity is gone, there are no attacks and I am much stronger, fuller and active. JaeiouThirteen is much stronger and versatile now despite that Jasmine, Jaze, Jade, Jakeman, Jack, Jackoman, Janz, Jadekia, Jadekor and Jadekin are now removed one step from the JaeiouThirteen. We can work together and gain much more as partners.

I looked up at the blue sky far overhead. Agreed, an alliance will be fine!

Yes, it would be helpful in trying to discover the truth of what had really been happening.

[Maharg67]

Special Interlude

 

The way I ended the first part of the story, with the unfolding of events, was because of two reasons:

 

Firstly the plot was getting too complicated to finally complete though at times I felt I was getting to an ending.

 

Secondly, the use of multiple 'first person' for many characters was becoming increasingly difficult, and clumsy, to do. Most characters, once presented in the first person, will now be presented in the third person mode.

 

I hope you find the changes improves your reading experience of the story.

 

Graham (Maharg67)

[Maharg67]

0169: SHE WAS JAKEMAN

Jakeman had vague memories of the time, the events, that had been unrolled. As she viewed RivetCity, in the distance across the DC River, she huddled low beside a big, strange statue of an almost naked muscular man. She had been tracking down some PackRaiders, that is real raiders, from Vaultburg.

Unlike fake raiders, who were often drugged into berserker stupidity, the PackRaiders were 'controlled berserkers'. Despite pretending otherwise, they carried out particular missions for a powerful unnamed client. That client was nothing to do with Vaultburg itself. Some patterns were clearly repeating themselves in the new future from the 'unrolled future'.

PackRaider clones ceased to be based in Vaultburg once they became servants of the mysterious client faction. Finding their new bases had become priority for many factions but so far nobody seemed to be having much luck doing so. Jakeman hoped to follow some of the raiders back to one of those hidden bases.

In survival power armor, a big black cloak that was flexible light armor with lots of handy gadgets in hidden spaces, she noted the falling darkness. Fluorescent lights showed out in the big river of giant mutated jellyfishes drifting on the currents.

Then she heard it, with her enhanced sense of hearing, a noise that did not fit into the natural patterns of the DC Wastelands. In seconds she was on the move, zigzagging through rubble and mutated trees. She darted over the skeletal remains of a mutated bull and then crouched again, this time just inside what had been a doorway to some kind of big block building.

Down a side-street she could see PackRaiders, in light black-red power armor decorated garishly, moving along that side-street away from her. Ahead of them were three of the vertical cylinder shaped SlotOShelters that had been so mocked before Doomsday. At the expense of just a few dollar coins, or a voucher, or the use of some kind of smartcard, the shelters were supposed to save people. Experts scoffed and other complained it was a rip off. Yet nobody had spent any money, before Doomsday, except for a minority who paid for voucher-cards.

Jakeman would have ignored the SlotOShelters except that she gained, then and there, a strong but subtle sense that they were important. Then she was surprised for the thirteen cloned humans, genetic supersoldiers, halted at the cylinders and began to operate them. Only they kept going in but the doors opened to show nobody inside as more entered. In moments they were all gone.

Jakeman was not happy! She had indeed followed the PakRaiders but only to see them vanish into some SlotOShelters that gave no clues, to what had happened, though she searched them carefully. Even as the woman did this, she remembered some odd stories that had arisen on, about, Doomsday that were about SlotOShelters and some other devices like them.

Edited April 29, 2013 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0170: SHE WAS JAKEMAN

Had anybody done any real research into coin-card-voucher operated shelters? From the cylinder shaped SlotOShelters to much bigger ones, they had been fairly common through out the Marslands before Mars Doomsday so she figured there must have been some investigations done. So she hired a local motorboat, armored and gunned against local threats, to take her to RivetCity. There she met with Benjamin Washington, the quiet man who ran both the DC Preservation Centre and Society.

She gave him some PreDoomsday books that she had 'rejuvenated' to almost brand new condition. They would go, of course, into the large DC Preservation Library. Outsiders often came to view the collection, to study texts there, and deals were sometimes made.

For his private collection she gave him some genuine baseball 3Dcards.

Benjamin Washington lived with his parents, being tall quiet folk who seemed to make him much happier just by being around. They were Lucile and Lucien Washington. Jakeman had heard of them but had never met them. They came forward to meet her, which did surprise her but pleased her for their was about them a profound warmth and wisdom.

They met together in a small chamber with a metal table and wooden chairs, some carpeting and prints of PreDoomsday paintings from the Earth. Effort had been made to make to the space comforting and quiet.

Lucile spoke, with her pale white skin and large pale blue eyes, wearing a long flowing dress going down to her shins. “Benjamin is going through the archival records but we can give you some important information. On Doomsday the SlotOShelters opened up and any who went into them vanished, were teleported off to become part of Marstopia. The GeniusThirteen had planned this for themselves and had managed not to involve the JaeiouThirteen.”

Jakeman responded carefully. “So the PakRaiders could be based in Marstopia.”

Lucien shook his head. “Unlikely now that everything has 'reality shifted' and the Marslands and Marstopia are BubbleWorlds. The barriers between the two worlds are much stronger. Still there is a difference been unlikely and impossible.”

Lucile spoke then. “We are aware of the unwinding of time, of events, and other changes that 'have taken place'. RivetCity is much larger now, with the other battle-carrier being fixed up to make RivetCity even larger. It would be a good place for you to base your operations. Perhaps you could do so here, in the DC Preservation Centre. Benjamin Washington is a fine young man. No, we are not trying to marry you off to him but he could use your company even with us being here for we are not human.”

[Maharg67]

0171: SHE WAS JAKEMAN

Jakeman smiled. “I will be your son's companion, in more than one way.”

Lucien, and Lucile, smiled back in their own serene manner. Benjamin walked in, clutching a couple of large PreDoomsday books on commercial shelters, including data on the SlotOShelters. He looked puzzled when everybody smiled at him but happy when Jakeman gave him a very warm smile.

So it was that Jakeman and Benjamin Washington surprised many people by becoming, officially, a couple. They became closer as friends, co-workers and investigators but they also became lovers. Most thought that Benjamin was very lucky to have somebody above his expectations but Jakeman knew better, knew that Benjamin Washington was much more than what he seemed to be on the surface.

They did research into the PreDoomsday small commercial shelters, such as the SlotOShelters and found surprisingly little. Yet there were stories of people vanishing on Doomsday, many people who went to SlotOShelters, along with other commercial ones. There was no easy way to find out just how many had vanished, in that manner, across the Marslands.

To their surprise they found that there were even such shelters made by non government organizations (NGOs). Were there others made by the government or by secret groups? Had people vanished through those shelters as well?

Had the people gone into Marstopia? It seemed like a good, strong possibility!

Discussions began, in RivetCity, about the forming of a new United DC Republic, the UDCR. The name was considered to be a working one and it was not assumed it would be the final chosen one. Jakeman, and Benjamin, attended many discussions. It soon became clear that people were already divided on what was going on and it would take a good deal of work to even begin to create such a new nation-state. The majority of people were too busy surviving to care or so it seemed to be at the time.

It was at one of these meetings that Jakeman detected, but did not look directly at, a Unity man of some nature. There was something about him she did not like, that made her wary of him. He did not have the general calmness of the UnityWays about him. She remembered UnityPrime from 'rewound times' and wondered if the man could belong to such a dysfunctional Unity Faction.

The lesser VIP went by the name of Professor Rhinegiant and he worked for an organization known as the Post Doomsday Reconstruction Agency. She did not know much about the agency except that it was partly funded by the infamous Tenpenny Family; that, in itself, was enough to make her very suspicious of both the organization and the professor. The DC Wastelands fostered secret conspiracies in quite large numbers though most of were failures.

[Maharg67]

0172: SHE WAS JAKEMAN

Jakeman walked casually along the metallic corridor of the Weatherly Hotel, the only one in the battle-carrier that served many visitors to the Scientific Research Development Centre, the RivetCity Markets or the DC Preservation Centre or more than one of these. A few locals made their permanent homes there.

Jakeman was not seen in any threatening way by a RivetCity Security Guardsman who made her way past the other woman. RivetCity Security assisted the RivetCity Sheriff's Office in keeping law and order and the Sheriff's Office assisted the security people at times.

Nobody asked her why she was there because, for one thing, that corridor was used by many folks passing through the hotel area with no wish to stop there. As she came closer to Professor Rhinegiant's hotel room, one of the minority of more expensive ones, meaning luxurious by Wastelands standards but hardly by PreDoomsday ones.

The door was ajar but not by too much. She 'sensed' that something was wrong. The door should not have been open that way; it should either be wide open or securely shut, as going along with typical Wastelander paranoia.

The professor lay sprawled, dead, over his bed in silken pajamas. The chamber had been carefully searched but not ransacked. She guessed items were missing but many valuable items had not been stolen. Somebody had assassinated the man in a very quick, professional manner with a single shot to the forehead, most likely by a .22LR calibre pistol that had mostly probably been silencer equipped. Rhinegiant was still clutching a powerful revolver-pistol in his left hand.

Others had been there, of course, and yet psychic impressions had been deliberately blurred, fragmented, as somebody had tried to wipe them away but had failed. Jakeman found no difficulty in picking up some important impressions clearly.

The merchant, Bannon, had been there, being a man who had died in a future that had been rewound so that he lived 'again'. Bannon was not a man that Jakeman, or many others, trusted. He would need to be investigated.

Another had been there, apart from the assassin, that seemed oddly familiar somehow but in a general fashion. Then she had it! One of the UnityWays had been there and not long before, had left the room just before her in such a hurry that they had left the door partly open.

The security guard, another woman! Jakeman realized that she could not remember seeing her as a security guard before that moment in the hallway. She had made the assumption that, with the steadily increasing population of RivetCity, that the guard was a new recruit. No, it was a UnityWays agent of some kind.

[Maharg67]

0173: SHE WAS JAKEMAN

The security guard had been an imposter, was an infiltrator, which did not surprise Jakeman at all. The Sheriff's forensics people investigated the bedroom as well as they could, with Jakeman assisting them. RivetCity Security was far from pleased that an intruder had pretended to be one of their own.

RivetMan, a fairly eccentric superhero in rivet steel like armor, appeared on the scene but only briefly before racing off, with RivetGirl plus other sidekicks, to deal with some bandits. Since the 'time rewind' such figures 'were' more common across the Wastelands; the same could be said for other entities.

Sheriff Palmer showed up and looked relieved when he heard that RivetMan, and his followers, had not staid long. “RivetMan has the strength of riveted steel but also the flexible thinking of the same.” The short and solid man stood in fatigues of the RivetCity Sheriff's Department. They were security type fatigues with different badges, and patches, on them. “I don't like it when the heavy crimes come this way, when the DC Factions are involved; I would rather deal with petty criminals and bandits any day. This looks to be messy.”

By 'messy' he meant more than the physical mess of the death. Something of high value had been brought to RivetCity, the carrier had been killed and then UnityWays was proven to be involved somehow. That the dead man was a lesser VIP, of one of the dark Unity groups, made things even worse.

Jakeman went seeking the UnityWays agent but not by the appearance she had worn. It was almost certain that the appearance had been fake. Yet she did not find her and neither had the plain clothes Security people who also went hunting for her. Who ever the agent was, she was a highly skilled professional for she covered her tracks with impressive skill.

The assassin, and the other, were gone from RivetCity!

Word came to RivetCity that the Orderhood of Steel, with various Orders, had arrived suddenly from the west and had quickly taken over the DC-Citadel, a hitech fortress that no locals had managed to take over before. The newcomers came with security codes, special maps and high security keycards that let them enter while the autorobotic defense-security network-systems allowed them to do so. The Orderhood had cleverly sneaked into the area through a series of deeply buried military tunnels.

Jakeman had no doubt that this was just the vanguard, that many other Orderhood of Steel Forces would be arriving. She was not the only one but, unlike most others, she knew it would be a great mass of people, machines and other resources. Yet even she was to be taken by surprise by what was to come. At that time she was more focused on other tasks.

[Maharg67]

0174: SHE WAS JASMINE

Jasmine was 'again' living in TekVaultDC101 but it was bigger than the one she had 'once' dwelt in. The 'unwinding of time' made matters hard to explain, to describe, at times. She was in DemivaultDC101E again but it was not 'again' because of all of the changes. The size, complexity, population and other facets of the whole vault had transformed.

She was with her friends and they were busy doing some illegal hacking into the VaultNet, the supercomputer network of network-systems that served multiple purposes. That is some of them were doing the actual hacking while the others watched, played around or did other things.

None of the others had the 'future memories' of a world that had been altered and then vanished.

There was Amata, DJ-Zoe, Zack, the Huck Twins and Opo the radroach but 'now also' Steph, Shane and Sarah as in two females and one male triplets.

Amata was observing closely what was taking place, nervous as her father was the Overseer of DemivaultDC101E, but eager to learn more of his secrets.

DJ-Zoe was in the background quietly working on some new material for her VaultNet audio-visual program that so far she had not been allowed to air.

The Huck Twins were working their own illegal terminal, being Andy and Emmy Huck, but in careful coordination with others doing hacking.

Zack was sitting quiet sentry duty, watching monitors that linked with small hidden 3Deyes and alarm sensors around their hidden place. Opo, the purple radroach, was sleeping comfortably on his lap. She was toilet trained.

The Yates Triplets were running another illegal terminal while Jasmine had her own.

As a hacker team they had gotten into the VaultNet secured data sectors but not into the more heavily secured ones. Still, they had gained some valuable data on the oppressive security department and its various operations. There had recently been a suppression of increasing public protests against the demivault government; more chilling was a small purge that had seen eighteen dissidents vanish. While DemivaultDC101E did have over 300.000 people, the official vanishing of that many people was still alarming. That all were influential, and popular, made matters worse.

They came upon the datafile, that at first seemed to be just one amongst a whole bunch of secondary important data, and downloaded it. Even as it was being downloaded, something 'twigged' with Jasmine and drew her to it. As she went, very rapidly and efficiently, through the datafile she became quite angry and fearful for the missing dissidents.

[Maharg67]

I am sorry but I am ceasing to write this topic for a while, at least, though I will not have it locked. I am going to focus on a new story topic called EverEpic. I hope to introduce characters etc. from this topic into that one.

 

If you disagree with this please post.

 

I am also going on with Maharg67's Den and the Curse of Quamaire.

 

Edited May 16, 2013 by Maharg67