Me, Myself and I

[Maharg67]

0039: ME, MYSELF AND I (PLUS OTHERS)

 

I, Jakeman, left Madison Li in charge of the project of bringing PuddyTat out of status. With Benjamin Washington, I went to another hidden area which was the last one that he knew of that was inside RivetCity. It was a large, sealed off chamber, with a fairly low ceiling and cumbersome intrusive bulkheads that clearly had not been meant for storage. Yet it held hundreds of tightly sealed, heavily locked, lightly armored storage-canisters, lidboxes and hardware databank containers along with other items. Many of the 'other' items were of a surprising nature such as sealed up stacks of official restricted bulletin magazines, prototypes of various hitech devices, working models, holotape projectors, some archival robots and even two archival clerk androids. It was an amazing treasure trove of data and, in its own way, just as important as the other finds. Problem was it was all disorganized and had to be carefully sorted, cataloged and analyzed by skilled, trusted people.

 

I, Jackoman, was slowed in my approach to the zetan saucership. As yet I did not know if it was a great mothership, a more common secondary daughtership or a much more common battlesaucer, huntersaucer or some other kind of smaller saucership. I had come to suspect it was at least a daughtership, in size, but was perhaps one of the rare kinds of special saucerships that the zetans used. The closer that we, my rhouler companion and I, got closer to the saucership chamber, the more vireclaws and zetargs we encountered but the less ghouls we ran into. Then we began to find signs of hivaca monsters in the area including smaller but very savage hunters and small swarms of spiderva larvae seeking to stun and infest living creatures. We also found growing evidence of brutally savage battles being waged between the three kinds of creatures. I was starting to think that all three kinds of entities had come from the saucership.

 

I, Jack, was disappointed, but not surprised, when the UnityPrime people vanished along with a subway train full of valuable stuff taken from the subway station. Fighting broke out but there were UnityPrime infiltrators amongst the opposing force. UnityPrime also came out with other nasty surprises such as power armored soldiers, powerful battle-roboremotes and special support weapons. They got away with only some light casualties while doing great damage to Megaton by taking much more than they had put into the place. I was extremely angry with UnityPrime and was hardly alone in this. Yet many locked away resources remained including robots, working trains, status-containers of food rations and much else. There were large lidboxes filled with stimpaks, x-meds, bottles of psycho and many other powerful medicants. There were crates of odd items like small robotic teddy-bears, some robotic ponies, two atomic motorized family sedans and five atomic motorized military hummers with moderate armor and weapon turrets. There were workshops, a medical centre and much more that could be soon put to use and yet more facilities that need only light work done on them. My mother, and sister, vanished with the others.

 

I, Jasmine, woke and remembered all of the dreamlinking dreams with Catherine and others. The news that my father was 'possessed' somehow was not the surprise I would have expected it would be. I had always found myself oddly wary of my father and very reluctant to speak to him of certain matters. I had never spoke to him of Me, Myself and I, of our special nature as many being almost as one. He knew of Unity, though not much, and it would be easy to assume we were of Unity, which we were not. James told me that the vaultfolk, of ScienceCity, had detected the 'reality shifts' using their arrays of refined hitech equipment. As in the past, he refused to say much about ScienceCity and I 'sensed' many strong, dark, feelings in him when he mentioned it. Around us there were plans being formed on how the alliance, of two demivaults, could help the whole vault against the threat of a ShadowOne, the brainbugs and the vireclaws.

 

I, the Eye, kept on doing what I always did.

Edited December 27, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0040: WE WERE JAZE, JADE AND JANZ

 

We came slowly to full awareness, to full functionality, and we took direction, coordination and supervision of the RingBase and the RingBaseland. We did so through out the time of Jasmine, Jack and Jakeman arising to fuller awareness of themselves, of their world, of much else.

 

We noted that Catherine, the mother of Jasmine and Jakeman, was there in the Primary Domeland of the RingBaseland. We communicated with her.

 

We noted the peoples, flora and fauna, of the RingBaseland, of the Thirteen Domelands.

 

We learned, relearned, much and dealt with some necessary problems that the RingMind had not been able to deal with while we were in deep healing sleep. Other problems we noted, assessed and left to deal with later when we were stronger.

 

Other decisions were made.

 

We were very busy!

Edited December 27, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0041: I WAS THE EYE

 

Marsclave Stormtroopers led the push from the north-west but these elite power-armored soldiers, with their backup of battle-mechas and hovertanks, were outnumbered by regular, less elite, Forcetroopers, armored robotic humanoids of battledroids and other elements including vertibirds and jumpjets. Over half, though, were grandly named Auxiliary Troopers being basically trained, armed and armored Wastelanders used as cannon fodder.

 

Five great crawler-trains moved on huge tracks, being heavily armed and armored. They looked the same but one was the disguised headquarters. The others were a service-support tech centre, a hospital, a 'special purposes centre' and two mobile depots with masses of spare equipment and extra supplies. The Marsclave, founded on its Enclaves, was relatively powerful and resources rich by Wastelands standards; yet it suffered from shortages of some resources and was limited in what it could do. Many of its campaigns were designed to gather resources, to take command of sources of resources and to deny such to enemies or potential enemies. Twenty-two smaller, but still larger, crawler-trains carried out many purposes from troop transportation to workshops to communications and much else. Three didn't seem to do much more than just go along with the great, wide spread, column.

 

Facing them were supermutants better led, equipped and trained. From TekVaultDC087, they were led by the SupermutantLord who was no less than a behemoth with grand intelligence and strong strategic skills. Not only did he deploy his supermutants better, but seemed to have greater control on their wildness. Along with the supermutants were the fast crawling zentaurs (sometimes called centaurs in the past), clumsily flying zentiars and squat humanoid zentoids. The zentoids used basic weapons along with inbuilt weapons of toxic-gel spitting, whip tentacles and electric shock touch.

 

Fighting had broken out between forward elements and they were still skirmishing in loose patterns in a blasted area of the DC where once great battles had been waged. There were trenches, craters, smashed warmachines, skeletal remains in power-armor and much else. It was strange seeming that the great majority of DC Wastelanders kept away from the area, considering the strong loot potential there, but truth was strange things happened there. Many of those strange happenings were on the horrific side. The supermutants did not want to fight in such a place, refusing to fight in smaller numbers but always moving in fairly large groups. Their enemies did not much like fighting in isolation either, also 'sensing' strange and disturbing things about the area of Blazewarand. Blazewarand had once been a very high class, hitech, mansion estate area with large mansions and large walled off properties of great luxury and high security. Nothing much remained of that Blazewarand except for such as low hulking fortified structures once owned by the more paranoid of wealthy folk.

 

In Blazewarand had been used, on Doomsday, some unique prototype super-weapons; they had been used nowhere else.

 

Fighting units, on both sides, began to report strange incidents such as the brief sightings of shadowy things, the smelling of strange stinks, odd shimmering of air, strange tremblings of the ground, strange marks and much else. Then smaller units began to vanish totally or a few survivors spoke of fighting bizarre creatures coming up out of the ground; that is bizarre even by Wastelands standards, which was saying a great deal.

 

I, the Eye, knew the true nature of some of the attacking creatures, knew them to be vireclaws, vireclaw-puppets, zetargs and hivaca larvae of spiderva and bigger hivaca creatures. I soon found the zetan saucership hidden beneath the ground, in a big open smart-concrete chamber where it probably had emergency teleported to. The saucership was no standard zetan type; indeed it seemed to be influenced by other alien tech and concepts of design. The thing was smaller than a standard mothership but bigger than a standard daughtership; it was, in other words, huge. Creatures were coming out of it, were often fighting each other.

 

Yet there were also zetan soldiers, in exotic energy-armor including bubble-helmets, with zetandroid (zetan android) soldiers supporting them along with hovering zetadrone robots. The zetan disintegration rayguns wiped out the enemies, even the powerful deadly hivaca, with ease; except the zetanic force was greatly outnumbered and only able to defend itself, along with its area at the saucer, along with an area close to it. I noted something very non zetanic about the zetans for they were each equipped with a kind of biometallic skullcap that was not like anything zetan; they were under some kind of control.

 

I carefully noted the nature of other entities.

 

The main, opposing, forces did not meet for a while. The Marsclave Field-Marshal was reluctant to enter Blazewarand with out learning more about the area. He was already making plans on how to go around it. The SupermutantLord was in much the same mood with even the almost mindless, cunning basic zentaurs being reluctant to enter the blasted toxic war zone. Units were drawn out of Blazewarand and to the bigger forces out from the edge of it.

Edited December 27, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0042: I WAS JAKEMAN

 

They came out of the Wastelands and apparently had nothing to do with Me, Myself and I but this was not true. They were supposedly a group of survivalist refugees with many resources included highly skilled, and experienced, folk of many kinds. There were soldiers, techies, caretakers, doctors, laborers, artisans, scientists and many others. They came in a convoy of atomic motorized and electric motorized vehicles of altered CityLiners, trucks, other kinds of buses, utes (light pickups), heavy pickups and other machines including three big country country semitrailer trucks (road-trains), They were made welcome because they were badly needed but also for other reasons. With grand speed I welcomed them to assist me with the various programs, projects, I was helping to run.

 

There came 1,534 newcomers including humans, animal-humans, smart-androids, smart-robots (with True AI), friendly supermutants, rhouls and some odd other types of folk. With them were less smarter robots, roboremotes and dumb-androids. It was odd just how quickly they were accepted by the RivetCityfolk as if the locals were under some kind of non harmful influence.

 

I stood high on a ship balcony, facing northwards shoreward and watched as the jetty area of RivetCity welcomed the great convoy of vehicles. Even as I saw the individuals coming out of the machines at the secured area of buildings close to, and on, the big jetties, I knew that the newcomers had come from some place called RingBaseland that was somehow both familiar and mysterious to me. It was part of my returning memories and other knowledge. In the distance was the great hulking building, Pseudoroman in fashion with great columns beneath a great black solar dome of a roof. It was the Maharg Memorial for the first, and only, World President of Mars being one Graham Maharg. The tall figure sat on a great throne that was part classical and part science fictional in appearance. Word had come that a group of supermutants had appeared at the memorial, by surprise, and had begun fighting a large group of ghoul slavers (that is enslavers of ghouls). Despite DC Factions, like the Orders of Steel and the NDCR, being against slavery, it still prospered in some areas of the DC.

 

Harkness came up to stand beside me. "Odd that nobody had questioned the appearance of the newcomers more than they have done. Odd, also, how quickly they have joined your cause. This is most illogical. You wanted to see me."

 

I turned to the Security Marshal of RivetCity. "Do you know what you are?"

 

He gave me a puzzled look. "A typical Wastelander human who spent time as an elite mercenary to the far west of here. I have never hidden my past... well except for some bits and pieces."

 

I spoke the code words briefly and Harkness froze for a moment and then frowned at me. "I had those data-memories suppressed for a reason. Yes, I am an experimental android as escaped from the Citystates Commonwealth. Indeed I am part organic so as to disguise my true nature, being a kind of android-cyborg. Why did you do this to me? How did you learn of the code?"

 

He was agitated but not truly angry or shocked. Perhaps he figured somebody would use the code on him sooner or later. "I learned of the code from the Mysterious Stranger, as he likes to be known as. He warned me that commonwealth Bladerunners have entered the DC in pursuit of you and that the famous scientist, Doctor Zimmer, is soon to arrive at RivetCity in an advanced airship of the kind constructed in the CS-Commonwealth. He comes with high level replicant androids as companions along with one human, a young woman, as his assistant. The commonwealth speak of the Bladerunners as being standard humans."

 

"Bladerunners are either high end replicants, as I was, or are metahuman clones with cybernetic augmentations." Harkness nodded as if to himself. "Why not leave me thinking I was Harkness?"

 

"Because Zimmer is bringing with him equipment that will detect your true nature at close range and the young woman assistant may be a Bladerunner. It seems you carry many prototype hitech secrets hidden inside you. I will find a way to help you if you allow me to do some special scans and sensor sweeps of your network-systems." I sighed. "You can trust me that I will not try to do you any harm. What I will do is find an organic substitute for you, as Harkness, who will take suspicion away from you by easily being scanned as human. I would do so even if you do not agree to be scanned, sensor swept, for I hate slavery of all kinds and that naturally includes slavery of androids. One good reason I can offer, for your cooperation, is that we will inform you of the secrets buried inside you. They have been kept from you and we know they have not been accessed or, in some cases, even discovered by others. Doctor Pinkerton, the recluse in the other battle-carrier, did not even discover many of them when he redid your face and wiped your memories."

 

He nodded at me. "Very well, I will cooperate, but it seems that I need a new home. I hope you will help find me one."

 

I nodded in response. "Agreed!"

Edited December 27, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0043: I WAS JAKEMAN

 

With the new, and older, research development projects being boosted, RivetCity was starting to prosper very much. The advanced hydroponics, and fish tank farms, were starting to provide much food to the people and food would soon be exported. The Sages of Steel began settling in fully into their new R-and-D Base. A garrison of Republican Guardsmen arrived being a brigade. A smaller, but more deadly, garrison of Steel Brothers came also. The SVR capsulechairs, and more basic set-ups, were now being used by more people. Other plans were forming and being implemented. The newcomers were now running, or helping to run, many programs and projects.

 

I had not managed to the SVR Place of Doors, as I had come to call it, though I had far from forgotten it.

 

The thick metallic panels had been set in place over thick armored power-doors and then had been melded into place. It was clear that the former command of the battle-carrier had not wanted anybody to access at least 50% of its interior.

 

Areas closer to that 50% often had sealed off chamber filled with interesting useful, very useful or semi-useful goods. Some battle-carrier special robots were found, designed to work on-in the carrier with many tasks. A smaller hanger space was entered to show rows of jumpjets, hub-rotor helicopters and vertibirds. There were two longer range STOL (short take off and landing) courier aircraft, jet-platforms and jet-packs. Many utility chambers, hallways and other spaces were accessed.

 

It turned out that the whole 50% of sealed off area, that had been sealed off so heavily, was was the back half (aft) of the ship. No access could be gained from the multiple-decks of the battle-carrier including the flight-decks where flying-machines had long been gathered up and repaired, reused or recycled in various ways. Airships, and other aircraft, used one of the main flight-decks. Such as weapon turrets, and defense placements, continued to be used as such. The more the situation was investigated, the stranger it came to seem. The former command of the battle-carrier had closed it down and then, seemingly, had abandoned it though it was needed in the war.

 

The first status-bagged corpses were found heaped in a small antechamber to a larger chamber half full of empty military supply containers of different kinds. They were strangely skinny, dessicated, as if life energies had been drawn from them along with much of the substances of their bodies. Each one of them had been neatly shot in the forehead and solar plexus but after death. There were 13 bodies in the first find but then another nine were found. When the bodies were examined, I promptly declared that the sealed off part of the battle-carrier had to remain sealed off.

 

I declared an urgent meeting of the newer, bigger RivetCity Leadership Council that included the old members. We went over the reasons for not going into the heavily sealed of half of the massive battle-carrier which were that something extremely dangerous lurked there, something that had been sealed in by the last command of the battle-carrier back when it was an active, but damaged, war-machine. I showed 3D-images of the dead bodies that had died of unknown means except that I spoke briefly of some ancient 'curse' known as the undeath, the desolation of the soul and the X-infection-infestation or XII.

 

There was some skepticism but only Bannon declared that we should break through the bulkheads with out hesitation to seek what ever profitable resources were there. He was easily outvoted and a major quarantine was declared to be enforced by robots, turrets, sentries, patrols and other means. I did not trust Bannon but I had no good reason to legally have him locked up or otherwise dealt with.

 

I need not have worried about Bannon but perhaps for him; two hours after the meeting his dead body was found in his rather luxurious apartment, dotted with valuable items he had stolen from RivetCity. His shredded body had been hurled across expensive silken sheets so he lay below a large, antique oil painting with a face twisted with agony and terror. I began to explore the apartment and soon discovered that Bannon had more than earned his death. He had been the worst kind of selfish, greedy fool there was and had committed many crimes, including that of murder.

Edited December 27, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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0044: I WAS JACKOMAN

 

A great breakthrough came, of knowledge and understanding of what was going on in the DC, when we two found the great chamber with the active Waygate. The teleportation device was a vertical metallic stone archway on a horizontal metallic stone disk. It was an ancient alien artifact, an AAA. The rhouler, and I, went closer to it and I, to my surprise, found I could read the ancient 3Dsymbolics on the Waygate and operate it fully. Thus I found that the Waygate led to the area known as Blazewarand, or at least below it. Blazewarand had a very bad reputation for some experimental prototype super-weapons had been used there and had helped to create some very exotic dangers. There were plenty of signs in the Waygate dome shaped chamber, of metallic stone, that many nasty kinds of creatures had come through it including hivaca, vireclaws and zetargs. So the sauce of the entities was actually Blazewarand which, of course, indicated that the zetan saucership was there and was likely the very one that the Eye had observed briefly.

 

We went through the Waygate, through a 11.1 metre long energy tunnel of a Waygateway, and out through another Waygate. What we found was both amazing and appalling. A great smart-concrete chamber had been the battleground of hundreds of monstrous creatures trying to slaughter each other. Brutal hivaca fighting bugs, zetargs like savage zetan monkeys and virelclaw-puppets of former zhouls and other creatures, were scattered in pieces across the great area. Things were there, feeding on the dead, like great bloated purple ticks floating just above the floor but they acted as carrion eaters only and were non threatening to us.They seemed able to consume, to digest, to utilize even the hard biometallic biomechanical remains of the hivaca.

 

Then three big, tall, bizarre humanoids approached us, each with double jointed legs and arms, each with bone-skin of smooth, hairless quality and off-white color. They came to a halt before us and stood a good deal higher than either of us. Each held long, smooth, metallic spears but other devices including some human guns altered so their strange hands could use the weapons.

 

I spoke their language fluently, taking myself by surprise even as I did so. "What are the people of Zazataza doing here in a world far from their own?"

 

The big male-female figure spoke. "One of the small fleshy ones knows fluently our language? This is much of a surprise to us! Aaahhh, you are more than you seem to be on the surface. Your companion is more than just one of those poor, damaged rhouls of which many have come to shelter with us in return for labors done and some small blood donations given. We are Zazateps of Zazataza of two moons. Our world is somehow tied to this one, now. Our fair, and high minded, Emperor the Empress sent us to investigate disturbing anomalies close to our border with the barbaric Zazatops, may the GodGoddess spray foul scents upon them so their mating seasons are diminished. We found a Waygate of the AncientGods, the living gods-goddesses, and came through it only to find it would not let us return through it."

 

Entities of Zazataza were generally friendly but odd in nature and one had to be wary with them. I bowed briefly. "I will take a look at the Waygate and see what I can do to allow you to return to your home world."

 

I 'sensed' that the entity had told me the truth but not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I became even more wary.

 

The one bowed a little and a little oddly. "One is AgrandoZazio of Vellumatao. One washes at grand temples and feasts at the celebratory centre of the Emperor the Empress. Monsters there are here, far too many monsters! Those damned hivaca, that once tried to invade our world but were destroyed before they could do so, those zetargs like squat twisted zetans and those other repulsive vireclaws but not only them. Shadowy things that are vaguely humanoid, flickering here and there, driven away by bright light and harmed by ultraviolet light. Yes, there are others like zetans controlled by some kind of disturbing, oppressive, unknown form of invisible intelligence. Then there are ghouls of varied kinds, most being savage berserker zhouls except that they, like others, are leaving the area now infested by more powerful creatures than themselves. Much comes from the teleport-crashed zetan saucership that does not seem like any typical zetan saucership."

 

At that I was thoughtful. "As if a zetan saucership had been captured and heavily altered."

 

AgrandoZazio responded at once. "Yes, as if that had happened but by whom, or what, we do not know. We do know it is teleport-crashed in a great broken concrete chamber. It will not easily fly, or teleport, again. We know that monstrous things come out of it every day, that more have come out of a ship that size than surely could have ever been inside it."

 

That was strange but no less stranger than the rest of the situation was.

Edited December 27, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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Edited December 27, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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0045: I WAS JACK

 

I smiled at Moira as she bustled around the bedroom, wearing only a raggedy Tshirt with holes, efficiently putting items in the wrong place so I could, later, put them in the right place. At least she consistently put them in the same wrong places. I had much to think about but kept some focus for lovely Moira Brown. Out of seemingly nowhere, 2,015 people had arrived at Megaton and were welcomed with surprising ease. They were hitech refugees, the story went, from a failing LifeVault just outside of DC. They brought many specialists including skilled people, robotics, some laser weaponry, androids, genetically engineered plants adapted to Wastelands conditions and much else. Soon they were taking over a whole subvault, of the Megaton LifeVault, as left largely empty by the departing UnityPrime folk.

 

As for the Emporium, had had found three more chambers that I would very much keep secret from most, at least for a time. One housed a super virtual reality centre almost identical to that hidden in RivetCity. A second was a big space neatly half filled with hitech and ultratech devices, far more many hitech than the other. The third was a big apartment chamber with smaller antechambers for a kitchen, two bathrooms, two toilet-rooms, two storerooms and some others including some spare ones. When some of the strangers, not really strangers to me, came into the Emporium as employees, I had shown them the chambers.

 

The Mysterious Stranger walked quietly, smoothly into the room, and yet Moira turned to smile at him warmly. He smiled back at her and then at me before speaking. "I suggest that both of you put some clothes on and you, sweetest Moira, change Tshirts to one that is less revealing."

 

I slipped out of bed and was soon dressed. Modesty was not a huge thing in the Wastelands thanks to a whole lot of powerful influences, though it varied of course. We went into the normal kitchen-dining chamber of the Emporium and found that breakfast had been prepared already by a domestic android in the form of one Manda, an attractive middle aged woman by appearance. Manda sat quietly at the table, not pretending to eat or drink because there were no strangers there.

 

The MS spoke calmly, with a strong voice natural to him. "I have examined the three new chambers you found. There appears to be a secret super virtual reality based network, of network-systems, through out the DC and beyond. You will be able to meet Jakeman in the Special Chamber of Doors. Whether you choose to go through the 'doors' is up to you. I can tell you that they are not all yet active but three, of the thirteen, are so. The doors lead not into super virtual reality zones but into ultimate virtual reality zones, sometimes known as real virtual reality. One active door leads to the Complexity, another to the AllUniversity and the third to the CircleGardens. All three realms reflect reality as it was in the Martian Colonies before Mars Doomsday took place with many of the same technologies, forms of architecture, subway networks and much else. Except that the realms are in good condition, unlike the Wastelands. Except that each has its own forms of threat along with threats that have come from the outside."

 

I nodded, mind going through various possibilities. "What of my mother and UnityPrime? Do we need to confront the Subway Union?"

 

Moira had gotten distracted so Manda began brushing her hair, fussing over her. I would explain things, to Moira, later.

 

The MS frowned softly. "Changes have taken place in the Subway Union. UnityPrime was not only ousted from power by UnityAll, a new movement of Unity, but was exiled from the Subwayer Territories for crimes committed against both Unity and NonUnity. That is except about 30% of UnityPrime who left them to remain part of the union and to become part of UnityAll. UnityPrime has been becoming so extreme, so estranged from UnityWays, that it is ceasing to be really Unity at all. As for your mother, she is a 'double agent' who really serves UnityAll and she has been serving UnitySecurity all along. She has been doing a difficult, a dangerous task, and it is feared that she may have become compromised. Unity, I fear, is not really unified. The troubles of Unity are somehow linked with the appearance of strange 'monsters' in the DC, of the kind that both Jasmine, and Jackoman, are having to deal with. Perhaps both are linked, in turn, with the heavily secured, deeply hidden, SVRNNS."

 

I could not think of any obvious link between the three and yet I had very little solid data to go on. There was much to learn.

 

There was also the mystery of our, my, true nature to deal with.

Edited January 23, 2013 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0046: I WAS JACK

 

Learning that mother was a 'double agent' explained why she had been behaving the way that she had been. Yet I could not quite accept that she had to be so damned cold towards me. She had never been overly warm towards me or towards anybody else, as far as I knew. My sister had always been the same way. My feelings were still mixed towards Elaine.

 

I stood in the semi-enclosed balcony of an Emporium that had grown bigger with the last 'reality shift'. I looked out over a Megaton that had changed in various ways though the vast majority of folks did not know it. Megaton was far from totally changed. The crater was perhaps a quarter larger than it had been. The false super-weapon was gone from the bottom of the crater, was now in the larger Church of Atom, and there was a bowl shaped lake at the bottom of it. The water pumping treatment plant was bigger, now pumping water from deeper down. There were more solar power arrays and greenhouses. Painted murals decorated many walls of the cleaner, neater, better organized Inner Megaton. The Sheriff's Office was large and sported a proper jail section with more secure but also more comfortable cells. Power wind-cylinders spun quickly high above. There were more walkways, platforms, rampways and, more important, the layout was safer, more efficient complete with safety-nets. There were also more defenses and both a larger armory and a secondary armory hidden away.

 

The new kind of dartgun was being manufactured by the Megaton CoOp, now larger than it was with more workshops and small factories along with a recycling centre. Moira was most pleased and was having a 'girls party, with some young settler women, so she could brag about what was happening in her own flustered fashion. I turned my head when Professor Brown came striding up and stopped to look out over Inner Megaton. He frowned softly. "So you are going to show me the hidden chambers that I have known of, much of life, but which, somehow, I could not enter."

 

It somehow did not surprise me that he knew about the chambers. I nodded. "Did you meet my biological father."

 

He frowned. "You had two biological fathers, as impossible as that seems, your legal father being one of them. He was a very proud man, a mixture of survivalist and merchant-trader. He never quite forgave your mother for making a deal with your other biological father. He was never angry with you but he vanished before you could start to remember him properly."

 

I shook my head. "I remember everything, even that which I would rather forget. You say that he 'vanished'. Most people say he just slipped away in the night."

 

The professor frowned hard. "Hhhmph! What would they know? No, he vanished for he left all of his stuff behind except what he had on him, including items he would need to survive in the Wastelands. By the time he vanished, he had begun divorce proceedings with your mother through what we call a 'court system' here in Megaton. Your mother made sure he would walk away with much less than she would get but he did not care about that. The night, after the one on which he vanished, all of his personal property vanished from the hut that he was staying in. Suspicions fell upon the Moriarty Family, and other low down folk in Megaton, but I do not believe that they had anything to do with what happened. The hut was well armored and locked. Along with that your father did not have much of great value, at least not monetary value."

 

I had heard of father's vanishing but not about the disappearance of his stuff.

 

I spoke. "You know something of my true nature."

 

He frowned. "Yes! Your prime biological father was wounded, was damaged of mind, body and spirit. He spoke of entities that were multiple bodies almost as one but which were not to be confused with Unity or variants of the same, though you are related like distant genetic cousins. He spoke briefly of many things but then he copulated with your mother before he vanished. I suppose he died and you, along with others, were his returning. His other bodies had been damaged also, being two females. Perhaps one was destroyed, he would not speak much of such matters. If you take me to the hidden chambers, the ones I once entered but which were then sealed to me, I will explain further of what took place."

Edited December 30, 2012 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

0047: I WAS JACK

 

The tall, aged but stocky built Professor Brown stood in the center of the big chamber with two walls of hitech devices and, then hidden, also ultratech devices. He smiled at me in a way that I found slightly annoying for it was a knowing look with mild condescension. "I suppose I know more about this place, in some ways, than you do."

 

I shook my head and, in an off handed way, knocked down any advantage he thought he might have in the way of possible negotiations. "Memories, knowledge, are returning of this place. You will not be given free, unquestioned, access to this chamber and its resources. Already I have created some advanced medicants for the Megatonfolk along with some smallish hitech devices for the CoOp, hospital, the community school and the Sheriff. I have only used the hitech devices to do so. The ultratech is dangerous to use. I suspect my prime father brought it here for more than one reason and that would be to protect it. This chamber, along with the other two with it, the hallways and other spaces, have an odd 'feel' to them. Do you not feel it?"

 

The professor frowned at me. "No, not really, but the ultratech might explain that. You are more 'sensory sensitive' than a human like myself."

 

I shook my head again. "You are a neoghoul, a ghoul of psyker abilities able to blend into human populations. You convinced the Brown Family you are a distant cousin."

 

He shook his head. "Not fully but I bribed them and they accepted me, along with an annual payment of good quality coinage and trade-goods. As you can tell I am not exactly living amongst them, which is more of a blessing than a curse. Poor Moira! Apart from a handful of Browns, the family never did treat her fairly. I suspect you do not think it is the ultratech devices that causes the feeling of 'oddness' that you are picking up, that is perhaps disturbing to you."

 

I shook my head yet again. "It comforts me! We are not in Megaton or even in the DC Wastelands. Indeed we are not truly on-in Mars any more. We are in part of.... well I do not know."

 

=-= A TransOrb, basically a transdimensional lifeboat that did belong to a far larger TransOrbship, being the kind of vessel your real kind use to live a nomadic existence in the Multiverse, the universality of universes. It is orb shaped as an orb inside an orb that is inside the other orb; the orbs are, in a way, inside each other.

 

I sighed and wondered how it managed to make some kind of sense to me. I turned to Professor Brown. "Do you know what really happened to my 'secondary' biological father, which is not a term I care to use."

 

He turned to me, with a frown. "He changed his identity to that of Frank Harrington, a fictional distant cousin such as myself. He was with you for many years, was like a father to you in many ways but staid clear of your mother, Elaine. Then, as you know, he went on an expedition and never came back, that being about five years ago."

 

That was both bad and sad news. Somehow it was also no surprise to me. Frank Harrington had been a father figure to me just as my maternal grandmother had always been my real mother to me.

 

"Why did he change his identity?" I frowned softly for I had been becoming more deeply tuned with the TransOrb and, in doing so, was picking up more about my visitor. "Was he in danger?"

 

Professor Brown shrugged. "In all honesty I was never very close to your 'secondary biological father'. He did not trust me, much, and I was wary of him. I suspect that he detected my real nature, that is my hidden ghoulish nature, though he never exposed me to the authorities here in Megaton. So called normal humans still fear us ghoulified, especially us that can pretend to be of them so as to blend into their populations."

 

I frowned. "If Frank did not trust you it was not because of that. He never had prejudices against the ghoulified. On his regular trips through the local Wastelands, on some of which I went with him, he was made welcome by many rhoul and radhuman tribals." Then I laughed sourly before speaking again. "What did you do to the real Professor Brown, before you replaced him?"

 

The fake Professor Brown shrugged. "He is in a special status-pod and I am tuned to him so as to keep my false shapeform stronger, more realistic. He is weak, has always been weak, but I am strong. Which is why I am going to kill you and take control of these amazing chambers."

 

He drew out a strange, very compact, glistening black gun but I was much quicker. My pulselaser pistol struck him with a pulsebeam and destroyed the shapeshifting, parasitic shadowshaper, so that the figure burned away in seconds as if by accelerated spontaneous combustion. I wondered that I had not detected him before.

 

=-= Your growing strength, the shadowshaper's link to the real Professor, and other factors helped disguise its true nature. It was a very old, very experienced, and very skilled infiltrator.

 

So, where was the real Professor Brown?