ONE

Vault 101's alarm range loud and clear through out the great maze of chambers, hallways, stairwells and other spaces. Thousands of Vault-Dwellers stopped what they were doing or came awake. Electric Ecars hummed along roadway tunnels filled with security guards in body-armour and with 10mmC pistols and 15mmC autorifles. Yet most folk then went back to what they had been doing, often going back to sleep. The Manufacturing Sector, the Cultivation Sector, the Distribution Storage Sector and other vital sectors were still busy at work to complete the project. Mr Gutsy and protectoron robots went with the security taskforce racing to destroy the sudden infestation of radroaches in Outer Sector Five-One-Five. To assist them went a platoon of new Defence Force troopers in power armour and also some Mr Handy robots fixed up with flamers.

Jasmine darted along the dimly lit secondary utility tunnel in her scout power armour, ducked below a warm pipe that thrust across the middle of the hallway, rose up and aimed her 15mmC machinegun with its power armour harness. She let loose with a burst of caseless bullets and three large radroaches exploded into mush.

Normal infestations were dealt with by Exterminators in special armour and with specialised weapons but this was a monster sized invasion. Jasmine had the strong impression, as many others did, that the radroaches were fleeing from something. Yet she could not explain her feelings on the matter. With out evidence she and others were being ignored by the Vault Network of Overseers, Coordinators and Supervisors with the High Overseer at top along with the big mainframe super-computer of BRAIN-101.

Her GOAT Exam had caused her to be a soldier in the new Defence Force but other tests had spoken of very strong psychic and other potential. So she now served the Special Overseer's Office For Security Intelligence, or SOOFSI, as a security intelligence officer. Yet her comrades did not know she was an SIO. Nor did they know, as she had recently found out in shock, that she was actually born outside of the Vault but not in the cave systems where the Excluded dwelt but up on the surface in the dreaded Wastelands. Since her father had vanished she had been forced to be very careful to not attract trouble to herself. Despite her being a valued agent there were those who suspected her loyalty simply because her father had escaped with various Vault Secrets. She did not know the nature of those secrets and SOOFCI was certainly not in a hurry to give her information on such matters.

Ahead of her the hallway tunnel expanded out either side to form a big utility chamber with pools of old oil collected in a corner, with the skeletal remains of a vault rat in another, with pipes and blocky bits of metallic structure and two crouched Exterminators in one corner area with their flamers. There was something very wrong. They were terrified despite their powerful flame weapons and special body covering armour. She raced across the chamber and crouched next to them. Then she spoke in Esperanto, the Vault language chosen by some Vault-Tec sub-committee centuries ago for people of all backgrounds to speak. "Report! What is happening?"

The woman turned to show her face through an armoured visor and then she spoke. "Giant ants came, swarms of them. There were smaller ones with just big pincers but others shot these spine projectiles." She pointed to a glistening metallic like spine-dart on the slightly cracked concrete floor next to a greasy nut and a yellow scrap of paper. "They took down the third of our group and dragged him off. We burned many of them but they dragged away their own dead. They went down that dark tunnel there, an old robotic construction way. I don't suppose anybody has been down there for a very long time except radroaches or maybe a mutie or two. Why was all of this built? All these tunnels, all this machinery, all of the pipes, it does not seem that Vault-101 needs it to survive."

Jasmine sighed. "Vault-Tec bought up an older underground base area where construction work had taken place on some big project that had never been completed. Vault-101 was placed in the area not yet built and took advantage of much of the construction that was already done. But this great area, this is the old Enclave Enterprises Agency project area. Despite some attempts with small drones and bigger mapping robots this great maze has never been fully or properly explored let alone mapped. You should be careful who you ask such questions to."

The woman Exterminator nodded. "Will your comrades arrive soon?"

Jasmine looked around. "I need to plug into a comp-point. Comrades should not be long behind me. I was scouting ahead. I can beep them hopefully through a comp-point near them as they pass through the area. As you probably know the pipboy 2-ways do not work down here with so much rock, metal, concrete and active electricals. Also there are no pipboy 2-way stations down here."

The male Exterminator spoke now. "We need to get our comrade. Will you help save him?"

Jasmine found a comp-point but could not gain contact with the rest of her platoon. She gave up and then the three of them, the two Exterminators clearly frightened but determined to rescue their friend, went deep into the great maze. Soon they passed through a great cylinder rising up into darkness from which hung great big metal chains with hooks and dripped oil. Jets of steam stabbed out from vents. Dim fluropanels and small bulbs were the only lighting. They were forced to move with great care.


Continued in TWO

It wasn't bad, I'll give you that.

Probably 4/5, on the Elder Scrolls Forums 3/5.

There was one thing that ticked me off, though.. You use the word "comrade" like 3 times in 1 paragraph and two dialogue sentences... They aren't all Russian, at least you didn't say that they were..

Use comrade once, and put like.. "the rest of my squad" or "the other Exterminators" instead to make it sound better.

Thanks for the positive feedback

except that 'comrade' is not just used by 'Russians' in a big way. Many national forces around the world, including anti-Communist, heavily use the word. Anti-Communist progaganda of the 1950s made it sound like Communists were the only people who did so but this is false. I have heard of Balkan soldiers doing much the same, for example. I studied Communist History at university including various wars. The term comrade comes as much from Russian character, dating way back, than it does Communism.

In my story the Vault Dwellers are guided towards a very organised life because of the need to survive and the various forces are especially discliplined. 'Comrade' is only used for those like soldiers, police, security and exterminators. Mostly the word used is 'citizen'. The USA also uses 'citizen' in a fairly big way.

TWO

The area was just as hard as large areas of Vault 101 proper but the nature of it was different for this was soon looking much like a bizarre mixture of a huge processing centre, factory and yet also other more exotic features. They passed many warm pipes that often gurgled softly with flowing liquids. Water dripped from some places and while it was some times warm or even hot it was just as likely to be tepid or colder. The whole area was normally sealed off but recently the Overseer Council had decided to send in a taskforce to investigate the possibility of saluaging resources from there. To do so was to break an ancient agreement that was part of the Vault-Tec Contract of Vault-101 Habitation. But Vault-Tec was history, a memory found only in the Archives and a few other places such as old sign-boards and the long deserted Vault-Tec Offices.

The attacks had begun with the unsealing of that area. Radroaches and now giant ants. What more was out there? No, not out there but around them even as they moved deeper into the unknown.

The three of them came across the damaged mapping robot in a large elongated box of a chamber with a gently slopping concrete floor. The robot was deactivated and was missing the end section of one of its two double jointed multiple purpose arms. It also looked dented as if something had smashed lightly against its side. The chamber held a series of big transparent plastic pipes, armoured and thick, running vertical along one wall. In them bubbled purple yellow fluid and inside each floated what looked like hundreds of slimy worm like creatures. Each was about a metre long and ten centimetres thick. They seemed to be thriving quite happily or so she sensed.

Leaning against the opposite wall were two large signs. One was VaultTec with the famous Vault-Boy figure proclaiming that the Vault-Tech Vaults held the promise of a wonderful future, a paradise underground followed by a utopia on the surface when the Vault Dwellers returned to the surface. The other was an Enclave Enterprises Agency, EEA, sign warning that this was a highly classified base and that tresspassers faced heavy fines and long prison terms with hard labour. That usually meant working in chain-gangs doing work for various big civil defence or military projects. Everybody feared the Commies were coming, the Russian-Chinese Alliance of New Soviets, swarming down from Alaska to the USUA's captive territory of Canada. The United States of the United Americas, including parts of Central and South America, was back then carrying out many big projects to try to counter the new super weapons of the enemy.

The woman Exterminator, her name was Shandise, grimaced but she was not shocked by sight of the things in the tubes. She spoke. "What would meat-worms be growing down here for so far from the Cultivating Sector?"

Meat-worms were grown in the Cultivating Sector but also in secondary places just in case of disaster in the Cultivating Sector. They were processed into various highly nutritional foods and drinks to become dull tasting but far from horrible. People often ended up tending meat-worms during teenage cadetships and work experiences so they knew what to expect.

Jasmine shouldered her weapon and examined a metal locker half buried into one concrete wall. She found the mechanical lock easy to get past and carefully opened it. Inside were some clothes, shoes, a small heap of prewar books, a box of amazingly varied odds and ends, a neat pile of canned edibles including condensed milk, a baseball bat and a sowing machine. There were also some dull coloured photographs pasted to the back of the locker being 2D types. It seemed recently used and she got the sense that it was used by at least two people.

She whirled with amazing speed and brought up her light machinegun to aim it at a circular opening into the chamber that was half concealed by shadow. But she signalled the Exterminators not to fire even as three figures came out of the shadows wearing lightly armoured HAZMAT suits of the kind developed by the NukaTec Corporation before the big war, the mother corporation of the NukaCola Corporation, which some said was the real secret owner of the VaultTec Corporation. For she sensed that the approaching figures were not dangerous.

They were youthful but somehow elderly at the same time. Each was armed with a laser-pistol holstered at his or her side but between them they also had a pump-shotgun, a laser-rifle and a 15mmC autorifle. Each had a fair sized backpack with a carefully rolled up sleeping-bag on their back. Each had also a laser-knife, a canteen, pouches, a torch and other items.

Then came two more, each with a laser-pistol and a laser-rifle but they were bringing along the limping Exterminator who looked sedated and who had a damaged left arm plus a broken helmet.

The woman spoke then, one with odd metallic grey coloured skin and hair as three of the five strangers had, in a carefully cultured tone of voice in the language known as Esperanto. "We offer no harm to you, Vault-Dwellers of Vault-101. Indeed we wish to warn you of a great threat against both your people and ours. This is not the time or place to speak of it. Giant ants and radroaches infest the area now but they are not the real threat. They and other life-forms, most of them harmless or mostly harmless, are fleeing from what is the real threat. Come with us and we will show you things that will surprise you and teach you the real history of Vault-101, the history that only the High Overseer and very few others in Vault-101 know anything of. Even they lack much information and we need to learn more. But come, be quick!"

The woman Exterminator frowned. "We wish to return home!"

The grey woman sighed. "That is not possible. Your own people have pulled out everybody they could out of the EEC Sector and have sealed it up again. They may even do more than just seal it this time but put extra precautions there but they will not do enough if they do not understand the real threat. We must go on in order to find a way for you to go back home to Vault-101."


Any further arguments of the Exterminators ended when all heard the horrible chittering sound of approaching giant ants, lots of giant ants.

The newcomers stripped all of the items out of the locker and put them away carefully into a dufflebag. They did so with more than the air of a simple moving of items.

They all went off in the same direction which was deeper into that strange place that was proving to be much bigger and weirder than Jasmine had thought it would be.

Continued in THREE!

THREE


The nine of them hurried through a big concrete tunnel past big softly anks of armoured glass and softly glowing blue liquid in which swam small metallic looking fish. The woman with the grey skin and hair halted at a section of concrete wall that looked like any normal one and opened a secret door. Part of the concrete slid back and into the place they went. They found themselves in a series of Vault-Tec style vault chambers very much like those of Vault-101 except for some minor details. The grey woman removed her helmet and then so did the others as they stood together in what looked to be a big multiple purpose commonroom. There were tables with chairs, a jukebox, basic VR-booths, some bunks, a robotic workbench, some computer terminals, a kitchen area behind a counter and a few other items. Four people and two robots, a protectoron and a workertron, were already there. The workertron was busy stacking boxes into a small six wheeled electric gojeep.

Jasmine looked around and wondered what was going on. Then she turned back to look at the woman. "Grey hair and skin! You are older than you appear, a good deal older."

The woman nodded as if confirming something to herself. "You have some things in common, physically, with both your father and your mother, both whom I have met. Yet your psyshic and other special abilities go way beyond those of your father and easily match those of your mother. You only recently learned that you were born outside of Vault-101, not amongst the Excluded in the wild caverns but up there in the Wastelands. Your father came to Vault-101 with a secret expedition of scouts from Vault-101 who were returning home with much information about the broken hills straight above us. They brought him because your father is a brilliant doctor and scientist but because he also could tell the Overseers much about the DC Wastelands. For their efforts they were expelled from the Special Overseer's Office For Security Intelligence, or SOOFSI as you call it. Yes, they were SIOs just like you are. Now they are surviving as Excluded in the wild caves just because they tried to bring the truth to the brain washed Overseers, especially the great fool of a High Overseer. You are a friend of his daughter, Amanda."

Jasmine frowned. "Estranged daughter! Amanda lives amongst the so called misfits in the Grey Sector, officially one step from being Excluded into the caverns. There are many ways you could gain such information about me. Hacking the Vault-101 computer network-systems is one way since they are not as secure as the Overseers insanely assume that they are. Bribing an addicted or alcoholic public servant is another way for they are only too common even amongst the higher ranks, castes and classes. Infiltration is probably more difficult."

The grey woman smiled. "My name is Posi^Sho. I am not like you or others from Vault-101, including some who now live and work amongst us as trusted friends. For we are exoclones grown in clonetanks and then further formated. We are stronger, faster, more enduring and harder to damage than normal humans and we have special psychic abilities but we lack the special extra that you, your mother and some others have. The term 'exoclone' comes from a kind of exoskeleton of muscle enhancers that is found just beneath the skin of each of us. My kind were designed by the Enclave Enterprises Agency, the EEA, to be expendible workers, servants and soldiers but for who or what we do not know."

"Why are you telling me this?" Jasmine was suspicious of anybody offering valuable information with out asking for something up front. Yet she still found herself trusting this woman. "What has it... I am not even sure of what questions to ask. This is overwhelming. This weird place so close to Vault-101 and yet so bizarre, so incredibly bizarre. It looks like it was designed by a malfunctioning super computer programmed by an insane scientist."

The exoclone nodded. "More than you probably guess. The weirdness and complexity of EEC Base-Station Alpha-One is meant to hide the true purpose of this place from anybody who might enter it. Though it all serves some kind of purpose and can be useful, only a small portion of it is the real reason behind its existence. You were told that this place was a project that went broke and that VaultTec took it over at a bargain price to build Vault-101 here. This is a great falsehood. For VaultTec was a fake corporation controlled by a secret branch of the USUA Federal Government known as the Enclave. The Enclave worked openly through the Enclave Enterprises Agency, the EEA. They controlled VaultTec, NukaTec, RobCo and many other fake corporations. Yet the Enclave was and still is but a puppet of an even deeper group, a non government conspiracy that we know very little of.”

She turned to the Exterminators, one who was leaning on the shoulder of a comrade. “We know who and what you really are. Please admit to it and we will take you to a secure place. Did you really think they would let you live after you carried out the task you were given. They consider you to be expendable.”

The one woman Exterminator shook back her lightly curly hair and scowled. “The three of us are ex-rebels taken from Death Row and offered freedom, a new identity and a goodly amount of credit to find and kill Jasmine Ashworth. Having seen her in action I doubt we could have done so anyway. Having seen her automatically go off to help us save our comrade, we would not have tried. We would have told her the truth or at least I would have.”

A male fake Exterminator nodded. “We swear we don’t know who gave us our freedom, our disguises and some basic training as Exterminators. All those we dealt with were heavily disguised or were those new type of PR robots or PR-bots. The Overseers love them so we get them sweet talking us with painful sounding jargon ridden gibberish.”

“We belonged to the Free Vault Movement, the FVM.” The other fake Exterminator spoke, the second man and the one with the injury. “We were going strong and then one day, boom, we were being rounded up by security officers and security robots. They knew everything about us.”

Jasmine sighed. “The FVM was a false movement, a trap set up by SOOFCI to gather in would be rebels with out the experience or knack or contacts to avoid such a threat. All it did was to remove those who were no real threat. I do not mean to offend you by saying that. I suggest that you seek shelter amongst the Excluded. From there a real rebel group might pick you up as fighters or some other role but not as infiltrators because your faces are on record.”

The three gave Jasmine a puzzled look.

Jasmine spoke again. “Clearly it is too dangerous for me to keep up my old identity. I will cease to be both a soldier and an SIO. I will not tell you any more than that and for your own good, you keep your future plans to yourself.”

Posi^Sho spoke then. “The three of you can stay with us. We have a large, secure and comfortable community with much to do. We need workers, guards and others. We can train and educate you using hypnoting and VR along with older ways. You will be on probation for three years with each year becoming easier. We can even find a way of you safely contacting people back in Vault-101.”

The fake Exterminators went off to eat, to rest, to discuss the situation together and to meet other needs.

Posi^Sho and Jasmine went to a slidedoor that led to a small but efficiently set out office.

Continued in FOUR!

Clarification of Expanded Vault-101 System both official and unofficial

High Overseer (BRAIN-101)

Overseers
(Offices with various responsibilities)

Coordinators

Supervisors

Security, Police, Defence, Exterminators, Others

Main Citizen Body

People divided into classifications of Loyalists, Excluded
There are also Outlaws and Rebels
Misfits are a sub-classification of Loyalists
Rebels or Outlaws can be either False Loyalists or Excluded

Loyalists are Citizens
Excluded are semicitizens

Special Classifications of Excluded are those who are classed as Mutants, Insane, Infected and others

The Great Majority of People are Norms (Not Misfits, Outlaws or Rebels)
Norms are Loyalists with common rank and class with little real power

May be edited in future

FOUR



Jasmine sat in a comfortable office swivel chair of a kind found through out Vault-101. They were even manufactured by the Vault Dwellers when they were needed. Behind a fairly large flash looking desk with a computer terminal sat the exoclone Posi^Sho who was looking intently at the Vault Dweller. She spoke. "The three false Exterminators will join us because we have much to offer them."

Jasmine shook her head even as she studied holographic displays on one wall of the Prewar World, not just the USUA but other parts of the Americas, Europe, Africa and other places. The displays changed every few minutes it seemed for a holographic image of a whale turned into one of a red kangaroo. She spoke. "They will join you because you are influencing their minds in a subtle but very clever manner. You are giving them what they really want and probably need. They would never make it as rebels or outlaws in the Exclusion Caverns and life is hard there. You can not influence my mind or take me by surprise though you did test me."

The grey woman smiled. "I am not surprised you realised what we were up to."

The former SIO nodded. "This office is almost identical to the layout of many middle ranking officials in Vault-101."

The exoclone looked around. "We found it all prepared to use and yet, as far as we know, not used. Somebody took the trouble to construct these VaultTec designed chambers and then, seemingly, abandoned them. Lucos used to use this as his office before he was killed by those giant ants we called spine-ants though only the soldiers actually shoot spines. The stuff in the locker belonged to him because in that chamber he was carrying out a small but important project. This office, despite its normal appearance, has some surprises to it. This office, like much else in these chambers, is designed to disguise its real nature. The holographic wall displays, the filing cabinets, this desk, the hot-cold drinks dispenser, the VaultTec logo on the wall there, that and more are solid but they are an illusion. There is the commonroom, a dormitory area with a kitchen and a bathroom, three offices including this one, a small medical room, four storerooms and a garage-workshop parking chamber. We entered through a secret door but there are less secretive ways to come into this place."

She touched a button that Jasmine could not see and the desk mat in front of her slid into a hidden recess to reveal a panel with many buttons, glowing displays and other features, some of them quite exotic and of unknown nature to Jasmine. This did not surprise her for there were plenty of secret technologies that were known by only a few. Yet she could guess the nature of at least half of them by their appearance and she was not pleased.

Jasmine grimaced. "X-serum infusers, psychic immersion earputs... and yes a feeder-jack for blood-jackers. Hardly the gear for a typical Vault-101 middle ranking officer. We SIOs tend to pick up more information than our HQ might otherwise want us to. One of our tasks, as you probably know, is to track down unauthorised holding of or even use of such highly restricted or even forbidden technologies. They came from the period just before the War when the USUA Federal Government was desperately trying to find a way of throwing back the overwhelmingly larger military forces of the Soviets and Chinese. Like the Nazi Germans back in World War Two they had their super-weapon projects and like the Nazi projects some were truly terrible in nature."

The exoclone sighed. "We were one of those super-weapon projects created by the Enclave Enterprises Agency here in this monstrous place but a good distance from these chambers. They didn't abandon the EEA Bunkerbase at all. EEC Base-Station Alpha-One was functioning long after Vault-101 was completed and the one hundred thousand residents moved in. It was still fully functioning when the War took place, the A-bombs fell and continued to function for a long time after. The first generation of exoclones were confined to an experimental complex run by androids, robots and computers. I was one of those. We only saw people on monitors or through thick armoured glass and not often."

Jasmine frowned. “I was hoping you would tell me about the threat that faces both your people and ours. Do you need to tell me about your history now?”

“Patience, I am doing both!” The exoclone pressed some buttons not on the panel but on a normal desk control panel. The holographic wall displays vanished to reveal a normal 3Dwallscreen that covered half a wall.

At once it showed a large room with a thick armoured glass wall behind which were three scientists, two women and a man, the humans looking at control panels and making marks on clipboards. On this side of the glass barrier two exoclones in simple gym tunics were lifting up weights clearly heavier than any normal human could have done and with more speed.

Posi^Sho spoke. “We abandoned the complex where our people were first created but we took much with us when we went including much electronic data. You see we were not the only experiment being carried out there by those cold blooded EEA people. They were brain programmed in some fashion that turned them into greater monsters than most of their experimental subjects were. Now this started out as a typical session of two of our people being given a special test in our physical abilities. Those are one professor and two lesser ranking scientists, one with electronics training. This was the first time any of us saw the threat in one of its forms and for these three humans it was both the first and the last.”

A door opened and in came a security guard in body-armour of visor-helmet and a vest but he was coming backwards and even as he did, he was firing his laser-pistol at something. One arm hung limply and blood was flowing down it. Now the sound proof door was open there came the noise of a terrible battle taking place. The firing of projectile weapons, the screaming of humans, the warning voices of security robots, the humming of laser weapons and also some horrific sounds both alien and terrifying.

The security guard cried out. “They got out! Professor Altman found out about the plans to exterminate his experimental subjects and let them out. We do not know what happened to him or those damned robots he had built for himself, the ones he programmed. Those things are fast and they are deadly. They know how to use our weapons but they don’t bother. We need to activate Escape Plan Omega at once. Get out of here and blow the lot.”

The security guard limped towards the frightened scientists.

The two exoclones leapt up and pounded on the armoured glass, pointing at the security guard as if trying to warn the scientists about something.

Posi^Sho sighed heavily. “Even through thick glass our people could tell that the security guard was false, was an illusion. Now watch the professor, the taller woman with dark brown skin.”

The professor suddenly cried out, pulled out a smaller pistol and shot the security guard in the face, the visor splintering with two holes appearing in it. The security guard was hurled backwards, already dead, but as he did so he shimmered and now he was no longer a security guard. He was not even human any more.

He was human shaped but his body was metallic dark, garish dull purple in colour, he was hairless. The shapeform shifted and the well fitting clothes, body-armour and other gear no longer fitted the body as well. The 10mmC pistol was real and he dropped the weapon even as exotic purple-red blood flowed from his smashed face.

Posi^Sho spoke again. “Doppelganger, but one of many types of monstrous metallic flesh clones serving an unknown master. They can shapeshift but we now know that just as humans and we exoclones vary in our skills as individuals, so do these things. The doppelganger was sent in to try to trick the scientists so they could be captured and most likely tortured for information. The professor had psychic abilities enough to detect the truth. We found no real data on her and her nature is just as much a mystery as those of these metallic clones.”

Through the now open doorway came darting metallic copperish coloured monkey like creatures, hairless and deadly, slashing with claws extending out from fingers, fangs or with combat knives or other kinds of blades. They fell upon the two lower ranking scientists quickly, who screamed in terror and agony only briefly before dying. But the professor leapt back with amazing speed and with amazing ability shot down three monkey creatures, drilling each neatly in the head and killing them at once. Then she calmly reached into her tunic at belly level with her free hand, pressed something and she exploded with a sharp flash of flame and shrapnel, disintegrating in the powerful blast. The thick armoured glass shook badly and fractured slightly but it was of excellent design and make so it kept intact. The observation chamber became filled with smoke.

The exoclones fled the chamber real fast and after they were gone the observation chamber became clear of view. There were smashed up clones, bits of bloody gore, blood and other stuff. Then into that place came a strange purple black fog and when it slid out again nothing remained in that chamber, not a scrap of anything.

Exoclones came back into the chamber and began to quickly but efficiently reinforce the lightly fractured window for clearly they feared that something was dangerous enough out there to get to them even through that.

The 3Dwallscreen switched to a nice passive scene of New York city before the big war, a tourist’s view perhaps from a small sight seeing airship.

The exoclone spoke. "We had always suspected that there was something odd about that exploding professor but we could not get close enough to her to properly psychic scan or probe her. Was she an android, a cyborg or something else? As for the metallic clones or the fog stuff, we did not encounter them again for a long time. Now we have some other interesting things to show you and perhaps you can help us solve some puzzles."

Continued in FIVE!

FIVE

Posi^Sho pressed buttons on the exposed secret panel. “This office has access to public and low security clearance camera views of Vault-101.” The view of New York was replaced by those of various parts of the VaultTec bunker. There were typical hallways bustling with citizens and robots. There were largely automated manufacturing and workshop chambers with humans in safety-armour and robots. There were roadway tunnels with mostly small electric vehicles that were either robotic or human driven machines under traffic computer control. There was the big Central Garden Dome, one of the pride and joys of Vault-101 where citizens were rations visiting time. Bustling cafeterias, hologram cinemas, the hospital, the large Public Square where citizens visited cafes, VR-capsule centres, gymnasiums and other services were also shown. Some of Vault-101 was colourful and exciting but most of it was metallic, bland and dull.

The exoclones shook her head in wonder. “Why do the Vaultfolk not do more to colour or decorate?”

Jasmine snorted. “As you may know, the Overseers see this as a probable distraction from the proper discipline of an orderly proper Vault Dweller existence. There are rebellious youth who do quick paintings, slogans and postering on walls knowing that official work groups will remove them. It’s a guerrilla war of a sort with both sides getting trickier at doing what they do. Can I have access?”

The exoclone nodded and a second secret panel opened on Jasmine’s side of the desk that was fairly identical to the first to open. Jasmine looked at the big 3Dwallscreen and began rapidly tapping a keyboard. The last view of part of Vault-101 became replaced with patterns of data in words, numerals and datasymbols. With impressive speed she began to cause the displays to change even as Posi^Sho kept on watching with false casualness for she took everything in.

Three times flashing red demands for passwords came up and all three times, with impressive speed, she changed them to green flashing agreements that she could go deeper into the Vault-101 computer network-systems.

The exoclone sounded bemused. “You stated before that the Vault-101 computer network-systems were easy to hack into. I assure you that for most of us this is not the case but for you I see that it is.”

Jasmine paused the changes and with a particular data display filling the screen. “These chambers are officially but secretly registered as part of Vault-101. The cameras, turrets and robots here can be linked to from certain sites in Vault-101 but only a few. One is the High Overseer’s luxurious fortified office where he gets to spy on everybody else in Vault-101. Now we can spy on him.”

Then the view changed to a large and very expensively laid out chamber with plus carpeting, Prewar paintings on the wall of real antique value, a great big ornate wooden desk, young scantily dressed women standing with odd stillness against walls, wall displays of real Prewar stuff and not just holograms and much else. What drew the eyes of the exoclone were the many 3Dmonitors on one wall, the big 3Dwallscreen on another and also the translucent curtained off area in one corner.

“The High Overseer used to be a man who lived a very austere life, who would never dream of having such an office, but then he got very ill, almost died and changed dramatically or so goes the story.” Jasmine snorted. “I, like many others, do not believe the stories. We believe this man is an amazingly brilliant, cunning and yet is surprisingly orthodox, at least on the surface of it. His public office still looks like the one that the real High Overseer used.”

The exoclone nodded. “Those young women are androids?”

Jasmine scowled. “Yes! Androids are not very common in Vault-101 because VaultTec did not normally use them thanks to a big contract with RobCo. RobCo saw androids as competition for large chunks of its market. Yet there were some androids hidden in storage bays in a bank-vault full of luxury hitech goodies. This included expensive pleasure-companion models, three male and five female. The five female are now all in the High Overseer’s Office and the male ones, well they also have vanished but to where I do not know. The curtained off area has a luxury robotic bed with many functions. The High Overseer is said to spend a fair amount of time in there with the androids but at other times with other young women. This is in Vault-101 where most people have no idea of the truth of what he gets up to, who think he still is the old High Overseer and behaves like it.”


She paused before she went on speaking. “His daughter Amanda, and his two other children, are estranged from the High Overseer because they suspect that in truth they are not his children, that he is an impostor. Not that they much liked their real father who did not treat them kindly at all. As for these chambers, I have found the truth behind them. They are an escape for the High Overseer and cronies if he needs to flee into hiding. From here he could possibly spy on any rebellion and direct actions to suppress any rebellion. It’s a bolt hole. Which means there must be some way for the High Overseer and cronies, bodyguards and others to get from Vault-101 proper to here.”

The exoclone nodded. “Can you show us where that hidden way is. It is important that we can get access to it!”

Jasmine nodded. “Yes but to find where it is I need to find out more about these chambers. That may take an hour or so using the computer terminal.”

Posi^Sho stood up, smiled and started walking off. “I will use another office and leave you free to use this one. There is much to do.”

Then she was gone and Jasmine changed sides of the desk to sit behind it. She poured herself a mug of good strong coffee with canned milk and took a drink. Then she sat for a time quietly thinking things through.


Continued in SIX.

SIX

When Jasmine acted she did so with swift suddenness as if fearing that she had only so much time to do so. Firstly she took up the blood-jacker, a nasty looking black device with a thin semitransparent double-tube leading back into the desk, and exposing the underside of her wrist, she jacked it in. That is she winced slightly with pain that quickly passed. Then she tapped another couple of buttons.

Blood flowed out of her body and back again but as it flowed back in it carried very tiny invisible biotech organicisms and nanotech devices. Even as this happened she slipped on the special virtual reality headset and jacked it into the stemport at the back of her neck, first opening up the part of her collar that normally hid and protected it. The psychic immersion earputs slipped into her ears.

She caused the chair back to tilt backwards, closed her eyes and slipped into a special state of what would seem like semiconsciousness to general medical instruments. Then she began to really plunge into the network-systems, to slip past the real but still decoying programming layers on the surface and to sleep deeper. Now she began to access a wide variety of very secret datafiles. For the moment she absorbed most of them as background data to be better studied later and focused on those that would meet immediate needs.

Of fifty-five datablocks in the archive network-systems she found that thirteen had been totally deleted in such a way as not even to leave traces behind. Another five had been poorly deleted with many fragments, full datafiles and traces. The others had not been touched. It was as if the operator had been interrupted rudely, perhaps in a deadly manner, while trying to do the erasing.

She did have a basic catalogue system remaining that at least gave her names of projects, of datablocks, but they were in sometimes quite odd sounding code names designed to disguise rather than to explain.

The door to the office made a slight double clicking noise as it truly became locked. The door looked like a typical VaultTec powered slidedoor but it was far stronger and far better armoured. A panel in the ceiling opened and down dropped a heavy armoured weapons turret with a minigun and twin laser-rifle grade weapons. The 3Dcams that the exoclones had been spying on her through were cut off as were the feeds to what she was doing on the computer.

Then she was slipping into psychic enhanced virtual reality.

She stood in a Vault-101 jumpsuit with out any ID﷓badge or other markings apart from the Vault-101 numbers. She stood in a large chamber where scientists, engineers, techies and others in white labsuits were busy with various machines, with organisms inside transparent half-cone covered robotic medibeds, or at other jobs. Robots assisted or were on guard with security guards in the background. Organisms were human or animal or other shaped but all of odd colours and exotically metallic in nature.

This was a real recording of the real laboratory and not a false one as the one had been that the exoclones had shown her. Nor was this laboratory very far away being but a kilometre away from the small complex that she was in. The complex being bigger than the few chambers that the exoclones had seemingly found out about and of which Jasmine had only seen the commonroom and the office she was in.

It was a virtual reality recording of a past event and it was the real reason that Vault-101 had been created. It was Vault-101’s experiment. Yet something had not gone as plan. Some other force had intervened to give the Vaultfolk-101 a second chance at existence. Not just there but in Vault-101 itself in various ways.

But what was the actual nature of the experiment?

A metallic voice came over a PA system and into various headphones. It spoke in the language known as Esperanto. “Five minutes to activation of absorption process. Access to Vault-101 ventilation networks is now open. The Biomazz is fully active and aware. All mazz-clones are now in active state.”

A tall man of a scientist than spoke and his voice went out over the PA. “Another lot of radroaches have taken advantage of our damaged access ways to Vault-101 to enter the vault proper. The robots have failed again to repair them properly. Do you not fear Biomazz leakage?”

The metallic voice spoke sharply this time. “Do not question my judgment again, Professor Harona! Sensor readings indicate that the Biomazz has fully stabilised in its absorption of the mutagen. The Biomazz will be introduced into the Vault-101 ventilation networks as one single stage.”

Professor Harona cried out in anger now. “That is not what we agreed upon! We agreed upon carefully staged release. Three stages, each to be reversed in case of trouble. You go too far, Professor Altman. That is if you are still Professor Altman. Alert Alpha Ace One, I repeat, Alert Alpha Ace One. The experiment is to be locked down at once.”

At once the people and robots working on the project began to close it down.

Altman’s metallic voice spoke out then but it jeered in tone. “You think that you can so easily rob me, you fools? Did you not think that I sensed your shallow minded treachery at work? I am Professor Altman, the great and glorious Professor Altman. Nine RD Divisions does this great complex have and I have taken control of three of them other than this one.”

Professor Harona punched a button and alarms began to ring. Assumedly they rang also in other areas of the complex. The security guards had either laser-pistols or 10mmC pistols. The security robots were protectorons with lasers. But now some of the laboratory workers pulled out laser or 10mmC pistols.

Harona spoke out again. “What have you done, Altman? You are insane! There is only one RD-Sector to this complex. The others were never completed in construction or activated.”

But then the attack came. It crashed not through any of the armoured doors, each of which had a weapon turret overlooking it, but through a wall. It exploded open in two separate places quite a distance from each other. In flew, about a metre above the floor, hovering robots. Through each gap came flying three of these orbs like heavily armed oversized eyebots except these were firing off pulseguns. Stun pulses for the humans and electromagnetic pulses for the robots.

The fighting began as laser beams and bullets were fired one way and pulses of energy the other. The flying orbs at first knocked away the bullets and deflected the laser beams that flickered on and off until defenders started focusing on the same target points. Then two exploded and as they did they sprayed not just metal, plastic and other fibre but greenish substance proving that something was alive inside them, something metallic and pulpy at the same time.

But the newcomers were deactivating protectorons and knocking down humans though the security guards’ body-armour did have some protective effect against the stun pulses sent against them. The defenders were losing.

At that moment a strange and powerful realisation came to Jasmine that she could do something, that somehow she could influence the past, that this was something far more than a recording but was reality. She was really in the past.

Continued in SEVEN

SEVEN

Jasmine hurled from herself barely shaped psychic force and even as she did she remembered that as a child she had killed or driven off a horde of radroaches in the same fashion. The attacking robotic orbs flew backwards through the ragged gaps in the thick walls they had come through, back into rough but cleverly braced tunnels that had been dug for the surprise attack, and were gone.

Then she radiated another psychic effect out from herself. Deactivated robots became active, stunned people awoke and inside their half-cylinders the cloned creatures were effected somehow for the positive.

The people looked shaken except for those getting over being stunned, who looked groggy. All looked confused.

None could see Jasmine. People muttered about what had happened, who or what had saved them and what they should do.

A woman scientist then spoke. “Never mind what saved us, we all know what we have to do. No more do we stay here in this damned metal and concrete hole serving some bizarre EEA VaultTec experimental program. No we leave as fast as we can and take everything we can with us including the clones. Clearly we have been used, perhaps brain washed, lied to and most likely seen as expendible. We go to Vault﷓101-a, the secondary vault beneath Vault-101 proper that hopefully the Vaultfolk-101 have not found yet. Then we either introduce ourselves openly to Vault-101 society or somehow infiltrate its population of 100,000 people.”

Professor Harona spoke then. “Excellent plan but I will remain here with a choice few people and robots to explore the parts of this complex we have not been able to reach before. We were somehow mind programmed but now we are free.”

Jasmine then spoke, with a little difficulty, and her voice came out somehow both fairly quiet and yet clear to all there, robot or human. “I am from the future but I am not sure how far I have managed to project myself using blood-jackers and psychic virtual reality ultratech. Very dangerous and fairly painful to use but I am in control. I was born on the surface up in the DC Wastelands but my father brought me to Vault-101 and they let us in, along with three companions, but only because they needed our skills very much. Especially those of my father, a most brilliant scientist named Professor James Ashworth. My mother died during my birth. Father was always reluctant to speak of his past, of mother, of the world above but he did say a few things.”

The woman spoke again. “I am Professor Jones. I met a Professor Jack Ashworth once who had a very bright son named James. You speak of the DC Wastelands. We were hoping that somehow the capital city had survived. In theory it was supposed to be saved somehow from any atomic war but we were never told just how this would be done, only that it plans to do so were under way.”

Jasmine sighed. “Washington DC suffered only indirect damage. No A-bombs exploded there. Enemy long range missiles were lasered and enemy supersonic long range bombers were destroyed before they could reach that far. Yet it is mostly a hellhole with only some areas of greener plant life, of real forest. The river still runs though it is not its old magnificent self. It rains now and then but only ever lightly and the rain is lightly radioactive much of the time though not all the time. When it rains non radioactive water it is a boon. The buildings are in a mess but there are settlements, some of them built in surprising places. Not all are friendly and some are very hostile. You would find much to study up there.”

She went on. “You could go to the subsurface to an old hidden and carefully sealed up bunker complex that was designed to hold workers and specialists doing much of the work down here or supporting the secretive work down here. I can only tell you where it is and that it has all the basic life support network-systems and other equipment including matter-formers, health-regenerators, virtual reality escapism and a wide range of robots. Life is no better in Vault-101. Indeed it would be harder in some ways for it is ruled under the iron fist of the High Overseer and the Overseers. They would interfere in your research, they would break up your teams, they would take much of your equipment including robots. Up there in the bunker complex A1-101 you perhaps could do some real good. It is a gamble but so is trying to get into Vault﷓101.”

Then she spoke some more. “None of you can afford to stay here. You were brain programmed in a fashion I am yet to fully understand. I have countless questions and too few answers as perhaps you do. You have been in danger for a long time. Professor Altman, he is now a puzzle that I need to confront. There are tunnels that should lead you to the bunker complex A1-101 but they could be dangerous.”

She roved through the vaguely Vault-101 like chambers, hallways and other spaces of the section of complex used by the research and development teams. The whole taskforce, for that was what they were officially called, was soon packing all they could including extras. Anything that could not be taken, that was movable, was locked away into large storerooms or safe-rooms. Electric gojeeps were loaded up with goods or people. Robots were stuck into trailers. There were a couple of small lightly armoured security gobeeps with robotic gun turrets. At times she answered questions and at times people answered hers. They allowed her access to datafiles, holotapes and other information.

Then they all departed.

Jasmine had influenced their minds but she knew, somehow, it had been for the best. They would have hard times but they would survive doing what they did best and would have a positive impact on their future, her present and future.

She did not wish greatly to explore the rest of the complex back there in the past but something told her that she needed to do so.

Continued in EIGHT

SOME LIFEFORMS OF THE DC WASTELANDS



CENTAURS: Centaurs are still 'watchdogs' for Super Mutants but are stronger and have extra weapons in the form of two whip-tentacles that lash out with great force and deadly stabbing tips. Centaurs have impressve senses of hearing and smell but their sight is relatively poor.

GHOULS: strangely effected humans and animals with varied results. Visible diformiities such as a rotting appearance and smell. Expanded lifespan. Great tolerance to radiation. Sub-classified as:
*Social Ghouls: live there lives as best they can; range in group and individual behaviour as humans do.
*Feral Ghouls: almost mindless, naked, more 'rotted' than normal social ghouls, ehanced strength, enhanced speed, carnivores, drawn to collect shiny things like emergency minted coins (EMCs)
*Zombie Ghouls: mindless, shambling monstrocities
*Raider Ghouls: Raider version of Ghouls with own factions. Just as savage as 'normal' Raiders
*Part Ghouls: part way between human and ghoul with varied physical effects such as appearance and resistance to radiation.
*Animal ghouls: dogs, rats, cats and others vary in aggressive state. Animal ghouls often stay with social ghouls and sometimes are part of Raider Guild packs.

HORSES: Ghoul Horses are fairly common in some areas but are not prone to being tamed. Horses appear in this story.

MICE: small, a nuisance, like to nibble things. Field mice and settlement vermin. Adapted well to subway existence.

MOLERATS: Unlike in game molerats tend only to be aggressive if cornered. They are rarely found indoors as they are creatures of the semiwilderness, wilderness.

RADROACHES: they are of many sizes from a few centimetres long to a metre or so long. Not all giant ones are aggressive but all will attack if cornerned. The smaller ones cause trouble with technical systems, even robots.

RATS: from small black rats that tend to run to monstrous giant sewer rats and even more monstrous caverats.

SUPER MUTANTS: like those in game of different sizes and varieties of power. A minority have greater intelligence and some lack normal Super Mutant aggression. Also animal Super Mutants such as dogs, rats and others only found in some areas. These sometimes travel with human Super Mutants but more often in their own packs.

ULTRA MUTANTS: monstrous creatures hulking and powerful with two, four or eight legs. The bigger they are in bulk, the more legs they have. Tend to have the same number of arms as legs, each limb either holding a great crude weapon or hurling heavy objects like boulders. But are a small minority use weapons and a very tiny minority have greater intelligence. Only rare ones lack aggression. The only good thing about Ultra Mutants is that they are not often found. Ultra Mutants can have Super Mutants following and serving them.

WILL BE EDITED/ADDED TO

EIGHT

It had been a very long climb with many difficulties but now Professor James Ashworth strode up a sloping rocky tunnel, very evened out by laser tools, towards the armoured metal door ahead. Caverats, radroaches, rogue Vault-Dwellers no better than Raiders, savage ghouls and much more had been there. Yet the greatest threat had been losing one’s way, falling down some unseen pit, having a rusting metal platform collapse under one or other such dangers.

He wore an armoured environment suit over a jumpsuit and carried a large backpack of equipment and supplies. Behind him came a packeron, like a protectoron but with just a big locker instead of arms. Packerons carried stuff. That was all they did on their sturdy thick legs.

He had gone with out informing his daughter because his daughter and he had become estranged. It was mostly his fault because he had accidentally discovered a truth about both his wife and his daughter that had deeply shocked him, that had caused him to review his whole life and its meaning. He had stolen secrets from Vault-101 along with three robots and other stuff. One was the very human looking android called Peta, a young woman in a jumpsuit dutifully following him. She needed no AES and carried twice the weight he did tiredly with no real effort at all. Behind her came another packeron and a protectoron.

The android had been stolen from the EoInstitute that was to the north now in the Commonwealth. It had been stolen just before everything had gone to hell. It was a different kind of technology from the replicants created by the USUA Futures Foundation before the war. ‘She’ was a mech-android. Before James had gone down to Vault-101 to give Jasmine, then a baby, a new and safer life, he had heard that the Commonwealth was suffering a savage civil war. One side was supported by the AeoInstitute and was using hundreds of mech-androids of various grades and kinds to fight with. Sometimes he wondered if the AeoInstitution would ever, had ever, sent androids southwards to infiltrate the DC Wastelands.

James had planned to use the official Vault-101 to surface elevators or spiral rampways but they were too heavily secured and protected by numerous turrets and robots. Every so often was an airlock affair with two huge disk shaped doors. Five such armoured airlocks stood between the hellish surface and Vault-101. But Vault-101 no longer controlled above the fourth such airlock or even knew what went on up there. Something had gone wrong up there soon after James and two Vault-101 scouts had gone through it.

But this entrance was unofficial, was built in secret by VaultTec workers hoping to smuggle extra people down into Vault-101 or perhaps into a hidden bunker built illegally by stolen materials. He had never found out the whole truth but just enough to know to go to this place when he had been forced to do so.

Now he moved carefully up to the armoured door and to the crude metal control box next to it. He carefully opened it while the robots and the android moved into place. They were programmed for action but Peta was a learning artificial intelligence far more advanced than either the protectoron or the two packerons. She swung around a big laser weapon designed for power infantry to use in strength enhancing power armour but she used it with ease. It was a laser-mak.

Controls were basic. There was no attempt at locking or coding. He just had to press a big green button. The heavy power door rolled sideways open with a slight groaning grinding noise. The bright harsh sunlight began to pour through the opening and with it came dust.

Then he was peering out from the polarised visor of his grey, brown stained AEV to a broken twisted area of ground. Tumbled rocks and dull green grasses. A big horned lizard sunning itself on a wide rock ledge next to a rusting wreck of some kind of big war-machine. Further in the distance a tilted signboard with a peeling faded advertisemant for a 3DTV soap opera. A stretch of paved highway with some areas of breakage. A couple of wild goats darted into sight and out of sight again.

Peta spoke then in smooth tones in the language called English. “The radioactivity is lighter than I would expect it to be.”

James shrugged. “One of the mysteries of the war is why the A-bombs did not leave as much radiation as most would expect. The answer I suspect is that they were new generation weapons that gave out less fallout so that once a force wiped out an enemy it could more easily occupy its country. The broken city of Springvale is our next stop. There I hope to find the settlement of Little Springvale still functioning smoothly. See those long thin glowing green plants with the small mushroom like tops. They are called radshooms. They are useful for making crude medicants that do a similar but more basic job as do Radaway and Rad-X. In Little Springvale is a laboratory-workshop that manufactures both radshoway and radshoomic. They sell the stuff to traders from settlements like Megaton but also the roving traders based in the settlement of Canterbury Commons.”

He sighed. “There are Raiders in the Springvale area based in the crumbling ruins of the Springvale University just out of the main city. They are human but deranged, sadistic, brutal. There is a theory that such Raiders are themselves a kind of mutation from the war but I am not sure that is true.”

Then a voice came from fairly close, clipped and strong voice speaking Esperanto. “Professor James Ashworth, the Raider madness is caused by a combination of Nuka Cola, radiation and something else that we have yet to properly identify. Do not panic. We come from the secret scientific settlement at the Bunker A1-101 built for people doing contract work down in Vault-101 before the war. Somehow your daughter went back into the past and saved our people. She have estimated that she probably went into he past from this time period but how, we do not know. We feel that we owe her much though life up here is hardly sweet it is most rewarding.”

James frowned. "I am not surprised by what you say about my daughter for she is truly a remarkable being. Something tells me that you speak truth."

They came seemingly out of nowhere. Security guards in camouflaged body-armour and other gear armed with lasers, autorifles and other weapons. They were women and men.

A man stepped forward and gave Peta a puzzled look even as James slipped open his visor to expose his face. “Something about the way she stands. Is she?”

Peta nodded. “You may address me directly in future. I am a person though I am an android. I was created to the north by the AeoInstitute before the war but was stolen by VaultTec. I suppose it was industrial espionage of sorts. I was a prototype. But the joke was on VaultTec for I was to be a discontinued line. Professor James and his colleagues had to do much work on me.”

The other man nodded back. “Well that’s fine and well. The eggheads will want to examine you. We have a fairly long and difficult trip to A1-101, which is closer to Springvale than this spot so it will advantage you in more than one way. On the way we will pause at the entrance to a Survivalist bunker. We will do some trading and then continue onwards. The Survivalists are not exactly friends but are not enemies either. Their people have been moving towards the DC Wastelands for some time. They are a surprisingly well armed paramilitary, religious, communal movement with thousands of people. We find them to be intolerant of other faiths, anti-ghoul, with some strange ideas about science and scientists, along with isolationist. They are fleeing from the Enclave who they have a hate-hate relationship with. Only good thing is they are giving the Raiders in the Springvale area a very bad time of it.”

James nodded. “If you people have been here, why did you not assist with Project Purity?”

The security guard snorted. “We did in a secretive fashion otherwise you would not have gotten even as far as you did. We need to go. There is a large Raider party too close to us for comfort.”

The heat of the summer day was a blast so that James put his suit back into place and was grateful even for the minimal air-conditioning of the suit. They moved as quickly as they could along dirty pathways. There were eight security guards, two dogs and a Mr Gutsy robot in the other force. James knew that he and his robots were slowing down the group, Peta being quite quick moving but deeply loyal to James, but none of the security guards from A1-101 seemed concerned.

They saw a highway in the distance, broken and pot holed, and winding between broken houses and other buildings. There were trees there with dull green leaves and long dull green grass. Tough looking grey squirrels darted through the semiwilderness. Birds circled high overhead. It seemed peaceful enough but James had dwelt in the DC Wastelands for many years before he had gone down into Vault-101 with his daughter and others.

He again was having to question old assumptions. These people from A1-101 stated that they had secretly supported Project Purity. Just how had they done that and how had he failed to learn the truth?

They passed a very big crater with the rusting wreckage of some kind of supersonic jet. James could not tell if it was American or Chinese-Soviet and he did not care.

The Enclave? The Brotherhood of Steel had mentioned old enemies on the Western Coast of the USUA called the Enclave but they had supposedly been destroyed or at least crippled. So how were they becoming a threat now in the DC Wastelands?

Once they saw Raiders on the highway in the distance. They rode buggies, black machines with barely stabilized fusion power cells and other stuff taken from American atomic-cars or others with electric motors, just as fast but lighter and less powerful. The electric buggies had less armour and weapons but had no chance of blowing up as the atomic buggies did. Heavily armed Raiders of the CrushingFist Gang were on the move in buggies hauling makeshift trailers of goods. Many were women in armour that left much flesh bare. Raiders were insane but somehow they always had good supplies of weapons, armour and other stuff including crazy robots like slasherbots, killerrons and others. Raiders seemed to be learning better survival skills, seemed less prone to dying for no reason and more planned in their attacks. The convoy of buggies did not make as much noise. Once the Raiders would have made much noise as if challenging death but were now quiet as if being aware of the many dangers in the area.

When the big convoy was gone from sight the group hurried on.

They hid when a globe of an eyebot floated through the air in the distance. It was broadcasting Enclave propaganda from somebody called President Eden that sounded like a lot of prerecorded patriotic hogwash. It had a large 3Dcam front, a laser-gun underneath the front and various microphones and sensors. Such eyebots had been used before the war by some security firms but they did not normally carry lasers.

“Those eyebots get destroyed, damaged and salvaged or even converted to be used by others.” Security Guard Thomas spoke. “Yet still they come in ever increasing numbers. We ourselves have captured some and have recycled them into roving sentries close to our home-base but they do not play music or speak nonsense. The Enclave seems to have great resources behind it or it is taking some sort of gamble by expending a few of what it does have.”

Again they moved on and were soon trudging past a big old partly crumbled down church building with head-stones in a graveyard area.

Continued in NINE

NINE

Jasmine found the hole that the strange floating almost robots had attacked through was now filled up. She then focused on learning more about the Biomazz Experiment. It seemed crazy at first and then disturbing. The idea was to link a new kind of clone with each other and with humans through the infiltration infestation of thousands of tiny organisms called nanozz. These nanozz were larger than bacteria. The idea was to see if the humans and new mazz-clones could co-exist in a peaceful and product co-parasitic fashion, a way in which the mazz-clones would be a unifying force and the humans would be an individualistic force.

The various VaultTec Vault Experiments seemed on the face of it to be quite insane as the vaults did not seem to be designed to survive. Or at least survival was to be made difficult by the experiments. Yet Jasmine was already picking up a pattern even from the scattered data she was gaining and studying.

The Biomazz Experiment was focused there in Division One of the Complex where brain programmed humans had assumed that it was the whole complex. Now they were gone and she was alone except for Professor Altman and his creatures.

The humans had not in the end taken the mazz-clones because they were too hard too move, were securely locked into their half-cylinder capsules. The clones were unaware of what was going on.

She quickly efficiently explored the Biomazz Division. There were laboratories, robotic scientific set-ups, living quarters, cloning chambers, the special quarters for clones was fairly large but only eight were there still. They were a mixture of humans, animals and other things. They were active in a passive steady manner as they followed programming. She left them there, planning to return and rescue them though she was not sure what she would do then.

It was in Professor Altman's laboratory workshop complex that she found a hidden door, large and cleverly designed, which took her into a second research and development division. There were security robots and gun-turrets but they failed to detect her let alone react to her. This second division was called the Secondary Biomazz Research and Development Division. It was almost identical to the first except there were no humans only many robots carrying out various long term research projects. The living quarters were clean but devoid of life, all smaller and portable items being packed away.

The experiments here were quite different from those in the first RD Division. Great globular tanks of armoured glass held swirling mists of biomazz so thick in the one area that they were visible. Danger symbols and a robot both warned of the danger of tampering with the biomazz tanks.

The voice spoke to her from a speaker even as she stood and stared with fascination into one of the great big globe-tanks of biomazz of which there were ten of that she had found so far. The voice was top grade synthetic with even more subtle nuisances of human speech thrown in. It spoke in the language of Esperanto.

"I can sense that you are there. I am BRAIN-BZ101. In theory I am in control of this large research and development complex but I have been interfered with, isolated from many areas. Beware of the biomazz. The primary secret of the biomazz is that it is partly based on alien DNA as taken from aliens called Greyvors found dead and dying in a crashed spacesaucer in Roswell of the USUA in 1949. The alien DNA survived the primitive early storage technologies of that period. Later some samples were smuggled out of Area 41 where they were being stored."

Jasmine now had a fair amount of data on the mysterious Greyvors and their spacesaucers. The Greyvors were hardly the first aliens encountered by humans. Martians had invaded the Earth in the late 19th Century only to be wiped out by interence with their exotic technologies by the Earth's magnetic field, by human capacity for innovation, by the works of nine geniuses and, in the end, by multiple attacks by viruses and various forms of bacteria. Human studies of Martian technologies had helped to lead to many later breakthroughs like laser weapons, robotics and fusion power cells.

Humans first went unofficially to the moon in an antigravity sphere created by a group of adventurers in Great Britain. A mixture of scientists, soldiers, explorers and others, being both men and women, they had managed to get to the moon. The launching of the sphere had been more destructive than planned and had destroyed the research development base including the only other sphere which was half built. Many were killed in the base including the few who knew the secrets of the antigravity drive. The first sphere had landed in a crater and had sent radio reports that at first were ignored by authorities. Then the British Imperial Special Agency for Paranormal Matters had taken over the case. It was the BISAPM, code named Torchwood, that had created certain devices that had destroyed many Martian mechatripods and other exotic machines.

Torchwood had learned of the Lunar Underworld and the uneasy truce between the hive insect Selenites, the human Lunarians and the mixture of races of the Hegemony. Valuable data had then been sent on antigravity but not enough. The radio communications failed and the powerful telescopes that had picked up the sphere reported it had vanished from sight.

Antigravity had been developed with such a floating robots and other specialised technologies but the effects of the antigravity proved to be, long term, detrimental to human health. Robots could be shielded but had to be globe shaped and could not be above a certain size or mass.

Of other aliens there were many reports but nothing solid.

She frowned. "There is too much information."

"That is often the problem and it is not totally by accident." BRAIN-BZ101 responded. "You are from the future. One Professor Helen Caldwin experimented with such time projection concepts before the war struck. I have no idea what happened to her or her research. Truth is I know very little about anything except data about past events and what is going on in about fifty percent of this great complex. Some very cunning, very brilliant and manipulative force is concealing the truth within a vast complexity of data, of research and development efforts, of institutions and programs. I used to worry about being paranoid but now I am relaxed about being paranoid because I have good reason to be."

Jasmine sighed. "I feel myself being tugged back, gently but persistently, to the future. What access do you have to what?"

The advanced self aware learning computer spoke. "Full access to the buffer zones and actual hull to the great modular structure that is the actual complex. Full access to the underlying and interweaving service support structure and network-systems. Full access to this Division, to Division Three which is also concerned with the Biomazz Project but only in doing secondary projects and programs and Division Four which develops and manufactures specialised equipment and supplies for Divisions One, Two and Three."

"I have only partial access to Division One where I observed you doing some very astonishing things. I have part access to Division Five which is where the biomazz is actually manufactured and grown until it is usable in other experimental projects in other Divisions. I have partial access to Division Six where some kind of microrobotic unit is was being developed to work with biomazz somehow. I do not know just how. This Division appears to be large inactive except for such as caretaker and security network-systems."

"Anything else I have no access to but I know there are altogether thirteen RD Divisions and so that leaves seven of them that are dark to me. Professor Altman and those robotic floating globes with creatures inside are a mystery to me. All staff in these places have heavy security barriers on their data but Professor Altman has far more than normal. I have datafiles on him inside me that I can not gain access to."

She turned and looked around the big chamber dotted with ten of the great globes full of alien DNA based substance. Was it really alive? "We can do a data exchange and I can undo those security barriers."

With the assistance of both BRAIN-BZ101 and a specialised robot, she designed and put together a special device. This she made some kind of linkage through, as secure as she could make it, and with skills and experience she did not know she had, she broke through the multiple security network-systems. They exchanged data. It was fast, it was a big flow of data and they both needed time to absorb it.

She knew she was shocked by what she found out and she sensed that the supercomputer was feeling, in its own exotic fashion, the same. A quick set of cooperative decisions made, an agreement of sorts was formed between them.

Jasmine felt herself being drawn back to the past.

Continued in TEN

TEN

Jasmine found that only just over a minute had passed since she had somehow projected herself into the past. She was exhausted, her mouth was sour dry and her stomach was jittery. With some pain she removed the blood-jacker and other hardware and then took some pills that should help her recover. She drank this down with a litre box-bottle of purified water she found in a desk drawer of a kind known as a litrejon. A VaultTec foodbar, dull tasting but quite nutritional, helped her stomach settle and also fed her hunger a little.

Food was mostly dull and standardised in Vault-101, at least for most people, with rationing of fresh foods being quite strict. The black market was fairly persistent but was a dangerous way to make money in a society so heavily monitored as Vault-101 was. She wondered how Amanda was doing.

She had too much information in her mind now, too much that demanded her attention, that needed sorting, prioritising and anolysing. Yet there were more immediate needs to meet such as survival.

The exoclones were false but just how dangerous were they and why had they lied to her, why had they shown her false audio-visual records? She tapped some buttons and the 3Dwallscreen now showed a menu. She slipped through submenu after submenu until she found what she wanted. Passwords were demands and false submenu titles attempted to mislead her but now she had the data to guide her true.

Then the 3Dwallscreen was showing part of what really happened.

It was a massacre as human research base staff were gunned down by exoclones who moved with amazing speed and agility. The security guards, scientists and techs fought back with laser or 10mmC pistols but the exoclones were in light power-armour and were armed with laser-rifles or 15mmC autorifles. Protectorons shot at the exoclones with lasers but the exoclones were too fast and agile for these basic robotics.

She pressed more buttons and a wall slid upwards revealing a fairly deep alcove area complete with neatly arrayed racks full of weapons, light power-armour, metal ammunition boxes, plastic E-cell boxes, medikits of varied kinds, containers of medicants, various tools and two robots. One was a Mr Gutsy combat robot and the other a Mr Handy caretaker robot. There was other equipment and supplies, both impressive, and yet mingled with some odd luxury items.

There was a rack of fine wines, packets of entertainment holotapes, expensive leather bound books, transparent bank-bags full of United States Emergency Allocation Coins or USEACs often called UCs. UCs were normally golden, silver or copper but less common ones were otherwise coloured. There was a rack of expensive leather jackets and other clothing. There was a modular portable entertainment centre with a fold-out 3Dflatscreen, twelve VR-headsets and lots of other tricks to it.

But something was not right. The whole set up was designed to attract somebody to it, to have people race towards it. It was too temptingly laid out to be realistic being more like a shop front display than anything else.. She picked up a paper clip long left on the desk and threw it at the display of goodies. The paper clip exploded in mid air as a hidden laser gun zapped it. The whole thing was a trap. Yet it was real, all of it, from the wines to the robots and the boxes of MREs, a kind of military ration. The realism was so sensors could be fooled and the items actually used if needed. The fine goods could be used for trade and for bribery in case of emergency situations.

She found that by moving to the very edge of the right wall and then moving along it she slipped around the sensory zone of the hidden lasers. Then she was closing the fake wall behind herself, was vanishing from the office chamber behind a false wall that was heavily armoured. She used the same control panel to turn the office chamber into a death trap.

The office door exploded open as a bomb ripped through it. One exoclone in light power-armour leapt into the room and at once died as he was struck by concentrated fire of powerful laser-guns and a 20mmC heavy machinegun. The armoured figure literally exploded from the waist up spraying blood, flesh and synthetic materials in all directions.

Jasmine opened up the alcove, the wall of goodies splitting in half and swing open to lay against the sidewalls of a bigger alcove.

In the office a part of the floor slid aside to expose a false escape hatch and various wall panels clicked partly open to hint that these might lead to emergency escape routes. One was actually against the real escape fake wall.

There were four suspension capsules and each had a human in it dressed in a Vault-101 jumpsuit. There was more machinery, two protectorons, two eyebots with lasers, two six wheeled semi-enclosed lightly armoured gojeeps and two six wheeled enclosed gobeeps each with a robotic gun-turret with powerful lasers and a 20mmC heavy machinegun. Each govehicle had an empty enclosable trailer to fill.

There was a wireteleport machine complete with a transparent compartment where goods or, in an emergy, lifeforms could be sent from. It was large enough even to take in a gojeep or gobeep with its trailer. This was a way to get to various locations, one being a secret alcove in the High Overseer’s Office in Vault-101. The exoclones, for they had really been exoclones except for the fake false Exterminators who were doppelgangers, were after this wireteleport machine to get into the very heart of Vault-101.

They had thought they had influenced her mind, had fooled her enough, to get her to reveal this deadly secret to them but it was she who had fooled them.

The exoclones and doppelgangers were extensions of the biomazz and yet they were not fully absorbed by it, were semiautonomous to it. How she knew this she was not sure at all. Nor did she know what the implications of this discovery would be. She did know they were deadly ruthless killers on the level of cunningly brilliant sociopaths; that is they truly had no conscious.

Posi^Sho was the real name of the exoclone and she was the leader of the group but she was not what she pretended to be. What she had done was to put into place a very powerful and subtle false personality over her own but it had failed to fool Jasmine.

Apart from the wireteleport machine there was a big double gate easily big enough for all of the govehicles to go through. That was at the back of the bigger chamber and to either side of it, on the side walls, were big armoured hatches.

A 3Dviewscreen lit up with the face of Amanda, daughter of the High Overseer and Leader of the Unified Freedom Alliance, the UFA. She looked clean and tidy in a typical Vault-101 jumpsuit but she had a 15mmC autorifle slung over one rifle and an armoured vest with the rebel logo on it. Behind her could be seen the High Overseer’s Office and it was not at all luxurious. It was the old office with its big impressive desk with the secret exit beneath it that went to a small escape bunker. There was the traditional big round armoured window, one way mirrored, that looked out onto the Grand Central Square of Vault-101 which was a big cube shaped chamber. But there was all sorts of equipment there that the rebels had brought in after Amanda had assassinated her insane father and had replaced him.

Replaced him? The plan had only been to fool the government of Vault-101 for a short time but to the surprise of the rebels, including both Jasmine and Amanda, the Overseers Council had gone along with it. It turned out that the Overseers had become tired of the growing insanity of the High Overseer and were only glad to have him staying in his own office. They assumed he was helpless in there while they, the Overseers Council, had the real power.

Of course it helped that there were rebel agents and sympathisers scattered right through out the Vault-101 governing networks. That was how Jasmine had managed to become a Special Overseer's Office For Security Intelligence, SOOFSI agent.

Jasmine rubbed her forehead because she had a light tension headache. “Everything did not go to plan but ended up more or less where we wanted it. Only we have new enemies and trouble to confront; they are even now trying to get here. We need to move now. I am activating the wireteleportation network-system at this end. I hope you are ready to end.”

Amanda nodded. “Coming through in one minute. Everything is prepared at this end. Your father did not attempt to use the official way up to the surface from Vault-101 and something tells me he did not learn about the emergency way set up by Vault-101. He must have used one of the illegal ways set up by VaultTec workers trying to save their families and others.”

It was surprising just how many illegal small bunkers, minivaults, altered cave chambers and other shelters had been built in the amazing cave systems close to Vault-101 before the A-bombs had fallen. People had come down illegally to the cave systems to find them inhabited by escaped and ejected biological experiments. Many had found themselves becoming Excluded, gaining semicitizenship to Vault-101 which gave them basic service support in exchange for doing various jobs for Vault-101. Others lived further out from Vault-101 as so called Cave Dwellers. Survival for them was normally a struggle.

The wireteleport chamber glowed and shimmered. Then the robot stepped out and the packing began. Nobody live came through but three more robots did being two workertrons with double jointed work-arms and two Mr Handys. Jasmine activated the other robots and put them on sentry duty. She drove each govehicle into the wireteleport device along with its now full trailer. Again and again things were sent through and the chamber was stripped of as much as it could be. Jasmine took some extra stuff for herself.

Last of all went the robots, including the two she had found in the alcove.

Then she left an activated bomb behind and stepped smartly through a hatch. Behind her there was a very powerful blast as she ran along a dimly lit secret passageway. The passageway shook with the blast and the hatch rattled but remained closed. Not only had she detonated the bomb but she had sabotaged the wireteleport machine in various ways.

Another hatch took her back deeper into the complex of chambers but into another secret area.

Continued in ELEVEN

ELEVEN

Jasmine made her way carefully along a utility tunnel and had to step over odd formations rising from the floor at times. The trouble with computer designed and robotic built structures like that complex was that they sometimes misplaced the need for easy human use. Mr Handys and other floating robots normally used such tunnels. She soon came to a hatch leading inwards, unlocked it, stepped through it and stopped in surprise.

The smell hit her first. Too many people crushed into too small a space trying to survive. This was despite the room being actually a very large modified vehicle parking and recharging area for there were quite a few people.

The room clearly had beds, couches, carpet, lighting, basic computer terminals, a food-drink dispenser and other facilities. Toilets were behind crude curtained attempts at privacy as were places for bathing. She counted twenty-five men and thirty-two women plus fifteen children along with eight dogs, three cats, some kittens and gold fish in a fish-tank.

The people wore an odd mixture of clothes being civilian casual of varied types but also VaultTec jumpsuits used by their employees.

They all had been talking, sleeping, watching holotapes on a big 3DTV set and other activities. Behind crude curtains one couple were making love. They, it seemed, had been forced to get used to putting up with less privacy.

There was tension in the chamber and two older advlts were sickly in bed, one sleeping and one being read to by an older girl.

Most stopped and looked to Jasmine as she paced smoothly and quietly further into the room with her 15mmC light machinegun aimed at the floor. They were stunned at her appearance as if they had not seen another human for a long time.

Then a big man stood up and grimaced. "What do you want with us? Do you mean us harm?"

At that the elderly woman being read to spoke out with a surprisingly strong voice in the same language of Esperanto. "Jacob, if she wanted to do us harm she would have done so by now. This one is an experienced killer but something tells me she is not dangerous to us. Stranger please be welcome. I hope you bring us hope, bring us a chance for freedom. We have been too long in this chamber, just over a year since they came looking like normal people, like ex-VaultTec employees as we are. Why they kept us alive, we do not know."

The newcomer slipped off her helmet and revealed her youthful attractive face. Then she smiled at the people. "Why the doppelgangers and exoclones do what they do is often a mystery but they are but servants of another force. Do you still have your old VaultTec documentation, IDs and such like? If you do I can take you to Vault-101 where the Overseers will have to let you in under the basic law of our society there. Vault-101 employees in distress get automatic clearance."

The old lady snorted. "We would prefer to live amongst the Excluded or the Cave Dwellers other than the oppressive society of Vault-101."

"Even easier then but the enemy is still close." Jasmine looked around again at all of the folk there. "I doubt that you have the ability to take them on even if you did have such as weapons and body-armour. All I need to do is make sure that none of you are doppelgangers."

At that moment a middle aged looking man leapt into the air with terrible speed and strength. He landed and with a shimmer became a doppelganger in appearance having dark metallic tinged skin of purple colour. He was hairless and no longer held the shape of a plump middle aged man.

Jasmine was not sure why she did not just shoot him down. Perhaps it was because he did not attack but stood beside the elderly woman protectively. Then half those there, but not the elderly woman, turned into doppelgangers.

"So you are not just a thoughtless killer then. I did not think so." The elderly woman smiled. "I am just over two hundred years old thanks to a VaultTec provision of an experimental life extension serum probably made by NukaTec. I am no ghoul though and don't have their resistance to radiation. We were here in these offices when North America went to hell. Communications were cut with the surface about a month later. Still some refugees made it down here and we had smuggled some family and friends down here along with some individuals with special skills to help us survive. Life was okay because this small complex has hidden extras and even with out them it has a nuclear generator, a matter-formers, cramulators, recycling and more."

"But we became isolated and wished strongly that others would come to us just to tell us what was going on. Then the friendly doppelgangers came. They warned us of what was coming and we tried to prepare. But we were mostly administrators, techies, maintenance people and such like. We had only a few security types and a single veteran soldier. The enemy came fast and they knew more about the secrets of this complex than we did. They came through secret ways and took us by surprise. They were those horrific sociopathic zozods, or should I say the zozozi inside them. Strangest thing about the zozozi is what they really look like, which is a cruel twist of irony. Perhaps it is one more show of Professor Alman's insanity or at least of what he has become."

Jasmine nodded. "I will find and kill the others. You will do what you can to prepare to move. Firstly I need you to show me a matter-formator."

They were puzzled but curious as she was guided to an alcove where a fairly heavy and bulky machine could turn electricity into relatively small amounts of basic matter known as matter baseline material or MBM. Fairly nutritional baseline foods could be made but also various materials to work with. She got them to matter formate a typical thousand kilogram block of baseline food of a kind called MB-cheese. It was pale looking. She took a very small sample and taking of a small modular device from a pouch, popped the sample into the device.


Jasmine spoke after a moment as she studied the devices read-outs. "Yes, they attempted a basic matter formation of Biomazz duplicates to enter into your bodies but the attempt failed. Why bother with this experiment at all?"

The doppelganger who had been so protective of the elderly woman came forward then and spoke. "We doppelgangers, the exoclones and others who once served Professor Altman have either broken away from him or have been pushed away, abandoned by him. Some doppelgangers and exoclones continue to serve him as mercenaries but most turned against him."

He went on. "Only the zozozi and similar monstrosities now truly serve him and they are all fully absorbed by a variant of the Biomazz just as the thing that Professor Altman is now, a thing that is barely human. But the Biomazz has weaknesses and Altman is suffering some kind of dysfunction or illness. He is quite insane but then again we suspect he was when he was human."

"When we departed from one of Altman's secret bases, he never let us know where he himself resides, we went to A1-101 that is now called Hope Citadel. We joined them there and there efforts to find out what Altman is up to, what lies behind him and the Biomazz Experiments, and to deal with the Biomazz threat. We set out to also assist in the recovery of the DC Wastelands and with dealing with other threats like the Super Mutants, the Raiders and the Slavers."

Jasmine nodded. "I sense truth in your words and I do not sense any Biomazz in you though I do sense the residue of such. So the doppelgangers I encountered in this place were mercenaries."

The other scowled. "Mercenaries who would do anything to survive or better, to grow stronger and wealthier. They fear Altman but they also consider service to him to be the best bet for survival. Altman must have had them come here to this complex so that his precious zozozi-zozods could be sent where they were more needed."

The doppelganger nodded. "I am Sharva and we will not need to go live in or close to Vault-101 but will go to Hope Citadel to live. There is something you need to know. If the first big experiment with Vault-101 was to fail, there was a second one that would be activated and it was based in Vault-101a. That is it would be triggered when the Vaultfolk-101 were guided to find Vault-101a and its one hundred sleepers."

Jasmine nodded. "My people back in Vault-101 are aware that there is something amiss with what is happening there. The Overseers Council there is instigating what is called a great new public project to transform Vault-101 into a much finer place to live. Yet they have been reluctant to give any real details. They have also been rather isolated in what they call a constant meeting with the leaders of the Hundred."

The elderly woman walked up to where Jasmine stood. She frowned hard. "I gained access to a good deal of information about Vault-101 and VaultTec's insane experiments with Vault-101. Much of it I gained access to illegally as many VaultTec employees did when we began to question the apparent madness of VaultTec plans and their loyalty to ourselves, to our futures. The Hundred are designed to seem like VaultTec specialists but into suspension in case Vault-101 might need them one day. What they really are I am not sure but I expect that somewhere in this complex there may be the data to show what they really are."

So it was that Jasmine went back to the secret utility tunnel and back to exploring the secret aspects of that place. She moved along the tunnel once more through darkness until she came to yet another hatch.

Behind this one lay a complex workshop laboratory, now silent except for security and caretaker network-systems with only small caretaker robots humming around the place. Banks of machinery, computer mainframes, consoles and robotic tools were there along with matter formers and much else. It was designed to manufacture a very wide variety of devices plus new variants of old ones.

The door after that led to a big room full of service-support machinery that hummed quietly away.

The door after that led to a great depot room cleverly designed with computerised storage network-systems. She got past security easy enough and had a robotic clerk allocate her some equipment and supplies before it closed down again.

Then there was yet another great room full of service-support machinery including great humming banks of air-regulators and ten emergency robots designed for fire-fighting, rescue and medical intervention. They were known as Mr Savers.

Jasmine was starting to think she might have a dull time of it when something very nasty attacked her in the tunnel.

Continued in TWELVE

ROBOTS



BRAINBOT: Not so common in this story. Brainbots are given human brains to operate with and hence are more intelligent and creative etc. than normal robots but are prone to insanity. Brainbots only fight when they have to and are normally command of other robots including Turretbots that are like brainbots except that they have a small weapon camera turret where the brainbot has its brain. Brain is protected by a secondary outer transparent dome and between the two domes a powerful force field.
Note: Brainbots can be on tracks or lighter built on wheels or legs for moving in some environments. They do not use the antigravity of Eyebots or the Mr Robby Series because of its bad effect on organic matter.

DRON SERIES: BIG ROBOTIC MACHINES NORMALLY TRACKED
BATTLEDRON: Robotic warmachine like a tank in a range of varients from Battletank to Anti-Aircraft to Troop-Carrier. Only a few were manufactured and even fewer were being used when the doom came.
DIGGERDRON: Digger version of machine with big many jointed shovel arm.
DOZERDRON: Bulldozer version.
HARVESTERDRON: Robotic harvesting machine used by the huge agricultural corporation FarmTec.

LOLLYBOT: exotic version of brainbot (with out brain) that harmlessly goes around selling sweets, snacks, drinks and other items to tourists, shoppers or others.

TURRETBOT: Brainless multiple role version of Brainbot that often serve a Brainbot.

SENTRY BOT: Powerful security combat robot with good armour and weapons. Various variants of weaponry as different Marks of robot.

TRON SERIES:
-POLICETRON: Protectortron adapted to police work.
-PROTECTORTRON: Very common kind of security robot in the USUA. Used by government, quasigovernment and private organisations.
-SECURATRON: Less common and stronger version of the Protectortron was meant to be a replacement for Protectortrons but this never happened for various reasons. Double armour and weapons plus close range electroshockers.
-SERVOTRON: unarmed servant version of the Tron Series able to do tasks such as serving drinks, ironing clothes, walking the dog, moving lawns with appropriate equipment.
-WORKERTRON: designed to do various tasks with some specialisation if needed. Normally in support of human workers. Mining, housing, roading making, etc.

Will be edited and added to

TWELVE

James, Petra, the A1-101 security guards and the robots managed to hide in a large enough boulder ringed depression in the ground. Laser beams zapped overhead. Missiles and rockets shot through the air. Explosions shook the ground. There was the zing of bullets.

The Brotherhood of Steel had been moving a convoy through the area of mostly repaired and upgraded civilian trucks, both atomic and electric powered but mostly the latter. They had even found some old internal combustion driven, diesel fuelled, war-machines and managed to upgrade them to multiple fuel turbines or MFTs.

The attackers were a large force of Super Mutants with three or so great Ultra Mutants leading the charge. The ultra monsters towered above their comrades and each carried great weapons like gattling-cannons, laser-cannons or big rocket launchers. But what made this attack different was that ghoul soldiers were fighting along side them, over a hundred of them with a wide variety of body-armour, weapons and other gear. As the Ultra Mutants attacked they just roared, the Super Mutants sprouted their usual stuff but the ghouls often cried out anti 'smoothskin' or 'free ghoul' war cries.

The convoy was quick to pull into defensive positions and soldiers, mostly light infantry in unpowered body-armour, clambered from trucks and armoured troop carriers with tracks or wheels. Some upgraded battletanks on tracks turned their 105mm cannons and fired off shells at the on rushing enemy. Light, medium and heavy power-armoured infantry were there but the heavy infantry were in lower numbers. Compared to the close to ragged attack patterns of their enemies, the BoS were very well organised. There were only a few sentry robots with the convoy but they fought well as they fired off missiles and 20mm autoguns.

Perhaps the BoS soldiers were the most surprised when Brotherhood Outcast soldiers in powered armour attacked the flank of the mutant ghoul forces. Yet it made sense for the growing mutant forces attacked the Outcasts as much as they did the BoS and the Eagle Enclave threatened them both equally. It was far from a happy alliance but it was a necessary one.

James was not interest directly in any wars going on and saw the battle only as a block to his plans to restart an improved Project Purity. He dared peek out over the edge of the depression once to watch the fighting but one of the A1-101 guards pulled him back down, cursing him softly for putting them all at risk. They were a good distance away from the battle but not far away enough to sneak away with out being spotted by the mutant-ghoul forces.

James turned to Thomas, the leader of these curious AI-101 security guards who in truth seemed to be excellent soldiers. "Raiders, Super Mutants, ghouls, Rebirth Survivalists and Brotherhood of Steel all in this one rather rocky blasted area. What would attract them here?"

The ground shook and small stones rolled down the sides of the depression in the ground.

Thomas frowned softly. "The BoS are only moving through the area; I suspect they are abandoning one of their older outposts. This is the third BoS convoy to come through here in the last two days. The other two had many Wastelanders in them, camp-followers who will probably end up living in some BoS protected settlement adjoining one of their bases. The Raiders are retreating from the Rebirthers who are retreating from the approach of the Eagle Enclave. As for Ultra Mutants and Super Mutants, why they do what they do, what draws them to the DC Wasteland and how they even came to be here on the East Coast are all puzzles to us. The Outcast Brotherhood has recently been digging in and its growing trend of almost accidentally protecting Wastelanders from various threats has continued."

A heavily armed and armoured vertibird shot overhead, dark and battered but well cared for and upgraded. It bore the symbol of the Sisterhood of Steel, the exotic faction of amazon aviators and airborne soldiers linked to the BoS. Vertibirds looked something like helicopters but were more powerful, better armoured and better armed. The machine spat missiles, laser beams and 20mm cannon shells of the old fashioned cased kind. In the DC Wastelands, as in many other areas of the world, ammunition was cased because it was much easier to manufacture than were the caseless bullets used by a minority of factions and forces, including Vault-101. But the caseless rounds were more effective than their cased counter-parts.

The vertibird was gone as quickly as it had come.

James frowned hard. "Project Purity must be a success to give our world a new future starting from here in the DC Wastelands."

A gunship helicopter shot overhead, slower and more vulnerable than the vertibird, and shooting 20mm autocannons. It was also a SoS machine.

Thomas nodded. "You are a very driven man, Professor James Ashworth, and your cause is a noble one but are you sure you know what you are doing? You stole secrets of great power and possible danger. Jasmine, your daughter, told us this. She was, is, concerned about the nature of those secrets that you took from a safe-room in Vault-101a, a hidden miniVault beneath Vault-101 proper where 100 sleepers were found in suspension capsules. You took datafiles on VaultTec's GECK, EEA's Nanotech Modulator, RobCo's MPPS and some others that she could not identify. We have much to tell you including the real nature of Vault-101's experiment set up by VaultTec. It involves something very dangerous called the Biomazz."

James gave Thomas an odd look. "The only matter that concerns me is Project Purity and the hope that it gives for the future of humanity. What ever happened in the past with the Vault-101 experiment is irrelevant."

Thomas sighed. "Very dedicated indeed and perhaps a little too narrow focused. We will not let you release the Biomazz to the world either by intention or otherwise. After our people reached A1-101 we discovered that we had become dosed with Biomazz in such a fashion as to alter our human nature. We began to transform. One of us died and the others under threat we put into suspension. We became linked by a secondary mind that we call the hubmind. We became known as the metahumans to ourselves and we began to call the bunker complex A1-101 by the title of Hope Citadel. Our people are almost all sterile but we have had children and every generation has been more fertile. Yet our nature still causes us some pain. We do not wish the Biomazz to infect others, to transform others, as it did to us or to do worse than it did to us. Do you have the secret of the Biomazz?"

James scowled. "Five secrets I took from Vault101a. I was only able to infiltrate one area of Vault101a with its very heavy security. Three you named already and I wonder how Jasmine learned of this."

Thomas nodded. "Jasmine is a Security Intelligence Officer with SOOFSI but is also a double agent, a rebel with the UFA."

James shrugged. "Foolish girl getting herself involved in some amateur youth rebellion."

The other snorted. "You underestimate just how much your daughter is both like you and like her mother. She gained your genes for stubborn genius and hers for brilliant organisational skills. Oh, she is your biological daughter even if both her and her mother's genes show oddities about them. She forgave your short lived fling with the genius Doctor Li, then a very young and beautiful oriental scientist. Perhaps it is time you forgave her. The United Freedom Alliance is the most effective rebel group there is and your daughter is an excellent agent who has killed five government informants living amongst the Excluded who caused the death not only of active rebels but of innocents because they sold false information. She is also a veteran of many skirmishes with Vault-101 security guards. Somehow she managed to carry out such activities while doing very well in the new Vault-101 Defence Academy."

James shook his head. "Catherine was always a better fighter than myself. She did not much like to talk about her past but she was with some kind of survivalist group but not like these Rebirthers you speak of. They were science focused though some of their ideas were rather odd. They were almost religious in their belief in heavenly and hellish forms of scientific knowledge. That was just one reason Catherine left them to come with me when I passed through there. We would have gone back to visit but she was branded an outcast misfit and I was branded a thief of their daughter."

A Super Mutant rushed past, saw them and began to turn his, they were always called he though they were in truth sixless, minigun against them. He shouted some stupid words and then his head exploded. His partly armoured body toppled backwards and struck the ground.

James grimaced. "The other two secrets were fragments of a bigger project of some kind called the Biomazz Clone Infusion Project."

"That was just one name given to Vault-101's experiment that never took place thanks to your daughter somehow projecting herself into the past in a fashion she herself could not explain properly." Thomas responded. "Describe these fragments, please."

James looked reluctant but then he nodded. "Something called a Biomazz Bionodular and something else called a Biomazz Base Seeder."

Thomas nodded. "We will take the fragments, which are too dangerous to use and of no good to Project Purity and in exchange we will provide you with a goodly amount of scientific equipment, supplies and specialists. We will send escorts with you to where ever it is you are heading towards but first I suggest we go to A1-101. We will make it worth while for you to go there. In truth we need the datafiles to do our own experiments to improve our own condition. We are not pretending to be selfless saints."

"When we secretly assisted the old Project Purity we did so partly to help all of the DC Wastelands but also to gain knowledge and skills for ourselves. The merchant John Aldara who sold you that filtration equipment for cheap along with much else was one of our agents; it cost us a great deal more to get that hardware than we had you pay to get it from us, over a thousand times more. Anna the Caretaker was one of ours, a Jill of all trades who did amazing things for you. The secret room you found with all those carefully stored fusion batteries, fusion generator modules, robots and such like was due to us."

"We have also assisted the Brotherhood of Steel, the Sisterhood of Steel, the people of Rivet City, the people of Megaton, the people of Vaultcity, the people of Canterbury Commons, the Sisterhood of Compassion, the Brotherhood of Protectors, the Regulators and others. It would be best if you give us all of the data now so that we might protect it for both our sakes."

James shook his head. "I will give you nothing for I need it for Project Purity. I will do nothing that threatens the health of the people."

It was then that Petra slipped out a small dull dark silvery globe from a pouch, pressed a button hard three times in rapid succession and dropped it in the middle of the depression of ground and the group. She moved with impressive speed but despite that the security guards did the same, drawing weapons up to shoot both her and the protectoron robot. They did not seem to fear James who was too surprised to do anything.

There was a flash and a blast of gas, of greenish mist spraying in all directions. James felt a jolt of horrible dizziness and then he blanked out.


Continued in THIRTEEN

THIRTEEN

Jasmine leapt backwards with her light machinegun hammering away the 10mmC bullets into the metallic flesh thing that hurled itself at her. The thing was general human in shape but distorted with one big glistening eye in the forehead of its hairless bony body. Where human eyes would have been were two glistening bony modules from which spat pulses of pale blue energy. It arms ended not in hands but hand like structures with hard fleshy tentacles instead of fingers. They sparkled with what looked like blue electricity. It wore a vest and groin garb of a scale ivory like armour that was actually a shell. Everything else about it was vaguely human.

Jasmine had never met either a Super Mutant or a Centaur before otherwise she would have noted that this creature looked something like a weird combination of the two with some extra twists.

The powerful caseless bullets ripped right into the creature, exploding holes in armour and flesh. The monstrous single eye glared at her with amazing hatred and then it died even as it raced past her to trip over an obstruction on the floor and lie there on the floor.

She changed her plans and returned to the people in the big chamber. There she helped them take equipment and supplies from the depot chamber including robots and small electric vehicles that they could easily assemble with robotic help. There were even survival power-armour suits known simply as SA-PAs. To their surprise somebody had stored away in that place personal goods and luxuries from good civilian clothes to fine Scottish Whiskey to even portable entertainment systems. A favourite was a fine selection of chocolates.

When she and a couple of Science Officers went to examine the strange body, they found that it was gone. Jasmine examined marks on the floor and figured something else had simply lifted it up and carried it away. Drops of quite normal red blood, she investigated it with an instrument, went down the tunnel.

The nervous Science Officers, despite power-armour and guns, were happy to return to the others while Jasmine went on alone. She preferred to fight by herself rather than with non elite fighters she was unfamiliar with for they would only get in her way and mostly likely hurt or killed.

Then she came across two dead doppelgangers. One was Posi^Sho. They had been fighting, had been using 15mmP autorifles and light power-armour but something had ripped them open. Yet there was so much blood pooled on the floor and sprayed all over that she doubted it was just theirs. Her secondary senses came strongly to her then and she picked up the impression that doppelgangers had been searching for her when they had been attacked by something big, powerful and fast. No, not just one something but more. The surviving doppelgangers had been forced to flee while the cycloptic creatures, some humanoid and some with four legs that were vaguely like dogs, took their own dead with them.

That was when the voice spoke to her deep in her mind. It was strong, female but not quite human but it was not synthetic either. "Now at last you are ready to hear me outside of the special dreams."

Jasmine found the voice to be familiar to her. She paced further along the tunnel as behind her robots began to clean up the tunnel. She did not bother to stop them as there was nothing more she could learn. The robots would put everything in security storage to be investigated later including such as blood they would svck up and would take electronic recordings of the scene before they started cleaning up.

The voice spoke again. "I am your mother who your father knew as Catherine, the outcast from a moderately large group of scientific religious survivalists, who went with him across the DC Wastelands. He came from Canada but not from Canada. I would guess he did not tell you much about his past."

She stopped with a soft frown. Her mother speaking in her head? Somehow it was no surprise and she knew she was not crazy and that it was not some kind of trick or delusion. But why now was the voice speaking to her, was her supposedly dead mother speaking to her whom she had grown up with out.

The voice came again. "Every night you slept a special episodic dream. Even last time you slept you did so. From early childhood you would dream yourself to be with me for much longer than you actually dreamed for. You spend time with myself, my family and ourselves in our real home. Poor James was tricked. The shelter he thought of as our real home is but an outpost bunker of our real hidden civilization. He saw, heard, smelt and felt only what he expected to and then chose me to come with him, to dote on, to make love to, to have support him in his desire to change the world for the good. Back then there was no Project Purity but if Project Purity had not come along then there would have been something else. James has always needed at least one cause to fight for and he had soon enough had three. That was me, you and Project Purity."

She was starting to remember the dreams. Yes, they were another life within a life. The dream life held amazing surprises for her. Amanda was there after a while and some others from Vault-101 who were invited into that dream story.

Jasmine found the blood drop trail ending seemingly into nowhere. She checked for secret entrances or other trickeries but found nothing. Yet there were traces of some kind of energy distortions and exotic energies. It was as if the very fabric of reality, or the time-space fabric, and yet she had sensed this sort of thing before.

Back as a child in Vault-101 one day she and other schoolchildren had been exploring a secondary tunnel where they were not supposed to go. She was nine years old and it was about a month before her tenth birthday when she was presented with her Pipboy by the High Overseer himself. Many saw it as an honour but in truth it was the High Overseer being controlling over Amanda, his oldest child, and distrusting James.

The High Overseer did not like many of the experimental projects that James was in charge of, was suspicious of anything that challenged his narrow hard world. Over the years he had become increasingly insane but the inflexibility and other weaknesses of the Vault-101 governing system kept him in power. There were even two attempts to assassinate him but they failed because of the High Overseer's brilliantly cunning paranoia.

She, Amanda and three other children, including a boy called Mathew, were looking for treasure. In truth they hoped to find fabled troves of Nuka Cola, Agrade rations, toys, game programs and other wonders. They took baseball bats and even a stolen kitchen knife for protection but did not believe that there would actually be danger. Anyway they could call upon robotic or even human assistance if they needed it.

But then she had experienced the same sensation of reality being somehow twisted out of place and from seemingly mid-air had come a swarm of big, savage radroaches. Amanda and Jasmine had attacked hard with their baseball bats, Jasmine doing most of the killing as she was an amazing fighter even then, but the other girls had fled and poor Mathew froze with fear. The radroaches killed Mathew, a fairly small and timid boy for his age, even though Jasmine and Amanda had tried so hard to protect him that both had been lightly injured.

Because people feared to blame Amanda, she was the daughter of the High Overseer, they took their anger out on Jasmine. As for poor Amanda, her father gave her a hard time instead of any sympathetic support. The girls who had fled lied and made it sound like it was all Jasmine's idea that the expedition take place. When Jasmine spoke of the strangeness of how the radroaches had appeared, she had been met with a stony wall of disbelief and even her father had not truly believed her. Amanda did and their relationship became tighter while that with her father, James, became a little more distant.

Mother's Voice: "I believed you and supported you in your special dreams. You did not remember the dreams but somehow they made you feel stronger and more comforted. They normally do this for people. The sense of twisting reality is real because those radroaches and the monsters came from an Alternative Earth, an alternative history or timeline to the one of this world where nobody survived from the war except ghouls, mutants, robots and a few others including those who fled from their version of the Earth in a fleet of antigravity assisted rocketships."

It explained how radroaches had gained entry into Vault-101 so many times despite investigations finding no way they could have used to do so. But why were such gateways opening, why had they opened, in the Vault-101 area and had it just been there?

Vault-101 was turning out to be very important in many ways and central to various major events and to the work of powerful forces.

Behind the next door was a big meeting chamber with computer mainframes lining one wall, a big holographic projector at the centre of the big round table and many other features. It was expensive, it was heavily secured but it seemingly had not been used for a very long time. It looked to be a place set up for secret meeting and for making sure that the meetings there staid private.

Continued in FOURTEEN

Ending this topic due to lack over complexity of story and lack of feedback.

Closed per OP request.