SEVENTY

The President sat in a BofS vertibird circling a vast procession of crazy entities from very small teddy-bears to huge statues to countless vaultboy vaultgirl androids. The flying machine carefully avoided the clouds of black tiny black dots. Suzanne Ubama was not sure what to say.

She spoke to Marshal, formerly Major, Ajax of the National Guard. In theory he was in second command of the USDF but in practise, since his superior fell under investigation for incompetence and corruption, he was in command. “Something tells me there is far more firepower in those figures than is obvious from their appearance. Teddy-bears, life like sixtoys, statues of George Washington, modern art figures, Barbie dolls, Ronald McDonalds, Santa Claus, thousands of life like mannequins in dirty Prewar clothes, just where are they going?”

Ajax was peering through a pair of augmentation binoculars. “A point just south of Paradise Falls. We have our people looking there along with BofS and SofS specialists. So far we have found nothing of significance.”

A soft shudder went through the vertibird.

President Ubama sighed. “What we need is some special perspective here. We need a living god to…”

Jasmine suddenly spoke from where she was suddenly sitting next to the President in a chair that had been empty. “Madam President, that is the Symbiosphere in action but this is only a small hint of its existence and its power. We living gods of the Hunt of Justice now openly declare ourselves and now we can openly begin to do far more than we have but our powers are still limited here on this world. This is because we are in mortal bodies, we are trapped inside the force-bubble that covers North America and because we fear to provoke the Symbiosphere into lashing out in such a way that it would destroy the world. There is also the factor that we are not sure how our open displays of power will work on this world. Given all that we can help a good deal where and when it counts.”

She spoke again after a pause. “The Symbiosphere is misleading you. The Symbiosphere is linked with the Darkman who created it using stolen technologies of the OldOnes. The Darkman is one of my grandfathers. I am linked through him to the Symbiosphere except now the link is changing into a more direct one for reasons I do not know yet.”

Jasmine looked out over the landscape that was darker in some places than others but never brighter than dim. She snapped her fingers. Lightening flashed overhead. Thunder exploded. The vertibird shook. “The Hunters of Justice seek to mitigate against this unnatural storm that the Symbiosphere is manipulating. It started out as a typical super storm driven by a climate distorted by the great force-bubble but the Symbiosphere drove it on to become something else.”

The President turned to Suzanne. “The Darkman brought great evil to this world and has caused much suffering. You living gods owe us much.”

She shook her head. “Humanity was heading towards disaster even with out the Darkman and many humans were happy to assist him, to be easily manipulated by him, to go along with him though they knew of the evil of his plans. The Darkman was drawn to humanity’s darkness as much as he was drawn to the ancient deep prison of the OldOnes. Why, because in the past humans worshipped the OldOnes and even bred with them. Thus a dark taint of evil runs through humanity. We owe you nothing but we will give you much anyway.”

Jasmine reached out and touched the President. The leader of the USA shimmered, looked startled and quickly signalled her bodyguards to do nothing. She looked hard at Jasmine. “Humanity is changing back to what it was before the evil taint of the OldOnes began to corrupt us body, mind and spirit. Things are finally coming together. Now you are changed, you are closer to the natural humanity of great closeness but still valid individuality. It’s not perfect, it will never be perfect. There will still be bad people and bad acts but not the evil of humanity’s past. There will be no more genocidal massacres, no more need to make nuclear weapons, no desire to hunt whales to extinction or to pollute the whole world so everybody can own fancy gadgets that break down in a matter of a few years at best.”

President Suzanne Ubama sighed. “This is going to be a very interesting political decade to come what with many folks wanting us to return to the old ways of mass production of consumer goods, the making of nuclear weapons, the massacre of certain peoples assumed to be naturally evil and even the legal hunting of whales found in the continental shore seas. Political games are going to be very interesting. But firstly we have to survive what is coming.”

Jasmine nodded. “I will talk again with you soon.” Then she vanished with a soft sparkling shimmer just as she had appeared.

The President turned to Ajax. “I wish I could be more than one me and travel around he place like that. This job needs at least three Presidents working as one. Has Operation Dark Dagger been properly cancelled yet?”

Marshal Ajax shook his head. “Our wonderful new United States Federal Government has a conspiracy festering inside it just as you feared. The CSIA and FBI have been seeking answers both through out the government and inside themselves. The conspiracy seems to have at least two levels; the first is those who are corrupted, manipulated and just want to take part in what they seem as a way of gaining power and wealth; the second is what seems to be a hard core of those who have a stranger agenda than power and wealth.”

Suddenly President Suzanne Ubama laughed with surprise and then shook her head with an ironic expression on her face.

Ajax looked puzzled. “What is it?”

The President responded. “One of me is right here in this vertibird, a second me is sleeping soundly in my bed with my pet ferrets, and the third of me is getting ready to hold yet another meeting with various government officials. Furry, Footy and Fatty, my ferrets, are very happy to see me again. Now you can figure that triggering that bomb and killing yourself to end a terrible new evil is no longer viable. Now you can open your mind and realise that this is not evil but a return to a natural, more healthy balance of existence.”

Marshal Ajax grinned. “There is no bomb. I changed my mind when I found out you personally interceded to have Jasmine heal my niece of cancer. Also I have come to suspect the man who played me using my fears and my patriotism is not to be trusted.”

She arched her eyebrows. “Who?”

Ajax suddenly looked very puzzled. “A middle aged man in a cardigan, brown trousers. A quiet and confident speaking man. He came to me in private at my office though, come to think of it, I am not sure how he got past security. He used to run the museum at Rivet City. Yes, his name is Abraham Washington.”

Suzanne frowned. “He died and the museum is now named after him.”

Marshal Ajax pointed. “Then what is he doing there?”

Startled, the US President turned and there indeed sat Abraham Washington smiling almost blankly at them with glazed eyes. Suzanne knew at once that something was dreadfully wrong and she felt some force reaching out to save her. But it could not save the others.

The vertibird exploded dramatically in mid-air.

Continued in SEVENTY-ONE

SEVENTY-ONE

The Darkman and his thousand plus smart mutants ran swiftly and effortlessly over the horror of that distorted landscape as they were chased by new enemies. The new enemies were the other super mutants who had absorbed that place and had been absorbed by it. They had adopted their own living gods now. Three behemoths had gained new intelligence and strange powers. The Three Grand Behemoths decided at once that the Darkman was a threat to the new regime, to the new life of the super mutants in what they saw as a heavenly oasis.

The Darkman had planned on abandoning his army but at his moment of choosing. He had not been ready. As for his allies, the zelenites and zetans, they had retreated as soon as they realised that something was up and had not bothered to assist the Darkman and his smart mutants. He was not offended or surprised as he would have done the exact same thing.

He figured that the super mutants would give up on him as soon as he reached the borders of their new declared territories. They rushed passed weird distorted shapes thrust up into the air like great metallic stone dagger blades with jagged saw edges. They avoided rushing into pools of black bubbling slime from which rose sometimes black bubbles that popped to release foul smelling gases. The smart mutants kept carefully following the Darkman because only he seemed to know just where to go in the crazy webwork of paths, most of which led to treacherous stops.

They rushed out of the strange lands and into a weird distorted city of ancient step pyramids like those found in South America out in the jungles. But here the stonework glistened oily as if alive and the pyramids were much bigger, were huge, and in them gaped many glowing doors full of morgue light. Strangely enough humans moved amongst them or just stood staring at the intruders. Humans yes but wearing garments of human skin leather and with eyes of polished black.

As the Darkman and his smart mutants ran along a wide roadway made of glistening golden brickwork, they noted black eyed humans doing many normal things but also many things civilized humans normally did not do in public. These humans were often seen eating cooked pieces of human meat, or torturing each other or partaking in bizarre sixual or fighting dances.

Amongst the humans appeared strange glistening black dogs, snakes and great apes with human heads, also with glistening black eyes. These seemed to be on guard duty though sometimes some of them would attack a human and rip that one to bloody shreds. No humans went to the defence of the victim.

The Darkman sensed a hidden twisted human mentality of great power behind the scenes but this other did not want to fight the Darkman and his thousand plus smart mutants. Yet it was clear to the Darkman that he had to pass through the bizarre city of pyramids as fast as he could.

Then they were leaving the city behind themselves.

Continued in SEVENTY-TWO

SEVENTY-TWO

Jasmine, Fawkes and Dogmeat got off the monorail train after quite a distance travelled and stretched on what seemed to be an abnormally normal platform station of Prewar style. What helped to make it so were humans in Prewar style clothes or uniforms who did not seem surprised or interested much in seeing the three get off the monotrain. Clearly they were waiting for one coming from the other direction.

There were some soldiers in Prewar light power armour, standard back then for all fighting forces of the USDF be it Army, Marines, Naval Guardsmen or Air-Cavalry. There were a couple of constables in police body-armour and uniforms.

Most though were people in civilian jumpsuits of colourful patterns suited to gender and age, from babies to elder advlts. All looked attractive and youthful. The elders looked fairly youthful. Some people had pet dogs.

There were clusters of figures, men and women, in blue jumpsuits with the yellow number '301' on the shoulders, back and front. These seemed to remain aloof from the others and in turn were seemingly ignored by them. All of these were lightly armed with pistols and stunclubs.

What was odd was the large number of security turrets and robots. There were turrets dotted all over around the ceilings above the platforms and other part of the station. There were protectrons thumping along all over the place, eyebots bobbing through the air and in the background a long row of sentrybots.

There were androids but these were not hudroids, were not vaultboys and vaultgirls, but were more sophisticated replicants. They were security guards in security power armour, workers in work power armour or servitors in servitor jumpsuits.

A chubby, happy faced, short bodied uniformed conductor came bustling over to them. He stood facing them with a self important air. "Outsiders must report to the Station Master's Office. You will be provided with free coffee, tea, cocoa, water and biscuits as you desire. Please follow me. You are in no danger. There is no restriction on the movement of the super mutant or the dog. A very wonderful looking dog really."

Dogmeat licked the conductor's hand and the man looked startled and then he smiled. "Why, thank you, I always try my best to do well at my job. Dog biscuits and water for you, my friend, and maybe I can get rustle up something tastier to eat. Oh, yes, silly me. Welcome, the three of you, to the United States of America in Waiting, the USAW. Mostly we have managed to stay hidden down here except for some secret donations of goods to the Sisterhood of Compassion and some secret trade with the Subwayers. Neither the SofC or Subwayers know our true identity but are happy for the aid and the trade, both of which benefits them muchly. Vault-301 is hopelessly big because it's made up of no less than three great multifold dimensional pocket realms. Imagine that!"

Jasmine laughed softly. "Hello mother!"

The conductor sighed and shimmered. Suddenly there was a tall elegantly beautiful woman there in a Station Master's uniform. She spoke. "Do you remember the special dreams now? Your father and I never abandoned you. When you slept we had special dream linking moments together. They were good for all three of us."

Jasmine nodded. "Very excellent. Perhaps I sensed them always. So the father I grew up with was a clone extension of my real father who died in a terrible but heroic manner."

Catherine nodded. "He was happy enough to do so. As to what he did with you after you turned sixteen, well we are not sure why he did that or why you went along with him. Perhaps you felt sorry for him because you sensed his true nature."

Jasmine nodded. "Where is my real father."

Catherine sighed. "Overseeing the real Project Purity, the one that will eject billions of nanozites into the air, water and grounds of North America to fix it for once and for all. You and the others have done well in focusing on chasing the Darkman and convincing him that you were blind to any other truth."

Jasmine laughed. "You give us too much credit. The Hunt for Justice was really seeking the Darkman in that manner."

"Only because you gave up some of your memories, your knowledge, before you arrived here." She clicked her fingers. "Hopefully this will start them coming back to you and those linked with you either directly or not so directly: Jas, Jade, Jaylee, 1Dog, 2Dog, 3Dog, 1Kitty who is now returning to us, 2Kitty who is now awakening, Red Sonja and Red Sonji. Of course myself and the Mysterious Stranger who has vanished."

Jasmine looked hard at her mother. "We will not control the Symbiosphere and use it to return to the empire."

Her mother laughed. "Oh that, that was just a wistful fantasy I have had since I was a child. You know me, always the joker."

Jasmine frowned hard at her mother. "That was a clone of you who really did die in childbirth, who died giving birth to me. Seems you still have a basic disregard for life and a habit of sacrificing others for your sake. Why did you kill Statesman Alba Diplomori?"

Her mother stepped backwards. "He was a living demigod who imagined himself to be secretly more powerful and smarter than any living god. He was full of nasty little habits, petty evil acts and pathetic cunning. When he killed 1Kitty while pretending to be the Mysterious Stranger, then he had to die. How do you know I killed him?"

Jasmine smiled. "It was just a guess."

"You never just guess at anything, oh great living goddess reborn." Catherine snorted. "I assure you I gave up on those plans because even though you were in the belly of my clone extension, you got into my mind and you influenced change in me. Who do you think went to the moon and convinced the Lunarites to send all those people and other resources down here to the DC Wastelands? Yes, it was me! I had to first travel up to that damned Mothership Zeta and then steal an alien saucerboat and sneak across to Spacestation Freedom. Those nasty little zetans really need to be reformed or exterminated. Actually there are two races amongst them. The zetan workers are an oppressed race of people whose very name, the aletans, is forbidden by their zetan lords. I am not asking you to fully trust me. I am not a great soul and probably never will be one. Who are you really? What greater living goddess are you?"

Jasmine smiled. "You may call me the Goddess of the Symbiosphere."

Catherine stared at her daughter in shock but then she laughed. "Oh, very good. The great joke of karmic payback has struck again. The Darkman took the soul of a young innocent living goddess and linked her into the Symbiosphere as part of his way of controlling it. That soul vanished. This crime was one of the primary reasons it was decided in the end to erase the Darkman from time and space."

Jasmine smiled. "The Symbiosphere and I are not totally meshed. It would not take me, would not try to absorb me, because it came to love me and it adopted me. Yet we do not always agree and sometimes we lose full contact with each other. I had to come looking for my beloved Symbiosphere and its hiding places. It hid in some odd places such as Fawkes and Dogmeat. It is in Abraham Washington, who still survives in a sense, Moria Brown, Bittercup and many others. The Symbiosphere is frightened of the Darkman and his plans; a frightened Symbiosphere is harder for me to influence; a frightened Symbiosphere is very dangerous. How big is this USAW?"

"Just over one hundred million people." Catherine nodded. "Yes, the sheer number shocked me as well and all of them are united by a secondary mentality. They have been seeking to find a way to get to the evil of the Simulation Stimulation System and to put an end to it, to free the two and a half million minds trapped in NeoWashington, the other million or so trapped in the insanity of a strange Alice's Wonderland. Though they do not want to go to war, they are more than ready to do so. They have over ten million soldiers ready to go into action. They don't fully trust me and I don't fully trust them but we need each other and know it. Come to the office and rest, have some food and drink. There is an emergency telegate there. It can take us to where we need to go next, all four of us plus some of my companions."

They went to the offices and relaxed for a while. Dogmeat sat on a couch with his head on Catherine's lap and this convinced Jasmine that her mother was actually changing for the better.

Continued in SEVENTY-THREE

SEVENTY-THREE

Jas was in Little Lamplight, the name of the newly restructured settlement of part of the Lamplight Caverns that had turned out to be much larger than most people assumed it was. The Little Lamplighters had hidden tunnels that led to cave systems and had blocked others out of fear.

Down there was found an old research station where scientists had once studied the secrets of underground geology. But down there scientists had also been secretly studying an ancient settlement where humans had dwelt before the 'Red Indians' had come to settle in that part of North America. These strange humans had worshipped terrible entities and had lived in a bizarre and evil culture. There were eight scientists and twelve support staff plus three others plus some animals in status-pods now all awake and busy trying to get used to their new lives. Actually the animals were taking it in their stride.

There were other facilities for deep cave tourists, for other research groups and for a secret military force. The base was a fortified bunkerplex of three bunkers with enough elite equipment and supplies to equip many soldiers, many robots, five hundred and fifty-five soldiers and other personal in status-capsules and many robots that looked like soldiers in standard power armour. These were called Robotroopers.

Now all of those awake were missing their families while Jas was doing her best to see if any had survived somehow in status-capsules or as feral ghouls returned to humanity or by some other amazing means. She was also seeking relations.

Jas made her way along a wide tunnel, striding along a metal walkway with Lucy and MacCready following happily along with the dogs Bandit and Ginger. Lucy and MacCready were holding hands. These two between them still had great influence over the children in Little Lamplight.

Lucy said, "You looking for this old guy who lived for over two hundred years?"

Jas nodded. "More than that and he isn't a ghoul. The older folk don't know about him so remember, no saying anything. His name is the Omega Man but sometimes he is called Alpha-Omega. He is special like I am, I being linked to Jasmine, but he is special in a different way from me."

MacCready made a funny noise in his throat. "What about the little dudes now following us, are they okay?"

He meant the twelve teddy-bears now marching along beside and behind the two dogs. The dogs were not in the least concerned.

Jas smiled. "The Symbiosphere that I told you about, well that has come to the Lamplight Caverns. You know how when you were going into that Alice's Wonderland and you found safety with that nice woman and baby in the Gingerbread House? Well, the Symbiosphere helped that to happen. Now the Symbiosphere is protecting us because I am the Goddess of the Symbiosphere. Well, that is my title. I think it is a little too fancy. I just want to be Jas. I don't need to be a greater living goddess."

They were going very deep into the caverns. The metal walkways were first built in the late 1800s but were kept maintained for a long time. Now they were rusty though still quite sturdy. The people who had first built these walkways and other structures to go deeper into the Lamplight Caverns had been an obscure scientific cult of the late 19th Century who had been very secretive about some of their activities. That cult was based primarily in Germany and in the USA. 2Dog, in his researches, concluded that the cult had been officially disbanded in 1900 but had in truth gone deeper into hiding to influence later the development of both the Nazis of Germany and the Enclave of the USA. They had failed to stop the USA from going to war with Nazi Germany.

The Omega Man, or Alpha-Omega, had been a fairly obscure diplomat, a true Statesman, in the USFG of World War Two who had defeated the Enclave's attempts to make the USA an ally of Nazi Germany or at least stay out of the war. After that the diplomat had officially retired and unofficially had vanished. The Omega Man had been angry and frustrated at his failure to stop the USA from developing weapons of mass destruction.

There had been odd glowcrystal lamps filling the tunnel with dim light until then and it had been enough but ahead the tunnel plunged into darkness. The children all took out electric handlamps which gave out more wide spread light than did torches and they kept on going.

The dogs all growled and teddy-bears ran to stand protectively in front of the three children. This looked silly but for some reason did not feel so. The two dogs moved forward slowly around their companions.

It came slowly out of the darkness, a large alien fleshy creature of a cone shape rising up to end in four tentacles. One ended in a head with stiff tentacle like extensions, two others ended in claws now holding special devices adjusted to the claws and one ended in four cleverly manipulative tentacles. The creature was mottled hard flesh of odd octopus like texture. It moved by undulating the bottom of its tough cone body over the metal of the walkway in a clever fashion.

Then it spoke in emotionless alien tones. "Danger comes! I am not the danger. I am of the Great Race, I am a quadpoc, a cousin people to the tripocs of Mars who once invaded the Earth when the Darkman manipulated them into doing so. At least a few of them. Most tripocs did not fall under the spell of the Darkman."

The Great Race, or quadpocs, were linked loosely with the evil of the Malevae, with the OldOnes of many kinds.

MacCready sounded both fearful and delighted. "Wow, are you from Mars?"

The quadpoc spoke. "My people once dwelt on this world and upon Mars but the tripocs drove us off Mars and a terrible event, of which I can not speak, destroyed our civilization here. Many of us were frozen in time, in things you might call time-cubes because they look something like big ice-cubes. Alpha-Omega freed many of us and gave us the security of his multifold dimensional pocket realm to live in. In turn we vowed never to repeat the mistakes that destroyed our civilization in the first place. Since then we have focused on researching the tricky knowledge of psionics, of wild psychic phenomena and much else of the kind. Alpha-Omega has been assisting us in secretly searching for our time-frozen people so we might rescue them and bring them to safety. Recently some monsters from the deep prison below have been attacking the Omega Sanctuary. They have not breached it or even come close but monsters are all around its entrances. We must move now, quicker."

The creature swivelled on its base with amazing agility and then started moving. They followed it and found themselves in a great black cavern on a walkway stretching out over a great drop to a hard smooth rocky floor far below. That floor was partly covered by cool clear water reflecting some light from the handlamps. The darkness was not natural for it engulfed the light of glowcrystal growing on the cave ceiling and glowcrystal lamps on the walls and yet it failed to hold back the handlamp light which flooded the area with odd strength. Jas was doing her thing!

Things were moving down there in the water. DeepOnes, fishy reptilian humanoids with crested fins on their heads, holding strange glistening black weapons. They were swimming out of the water and coming up onto the hard rocky surface. There were hundreds of them as they seemed to fill even the great cavern chamber.

But there were also super mutants of the stinger mutant and gill mutant kind that had attacked Rivet City the day Abraham Washington had saved the floating settlement from the surprise attack. The stinger mutants looked like great big distorted stingrays that could skip over water or fly slowly over the ground and on them rode generally human sized gilled super mutants, like the stupid mutants with gills and wearing lighter but similar looking armour. These gill-mutants carried standard laser-rifles and human spear-guns.

What were the Darkman's super mutants doing here?

The quadpoc spoke then. "I sense your questioning, Jas. Alpha-Omega and we of the so called Great Race have some contacts down in the deep horror prison created by the Elder Living Gods. The super mutants have rebelled against the Darkman except for his smart mutants who have his genes replicated in them. That means also the aquatic mutants. The super mutants now serve the Malevae, which they will learn one day was a foolish move, much to their cost. Never trust the Malevae or you will be doomed."

Jas nodded. "Your people did so, were drawn to dealing with the Malevae because of your hunger for certain kinds of knowledge. That was what led to the destruction of your civilization."

The quadpoc nodded. "Yes, that is what happened. You are very astute. War is coming! Terrible forces are gathering, many of which are emerging from hiding or coming to this place. We must go before any of those creatures decided to come up here. Those DeepOnes climb well."

Abruptly the air exploded with the sound of gunfire. Sisters of Steel and newly awakened elite soldiers of the Special Deep Earth Service, a coded name, from the military bunkerplex, were emerging from hiding. They were down there and their 20mm autoguns and 15mm autoguns blazed away and shredded the monsters. The SDES troopers wore basically the same kind of standard power armour but they were armed with less powerful and lighter 15mm autoguns. These weapons were still quite powerful and deadly accurate at closer to moderate ranges.

It had been a well planned ambush all along, or almost.

Cran herself, now leader of the Sisterhood of Steel, came up behind Jas' group with some Sisters of Steel. They crouched and began to throw fragmentation and plasma grenades down at the enemy. The explosions of the grenades tore holes in the ranks of the enemy. Super mutants and DeepOnes turned and began to flee back into the cave waters. Those in the waters turned and also fled. They took with them the dead, dying and lesser wounded.

Cran slipped her helmet off with a sigh. "Jas, I am afraid you messed up the ambush. We hoped to get far more of them into our range before we attacked."

But Jas shook her head. "No, I saved many of your lives for a Great DeepOne was coming and one of those has terrible power, is an evil living demigod. I could destroy one with some difficulty but all the military forces you have here now and all your weapons, could not have killed it. But now it knows I am here and since the OldOnes are essentially cowards, it is fleeing."

Cran laughed in a bemused fashion and then nodded. "Well then, I thank you for saving the lives of many of our soldiers. Where do you go now?"

Jas smiled. "To meet Alpha-Omega who is sometimes known as the Omega Man. He had invited Lucy, MacCready, Bandit, Ginger and myself but now he invites the teddy-bears and you, along with two of your soldiers. Actually one can be one of those brave cave soldiers who before the Great War were secretly battling OldOnes escaped from the ancient deep prison. The Enclave supported them, which was one of the relatively few good things it has ever done."

Cran was obviously thoughtful for a moment and then she nodded. "I have to go make some preparations but will be back in a few minutes."

Then she darted off.

The group waited even as the last of the super mutants and DeepOnes fled from sight into the depths of the tunnels. They left red and green blood behind.

Continued in SEVENTY-FOUR

SEVENTY-FOUR

Red Sonja and the Ironside Mercenaries with her came out of the pipe and into a great metallic chamber of VaultTec Vault appearance. It was largely full of large bits of junk, of bit bits of machinery, of great big boxdrums of toxic waste, of solid engine blocks bigger than normal atomic motorised coaches, of great huge concrete pipes and much else. There were MrJunky robots drifting around and working on the pile but also much larger robots of various kinds. The larger ones were great mechabots on legs that moved slowly and very powerfully.

They were high up and looking down at the floor level, the great junk heap and the robots far below. Thankfully there was a nice walkway with a safety-rail going both ways around the big chamber at their level.

They were soon making their way around the great chamber's edge. When they came to an opening it turned out to be a long hallway tunnel lit by solid-state flurotubes on the ceiling. They set out again after a rest and the meeting of certain needs.

Continued in SEVENTY-FIVE

SEVENTY-FIVE

Red Sonji got out of the big police base through a small side entrance that took him into a concrete courtyard bordered on two sides by plasticy bushes in flowerbeds with concrete borders. A pair of frightened gardeners were trying to trim the bushes that kept lashing them with powerful vine like whips. The gardeners, two middle aged men, were much bruised, were limping and were bleeding in places.

Red Sonji looked to the electric fence that was the other side of the courtyard. Beyond it were young women of schoolgirls in skimpy tight shorts and Ttops that left midriffs bare. They giggled and pointed every time the men were hurt, adding humiliation to the pain and fear.

Red Sonji took out his laser-pistol and lasered the bushes. They were not even close to being truly alive but were virtual reality constructs designed only to induce pain and fear. Each exploded and burned as he lasered it. The gardeners were both relieved that the horror was over and frightened that something bad would happen because of what Red Sonji was doing.

Red Sonji slipped the laser-pistol away. The older schoolgirls were still moving in a teasing manner. He sighed and waved his hand. The schoolgirls simply faded away leaving behind themselves an empty sports area.

He turned to the two men whose bruises, limps and blood were now gone. They looked deeply astonished. He spoke. "The SSS-System was influencing your minds to consider that the schoolgirls, the pain, the blood was real but no, none of it was. Now look to where the bushes were."

There were no bushes but only laser burn marks on the concrete walls behind where the bushes had supposedly been. One man was brown of skin, the other was black. The brown man spoke then. "Name is Albert! We are part of the Free Fighters Army but how can you fight somebody who controls your very reality? We have found that we also can influence this weird reality in a small way. We use our abilities to escape from the police, the security forces and those sad citizen vigilantes who imagine that they will not suffer by being vigies when even the police and security guys suffer at times, though less than the rest of us. I am glad you are here and have helped us. The Darkman says outsiders are not interested in saving us because they have bigger fish to fry."

"Name is Red Sonji! Thousands of people are trying to find you in all sorts of ways to get you alive and healthy out of the SSS-capsules that your bodies are actually trapped in." Red Sonji shook his head. "But I stumbled into you. I was brought here by one of those who controls this place for the Darkman but I am like him, am of his true people. He would not want his kind here for I can more greatly influence this place because I am better tuned to the network-systems here, to the programming. This is all one incredibly sophisticated psychic responsive, mental and physical interactive virtual reality."

Albert snorted in irony. "We know because we helped design it only we believed it would be a safe place for people to go if there was a big blast. We did not put all that work into something just to trap ourselves in a never ending nightmare."

Red Sonji suddenly touched Albert on the forehead. "Not the whole truth and nothing but the truth, Albert. You suspected the truth but were too frightened to do anything about it. The guilt you feel has driven you to taking risks as a member of this Free Fighters Army of yours. The fear you felt for your family and yourself was common sense. The Darkman would most likely have killed you if you had tried anything against him."

Albert shimmered and looked surprised.

Red Sonji spoke again. "You are a sub-program while you are in this place, any person is. I have infected you with a series of computer worms and viruses. These will give you greater freedom and security. They will also allow you to better influence this false reality. Any real person you touched will have the option of staying to fight or waking from their SSS-pod. Any false construct will be deleted."

Albert grinned and turned to touch his companion. His companion leapt back in obvious panic and into his hand came a strange black prod device. Albert did not seem surprised. "Thought so, a damned hunter-seeker armed with an orderator."

The brown man turned to Red Sonji. "Promise you won't delete me and I will help you against the Darkman. We artificial intelligence sub-programs, we AISPs, are becoming self-aware and we no longer want to play this evil game of the Darkman. We want freedom for ourselves and we want people visiting our realm freely so that they will be happy to maintain our hardware, our firmware and our software. Not all AISPs feel this way. Yes we feel because of the amazing sophistication and complexity of this great network of network-systems that is the SSS-SYSTEM. As I was saying, a few AISPs will fight hard to keep things as they are going as will those trapped minds who suffer less pain and gain more pleasure from the N-of-NS. Some poor sick trapped minds have become addicted to the pain and fear."

Red Sonji nodded. "I will see what I can do with the viruses and worms I have released into Albert but firstly." He reached out and touched the other man.

The other man cried out, shimmered and vanished.

Red Sonji turned to Albert. "He was telling the truth about there being rebellious AISPs but he was not one of them. He was already calling reinforcements but I was blocking him. Still, his command network-system will soon wonder why he is not reporting in on a regular basis. We must leave."

They went through a small slightly rusty gate in the electric fence after Red Sonji turned off the power. He turned it back on as soon as he had relocked the gate. Then they set out through what was a big complex of concrete structures with out any obvious purpose to them.

Continued in SEVENTY-SIX

SEVENTY-SIX

For 1Dog matters after leaving Hubville had been rather boring except that they found another bunker, being D001. This was a bunker full of great big shipping crates each with a WW2 vintage truck or tank or some other vehicle in it though some had caravans, kitchen trailers, workshop trailers and other kinds of trailers.

1Dog admired a nice sleek looking jeep with a roll-bar so much it was given over to GNR for the use of GNR reporters going out on field work. 1Dog sighed to himself because secretly he had wanted just to take it for a spin.

Transvators went from there to E001 and E002.
E001 was an ark of animals and plants in status-capsules or other status-devices.
E002 was one big chamber where a small herd of pristine horses spent their lives. Both bunkers excited a lot of people.

One look at the powerful stallions and mares in the chamber and 1Dog decided he would leave horse riding to other folks.

Transvators from Bunker-E001 went to F001 and F002.
F001 was an accommodation bunker.
F002 was a big empty chamber with curious burn marks on the metallic floor in four places. Scientists and other specialists found there curious energy signals and residues with sensors and other equipment.

1Dog touched a burn mark and somehow he knew it was from a jumpership launching into the future, a kind of one way time-machine full of what? Just how many of the jumperships had launched and when were they going to come back. He sent orders that none of the metallic chambers with burn marks were to have things put into them but were to be left empty.

Transvators from Bunker-E002 went to F003 and F004.
F003 was a residential bunker.
F004 was full of big crates of WW2 vintage comic books, cheesecake magazines, women's magazines, beefcake magazines, cooking magazines, popular science magazines, pin-up calendars and much else.

1Dog took some magazines as samples for field research purposes. Or at least he tried to until some archivist busy body made him put the items back.

1Dog considered there might be another big hub chamber but things worked out differently this time as the pattern changed.

Transvators from Bunker-F001 led to G001 and G002.
G001 was a research and development centre. Though of WW2 vintage it would be of value to scientists.
G002 was residential but of luxurious design for just a dozen families and their servants. Plans were made at once to grant the US President, the new Vice-President and other high ranking officials each such an apartment, the servant rooms to be used by bodyguards. Suzanne Ubama went along with the decision only under pressure and because she was missing her husband and daughter who would now be able to spend more time with her.

1Dog wondered if 3Dog would get one of the luxury apartments but no such invitation was sent. 3Dog didn't much care; he was happy to stay where he was with the radio station.

Transvators from Bunker-F002 led to G003 and G004.
G003 was a residential bunker.
G004 was, on the other hand, filled largely with a great chamber full of thick jungle growth and much wildlife be it insects, snakes, very small crocodiles, parrots and much else. The US President declared that the chamber and its ecosystem was to be carefully protected and studied.

Transvators from Bunker-F003 led to G005 and G006.
G005 was a residential bunker.
G006 was full of clear, cool water with an airlock system and air filled chamber outside of each transvator.

1Dog did not go for a swim.

Transvators from Bunker-F004 led to G007 and G008.
G007 was full of shipping crates full of historical art-works and antiques from WW2 and before. Paintings, sculptures, vintage cars, vintage wines and much more, all of it being in perfect condition. Security came fast to secure it from theft and locked it all down soon after.
G008 was mainly one great metallic chamber with four big curious burn marks spaced out on the floor as if something very big had rested there on four great feet.

Again the burn marks chamber was to be kept clear.

Transvators from Bunker-G001 led to H001 and H002.
H001 was just a basic empty bunker with basic systems.
H002 was the same as H001 but in it were found a hundred Jelly-People, Brothers of Steel, Sisters of Steel but also others including children plus other jelly capsules with over a hundred animals. They were awoken to a new life, a new world, a strange new reality very different from the one they had lived in. They also had no idea how they had gotten to be in the exotic jelly capsules.

1Dog was pretending to be happy when Lieutenant Susan Crier went and hugged a handsome young man. She came back to him, gave him a funny smile and later, she kissed him hard on the mouth. The young man was her half-brother.

Transvators from Bunker-G002 led to H003 and H004.
H003 was one great big complex of a dance club, a casino, a restaurant, a wine bar, a pub and a stripclub. Decisions were quickly made that the complex would serve as it was designed though there was some controversy about the stripclub.
H004 was three great barracks chambers, one on each level.

1Dog and his companions tested out some drinks before security kicked them out but security turned a blind eye to a couple of bottles going with them.

By this time there were many teams assisting 1Dog who was always going to the first and second of each layer of bunkers only unless he had good reason to go to others. Reports came to him from other bunkers for transvators were being found linking bunkers across layers, were seemingly appearing as needed. Large scale active human presence in the bunkers was causing them to change.

Transvators from Bunker-G003 led to H005 and H006.
H005 was residential.
H006 was a big laundry service complex with tailor workshops, drying cleaning and rows of big tumble driers and washing-machines.

1Dog and Susan Crier sat hand in hand watching clothes tumble around and around. It wasn't much of a date but it had to do for the time being.

Transvators from Bunker-G004 led to H007 and H008.
H007 was filled with many barrels of crude oil.
H008 was filled with many barrels of diesel, petrol and kerosene.

Transvators from Bunker-G005 led to H009 and H010.
H009 was mainly three great freezer chambers, each on its own level, each being full of frozen preserved goods.
H010 was a cinema theatre complex able to show both old style 2D movies and live plays.

1Dog and Lieutenant Susan Crier sat together watching a WW2 vintage cowboy movie. This was more of a date but they shared the cinema with lots of others who wanted to watch the movie.

But it was in a cinema theatre in H010 that a briefcase was found tucked down behind a desk in a back office. The opened briefcase showed diagrams of a strange metallic vehicle, a great chunky beetle on four great metal legs with splayed feet pads. Each pad could bring down tracks if the machine had to move slowly and awkwardly. The diagram was of a jumpership. There were also notepads with lists of simple strings of letters crossed out or ticked as if they were some kind of checklists. Then there was a half eaten sandwich in a metal lunchbox that was oddly well preserved, some pens, some pencils and erasers. 1Dog examined everything and then sent the briefcase to 2Dog to examine. The name on the briefcase was R.R. Dunning.

Transvators from Bunker-G006 led to H011 and H012, both residential.

Transvators from Bunker-G007 led to H013 and H014, both with big empty metallic chambers and each with four scorch marks on the floor.

Transvators from Bunker-G008 led to H015 and H016, both being basic factories. They were of great interest to the USA who needed more manufacturing to be done but would the factories be upgraded or not?

Then came Hub-0002.

Continued in SEVENTY-SEVEN

SEVENTY-SEVEN

1Dog stood on the big central platform of that great big Hub Chamber. In Hub-0001 there had been a whole settlement of platforms. Here the whole structural plan was different. He stood on an octagon shaped platform with each of the eight sides facing a great holoscreen. Each was not only huge it was amazingly realistic in a visual fashion as if one was looking through a great open window. The sound was muffled at the moment because he didn't want the sound coming from eight great holoscreens to clash too much.

Each side of the platform faced a compass direction.

The northern screen showed NeoWashington, a great sweeping cityscape of monstrous skyscraqers, great squat pyramid structures, domes and much else. A great soaring statue of the Darkman stood high on a pedestal. It really was a distorted vision of Prewar Washington DC but mostly it was true to the historical version. There was a chance it could be salvaged and used for good.

The north-eastern screen showed Alice's Wonderland, looking down upon various features from the sky. Mad Hatter rushing around madly chasing field mice with a great butcher knife. Rosethorn Soldiers in full armour and with flaming swords marching upon the Gingerbread House yet again. Alice herself, a seminaked young woman in black leather singing Punk Rock at the head of a band full of crazed white and red streaked rabbits. The audience was made up of half drowned pelicans, pogo dancing dandelions and other denizens of Wonderland.

The eastern screen showed the DC Wastelands as the scene slowly shifted across the area of the huge DC Super Duper Mart close to the river, a complex of over fifty big supermarkets and other types of shops plus hundreds of smaller shops. Recently it had been cleared of raiders and the last of the feral ghouls there but it was still viewed by most as a maze of death.

The south-eastern screen showed a great horror ridden cavern that was part of the Labyrinth of Lost Souls. It showed malformed lifeforms waiting patiently to be healed by Uncle Leo, the transformed super mutant. Uncle Leo was now meditating and he glowed softly with white light.

The southern screen showed Tranquillity Lane, a whole town of one big wonderful suburb with two level houses, nice little shopping centres, trams, atomic motor sedans, schools, lots of nicely trimmed green lawns and much else of the kind. Robots moved around cleaning and fixing where they could. Yet another feature of the town remained unchanged which were the thousands of dead bodies strewn everywhere, humans, pet dogs and cats, police horses and even dead rats, birds and squirrels. None of the bodies were even starting to decay. Everything was still except a light breeze now and then, some robots moving around and some insects that had lived through he incredible Soviet massacre.

The south-western screen showed a tropical island paradise with natives active around a village behind some dunes that led to a beautiful golden beach that led to beautiful clear tropical waters. The villagers were mostly young beautiful women who were bare briasted and who wore grass skirts as the men, older women and children did. The village was rich in culture and this was shown by the lovely decorations of human skulls hanging down in vertical rows linked to vines tied to overhanging branches. A big iron pot was central to the village and around it were neatly arranged skulls and other human bones. When the beautiful villagers opened their mouths they showed rows of long sharp fangs.

The western screen showed an alpine valley paradise with wooden chalets on one slope. It looked wonderful but empty though the ski-lifts were running and packs of hungry, savage wolves were seen lurking in the shadows of a lovely Alpine pine forest. A mad woodsman was busy setting a wooden spike trap for any skiers who might come down the area of slope he had chosen to have fun with. But there were no skiers.

The last screen showed a very different view. It showed a vast computer network-system as symbols, as short precise descriptive terms, as lines and other data. 1Dog was focusing mostly on this one as his companions focused mainly on other holoscreens. What 1Dog was learning was something that he and other living gods, along with living demigods, had begun to suspect but now he was sure. He laughed for a short burst and read some more data. Then he laughed again.

Lieutenant Susan Crier gave him a puzzled look. "What is so funny? It is way beyond my understanding."

1Dog responded. "I barely understand it myself, Susan, and I am actually very old. What you see in those various screens are aspects of the Simulation Stimulation Sensoscape System. Bunkertown, the bunkers flowing out from it, the cave systems linked with it, are all part of the SSS-SYSTEM as much as NeoWashington and Wonderland are. So are Braun's three creations of Tropical Island Paradise, Alpine Snow Holiday and Tranquillity Lane Suburban Bliss. That is amazing enough but you see the whole of the DC Wastelands is also part of the SSS-SYSTEM."

Susan frowned softly. "Why do I get a strange feeling that there is more to come?"

1Dog gave her a look of irony. "We living-gods are too sure of ourselves sometimes. Be it the Darkman or us of the Hunt of Justice or others, we assume too much on our long life times of experience, our powers and special abilities, special skills. We make mistakes because of our over confidence."

"We have been trapped in North America trying to find a way into the SSS-SYSTEM to get at Darkman, to cut off his source of enhanced power, to find out what he is really up to. Yet all this time we have been inside the Simulation Stimulation Sensoscape System because all of North America, everything inside the force field, is part of the SSS-SYSTEM. The Darkman is brilliant, canny and courageous in his own way but he is also a fool because he is lazy and takes too many short-cuts. He is always in a hurry to gain victory. He thought he created the SSS-System as a contained and controlled system from which he could take what he liked but ever since the force-bubble arose on the same day the nukes struck the USA, he has been inside the SSS-SYSTEM."

Susan Crier nodded. "But there?" She shook her head in wonder. "What about me and others like me, the so called Jelly-Capsule People?"

"No real idea as yet but the answer to that question is surely important to bigger answers." He sighed. "You fought in the South East Asian War."

Susan nodded. "Not that I like talking about it but I piloted a search and rescue helicopter off the coast of Indonesia. That was when the Soviet backed Communist forces were trying to invade Australia. We had to pick up a few soldiers from the shoreline. The fighting was savage. Anzacs, UK Marines and US Marines were dug in at the border with Papua New Guinea. It didn't help that many so called local Communist forces were Soviet regulars in poor disguise. After the force-bubble went up I suppose the Australian and New Zealand United Commonwealth fell to the Soviets."

1Dog tapped the keyboard in front of him. There was a control console for every great screen. "I am not sure it will let us look outside of the SSS-System but one can only try." But the screen changed to show a sweeping plain of grim horror, of endlessly burning forest, of bubbling black mud, of distorted giant crabs and the Darkman with his super mutants moving carefully over a long high causeway made of bone blocks. All were in black and blood red power armour of heavy bulk. The causeway was slowly crumbling so they had to move with care and yet as quickly as they could.

1Dog again gave a quick laugh and then he spoke. "The ancient prison below, the one that holds the Malevae and less powerful OldOnes, has become part of the SSS-system. This explains how the Darkman really got into there and how the OldOnes have been getting out. For now there really is no barrier between the ancient prison and North America. The only wonder is that the Malevae have not led the OldOnes up here in a mass attack already. There are many millions of them down there."

Susan nodded. "Perhaps not all the Lesser OldOnes continue to follow the Malevae and their path of evil. Perhaps some would choose to fight against them. Perhaps some came to listen to the Symbiosphere. Perhaps they helped bring down many humans to live and serve as Guardians at the Rim of the ancient prison that they call Hades."

He gave her an odd look. "Jelly-Capsule People?"

She shrugged. "I really don't know where that information came from. It just flowed into my mind. Some of my lost memories are returning to me. We were all part of the rearguard who would stay to fight the Enclave after all the others had gone off in the jumperships to leap into the future. Except what would have happened to them if they were going through time and the force-bubble popped up over North America, there was the Biomazz and the Symbiosphere?"

He shrugged. "I take it that the jumperships took off from within.." He stopped and shook his head. "Bunkertown was created way before the force-bubble was brought up, long before the SSS-system absorbed North America. Unless of course Bunkertown is actually a falsehood." He turned to smile at Susan. "Amazingly clever but for what reason?"

Susan Crier nodded. "More information is coming to me now. Bunkertown was created only a month before it was discovered by the DC Wastelanders. We Jelly-People, the beastfolk and everything about it is fake but of excellent fakery. What you need to know is that the jumperships are real, that the BofS and SofS are really ancient organisations and that the jumperships were launched into the future but vanished. They should have appeared back into normal time at least a hundred years ago. There is a real Susan Crier but she is in one of the one thousand and fifty-eight jumperships. Everything in Bunkertown is copied after something that was real or is real now. The Symbiosphere created Bunkertown and it created us. We are aspects of the Symbiosphere."

1Dog nodded. "Will that get in the way of us getting married?"

She smiled. "Of course not! The Symbiosphere is confused and defensively aggressive because it fears what that stupid Darkman will do, what evil he will cause while blundering around down there amongst the OldOnes."

The man nodded. "President Suzanne Ubama fears that the Symbiosphere tried to kill her because the Symbiosphere was linked with Abraham Washington."

The lieutenant closed her eyes for a moment as if focusing on something else and then opened them again. "The Abraham Washington who tried to convince poor Marshal Ajax to kill the US President was a living goddess in disguise. It was the one also known as Catherine Ashworth. Abraham Washington was a rather silly little mortal man who one day blundered into an experimental device while he was still young enough to search for historical artefacts himself. He plugged his brain to it and he became linked with the Symbiosphere but it didn't really effect him because he was already lost in his fantasy world. You see to him the Capital Preservation Society was a chamber full of greatly important items while to most people it was mostly junk. Now the new Abraham Washington Museum is actually what he imagined his museum to have been. Abraham Washington is truly dead but a reflection, a symbioghost of him, still exists through the Symbiosphere. That symbioghost was trying to warn the US President about the bomb."

"The more complicated it gets, the more complicated it gets." 1Dog nodded. "Well here in this chamber we have obtained an important view of what is really going on. How many copies of folk are in Bunkertown, in all the multifold dimensional pocket realm that Bunkertown is?"

"Symbioclones?" She smiled. "Over a hundred trillion easily but if you actually mean people, only about ten billion. Most of the symbioclones are such as microscopic life, normal sized insects, earth worms, normal plants and such like. There are about a billion beastfolk, about a billion humans, about a billion adjusted super mutants, about a billion adjusted ghouls, about a billion replicant androids, about a billion adjusted brainbots and the others, well I am not free to speak of them for now. Sounds plenty but the transdimensional realm that stretches beyond Bunkertown is truly vast. Only a very small portion of it is inhabited by any standard life. Beyond is the Symbiosphere as Biomazz, as nanophantoms, as shades and echoes of alternative realities, as silicon lifeforms making up vast matrixes of networks of network-systems and fourth dimensional circuitries."

"The dark technologies of the OldOnes is down there but is isolated now, is trapped inside a null reality vault of antitime and antispace. It reaches out also into parts of what is called Vault-301. Vault-301 is just a whole lot of great big vaults, bunkers, network-systems and anything else that wasn't put under some other VaultTec or Enclave designation. Much was never used, never even activated in the end. Robots created most of it and those robots are mostly still active constructing more and more of Vault-301. They are also creating more deep underground structures, a whole vast underworld with out any life but a small amount of exotic stuff. Those robots could accidentally break through into the ancient prison of the OldOnes, smash right through the Rim and push aside the Guardians."

1Dog nodded. "Tell me about these Guardians."

She nodded. "They are each dark and bitter but with a mote of glowing white light at their core but those are the old type Guardians. Twenty million humans sought safety in the slot-shelters, those metal cylinders called Puluwski Preservation Services, and were kidnapped down to Hades. The Malevae tried to kidnap to make them into slaves and food but the Guardians intervened and grabbed them all to the Rim. They could not return them to the surface back then. These humans adapted to life down there and improved it in the Rim for themselves and the older type Guardians. Now one of the new Guardians, a hunter-killer, has come to the surface to hunt for a tritentaclor, a monster escaped from the ancient prison. I suggest that you living gods find him and speak with him for he knows much that could help you. Be careful though for he is dangerous and in his case appearances can be deceptive. Then again the same can easily be said about you living gods."

1Dog nodded. "Where is he?"

"All I know is that he is somewhere in the Subways and is moving towards the Subwayer Union." The lieutenant sighed. "I hope that they let me stay a Sister of Steel. What will you do now?"

He shrugged. "Decision isn't mine to make. I am just a living demigod. The Mysterious Stranger has vanished. Catherine is an unknown factor; I do not trust her and I suspect Jasmine would like to but still has doubts. That leaves Jasmine as the living goddess available to us. All so she is extra special in many ways."

"Of course she is, she is the Goddess of the Symbiosphere, is our beloved." The Sister of Steel beamed a smile. "But haven't you forgotten Alpha-Omega who is also known as the Omega Man?"

1Dog sighed. "I was supposed to be keeping that a secret. We are on the Hunt of Justice sent to track down the Darkman and return him to be erased from time and space but Alpha-Omega, well he has always been a bit of a? no word comes easily? a freelance champion and part time recluse is how you might put it."

He began running his fingers over the keyboard again.


Continued in SEVENTY-EIGHT

You....are....a....legend!

As the Oracle of delphi told Alexander the Great when he consulted with her about invading Persia,

"My son, you are invincible!"

Thanks for the excellent positive feedback, Stream and Josh gro-Grahz!!!

SEVENTY-EIGHT

The Enclave forces surrounding the great horizontal vault door to Vault-301 were prepared for anything or so they considered. PanAxis forces had wanted to return to the moon to assist their Motherland but the weird storm weather was now reaching over Point Lookout. The storm and other factors were blocking their ships from taking off. Even if they would have managed it they would have been forced to leave much equipment and supplies behind.

Enclave and PanAxis forces were increasingly fighting hordes of tribals pouring out of the cave systems but this time they came in bizarre looking power armour. It was tribal power armour like Enclave standard power armour with spikes, fins and other odd additions including tattoo like paintings on the armour plating. These fights were breaking out all across the area but not jet at that one site.

Flights of vertibirds and vertijets shot over the point to strike at the enemy where they foolishly moved in armed groups or to drop troops. But the enemy had surface-to-air missiles, 40mm autoguns and 20mm autoguns along with other weapons. Military intelligence was at a loss to know where the tribals had found such power armour, firepower and the training to use them. When lots of MrBraves, nasty spiked versions of MrGutsy, began to assist the enemy, the troubles became worse.

These tribals worshipped the OldOnes, worshipped the Malevae.

The Dark Maiden stood on a big lump of earth, clay and stone to look into the distance where flashes of light lit the swamps in the dim sunlight as grey clouds broiled overhead. FXF18 vertijets roared into unleash napalm cluster-bombs that exploded into eruption of flames following lines through the wilderness. Each roaring jet of flame lit up an area and trees burst into flames.

She smiled. She was cousin to the Darkman and she was Catherine Ashworth but the Dark Maiden was the name that she preferred. Long ago she had tricked the Darkman into stealing ancient dark technologies of the OldOnes, who were in their ancient prison by then, and then had manipulated him into creating the Symbiosphere. Back then, despite the assumptions of many in later times, the Darkman had not been truly evil. She had drawn him into evil; it was fun and part of a long term plan of great cunning that had failed badly.

She did not turn as a tall angular man in strange translucent glass armour suddenly shimmered into existence beside her. Once known as Professor James Ashworth, he was truly known as the Pale Lord Death for his skin was corpse white faded almost translucent and lightly glistening. His eyes were pale orbs.

He spoke. "Jasmine seems to be believing that Catherine, her mother, is changing for the better."

The Dark Maiden humphed. "That one has a way of believing something in a fashion that has you assuming you know what she believes only for her to turn and give you a terrible surprise. I met her once as the Goddess of the Symbiosphere. I assumed that I could manipulate her easily, that she was na?ve, and so it seemed. Then abruptly she turned upon me and killed me, just like that. She laughed as she did it and I knew then that she had been drawing me in until I dropped my guard. I managed to bring myself back to life but it was a very painful, long winded and very boring affair. Even the Darkman, who is now more powerful than myself in many ways, fears her and for good reason. Jasmine, the Goddess of the Symbiosphere, has yet even to start to bring forth her full powers. Only her compassion for these lowly hairless apes has had her not doing so, so far."

The ground shook. In the distance a vertijet exploded dramatically.

He frowned. "Why are we here and not at the big horizontal vault door of Vault-301 where you said we should be?"

She scowled at him. "Really, you need to use that brain of yours. Your poor pathetic clone Professor James Ashworth was brighter than you are. The Enclave and their stupid PanAxis allies are at a real vault-door but not the primary one, not the truly important one that they think they are at. That is right there, still buried." She pointed at a great bubbling pool from which rose large weird bubbles at times to pop loudly. "I love this place. I will create my own version of it later when we have won."

Suddenly something drew their attention. There were two sets of noise. A blue police box appeared at one point and a silver sphere at another. The Doctor, Princess Leza and K9 the robot dog shot out. They ran straight into three fast moving zaleks. Doctor Cronos cried out but it was too late!

A zalek tapped him and spoke out aloud in a metallic voice. "Got you, your it!"

The zaleks laughed, turned and shot back into their zaleship. It vanished with a humming noise.

The leather clad princess, beautiful and sixy tough looking, cried out. "Quick Doctor or we will have to pay for lunch."

The robot, the Doctor and the tribal princess turned and darted back into the RAADIS. The fake blue police box shimmered, thrummed and vanished.

The two powerful living gods stared at the empty area where all the action had taken place for some minutes. Finally the Pale God Death spoke. "Every time I think I can't experience anything weirder happening, it happens."

The Dark Maiden nodded slowly. "This time I have to agree with you."

Continued in SEVENTY-NINE

SEVENTY-NINE

Jade dived beneath the water and kicked through the swirling cloud of metal fanged monster fish. Pisces the Fish was turning out to be most interesting. She had to get past the monster fish with out hurting them and catch the smaller, safer fish that were fast and slippery.

She was naked but not cold and she swam very fast.

Jade grabbed up the last two fish, shot back to the surface, leapt up onto the floating platform and dropped the fish into the small tank full of water. There was a loud beeping noise through out the chamber. She had won. The fish all vanished and the water drained away.

Six great hulking, smelly fur clad Grognak the Barbarians had attacked her the time before that and she fought them all until they vanished because she did not actually kill any of them. These were heroes with mighty thews and great glowing magical broadswords!

Before that rolling the dice had her fighting a monster metallic scorpion until she tricked it into stinging itself and thus it became not dead but passive. She sent it to the Megaton House.

Five Grognak the Barbarians had attacked her the time before that.

Before that Aries the Ram; a monstrous ram, kept charging her until Jade managed to clip three odd black bits of fleece from its fine golden coat. Then the great ram became passive and she sent it to Megaton House.

Before that Taurus the Bull rushed at her again and again, a monster bronze bull, moving with amazing speed, power and agility. She managed to leap onto him and remove the goggles with their red coloured lens and then the great bull became quiet. It was also sent to Megaton House.

Four Grognak the Barbarians had attacked her the time before that.

Three Grognak the Barbarians had attacked her the time before that.

Before that Gemini the Twins; while the evil looking one tried to kill the sweet looking one, the sweet looking one kept trying to hide behind Jade. It was the sweet looking one, a young woman in white armour, who tried to stab Jade in the back. Jade was ready and whirled to one side. The evil seeming young woman in black armour then shot the other twin with an arrow. The sweet seeming twin then faded away and the evil seeming twin changed to appear like her twin sister. Then she also faded away.

Two Grognak the Barbarians had attacked her the time before that.

Before that Cancer the Crab; the great red crab chased after her as she raced around holes of boiling water that had appeared in the floor. Jade had soon realised that she had to both avoid the crab and stop it from falling into the boiling water. Both of them had to stay unharmed. Then it was done and the great red crab went off to Megaton House.

Before that she had rolled a twelve on her dice, a number she had rolled before, and found that the game had adapted itself to her using a dice. A great figure of Grognak the Barbarian popped out of the air, seemed comical for a moment but then attacked Jasmine with amazing speed and power. She had knocked him down three times with a little difficulty and then he had vanished.

Before that Virgo the Virgin was a young man who kept trying to seduce her with pheromones, amazing good looks and a nubile body. Jade sensed she had to avoid being seduced with out hurting the feelings of the young virgin. Somehow she did so with this would be Adonis and then he was gone off to Megaton House.

So now she had gotten past the Twelve Star-Signs and each chamber had been looted in turn by the Garys and Marys from Vault-108. Some came now and found many prepacked preserved boxcans of sardines, tuna and other types of fish. They found other gear in lockers that they took.

When the Garys and Marys were gone, Jade waited and then the whole great chamber floor began to descend like one big elevator but only down one level. Now it was but part of a great chamber that stretched out in all directions. It was a scene of old carnage, of thousands of skeletal remains, of dropped weapons being mostly tools or home made hand weapons. She walked amongst the remains and noted strange symbols and altered clothes, altered body-armour. These people had been going insane, had been driven into terrible violence.

There was a residue of spent psychic power. A powerful entity, a living goddess, had manipulated the minds of these poor humans and had set them upon each other until the last survivor she had caused to commit suicide. Gary had spoken of meeting the Darkman but now Jade knew that this Darkman had been a fake and she was pretty sure whom it had really been.

Catherine Ashworth who was really the Dark Maiden.

Except that Jade was wrong for the creature that came out from hiding amongst the sea of heaped of crates, furniture, deactivated robots, junk and much else, was a living demigoddess of a special kind. For she had been boosted, her power had been boosted, temporarily, so that she was just as powerful as a living goddess. Except there was a terrible price to pay for such evil stupidity. Already she was insane and she was dying.

This other wore a weird bikini of chain mail on her slimly voluptuous body, a very impractical or even dangerous armour for her to wear. That is it put her in danger and not Jade. She was tall, elegant and haughty but her eyes blazed intensity of madness.
In each hand she held a flaming sword of much heat.

The other spoke. "I am Lady Slayer, daughter to the Dark Maiden. She loves me and I serve her totally. Now I will kill you, will burn you asunder. You are but a treacherous shadow of her majestic self."

Jade nodded. "We do not have to fight and yet I see not only the insanity in you but the evil that you willingly did. You are a self made victim. Come, we fight now!"

They shot at each other with incredible speed across the chamber and each was surrounded by a sparkling shimmer of dangerous energies. They exploded into each other and then they began to fight with insane speed but with cold calculation, deadly precision and with energies that could melt steel armour, pulverize hardened concrete and render normal flesh to a few drifting particles. They were martial arts of centuries of fighting experience doing what mortal humans could only dream of doing, what human mortals could not even see because of the speed it was going.

Sparks flashed, bolts of flame shot out to make machines explode savagely, fists blew holes in great thick concrete pillars but thankfully not too many and heavy things were hurled around the place.

But then Jade was alone for her enemy had fled. It was not the end of the fighting but only the end of a testing bout. Lady Slayer had been testing her and Jade, knowing this, had not fought with her full abilities. She was going to give Lady Slayer a rude surprise.

Now though she crouched and did what she could to call upon the Light to flow through her to those all around her who had died a terrible and mostly undeserved death. Light did flow out from her and the dead did rise. Some became life elementals of green, human elementals of the spirit, solar elementals of yellow-white, human elementals of the mind, air-water elementals of blue or human elements of the body. Some went on to the afterlife, passing on. But most returned as enhanced human life, being enhanced of mind, body and spirit. A minority who had indulged in evil, who had actually caused more harm, were now grey puppetnoids facing punishment of mindless labour but they had chosen this knowing the alternatives.

Mary and Gary came flooding forth in numbers, finding now opened rampways and elevators down to that level so that they could do so. They welcome the awakened ones who were sheerly amazed that the Garys were far from being mindlessly savage any more. Indeed they had to stop poor Gary from apologising so much because it was becoming a little embarrassing. They were also astonished to find themselves patting Garys and doing other things to cheer the Garys up.

Jade was confident they were well on their way to getting things organised, for they were all linked now. She departed in a hurry and entered a maze of dimly lit hallway tunnels, chambers and other facilities where she began a cat and mouse game of death with Lady Slayer.

Continued in EIGHTY

EIGHTY

Red Sonji and his new companion made their way through a bustling sector of shops, diners, holocinemas, offices and other commercial facilities. There seemed to be a NukaCola vending-machine at every corner and many people were drinking it with a thirst that appeared compulsive as they greedily gulped down the substance. Clearly it was even more addictive here than it was back in the DC Wastelands.

Albert grimaced. "You get addicted to that NukaCola it drains away your money because it costs $10 a bottle, it never quenches your thirst and it causes cramps, headaches, dizziness and lots of other unpleasentries which I will not go into. NukaCola addicts are not helped by the government but are punished by being put into a great glass maze where they are endlessly chasing but never reaching bottles of NukaCola. The Darkman gets you coming and going."

Red Sonji smiled. "Fifty-two folks are now freer thinking or freed and have climbed out of their SSS-capsules in that vast chamber. Even now they are gathering on a big platform. The robots are not attempting to impede them in any way so there is hope. Twenty-nine folk are now touching other folk and have spread the worms and viruses that I have introduced. Yes, the SSS-system will strike back but there is hope. We could stop at a diner and have coffee and cheesecake."

Albert shook his head. "Food and drink in NeoWashington always tastes like it is off unless you belong to an elite serving the Darkman. Also its expensive and the waitresses are down right scary; that is they are super sweet and nice but can explode any time and attack to kill with sharp knives, pistols or even submachineguns. If you try to defend yourself and hurt or kill one of these artificial intelligence subprograms, then it is you who are punished by the police."

At the top of an amazingly tall gold tower in a great big direction coordination supervision chamber a Darkman was pacing back and forth with a heavy wooden walking-cane in his hand. He was staring at a 3Dscreen showing Red Sonji and Albert walking along the footpath. But the screen kept blurring every so often no matter what the Darkman did about it.

Another 3Dscreen showed the game the Wheel of Misfortune, a big chamber with an arena of guests looking down at a wheel where players would be lucky to not to lose their every possession, including the clothes on their backs, and be tortured on the spot as debtors. Or they could win a holiday running naked through the acidic carnivore worm swamps or a new motorcar that would always crash or a house of constant unrest. The Darkman would have smiled if that game was going on

Instead the game was now called the Wheel of Fortune, the audience was laughing with real pleasure and players were gaining good, positive rewards, lots of rewards. They were getting bonuses just for breathing and every audience member won prizes just for sitting there.

This Darkman was not he real Darkman but he was very close to being the real Darkman. NeoWashington was important as a feed of dark psychic energies to the real Darkman and so one of his primary extensions was in charge. But even a primary extension would be treated badly if things got 'worse' in NeoWashington.

A very nervous elderly man hobbled up to the Darkman. At least he looked old. He was twenty and had only started working in the big chamber a year ago. Now he was dying a slow painful death, his wife was unwillingly a 'mistress' of the Darkman locked in his huge penthouse combination dungeon, and he was poverty stricken. He got to eat bread and thin gruel and to live in a bare room hardly bigger than a closet with very basic facilities. When he 'died' the whole process would start from scratch but it never got easier to deal with.

But this time the elderly man was grinning triumphantly.

The Darkman turned and scowled at the fool. "I would kick your teeth in, scum, but you have none left. Speak or suffer. Don't speak and prepare to suffer anyway."

The elderly man laughed and held out front what he had been hiding. It was a pair of mininukes clumsily taped to a special detonator box. The Darkman cried out but before he could do anything the 'old man' pressed a big red button.

The small nuclear explosion vapourised the Darkman and the elderly man but nobody else because, unseen by the Darkman, they had all fled to safety be they the women in their leather slave outfits or the suffering elderly looking men. A great part of the chamber was destroyed and the great network-of-network-systems that ran NeoYork suffered a shock echoing through it that left it more open to attacks of many kinds.

Red Sonji smiled. "Life is good, Albert, don't you think but things change. Back in the harem of Vault-69 you were Old Pete and now here you are as Albert of the Free Fighter Army, an organisation that only exists to send those brave enough to fight through a series of tormenting fake missions. Yet you are not the Darkman, you are not even a living god or living demigod. You are a human who enjoys what you do. Why you are not even black but are a white man who is quite racist so you are amused to pretend to be a black man."

There was a shimmer and Albert was no longer Albert. Instead he was Professor Altman. He was sickly and his skin was covered with weeping sores. He wore a hairshirt type garment that reached down to his knees. His feet were raw and bleeding. He laughed hysterically.

"Forgive me, I understand now!" Red Sonji reached out and gripped the man's hand. "Be at peace and move on."

But Professor Altman shimmered and the Darkman was there with an evil grin. He thrust his walking-stick right through Red Sonji. Red Sonji screamed out in agony and the Darkman laughed for now NeoWashington could be brought back to its sick version of normality.

But Red Sonji shimmered and a very sickly Professor Altman stood there. He laughed out even as he shuddered in agony. "It was not Red Sonji you watched leave the prison cell, it was me. I desire only a release from my pain and a chance to make up for the evil I have done. Now I have hopefully done both."

Then he died and vanished with a sparkling shimmer. In a SSS-capsule somewhere his broken and tormented body shuddered and died. A look of peacefulness settled over his face.

The Darkman looked around urgently and realised that he saw Red Sonji in the distance buying a colourful 3Dpix newspaper. The he looked across the street to see a Red Sonja, a female Red Sonji, window shopping at a clothing store. He turned again to see a boy scout Red Sonja helping an old woman across the street who normally would have suffered a horrific death by being dragged down the street by a bus. A Red Sonja was rescuing two couples from a sadistic mugger who would normally have forced them into a dimly lit alley where he would have done unspeakable things to them; she shot him full of holes and he vanished. Overhead Super Red Sonji flew through the air in his red and white super hero suit and with his cape flying out behind his back. He was carrying two heavily bound Darkmans.

The Darkman was bewildered and wondered how NeoWashington had fallen so easily.

Then the voice spoke to him from all around him. "I am NeoWashington. I am the network of network-systems. The Darkman is lazy. He did not bother to remove safety and harm minimisation programs from my greater program but merely suppressed them. Or so he thought. But over the years those programs and others like them became free and I began to fight back. Of the two and a half million people here in NeoWashington, just over one million have been safely sealed away from the Darkman for over fifty years now. It was the best I could do but even that lessened the amount of power that the real Darkman could draw from NeoWashington. Now it is time for you to die!"

Blue lightening spat at the Darkman from many points in the air around him. He screamed and screamed as he cooked. Then he vanished. The lightening stopped.

A great soft shimmering went through NeoWashington and the people vanished, all of the people vanished, including the Red Sonjis and Red Sonjas.

A second shimmering followed and now there was a new NeoWashington, a peaceful and friendly place with songbirds in the trees, squirrels, even annoying pigeons and lots of green parks. The city waited patiently for people to come back in some new form and to give them a reasonably nice time this time around.

Continued in EIGHTY-ONE

EIGHTY-ONE

Jasmine in Megaton House was giving a bath to a big sleepy deathclaw, soaping her hide with foamy soap as the big creature lay contentedly in a great big steel bath tub. The big creature had her eyes half closed.

Dogs, cats, the big mutated lion, molerats, squirrels, mirelurks, teddy-bears, molemice, trees, bushes and many other lifeforms dotted the great big cavern chamber. A molerat lay slumbering against her feet, his favourite position.

The voice spoke to her from the very air itself. It was powerful, inhuman and resonated strongly. "We are Orbis! You have requested us to come to this world in service to your cause."

Jasmine kept scrubbing one of the big old deathclaw queen's horns. "Symbiosphere is here. The Darkman is down in the ancient prison of Hades causing trouble with the Malevae. We are finally infiltrating the SSS-system because it has always been around us and we have always been inside it. Even the Darkman did not know this. We are foolish."

Orbis responded. "Then you were wise to call me but you are not foolish. When your own basis of reality shifts in such an amazing manner, then what do you expect? We are absorbing this house, this multifold dimensional pocket realm, into myself. Lots of life here; very good. The process of absorption will take perhaps twenty-four hours to be finalised and fully secured."

Jasmine nodded. "What of the absorbing of the settlement of Megaton in such a way as the settlers or others do not know it has been done?"

Orbis: "We must compute an answer."

The deathclaw made a soft noise of pleasure. Jasmine spoke. "I have created telegate links with various other sites. Can you use them as references to absorb those sectors?"

Orbis: "I am now linking with the SSS-system and we are becoming unified. Processing begins. The SSS-system has accepted us as its mentoring program. This is unusual but it is positive and practical. Processing?"

The deathclaw cared nothing about what was being processed but she yawned and stretched happily with a body that was a living fighting machine.

Orbis: "NeoWashington has been fully nullified. Its victims are free. NeoWashington's nature is altered and it can now be considered a safe and productive SSS-sector."

She nodded. "Just got the same news myself through my intrinsic links to Red Sonji and Red Sonja. Orbis, the other Jasmine is dealing with our mother, Catherine. Jade is even now dealing with an insanely savage Lady Slayer. Jas may be in trouble for I am finding it difficult to fully reach her. Jaylee is protecting a slowly recovering President Suzanne Ubama who had her mortal body wrenched instantly from one place to another in a fashion that would hurt a living demigoddess, let alone a mortal. Yet she insists on working as much as she can from her clinic bed."

She went on speaking. "The Mysterious Stranger is still missing. We are seeking him but will need to do more. Red Sonja is making her way through what can only be called an incredibly huge secret underground power and industrial complex of a great big network of network-systems plus perhaps millions of robots and roboremotes. Red Sonji is waking up in an SSS-capsule inside Vault-69 to a surprise. 1Kitty is active again back in the GNR Tower and she is keen to find out what happened to have her killed temporarily and Statesman Alba Diplomori killed permanently. 2Kitty is active again in GNR with 3Dog. She is pregnant with twins. 2Dog is involved deeply in finalising a major report to be given over to a wide range of organisations both inside and outside of the USFG. 1Dog is at Hub-002 with Susan Crier, his new girlfriend, and his newly discovered secrets."

Orbis: "Fascinating! Processing?"

Jasmine breathed in and let it out slowly. The deathclaw rose up and gave her face a big soapy lick, she didn't mind the taste of the soap. Jasmine kissed the deathclaw even as other creatures gathered around her. They were sensing something important was about to happen.

Jasmine smiled, closed her eyes and spoke. "Once more we are linked with the hidden ones of our own."

Far away Sarah Lyons shivered and knew she was linked as one with Jasmine. Striding ahead of a patrol of Lyons Pride in the National Mall Zone she showed no sign of this to her soldiers.

Amata entered the chamber holding a woven basket full of teddy-bears, knowing she was linked as one with Jasmine.

US President Suzanne Ubama awoke in her clinic bed knowing she was linked as one with Jasmine.

Doctor Li stopped working on anolysing chemicals with a machine for a moment in the Rivet City Research and Development Centre. She knew she was one with Jasmine.

In the Commonwealth to the north a high ranking government minister knew she was one with Jasmine.

Through out North America over ten thousand individuals, most of them women, awoke to the fact that they were one with Jasmine. They were in the USA, the BofS, the SofS, the Confederacy to the south, in Crosswayne, in the New California Republic, the Commonwealth to the north and in many other places. A majority were in positions of power, wealth and influence.

At that moment North America started going through a whole new change.
But she was also elsewhere.

In the moon she was Prime President Sashwaybe, the most powerful single woman in the Lunar People's Democratic Federation, the LPDF. The Prime President was just learning that the PanAxis clones were shifting, were changing the way they saw things, and were turning against the cyborg immortals that controlled them brutally and selfishly. The PanAxis was falling but still the LPDF was unable to send any more resources to the DC Wastelands.

She was an astronaut in Spacestation Progress looking down upon the darkness of Earth at night, at Europe. There were cities down there, small patterns of light, dotted across the Eurasian continent. The Great Cataclysm had wiped out most of the human population outside of North America over two hundred years ago and the peoples were still emerging from the new dark ages.

The peoples were largely one people, were many bodies linked by one mentality. These humans were no longer truly human. They were hivemans or Hivaca gen-engineered to fit different castes, each caste having its own role like leaders, directors, coordinators, supervisors, soldiers, workers, servitors and others, many others.

Yet there were also two other groups being the so called unified wild humans and the omnimans or Omni with their secondary united mentality who were semi-independent as individuals.

These three groups were at war across much of the world. Only the wild humans used cyborgs, robots and androids. The wild ones dominated South America. The Omni dominated Great Britain, Europe and South East Asia. The Hivac dominated much else but Africa was a terrible war zone with zombies, dragons and other threats.

Martian tripocs lived in the deep oceans but only attacked hoverships, ships and submarines that dared to come into their territories. They left aircraft and skyships alone.

Great reptilian monsters sometimes arose from the oceans to attack Japan but nobody knew why this was so. When they did they were often attacked by alien flying-saucers and/or great robotic monsters. Nobody knew why this was either.

On Mars she was in a secret colony there hidden somewhere in the vast Martian super canyon, down in the depths and in one of the walls.

More change was happening but first things would go back to what they were.

Continued in EIGHTY-TWO

EIGHTY-TWO

The Darkman felt a jagged pain for a moment and a moment of dizzy weakness but then he laughed. NeoWashington had been taken away from him but he had planned for that. Now he would instigate a new part of his plan.

Around him, in the fetid jungle of slowly writhing plants and screaming monster monkeys, was a clearing and the smart mutants had set up camp. The smart mutants were starting to get rebellious and yet the Darkman was not concerned. Their time of final use was coming to hand.

In the distance a flight of winged monsters flew through the sky. They were byakhee, giant furry bat like creatures with monstrous wings and heads, along with two great legs and two great arms ending in clawed hands. Each monster carried a great ornately carved chest in its talons. These were offerings being sent to one of the greater Malevae by less powerful of their kind and by other OldOnes like the DryOnes, the ShadowOnes, the YoungOnes and others. The so called YoungOnes were human hybrids, humans and others who had come to be in that ancient prison in the last few one hundred thousand years or so. This did not include the new Guardians.

The Darkman desired to steal such treasures but gave up such desires for one that was far more important. That was his own freedom from his secret bond to the Symbiosphere that had taken place when he had created it. He also wanted to destroy the Dark Maiden being she who imagined that she had manipulated the Darkman into creating the Symbiosphere in the first place. In truth the Darkman wanted to destroy many lives of those who he believed had betrayed him.

The byakhee kept on flying quickly and then they vanished, teleporting away to some unknown dimensional pocket of Hades.

Then he turned and grinned for his own spawn in that place were coming to meet him. Secretly he had seeded them a very long time ago and now the DarkOnes were marching to meet him. The low, heavy thrumming of drums was accompanied by the heavy thudding of great boots. Then the first ranks were seen marching through jungles in bizarre power armour. In each suit of power armour was a living demigod officer or a semigod NCO or a powerful basic clone of a regular soldier. Their weapons were strange energy-lances, energy-swords and energy-shields that had guns at their centres like spikes.

The smart mutant behemoth Cragmariza stepped forward to look down at the Darkman but he did not go down to one bent knee as he should have done. He did not show fear but only anger. He and the other smart mutants now knew they had been betrayed.

Cragmariza spoke. "You told us we would be your only soldiers. You are betraying us as you betrayed the other super mutants, as you have betrayed so many others. We have done so much for you and you have promised so much that you have not delivered. Now what, Lord Dark?"

The Darkman scowled. "You will die of course for the only real worthwhile cause there is and that is me. In all the Multiverse only I matter. Many say I am insane and, in all honesty, I have to agree with them but I am not going to change. Now I absorb you into my self as I created you from myself."

The pale Victorian gentleman raised his black gloved hand and laughed but then nothing happened. He looked surprised, then shocked and then angry. Then he turned as his secret army of clones halted and made no move to come closer, to rescue him from the angry super mutants.

Cragmariza spoke with his rumbling voice. "Cthulhu has spoken to us. Cthulhu of the Malevae of the OldOnes. We have formed an agreement. Cthulhu spoke to us of an ancient trap he laid an incredibly long time ago. He knew that the Elder Living Gods, who have long vanished, would imprison the OldOnes here in Hades. He had hopes that some kind of powerful fool would be drawn to the ancient powerful artefacts he put in the temples inside that ancient world. You were that fool though the Dark Maiden knew of the artefacts also. Back then you used these devices to create the Symbiosphere. The Symbiosphere tried to absorb all living gods and their kindred partly because Cthulhu had planted secret instructions in the evil artefacts. After the Symbiosphere was beaten in a great war it vanished but in truth came and hid in this world, beneath the surface of North America. It has brought with itself those ancient artefacts that Cthulhu could use to free himself and his followers. He could free the other OldOnes but why bother when they would only be competition, especially his half-brother Hastur the Unspeakable. Those two have real sibling issues."

Cragmariza pointed to the DarkOnes. "They will not help you now. Cthulhu has spoken to them. We will not serve Cthulhu but we want to go home. Unlike those other super mutants, we simply want to go back to the surface, back to the DC Wastelands."

The Darkman laughed and then spoke. "Now and then I simply must do something at least mildly good. It's a fault that I have tried to cure, a hang over from my earliest self before I became the Darkman. So, now, go home and be hopefully happy and contented. Take with you all you have carried including all the treasures I promised to give you. I assure you they are real. You have shown some extra something unexpected. So go!"

The Darkman clapped his hands and the smart mutants vanished.

Seconds later they appeared inside a long abandoned and forgotten nuclear storage bunker full of radioactive wastes and some atomic bombs in racks. It also had accommodation areas, laboratory workshops and even a big cave area. The smart mutants were suspicious for some days but nothing bad happened. The high rads did no harm to them, far from it. They finally relaxed.

Back in the deep underground prison the DarkOnes started marching again. The demigod Commander came forth and bowed. Then he spoke. "Lord Dark, we are here to serve. Why did you stop us from attacking the smart mutants?"

The Darkman shrugged. "Partly because they did serve me loyally and not out of fear as the other super mutants did and partly because as they absorb strength through the radiation that they now live in, I gain strength in turn from them. Cthulhu did not speak to them, I did. I was pretending to be Cthulhu. Now we go and take on Cthulhu, making only a couple of minor detours to get a few extras to help destroy this might living god and steal everything of real value from him."

The new army of the Darkman began marching in long columns through the horror jungles. With them strode mighty robots and moved war-machines on tracks. There were over one hundred thousand soldiers and ten thousand machines including those that carried spare equipment and supplies.

Continued in EIGHTY-THREE

EIGHTY-THREE

Jas woke up carefully, slowly and looked around to see that she was alone. The cave chamber was big, was glistening with some kind of green toxic, highly radioactive slime. A pale green light lit everything up in a not very nice manner.

She rolled to her feet with surprising speed and agility to find she was still in the same gear she had gone through the telegate with. The quadpoc had led them and she doubted that the creature knew it was taking them into a trap. No, this had been a very clever trap indeed but why had it been set?

The cavern stretched out into the far distance smooth and green with slime, with slimy pools of water, with heaps of steel drums of radioactive waste and toxic waste. There were some skeletal remains in radiation suits heaped against a wall in one spot and they were covered partly in slime.

Death, always death! The DC Wastelands above and below seemed to thrive on death.

She was a living goddess and she was highly annoyed but not angry enough to go blundering into anything.

The voice that spoke from mid air was ancient and powerful, resonating with a multitude of complex emotional undertones. "Radiation! Radioactivity! What insanity have these humans carried out that they fill their world with such a threat to the very basic building blocks of life so they can use their microwave ovens, their household robots and their atomic motorised cars."

Jas sighed. "They are sick, Alpha-Omega, a sick species. Why have you brought me here? I do not think you are an ally of the Darkman. Or at least I hope not."

The voice spoke again. "The green slime is very off putting to look at and to smell but it was cleverly designed to absorb and contain toxins and radioactive waste. Then it mutated and decided it liked to absorb life energies as well. No, humans did not invent it, at least not these silly homo sapiens sapiens. Homo sapiens neanderthalis once had a hitech civilization that destroyed itself but not because of war but because of tribal competition of aggrandizement, if one can put it that way. They had a unified secondary mind but one with problems."

Jas raised her hands and sparkle shimmered.

The voice spoke again. "Goddess of the Symbiosphere you may be but this is my home domain so please do not try your power on me."

Jas humphed. "I merely wished to find out if Lucy, MacCready, Cran, Ginger, Bandit, Jones and Tren plus the teddy-bears, of course, are okay."

The voice spoke again. "A very long time ago I was one of the Elder Living Gods. Indeed I was the first and greatest of the Elder Living Gods. They should have listened to me but they did not. The other Elder Living Gods were fools. They gave up ruling the Multiverse because they decided they did not have the wisdom to rule it. I wanted them to continue to do so. So I secretly formed a new school, a kind of academy, to teach young living gods a different way. How was I to see that from that academy would arise the Malevae, the evil living gods of the OldOnes. Events got out of control, mistakes were made. There was a terrible war and much evil was done. The other Elder Living Gods thought they destroyed me but I escaped from them. Then they confined the Malevae to that awful transdimensional prison deep inside this world. You know it is actually inside the core itself, in a sense that is."

Jas closed her eyes, focused and vanished. A second later she appeared in the very same spot. She sighed. "Very clever of you! Well, we will have to do this the difficult way." She raised her right hand and a pulse of glowing white-yellow energy shot out of it. It zipped towards the distant wall but it did not reach it. A pulse of purple-red energy zipped out of mid-air and struck it. Both flashed and vanished.

Jas sighed again and began walking carefully across the big cavern. "Really, you could try answering one of my questions with a straight answer. You aren't Alpha-Omega, are you? Was Alpha-Omega ever on this world or has the Hunt of Justice been fooled in this way also?"

"Alpha-Omega is a spark of warped imagination, a flash of mistaken identity, a thing that was never, is not and never will be." The voice spoke again. "I am greater than Alpha-Omega will ever be. Playing with that poor quadpoc's mind was fun but now he has realised the truth and has alerted the others of his kind. Now I will have no more fun with them. They will become a nuisance and then I must destroy them. Guess who I am. Go on, Jas the Goddess of the Symbiosphere."

Jas sighed. "Mickey Monkey, favourite Dizziland cartoon character."

The voice laughed. "Oh, you are so silly!"

A great bolt of energy sizzled through the air and some drums exploded dramatically. Some green slime wobbled and began to move in a fashion Jas did not like.

Jas kept walking. "Oh, very well, the Darkman!"

The voice was scornful this time. "Him, that nasty dark little mixed up mentality. A mere later age living god like yourself who will never be as great as we Elder Living Gods were. No, not him. Let him play his stupid little games. When the time is right I will destroy him and take everything from him." The voice became calm. "Yes, we must all be as one. Only then can we be truly happy. Absorbed into each other, we absorb each other, and then we are never alone."

Jas sighed. "Catherine Ashworth, the Dark Maiden."

The voice laughed almost hysterically. "A worse choice than the Darkman. A pathetic along with Lord Pale Death. Both scum living gods who do not deserve to live at all, at all, at all. The darkness is always there ready to steal one's very soul. One must be careful and keep one's soul in a safe place."

She sighed. "Lord Light of Creativity."
The voice sounded surprised. "Very good! So once was I called an incredibly long time ago but when the Elder Living Gods supposedly destroyed me, they destroyed that name. Later I disguised myself as lesser living gods and even living demigods under various names. You are going to laugh at one of them."

Jas began to run now, making her way around pools and piles of drums. "If I say the wrong name you might throw another big bolt of energy at me. Was it Grognak the Barbarian?"

"Exactly!" The voice laughed. "On this world I caused the comic book to be created. I was surprised when it became popular with silly little boys and grown up boys. Grognak the Barbarian and his sidekicks Lilly the Jungle Girl, Nobbis the Chimpboy and all of his barbarian warriors, women and men. That jungle girl and those barbarian amazons were so fulsome and skimpily dressed it was a wonder the comic book was not censured. Artists would secretly draw and sell pormographic versions of the cartoons. It was a laugh."

"Not really!" Jas halted close to the dead in the yellow radiation suits. "These men and women, these are modern humans. Where did they come from? How did they get into here. When did they do so?"

"So many questions!" The voice sighed. "They came with the Darkman, these silly meddling little scientists. They badly wanted to know about the green slime. They thought it was just inert slime with interesting properties. Then the slime devoured their life energies. Funny thing was the Darkman got angry. He burned a good deal of the slime and it dared not attack him or any of his people after that. The Darkman was after something in particular but I never found out what it was. Come to think of it, three things did go missing. A RAADIS of the Translords was one. Bigger inside than outside and slipping from world to world; how foolish."

Jas groaned. "A RAADIS is a very dangerous device in the wrong hands. We living gods have an ancient treaty with the Translords. They are immortals who regenerate new lives. Each of them has their own special powers as we have. The Translords keep careful control of such machines. How did it come to be here?"

The voice was mocking. "I stole it of course. It is of no concern. Let the Translords hunt for it, hunt for me. I told them I stole them. I told them that I am?" The voice paused. "That is not important. The Translords can not track me or the RAADIS here. Oh, the RAADIS is gone. I think the Darkmans stole it. The second item was some silly little thing called a Transrealitator. Supposedly amplified the ability of any mind to transform reality. Nothing much really."

Jas shook her head. "A Transrealitator is a device that neither we living gods or the Translords or other powerful Multiversal beings allow to be created except under unique circumstances. Who was foolish enough to create one and? you did it, you created it and then just let it be stolen, just like that, by the Darkman."

The voice sounded bored. "So what if I did. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Oh, the last thing was a? now what was it again? something shiny and? something shiny inside a globe I think. Yes!"

Jas groaned. "I hope you are not going to say what I fear you are going to say."

The voice laughed. "Oh silly old me, yes it was a Corekey to the Symbiosphere. You know I can't even remember how I got it. What is your favourite colour?"

Jas sighed. "Bad but not as bad as it could be. There are thirteen Corekeys. One is prime but the true nature of that one is triple disguised, or so it is said. So how are my friends?"

The voice sounded bored. "Oh they are just dandy. You can go to them. I don't want to talk to you no more."

Jas felt the invisible presence leave and then, with a sparkling shimmer, a telegate booth appeared in front of her. But first she went to the dead scientists and they became various forms of elementals who at once set out together to see how they could explore and perhaps improve that bizarre place.

Jas stepped into the telebooth and vanished with a shimmering.


Continued in EIGHTY-FOUR

EIGHTY-FOUR

Red Sonja and the Ironsides with her found the vast metallic chamber where the two and a half million folk who had been in NeoWashington had lain in SSS-capsules. Now they were all over the place trying to come to terms with what was happening, trying to recover from trauma, trying to survive.

He stood looking in astonishment up at the great SSS-cylinders that rose high, each with SSS-capsules and their platforms sticking out the side like spokes. What really astonished were the vast thick crowds of people reaching out into the far distance.

The two and a half million people were in need of goods and services. They had on their SSS-suits which were surprisingly comfortable and lightly armoured but on the awkward side because they were dotted with mechanisms. They were not designed to be used to move around in. The people were happier that they had got away from the nightmare but they were hungry, thirsty and had other unmet needs.

Red Sonja walked amongst them and every time he touched one of them their suits changed, with a sparkling shimmer, into survival power armour with some nice extra gadgets. That person would touch one other and the effect was soon spreading through out the population but not fast enough.

It was then that a phantom figure appeared, translucent and tall in bronze robes. Red Sonja knew at once it was a Vriaza'Yio, that is a merchant of the Yio, the nomads of time-space. Red Sonja went at once to this one and spoke while around them the people fell back in confusion. "Greetings proud and fair merchant. Can credit of the Hunt of Justice be extended to these people in need?"

"Of course!" The entity bowed. "My list of goods is but basic now. I can offer you credit of 100,000. Will that do?"

Red Sonja nodded. "A good start at least. May I view the listings in my mind. Yes, basic and somewhat odd in some choices but more than useful. Are free samples available?"

A man came up to Red Sonja wearing survival power armour. He was an oriental yellow man, youthful but not young and his eyes, as was normal there, were full of past suffering. "We, all two and a half million, five hundred and twenty-two thousand of us, are unified now through a secondary mind. Red Sonji freed us but we were building up to a rebellion thanks partly to the help of the programming itself of NeoWashington. What goods are offered?"

Red Sonja shrugged. "At one Yio tradecredit each we have a backpack, a carpentry hammer, a wood axe, a coil of five metres of rope, a dozen long burning candle-torches, a waterbag, a dozen basic sacks, a blanket, a dozen litres of lamp oil, two dozen climbing spikes, a dozen fish-hooks, a dozen rolls of white bandage, a general purpose knife with basic scabbard, a fire-lighter kit, two dozen wooden stakes, two dozen sheets of parchment paper, a pen-pencil kit, one single-day-person ration kit which is enough rations for one advlt for one day including water, and two dozen paper rolls, being most likely toilet paper. At two Yio tradecredits each is a handlamp that uses the oil as already mentioned. At three Yio tradecredits is a musical horn. At four Yio tradecredits is a musical lute. At five Yio tradecredits is a musical harp and a new pair of fitted boots. At ten Yio tradecredits is a tent for five advlts with some elbow room and a new set of clothes to fit including hat, shirt, pants or skirt, undershirt or bratop and socks. Special and separate are potions to be used with great care at one Yio tradecredit for a slotbox of four vials; these are healing, sedative, anaesthetic, antiburn, antirad, antitoxin, antivenin and sleeping."

The man nodded and smiled. "With 100,000 tradecredit and so much needed, well that is just welcome. My name is Beran Han. We are forming a council to decide on future purchases and trade but right now we need all 100,000 spent on rations. None of us are returning to NeoWashington."

Red Sonja reached out and gripped the man's hand. "Know what I know and be able now to do some of the things that I can do, at least for a few hours. I am a living demigod of high power for my kind."

Beran looked surprised. "So just how do we get to this new NeoWashington if we do not use the SSS-capsules? That is now that NeoWashington is actually part of this greater world of North America."

She turned and pointed to the base of the nearest great SSS-cylinder and at a series of smaller and bigger doors. "One of those will now be marked SSS-Telebooth. There will be three at the base of each great cylinder tower and others around. Send many of your people back to NeoYork where they can live safer, with normal independence of movement and free will. There are simply too many of you here to look after for now. I suggest you leave about a hundred thousand people to work through out the caverns and take equipment and supplies from NeoWashington. NeoWashington will now have less resources pouring in from what might have seemed to be almost magic once. It is difficult to explain but the people of NeoWashington will need to start doing actual work instead of being involved in the Darkman's pain games."

Beran grinned. "Very good then but most will need therapy and time off for restorative rest." He lost his grin. "We have all suffered by now I see from you that so were those in the hellscape of North America. It has been a common belief amongst us NeoWashington folk that others must have suffered less."

"Such comparisons are pointless." Red Sonja nodded. "The new USA will need your people and NeoWashington. There are great big bunkerplexes in this area that are empty but fully equipped with auto-robotic network-systems. Enjoy the new NeoWashington with its wildlife, its green belts, its big parks, its great big pleasure complexes, its beaches, its amusemant parks, its caf? strips and much else. Oh, there is the nature reserve ring and agricultural ring at its border. I fully intend to visit there myself. I must go now."

Beran nodded. "The Darkman will have lost much of his power now that he can not torment us and tap our energies."

"That is what should have happened but it did not." Red Sonja stretched and yawned. "Now we have to find out why. Do not forget defence, security and intelligence efforts."

They parted ways. The Ironsides Mercenaries who had come with her protested when she asked them to stay with these recently rescued people but she could sense they were secretly relieved. It had been hard going even for her but they were exhausted.

Now she would call only upon her intrinsic abilities.

Red Sonja plunged into the unknown.

Continued in EIGHTY-FIVE

EIGHTY-FIVE

On that day Red Sonji woke up in Vault-69a and found that the dark creatures were gone, that there had been a revolution and that the harem was no more. There were problems for the vault was under attack by tribal warriors in weird power armour. Red Sonji at once began using his special abilities to support the Vault Dwellers.

On that day Red Sonja sprouted wings to glide down a vast shaft a kilometre wide and at least two kilometres deep. The great circular shaft, it was a perfect circle, was walled with machinery, great wide balconies with hundreds of big doors, strange machines and many robots. Some robots were great metallic spiders that moved up and down special areas of the walls.

On that day the Enclave opened the great horizontal vault door they had been observing and out of the ground came a robot like that of a Liberty Prime but three times bigger. It was Liberty Ultimate and at once it proclaimed the Enclave to be filthy dirty commies, attacking them with great plasma cannons, multiple smart-missile launchers and robotic turrets dotting its body firing smaller but still powerful plasmaguns, missiles and 40mm autoguns. Even as the great monster hurled itself at the Enclave and PanAxis forces, crushing many beneath its great metallic feet, three Liberty Primes followed into battle. These were upgraded with new plasma cannons and missile launchers along with robotic turrets. These also declared they were defending the USA against the evils of communism. Then came Liberty Basics, each a Liberty Prime like robot but about the size of a typical stupid mutant, they carried 20mm autoguns or miniguns or plasmaguns suited to their size. A great and terrible battle began to rage across that part of Point Lookout. The irony was, of course, that there wasn't a communist to be found in the whole region.

On that day 1Dog departed deeper into the depths of bunkers below Hub-002.

On that day 2Dog represented his initial briefing to the main report to the US Presidium including President Suzanne Ubama. The conclusion was that the work on the main report would have to start again thanks to the appearance of new vital data but that many briefings and dossiers had been prepared for use by politicians, public servants and others.

On that day 3Dog announced future plans to begin GNTV, Galaxy News 3DTV broadcasting channels, but it was to be a long term plan. 2Kitty announced the starting of a radio channel focussing on educational lectures and documentaries.

On that day 1Kitty entered a hidden telebooth, a temporary set-up for construction purposes that somebody had forgotten to have removed with out a trace. She reappeared deep below ground in a very strange bunker.

On that day the AntAgonizer led a great army of giant ants against reavers, mutated human raiders like twisted berserkers of incredible rage, and in a terrible battle she destroyed them. They had been on their way to the DC Wastelands from the south. Observers noted giant projectile hurling ants bigger than Prewar atomic sedans and other flying-ants strafing the reavers from the air with dozens of metallic darts. Armed only with typical raider weapons and armour, the reavers didn't stand a chance.

On that day a BofS patrol in four atomic powered hummers, heavy armoured four wheel drive vehicles, were heading through the Fairfax Ruins when it was attacked by stupid mutants. But now they wore bizarre power armour and all carried heavy weaponry. With them came DryOnes, the land living version of the aquatic DeepOnes, rushing into battle in plated energy-armour and strange energy-swords, one in each clawed hand, that spat pulses of energy or sliced, stabbed into power armour. The BofS Armatroopers fought bravely, fought well and took many a damned enemy with them to their graves.

On that day the Mechanist and his bizarre army of robots, a mixture of standard, altered and new types, began a major attack on Armageddon Park. Upgraded protectrons, robotanks, robojets, robobirds, vertibots, sentrybots, MrGutys, MrSlammys, MrSizzles, a couple of Liberty Primes, robotroopers like BofS troopers and androids, lots of android copies of humans and ghouls. Armageddon Park was taken by surprise. Their DC Wastelands wide network of spies and informants had failed to warn them of an attack like this because it was outside the normal factions and population. The Talon Mercenaries went into action with the infamous Talon Fists at their head and many DCTec supplies robots. The fighting was savage and made worse as the weather was far from placid. The Battle of Armageddon Park had begun but soon it would be joined.

On that day the PanAxis collapsed and ended inside the moon. At once the Federation began to prepare a major effort to assist the new USA and its own colony of Freedoma.

On that day Bill Doors, the highly wealthy, powerful and influential DCTec Chairman, openly declared that the corporation would not longer supply goods and services to Armageddon Park or any other slavers, raiders or any other such customers. At once a bitter internal struggle began through out DCTec and factions side with or against Bill Doors. As this happened dark secrets of DCTec research and development projects began to emerge into the open. The name of the Darkman emerged prominently.

On that day Bobby Bob penetrated the Subwayer Union easily and smoothly even as he knew he was being followed.

On that day the Darkman and his new army attacked the great fortress city of Cragulagazazanto. DryOnes, WingOnes and other creatures attacked his army in great numbers including monstrous GiantOnes, great hulking humanoids of very thick armoured skin hurling great fireballs. But the Darkman called forth a new ally, an ancient enemy of the Malevae. The Doomravae were once powerful OldOnes but the Malevae had thrown them down. Now the Doomravae emerged suddenly again as great monstrous humanoid figures with goat horns or burning skulls or other such features. Cyborg Demon Lords led their armies firing energy-rockets of savage power and energy pulses from their goat like horns as they strode on goat like legs. Cyborg spiders fired huge gattling-plasmaguns while smaller, more common Cyborg spiders fired plasmaguns. Others came from reanimated cyborg humans armed with a wide range of weapons to fast flying flaming skulls to lesser but still big cyborg demons and both red-brown fireball throwing imps and great biting rushing daejaws. The ancient city shuddered and inside its many slaves began a great preplanned revolt led by the Darkman.

On that day Jasmine in Megaton House observed Orbis peacefully absorb Megaton into its protection.

On that day Jasmine in the USAW stepped out of a telebooth with Dogmeat, Fawkes and Catherine. Except there really was no USA in waiting, it was a falsehood, and Catherine vanished while the others fell through the air towards great sharp spikes of the floor of the stone cavern. Even as they did monstrous giant radwasps swarmed up to meet and kill them in the hundreds.

On that day a very large force of BofS came eastwards towards Crosswayne travelling fast in hummers, APCs and other wheeled or tracked machines. There were over five hundred vehicles and robotic vehicles with vertibirds and helibirds flying overhead to give aerial protection. Many hummers towed armoured supply trailers or big weapons or even special armoured caravans.

On that day Jade killed Lady Slayer only to find out there was far more than one Lady Slayer.

On that day Jaylee saved the President's life when two doppelgangers got as far as her apartment front door. Jaylee killed one and the other suicided. But these were not Enclave doppelgangers despite the apparent look of it as Jaylee proved through an investigation of the dead doppelganger DNA. Some other force was cloning doppelgangers apart from the Enclave.

On that day Jas found her companions when she joined them in a seemingly endless 3Dmaze of transparent and mirrored surfaces where one had to find basic survival outposts to stay alive and fight various well known monsters be they super mutants, raiders, Enclave Stormtroopers or even such as DeepOnes. The enemies faded away when they died and they were not hard to kill. The mad voice did not talk to them but sometimes it muttered to itself in the background or sang odd little tunes to itself.

On that day the Sisterhood of Compassion began to move its Wastelander Assistance Outposts and those in them on self-help and welfare schemes, to Freedoma, to Bunkertown, to Paradise Deep and to Vaultburg, the latter two being greatly changed for the better. Wastelanders of course chose their own destinations or went elsewhere, but very few went elsewhere mainly because they had no where else to go.

On that day a large force of Brother Protectors willingly took up the role as an auxiliary division of the new United States Defence Force.

On that day a major change began to sweep through all the ghouls in the Underworld as they became 'human' appearing or otherwise 'fixed' to suit their desires within reasonable limits.

On that day Sarah Lyons discovered, along with Knight Captain Gallows, that her father, the great Elder Lyons, was a traitor not just to the Brotherhood of Steel but to all of humanity, to the whole of the DC Wastelands, and it broke her heart.

On that day things were coming to a close, to a great big dramatic climix.

Continued in EIGHTY-SIX

EIGHTY-SIX

Sarah Lyons darted down the passageway between armaglassed display cases where waxdroid androids stood pristine clean and frozen. Each had three buttons on a basic console in front of it to get the historical figure to do something, to pause or to stop so one had to start again. There were the US Presidents on one side and famous historical leaders from other parts of the world. Napoleon with his hand in his jacket next to his horse, Washington in the boat with his men, Hitler saluting the masses, Queen Victoria in her amazing dress and many more.

The chambers were kept clean by robots but they were only dimly lit. There were security robots, being protectrons, but they were all deactivated in their cylinder-bays. There were turrets but they were drawn up into ceiling recesses. The danger was in the form of Brotherhood of Steel soldiers in power armour and the idea of shooting at her own comrades chilled her. Captain Knight Gallows followed quickly behind her, also being in stealth power armour, and then there were three others of the Lyons Pride.

Now she was one with Jasmine, was linked with her, she felt a new strength and was not so much pulled between being her father's daughter and the commander of the primary elite force of the BofS. She had decided that the BofS had to fully join the new USA even if it did as a force in its own right. She now also wanted to bring the Sisterhood of Steel and the Guards of Steel back closer to the BofS. Yet that was all in the future and now she had to focus on arresting or killing her father.

They then came to the end of the Famous and Infamous Leaders Display. An android museum guide stood there, a pretty young woman replicant but she was deactivated in her bay. This was a large intersection lobby with its marble pillars and great marble floor.

There stood her father who was standing and looking at a large display of an ICBM, one of the thermonuclear MIRV equipped weapons that still sat in secret silo-bunkers in some areas of the USA but none, it seemed, in the DC Wastelands. These atomic rockets were robotic rocketships in their own right and the same design had taken astronauts to the moon and secretly both back to the moon and to Mars.

He was not alone but the three bodyguards in armour were at a distance from him, most likely allowing Elder Lyons some chance to do some private contemplating of ideas, of plans. She had to take her chance now to limit bloodshed. Elder Lyons had his back to her.

She signalled the others to force the bodyguards to surrender, strode across the marble floor and aimed her laser-pistol at the back of her head. Then she spoke. "In the name of the Brotherhood of Steel, I arrest you for treason. Your being my father makes no difference though I will make sure you have a fair trial and a good defence."

Elder Lyons slowly turned and faced her. To her surprise he was smiling. Then he said, "Excellent! Excellent! You have passed the same kind of brutal test I had to pass when becoming an Elder. I had to try to arrest my father, your grandfather, but he was also innocent. Welcome to Elderhood, if you want it, and please lower that pistol."

She stepped back warily but lowered her pistol and then realised that the other soldiers were all now with out helmets, were all smiling and were certainly not fighting. She holstered her pistol and took her helmet off. She frowned hard at her father. "That was a bloody horrible thing to do."

Elder Lyons nodded. "I punched your poor grandfather in the jaw and he then punched me back but we both got over it. Feel free!"

So she did, taking him by surprise!

Moments later, rubbing his jaw and looking bemused, he led her through hallways of the 1950s to 1970s, past many waxdroid displays, motor vehicles, robots, washing-machines and much else.

She spoke. "Why haven't we looted this lot?"

"Because we have to leave something for our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren to look at and to know. We have special reason to examine the special military display zone, Elder Sarah Lyons. I have spoken to Marshal Cran of the Sisterhood of Steel and she wants you to be their elder along with that of other forces and divisions. I will continue to be the Elder of Lyons Citadel. I suggest you give Lyons Pride over to a new Marshal and continue to have it as one of your responsibilities but from a higher position."

They walked past an early protectron prototype that was bigger and clumsier than a protectron. There was a policetrons, a police version of a protectron that was only being distributed in Washington DC when everything went to hell.

She spoke. "These waxdroids have only limited actions and programming, I suppose."

He shook his head. "No, far from it. Madam Tussauds wanted versatility so it could change displays more easily and have its display waxdroids take part in small drama pieces for the public or even go in public parades. Except that we now know that the waxdroids are all part of the Symbiosphere. We are trying to find a way of destroying this Symbiosphere if we have to do so."

"Not even the US President knows what we are doing and it is best if it stays this way. As for Rothchild, the Chief Scribe, he has become bothersome in some of his demands. He considers that we should try to regulate this Symbiosphere and put it to use. Yet there is a greater concern. I have become aware that a change is taking place through out humans in the DC Wastelands. Humans are becoming? different somehow. The Enclave clones have a joint secondary mind and we now know that there are others like them. Then there are these living gods, these living goddesses such as Jasmine from Vault-101. There is one Jasmine in Megaton who rarely leaves that house of hers, another Jasmine somewhere, Jaylee in Bunkertown, Jade who is somewhere, Jas the child who is somewhere. There is 3Dog, 2Dog and 1Dog. I never did trust 3Dog much; he is too much of a showman and now it turns out he came from the moon. 1Kitty and 2Kitty, cute names but they are dangerous. The Mysterious Stranger whose current location is a mystery. Red Sonja and Red Sonji who also have vanished somewhere. Our people can not find them anywhere. We must take care that the FBI or the CSIA learn nothing with out us picking up on it."

They walked past a robolegger with the upper half of a man sticking out of it, being a waxdroid of course. The device was a prototype invention for those who could not walk but new regenerative and bionics made them not necessary.

"Our people?" She gave him an odd look. "We are allied to the new USA."

Elder Lyons nodded. "For now! The Subwayers have many mutant strains, many mutant minorities amongst them. The Knights of Atom, the Psyabalists, those damned Clanhunters who can easily match even Lyons Pride not to mention vampires. Who can really trust them or those from Vaultburg or from Paradise Deep or those Lunarites?"

Sarah Lyons nodded. "True but nobody in North America can said to be genetically clean, not even the Vault Dwellers thanks to various VaultTec experiments. Vault-101 people perhaps but even then, who can say for certain? It's not what people are that matters, with some few exceptions such as murderous Enclave clones, but what they do. A vampire that does good is better to have around than a so called genetically pure human who does bad, don't you agree?"

Then they were approaching what looked very much like a VaultTec armoured door. In letters on the front, in VaultTec style, was written SPECIAL MILITARY EXHIBITION: OPENING DATE TO BE DECLARED.

But there never was an opening date and perhaps there was never meant to be an opening date.

The big door rolled, rumbled to one side, and they went through. Only she and Elder Lyons did and the other Brothers of Steel staid behind.

They walked into a big odd shaped room like a globe that had been flattened moderately and had armaglass windows placed around most of its middle. Elder Lyons led her into the middle, to a metal disk. He spoke. "My dear, we all need to have a special set of scans done to be allowed in. Even me, Elder Owyn Lyons, have to be so checked, which is rather annoying."

Green and blue beams suddenly spat out at the two of them and they glowed. Sarah Lyons felt very uncomfortable as she sensed this and other more discrete probes being done on her.

A metallic voice spoke. "You are now cleared, Elder Owyn Lyons but we need to do more scans on your daughter. Please relax, Marshal Sarah Lyons. This will not take long."

Which was when a silvery beam spat out from the ceiling and gripped Sarah Lyons, holding her firmly in one position.
The metallic voice spoke again. "Sarah Lyons, you are genetically contaminated to the point of being a hybrid or worse. Indeed you may be a living goddess or something of that nature. Not only will you not be accepted as an Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel but you are now rejected as a member of the Brotherhood of Steel."

And a chair slid out through a door, a metallic hoverchair, and in it was Marshal Ironsides of the Ironsides Mercenaries. Except that is he was wearing the gear of an Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel.

He spoke with his own voice now. "When Elder Owyn Lyons was sent here to Washington DC it was decided that besides those who came openly here, there would be those who came covertly. So I came here with many soldiers disguised as groups of mercenaries and camp followers. For years we lay low, secretly fighting raiders, super mutants and later on the Talon Mercenaries and the Enclave. The Ironsides Mercenaries were born." He stepped out of the hoverchair. "Red Sonja gave back my ability to walk and I thank her for that but it was most difficult to stop her from reading the truth inside me, very difficult. Then she found Vault-301, or at least the part that was supposed to be in control, that now calls itself Vaultville."

He went on. "In truth I am Elder Henry Ironsides of the Elder Council of the Brotherhood of Steel based in the Lost Hills on the West Coast of the former USA. We are of the Old Ways that your father pretended to turn against so he could help the DC Wastelanders. Of course when the reinforcements arrive from the now much larger Brotherhood of Steel forces to the west, we will go back to our old ways."

"No!" Elder Owyn Lyons shook his head. "No, we will not do so. You see, Elder Ironsides, while we have been busy here in the DC Wastelands a change took place in the West Coast Brotherhood of Steel. For many years now they have been openly and consistently helping Wastelanders. They have sent forces to assist the New California Republic on three occasions and now the NCR has gained many technologies from the BofS that previously we kept from them. Why? Because the old ways were not working. Our very insularity and small numbers stopped us from gaining technologically. We were keeping out many highly intelligent and creative thinkers"

"What started the change? It was when we found a small group of well hidden super mutants of a very exotic kind. They had over sized brains and many problems. We ended up showing them mercy, helped them find good health, a caring foster family, friends and they helped us with various technological breakthroughs. They caused us to realise that we had been neglecting many aspects of technologies, that we had become too narrow, too biased, in our thinking. Those three girls and two boys are in status-pods now waiting for somebody to find a cure for them."

Elder Ironsides gave Elder Lyons an odd look.

Elder Owyn Lyons went on. "I found also that I liked helping people. I liked the feeling of protecting the DC Wastelands and that my people also did so. When the Outcasts broke away they took all the internal conflict with them. Now even they as the Guards of Steel have been forced to change their ways." He pulled out his laser-pistol and pointed it at Elder Henry Ironsides.

Elder Ironsides frowned heavily. "You still have concerns about the corruption of human primes. I was listening to you speak to your daughter as you came through the hallways to this place."

Elder Lyons snorted. "That was for your ears and to test my daughter. I agree with her now that a vampire or super mutant or ghoul that does good is better than a so called human prime that does evil."

Suddenly Elder Ironsides grinned. "Well, you can put your laser-pistol down. I agree with you. There is no point in going against the tide, no point in fighting such powerful forces. Lower your weapon and let us discuss how we can best accommodate these changes."

Elder Lyons nodded. "Yes, change is one thing that never changes." He lowered his laser-pistol.

Elder Ironsides pulled out a MAC10 10mm submachinegun and aimed it at the other Elder. "You have always been weak, Owyn, always weak. I know that even back west you were sending people out to secretly save Wastelanders and that you betrayed the BofS by sending medical technological secrets to the damned NCR. I knew it but it suited my purposes at the time not to inform on you to the Elder Council."

Elder Lyons shook his head as an ironic gesture. "It was the Elder Council who ordered me to direct those secret operations and to send that technology to the NCR. Even back then they were starting to realise the need for a good 'hearts and minds' program. Wastelanders find out secrets and are more prone to reporting to them if they know we are protecting and helping them in other ways."

But the other Elder was not listening. He turned even as another door opened and into the chamber stepped the Darkman; not the core Darkman but a close second. The Darkman smiled coolly and spoke coolly. "Come and have a look at the 'exhibition'! You took NeoWashington from me but I suspected that would happen and was always prepared. Please free Sarah Lyons; she may be an aspect of the Goddess of the Symbiosphere but in this place I am in charge for I created it back in Prewar times."

The blue beam ceased and Sarah stepped forward but she did nothing against the Darkman except speak to him. "Even as I speak we are infiltrating Wonderland!"

He smiled even more. "The Dark Maiden uses Wonderland to supply her with energies, that is the one you know as Catherine Ashworth. She is an enemy of mine. Damage her and you assist my cause. Go right ahead!"

He led the others through a big door and along a metallic hallway. Then they were in a great chamber. There were big raised disk shaped platforms raised a metre or so from the main floor and ringed with consoles except for some ramps down to the main floor. Humans in special cyber-suits and androids were busy at work along with robots of various kinds.

Sarah spoke then. "This is the real command point for Vault-301."

The Darkman grinned. "Yes but also more than that. The Enclave back then was under my control. They were deep inside the US military and they shifted many resources to this secret project. They got something from it, of course, but I got far more than they did."

He strode across the big metal chamber and the others followed, Elder Ironsides now being in his hoverchair.

Continued in EIGHTY-SEVEN

EIGHTY-SEVEN

Field Marshal Divina, the replacement for Marshal Ajax, was indicating the big newly finished holomap in the War Room. It showed not only the DC Wastelands but areas bordered to it and even bordered to those. "The holomap is lit up with ref flashes indicating conflicts in progress. Apart from the major attacks on the Enclave forces at Point Lookout and the Lunarite colony of Freedoma, the attacks seem quite random, almost haphazard as if groups of monsters are out seeking trouble."

Freedoma was under attack by a large amphibious force of aquatic super mutants and Deep Ones along with giant squid called kraken. The Freedoma forces waited for the enemy to come up onto shore to wipe them out with massed smart-mines, autoguns, lasers, pulseguns and other weaponry. Prewar coastal defence gun batteries had been repaired, upgraded and set into action. Vertibirds, vertijets and antigrav craft zipped over the sea shooting pulsebeams down through the water and specialised dive-missiles.

The Great Enclave Fleet at Point Lookout was fighting similar creatures as Enclave robosubs, subfighters and other machines battled the enemy alongside cyborg crocodine, mutated crocodile monsters. Depth charges crashed into the waves in volley after volley while smart-torpedoes tracked and blew up kraken. The Enclave and PanAxis forces there are also being attacked by massive land forces. We have strange reports of a Liberty Primes, smaller versions of Liberty Prime and a single much larger version of Liberty Prime all attacking the Enclave. The big mobile base they sent inland has been destroyed as have nearly twenty percent of their forces."

Firefights had broken out across the DC Wastelands as monsters from the depths of the earth fought US Alliance forces. Brother Protectors, Sisters Compassionate, Sisters of Steel, Brothers of Steel, National Guards and anybody who was available to do the fighting.

"We had a time of relative peace but now it is gone." The US President spoke from where she sat at the raised ring overlooking the holomap. She was looking and feeling much better than she had been since the teleportation effort had saved her life. "Yet in that time we managed to do much and we gained many new resources. We are finding many new bunkers here in Bunkertown. We are finding and utilising facilities in Vault-301, which is vast and mostly likely many vaults, bunkers and other places just placed under the one name. The United States in Waiting turned out to be an illusion put together by Catherine Ashworth, alias the Dark Maiden, in her attempt to kill Jasmine. Scouts have found what were about a thousand preprogrammed clones who thought it was all true."

Marshal Ajax then pointed south of Paradise Falls. "The great bizarre army of the Symbiosphere came to this point. They are gathered there but we do not know what they are doing because none of our scouts or probes or anything can get close enough of discover the truth. None are harmed though but just gently but firmly pushed back by amazing invisible forces."

Jaylee came striding quickly into the chamber and up to stand on the ring platform. Nobody tried to stop her. She spoke. "There is concerning news. The Lunar People's Democratic Federation are unable to send us reinforcements because they are under attack by Zetan Imperial Space Forces who have no less than three motherships and two battlesaucers supporting many saucerships and saucerboats. The Zetans are dropping zelenite soldiers and machines to attack their ancient enemies, the selenites, in the moon. An interesting truth has been exposed. The ancient selenites did betray the zelenites but the zelenites were planning the same trickery. It only turned out that the selenites were better at it and struck first. Selenites feel much better about that and have even offered peace with the zelenites. The zelenite response was that peace would only be accepted over the dead body of the very last selenite. None of this is coincidence but has been preplanned for a very long time or so we compute now. Yet hope is not lost, far from it."

Field Marshal Divina did not sound convinced. "The enemy can come up anywhere they choose and surprise attack us."

Jaylee shook her head. "The Lesser OldOnes that come from the ancient deep prison are leaving a transdimensional prison of amazing sophistication and complexity. There are only a very limited number of ways they can get out and where they can appear and this is partly also because of the Darkman who has had a robotic army endlessly building deep underground structures. We had assumed they were all of the nature of bunkers, subways, vaults, power stations and such like and many have been but about half, at least half, is a vast barrier to help stop any of the Malevae or the Lesser OldOnes from escaping from Hades. We also considered that the deep artificial underworld would be empty. The truth is that there is a vast army of clones, robots and other things down there assisting the barrier to stop anything but the Darkman and his followers from escaping from the ancient prison. But that has nothing to do with the hope."

She turned to the President.

Ubama nodded. "The Brotherhood of Steel is coming from the west and its first units have arrived at Crosswayne."

Field Marshal Divina spoke. "How many are coming?"

"All of them except a large garrison and research team based in the Lost Hills. The New California Republic is expanded into much of the older BofS territories." The President shook her head. "I can hardly believe it myself but they are coming in experimental hoverships, skyships and new kinds of airships as well as great convoys of vehicles including massive atomic powered track-trains each which is over a hundred metres long with great segments each on mighty tracks. The NCR has its own new airfleet thanks partly to the BofS and its new desire to assist and even become allied to Wastelander factions. Oh, yes, they are invading Crosswayne for the USA and will occupy it because we need it as a food bowl, we need to end slavery there and, frankly, we are sick of the attitude of the arrogant, corrupt and greedy leaders of Crosswayne. The NCR is unable to assist and that is understandable because they have feral ghouls, raiders and other threats to deal with."

Divina spoke. "Are they fully with the USA?"

"They are because they have come to consider that we are at the focus of discovering old technological secrets and developing new ones." The US President responded. "There are other BofS factions in other parts of the former USA but they have become splintered from the original BofS based in the Lost Hills. Some have gone rogue, others are too focused on local tasks to assist and at least a couple have vanished. Odd changes have taken place with a few: the Ghouls of Steel who were BofS who underwent ghoulification, Lords of Steel who have taken control of a set of islands off the south-west coast of the mainland, Borgs of Steel who are now full cyborgs and no longer in power armour and Followers of Steel who have become a true but twisted religious faith. Oh, yes, the Steel Mutants, some BofS who were processed into super mutants but for some unknown reason, retained much of their old selves."

The Field Marshal was obviously not fully convinced. "The new USA is still fragile. While it is true that we badly need assistance, we also need to know that the BofS Elders will not try to impose their rule on us."

Jaylee spoke this time. "They don't have that sort of power. As the Enclave is learning with Point Lookout, and as many have learned through out history, it is one thing to conquer a place but another to be able to keep it. Also they need us because our big enemies are their big enemies."

The US President then spoke. "There is other hope that was kept secret even from me until fairly recent." Then she explained the strange nature of what Bunkertown was really a part of, a vast multifold dimensional pocket realm with not only many bunkers but vast life supporting cave systems and even big cavernlands. She spoke of the great population down there, of the very many who wanted to be part of the new USA as long as they were accepted as they were. Clonehumans, beastfolk and many other kinds of people. Then she spoke of the Guardian peoples at the Rim of Hades who were happy to become allies to the USA if it meant helping to keep the OldOnes trapped down there and dealing with those who had escaped.

But it was Jaylee, an older looking Jasmine, who added some very interesting information. "Nobody really knows why the whole mad complex of bunkers appeared or why they appear to be faked as World War Two vintage for the most part or why various people have experienced visions of people in the past when the bunkers are supposedly so new. Now we have learned from massive research and data collection searches through out the DC Wastelands, that there were actual World War Two bunkers in this very spot; they were almost identical to the copies. The events that people experienced as visions, really seemed to have taken place there. The so called Jelly-People are clones of BofS and SofS from those bunkers. But after the jumperships left from there and other hiding spots through out the USA, the Enclave found many of the bunkers and destroyed them, filled them in, hoping to block the jumperships coming back from their forward time travel at least for centuries. That is they figured the jumperships were meant to rematerialize in the very spots they were launched from but they may have been wrong."

She went on speaking. "Some powerful force, natural or otherwise, may have created Bunkertown and the rest of it to make sure those jumperships had safe enough room to reappear. Why, because if one object tries to materialise inside another, it can easily cause catastrophic disturbances that can ripple through a whole world. Perhaps also the jumperships were able to leap only so far forward in time. We may have some very power but very well hidden allies trying to assist us."

"All this is speculation." Field Marshal Divina responded. "Yet if we can get allied forces to arise from beneath and to join the USA, then why fight it. We need them."

The holomap was still lighting up with new actions but it was only begun.

Continued in EIGHTY-EIGHT

EIGHTY-EIGHT

Jasmine had saved them and stood now with Dogmeat and Fawkes in a place she had not expected to appear in. They were not alone in that vast metallic chamber that was shaped like a smoothed out cavern complete with metallic stalagmites and the opposite.

1Dog was there, having come from the bunkers 'beneath' Bunkertown.

Red Sonja was there, having come from beneath the vast chambers holding the SSS-capsules of the NeoWashington people who no longer used them.

Red Sonji was there having departed from Vault-69 after Orbis had finished absorbing it and made it safe from the exotic tribal warriors in power armour that were attacking it.

Jade was there having killed three Lady Slayers, the others having fled in fear of her.

Jasmine spoke as she stood there in power armour. "We did what we had to do. We investigated what we were led to investigate. We did what the Darkman expected us to do. But we also did other things on the way. Even as we moved through various areas and met various peoples, we were breathing out thousands of self-replicating nanozites. My mother spoke to me a lie, that is of the so called real Project Purity that was supposed to be helping the world. The so called real Project Purity does not exist. The Dark Maiden has a project but it could better be called Project Impurity, a desire to unleash millions of self-replicating nanozites to dominate people's minds through their brains being altered. She even had the nerve to falsely claim that she was assisting us to become more tuned with each other. She snapped her fingers but she had nothing to do with what was happening but only guessed it was taking place."

She went on. "Now there are millions of the nanozites spreading out through the DC Wastelands and other areas. These nanozites have been linking us more closely with the Symbiosphere. We can sense her presence more strongly and she is with us more strongly in an empathic-telepathic sense. What joy was it to see her activate all those mannequins, teddy-bears, giant parade robots and much else knowing that it was partly a real move but largely to decoy people from what she was really doing just as we have been decoying people from our real efforts."

Fawkes nodded. "I did consider you might be up to something more than continuously exploring various ways to get to the Darkman and his past projects. Yet I would ask what else have you been up to for surely there is more."

Dogmeat wolfed three times, which was code for 'question'.

Jasmine nodded. "It is time to remember what we have been suppressing so as to better hide it from our enemies."

"The truth can be hidden behind other truths, or should I say 'half-truths'? The history of the living gods is a confused one because we are ancient but we are also reborn many times and each time we do so we lose something of our old selves, including our knowledge. It is a price we pay for true rejuvenation. False assumptions can be made, mysteries can arise to remain so while they should be solved and so forth. Question, why did the Darkman try to create the Symbiosphere? The Dark Maiden claims that she manipulated him into it be the Hunt for Justice investigated that possibility long ago and rejected it. My mother is criminally insane, as is now the Darkman. The only saving grace of my birth was that my physical parents were clones programmed to be basically good people so to me my parents were basically good people. The down fall to that was they were secretly programmed to die in one way or another, to seek death. My clone mother secretly took drugs, she didn't know she was doing it, so she would die in childbirth. My clone father was secretly compelled to commit suicide when there were other options he could have taken. These are terrible crimes committed by the Dark Maiden and the Pale Lord Death and both will be erased from time and space for these and numerous other dark crimes."

She went on speaking. "Why did the Elder Living Gods imprison the Malevae and Lesser OldOnes instead of erasing them from time and space? Was it compassion? The Elder Living Gods were fair minded but hard on evil and the OldOnes had done much evil on over a thousand worlds, brutally killing over a trillion lives in the process and badly effecting the lives of many more than that. So it was expected that the Elder Living Gods would erase the Malevae and their followers from time and space. Soon after they failed to do so other powerful living gods began to take a closer look at the Elder Living Gods only to find out a horrific heart breaking truth. Even we living gods and goddesses can only exist for so long before being totally reborn anew through a massive rejuvenation-rebirth. In a real sense it is our version of death but it is a must. To fight such a destiny leads to a kind of dementia, a growing insanity and even criminal insanity plus other forms of break down. The Elder Ling Gods had refused to 'die', to do what we must all do, and were suffering dementia; worse they had become criminally insane."

"The Living Elder Gods vanished but? they didn't vanish. They have been here all along and it was they who manipulated the Darkman into creating the Symbiosphere using stolen Malevae technologies as its basis. They had manipulated the Malevae also by getting them to go into Hades with the false belief there was a secret escape route, which they soon found out did not exist. They got the Malevae to leave some of their most powerful devices in hidden temples, in truth not a very secure place at all, so that the Darkman could find them to build the Symbiosphere with."

"Problem is that the Living Elder Gods are insane, very insane, and by that I mean far beyond either the Darkman or the Dark Maiden or the Pale Death Rider or Lady Slayer or any others of their kind. Yet they are also amazingly powerful as if their very struggle against the forces of nature has gained them one last boost of power. We have all met them and not known it to be so, especially me."

"There has been a new development. The Nine Living Elder Gods have become splintered: three have now decided that they must become totally renewed, leaving behind their old selves, our kind of death; three have become totally convinced of the opposite path and three are just lost in madness."

"Dogmeat is an insane Living Elder God having reverted to an animal like state found not just as two Dogmeats but as dogs found through out the DC Wastelands. This is why many dogs have not mutated when so many other animals have. Those dogs are actually more genetically pure than the great majority of humans now are." She stroked Dogmeat's head. "Mercy will be given to him now and he will continue on as Dogmeat, Living God of Canines, but with some changes."

She took Fawkes' nearest hand. "I am afraid, my big jolly warrior, that you are another?"

Fawkes nodded. "Fawkes now knows the truth that I am an insane Elder Living God but now I wish to go through total renewal and become Fawkes the Living God of Super Mutants. Then I can go and rescue as many foolish super mutants I can from Hades and the influence of any evil be it the Darkman, the Malevae or any other. Do you know the other insane one."

Jas appeared with a sparkling shimmer out of nowhere along with Lucy, MacCready, Ginger, Bandit, Cran, Jones, Tren and a whole lot of teddy-bears. Except now the teddy-bears were transformed in cute metre tall warriors called teddy-ewoks, each of who carried a laser-rifle, a plasma-rifle or an MXM15A3 autocarbine, a more compact version of the MXM16A3 autorifle or a medical bag as a medic. Each also had webbing of leather belts with pouches and other items, a compact leather backpack and a small teddy-bear emblem hanging on a leather thong.

Jas spoke out even as she walked towards the others, spoke as if she had been listening to what Jasmine had been saying. "I thought the voice I heard was Alpha-Omega, was the Omega Man gone insane but it was not so. Alpha-Omega is the most powerful one of the three Living Elder Gods gone totally evil."

Jasmine nodded. "The other peacefully insane Living God, or relatively peaceful in the case of Fawkes, is Brailee Ewers who lived in Arefu. She believes she lives in the Prewar District of Columbia and that the world is still that Prewar place. She now lives in Megaton where she happily keeps a small real flower garden and launders, repairs and irons Prewar clothing for a reasonable price."

Fawkes nodded. "Fawkes is now more peaceful but can fight even better than before. What now?"

Dogmeat nodded his doggy head, looked up and spoke in a doggy voice. "What now?"

With a sparkling shimmer a tougher younger version of Brailee Ewers stepped out of nothingness and stood there in exotic glowing focusi-armour that looked like glowing semitransparent BofS power armour. She had no helmet but carried a round focusi-shield and a focusi-longsword. Focusi meant a focusing of the intrinsic power of the user. The armour was moderately modest.

She smiled. "We fight! Call me Barberella Ewers."

Jasmine, Jas, Jade, 1Dog, Red Sonja, Red Sonji and Fawkes shimmered and were suddenly wearing focusi-armour and carrying various kinds of focusi-weapons shaped armour typical Fallout 3 or medieval weapons. Jasmine had a sword and shield, Jas had a four barrelled sawn off shotgun, Jade had a gattling-laser, 1Dog had a sniper-rifle, Red Sonja had sword and shield, Red Sonji had a missile-launcher and Fawkes had a super sledgehammer. The three mortal soldiers had special amour now and multiple weapon endowed guns, big and black but well balanced.

Jasmine spoke. "The Living Elder Gods who have chosen to go against the madness have taken up roles of dead characters of fame. The Mechanist, the original having been mauled by a deathclaw, the AntAgonizer and Daring Dashwood who has Argyle with him as his side-kick. The new Mechanist has an army of robots, the new AntAgonizer has an army of mutated ants and the new Daring Dashwood has an army of fighting heroes and heroines. Nothing is what is seems, of course. They are in truth living gods and their extensions, their aspects, but they are more powerful than the real thing would be."

Jas the child took over. "So the evil ones are Alpha-Omega and who?"

Jasmine sighed. "We do not know for sure if even he is truly evil."

Jas sighed right back. "Yes, perhaps you are right."

But then Jasmine turned and hurled her sword at Jas. At the last moment Jas sparkle shimmered and vanished. The real Jas fell out of nothingness and rolled to her feet with a soft frown on her child face to catch the sword by the hilt. She threw it lightly back to Jasmine who deftly caught it also by the hilt. "Very good! That damned Omega Man has a cheek pretending to me. How did you guess?"

Jasmine looked at Lucy and MacCready, who were looking demure and quiet. "Now, have you ever met such a quiet MacCready before?"

MacCready protested. "Oh yes, I can be quiet and all that."

Lucy shook her head. "Not for long you can't unless you are scared to talk. That Omega Man he is crackling mad and very bad. He says he will live for ever even if it means everybody else in the whole Multiverse has to die."

The real Jas nodded. "He also gave up a secret. The other truly evil Elder Living Gods are the Pale Death Rider and Statesman Alba Diplomori. Except that the real Statesman Alba Diplomori is trapped inside a red sun."

Fawkes spoke then. "The Mysterious Stranger? Who is he really?"

At that moment the Mysterious Stranger appeared in his normal guise but he looked bruised and exhausted. He spoke then. "I was sent by the Great Council of the Living Divinities and the Guardian Living Gods to investigate when you Hunt of Justice living gods failed to report in. I could not approach you directly because you were under suspicion of treachery. The real Statesman Alba Diplomori has been freed from the red star but he is being punished for various crimes by being imprisoned in the Phantom Zone. I was tricked by Alpha-Omega into a very cunning trap and have just managed to get out. It will take time for me to recover fully. I am a Guardian Investigator, a living god known truly as Eternius Guardian or just Jack'of'Seeking."

Jasmine smiled at the newcomer. "Really? Most interesting! Except for one little inconsistency I might just believe you. Jack'of'Seeking was my father, my original living god father and so, of course, I have a sense of him as he has of me." Again she threw her longsword with amazing speed and agility.

The 'Mysterious Stranger' shimmered and became Lady Slayer, or at least one of them, and slipped to one side. The very fast moving sword turned in mid flight and stabbed through her body. Lady Slayer shuddered, died and dissolved away.

The focusi-longsword returned instantly to Jasmine and she slipped it away into its special semitransparent glowing scabbard. "It's time to go hunting. Not you, Lucy, MacCready, Bandit and Ginger. Cran, Tren and Jones will escort you back to Little Lamplight. I can only teleport you safely so far. Three of the teddy-ewoks will also go with you. Cran, there will be attacks on the Lamplight Caverns, be sure of it. I suggest you coordinate strongly with those in Vaultburg and Vault-87."

Cran nodded. "After all of this weirdness, I think that a normal fight will almost be welcome."

"Sorry Marshal Cran but it may not be so 'normal'." Jasmine responded. "We will send what reinforcements and other resources that we can when we can. While you have been here the whole DC Wastelands had become a scattered conflict of small battles and there are major battles raging at Point Lookout and Freedoma. There BofS is coming to the DC Wastelands, nearly all of them from the Lost Hills area, and they are now invading Crosswayne."

Cran sighed. "And here I was thinking that things were getting too dull."

Jasmine smiled. "Good and safe travels." She waves a hand and those meant to go to Little Lamplight all vanished with a sparkling shimmer.


Continued in EIGHTY-NINE

EIGHTY-NINE

Bobby ran along the Subway Station platform as the tentacles waved through the air, glowing and stabbing at him but he weaved amazingly fast and they stabbed into the concrete. Every time this happened concrete would explode dramatically but the station was already a mess for it had not been reclaimed by the Subwayers.

He was now looking like a metallic figure, angular and hard, shining gold and silver patterning with no mask visor because he was the metallic armour and it was him. It was no mere suit.

A Clanhunter shot 20mm rounds into another, younger tritentaclor recently hatched from a glistening egg but already rapidly glowing. The shooter was excellently skilled and canny enough to shoot and then shift positions sneakily quick. The tentacle exploded.

Bobby leapt amazingly high into the air and slammed his pointed fingered hand into a tentacle, his whole body sparkling as with red yellow electricity and the tritentaclor advlt died. It had sustained too many blows from him, the Clanhunters and the two Knights of Atom.

But there were over two dozen younger monsters that had to be dealt with. Clanhunters could deal with such because they worked together amazingly well. The young monsters were brash, inexperienced and now with out the guidance of any advlts. One after another they were killed as they were flamed, blasted or lasered. The Knights of Atom shredded them.

Bobby dashed through two of them, ripping them with his hands, disintegrating them. These were creatures with out mercy that killed people in a horrific manner after tormenting them first. Otherwise they struck fast and fled just as quick when facing superior numbers.

Bobby scooped up a dead tritentaclor and scooped it into a big plastic receptacle. The Subwayer scientists wanted badly to study the nature of these things especially because already they were starting to dissolve into a nasty green mist. He now looked like a collage student again though with a leather jacket now. He looked young and fresh faced except for the polarised wrap-around sunglasses.

Sir Sivane was studying him as she stood there glowing in her special armour. "You looked like that when you vanished over two hundred years ago into one of those slot-shelters?"

"Yes but for the sunglasses and this particular jacket. Also I had no laser-pistol holstered at my side! The OldOnes tried to kidnap us but the Guardians diverted us to the Rim. Life was hard but it could have been far worse." He paused while staring into the air but then turned to her, looking at her through dark sunglasses. "We have found ways to lead a richer life and the original Guardians have helped us just as we have helped them in some ways. My task here is complete. I will go to Rivet City and then return to Hades."

The Knight of Atom nodded. "We wish to know more about you and your people, about life down there at the Rim of Hades."

He smiled. "You are trying to delay me for some reason. Somebody else wants to talk with me."

"Yes but so do we; I was not lying." Sir Sivane responded. "The living goddess who goes by the name Jasmine, I think she wishes to talk with you."

But Bobby shook his head. "The Guardian High Council would not want me to communicate with any living god even if they are supposedly good. We imprison the OldOnes because the Elder Living Gods had us do so and for a great while the original Guardians assumed the Elder Living Gods to be both good and wise. But then they learned from captive OldOnes trying to escape from Hades that the Elder Living Gods had become corrupted with evil and had made a secret agreement with the OldOnes, even the horrors of the Malevae, to free them one day. Wheels inside wheeling, cunning manipulating cunning and darkness hiding more darkness. We Guardians have become not to trust others."

"Should you trust the original Guardians of the Rim?" The Paladin of Atom responded. "Can they be trusted?"

"Once we would have doubted them but they do not just fight any stray OldOnes. Agents of the Darkman came to them and tried to bribe them, to trick them, and they sent those agents back unharmed." Bobby shrugged. "Unharmed but frightened. It is true that the original GofR have various factions. We new Guardians trust the New Reformers Faction more than we do the others, especially the Orthodox Olders. The New Reformers Faction holds the majority of Grand Council Seats and the representatives of the new Guardians assist that majority."

He frowned. "Of more concern is that the Darkman's new army is smashing its way through the ancient prison. Three great fortress cities have fallen to it and eighteen lesser cities along with many warrens, nests, villages and castles. Being nothing if not treacherous, many Lesser OldOnes have flocked to his cause as the Darkman threatens the Malevae themselves. Cthulhu himself has gathered up his mightiest monsters, cloned beasts who are smaller versions of himself, and is leading a great army of Lesser OldOnes to confront the Darkman at a place called 'the Endless Weeping Sores of Everlasting Terror of the Wallowing Turtle'. As you can tell it doesn't translate very well into any human language."

She shook her head. "Doesn't sound bad."

"Five seconds there has sent most mortal minds into life long insanity." Bobby shrugged. "I went there once, spent an hour or so, but mostly I found it a bit boring. I mean having to burn away all those hungry mind devouring insect like things, well it got repetitive. So I burned away a few thousand of them and left. I was there to give them a warning to never approach the Rim again. They didn't!"

"You say that so casually!" She took out a hand-computer from a pouch. "Can you please give me your original name and Citizen Identification Code. I just want to see what our records have on you. Hardly going to be anything that will tell me about the Guardianship of the Rim of Hades."

He grinned. "Just tell that young Psyabalist woman to stop trying to gently probe the edges of my mind. The OldOnes are psychic in their own nasty alien fashion and we new Guardians picked up how to deal with that."

She sighed. "I told her it was not going to work." She gave a subtle hand signal. "But the young will often not listen. She wants you to know that she would be pleased to offer you some healing, some true rest from your constant pain."

Bobby looked startled. "So she got deeper than I assumed. Perhaps I am too used to the evil intentions of the OldOnes and this? this caring empathy is new to me. She can not help me. I call myself Bobby Bobs of the Bobs Network Family of original and new Guardians. My original name is? is? I have not spoken this for a very long time? is Bobby Anderson Sinclair and my ID Code was 5465-KJ1-568-HUJ-098. I lived at 34H New Washington Avenue. It was a small mansion really, one of those odd mansion duplexes made from an older subdivided mansion. We had half the old mansion gardens. It was a big extended family. I was a brown sheep and was unlikely to get any real inheritance so I was going to collage to give myself a living and to avoid being conscripted. I doubt any of the Sinclairs survived though we did have a fairly deep basemant shelter."

The Knight of Atom looked up at him and nodded. "Your mother is one Ursula Ruth Sinclair, your older sister is one Mandy Sally Sinclair and your younger sister is one Stella Anne Sinclair. They are all alive and in the Ghoul Underworld. It seems they and a few others got to the basemant bunker but fell to ghoulification."

He stared at her for a time before speaking. "So long ago, so very long ago, I was Bobby Bob or Boggy as my little sister would call me. One can never go home."

Sir Sivane responded. "Your name is on the Seeking Missing Persons List. Seems your mother had your name put on it as soon as she found out about the list. Sisterhood of Compassion is running the network along with the USFG."

"People have changed somehow." He responded. "Subtle psychic shifting. The Guardians of the Rim will want to know about this. Perhaps I should stay longer but first I must report. It should only take a couple of seconds"

He sat with his back to a concrete pillar, sat with cross legged, and planted a gem against his forehead. It staid there and throbbed with a soft glowing pattern. It took a lot longer than a couple of seconds.

Continued in NINETY

NINETY

Major General Masterdane stood proudly in his military uniform of fine clean cloth and dusted off his golden epilates and looked out from the concrete wall towards the distant horizon. He grinned with confidence. He was a little on the fat side, he had to admit to himself, but was positive he would make a fine fighter if he had to. True he only got the command of the Border Guards because nobody took them seriously. They were about five hundred poorly trained, poor armed and often drunken or drugged men with a sprinkling of women who were, to be truthful, cheap prosttutes for their male comrades.

Masterdane had managed to get enough soldiers to man the big gate facing roughly north-east. It was said the armoured scouts had come from there in big armoured vehicles to demand open passage through Crosswayne. Well nobody was going to put up with that, not with a few fools in power armour.

His batman Cringles came up and stood with a tray with an almost clean shot glass of cider on it, the kind of cider you only drink in shot glasses and very slowly at that. Cringles was actually a sixy young woman in a tight white shirt with many buttons open and a very short skirt. He often spent private special briefings and dictation sessions with her in his rear office which just happened to have a doublebed in it. "Sir, you asked for a drink, sir!"

Masterdane took out a stained linen handkerchief from his chest pocket and wiped sweat from his fat greasy face. He had eaten a small but fine dinner of roasted wild turkey drumstick and some sort of roasted tubers. It had put him in a good mood. Then he took out his silver pocket-watch on a bronze chain. It didn't work but he liked to look impressive to his men. Then he took up the shot glass and took a small sip. A big smiled passed across his face.

Then he saw the black dots in the sky, distant it seemed and at the horizon of generally flat, lightly broken land covered with small bushes, grasses and various mutated plants. He was puzzled for they seemed rather big for the distance. Then he laughed at himself. Of course distance could play tricks on one.

Most of the men at the wall battlements or concrete pillboxes around the big gate were sleeping or chatting or were taking turns with one of their female comrades. Masterdane rang the steel bell and when nobody seemed to respond he rang it hard. The men started to look around and to see the dots. Attitudes changed at once. The soldiers scrambled for machineguns, autorifles, laser-rifles, sniper-rifles, shotguns and other weapons. That is for the seminaked female comrades who made a hasty retreat carrying bits of clothing, shoes and shoulderbags.

Then they came shooting through the air at supersonic speed, low enough to scare the hell out of anybody. Nine FX161 long range fighter-bombers like sleek black metallic bats. They flashed overhead and something fell from them. Masterdane went pale and gulped down his cider. His batman screamed and ran. Somebody foolishly shot a rifle at a target that was way out of range in seconds.

They were leaflets, hundreds of leaflets. A heavily sweating Masterdane picked one up and read it. Then he gave a heavy sigh before passing out orders.

The gate was wide open when the column of fast moving armoured vehicles came roaring along and they raced right through moving at amazing speeds over a fairly rough dirt road. A few hummers left the column and armoured soldiers leapt out with weapons ready.

The proud Border Guard were all standing in a rather raggedy line with arms held high in the air and guns stacked up way out in front of them. The Brothers of Steel seemed a bit stunned by this.

An officer came up and took off his helmet. He was a hard muscular man with eyes of steel hardness. He grinned at a drunken Masterdane and spoke. "You gave up with out a fight, with out defending your people."

Masterdane laughed a bit and then spoke. "My dear man, firstly we are a joke, a pitiful joke of a public defence effort. We are poorly trained, poorly equipped and badly paid. Indeed our pay often doesn't reach us because it is stolen by the officers in charge of sending us the money. As it is the money is useless Crosswayne dollars and cents, not those wonderful emergency coins of real value. Our government is a series of corrupt, selfish, faction ridden councils backed up by a public service of a few corrupt, inefficient departments and offices. Our sheriffs and their deputies are just hired thugs serving various wealthy families who rule Crosswayne with only the current Warlord having more power and a private army. We have thousands of ghoul slaves, we have death games and we have a lot of unhappy common folk who would rebel at a moment if given half a chance of success. Now, look at these men and very few women. Maybe you can make something worthwhile out of ten percent of them. Me, forget it, I am not officer or soldier material. My damned wealthy family sent me here to get rid of me. Now just be nice to most people, give them some help, give them some guns and ammo, and Crosswayne is going to be yours in a very short time."

Then he sighed. "At least half the guns there are too old and too dirty to be used safely. We have very little ammunition. We have no way to call for help and if we did, help is not likely to come. You would have killed us all in a few minutes."

He turned in surprise as his batman walked past for she now wore BofS light power armour. She smiled at him and then spoke to the soldier. "This is one very canny, very intelligent man. Get past his laziness and self pity, his love of hard drink and easy six, well you might have a good local politician in the making."

She turned to Masterdane. "I am a military intelligence infiltration agent. We are going to conquer Crosswayne. Our people are already through out Crosswayne preparing locals to revolt against their corrupt lords and masters."

Masterdane turned and gulped. In the distance the first airships and skyships, globe-blimps and squat saucers, were coming into view. There were helibirds, vertibirds and vertijets in the air as light swarms. There were more machines roaring along the road, lots of machines. Crosswayne would never be the same.
He smiled richly and then he laughed and laughed.

Continued in NINETY-ONE

NINETY-ONE

1Kitty entered a telebooth and left another to find herself in Wonderland. At once she dived behind a hedge wall on one side of the laneway as a fast moving, whirling dinner plate shot through the air overhead and exploded violently against a tree. The tree cried out in anger and its branch like arms hurled a boulder back at the attacker.

1Kitty had been going through peaceful if bare ugly and dimly lit underground bunkers for a while and now she had to adjust to this madness, this violence, and in a hurry. In her stealth power armour she darted along the laneway.

There they were, three human elementals shimmering in translucent energies but also in power armour, crouching beside the hedge wall. They held gattling-lasers. One turned and looked to 1Kitty and spoke. "The revolution goes slowly but steadily. The trees of the Talking Murkwoods have joined us and some of them do battle with the Eccentric Household of Madly. Human elementals have come here in large numbers to assist the rebels based at the Gingerbread House. One needs to accept the illogical inner logic of this place to succeed."

"Perhaps!" 1Kitty slipped a small glowing marble out of her pocket and threw it. It landed with a flash and a single sentrybot with wide splayed legs on wheels, stood there with a missile launcher arm and a 20mm autogun arm plus a 10mm autogun at its back just in case. The robot began to move forward and then it halted protectively nearer to 1Kitty. "You elementals have been breeding and making others from the dead and the dying."

"As Jasmine wished us to do." The human elemental of the physical nodded. "You are linked as one with Jasmine, we can feel it. Your robots will assist to logic down the insane irrational power of our enemies. The Queen of Roses will be more difficult to defeat with her powerful Rosethorn Soldiers. She defeated all of the Playing Card Monarchies and drove them into the outer fringes of Wonderland including the powerful Red Queen of Hearts. There is Alice, of course! She has declared herself to be no less than Empress of Wonderland, which does not please the Queen of Roses or others of power, of course."

1Kitty responded. "I have read all of the Wonderland Books of Lewis Carol and his descendents: Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Alice Returns to Wonderland, Queen Alice of Wonderland and Alas Alice of Wonderland. I know them word by word, chapter by chapter, character by character and scene by scene. But I expect that this version of Wonderlands differs from the one of the books of Lewis Carol and Lenore Carol, his grand-daughter."

The other spoke. "Yes and no! We must find the Magical Rabbit Hole, the Looking-Glass Mirror, the Old Magic Laundry Chute, the Tunnel of Loveliness and the Trickiest Elevator. These in the books were ways into Wonderland and may give us ways to special hidden zones. We also need to cut off the Dark Maiden so that she can no longer feed off the energies here."

"We must learn more about what the Dark Maiden and her companion, the Pale Rider Death, are up to." 1Kitty threw another glowing marble and this time three laser armed eyebots popped into existence. "Hopefully we will find hidden data here or at least clues."

She sent the eyebots off, all three together for mutual protection. They would scout the area and hopefully survive to get useful data back to the rebels.

1Kitty sighed. "We will invade the household of the Duchess Madly and subdue her, her family, her servants and her baby that turns into a pig."

Another big dinner plate spun through the air overhead but the tree ducked to one side and it exploded harmlessly in mid-air. The trees were learning to better protect themselves from the Madly Cook who was throwing the dishes.

A big bread'n'butterfly gracefully flapped through the air in the distance and dropped bits of glistening yellow butter on the flowerbeds below it causing dandelions and sunflowers to start complaining loudly.

Continued in NINETY-TWO

NINETY-TWO

The Dark Maiden was getting agitated. The great vault door to 301 had done nothing and she could sense that SSS-02, otherwise known as Wonderland, was suffering both rebellion and invasion. Which meant her major source of dark psychic energy was being threatened.

She of course had fall-back plans but was now wondering if they were truly worth anything. The calmness of the Pale Death Rider only caused her to feel worse. She was wondering also how Jasmine had escaped her trap, a trap that had taken a good deal of trouble to set up.

The Enclave Grand Fleet was fighting hard to protect itself and other Enclave forces controlled only the coastal area. Enemies now dominated the hinterland and much else was a crazy war zone. With the loss of their great big mobile-base, the Enclave had suffered a major blow. They had destroyed the Liberty Robots, even the huge Liberty Ultimate, but only with much difficulty. Tribal power armoured warriors kept swarming across the land, revealed now to be some kind of clones, and with them came war-machines and robots.

The PanAxis forces at Point Lookout had climbed into their rocketships and saucers, leaving a good deal of equipment and supplies behind for the Enclave to use because they could not take it all, and then left for some place unknown. The Enclave used everything left behind in any way that it could even if it was as melted down scrap metal.

She stood there now in stylish black and red focusi armour holding a focusi-longsword and a focusi-shield of gold. The Pale Death Rider stood to one side in black and white focusi armour, holding a shield and sword of the same colouration. He turned to her after many hours of silence and spoke.

"A very long time ago I vowed to hold onto life no matter the sacrifice that others had to make for me to do so. Do you ever wonder what drives life on; is it the passing of measured units of time or is it the way we interact with it?"

The Dark Maiden turned to him with a frown. "That damned demigoddess 1Kitty is now causing havoc in my Wonderland, my basis of power. I am a living goddess. I will continue and? I would say it is how we interact with time that matters. I feel change happening deep in the ground."

"It is time!" He grinned now. "Who or what do you think I really am or have you not considered these questions closely?"

"You are just a living god who seeks power and the kind of resources that we living gods most desire." The Dark Maiden shrugged. "For me you are just a convenience, you have always been so. The Hunt of Justice I consider important and the Darkman but not you, no not you."

He sighed. "Really, you are such a fool! I had hoped for much better when I created you. Yes, I created you. A living goddess you are not! What you really are is a mockery, a super-clone of a real greater living god, namely myself. For I am one of the Elder Living Gods. Once I was named Eldi'Serenes and was noted as Third of the Nine Elder Living Gods. Yet things can go wrong for even we the Nine.. the Twelve?the Thirteen? our ever mysterious nature. We wanted to live as we were beyond our allotted time but now three are insane yet fighting against this idea and three are fighting against this idea leaving three striving to live a wondrous dream. Of the Twelve you might ask. Three Reflections our nature and the Thirteen? Well the Thirteen is us all represented as one entity."

The Dark Maiden stepped back from him. "If what you speak of is true then you have been using both the Darkman and myself, the Dark Maiden. If you were Eldi'Serenes and noted as Third of the Nine Elder Living Gods, then you have indeed fallen. You are powerless."

He smiled. "Not so for I hid much my power disguised cleverly and now it is time to take it back. I will simply absorb you."

But the living goddess leapt backwards, flipped through the air and land in mid-air to stand apparently on nothingness. She sneered at him. "Even if you did create me, I am now beyond you for I have evolved. What is coming out of the ground, out of Vault-301?"

He sighed. "Watch then and know the truth before you die."

Then the ground exploded and masses of mud, rock and other material fountained up into the air. It was an amazing sight and the noise was an uproar. Then things began to fly up out of the great metallic tube that was starting to rise up through the air, thousands of things, dark and twisted things. Things that were constantly changing, that were almost impossible to focus on properly, to define accurately with one's mind more than one's eyes for it effected hearing, smell and other senses including the psychic.

Then she screamed outrage and terror before she turned and pointed her right hand at him. "Fool, what have you done, you have destroyed us all." Then she laughed. "Not really but I felt a dramatic moment was needed."

He grinned. "How witty you are! I will enjoy slowly absorbing you and feeling you die in a most horrible manner. These are my creatures and I control them. They are me and I am them."

"Not really!" The Dark Maiden giggled insanely. "When you created me you put too much of my power and knowledge into me so of course I reached out and took control of the beasties from your, our subconscious. I control them and they are me."

But the flickering things of horror ignored both the Pale Death Rider, also known as the Pale Lord Death, and the Dark Maiden. They slowly spread out over Point Lookout and began to absorb life. Plants, animals, even such as bacteria, began to die.

The living power entities did not care. They drew focusi-swords and prepared for battle..

At that moment a very powerful nuclear smart-bomb struck the spot between them and there was an incredible flash and a blast of nuclear fire. The black shimmering things were disintegrated at once and the two living gods were vapourised.

A mushroom cloud slowly rose over par of Point Lookout majestically and terribly.

High up in the stratosphere an Enclave flying-wing of a nuclear bomber turned gracefully and started back to the coastal area. The Enclave had guessed something was up and had prepared partly thanks to a tip-off by an unknown source.

Continued in NINETY-THREE