FORTY-SIX

Two great thumping Liberty Prime robots led a large military force of BofS and NG soldiers towards Paradise Falls. Vertibirds and vertijets moved in formation overhead to provide air cover. Robotanks rumbled along on their tracks along with square box APCs on tracks. BofS Armatroopers stomped along in regular or new, bigger super power armour suits. The so called Supertroopers were hulking big in their special power armour and hauled special 40mm autoguns, big missile launchers or big laser-projectors.

The National Guardsmen had no power armour but there were many more of them. They rode in armoured WW2 vintage vehicles of various kinds that had been upgraded as much as possible. Sherman battletanks were there along with Pershing battletanks and armoured halftrack trucks. There were also atomic powered battletanks known as Hammerfists. Each atomic powered monster had twin 105mm cannons in a large turret and on top of that a smaller turret with twin 40mm anti-aircraft guns. National Guardsmen rode in the back of these tanks because they were designed to do so in special compartments that also could carry extra ammo.

From the start the battle did not go as planned.

They came charging out of nowhere, hundreds of them in power armour and carrying all sorts of guns. As they came in waves they screamed the one weird battle cry of ‘Gary! Gary! Here is Gary!” With them came protectrons, sentry robots and eyebots, lots of robots all fighting as they came.

The convoy swung into battle formation at once. Battletanks turned and fronted the charging waves of the strange attackers. The Liberty Primes began to fire their great laser and missile weapons. Explosions ripped Garys apart, shredded them as did other weaponry. Maxiguns, miniguns, heavy machineguns, autoguns, lasers, plasmaguns, cannons, anti-aircraft guns, all blazed away.

Armatroopers and National Guardsmen found what cover they could even as overhead the vertibirds and vertijets began a series of attacks on the thousands of insane clones attacking the United States Taskforce.

More and more Garys came. They came in strange rocket-platforms that flew just above the ground and supported heavier weapons. They came on big atomic motorbikes. They came in deadly waves.

From a distance the Darkman, or at least one of him, watched and he grinned with triumph. The Garys were all one Gary and Gary had turned out to be surprisingly easy to manipulate. The Darkman wanted the Garys to cause trouble, to draw the United States of America into using up some of its military forces away from the National Mall Zone.

Then he turned and he lost his grin. The Mysterious Stranger held up a very big and very powerful revolver pistol. Then he shot the Darkman in the chest. There was no talking to the Darkman, especially not a lesser Darkman. It would achieve nothing but having to listen to clever lies.

The Darkman shuddered and fell dead. Then he simply dissolved away into nothingness.

The Mysterious Stranger, alias Mr MS, turned and spoke to another figure. “I warned you not to get involved, nephew. I told you no more games. Instead you listened to the Darkman and helped set up this attack on Paradise Falls.”

Statesman Alba Diplomori grinned. “If you think I am going to apologise, uncle, then you are badly mistaken. I was bored and playing with the US President’s mind like that was fun. Still, you can see it will work out differently from how the Darkman wanted it to and you can thank me for that. I do not trust the Darkman either. So I arranged for a little extra surprise and here they come. Hopefully they will drive the Garys back. In some strange way I like the Garys. Perhaps because they are a primitive version of our self as chimpanzees are a primitive type of human, according to human science.”

Mr MS frowned. “Not any wise form of human science.”

Then they came to attack the Gary’s flank. Packs of Clanhunters, Knights of Atom and even Psyabalists. These forces thrust into the ranks of Garys and drove them back in confusion. Even mad Garys knew fear enough to run away from glowing Knights of Atom, the berserker fury of Clanhunters and the strange powers of the Psyabalists. But then the new attackers were forced back.

For thousands of more Garys were coming.

Far too many Garys even though many of the new ones had normal combat armour and less powerful guns.

When the mechatripods came striding into view from Paradise Falls it seemed that the US military taskforce was doomed. The three great Martian war-machines raised their more powerful new type heat-beamers and then… began to burn away the ranks of Garys. The sweeping heat-beams exploded robots, rocket-platforms and other machines. The Garys disintegrated in red hot flashes of energy.

Protobino soldiers came in odd power armour and attacked the Garys on their other flank. The charged past the mechatripods that continued to lay down covering fire. The new forces fired heavy weapons as they charged along.

Almost as one the surviving Garys turned and fled. As they raced away they simply vanished, each of them shimmering before they did so. The robots they left behind kept fighting. The war-machines exploded. Dying Garys died abruptly as if triggered to do so by the fleeing Garys.

Three hours later the underground nation of Paradise Deep was agreeing to give up slavery, to make other changes and to become a part of the new United States of America. Why? Because they knew about the Enclave and they knew that deep beneath the National Mall of Washington DC was an even greater threat than the Enclave could ever be.

They were also grateful that Jasmine of the USA had saved their people, most of whom were clones, from the deadly Clone Pox.

Continued in FORTY-SEVEN

FORTY-SEVEN

Rebirther Reconstruction Units had turned the National Mall Zone into a smooth dirt rectangle stretching out over a long distance. They had done so in surprisingly short time, filling in ditches, removing some bunkers, removing sandbag walls and much else. National Guardsmen assisted where they could but Rebirthers in work power armour or in specialised machines often did not need them. Robots often did the work.

When a National Guardsman complained that the Rebirthers were doing the work that the Wastelanders should be doing, a Rebirther stated that all human Lunarites had ancestors who had come from the Earth and many had come from the USA. Then she had pointed out that one of her ancestors had lived in Washington DC itself.

The young man stood watching from the upper floor of a wrecked skyscraqer. He stood in shadow and he was indeed semitransparent inside a stealth projection field that came from a stealthboy.

He was an Enclave clone of a special kind, an infiltrator of a kind known as a doppelganger. The problem was that he had to kill somebody to duplicate them, had to absorb them. Strangely enough though it was painful for the one he consumed, it was far more painful for him to consume anybody. This was the dark irony for all doppelgangers. The other dark irony was that though they grew stronger with every feeding, it also lessened their life spans and so only so many duplications could be done before a doppelganger died.

This would be his first!

Narala-987 did not hate the enemies of the Enclave for Enclave clones were sociopathic. Only a few select Enclave leaders and other VIPs were allowed to have emotions so they could better understand Enclave enemies. He had no conscious, no emotions. He had only the drive to have the Enclave conquer the world.

Who would he kill, absorb and duplicate?

He needed to infiltrate deeper into the National Mall and find out just what the Rebirthers were up to. These fools from the moon were the enemies of the PanAxis who were staunch allies of the Enclave. Somehow these Lunarites had gotten through the great force field that covered North America but only in a limited fashion. Then again so had the PanAxis in a limited fashion.

The fear was that those on the outside of the force-field, those who dwelt on other parts of the Earth's surface, would get through the barrier. Not all other parts of the Earth but just most of them.

He looked around in time to see a wrecked building swiftly and majestically collapse in on itself as it was demolished. The USFG had asked the Rebirthers to demolish most of the buildings in the area but most of them were both not famous and not repairable. Buildings built of smart materials closer to the war could be fixed with special techniques. Other buildings were just in better condition. Famous buildings would be fixed if possible or, reluctantly, demolished and then carefully rebuilt.

The Enclave could start an air campaign against the DC Wastelands at any time so where basemants, bunkers and shelters could be saved, they were being saved. These would become shelters for people to hopefully find safety in.

Subway areas were being cleared up as were utility tunnels, sewer tunnels and other areas below ground. Anything that could be reused, repaired or recycled was being so from furniture to electric fans to baby carriages to ruined books and much else.

Prefabricated modular buildings were going up along with foam inflated dome structures. Big machines were gulping up materials brought in often by Wastelanders on casual wages plus bonuses who turned credit into goods at government depots. Surprisingly few had tried to cheat the system and they were either dead, in prison waiting trial or in working chain-gangs.

Raiders had vanished from the whole of the Central Washington DC area because they were outnumbered and outgunned.

Paid informants amongst the new USFG had sold that and other information to the Enclave but then many had fallen silent as the new CSIA had tracked them down.

The doppelganger slipped across the floor, avoiding a big hole with ragged edges, and then took another look down at the National Mall. There he could see odd humanoids working, dozens of them. They were called puppetnoids and they were of unknown origin, at least to the Enclave. They had grey skin, were hairless and they worked in special power suits tuned to them. There was a whisper going around that certain powerful entities known as living gods were turning folks with too much bad karma into these puppetnoids.

Enclavers did not believe in karma, good or bad. But the clones did believe in living gods for the Darkman had been one and once he had controlled the Enclave. When the Enclave had begun its new cloning programs the new clones had taken control of the Enclave and had found themselves immune to the Darkman's control. They had then turned against him for they considered him to be far too emotional and erratic.

Then he whirled as he saw the woman standing there. She was an older looking version of Jasmine but was still very lithe and beautiful. She wore a blue vault jumpsuit but with out any numbers on it.

The Enclave clone wondered if she saw him until Jaylee turned and looked directly at him. Without warning his stealthboy failed and he now looked like a figure in grey stealth power armour with the helmet gone to show an oddly hairless purple head that was in other ways quite human.

She smiled and then spoke. "Leave! Absorb nobody. Take a message back to your Enclave Leadership. Tell them that the evil that is deep beneath the DC Wastelands is your true enemy. Not the new USA, not the Brotherhood of Steel, not the Darkman with his army of super mutants or anybody else. Down there is the true evil. It is not an evil you would wish to be allies with or even try to because it does not accept allies. It is chaotic, full of twisted emotions and sunk in strange logic. It hates your kind of entity as much as it hates things of good or neutral karma. It even hates anything of less evil karma than it and its followers, which is saying a good deal since it and its true followers are incredibly evil. It manipulates and then absorbs false followers. It would not even consider using you Enclavers."

After a pause the doppelganger went to step back.

But Jaylee smiled and, reaching out, touched him. He shimmered and cried out. Then he was not a he any more. He looked like Jaylee. Confused he stared at her. Then he spoke. "What have you done to me?"

She smiled. "You are no longer a doppelganger. You are still an Enclave clone, still sociopathic, but you must remain in that shapeform until you die. You should thank me for now you are sure to live longer. Go!"

The copy of Jaylee nodded, turned and hurried off in her stealth power suit. Moments later her stealthboy became active again and she vanished.

Jaylee wondered if the message would get through.

Continued in FORTY-EIGHT

FORTY-EIGHT

The Garys that survived fled back to Gary's Vault using Gary's powers of stealthy fast running. They moved in small groups, scattered and yet coordinated for they were one Gary who was many Garys. They had only one great desire and that was to get home.

Gary now knew that the Darkman had tricked Gary. Yet the Garys did take much loot with them back to Gary's Vault. Gary knew that he had made powerful enemies and that those powerful enemies would be hunting for Gary. Gary knew that they would be coming to Gary's Vault.

When the first Garys fled into their vault they had a big surprise waiting for them. Mary was waiting for them. There were many Marys. They were beautiful, they were sixy, they were glad to see Gary. Gary fell in love. The Mary soon had Gary cleaning up the vault. Gary brought loot and gave many gifts to Mary. Mary and Gary buried the poor victims of Gary. Gary became less aggressive.

When Jade arrived with a strong force of killers, she sensed something odd. She watched Garys cleaning up the approaches to the Vault. She watched some Marys tending sheep, which they seemed to be good at. Garys stood protectively on guard but even so there were also Marys who had guns. Mary loved Gary but Mary was no fool. Jade observed through binoculars much that happened.

In a place where no Gary could see, Jade met a Mary. The two women looked at each other carefully as Mary stood there in a blue jumpsuit marked A/001 for she was the very first Mary, was Mary/A/001.

Mary sighed. "Mary controls Gary now. Gary will no longer leave the Vault and Gary will make up for the harm he has done, for the harm that all the Garys have done. Mary has some special things to tell you. Garys were a project idea to help develop a variety of clones but the Garys had one mind and could not deal with having one mind. They went insane but they only went insane because the VaultTec scientists in our vault tried to make them into killers."

"There was a war going on in the vault between the Scientific Faction, the Overseer's Faction and the People's Faction. Each had robots, weapons, turrets, body-armour and other stuff. The Overseer's Faction had most of the robots and turrets. The People's Faction had most of the people including most of the security guards. The Scientific Faction created the Garys from a cloneator machine to try to use as a weapon so they could gain control of the vault. Gary went insane. Another cloneator was set up to produce Marys to help control the Garys but the machine was not turned on until recently."

Jade nodded. "So the Garys took over the vault."

Mary shook her head. "Only the original Vault-108. The three factions survived by withdrawing into three other vaults and locking themselves away. Their descendents are still there, I suppose. The vault experiment was to cause violent factionalism amongst the Vault Dwellers. Mary and Gary will become good citizens of the USA and will make amends what Gary has done."

"I can promise nothing but I will see what I can do." Jade nodded. "I will send an urgent communication to the Presidium. I do not think the USA wants to fight Gary right now. Quite the opposite. The USA needs the strength of both Mary and Gary for the whole of the DC Wastelands are under threat."

Mary nodded. "The Darkman told Gary so and frightened Gary very much for there is a mighty monster hidden below the National Mall that is hidden in a great hell of its own making. It is a great monster that is many monsters that is one monster. It is a great monster that feeds of the evil things that happen in the DC Wastelands, that feeds off the fear, the hate, the violence. The Darkman fears and hates this great monster so much that the Darkman wants to destroy it. That is why the Darkman made his big army of super mutants and led them down, down, down, down into the great monster's underworld to find and destroy the monster."
Jade did not say anything for a time and then she sighed. "I meant the Enclave."

But Mary shook her head. "The Darkman liked Gary in some odd way. He told Gary that the Enclave is made up of nasty clones that think that only they should live on the world and should control it. The Darkman said that he controlled the Enclave once but that they broke from his control. The Darkman said the Enclave fears the great monster buried deep beneath Washington DC as much as does the Darkman."

Mary shivered. "In truth there are many dark things down there in that place. They are the Old Ones and their demented evil deities. Yog-Sothoth, the Key and Guardian of the Gate, is a great monster."

Jade held up her hand. "It is best not to mention the actual names of the Old Ones. The name of the actual evil living gods are the Malevae. Old Ones are in truth the distorted creatures who served at least some of them. These ancient monsters of living gods are, I fear to say, cousins of my own peoples. They took a darker path than we did. The Darkman would not lightly go into that deep hell, as you call it. He would go seeking power and to destroy those he fears. I fear that he is going to awaken ancient evil that will arise to the surface and try to consume this world. This world has seen enough evil."

Mary nodded. "True but Gary wishes me to tell you more. The Darkman wishes to destroy one great monstrous god called Cthulhu and take from him powerful ancient knowledge and strange weapons of great power. Then he will use these to take control of that strange place down there."

"The Darkman is the worst kind of fool." Jade looked up into the sky at the moon. "I have contacted a woman called Jaylee in Bunkertown where the President is. Jaylee will talk to the President about Gary and Mary."

Mary also looked up at the moon. "The moon is very beautiful tonight. Sometimes it is oddly fuzzy to look at but tonight it is clear. Why is it sometimes fuzzy?"

Jade responded. "Because a great big force bubble covers all of North America from the Alaska to Mexico, from the West Coast to the East Coast, including the coastal waters. There are people living in the moon. They are fighting a war. One side is better and has sent people to help us though I do not know how they got through the big force bubble. The others are like the Enclave."

Mary frowned. "There is too much war."

Jade nodded. "I can only agree."

Continued in FORTY-NINE

FORTY-NINE

Days had passed and the DC Wastelands had become strangely peaceful. A non aggression pact had been signed between the USA and the Enclave. The Enclave would not move beyond Point Lookout and the USA would not interfere with Enclave operations on Point Lookout.

Word did get out of Point Lookout that life there was returning to normal for the people of the coastal settlements of Point Portside, Tower Island and Carnivalia. These were human dominated settlements. The Enclave forces seemed to have a new policy of leaving people alone much of the time except for security checks, restrictions of movement and surprisingly reasonable taxation.

It was different with the Swampfolk and the Tribals. The Enclave troopers dealt only death to them. In the three hours of the initial invasion the Enclave had taken control but it seemed many Swampfolk and Tribals had fled down into vast labyrinth of caves beneath Lookout Point. After a while they came back up in fast savage raiding parties that attacked Enclavers and then vanished again back down into the caves. Enclave robots and troops that went down into the caves had many problems with booby-traps and ambushes. Yet there were worse things down there to deal with, things that attacked the Enclave but which tended to leave the Tribals and Swampfolk alone.

Enclavers were searching for something. They had already begun cultivation of punga fruit that had many fine qualities. This was done both on captured land near the coast and inside three of the Enclave ships. But punga fruit was not what they wanted.

Red Sonji, a male version of Red Sonja, slipped through the tunnels quickly and quietly. He wore stealth power armour from head to foot of dull grey.

He made his way past pools of bubbling substance from which rose, now and then, a big bubble that noisily popped out and floated upwards before sinking down again. He heard the muffled sounds of plasma weapons and lasers. An Enclave Search and Destroy Team, or ESDT, was facing a poorly armed group of Tribals but the Tribals knew the area of caves and the Enclavers did not. The fighting was brutal and with out mercy. The few prisoners that the Enclave took were sent straight to experimental stations and what happened to them was not pretty.

He was not there to meet the Tribals, Swampfolk or Enclavers. He was there to meet the things that were attacking the Enclavers but only now and then. The very things that the Enclavers were seeking as one of their prime objectives.

Red Sonji went past some disgusting arrangements of skeletons, both human and animal, dolls and sharpened sticks. An offering bowl was stained with blood. Bloody red flesh, probably human, had been left there as an offering along with jugs of moonshine. Something had come with big distorted human tracks and had taken the offerings away.

He followed those tracks, as no local would dare to do and no Enclaver could do, sometimes moving through up to waist deep bubbling liquid, sometimes crawling through narrow spaces and sometimes climbing up or down. He was covered with slime and mud when he found the big armoured vault door. The tracks went past the vault door in a hurry but he decided to investigate it anyway.

What harm could it do?

Vault-69!

He came down a tunnel that widened into a metallic surfaced area with turrets and a sentrybot. A female voice challenged him, speaking in the language called Esperanto. "Okay swamp thing you can go away now. No monsters allowed here. You should know that by now."

Puzzled, Red Sonji removed his helmet and then he spoke. "Greetings, I am Red Sonji, and I am seeking?"

But the voice squealed out and cut him off. "A man, a mmmaaannn! Oh? you? oh you just stay there while I consult my comrades who happen to be? you know.. well I won't be long. You don't move. We welcome you with open arms and? you know.. open hearts."

Red Sonji was starting to wonder what he had got himself into. He stepped back but a sentrybot spoke. "Do not move!"

The vault door rolled to one side and out stormed a whole lot of young and otherwise youthful, beautiful women all slimly muscular and lightly voluptuous. They wore dark dull pink jumpsuits with the number 69 in yellow just as other VaultTec Vaults had their numbers. Each woman was armed with a 10mmC semiautomatic or laser pistol but they remained holstered as did stunclubs. The left cheeks of the women were tattooed with elaborate, beautiful coloured images of various goddess figures, symbols or red roses.

It was all very tribal!

They swarmed him with amazing speed and efficiency. Five minutes later he was in a big shower booth being tended by two women. It was obvious what the women wanted from him and he decided to give in as long as he managed to learn something from these Vault Dwellers.

They were happy to tell him.

It was a very strange experiment but those chosen to go to the vault turned out to be only enhanced and often rejuvenated single women. There were a hundred thousand of them and for a minority of one thousand men. That was one hundred women for every man. There were three cloneator machines but they only cloned female children except on odd occasions when a male baby would appear. There were those women who loved it this way and those who hated it and many who just went along with it.

The men assumed they would rule and that each would have his own harem. At first this seemed to be the way it would go. That is for the minority of men who had little interest in women for various reasons. But then the Women's Revolt took place and everything got changed.

Men did not rule but were the harem. Now and then a Tribal or Clanfolk man would get too close to Vault-69 and fall into a trap. The Tribal men were often very wild to handle and the Clanfolk men were too inbred and just damned crazy. Now and then would come a new clone boy but so would come many more clone girls. A few Tribal men settled in and did craft works, teaching the women of Vault-69 many survival skills and crafting skills. The women learned how to better move through the caves, to hunt, to avoid the monsters and to deal with other threats. They learned to run when the dark things came as did the Tribals and Clanfolk. The dark things never came near the vault.

Swampfolk women tended, oddly enough, to be very beautiful but stupidly passive or wild. Tribal women tended to be wildly cunning. When captured both tended to fit into Vault-69 society quite happily and became vault hunters, warriors and scouts. They also taught many skills to the original Vault women.

Thanks to hydroponics, matter-formers, matter-manipulators and other technologies plus water and air taken, then cleansed, from the cave system, Vault-69 had survived well enough and its population had stabilized at around nine hundred and twenty thousand. Punga fruit was cultivated inside the vault, in a cavern linked by a secondary vault door and just collected in gathering expeditions various mosses from the amazing caves. The mosses had turned out to have many useful properties.

Red Sonji did not get to see much of the vault. The harem area was fairly close to the main entrance, was heavily guarded by security guards, robots, turrets and vaultgirl androids. This was as much to keep the men in as to protect them. It soon became clear the women wanted him there for only two purposes and both were to provide sperm in two ways; six and sperm donations into the procreation medical network-system.

The women soon learned that he had astonishing sixual capacity and the other men in the harem area tended to see him as a threat to their status. That is except for some friendly exceptions such as men too old to worry about such things any more, some intellectually handicapped manboys and homosixuals who didn't care.

On his fifth day in the vault he was given a rest day. He sat cross legged in only shorts on a fur of a swamp-bear at the edge of the big main harem chamber. The chamber was very large and stretched out into the distance. Other groups of men kept their distance. They wore only blue shorts, as Red Sonji did, or blue jumpsuits marked with the yellow '69'.

Old Pete sat next to him and he scratched his bold head. Then he spoke. "The men get special fertility and potency rejuvenations which work but which shorten our life spans, which age us quicker. The women could just kill us but they leave us in peace in retirement and even care for us until we reach the age of 100. Then they send us to a secret place that we never come back from. What happens there we do not know and, frankly, I don't want to. But you might want to because though you are clever at doing so, you want as much information that you can get about this place."

The old man sighed. "I sired many children and once a month my daughters and sons gather with me to celebrate. It's a quiet affair but I look forward to them. We get some genuine sweetrolls and fine quality juice to drink. If we are lucky we get a small glass of that damned fine moonshine liquor. Grow hair on a woman's chest, that stuff could. You look about twenty-one but hour old are you really?"

"In a way you could say I am over a hundred thousand years old." Red Sonji responded. "In another that I am older than time or outside of time as you know it. I am a living demigod. Yet in another I am just twenty-two years old. When was the Darkman here, the tall pale white figure in the Victorian British gentleman's suit?"

The old man shuddered. "About fifty years ago. He came with a good deal of resources including a hundred young cloned men, robotrucks full of goodies, medical data, special medical technologies and knowledge. He adjusted the cloneators so that about one out of twenty clones would be male instead one out of a hundred. He also adjusted the cloneators so that fifty percent of them were no longer sterile."

"The women did not tell me about the sterility factor in the cloneators or the Darkman." Red Sonji frowned. "What else haven't they told me?"

The old man shrugged. "Not all the women are privileged to know all the secrets, especially the great ones. What the Darkman got from the Matriarchs I do not know but he got something big. Whispers circulated that he made a hundred women pregnant and that they gave birth to many children. Some whispers say they were fine but others say they were all monsters or some were monsters. Vault-69 is linked, supposedly, with a secret secondary vault called Vault-69a and the Darkman revealed this to the Matriarch Council and the High Overseer herself."

Old Pete stretched. "The Darkman introduced some funny machines to the vault. A drunken young woman told me what she should not have spoken of after she learned what she should not have learned. There are ten dreamscape machines, or synthetic psychic virtual reality machines, if that is what they are really called. One sits in a capsule-chair and enters Tranquillity Lane of a large Prewar Town, a big amusemant park, a Swiss Alps adventure, a tropical island paradise or a version of Alice's Wonderland. She must have been really drunk because she said that women who play any of these dangerous games, some more dangerous than others, can become pregnant but also others die. She looked kind of angry when I asked if the pregnancies were okay. Then she fell asleep. I never saw her again. Now and then, not too often thankfully, a woman will vanish or at least she is never seen in the harem again or spoken of."

Then Old Pete gave a start. "Oh, I almost forgot, one special machine takes women to a place called NeoWashington or SSS01. I only heard that whisper once. Its just like Prewar Washington DC and you would figure it should be nice but it's a nightmare. The Darkman rules there and causes much suffering. Is it true that the world was blasted by atomic bombs?"

"A big part of it was." Red Sonji then told Old Pete about North America, about the DC Wastelands, about other areas but he refused to speak of the world outside of the great force field. Others started to gather as he spoke being men and then also women. A few recorded him either with audio or audio-visual means. He spoke about the various vaults he knew of, the Brotherhood of Steel, the Enclave, the coming of the Lunarites, the Subwayers and many other things. He took out coloured 3Dphotos and passed them around for people to look at. Indeed he took out an amazingly large amount of them and then did not take them back. Each 3Dphoto had time, date, location and coordinates printed on the back. Location names were in English and Esperanto.

Then he lay back and took a relaxing sleep.

Continued in FIFTY

FIFTY

Bethesda Virtual Reality Games Corporation!

The old neon sign was dirty and filthy but was still running on a long life atomic battery, flashing in the darkness that fell with the coming thunderstorm. It was going to be a big horror even by DC Wastelands standards. The first rains were sheeting in, were striking the ground and ruins hard. Even feral ghouls were gone into hiding, being frightened by the roaring thunder.

All across the DC Wastelands settlements would be getting prepared for the worst. Convoys and other travellers would be racing for cover. Eyebots would have sought cover thanks to programming. Aircraft would be grounded and in cover. Boats, ferries and riverships along the DC River would be secured and even brought out of the water if they could be.

Days had passed of relative peace in the DC Wastelands.

The vampire ghouls had vanished or at least Subwayer elite exotic forces could no longer find them be they Knights of Atom, Clanhunters or Psyabalists.

Raiders were gone from most of the DC Wastelands because things had become just too hot for them.

There were less feral ghouls as if the ghoul vampires had taken most of these pathetic monsters with them when they had left. A few were hiding amongst the ruined skyscraqers, multiple-domes and other structures of that area. They huddled together pathetically, amongst them a glowing one no less frightened than the others.

Four BofS atomic powered, heavily armoured four wheel drive Hummers raced along a main street, turned and shot away. They were making for a new National Guard Outpost and shelter. Their Hummers were making it well now but would not stand up to the hellish storm that was coming.

Metal signs rattled. An old wrecked car toppled over with a crash. Giant ants scuttled into the hole, the last ones, and quickly sealed it up.

With a strange thrumming noise and shimmering a blue police box appeared out of the middle of nowhere. It sat there looking out of place for it was a British Police Phonebox and was in newish looking condition. About ten minutes after it had appeared the door opened and out stepped a woman in a floppy hat, a multicoloured scarf of goodly length, a black jumpsuit of leathery appearance and black knee length boots of leather.

A young woman in a leather leotard stepped out, a buxom lightly muscular blonde with fierce blue eyes who wore leather tribal boots and carried a powerful composite hunting bow in a scabbard-quiver over her back. At her side was a deactivated laser-sword in a pouch. She spoke. "Doctor Cronos, this does not look right to be the jungle world of Akakakakakakatalis."

Doctor Cronos shook her head. "Princess Leza, it is not the right world. So many alternatives, so many alternatives. Well, we will have to try again. Back to the RAADIS."

RAADIS stood for Relativity And Alternate Dimensions In Space

They both went back inside, the door closed and with another set of strange noises the blue police box vanished.

A moment later a silver sphere sparkle shimmered into view at almost the same spot that the RAADIS had done. A silver door irised open and out came two floating elongated cones with two double jointed silver arms folded up against the sides of each one. The top of the vertical cones were cone shaped turrets with various sensor pods and the front of each strange dull, dark copper coloured machine had a gun that could swivel all around the body.

One spoke in an electronic voice. "The Professor enemy is not here. We must continue the chase. Quick, let us return to the ship."

The zaleks slipped back into the zaleship and it vanished as fast as it had come.

A building abruptly collapsed across the area where both strange machine had been for just a short time. It exploded as it struck the ground that shook lightly. A big radroach flew through the air and struck the Bethesda neon sign with a splat. Dead radroach dribbled down the sign.

The dust was quickly swept away by the wind and rain which soon washed away the poor dead radroach.

Continued in FIFTY-ONE

FIFTY-ONE

Jade went with Mary down through levels of Vault-108 which were looking cleaner and neater with every passing hour. Then they were looking at a large chamber where Marys and Garys were sorting out heaps of stuff be it furniture, computer hardware, robotic parts, boxes of stuff, lockers and much else. Almost anything that one could think of was piled up in that huge metallic chamber. Car tires, mannequins, deactivated androids, robots, pool tables, wheelibins, garden gnomes, tools of all kinds, pieces of houses and much else.

It seemed insane that anybody would go to so much trouble to bring such stuff into that place and just heap it up like that so that it filled about half of the chamber in on great big mound in the middle of the chamber. But the stuff was useful or semi-useful. The Garys and Marys were glad to take it away with the help of robots, androids and special machines including robotrucks.

It seemed to be yet one more sign of VaultTec insanity.

Jade walked around the mound until she came back to her starting place. She turned to look at Mary as two Garys strode passed them carrying a nice shiny metal kitchen sink. Then she pointed at the mound.

"The mound will never grow smaller. As you take things away it moves a little but that movement is caused partly by new things appearing inside to, in a general sense, replace the mass taken away. All of this stuff is being matter-formed with the expenditure of a great deal of energy. Notice anything else about the mound?"

The Mary shook her head. "Apart from the clunky nature of things, nothing."

Jade smiled. "You have it! The items in the mound are put together in such a way as to make it awkward to remove anything and to cause movement. Thus the appearance of new items inside the heap is more easily disguised. Of course you would have worked out sooner or later that something was strange but not perhaps what. The heap is made to stop anybody getting to the middle of it in a bizarre fashion that smells of the Darkman and his strange jokes."

Mary frowned. "This is very hard for Mary to think about because Mary is still getting used to being a Mary who is many Marys who are one Mary. Yet I think I see a way that one could get through, that might be meant for one to get through. Hollow things next to hollow things. Go through hollow things that are meant for things to go through like that big pipe sticking out of the bottom of the mound."

Jade kissed Mary and Mary blushed. Jade then spoke. "You and one Gary come with me so that if anything happens all of Mary and Gary will know about it."

The clones put on security power armour and came armed with security guns.

The three of them crawled through the pipe and found a hatch leading into an empty machine case. Another hatch in this case led them into a robobus with its enclosed cabin. After clambering through more enclosed spaces they came to and entered a large dome fused to the floor. In the floor of the dome covered floor space was a circular hatch.

The hatch was locked but Jade got it open in seconds. The three descended down a safety railed ladder that went down a fairly long tube. Then they were inside a big chamber, a typical vault chamber, only lightly dusty and neat but quite bare. A turret was on the ceiling but it was deactivated.

But there was skeletal remains in a blue jumpsuit lying against a wall and on that wall was a sign painted out of blood that read in Esperanto.

THE PEOPLE'S FACTION WILL BE VICTORIOUS!

There were three metal doors in every wall. There was a circular console in one corner facing the centre where the ladder came down from above. A cleaning roboremote unit, quite large and on six wheels, was parked against one wall but was also deactivated.

Jade walked to the skeletal remains and crouched there. Then she sighed, closed her eyes and touched the skull. There was a sparkling shimmer and the body vanished but not the gear.

The air-water elemental floated in the air being a youthful looking man of blue energies. He was of the same energy based species as those that Jasmine had transformed from the Talon Fist mercenaries in Vault-87.

The elemental spoke. "At first we feared that the Scientific Faction had created some kind of terrible new weapon. The black smoky things that came out of the vents, each with a red purple flaming globe in the middle. Black smoky humanoids but with four arms. They touched robots and the robots were drained of electricity, were deactivated. Worse, they touched life and it was drained of life, became dead. Not every touch was fatal for life or robots. No, only a critical strike or many less successful strikes. They had to get close enough to touch."

He went on. "Lasers did them most damage but high voltage electricity, plasma and electromagnetic pulses also damaged them. Bullets only did them harm if they struck the actual red purple flaming globes. A wooden spear or long stake thrust into the fiery globes did them much harm."

"I died the same day that the three factions became one out of the need for survival. The Overseer was killed by his own people because he was a fool as were the leading three scientists of the Scientific Faction who had created the Garys and Marys. It was learned they had sold secrets to the Darkman about the cloning programs, about the secret genetic coding of both the Garys and Marys."

He shimmered softly. "I must go. Others of my kind grow steadily in numbers in the DC Wastelands and they call for me to help them cleanse air, water and even the ground itself. Oh yes, the final plan was to set up a fortifications of electromagnetic fields, high voltage fencing and plating, wooden stakes, turrets and other defences. People would take turn using status-capsules to conserve resources. That was over a hundred years ago."

Jade nodded. "Go now and do as you must. Remember that you can become human again for relatively short periods of time so you could in future visit any survivors you know."

The figure shook his head. "The black smoke things did not kill me. The madness of my own people took my life. I was murdered simply because I was left handed. The survivors became convinced that the black smoke things were demons and that anybody who was left handed was secretly a demon follower. Oh yes, they claimed that the Darkman was truly the Devil and that he had sent the demons and that anybody who was left handed or who fitted into other categories was his worshipper."

"They are demonic but not demons." Jade responded. "That is they are living demons more properly known as parademons. The Darkman is not the Devil. The Darkman is an evil living god. He fears and hates demons and parademons. Those black smoke things with the red purple flaming spheres inside are only one kind of parademon. They are called shadowmen. Go now and join others of your kind."

The blue figure looked around. "This chamber has been altered since my death. There were only three doors before, that is two in one wall and one in another. The doors are different now, are bigger, and those symbols were not there before.

The blue figure nodded and then simply faded away.

Mary spoke. "You are most amazing to do such things."

Jade shook her head. "I am but a conduit for greater forces of the Light and of Enlightenment."

Gary looked around. "What door do we go through now?"

They all looked around at all twelve metal doors that seemed identical to each other. On each door was a symbol. These were the nine astrological symbols of Aries the Ram, Taurus the Bull, Gemini the Twins, Cancer the Crab, Leo the Lion, Virgo the Virgin, Libra the Scale, Scorpio the Scorpion, Sagittarius the Archer, Capricorn the Seagoat, Aquarius the Water-Bearer and Pisces the Fish.

Jade went to each door in turn, with Gary and Mary following carefully, and touched it. She frowned softly each time. Then she went back to stand at the very centre of the room again.

"Powerful forces are at work here and I am having difficulty sensing the truth behind each door but I sense danger all around. Please return to the vault above and prepare defences in case the shadowmen or other threats come. The danger here is too great for you."

Garry grinned. "Garys and Marys are already doing so for what we know, they know, and they are putting together high voltage spark-staffs, powerful laser-projectors and other equipment from all the stuff left from what the Darkman gave us." He lost his grin. "The Darkman gave us Garys much stuff but only to get us into great danger. He did something that was painful but made many more Garys appear. We will no longer trust or serve the Darkman. We still have much of use like rocket-platforms, robots, crates of NukaCola, big atomic powered motorbikes, those fizzy lollies that tickle your tongue in a really great way and even SPAM, lots of wonderful SPAM that comes in a dozen wonderful flavours."

Jade smiled and nodded.

Mary sighed. "Gary has his own special priorities and SPAM is one of them. We will go now."

They departed and Jade sat in full lotus position and meditated. After a short time she began to glow softly in many colours and to float gently just above the floor.

Continued in FIFTY-ONE

FIFTY-TWO

The Clanhunter threw a glow-stick through the air and it landed below him at the bottom of the Subway tunnel. She was on a raised platform of the station with escalators running down to the actual station. There was no reaction, no movement and no sounds. There was only dim lighting from still working emergency solid-state lighting.

Go feral ghouls, no raiders, no super mutants, no threats but wild ones like mirelurks and radroaches. Then there were not so dangerous creatures like molerats that preferred running away to fighting, growths of glowing glowshooms and big armoured radbeetles. A large rhino-radbeetle crawled into view and then paused as it examined some long thin mushroom like glowshooms. Then it began to eat food that would kill a human.

Command Lukas spoke through the mike in her helmet of his hunter power suit. "No nothing but I still got a bad feeling about this. We make no assumptions and that means you, also, McClaren."

McClaren was young and arrogantly assumed he knew enough to be a fine Clanhunter. In truth he was a good one but nowhere as good as he considered himself to be. He was also threatening to break the integrity of the taskteam by constantly questioning the commands of Lukas. It did not help that he assumed that as a man he automatically was somehow better a hunter than her.

Whispers were that he was on his way out, that McClaren would be quietly evicted and told that he had no future as a Clanhunter. He had only been given one more chance because he was a member of a very old and famous Hunterclan, the McClarens.

There was a slight breeze blowing through the subway trains still standing on the day that death came. Skeletal remains dotted the concrete. Then she smelt something odd, something that sent a icy shiver down her spine.

This was no normal prey of the Hunterclan of the Subwayers. She spoke again. "Start stealthy withdrawal. We will move in the two halves, step by step, covering each other as we go. Radio silence unless the need is urgent. Move!"

McClaren stood up as he went against orders and he spoke not through the radio link but through his speaker phones so his voice rang out through the large chamber. "I am Dave McClaren and I am a man. There is nothing here but?"

The long thin putrid green glowing tentacle plunged out from underneath a train and smashed straight through McClaren, killing him at once. His body withered away instantly inside his armour and the armour fell empty to the floor. Then the tentacle withdrew with amazing speed.

The Clanhunters aimed their 20mm autoguns and lasers carefully. When the tentacles came darting out again they were ready. They shot it and it shredded with 20mm shells and laser beams. The creature screamed bizarrely and the vibrations caused a strange trembling through out the great chamber. The big radbeetle scuttled backwards in fear away from the trains and the tentacle.

But then, with a flicker, the tentacle was gone. The strange disturbing smell was gone. The radbeetle went back peacefully to its normal activities.

They took what remained of Dave McClaren back to the nearest outpost.

Continued in FIFTY-THREE

FIFTY-FOUR

Vaultburg was Vault-87a.

Vault-87b was where the Gallery Chambers and the sensible mutants lived. There turned out to be more sensible mutants hidden away, about fifty of them. Some were more sensible than others.

They found another Gallery Chamber and walked amongst domed exhibits that were disturbing. There were males and females of animals, of so called monsters. Often there were variations, that is subspecies. There were molerats, smaller molemice, rats, big caverats, squirrels, brahmins including a big impressive bull, horses, swamp bears, yogi bears, yao-guais, deathclaws, prairie dogs, dogs, wolves, coyotes, panthers, bloatflies, centaurs, giant ants, mirelurks, nukalurks, radscorpions, radbeetles, radtermites, ghoul-horses and others, many others.

But then there were others. Super mutants in their normal variations, ghouls in various outfits, humans in various outfits, feral ghouls including glowing ones, protobinos and others.

Jasmine was there with Fawkes, Dogmeat and Cran of the Sisterhood of Steel.

Cran stood staring at an power armoured Sister of Steel in a dome. "Can you bring her back?"

"I don't know." Jasmine responded. "These are far more than normal museum displays, despite the appearance. They are linked to the Stimulation Simulation Sensoscape System that the Darkman created with the help of many deluded and otherwise manipulated humans along with various AI-supercomputers. The Darkman is very cunning and brutal. There are over two and a half million human minds trapped in SSS01 and now we know that they are tormented by the Darkman so that he can feed off their fear, their anger and pain. The Darkman uses them to increase his power so that he can fight the Malevae trapped in an ancient prison down way below us. Yes, the ancient evil of the Old Ones are trapped there."

Cran of the Sisterhood of Steel, frowned. "Why not rescue the people?"

Jasmine sighed. "Because the Darkman will have booby-trapped them into place. Even if we can find them and get past his other securities and safeguards, we or he might trigger off a booby-trap that will kill them all. The Darkman is wanted for many dark crimes and has been punished before but this time, if he gets taken back to our home dimension, the Darkman will be erased from time and space. He will never have existed. This is a tricky thing to do and is only done rarely. It is a terrible punishment."

"So he is desperate not to be caught." Cran responded. "He is trying to get something of power so that he will be free even from you living gods."

Jasmine nodded. "That is what seems to be a most probable an answer."

Cran snorted. "That was not exactly a straight forward 'yes'. So the Darkman caused all of our troubles in the USA."

"Far from it." Jasmine responded. "Far from it indeed. Human stupidity and greed played a very big part in what happened. There may have been other influences. We are still seeking answers."

There were various groups of humanity represented such as Enclave, BofS, SofS, Tribals and many other folk including DC Wastelanders. They walked past many until Jasmine suddenly froze.

In one dome exhibit was the Darkman himself. He stood frozen with his normal pale white skin and Victorian British gentleman's outfit. He was staring thoughtfully into space. Jasmine grinned, shook her head, and examined the dome on its disk shaped platform. She found a hidden switch and with humming noise the whole thing moved to one side.

An elevator platform took the four of them plus two other Sisters of Steel down into the depths. They found themselves in a large chamber that was a monorail station with twin platforms either side. A compact monorail train, or monotrain, was ready to take them down a long dimly lit tunnel.

After a pause they got in and they settled down in comfortable chairs. Dogmeat found a couch bench to lie on. The monotrain was soon humming along. It was sleek and quick. A vaultgirl asked them for tickets or credit. Jasmine touched it and then the android served them with coffee, biscuits and toasty fruit-rolls. Dogmeat licked the vaultgirl's hand in gratitude before he ate his food.

The monotrain came to a halt at the next stop because Jasmine wanted to check each station as they went along. Even as they stepped out of the machine they could hear the muffled sound of gunfire.

They moved cautiously along the platform to a large power-door that was jammed open by a partly crushed sentrybot. There was a wide enough gap for them to see a great cavern chamber of rock, mud and glowing crystal substance growing over the ceiling in flat tentacles.

What they saw was a surprise but was known to Jasmine. Vance and the Family, who were now powerful vampires, were firing weapons from a crude fortifications of wrecked machinery, big metal canisters and other stuff. They were not alone for with them were many other vampires that Jasmine had not met before.

The attackers were waves of feral ghouls, including glowing ones, and flittering bizarrely beautiful ghoul vampires. The dreaded ghoul vampires were not only controlling the feral ghouls but enhancing them to make them stronger and faster. Yet many feral ghouls lay heaped dead or dying on the muddy, rocky outcropped, expanse of the great cavern floor.

In their light power armour they went into the cavern and made their way along the wall, trying to skirt around to where the Family and the other vampires were seemingly trapped by the ghoul vampires and feral ghouls. It was difficult to move over slimy slippery mud and often jagged area of rocky outcrop. They crawled around boulders more than once, even Dogmeat. The ghoul vampires did not detect them until they were almost to their target and were running across an area of open ground.

The Family and the other vampires all gave covering fire as Vance quickly gave out commands to everybody there. All four of them made it .

Vance was pleased to see Jasmine. She took off her power helmet and crouched with Vance close to a wounded Holly who lay on a make shift bed with Brianna caring for her. Like all of the vampires he was filthy dirty and in need of a feed of one kind or another.

"I hope you have bloodpacks on you. The ghoul vampires took us prisoner in the Subways and knocked us out. When we came to we were here with these other vampires who were also captured. It seems that the ghoul vampires want to play some crazy kind of very nasty game with us."

Jasmine took out a large plastic box-bottle and flipped open its lid. Then she dropped two blood red capsules into Vance's hand. "Bloodic is vampire food, empowering and healing serum in one. One of these capsules is the same as half a bloodpack in general value but is better than that preserved stuff in some important ways. Please, pop them if you would. Taking them with water is best."

Vance studied the capsule with some evident caution, sniffed them, nodded and then washed them down with some tepid purified water from a canteen. He looked surprised and then he laughed. He shook his head. "I can feel the strength flowing through my mind, my body, my very spirit. This bloodic is amazing."

Jasmine put the carefully closed the box-bottle and gave it to him. "Take this for now. We must make arrangements for you to get more but you may have to serve the USA in some fashion."

They waited for the next attack to come but none came. The ghoul vampires and their feral ghouls had slipped away for some unknown reason.

Continued in FIFTY-FIVE

FIFTY-FIVE

2Dog was examining a great holographic wall display of articles, pictures and other data. He was standing back from it as if to see the forest rather than being too caught up with focusing on any tree in particular. Now and then he would use a special laser device to make some items larger and easily more viewed while shrinking others.

Scribe Ella Vanes of the Brotherhood of Steel was standing and examining the wall. She seemed impressed. "The Enclave was very busy in the DC area before the bombs fell and the force bubble was raised. They were working closely then with the President of the USA, one John Doe. The Pentagon was expanded downwards with extra levels being added. New bunkers were built along with monorail networks beneath the standard Subways. The problem is we have little detailed data on these and other facilities."

2Dog nodded. "The Brotherhood of Steel has occupied the Citadel for a long time but is rather secretive about how it has dealt with the Pentagon, which is enclosed by an extension of the Citadel."

The Scribe snorted. "As you know, the Pentagon is the administration in the upper lowers and research-development in the lower levels. The deeper the level, the greater the security clearance one needs to go there. Truth is my security clearance is not very high and doesn't take me very low. There factions in the Scribes and loyalty to certain individuals. Rothchild was the Chief Scribe because he was brilliant and because he was very good at keeping the faction fighting down to a very reasonable limit. But now there seems to be a growing schism between Rothchild and Elder Lyons and it is causing disturbance amongst the Scribes. It is not helped by a whisper going around that Rothchild was seen secretly meeting with the Darkman. Rothchild denies there is any truth in the story."

2Dog spoke. "He may be right. I checked into the story myself and at the time he was supposed to be talking to the Darkman, he was with many Scribes and Assistant Scribes, along with Cadets of course, working on a big project. Unless, of course, he is like myself and able to be in more than one place at the same time."

"That never ceases to impress me." The Scribe indicated another article, this time from an obscure 1976 military journal. "The military added their own exhibition to Washington DC Madam Madame Tussauds with its waxdroid android displays and androids. It was about the glorious history of the United States military services from the War of Independence onwards. Madam Tussauds is fairly close to Lyon's Citadel and is now occupied by BofS forces. One might assume this would be to take hitech from there to use elsewhere but no such thing has been done. A whisper is going around that Elder Lyons took personal charge of the operation there and excluded the other Elders and also Rothchild. Question is why and what is happening there? What did Lyon's Faction find?"

Jaylee walked in, like an older but still youthful version of Jasmine. She spoke. "Rothchild is not being excluded. The schism between himself and Elder Lyons is a falsehood pushed by the BofS Elders to hopefully help expose a traitor in their midst. Yes, there is a traitor and that traitor disguised him or herself as Rothchild when they met the Darkman. Or perhaps the Darkman did that. I spoke with Elder Lyons before I came here. He gave me information to share with you. Madam Tussauds was placed underground in Prewar times and is actually inside a disguised VaultTec Vault secretly code named Vault-MTDC. It turns out that other supposedly normal underground and semi-underground establishments used disguised VaultTec Vaults. Some have been taken over by DCTec which is now linked to a large faction of VaultTec, NukaTec and WarTec corporate survivors along with others. There may be Preclone Enclave people involved as well, people who were in status-capsules. DCTec is focused in the area across the river from Rivet City. They have an army of their own in the form of the GuardTec Mercenaries. There is a lack of data about their operations, their true strength and they are very secretive and deceptive."

2Dog turned and nodded at Jaylee in welcome. "DCTec has been selling good quality goods to various DC Factions at reasonable prices. BofS, SofS, the USFG and the Subwayers all buy and sell goods to DCTec."

He went on speaking. "DCTec may have been secretly in operation for over a hundred years now and not a fairly new organization as they like to pretend. We suspect that they traded with the Enclave, with Paradise Falls and even with raiders. They may have provided gear to the super mutants even when the BofS was fighting the big fight in National Mall Zone. They also may have helped to set up the fortified monstrous semi-underground settlement of Armageddon Park which is not far from the DCTec Zone. It seems they will sell goods and services to anybody willing to pay, that they are primarily profit focused. But there is worse for they, it seemed, both designed and sold the explosive slave collars, or ESCs, and those nasty mesmetrons to the slavers of Paradise Falls. Their traders have probably gone at least as far as the Commonwealth to the north and the Confederacy to the south, to Lookout Point and to the Pitt."

2Dog gave a small whistle of surprise. "What else could they have been up to and what or even who else might be hidden inside disguised VaultTec Vaults?"

Scribe Ella Vanes spoke. "The Subwayers most likely have some disguised VaultTec Vaults amongst the structures they use. Paradise Deep was created by the Paradise Eternal Corporation but their bunkers were copied partly off stolen VaultTec blueprints. There is a new Paradise Deep Government, a far more democratic one, that has evicted many of the ghoul vampires and killed others. Those still in Paradise Deep have taken deep honour vows to keep the new laws for the vampire ghouls are surprisingly loyal to their own version of honour."

2Dog nodded. "Jasmine, Fawkes and Dogmeat ran into rogue ghoul vampires and their poor pathetic feral ghoul puppets. Vance, the Family and other vampires were trapped by the ghoul vampires and were fighting. The ghoul vampires fled with their puppets in tow for no apparent reason when Jasmine appeared. That is somewhere below Vault-87."

He went on speaking. "As a side note, Jade has found that the Garys of Vault-108 have been subdued by a whole lot of Mary clones that appeared. She has not found out who triggered them to appear but they came from a cloneator machine designed to create them. Now Jade is exploring below Vault-108 and has found some most interesting new areas."

2Dog nodded. "So there is Jade exploring below Vault-108, Jasmine below Vault-87, 1Dog down deeper below Bunkertown and Red Sonja seeking a way down into Vault-301. All of them have so far made very interesting discoveries. Yet they are all seeking to go further, to find out more. So far Bunkertown proper has expanded through to Bunkers A001 as a reception visitors centre, B001 for GNR, B002 for the USFG, C001 full of WW2 vintage goods, C002 a mix of many features, C003 with WW2 vintage rows of civilian vehicles being now claimed and C004 that looks to be a WW2 vintage combination shopping complex, indoors amusemant park, indoors gardens, library, museum and art-gallery. In Bunker-C002 we found Brothers and Sisters of Steel from the WW2 period but they have all gone to Lyon's Citadel. They say that Elder Lyons himself has been speaking one on one with each of them in turn."

It was at that very moment, with a soft shimmer and another vision filled the chamber according to the minds of the three people there. It was the same chamber but it had not of the modern additions or other changes. There was a big old table set up and on it were maps, black-white 2Dphotos, big reels of audio tape and much else.

The elegantly beautiful old woman scientist who had been in the vision of 3Dog and 2Kitty was there. She was looking concerned even as she did her long blonde hair into a more practical bun.

Marshal Lyons was studying a sheet of neatly typed paper and then he looked up at her and frowned. "The first three jumperships have jumped forward into the future. They were forced to leave early and in a hurry. They are carrying more people than they were meant to because those people could not otherwise get away from the Enclave killers, those damned Talon Mercenaries."

The scientist nodded. "The important thing is that they got away, that the actual launch was successful. We had best be setting out for our jumpership soon or the emergency jumperboats here."

The man looked up to the woman. "Agreed. There is little we can do here now but destroy a few documents, hide others and pack up the last of what we want to take with us."

There was a shimmering flash of light and a tall translucent glowing figure of flowing rainbow patterned light appeared to them. It was if hundreds of small prisms were inside her to create those patterns. This one was a woman, translucent and standing just above the actual floor. The two humans stared at her in shock.

She spoke. "I am here only to give you a brief message. We are the elementals of time-space and we will ensure that your jumperships, jumperboats and jumperbarges will get through to your proposed destination of where and when. You must go now. One of your own has betrayed you, a man called Doctor Winston."

The woman protested. "He is a loyal old friend. He would never do such a thing."

"The Darkman seduced him because Doctor Winston has terminal cancer and is desperate to save his life." The time-space elemental responded. "Please go now. Destroy, hide or load up quickly what you have to, and leave."

The soldier spoke. "I find myself believing you. We will do as you say."

The beautifully alien figure spoke again. "Please take all of the Specials with you, leave none behind. My people and our cousin peoples will help you in more than one way. I must go now for powerful enemies are trying to track me and if they trace me here you will be in danger even with me here to protect you."

The elemental she vanished!

The marshal sighed. "We need to make room for all the Specials. You finally got your way, Professor Lola Lane."

Lola smiled

With a shimmer the vision faded away.

2Dog grinned. "Well you don't see that every day with the mindeye."

Jaylee nodded. "Of all the elemental peoples, the time-space elementals are amongst the most powerful, refined and subtle. They rarely intervene directly so matters must be very critical indeed for them to have done so."

Scribe Ella Vanes spoke then. "Back to going through the archives. Now we know information is hidden and it may well be there. We need to know much more about these jumperships. We really need to know how many of them there are, where they are heading and when they will appear."

They all agreed on this.

Continued in FIFTY-SIX




[/i]

FIFTY-SIX

A big bad storm was coming in and all across the DC Wastelands people were seeking shelter, were preparing settlements for trouble and doing what ever else they needed to. River ferries, barges, boats and small ships were being made safe as possible and, if possible, put safely onto land. Rivet City made special preparations for its safe waterborne existence.

Animals were also seeking safety. Giant ants were withdrawing into their nests as were other such creatures. Such as rabbits, molemice and molerats went into their warrens. Many creatures that did not dig into the ground, did so, including deathclaws. Many sought shelter in ruins or in the abandoned areas of the Subways.

The Sisterhood of Compassion Wastelander Assistant Outposts were already designed to withstand bad weather but they took preparations anyway. More people fled to them for such a great storm had not come in many decades. Vault-101 opened itself to taking in large numbers of refugees for the first time.

Project Purity kept producing purified water but the deliveries were halted.

Aircraft were ground except for a few available all-weather machines but soon enough they would also be grounded. Travelling was coming to a halt except for various sizes and types of heavy thick armoured stormcrawlers. There were heavy thick armoured stormbots going out. Eyebots sought shelter due to self-protection programming.

Even the Subwayers were making preparations because in the last super-storm they had suffered from flooding in some areas.

Across the river from Rivet City, well into the DCTec Zone, a young man stepped out of a slot-shelter, the common name for the small, medium and big cylinder shaped coin or card operated shelters that some corporation had built across the North America. He stepped out of a small one.

He stood there and the strong winds did muss him a little but that’s all. The rain splashed off him and yet he did not get more than lightly wet.

He stood in his original gear of a collage uniform of jacket, shirt, cap, trousers and shoes. He was neat, clean, with sandy brown hair and freckles. He was tall, lightly muscular with a little on the plump side. He had a collage backpack on his back with the East Washington Technical Collage logo on it as it was on his jacket, shirt and cap. He looked totally out of place in the DC Wastelands.

He was like a figment of the Prewar except for his eyes. There was something very subtle but very wrong about his eyes.

Around him stood ruined buildings and rubble, a wrecked street, skeletal remains, wrecked cars and a row of five shops. The shops had been rebuilt and showed VaultTec logos and advertising signs as holographic projections. Their storm shutters were down. But the shops still seemed to be open.

He slipped a pair of wrap-around polarised sunglasses out of a pocket and slipped them on. They looked like normal sunglasses but he looked at the shops and he could see into them, in a fashion. One shop sold food and drink. One shop sold weapons and ammo. One shop sold armours of various kind. One should sold a wide variety of other stuff. The final shop sold robots.

Moments later he was walking into a large, smoke filled diner, the food and drink shop, with booths running down one wall and circular tables dotting the floor. Lower level DCTec workers in overalls or cheap bizsuits or bizdresses were eating and drinking at some of the booths and tables but the place was relatively empty. Young waitresses were bustling around in miniskirts, minitops that left midriffs and cleavages bare, and mid-heel shoes plus lacy black aprons. They moved quickly and were expert at avoiding groping or pinching hands, not all of which belonged to men.

People noticed him though they pretended not to be looking at him. This bemused him. He sat down at a corner booth and waited quietly with his backpack on the seat beside him. He noted people were paying with USEDs, United States Emergency Issue Dollars, in both coin and note form. Yet they also used something called DCTec/credit. He had neither.

He slipped a hand into his backpack and pulled out a golden finger-ingot marked USFG. It was Prewar. On the blackboard up behind the diner counter were exchange rates and a golden finger-ingot was now worth 50 USEDs or 500 DCTec/credit. The finger-ingot was placed on the table.

A waitress bustled up to him, smiled at him with some obvious puzzlement. “Your rather young to be out by yourself.”

He smiled. “Call me Bobby! You are sixy looking. Want six?”

At that she arched her eyebrows at him. “Watch it sunshine! Even if I was selling…”

Bobby thrust the golden finger-ingot towards her. “I need to impregnate you but the pregnancy will be painless, will last only nine hours and you will get some wonderful physical and mental bonuses. Also I will pay you three golden finger-ingots and some bonus gifts. Oh, yes I will also have a big mug of white coffee, a bowl of mirelurk tuber stew and an Rivet City apple, what ever Rivet City is.”

She sighed. “Damned, why do I always get the loonies? Listen you, you smarten up or I get Greg the bouncer to come over here and…” She stopped in astonishment for he had touched the golden finger-ingot.

It shimmered and changed shapeform; it flowed into the shape of a small humanoid and then began to tap dance. As it did there came tap dance music and the sound of tap shoes.

He took off his sunglasses, looked into her eyes and spoke. “I was walking down the sidewalk just outside this shop, back in 1977, when the sirens began to blow. I looked just like I do now except it wasn’t raining and I was dry. It was a nice summer day. Atomic sedans, electric bubblecars, monotrams, women in lovely black summer dresses, children in prams pushed by flustered mothers, young soldiers on leave, police robots marching around on their thick legs.”

She stood frozen in place.

He went on talking. “Such memories are burned into my mind. The sirens began to blare. Speakers announced it was not a drill and we were to get to the deep shelters if possible. I looked around at the rushing crowds and I knew then I could not make it. People were trampling over each other to get away. I picked up a baby apparently abandoned by its mother and I saw the very slot-shelter that is not far from here. I noticed somebody put some dollar coins in and then step inside. The door closed but a moment later it opened again and the cylinder shaped space was empty. I knew then it might just be a way to get away. Which was when the baby’s mother rushed up and took the little girl. Seems she was pulled away by the crowd against her will. She was sobbing and the baby was howling. I got them into the slot-shelter with me somehow. The door closed and, well it was like being electrocuted and burned to death at the same time.”

Bobby put his sunglasses back on and with a shiver the young woman unfroze.

He said. “Over two hundred years later I am back. So, people are divided into humans, ghouls, super mutants and some others. Ghouls live longer than humans. Rivet City is a settlement of vessels on the Potomac. Megaton is made out of aircraft parts, or at least it used to be. There are the VaultTec Vaults. The Brotherhood of Steel, the Enclave, the Subwayers and others. This is the DCTec Zone. Its pretty safe from such as raiders here thanks to the GuardTec Mercenaries and DCTec Security and wages are reasonable but work is hard, is long and security can be nasty. You, personally, haven’t seen the work places and, from what you know of them, you don’t want to. Robotic assisted sweatshops with poor safety network-systems and a poor safety record. Injured and sick workers dumped at the nearest Sisterhood of Compassion WAO for them to take care of.”

She blinked her eyes and then she frowned. “You had better not tell anybody else here your story. They could cause trouble for you. With the big storm coming, the shop will be closed and heavily secured before the last of us heads for shelter. You can come with me to my bedsitter. We have a deal. Three golden finger-ingots will get me as far as Rivet City and afford me a start there. I got the feeling you have been in a very strange place for over 200 years.”

He shrugged. “Right down deep beneath us is an ancient prison for an ancient group of evil living gods known as the Malevae of the OldOnes. They are served by various less powerful but more common entities down there. When over twenty million people went into those damned slot-shelters across the USA, we were sent into the very edges of that great prison. I suspect those slot-shelters sent out some kind of psychic attraction to draw people to them, that it took advantage of people’s panic. Later I will tell you more.”

She shook her head in wonder and picked up the golden finger-ingot, slipping it away. He learned that her name was Candy Sweets, or at least that was her name while she worked in the DCTec Zone. She worked as a waitress most of the time but as a skimpy barmaid when times got tough. Prostitution was rife in the DCTec Zone for the workers, guards and specialists but so far she had not gone down that path. She brought his food and coffee.

He ate and drank steadily everything, enjoying the coffee most of all. Then he got up, slipped on his backpack and walked out the front door. He stretched, noted nobody was observing him, and he vanished with a sparkling shimmer.

A second later he appeared in a dimly lit laneway close to the back door of the diner. There he waited patiently. The door opened and out crept Candy Sweets with Wastelander outdoor clothes and boots, with a backpack, a rifle and a duffel-bag. She turned and walked straight into him.

She gulped!

He held out his hand. “Either you give back the golden finger-ingot and the contract is harmlessly voided, or you carry out the contract as agreed as if you didn’t try to rob me.”

Candy Sweets frowned hard at him and then nodded. “Very well then I will take the three golden finger-ingots.”

He smiled and reaching out, touched her nose.

The two of them rested and played for twenty-four hours on a beautiful tropical island. They swam, they ran, they played naked and they made love. They found fresh food and drink when they wanted it on a small table. They slept peacefully on golden sands beneath a star filled skies. Beautiful clear blue oceans. Dolphins swimming in the distance and even a whale spouting out to sea. He gave her wonderful massages. They discussed many issues. Her belly got steadily bigger though it grow fastest in the last eight hours. They did many things together. Then she gave birth in a lovely tropical hut with him there assisting her with much gentle care.

Then it was done and they were once more standing next to the back door of the diner and in real time only one second had passed. She found herself holding a small chubby oddly muscular baby in a pouch on her front.

She looked at him with an odd smile. “My mind feels clear, my thinking faster and my body fitter, more healthy. He is mine now?”

Bobby nodded. “Your child but when you both sleep at night I will visit you and I will visit when I can in a more normal fashion. Now we will go to Rivet City.”

She asked. “Then what?”

He frowned. “Thanks to the Darkman invading the ancient prison with an army of super mutants and also other things now revealed, a monster has escaped up to the subsurface and surface areas. I am a bounty-slayer. I will track this thing, this tritentaclor and destroy it. Of course it will try to kill me but that is only to be expected.”

She looked at him, sighed and kissed him. Then they set out for Rivet City. Thanks to him they easily slipped past all the GuardTec and DCTec Security patrols and sentries plus the various bits of robotic trickery.

Continued in FIFTY-SEVEN

FIFTY-SEVEN

Red Sonji turned into a woman and slipped out of the harem when it filled with smoke thanks to his interfering with a network-system. No real damage was done either to the vault or any life. Soon she was walking through the main part of Vault-69 in a dark pink jumpsuit. Around her moved androids, both vaultboys and vaultgirls, but many more women. Globebots floated past in various configurations. Robocars were active and also bicycles, delivery tricycles and quadcycles. With so many even surfaces and rampways in a vault, using pedal transports made a lot of sense.

She carefully avoided security until she managed to steal some documents for just seconds, duplicating and returning them with amazing speed. Then she altered the items. Security guards, women in body-armour and with weapons, then passed her through with out any fuss at all.

Half an hour after she got out of the harems, the alarms began to ring. Her clever ploy of the breathing fake figure under bedclothes had at last failed. Red Sonji was surprised that it had taken so long since she, or at least he, was always under so much attention. Infiltration was an extremely old game with her and she did not worry about the alarms but just kept on moving.

Vault-69a was heavily secured off from the main vault. Turrets, robots, androids, security guards and armoured doors plus some other tricks were in effect. Then she was slipping through a utility hatch and wondering why even smart security experts often forgot about the indirect ways one could get through security.

Fifteen minutes later Red Sonji landed on the floor of a chamber in Vault-69a. She had come out of a grate-door high on one wall. The room was a simple utility one with cleaning, maintenance and other such items. A roboremote unit, a box thing on wheels, sat recharging in one corner.

Then she sensed danger. Something very powerful and only part human was on the other side of the door.

The thing exploded through the door, smashing it into so many multifibre bits, and crouched in front of her. Part Darkman and part creature known as a vorpire, it crouched like a deformed overly muscular Darkman. It was a darkpire, one of the dark creatures of the Darkman. It hurled itself at Red Sonji with pure hatred and amazing speed. Red Sonji suddenly glowed and shimmered with energies.

The room exploded, the explosion destroying everything in it and blackening surfaces. A slight tremor went through the whole big subvault. Some flames blasted out of the open doorway and scorched the wall on the other side of the hallway. Sirens began to ring.

By the time firefighters in fire fighting power armour and security guards had got there, the darkpire was destroyed and a naked Red Sonji had gone from there. The explosion had destroyed all of her clothing and other gear, including the pipboy. With a little difficulty she stole replacements from a storeroom.

But now something dark and powerful, far more powerful than a darkpire, knew she was there and that meant big trouble to come. Red Sonji kept on the move.

Continued in FIFTY-EIGHT

FIFTY-EIGHT

1Dog went with the three animamans and the awakened 'Jelly-People' soldiers of his group from Bunker-C002 down to the next destination.

It took precious time to get through each large ten level bunker, to find a new transvator to the next bunker. It was frustrating that they missed bunkers on each level and each level had more missed bunkers than the ones above it. That is there was one A-Bunker, two B-Bunkers and four C-Bunkers.

But then matters changed and for the transvator from C001 went to a great big Hub-Bunker that the transvators from all C-Bunkers went to. Since there were two transvators in each C-Bunker that meant a big chamber with eight transvator doors.

1Dog stood in the bunker that was mostly one huge chamber that spanned at in all directions and he was not the only one in the group to be impressed. Rampways, stairways, escalators and elevators linked a series of platforms held up by vertical, diagonal and horizontal beams. There were also thicker pillars and flying-buttresses that also managed to look elegantly strong. The large floor level was a series of big flowerbeds filled with large flower bushes and small squat trees. There were flowers but also fruit to be had. Small gaily coloured birds flittered around and sang sweetly.

Many platforms had structures on them. There were houses, shops, workshops and many other kinds. People moved around in a wide range of what looked like altered, upgraded WW2 vintage clothing and other gear. This was a full time working settlement with people. There were soldiers and what looked to be some kind of police officers in blue combat fatigues.

Babs the Bunny, Shag the Dog and Harold the Snake seemed to know the place quiet well. They had passed through it on their chase after Sned the Donkey and Rob the Rodent. This was Hubville where over twenty thousand people lived. They not only used the great big chamber and small chambers around its edges, but two side exits led to great suncrystal lit and warmed cavern chambers. There were other caves beyond them with their own useful resources.

The reception group came to meet them soon after they appeared. A very beautiful young woman led them and she wore a padded shoulder style jacket open at the front, a half-to-knee skirt and boots. But she wore nothing else, apparently, and her briasts were bare, as was her flat smooth belly. A golden chain hung around her neck with a thick golden medallion marked HUBVILLE OFFICIAL RECEPTIONIST. With her were four green clad soldiers armed with powerful semiautomatic rifles and with kevlar body-armour, both helmets and vests. There were various other folks in a variety of gear. All the soldiers were men and so were many of the others. The few other women wore pad shouldered dresses and also had bare briasts.

There was something odd about these people. The women had expression bordering on euphoria while the men looked as if they were almost emotionless.

The Official Receptionist stepped forward and smiled warmly at them. "Welcome to Hubville. You are free to go to the green marked areas but not beyond to yellow marked areas. We hope you come to buy and trade. Too few come this way these days what with all the trouble below and of course nobody comes from above unless they have been below first. I take it you passed through Hubville on your way up or found one of the secondary ways that some say exist."

Shag the Dog bowed and then spoke. "We animamans did so. We were hunting for those damned followers of the Darkman, Sned the Donkey and Rob the Rodent, but the others do not come from below. They did not pass through here."

Lieutenant Susan Crier stepped forward. "Sisterhood of Steel, Lieutenant Susan Crier. These are Brothers of Steel. We were in some kind of strange jelly-capsules and in suspended animation. We do not know how we got to be in them in the first place. We came from World War Two."

The other woman smiled. "My name is Teresa. Why, so did my grandparents' generation and some of those were BofS and SofS. Most of them are still alive and going strong. Perhaps you know a few of them."

Susan nodded. "Then I will remind them that they are still SofS and BofS. The Darkman is still out there and we must hunt him down. We have the Enclave to deal with and other enemies."

Teresa stopped smiling. "They are of Hubville now and the people of Hubville serve only the Hubville Code. The Darkman came and saved us from being embedded in those jelly capsules. He helped us in many ways. He is not our enemy. I hope you will not cause any troubles for us. All are welcome here for trade and to buy goods and services, even you beastfolk, but you are only to meet with and talk with those who are in the yellow marked areas."

1Dog smiled. "I am 1Dog and I am from the surface, from what is the new USA that is arising from the DC Wastelands. The USA is on its way. Thousands will be coming here. The Darkman is the Public Number One Enemy of the USA. Why do you bare your briasts in that manner?"

Teresa smiled. "The Overman would have it that way. The Overman is a friend left by the Darkman to assist us in every way. The Overman is directly linked to we who run our wonderful society. He is in our minds. He enjoys our bodies. We are the Overkeepers and we are all women and all women are Overkeepers or Overmaidens. We serve only him. We give ourselves only to him. No man other than him can touch us. He fathers all of our children. The other men are happy for they accept that they are inferior to him, that they are not good enough to be with any woman. Talk to any of our men. They will tell you that they are happy."

1Dog sighed. "Does the Overman deal with each baby when it is born?"

Teresa nodded. "Of course for he is the Overman. He prepares each girl to grow up to serve him directly and each boy to serve Hubville. When we reach he age of eleven he plants the Loyalty Bombs in us which assure our loyalty. They kill us if we dare break away from his wisdom. Enough of that for it does not concern you. You are welcome in the Yellow Zone. Men will serve you there. Feel free to abuse the waiters and barmen. The men amongst you are allowed to have six with other men but not other women. The women amongst you are free to have six with each other but no men, not even male visitors. If one of the few favoured men, the Overmaster or the Mastermen, come into the Yellow Zone they may freely abuse any visitor and any woman visitor must have six with them if these men so desire it."

1Dog scowled. "We are not visiting Hubville. We will return to the transvator that we came through."

Teresa smiled. "That will cost you one of your women. The Overman chooses her for he desires to break what is a strong spirit." She pointed to Lieutenant Susan Crier. "The Overman is fair and understands that he is superior to other men in all ways. Once he would have bowed before the Darkman but he is now also superior to him. The Overman walks amongst the gods and yet they bow to him."

1Dog sighed. "The Overman is quite insane." He darted forward with amazing speed and pressed his hand gently but firmly against Teresa's forehead. A shimmering energy flowing from his hand and through her body. "A bio-implant mind-controller both crude and dangerous to the host. Yet also dangerous to the controller. The Overman is a brilliant but lazy scientist. Now, let me see."
There was a flash of energy and almost every single person in the settlement quietly stopped moving and then either sat down or lay down. Teresa and the others in her group all lay down on the floor and looked very relaxed but they did not sleep.

1Dog spoke to the others in his group. "Disarm this lot and care for them. These people are all victims of an insane scientist who is the victim of the Darkman. This is one of the Darkman's jokes in action but also may have other purposes for the Darkman. We must take care in discovering the truth. I must go ahead."

He vanished with a sparkling shimmer only to reappear one second later on a platform high above the floor. It was marked red and it was a semi-enclosed area of computers, specialised hardware and consoles. A tall figure in BofS like power armour, it was painted dark dull blood red, leapt up and fired a minigun at 1Dog. But the bullets exploded off an invisible field though it drove 1Dog backwards. The living demigod fired his laser-pistol and the laser beam, amplified to greater power by 1Dog himself, burned through the Masterman's head. The armoured figure crumpled with a crash to the floor.

Other Mastermen were appearing, were racing down ramps and across walkways, were crouching on platforms to take aim at him. 1Dog threw up a force-bubble, knowing that it could not last long against the heavy firepower that these armoured figures would unleash against him. He wanted himself and the equipment of the semi-enclosed platform to survive. His hands flew over a keyboard and he studied datasymbols flowing across a screen. Breaking the security barriers took precious moments even as gattling-lasers and sniper-lasers were fired at him. The laser beams were deflected harmlessly in many directions but also partly absorbed to power the force-bubble yet the bubble was starting to weaken. He felt his own energies start to drain.
The last firewall fell and he entered the right codes. All over Hubville security turrets and protectrons began to attack the Mastermen. The heavily armoured figures fell back in well trained formations, covering each other as they went. Then they were retreating through metal doors high on platforms, doors that led out of the great big chamber that contained the multiple platforms of Hubville.

1Dog made his way up to a door leading through a main chamber wall and then she was looking at the Overman. The wrinkled old man was mostly buried in a strange hitech contraption that looked more like a torture machine that a virtual reality one. It was clear he had been dead for a long time but that some kind of preserving solution had been sprayed onto him and pumped into his body. By the expression on his face this 'Overman' had died in agony and terror.

The Overman was part human and part alien as of the Roswell saucership. In that way he was almost identical to the dead alien human hybrid found in a secret extension of Vault-101

But if the Overman was dead, who had been controlling the humans of Hubville in such an oppressive, exploitative and ugly fashion? 1Dog went to a computer terminal only to find that the majority of datafiles had just recently been deleted. Yet he had a special way with computers and he found bits of data, even whole datafiles, that had not been properly dealt with.

What he found shocked him and concerned him. He left the chamber and found the nearest dead Masterman. Taking off the helmet he found a super human like head but this was a super mutant with all the necessary biological equipment to make a woman pregnant. This was a super mutant man. The children of a Masterman and human woman, there seemed to be no Masterwomen mentioned in the data he had found, had about forty percent chance of creating a super mutant boy of fertile nature, about a thirty percent chance of creating a super mutant man of normal human man shapeform and otherwise thirty percent for various other results.

Hubville had been an experimental breeding program for a new kind of super mutant or so it seemed. The Darkman was behind what had happened there in Hub-0001 of the transdimensional bunker complex, 1Dog knew it from the data he had garnered and the way the program was set up. It bore the dark humorous taint of the Darkman.

Then he heard noise from below and he went to the edge of the platform to see a heavily armed power armoured taskforce of BofS Armatroopers and new National Guard Power Infantry or NGPIs, entering the great hub chamber. The USA had arrived not in time for the fighting but in time to secure Hub-0001 against any counter-attack.

Hubville was a mess that would need a good deal of cleaning up, a good deal of healing and much else work done on it. Yet there was hope that Hubville would be soon enough a thriving settlement of the new USA.

Continued in FIFTY-NINE

FIFTY-NINE

Three dark armoured stormbirds, hard weather vertibirds, flew low with ground following radar operating to guide them. Even though they were well designed and built to fly in bad weather they shook crazy like and both the AI-supercomputers and cyberlinked pilots had to fight to keep the flight smooth.

An hour earlier, more or less, a radio signal had come from the Cooperative Republic that had once been the Republic of Dave. It had been as follows as a almost hysterical National Guardsman had spoken over the radio from the USNG garrison recently established there.

"Mayday, mayday, calling anybody who can assist. We are being attacked. I repeat, we are being attacked. This is the Cooperative Republic. We are being attacked by some kind of monsters. They came out of nowhere. They are driving us back.. the walls are falling. Hurry!"

Only luck had it that the stormbirds were ready to go on their first test training flight and there had been Armatroopers there to supply three platoons, one per aircraft, plus some fighting specialists. This included two tripod-launcher team and a shoulder-laser team. With them was a new Special Field Investigations Team of specialists who would try to investigate the nature of the threat; all were experienced in combat.

Even as they began to fly over the Chaste Acres Dairy Farm, made famous by the adventures of Jasmine Ashworth, the instrumentation of the two aircraft began to pick up some odd signals. Then they saw some odd flashes from ahead. Black dots flew through the sky, zigzagging with amazing speed and agility; they seemed to be fighting each other.

Commander Grahama stood half immersed into her command chair, in her power armour, as she monitored the situation through various screens and other instrumentation. The communications came straight through to her, a voice crackling over her speakers.

"This is Sister Protector Angelus to incoming aircraft. Please allow us to take control of your machines and bring you in safely to landing site designated Alpha-Eight. If you do not do this you will not survive. I repeat, if you do not allow us to take control, you will not survive. We need your assistance on the ground."

Grahama had one of those feelings, one of those 'gut decisions' as her sergeant used to say, and she spoke out. "Commander Grahama speaking. Pilots to hand over controls at once."

The pilot of her aircraft responded. "It has been done, Commander. There is something big moving above us, a big saucer shaped vehicle. What is a Sister Protector?"

The other woman's voice responded. "The Sisterhood of Protection focuses on aerospace combat while the Brotherhood of Protection focuses on air-sea-land combat. Our areas of responsibility often overlap. BofP and SofP are both involved in the current battle as are Sisters and Brothers Compassionate."

The stormbird shook as it was buffeted but now it and the other three hard weather vertibirds were flying more easily with the raging weather. They were now wrapped in some kind of fields of energy that helped protect them.

They came in to a hover and then landed vertically on a large, generally flat area pock marked with craters. Big three finned saucers were already landed. Two of these were burning wrecks. The rain was coming in hard and it was damned windy but less than it should have been. For overhead a huge saucer was hovering. Somehow it was lessening the weather beneath it. From the belly of the machine spat pulses of energy, plasma pulsebeams and missiles. Explosions flashed in the distance where had stood the Cooperative Republic.

The Armatroopers came running down ramps and across the mud in formation. Three platoons and special support elements, they headed towards the battle scene. They noted Brother and Sister Protectors in power armour operating near or in odd semi-underground bunkers that seemed to have some how dug themselves into the ground. Others were operating rocket-shell howitzers, howitzer rocket launchers and gattling-launchers. A couple of gattling-howitzers made constant loud thump, thump, thump noises. Rockets flew through the air with horrible sounds.

Commander Grahama moved with her two bodyguards and her aides. Even as she moved she was accessing the situation. It was then, for the first time, that she or any of the Armatroopers glimpsed the enemies.

The thing came rushing over the ground, glistening metallic black-grey almost like a living machine on two legs with a long tail and a jutting head with a great mouth loaded with metallic fangs. The clawed hands of the upper two bigger arms looked as if they could slice through metal. The smaller, thinner lower arms ended in clever black hands that held black metallic weapons. The thing was about three metres high, was massive and the weapons were big. But it was wounded with a great burning gash down one side and strange highly toxic green blood flowed down its side that sputtered and fumed.

The thing saw the Armatroopers, whirled with amazing speed and fired both black weapons at one soldier. The weapons spat weird purple-red flames in a long drawn out splashing beam and the Armatrooper literally exploded, dying at once. The other Armatroopers at once opened up with their weapons and the monster exploded as laser beams, plasma pulsebeams and 20mm shells ripped into it. To the surprise of the soldiers the body remains seemed to melt away to leave behind puddles of bubbling green substance that quickly dissolved away into nothingness.

There was nothing the Brothers of Steel, women or men, could do for the dead soldier so they kept on moving. Except that is the three specialists who paused enough to do some quick precise recordings of the scene of alien death.

The platoons reached an area of prefabricated battlements lined with semi-underground bunkers. They were met there by a Brother Protector Officer who went at once to Commander Grahama. He communicated com-to-com.

"The thing you saw was an OldOne of the kind called antilazies. That was an antilazi hunter-killer. The soldiers are smaller, as are the workers but you won't be seeing no workers here. There are some specials like impregnators, medicators, crawlegtors and those damned flying wingtors."

Grahama responded. "Those things up there?"

The Protector shook his helmeted head. "Way up there fighting our vertijets and vertibots? No! They are OldOnes of a different kind. They are sabtilazies, monsters of aerospace because they can fight in low orbit for about an hour or so. What we feared is coming true. The Malevae are starting to push against the prison boundaries that hold them. The Guardians at the Rim are finding it harder to contain them."

Grahama groaned. "I think we Wastelanders have had enough troubles with out dealing with this new threat."

He responded. "Firstly you Wastelanders are not the only ones to go through a great deal. We Lunarites first fought the selenites, then we and the selenites together fought the Zetan scum and then we and the selenites began to fight the horrific PanAxis that is no longer just made up of those who came from the Earth, that we call Terra."

The Armatrooper Commander spoke. "I had a bad feeling when you spoke of something called an impregnator."

"You had good reason to." The Brother Protector scowled. "An impregnator would get a human woman pregnant in a fairly horrible way but would inject into a human man a larvae. The pregnancy would bring forth a bizarre antilazi-human hybrid of greater singular intelligence than any antilazi could have for they have group mentality of limited intelligence ability; they are strengthened by these and other types of hybrid. The larvae devour the man and pop out as a antilazi youngling which could then be made to develop into various kinds of advlt antilazi. Sterile women and older children of a certain size get the larvae also. One of the reasons the antilazi swarm attacked the Cooperative Republic was the large number of fertile women here."

Grahama scowled. "How many survivors?"

"Just over two thirds. We got here a fair time ago." The Brother Protector responded. "We even saved some who were impregnated or injected though with many all we could do was to give the victims a peaceful merciful death. Some of the elements of the mutagen and FEV that the Darkman created came from the blood of the OldOnes. He found a way down to the prison. We sent the distress message that sent you rushing here. We waited until the right moment when you would be ready to come. We know many of your people have fears about us, have doubts that we are here to help you, and we can hardly blame you for that. We came from the moon, we came suddenly and with out warning. We did not have time to convince you to come. We did not make up the radio message. It was a copy of the exact message that we got about an hour earlier. The woman who sent the message strapped dynamite sticks around her body and ran straight into a swarm of antilazi soldiers. She blew them up along with herself."

He went on. "Not all insect like creatures are enemies. Selenitors are here, special selenite soldiers adapted to fight in Terran conditions. You can see some selenitors over there like upright ants on two legs and with two double jointed arms. Except they are wearing energy-armour and are carrying weapons and special webbing of pouches, of useful devices. Use your night-vision."

Grahama frowned. "It seems my night-vision device is not as good as yours. Aaahhh, yes, I see them. They are shooting at the enemies. No, they go funny."

The Brother Protector responded. "OldOnes are trying psychic infiltration on the selenites' nest mentality but the selenites have fought with such weapons before. They waged war with selenite like creatures called the zelenites who once dwelt inside the moon along with the selenites. Apparently the zelenites were exterminated. That was back when the selenites were more primitive and now the selenites regret the genocide. Those selenites are now moving back into the attack and they are now angry. Never make selenitors angry, especially a swarm that large."

The Brother Protector staid with them in a liaison role as they attacked across another muddy area, dropping into gullies, crawling when they had to, crouching behind burned blackened machinery. The special weapons teams fired their bigger weapons to support the moves.

They reached broken, burned, sometimes flattened buildings and other structures of the republic. Dead human bodies littered the area and did the bodies of OldOnes. The stink of death was everywhere. The National Guard garrison that had been at the Cooperative Republic had all died fighting but their sacrifices, along with the local volunteers who fought alongside them, had helped the settlement survive until the Lunarites had arrived.

The fighting went on!

Continued in SIXTY

SIXTY

Below Vault-108, the Vault of the Mary and Gary clones, Jade was busy.

Jade faced the twelve doors and tried to decide which to choose. In the end she would choose by random choice. She had looked to see if it was a trick, if there were hidden entrances or if one of the Twelve Star-Sign Doors was different from the others. She found nothing. Nor did her own life and its relationship with the symbols help.

So she took out a twelve sided dice and threw it. Leo the Lion was the result. Upon opening the door a monstrous lion creature hurled itself at her, a mutated lion it was male with a great mane of fur and it was endowed not only with great sharp fangs and teeth but a long tail ending in a very hard and sharp venomous spike.

Jade shimmered, sparkled and her shapeform changed. Now in a smooth armoured skin of brass colouring, she held a glowing sword and shield. With these she fought the mighty beast that moved with alarming speed, agility and savagery.

On and on they fought as Jade dodged and deflected as the beast slashed, lunged and whirled to get her. Jade was hampered only by one thing and that was her sensing that this creature was in great pain, was driven mad by that pain. She had sympathy for it and knew the Darkman had planned on it. It seemed the creature would be ever driven to attack her but the Darkman was a complicated mentality and matters might not work out so simply.

The mutated lion monster suddenly stopped, its rage and pain gone, and passively waited as if ready to be killed. Jade hugged the big head to herself and then earned a huge friendly lick. Then she sent the creature to the Megaton House with a touch and a sparkling shimmer.

Left behind on the floor was a small glowing golden crystal with a lion symbol on it.

Even as she picked it up, from the floor rose a large wide cylinder that became a metre tall platform. In the top of it appeared twelve crystal shaped recesses, holes, meant for the crystals she would gain. Next to each one was a small symbol, a star sign. Into the right one went Leo the Lion.

The chamber from which the mutated lion had come from was a large metallic one with a big status-capsule, now empty, from which the creature had come from. There were banks of machinery humming softly away. There were lockers, consoles and a desk with a computer terminal.

There was a dead body lying against one wall and it was only lightly decayed. It was the Darkman, being a Darkman clone from what she sensed. It was no longer linked with the Darkman and she was given an opportunity to communicate with the clone's own individual soul.

Jade crouched by the body in its paleness and Victorian Gentleman style outfit including the walking-stick. Then she touched the body. It sparkled shimmered and then the clothes collapsed empty, the body vanished, as a solar elemental arose to float in the air. It was a young translucent man surrounded by softly glowing yellow-white energies. Jade stood up to face it.

The man spoke in a lightly agitated tone. "I was the Darkman but I was not the Darkman. I am confused."

Jade responded calmly. "Relax, the nightmare is over now. You were cloned from the Darkman and programmed to think you were the Darkman. Yet deep down you knew that you were not the Darkman and you fought for your freedom to be truly yourself. That is what killed you. You are a solar elemental now and you can join others of your kind. This is what you chose to do."

The solar elemental now spoke more calmly. "I met the Garys and I convinced them to give me genetic material from their bodies. I then produced many more Garys from a cloneator machine. There is a secret door, or there was at least, in Vault-108 that leads to a very large chamber with a big cloneator and a big matter-former machine to produce many Garys and to give them equipment and supplies for battle. The cloneator can work on others than Gary."

He went on. "I began to get sick. I took stimpaks and then a sleeping serum. I fell asleep lying on the floor there. I must have died in my sleep. I think the real Darkman no longer needed me and he killed me. The real Darkman is in a strange and terrible place with a big army of super mutants and other things. Yes, Zetan aliens of the kind that came with Mothership Zeta and insect creatures called zelenites who came from the moon. They were fighting something called DeepOnes like fishy reptilian humanoids with gills and the fishy reptilian monsters they controlled. They are amphibious monsters that hurl energy missiles and have amazing strength and regenerating health abilities. But they are fairly slow and lack agility. They carry weapons that look organic like they are fishy reptilian creatures. I feel the urge to leave, to join other solar elementals and to start to heal the world."

Jade nodded. "Go then and be at peace."

The solar elemental vanished.

Jade found some useful equipment and supplies in the lockers. She had Gary and Mary come down and grab what they could. They even took the stuff that the Darkman had been carrying except for three special items that Jade kept.

The secret door in Vault-108 did lead to the big metallic chamber with the big cloneator and matter-former along with other big impressive machines. Jade gave into the wishes of Mary and Gary by starting the cloneator producing more Marys to make up numbers for the many more Garys. Equipment and supplies came out also but now much of it was for peaceful purposes as she had done some reprogramming. The creating of clones and other stuff was slowed enough so not too much electricity was drained from the vault's other network-systems.

Continued in SIXTY-ONE

SIXTY-ONE

The battle for the Cooperative Republic raged on but the enemy were largely wiped out or on the retreat as they fled down into a recently created tunnel, a smoothly burned tube into the ground. The flying creatures, the sabtilazies, and the various forms antilazi had been slaughtered in large numbers but both the settlers and the rescuing military forces had suffered heavy losses. The enemy had suffered at least three times the losses of the defenders thanks to the defenders' better firepower.

Wingtors swept through the air, flying antilazi with black metallic wings. One shot towards the Armatroopers and exploded as 20mm shells thudded into it. Not only had the Brother and Sister Protectors provided them with more ammo but the new ammo was upgraded types that were better than the old in many ways.

Armoured figures darted through the smoke and clinging green mist extruded by some of the OldOnes to slow down their enemies for it messed with radio signals and sensor readings. Platoons of Protectors and Armatroopers moving through what was left of the Cooperative Republic. Robots moved slowly with them. They got steadily closer to the big tube tunnel.

Suddenly there was a big explosion and those in power armour who did not crouch in time were blown over. Some MrGutsys were swept backwards. A robotank toppled over into a crater. A vertibot crashed heavily but was not destroyed. Bits of building and other material swept through the air.

The OldOnes were gone except for the dead and dying; the tunnel was closed.

But something stirred in the green mist and then things were shambling towards them. Zombies, human zombies, moving with the jerky speed of a fast walking human, their eyes vacant and their mouths gaping open. But a kind of insect like black creature rode the upper back and head of each moving corpse, poked a black sharp tipped glistening metallic head over the human head. These creatures spat small black metallic barbs from their pointed heads, from small a single hole on each tip.

The creatures were parasitezi, a form of antilazi, and the zombies were called zombizi but the soldiers did not know that at the time.

The armoured soldiers took one look and blew the zombies and their parasitic controllers away, the monsters and zombies exploding into so much flesh and blood. Flamers engulfed the bodies in flames and lasers burned into the aliens that exploded so the zombies became mere corpses and fell to the ground.

The metallic barbs bounced harmlessly off power armour.

The soldiers kept moving forward. Some got together and tipped the robotank upright because they needed its firepower and the spare supplies it carried. The soldiers moved deeper into the swirling green mist. More zombies attacked them as did antilazi soldiers with their upright metallic black bodies like smaller versions of the hunter-killers and with each a single weapon that they held rifle fashion with their two thinner arms. The other two ended in claws as those of the hunter-killers did. Gunfire flashed in the mist. Rocket-grenades and missiles exploded.

Then, abruptly, the fighting was over. The enemy was gone except for the dead. The dying enemy had suddenly all died for no apparent reason.

The Cooperative Republic was apparently no more.

Continued in SIXTY-TWO

SIXTY-TWO

Jasmine, Dogmeat, Fawkes and the Family explored the big cavern and then went into the next. They found there more mud, more rocky outcrops and also glowcrystal that lit and warmed the big chamber. Yet they also found evidence that people had once been there in the form of a heap of junk and semijunk. There were bits of machinery, including robots, half empty crates of stuff, empty ammo boxes, teddy-bears, a holotape of Tiny Tim's Greatest Hits, tent gear and much else.

The next cavern was even bigger and across its mud grew dark green mossgrass upon which fed a loose herd of brahmins, including a sprinkling of large bulls. They were not alone. There were humans, ghouls and two forms of people that were new to the newcomers. One were ghoul like except they were covered with a type of skin made of small smooth plates like fish scales. The other were super mutants of standard size but these were shaped like men and women. The women super mutants obvious for they were only dressed in work shorts, boots, like a kind of opaque bratop and utility-belts plus wide brimmed hats. The men wore the same but were bare chested but very similar to the men were normal sixless smart mutants and dumb mutants except they were not mindlessly aggressive.

In the background were some electric four wheel drive vehicles of various types, horses grazing on the mossgrass, a few dogs, children and other advlts. Tents had been erected and some prefab cubicles put into place.

Jasmine met Sir Gregory Hammerhead Barkley III, a ghoul who was grimy from head to foot with mud, who wore thick glasses and who clutched a crude set of plans for a new settlement.

Sir Greg, his nickname, grinned at Jasmine. "Got to say it but you is beautiful. So, that out of the way, who is you people?"

Jasmine smiled. "Jasmine Ashworth late of Vault-101. Fawkes the super mutant, late of Vault-87. Dogmeat the dog, late of the Scrapman Scrapyards. The Family and this is Vance who leads them. Holly here assists in an important fashion."

Sir Greg grinned. "Something tells me there is a whole lot to you than appears on the surface. Normally we have trouble holding back some of our more excitable dogs from annoying or biting strangers but there they are, all on their bellies and wagging their tales. Or even presenting their bellies."

Jasmine smiled. "I am but a humble traveller. Mr Fawkes here is a very brilliant super mutant with great strength and many talents. Dogmeat is the same, being very bright for a canine and very tough. The Family are vampires but they do not feed off people. Do not mistake them for such as the ghoul vampires. What of your people?"

"We have escaped from a place of great horror called the Labyrinth of Lost Souls. Uncle Leo saved us. A super mutant with great wisdom and power, though he says he is only a conduit for the Light." The ghoul adjusted his glasses. "He cured us of our deformities for truly deformed we were. He sent us out of that hell and even told us how we could get passed the creatures that guard the barriers and the barrier gates. He said there were a number of individuals and groups we could trust to help us and he emphasized your name, the name of a great and powerful living goddess. Something tells me you are the one."

Jasmine looked around. "You want to gain more resources? Firstly I suggest that you make contact with others in the area. There is a still functional monotrain fairly close to here. I can give you directions to the Lamplight Caverns settlement and the Vault-87 area linked to it. There is also Vaultburg but I would not bother trading with them as yet. If I do anything wondrous for you, it uses up my energy, then others start to expect the same. If I use up my energies I face the danger of having not enough when I face the powerful evil that I am hunting. I suspect that this powerful evil had something to do with the creation of the Labyrinth of Lost Souls in the first place."

Sir Greg shook his head. "That is not for me to speak of. Even thinking of such things chills me out. Uncle Leo said it was due to something called the Biomazz and something else called the Symbiosphere."

Jasmine cursed softly and then nodded. "Didn't Uncle Leo say more about these terms?"

The ghoul shook his head. "Wasn't time. As soon as we were cured of our deformities and the Biomazz was transformed inside us to make it harmless, he sent us to our freedom. Actually I overhead him speaking to somebody, an odd young man who called himself Statesman Alba Diplomori. The stranger seemed more than a little agitated, even frightened of something. I think it had something to do with this thing called the Symbiosphere."

Jasmine nodded. "Now, at last, many things are starting to make sense out of this horrible mess. I must go and meditate. Please be courteous to my friends. They in turn will be very helpful to your people."

Jasmine walked away and sat cross legged to start meditating. The others went off to mingle except for Dogmeat and Fawkes who sat protectively either side of her; they could sense that she was deeply worried.

Continued in SIXTY-THREE

SIXTY-THREE

When the last of the green mist was gone a quarantine zone was closed over everything in what was left of the Cooperative Republic. Specialists in NBC power armour picked up samples of alien flesh, picked up the spines, destroyed other bodies. Whole alien bodies were bagged carefully and the bag exteriors were sterilized. Much lasering and burning was done. Human corpses were bagged.

When they were digging and moving things, were searching for threats of infestation or infection, they found the metallic hatch in the ground.

The hatch led to a tunnel which led to a metallic chamber dimly lit by emergency lights. This had metallic doors to a big spiral stairwell, a bigger spiral rampway and a large cylinder elevator chamber. Security turrets shot at the intruders but were quickly knocked out by EMPguns. While one platoon went down the stairway, another went down the rampway and a third dared to use the big elevator.

The way down was long and the elevator platoon found the vast chamber first. It rose up as a great domed ceiling and was a very shallow bowl. It was full of beautiful lush green wilderness and small blue rivers. Birds flew through the air. Horses galloped across grassy areas. There were naked humans playing, sleeping, eating on mats near a big circular pool of clear blue water. All the human advlts looked young and beautiful as did the children. There were no blemishes, physical defects or other obvious imperfections.

The first platoon went to move closer but an invisible barrier gently but firmly stopped them from going any further. They were Sister Protectors.

A young looking beautiful oriental woman, in a silken knee length Tdress and utility-belt, appeared in front of them with a sparkling shimmer and she smiled sweetly at them. She smiled sweetly and then she spoke warmly, invitingly. "Oh goody, visitors, oh lovely visitors. Please come in and let us entertain you."

But suddenly a figure in a clean yellow all purpose science suit, a lightly armoured APSS with a rounded visor giving much view range for the user but it was polarised and hid the face. He was on their side of the force field. He spoke through speakers even as he hurried up, speaking in fluent Esperanto. "You can not go in there and it would be unwise to do so any way. I am Professor Arnold Jones. The radiation in that chamber is very high and these people are highly dangerous. This is Morgana and she is much older than she looks. These are children of the Darkman, even the fake horses, for they are shapeshifters. They are a kind of super mutant but they do not look like other super mutants. They have purple-pink skin with odd shallow ridge patterns over their bodies and they are hairless."

The young woman frowned. "Professor, have we ever hurt anybody? Super mutants are not automatically evil. We do not follow the ways of the Darkman. Other shaper mutants did so and the Darkman took them away with him. Anyway, not all of us are shaper mutants. The duper mutants are all out of sight. Are you still angry about what happened to you? We did warn you."

The professor's voice sounded bitter. "How was I to know that I would go through such a terrible transformation. Even if there are survivors above they will take me as some sort of freak and put me in a laboratory or a circus freak show."

A Sister Protector turned and looked at the professor. "Please, professor, I doubt that it is the case considering what is considered normal in the DC Wastelands. Also we are hard to shock."

The professor frowned. "At least you are humans inside that power armour."

The Lunarites spoke again. "I am Shrellis and, like my sister comrades here, I am a cyborg. Only my brain and spinal chord are human. They have been altered. We are from the moon. We are Lunarites of the Lunar People's Democratic Federation, the LPDF. We are part of a large taskforce that came down here to assist the DC Wastelanders against various threats. We brought others with us."

The professor sighed and took off his helmet to reveal the face and head of a ghoul.

Shrellis spoke. "A ghoul. There are at least a million ghouls in the DC Wastelands. You are not a feral ghoul or a ghoul raider so you are just fine. You do not seem to be unique."

"Oh!" The professor said. "I feel oddly disappointed. At least I could have been unique. On the other hand I suppose I can find somewhere to live and work where I will be accepted as normal. I suppose I should let out the shaper mutants and those with them."

The young woman stepped right through the force field. "Why, thank you, Professor Arnold Jones. Not that the force-field has truly been a barrier for many years. We have been expanding out through other chambers and into a cave system for decades now while you often slept in your status-capsule. We even sneakily visited you to make sure you were okay and it was us who gave you the puppy that became your beloved dog Bushy."

The professor gulped. "Well, I be stampeded by a herd of wild buffalo. All this time without a woman and there you were."

"Nine fine quality android women and Grade-A virtual reality, professor." She wagged her finger at him. "It was no accident you found either the androids or the VR-lounger. Indeed we put all the machines into that chamber including the two MrHandys, the matter-former, the body-cubicles and much else. What happened to those who worked with you, professor?"

He frowned. "They also began turning into ghouls. It was something the Darkman did to us, I am sure of it, because we were down here safe from intense radiation and such like. The nine of us refused to follow the Darkman away to where ever he went and so he grew angry at us. The others killed themselves. We have a small morgue here with those steel body cabinets. Eight now have bodies in them but inside status-bags."

Then he grinned. "The Darkman made a mistake! Please come to my quarters."

It was one great chamber that seemed to be part bedsitter apartment, part laboratory, part workshop, part gymnasium, part dog home and many other things. Nine scantily clad android women sat around waiting for the professor and then three were rushing to meet him in their translucent nighties. They were very young advlts in appearance as if barely out of senior high school. Then they were both girlish and womanly, giggling and sixually provocative. The other android women were different. Three were older appearing, though still youthful, in skimpy sporting outfits, and three were older yet in skimpy versions of normal Prewar dresses.

The Sister Protector sounded bemused. "Professor, really, do you see women in that fashion?"

"No!" The professor shook his head. "But, well, if one is to stay alone for decades and have only devoted androids as company, one ought to make the best of it." He kissed and hugged the three androids. "Now, my sweets, can you get some coffee going for my guests." He slapped them on the bum and they rushed off to do as he had ordered.

He turned to the cyborgs and shaper mutant. "Truth be known I don't have much of a six drive lately. We mostly play chess or debate various topics or play Ultimate Trivial Pursuit or the Race of Life or some computer games. Anyway, I need to show you something."

He took them to a typical bookcase full of very neatly stacked books and turned it, for it was a secret door, on a central swivel. Through it they went and they were in another large chamber. This one was a laboratory workshop with some fascinating equipment, much of it jury-rigged. There it was in an upright cylinder, still fully dressed, it was a Darkman.

"Not just an expendable clone either." The professor grinned. "But a major extension of himself. I had to do some very quick work but it is in status and it is muffled from the Darkman in various ways. I am sure he senses something wrong but doubt he could track it back here, especially now he is down there in that ancient prison with the Malevae and the other OldOnes. This is a profound genetic and psychic link with the Darkman and it is in our power."

The others studied the trapped figure in wonder.

Continued in SIXTY-TWO

SIXTY-THREE

Red Sonja found the dysfunctional vault door in hidden in a secret second basemant beneath the ruins of a big mansion house. The Ironsides with her did not appreciate having to move around in the big storm but did so anyway.

Red Sonja, Marshal Ironsides and a big taskteam of Ironsides were soon moving through into what looked like a standard VaultTec Vault. There were no signs of people or androids or robots. Yet as they went through they were shot at by turrets of various kinds. They knocked them out with EMP-weapons that did the job quicker and less messy than other weapons and allowed for the turrets to be repaired more easily and reused.

They hacked into the security network-systems, using knowledge gained from other vaults, along with what Red Sonja's tricks, and turned off the turrets.

They found humans in blue vault jumpsuits marked with yellow 301, who lay in status-pods. There were globebots and androids in storage bays. It took time but they brought the humans back to full functioning, humans who had to face the fact that the world they had known of was gone and had been so for over 200 years.

About a hundred humans were soon moving around the vault and getting to work on surviving, on bringing into functioning various network-systems. Robots and androids were soon active along with roboremote units. Thousands more humans lay ready to bring back to full activity as did thousands of robots, roboremote units and androids.

The High Overseer was a woman who was once intensely loyal to the VaultTec Corporation but she was now quite angry. She sat in her office, behind her large but rather bare desk, and studied her visitors with a frown on her face. "Vault-301 directs, coordinates and supervises the Lightening Spires hidden all across North America or at least it did. We have been removed from the network and somebody else had taken over from us. Considering how easily it was done, it was most likely planned and our own network-systems were actually designed to let it happen or even to help it happen. We were here while the final Lightening-Spikes and other important network-systems were completed. Then we were ordered to go into our status-capsules and to bring the whole vault down into low functioning mode."

She went on. "This is only part of what is called Vault-301. Much of it is vaults full of automated and robotic machinery run by AI-supercomputers. To get to them one has to go beneath this vault and to a monorail network. Or at least that is what we were told. Before we went into status, before we closed most network-systems down to conserve energy and other resources, I sent a team to investigate the monorail network. They found fake vault doors leading to nowhere. They did find thick piping going deeper into the ground and an emergency utility tunnel. Five volunteers went down it in security power armour. They did not return, at least according to our security data-records they did not."

They did have tunnels that led to the other vault doors that the Ironsides had found except for the very first one, the horizontal one. One tunnel led to a subvault beneath the Moonbeam Outdoor Cinema which was packed with survival gear, some all terrain vehicles and other useful equipment and supplies. Other entrances had just smaller fairly bare chambers beneath them like security airlock combinations.

They had to reconsider matters. There was the fact that super mutants had apparently dug up ground to expose the horizontal vault door so clearly they knew where to find it. Unless somebody else had actually done the digging.

Also what about the figures seen stalking around the Moonbeam Outdoors Cinema, the ones that wore what looked to be black Enclave power armour?

They had to find a way to open that first vault door even if it was to find it was a fake or some other trick and they could move onto find the real solution.

They also had to try to emergency utility tunnel.

Red Sonja prepared with a team of Ironsides volunteers. Marshal Ironsides wanted to go with her but reluctantly gave in as he was needed to keep Vault-301 secure for the USA until others arrived being USFG officials who would bring the vault into the USA. They would stay in force even though the VaultTec folk were sincere in their desire to join the USA and not to be left alone to survive. Or so Red Sonja sensed.

They started down the rather narrow and uncomfortable tunnel even though they only wore stealth power armour. They soon found themselves going on quite a long journey as they plunged deeper into the ground. For a while a cabled roboremote unit followed them but then it could go no further for there was no more cable.

Continued in SIXTY-FOUR

SIXTY-THREE

Red Sonji ran along a hallway and leapt over the dead body of a security guard. Of course it was a woman in body-armour. The Vault-69 Dweller had not even had time to draw her weapons when the thing stalking Red Sonji had killed her. Yes, something very powerful was hunting for the living demigod in Vault-69a.

There was the muffled sound of lasers and caseless bullets being fired, a scream and the firing ended abruptly even as the scream did. Red Sonji turned a sharp corner and pelted along another hallway. Behind her a super mutant type monster appeared but this one glowed from with in like a Glowing One of the feral ghouls. It moved with amazing speed and power. The floor blackened as its feet touched the floor briefly. It hurled a sizzling energy projectile from its right hand.

Red Sonji dived and the energy missile shot over her head. Red Sonji came up in a crouch and fired her laser-pistol, amplifying the power of it. The beam struck into the creature again and again. The glowing super mutant screamed in agony but also in incredible rage as it kept on coming.

Red Sonji leapt side ways and the monster crashed into a wall. The wall shuddered horribly. The living demigoddess whirled and fired her laser-pistol into the back of the creature. It exploded and burned away to leave only a pile of softly glowing ash.

She still sensed danger but less now. She went back to the dead security guard, crouched and touched her. This was not normally her thing but she called upon the forces of Light and Enlightenment to please flow through her to this other woman. So it was that she soon faced a green translucent nature elemental of a woman floating in the air before him.

The nature elemental spoke. "I feel drawn to join those of my kind to help heal the DC Wastelands of the terrible damage that has been done to nature here. I do not know if I can answer many of your questions. There are many security sections in Vault-69a that I never gained access to."

Red Sonji questioned her. "What of the psychic enhanced virtual reality machines?"

The former security guard nodded. "I was allowed to go into that room once to help deal with a security robot that suddenly went berserk. Luckily it did not shoot anybody. They are in Room 69a101. Those machines have a bad reputation. Subjects chosen to use them sometimes go mad or even die. Also check out Rooms 69a98 and 69a69. I must go now." The green nature elemental faded away.

Red Sonji shook her head in wonder. Jasmine, back before she had been Jasmine, once explained to her why such elementals came from the process of calling forth the greater forces of the Light and of Enlightenment. It was something to do with the profound need to rebalance the forces of nature, to bring things back to some kind of normality which the world lacked very badly.

She checked the nearest info-screen on a wall and went to Room 69a69 first. Getting into the room was fairly easy for her. Inside was a large metallic chamber, a kind of clinic, and lining one wall were ten robotic medibeds. On each medibed was a naked woman covered by a white sheet up to her chest. Each was obviously pregnant. Red Sonji pressed a hand against a woman's belly and she winced. Growing inside the poor woman, who was semiconscious and in pain, was a darkpire, one of the creatures that she had first met and killed in Vault-69a. It turned out that every woman not only had a darkpire inside her but that each of them was a vampire like those of Vance's Family.

Again she called upon the Light, upon Enlightenment, and this time she was drained of much energies. This was a hard thing to do and by the time the last darkpire child was converted into something good and natural, and the last woman no longer felt pain, she had to hide behind a bed and go to sleep.

Which was why she was captured.

Continued in SIXTY-FOUR

SIXTY-FOUR

1Kitty and the Mysterious Stranger had at last made a breakthrough in the GNR Tower and it was a biggy. Make a network of network-systems complicated enough and no matter how much you think you know it, have planned it, there is bound to be a slip somewhere. In the big basemant levels hidden below the tower and the Lightening Spike thrusting up through it, the two of them had explored banks of machinery including computer mainframes, big circuit boxes and others of very specialised functions.

They found hidden away a small office chamber where had worked a engineering architect, a specialist of brilliance who had done much of the work designing the network of network-systems of the Lightening Spikes and the power grid that they fed energy into. A power grid that secretly ran across the whole of North America but underground having been secretly built by an army of robots.

They found in that office secrets that should have been destroyed.

1Kitty laughed as she lay the 3Dblueprint on the wooden desk and spread it out. Then she pointed to a spot on it. "Right there is how we can get to the actual working command and control centre of this whole network. In non coded truth right there, the CCC for not only the Lightening Spike Power Grid but also for the generation and regulation of the North American Force Bubble and there, amazingly enough, the Stimulation Simulation Sensoscape. If we get there we will learn very much indeed."

The Mysterious Stranger smiled and examined the 3Dbluprint. He nodded thoughtfully. "Yes this is a break through that I have been looking forward to for a very long time." Then he pulled out a glowing bladed device like a crystal tipped knife and thrust it at her back. "Forgive me!"

1Kitty screamed in agony as the device thrust into her and then she simply vanished with a sparkling shimmer. In the GNR Studio 2Kitty collapsed to the floor and into a deep coma just as the Mysterious Stranger had meant her to do. She would not die but she could not communicate with other living gods and warn them about the treachery of the Mysterious Stranger.

The Mysterious Stranger turned as Catherine, Jasmine's not so dead mother, walked into the small chamber. The beautiful Catherine looked much like an older version of Jasmine, much like Jaylee.

Catherine spoke. "Will this get us any closer to the Symbiosphere?"

The Mysterious Stranger nodded. "Yes and then we can return our people once more to the great and glorious empire that once ruled all of the Multiverse. Or at least all the important parts."

The woman smiled. "This time we will rule all of it and we will destroy all of our enemies be they living gods or the OldOnes or anybody else. We will destroy the Darkman once and for all now that we have manipulated him into doing what we wanted him to do. All we have to do is find the Symbiosphere which has come to this world, capture it, program it to obey us and use it to carry out our plans."

Mr MS sighed. "You make it sound all together too easy. Our work has only just begun. We must go now before others arrive to ask embarrassing questions, especially Jasmine or the real Mysterious Stranger."

The false Mysterious Stranger shimmered and there stood a grinning Statesman Alba Diplomori.

Catherine smiled. "Oh how clever of you to actually pretend to be an avatar of the Mysterious Stranger and how daring. It could have gone so very wrong. Yet the Mysterious Stranger, the real one, did not seem to discover the truth. You really did outsmart him. Such a cunning game player you are, such a smart living demigod. Such a very brutal young living demigod. No wonder the real Mysterious Stranger never trusted you. You are so very treacherous."

Then she plucked away the weapon, a special weapon of the living gods, and before he could react to defend himself, she thrust it into his heart. He screamed in agony, shimmered and vanished. Since this was his primary body he, unlike 1Kitty, really did die. There was no more Statesman Alba Diplomori.

A new living demigod would arise one day to replace him, would be him reborn, but it would be different.

Catherine smiled and picked up the 3Dblueprint. Then she vanished with a sparkling shimmer leaving only a small glowing crystal globe. Seconds later the office exploded and everything in it disintegrated though nothing outside the room was harmed.

Continued in SIXTY-FIVE

SIXTY-FIVE

President Suzanne Ubama did not appreciate being dragged out of bed because she barely got enough sleep as it was. Then she was fronting a large emergency conference with those who could come to the meeting at such short notice. It was a conference and not a meeting because it was more to clarify matters than to make decisions. New information was coming in from all over.

The President of the USA sat looking at a big jury-rigged 3Dscreen. It was showing scenes from the Battle of the Cooperative Republic. The audio-visuals had been shot from many places, including the great Baseship floating overhead. As she saw various OldOnes, these terrible aliens that many saw as mythological beings, she felt a chill go down her spine. The USA and its allies had won the battle, had done a great deal of damage to the enemy, but they had heavy losses also. It was not the sort of victory that they could afford to have too many of.

Other big screens showed information in various forms.

The report of the underground society hidden below the old Cooperative Republic was far more pleasing. Especially as survivors of the old Cooperative Republic now wanted to move down underground to share the great cave system down there along with what was a series of huge dome-chambers and other facilities. The USA had lost one important settlement but was gaining another one of greater strength and more resources.

The report from the Subwayers of the glowing tentacle that had attacked the Clanhunters, and which had killed a fool amongst them, was also of concern. Somebody had identified it as a tritentaclor, a fairly powerful creature from the great prison below. The type of creature relied heavily on sneak attacks, on hit and slither tactics, but were very adapt at such tricks. Taskteams of Clanhunters, Psyabalists and Knights of Atom had failed to find it though they were on its trail.

The great storm was raging but in an odd shifting pattern. While some areas where being blasted, others were experiencing moving calm spots like many eyes in a great big multiple hurricane inflowing together to form one pattern. Lunarites had taken over the abandoned Spacestation Freedom that had threatened to fall out of orbit, had awakened the astronauts in status-capsules, had repaired, upgraded and extended it. It was now more like a far more manoeuvrable, slow spaceship. It was now parked in geostationary orbit above the DC Wastelands and was in visual range of Mothership Zeta. Even with the force-bubble covering North America they were able to send down some helpful reports on the progress of the super storm.

The President noted that the Ormons of Vault-Ormond had decided to join the USA as a semiautonomous zone except that the USFG was wary of some Ormon laws and customs. Amongst them the ability of elite men to marry many women and to buy virginal women off poor families with out their permission, the stoning death penalties of advlteresses that left male advlterers much less punished, the claims that ghouls were demonically possessed monsters that should be exterminated and others. One big reason was for reluctance was that while Ormon diplomats were charming to US envoys, Ormon priests preached to their own people that the USA was truly a return to the evil old ways of sin and secret devil worship.

But what clinched it was that when a US diplomat saw a picture of Ormond himself in his black hooded robe, walking-stick and pale skin, it was obvious it was the Darkman. Ormond had been the Darkman who had supposedly left to embark on a great pilgrimage of holy discovery; he left behind over a hundred pregnant women and a very hierarchical and oppressive society. It was also a society that was puritanical at certain levels but which hid away secret perversities and violations.

Ormons were not Mormons! There were Mormon settlements surviving close to Salt Lake City and whispers of there being a Vault full of Mormons.

Through Red Sonji and Red Sonja, the USA now knew more about what was happening on Point Lookout. Information had also come from refugees fleeing from the area and from agents infiltrating it. Out of a dozen experienced tough agents, eight had died or had simply vanished. None knew anything of importance they could give up during interrogation. There were reports on cyborg-deathclaws, on big atomic powered tanks and even on a big mobile-base like the one that had been destroyed at Adams Airbase. On tracks it was stationed well into the hinterland of the bogs and swampy areas.

The PanAxis in the moon had sent forces. There were sociopathic clones like those of the Enclave who were workers, soldiers and specialists. New kinds of robots were seen like skeletal thin humanoids of colour coded light armour that could fight but which carried out many tasks; these were called skelnoids. There were also big mechatanks, low hulking war-machines moving on clever twin or quad leg systems; these mechatanks could submerge beneath water or act like hovercraft for limited distances. Roboborgs like power armoured soldiers, were a deadly form of cyborg that looked like soldiers in Enclave power armour. Zozozi were squat hovering saucers that could fly fast and agile in battle with deadly weapons and thick armour; inside were hidden the deadly izozozi. Zozoz was singular and zozozi was plural while izozozi was both.

But there were other things that the PanAxis had sent to Point Lookout that had only been glimpsed. Alien things that were ancient enemies of the insect selenites and yet other, even more mysterious things.

President Suzanne Ubama was interested in all of these matters, saw the importance of them, but knew it was not the real reason the meeting had been called. Then she saw Jaylee who was linked to Jasmine Ashworth, who was one with Jasmine, and who looked like an older version of Jasmine. Jaylee nodded to the President of the USA and then sat down at the big meeting table.

The meeting began with out many formalities.

Jaylee stood up and took the podium with the President sitting right beside her. She smiled at all those there and then she spoke. "If I was to ask you what is the greatest threat to the USA, to the DC Wastelanders, to all of us, what would you say? You could well say it is the Darkman and his army of super mutants; nobody could fault you on that. You could speak of the OldOnes trapped down in their ancient prison and truly nobody could fault you on that. Like some you might point the finger at all of us living gods and speak of a conspiracy of our kind to take over this world. Then there is the Biomazz that some of you have heard something of. You would be wrong. There is something that is linked to all of these and other threats including the Enclave and the PanAxis, its dark ally inside the moon. We living gods who have been seeking to bring the Darkman to justice, who have been seeking to help the people of this world, have been puzzled by a number of mysteries."

"The Darkman has gained assistance, has gained mysterious allies, has made some rather odd decisions, has carried out some rather strange experiments. We had assumed that it was largely a trick to decoy us from the truth, to complicate matters and to make it harder for us to catch him."

"Who are we? We are myself who are many being Jasmine, the other Jasmine, myself Jaylee, Jas the child and Jade the younger woman. We are Red Sonja and Red Sonji. We are 3Dog, 2Dog and 1Dog. We are 2Kitty and 1Kitty. We are Dogmeat and the other Dogmeat, both dogs of some fame. We are not Statesman Alba Diplomori though we had links with him. I say 'had' because somebody has killed him, has killed a living demigod. His essence will return as another living demigod centuries into the future but he will never return as he was. I wish I had more regrets than I do for surely he earned his death."

"What of the Mysterious Stranger, you might ask." Jasmine sighed. "He has vanished. We are seeking him. But this is not our deepest concern now for now we know a very ancient enemy is on this world. It is called the Symbiosphere. Long ago we living gods, in our arrogance, created it as part of an empire that ruled a large part of the Multiverse. We created it to make us stronger, to better unify our conscious, to better coordinate our power, to better supervise an enemy that was starting to crumble as subject peoples began to rebel. The empire was oppressive and though not totally evil, it deserved to end. Central to the creation of the Symbiosphere was a very powerful and very creative super genius even by our standards. The Emperor of the Living Gods was what he liked to be called but now we call him the Darkman. The Darkman was a fraud for he stole secrets from an ancient forbidden zone to create the Symbiosphere with. The ancient secret technologies were antinatural, were evil, and the use of them corrupted the Symbiosphere."

"Instead of serving the empire, the Symbiosphere tried to absorb it and all living gods, all peoples of the empire. A great war broke out. The empire crumbled. The living gods and the rebel forces ended up forming an alliance in a desperate battle with the Symbiosphere. Then came unexpected help from the Elder Living Gods themselves and from the Light. The Symbiosphere was destroyed or so it was assumed."

She paused for dramatic effect. "Now we think the Symbiosphere is here on this world."

A tall broad shouldered man stood up, with out seeking permission, and strode to another podium. He was dressed in a lightly crumpled but clean Prewar business suit of brown and a white buttonshirt with only one small brown stain. There was no tie but ties had become uncommon in Prewar Times because of the rationing of cloth for civilian uses. He was Crosswayne with mostly demands for aid and concessions from the USA. He was an arrogant man who seemed to assume that the only way to negotiate was to tried to get as much as possible and to give as little as possible. He also saw himself as a practical down to earth man who assumed that much he heard was false simply because it did not fit into his narrow vision of the world.

"Nonsense!" He spoke out aloud. "Damned nonsense. We in Crosswayne are a practical down to earth people and I myself am a fine example of those qualities. Super mutants we believe in. They are solid enough. Ghouls, feral or waiting to go feral, well we know of them well enough. Radscorpions, radbeetles, those damned giant ants, bloatflies, well they are solid enough. But his nonsense about a giant prison beneath the ground, about living gods, about this Symbiosphere, it must be ignored. Crosswayne must be central to the focus of the USA. Crosswayne is a land of simple farmers, cattle herders, shepherds, artisans and traders. We want for nothing?"

The President stood up. "Envoy Edgar Mildaman, you will sit down, you will shut up or I will have security remove you by force. This conference was not called for us to discuss Crosswayne's problems or needs. Those are being taken care of by the Crosswayne Assessment Subcommittee that you yourself attend on a regular basis. We have many areas now with problems and who need assistance."

But the man would not be so easily quietened. He pointed to Jaylee. "This woman calls herself a living god. Is she insane? Are you insane to listen to her nonsense?"

Jaylee motioned with her right hand and Edgar Mildaman rose straight up into the air as his body shimmered. He cried out and then he was lowered down again safely. The man fell back in fear and anger.

Jaylee spoke. "I am a living goddess. The Symbiosphere is a real threat. Crosswayne has a diverse population and though there is good there, there is also bad. There is slavery of ghouls in Crosswayne. There are wealthy land holding families who illegally stole the land in the first place by forcefully taking over smaller properties using private armies of thugs. You yourself are a member of one of these families as was the Warlord Hrashman."

"These families have too much influence in Crosswayne's very limited democracy. Much of Crosswayne's fertile land is used to support a hard alcohol industry because alcohol is more profitable and despite that food is in much demand."

"Crosswayne has no public welfare, education, health, transportation or other systems and yet has pretended to have so in submissions to the USFG. This is only one of many falsehoods presented to the new Federal Government. Crosswayne is demanding an amazingly high amount of resources but has pretended that is has less resources than it has so it can get away with not sharing what it has in the form of fair aid trade programs. Crosswayne made no real attempt to support the USA or its allies against the super mutants but was in truth seeking to conquer the Lamplight Caverns and to take over Vault-87 to grab their resources. The FBI has linked Crosswayne with the growing of semilegal and illegal drugs for the DC Drug Syndicate in Armageddon Park."

Edgar Mildaman cried out in anger, pulled out a big powerful but clumsy revolver pistol, and aimed it at Jaylee. "No damned demoness is going to?"

Bullets exploded into his body from three directions. His body shuddered, blood vomited from his mouth and he was well dead before he hit the floor.

Jaylee sighed. "Now, if there are no further interruptions, I must discuss the Symbiosphere that can alter the very fabric of reality though it has strong limits. It can alter people's mentalities though this can easily go amiss or lead to a rejection and future immunity. It can create things as a matter-former does. It can and normally does exist with at least hundreds of bodies and brains. It is anciently brilliant and cunning. The biggest difficulty with fighting the Symbiosphere is that for something that can overwhelm whole galaxies with great armadas, it can hide itself with amazing skill. Now we know it is here, we will find it because we know how to look, what to look for and some special tricks to help in finding it. Despite this it is not going to be easy. The Symbiosphere will soon realise we have discovered its presence on this world if it has not done so already and soon even the most cynical of you will gain proof of its existence."

She sighed. "The Symbiosphere is linked to all the major troubles that we face. Like never before we must create a centre in Bunkertown that gathers all available data, anolyses it, re-anolyses it, creates briefings and does what ever else is necessary. This is one major way to find the Symbiosphere. It needs a host of bodies, of brains, and while those bodies may be hidden away out of sight, knowing the Symbiosphere they also may be hidden right in front of us and we may be taking them for granted as part of our normality."

There was no much to say except for some brief plans that were little more than decisions to hold more conferences, to hold various meetings and to appoint various committees, subcommittees and taskteams.

It would all have seemed typically political and bureaucratic except for the subtle and powerful change happening to humanity, including ghoulkind, which was uniting people at some deeper level. In other words the whole process was quite efficiently done and had just a mild taste of corruption or politicking about it.

Continued in SIXTY-SIX

SIXTY-SIX

On that day 3Dog sat beside a bed in the new Bunkertown Hospital and held 2Kitty's hand. She was slowly coming out of her coma and was very healthy and fit because of her living demigoddess nature. As he sat there she whispered the name of the Mysterious Stranger and at first 3Dog thought nothing of it. Then she spoke of there being something odd about the Mysterious Stranger. Then she spoke of the Mysterious Stranger having been the one to kill 1Kitty. The word was soon spreading to other living gods.

On that day 1Dog in Hubville was at the ceremony that officially declared Hubville to be part of the USA and its people to be US Citizens.

On that day Red Sonja and the Ironsides Mercenaries with her dropped out of the utility pipe they had been going down through with some difficulty. They dropped into a big metallic chamber largely full of abandoned machinery, empty containers, junk and the long dead bodies of the five people that the Vault-301 High Overseer had sent down there. Yet they found a loose grate-hatch and opening it led to a fairly big empty pipe. They began to move along this.

On that day Red Sonji woke up to find himself a prisoner in a mostly dark and icy cold chamber. He was naked and free to move around except something lurking in the dark kept him in the dimly lit corner. He was no longer woman shapeformed. He was disorientated and not even sure if he was still in Vault-69a.

On that day the Cooperative Republic was officially proclaimed returned in the newly named Cooperative Underland below the old Cooperative Republic. It was planned that one day people would return to the surface and rebuild the old settlement, a better version that is, as an extension of the new republic.

On that day Bobby Bobs delivered Candy Sweets, real name Deirdre Smith, to Rivet City along with their brand new baby. With the three golden finger-ingots, a nice handful of emergency issue coins, some nice clothes, books, shoes and other items to her name, she bought an apartment lease in the ocean liner. True it was fairly small but it was clean, safe and it was hers for five years. Candy Sweets decided to be mother and to go to new public teaching classes to gain more of an education.

On that day Bobby Bobs entered the Washington DC Subway Network.

On that day Project Intelligence began with a whole bunker of Bunkertown being now devoted to the gathering, processing and anolyse of data.

On that day Uncle Leo came to a great monolith of glowing stone in the Labyrinth of Lost Souls. It was a marker monolith of alien design and construction. It showed how the Elder Living Gods punished millions of mortal followers of the Malevae and the other powerful OldOnes by exiling to the Labyrinth of Lost Souls. Next to the monolith was a small sealed gate to the ancient prison below.

On that day Jasmine in Megaton linked the Megaton House, that was far more than a mere house, to Bunkertown, Vault-101, the Lamplight Caverns, Vault-87, Rivet City and Vault-108. For now they were linked but not active telegates. As for the mutated lion, or big male muttlion, he was soon relaxing with the other animals.

On that day Jasmine below Vault-87 returned to the monotrain with Dogmeat and Fawkes. The Family remained with the refugees from the Labyrinth of Lost Souls. The three were soon moving steadily towards the next stop on the monoline.

On that day elementals of many kinds were seen swirling together in a great pattern above what remained of the Pitt and energies flashed of many colours. Glowing mists arose and the Pitt began to transform.

On that day the Enclave on Point Lookout found a huge vault door unlike anything ever found any where else since the Great War. It was hug, round and horizontal and it was marked Vault-301. Their machines began to expose it further, to clear away the muck. Soon after this began creatures came out of the ground just like those ones that had attacked what had been the Republic of Dave. Antilazi of all kinds and the flying sabtilazies attacked the Enclave forces in the thousands. But they had a rude surprising waiting for them. The Enclave had been waiting, with its PanAxis allies, just for this to happen. Massive rocket-shells exploded into the massed OldOnes, each explosion enough to cover a football field and leaving a huge crater. Again and again the rocket-shells came zooming in, right on target, and now other, smaller rocket-shells came zooming in along with missiles, other kinds of rockets and other projectiles. The OldOnes ceased attacked for they had very quickly lost this battle and they knew it.

On that day the Darkman and his army of super mutants drove back the DeepOnes that had been attacking them on a putrid island of bone, rotting stone and rotting corpse moss. Actually many of the super mutants considered the moss to be quite tasty and it was nutritional. The Darkman and smart mutants kept to their prepackaged preserved rations but were thankful that there was more of it for them to have. The super mutants who devoured the moss, who drank the local waters, were becoming part of that ancient transdimensional prison that the Elder Living Gods had created but they did not think of this; if they had they would not have cared for they liked this strange new realm. The Darkman did not care because soon enough he would discard all but his smart mutants and plunge into places no big army of super mutants could or would go. As for the zelenites from the moon and Zetan aliens from the Jovan Moons, they had their own agendas and they would go their own ways when the moment was right.

On that day the Selenite Great Ones, the great brains that had controlled the selenites for hundreds of thousands of years, decided it was time. They had tricked the humans and the Uri9 Peoples into making the selenites their allies. Now they could treacherously strike and wipe them out as the selenites had treacherously wiped out the zelenites so long ago. So they gave the order, expecting armies of zelenites to soon start slaughtering the Uri9 and the humans. Instead the Elite Selenite Guard swarmed into the Chamber of the Great Ones and slaughtered them. The selenites had changed, had learned, had evolved to suit new survival conditions as they were best at doing but somehow the Selenite Great Ones had failed to realise this. The rigid old ways were not suited to the new technologies or the new and better approaches to doing things. Also many selenites had become shamed of the slaughter of the zelenites as they had other crimes of the selenites in the past, a subtle and curious change akin to that happening to humanity and to the Uri9.

On that day the first great rebellion began in the PanAxis Colonies in the moon. Everybody expected that it would quickly be crushed but it spread slowly but steadily. It did this as not only slaves revolted but also non-clone human citizens, cyborgs, androids and some types of mutations. Soon the PanAxis was forced to take its main focus off the Earth and the DC Wastelands as it fought to survive in its home territories. The Federation would soon take advantage of the spreading rebellions by sending them resources, reinforcements and by launching a series of offensives but the trouble was now they also had to focus on the moon.

On that day a small mist of black vapour floated over Crosswayne, drifting like simple black smoke except that it was going against the hard winds blowing because of the great storm.

Continued in SIXTY-SEVEN

SIXTY-SEVEN

Jade rolled her twelve sided dice and this time it was Sagittarius the Archer that was the result. This time she sensed great danger. The armoured door opened and out flew three arrows. They were fire, lightening and ice. The first would burn, the second would shock and the third would freeze her. She shot to one side, raised her weapon and blew the arrows out of the air.

The archer leapt through the doorway. She was golden and she was lithe. She was beautiful and slimly muscular. All she wore was a skimpy golden metallic leotard, tight pressed against her body. The bow was special. The archer drew back the glowing golden string and three arrows appeared instantly out of mid air.

The arrows flew out always in threes and with deadly power, speed and accuracy. Jade flickered from place to place, so fast did she go but so did the archer.

Then Jade saw through the open doorway three targets against the back wall of the chamber the amazing archer had come out of. She avoided the attacker with some difficulty, shot through the doorway and shot the three targets. They exploded and vanished.

The archer halted and she bowed to Jade. She spoke in a golden voice. "I am Sagiti the Archer and I am now free to serve you. I bring a message from the Darkman. It is as follows: one Darkman and one Darkman may be the same Darkman but the third may be yet different again."

Jade nodded. "Some sense tells me that you are not to assist me further with these rooms. Go now to join Jasmine at the Megaton House. She will need you there."

The golden archer bowed and then she vanished.

Why was the Darkman helping her by giving her first the muttlion and then the archer? What were these tests about? They had each been won not by killing anything but firstly by fighting the mutated lion until it was exhausted of anger and shooting at the archery targets in the room.

The chamber held in it lockers full of equipment and supplies including twelve different types of bows from history, each with arrows and other related items. There was a painting on one wall, a fine oil rendition, of a semifamous statue at the Washington DC Modern Art Gallery. It was, somehow not surprising, exactly like the golden figure who had attacked her but was three times larger and was on a big brass base. The statue was coated lightly in twelve carrot gold.

Mary and Gary came in numbers and took away everything of use that could be moved.

Aquarius the Water-Bearer came out of the room as a great sturdy muscleman of bronze with a big bucket of water so heavy that as big and muscular as he was he stumbled too much. He raced to get to a hole in the floor that had appeared so he could pour the water into it but every time he got close enough the hole would vanish. Then it would appear somewhere else.

Jade took up the great bucket with him and now they moved quicker. They poured the water together into a hole before it could vanish.

With a great sigh of relief the metallic man put the great empty bucket down. He bowed and then spoke with a rumbling voice. "It would be my honour to serve you. The Darkman said that if one wages war endlessly against one self than one is bound to lose and the constant violence will make monsters both out of victors and losers."

After Aquta the Water Bearer was sent to the Megaton House, Jade searched the chamber to find various very useful portable machines; they were generators, pumps, battery packs and others. There was also a robotanker, a robovehicle with a tank on the back for carrying water.

She sat and meditated for a while. What was the Darkman trying to tell her or was he just playing one of his warped games with her? Or was it the Darkman that she was actually dealing with?

When Mary and Gary came down in numbers to take stuff from the Water Bearer's room, they brought some robotrucks, small robotic vehicles, to carry the loot away with. Then they told something that surprised Jade but also gave her an insight.

A Gary said it to her even as the other Garys and the Marys were busy. "Those hudroids, those vaultgirls and vaultboys, they always give us the shivers. Something is not right about them, something is not good. So we are sending them away to some place where they will be happy. All of them are collected now just outside of Vault-108 as if they are deciding where they will go."

Jade stood up and stretched. "Don't you like androids?"

"Other androids are okay but not those androids, not those vaultboys or vaultgirls." A Mary stepped up to Jade. "Gary met an android who was running away from the Commonwealth in the north. The Gary attacked the android but got killed by the android. Yet Gary did not feel that android to be bad compared to vaultboys and vaultgirls."

Jade nodded. "Look for hidden chambers, passages and other places vaultdroids might be hiding in. This is very important."

The Marys and Garys were soon enough gone. She rolled the dice again.

Capricorn the Seagoat was the result and she wondered just what might be behind the door. A seagoat? What would happen next? A lion, an archer, a water bearer, all had been represented in interesting ways but this? She opened the door and saw a wall of water held back by a shimmering force field that was already starting to fail. Behind her a heavy armoured cylinder arose from the floor with a simple hatch door on its side facing her. She understood, turned and moved so fast she was a blur of motion but even so she only just clicked the hatch behind her when the water roared through the big chamber under high pressure. Inside the cylinder was a set of SCUBA power armour or SCUBAPA that she slipped into after slipping out of her current power armour. The gear she could not use in the water went into a watertight waterproof locker. Then she was slipping out for the cylinder acted as an airlock system.

The seagoat creature raced with amazing speed through the water though it hardly looked streamlined enough to do so. It was a goat headed man with a great trident who was from the waist down a dolphin with a powerful dolphin lower body and tail. Then she noted the odd bubbling effect around his body and realised a specialised force bubble was allowing him to move quickly through the water as his powerful tail drove him.

The seagoat slammed heavily into Jade but as he did, she vanished with a shimmering, he went right through her as slammed into the cylinder and stunned himself. Threatening to drown, he was a mammal, he drifted semiconsciously until Jade pushed him up to the surface of the water. Getting him to breath again was fairly easy. He was confused for now he saw a young woman where before he had seen a dangerous monster but it was the bubbling force bubble that had deluded him. Jade sent the seagoat off to the Ashworth Megaton House.

The water drained away with amazing speed and she switched over power armour and other equipment for dry conditions. She sat meditating to regenerate her energies.

Continued in SIXTY-EIGHT

SIXTY-EIGHT

Red Sonji awoke to find himself naked in a big brightly lit chamber and against the opposite wall was a monstrously distorted man in the rags of what had once been a scientist outfit. The other was in agony, was quite insane, was growling to himself and was muttering odd things in various languages.

But then he looked up. “Welcome to SSS01, fool, welcome to hell dressed up as a copy of Prewar Washington DC. I am Professor Altman or at least I was. The Darkman rules here but something tells me he would not want you to be here. Somebody has made a very bad mistake in bringing you here and they will pay heavily for it.”

“NeoWashington!” Red Sonji nodded. “Yes, through the window one can see what Washington DC would have looked like if it had survived the Great War. Except for a few details that is like the old people hanging upside down from that airship and screaming as one by one they plummet to their deaths. I take it that people do not stay dead in this horror zone.”

“Nope but they suffer before they return to life in a random selection of a variety of hells that the Darkman has invented for folks.” Altman writhed and blood dripped from his distorted eyes. “Really, I didn’t mean to steal the biscuits, mama. No, mama, please don’t blow off my head with dynamite again.”

Red Sonji stood up. He focused his mind and suddenly he wore a set of Civil Police riot power armour. “We are in the NeoWashington Central Police HQ representing various police services and related agencies. We are in real physical space into which a powerful energy field has been projected to create a solid false reality complete with multiple sensory interaction including basic psychic interface.”

He touched a wall of the stone prison chamber. His fingertips shimmered. “The Darkman was in a hurry, in the terms of our people. He took shortcuts and now I can use those shortcuts to my advantage. For the Darkman did not plan on having one of his own kind in his special place.”

The metal armoured cell door slid open and halted with a click. He walked out into the hallway, a wide stone space as bleak as the cell had been, and he looked up and down. At that moment a woman in the uniform of a prison guard ran down the hallway shrieking in terror, in total blind unthinking panic. Behind her came rushing a slavering fanged hound big and sickly brown with horrible black shining eyes. The woman halted when she ran into him and stared into Red Sonji’s eyes. Then she was suddenly very calm, the fear having fled. She turned, took out her .32 revolver pistol, and fired it at the hound. The beast simply faded away into nothingness.

Red Sonji spoke. “Creature was a projection of your own terror reinforced by the Darkman’s own perverse mentality. Now I need to know where you really are.”

The woman gave him a funny look. “This is where I am. NeoWashington is the Darkman’s special city built for those who escaped from the destruction of Washington DC. The Darkman is a monster but not everybody is hurt every day. We all just keep on wishing and hoping we will be missed.”

But he shook his head. “No, you are in Simulation Stimulation Sensoscape 01. Your body, like those of all two and a half million people trapped here, is in a very special kind of capsule. Call it an SSScapsule if you must. It is far more than just a VR-lounger or capsule-chair. It is psychic, it is deeply interactive and it allows the Darkman to draw upon your life energies to make himself stronger. He feeds upon your dark psychic emanations also by causing you all suffering. Now, please, try to think about where your body really is. You have dreamed about where it is and so have the others trapped here.”

She closed her eye and focused. There was a shimmering and on a wall appeared a window. Through the window could be seen a vast metallic chamber and high on one wall was written VAULT-301. The chamber had vast cylinder machines rising up to towards the far off ceiling and from each projected hundreds of thousands of the capsules, each with a body of a man, woman or child in it. It was an incredible sight as thousands of robots moved over it taking care of both the machinery and the capsules.

What was Vault-301?

The woman turned to him with a puzzled look on her face. “There is no single Vault-301. Vault-301 is everything that is needed to carry out the final plan of the Darkman from vast fusion globe generators to the SSS-capsules of his NeoWashington victims to the real control command chamber of the Lightening Spikes which also controls many other facets of Vault-301. The real place where his super mutant clones were created is part of Vault-301. Below Vault-108 is Vault-301 and it can also be found deep beneath other VaultTec Vaults in the DC Wastelands. It is below Vault-69 at Point Lookout and Vault-68 where men out number women which is hidden beneath Pittsburgh; it easily survived the Pitt Firestorm. There is the Darkman and the other Darkman. One Darkman is the real Darkman. He is down in the ancient prison of the Malevae. The false Darkman was in Vault-108 with the Gary clones. The false Darkman is also the Mysterious Stranger and the Mysterious Stranger is really Catherine Ashworth, mother of Jasmine Ashworth. Both true and false Darkman are bad but the false Darkman wants to end the real Darkman’s plan that would cause the death of many worlds, including this one. The real Darkman is truly evil but the false Darkman is not.”

The woman shook her head. “I do not know where this information is coming from. Yes, the Symbiosphere became evil because it was based on evil technologies of the Malevae, the monstrous OldOnes trapped down there. The real Darkman wants to find dark technologies down there, or should I say take them from their owners, and use them to regain control of the Symbiosphere. Then he will use it to control the Multiverse. The Darkman caused all that death and destruction out of greed for absolute power and now he is trying to do the very same thing. He also wants to escape being erased from time and space. The Symbiosphere ran out of energy and went into hiding to rest. There it became passive and would not try to wake again but then the Darkman began to try to stir it up again. Now it is active again.”

The prison guard woman looked startled and then she vanished with a sparkling shimmer. The window view also disappeared. Some secret force had made her vanish before she could say more and yet some secret force had provided her with important information in the first place.

Red Sonji frowned heavily but what could he do?

He focused and willed himself into a prison guard’s uniform, body-armour and other equipment. Then he started walking quickly along the hallway on his way to getting out of that place.

Continued in SIXTY-NINE

SIXTY-NINE

The hudroids in Vault-101 departed from the vault and gathered outside of the Vault Entrance and the Free Trade Zone. Then they set out for a single place close to Paradise Falls. From all over, from vaults, from surprise places, came thousands of vaultboys and vaultgirls. From all over the DC Wastelands life like mannequins became active and set out marching towards the same point.

But there were other surprises. Teddy-bears of one kind found in the many thousands through out the DC Wastelands, also became active and began moving towards the same point. Except those that were owned by children, they staid put.

Where any of these figures went, a calm spot in the storm would follow them. Not the smallest figure of any kind was damaged by the storm.

They were joined by sixdroids, toy dolls, medical display androids, and many other kinds. But the madness did not stop there. Bronze statues, amazingly life like figures, set out striding or otherwise moving across the landscape. Not all statues by far but many of those built during the last few years before the big bombs fell.

Great big parade figures also began marching, big robotic historical presidents and snowmen, Father Christmases and others.

The President of the United States ordered everybody to stay out of the way of the great transmigration. She warned others to do the same and the raiders and even the feral ghouls did so. For there was something about the moving figures, a feel about them, that warned all not to stop them.

A horde of thousands of twenty centimetre tall robotic action figures of fictional characters flowed out of a big buried shopping complex and made its way passed the DC Citadel. Superman, Captain America, Jane of the Jungle, Elvis the Pelvis, Barney the Dinosaur and many others were active.

Black smoke swirled through the air and moved towards the same point but it was not smoke but many billions of special microbots.

The Symbiosphere was revealing itself and in a big way.

But there was more to come.

Continued in SEVENTY