Chapter Two
Radar' Mission
"The Mutants are nothing without The Master and I dealt with him too, again you're welcome" The Vault Dweller said,
"Oh my God you know nothing do you? You honestly think they don't have the capacity or the technology to put him back together? We need to disarm, shut down and bury every ounce of nuclear power, weaponary and Atom Bombs and Atom Smasher' in 100ft of concrete before we can deal with the Mutants themselves or get this planet back to any kind of normal existance" Radar said
"You can't do that all on your own, no one can" The Vault Dweller said
"I'm not on my own I have my rifle with me and about 200 frag granades, I also have a flamer and nine tanks of fuel. Some of the vaults were interlinked, the overseer usually had lists; one would warn of experiments being done on the dwellers...dad was smart, building us a vault of our own. I never had any time for people with so much money they didn't know who the hell they were anymore, if they weren't going to let in the working class, the poor, the destitute then they deserved everything Vault Tech and their sister ship sent their way. I'd read the plans for the experiments in the UK based vaults, I didn't actually believe they'd carry any of them out...not even the children were safe"
"How did you get here?" The Vault Dweller asked
2275
"It's gone quiet out there" Radar' mother said as she joined Radar in their underground garden
"I'm getting itchy feet, I need space, I'm going insane down here, what're the radiation levels like up there now?" Radar asked, "I need a task, a mission, I need to get out of the vault"
"Your uncle was going to take some readings, he found a rad suit hidden downstairs and a decontamination chamber with a ladder going up and out onto the grounds of Westminster, houses of parliament" She told her
"What does it look like now? Our cameras don't reach that far, the clarity has faded a lot over time" Radar said
"The face, the numbers of the clock and the hands melted but the belle still chimes" Her mother said
This notion tickled her mother quite a bit,
"You know, given everything, the fact that Big Ben is still chiming despite the bombs makes me feel proud. It's pure defiance, he's telling the world his people will carry on whether gual-like and mutated or uderground for a millenia, with or without the tea" Radar said
There was a silence for a moment as they looked at their garden,
"Do you think there are others out there like us? Do you think anyone else built themselves a vault or bunker? A habitat" Her mother asked
"I hope so...I'm tired of waiting though mum, we need to make sure this never happens again. If Uncle decides to move out and go off in search of the other Atom Smashers and weapons and the Mutants then I'm going with him" Radar told her
"I had a feeling you'd say that...were it up to me I'd keep you safe in this vault but that's just me being selfish, you have it in you to do what your dad set out to, what he started. He's out there somewhere I know it. He'd have found himself a refuge somewhere but you're not going out there unprepared. There are mutated animals, creatures that don't know what it's like to be human anymore, raders and savages and angry mobs calling themselves the Angels of Mercy. I see them crawling all over the place above from our cameras. I haven't fired a gun for years but your Uncle has. Give me time, I'll try and pursuade him to train you...and maybe even let you go with him when he leaves for America...if he ever leaves for America"
After a month of arguments Radar' Uncle came into Radar' room while she was looking at pictures of the world above from before the War and just pointed,
"Move it"
Radar smiled and followed her Uncle out of her room, along a corridor, through a red door at the far end and into a lift she didn't know they had. They descended 12 floors and came out into an old, disused underground only the platform now stretched out across the tracks.
There were goggles and weapons, granades and rifles,
"This is nothing" Her Uncle told her, responding to the look on her face, "Start with the Rifle, put the goggles on. Do you need direction?"
"If you weren't here I'd have to figure this out for myself" Radar said, "But seen as you are a little direction would be good"
Her Uncle nodded and showed her the correct and safe way to load and fire the rifle,
To his shock she was a natural but her arms started to burn quite quickly from the weight,
"I can adapt it to your shape and weight" Her Uncle told her
"Now for the granade" She grinned
"This is not a game" He said
"No...be honest, do you think dad' out there somewhere?"
"Let's worry about what we're doing for now shall we and where we need to go" Her Uncle said
To his shock Radar was damn near perfect with her aim, granade in hand but she wanted something that would detonate on impact,
"In the Second World War they did this thing with rats, they packed them with explosives and a fuse that would detonate on impact. My target could move away before the frag granade goes off, they'd have more oportunities to get to me" Radar said
"You're starting to think like a soldier...but that's enough for one day, leave the granades to me, I'll see what I can do.
Over the next few months as Radar worked on her rifle skills her Uncle worked on adapting the frag granades. He spent a lot of time either pouring over theories or mixing chemicals and working on ciruits and fuses in the lab, nearly losing his fingers a few times,
"I'm sorry...I just" Radar began
"No, you're right, you're absolutely right, it'll take two to take out a mutant, one for a radar, the at the moment 4 for those things with the tenticles, we can't give them the chance to get close" Her Uncle said,
"How would you deal with blowflies?" Radar' mother asked, "To save on ammo"
"Use a trigger based elctrified rod, with the rubber at the top and a trigger that only releases power when held down" Radar replied
Her Uncle nodded and gestured in agreement,
"I could work on that" Radar' mother replied, "Let me do something useful, the kids are old enough to look after themselves up here in the living quatres now"
"OK" Radar' Uncle said, then he looked at Radar, "I think you're about ready to take on the flamer" Radar' eyes widened with excitement, "We need to get you suited up first though, you're not using it outside until I've found a way of combining it with the Rad Suit, that's no easy task"
The flamer did a lot of damage but it wasn't practical in anyway, it was heavy even if the fuel canisters weren't. With the rods ready and her rifile catered to her body and weight and a rad suit Radar was ready to go outside for the first time in 17 years.
When that day finally arrived she didn't know what to expect. With a rad suit, scanner in hand, gun strapped to her back and granades attached to personalised straps on her body she was ready for anything.
"The mission is to..." Radar' Uncle began, then he saw Radar' expression, "Take it all in and then forget about what you see"
They were standing before Big Ben,
"Look what they did to him" Radar said
"What everyone in this country has wanted to do to him at some point or another, the survivors aren't angry about it's appearance they're just pissed they never got to be the ones to bring down the government themselves" Her Uncle said
"It's not funny" Radar said
She walked off, he followed,
"Hey, puss! What we need is that way!" He said pointing in the direction of downing street. She wasn't listening, she made her way across the road to look out at the river now void of water. Her Uncle caught up with her, "I need the Vault number for a man in the states, left to his own devices, someone said he used the interiors and the wires to build synths who could do the dangerous part of our jobs for us, that document is in number 10 and it's guarded by raders, I can't do this on my own I need a sniper"
"You've got one...I just want to see our house" She said
"Later, come on before we lose the daylight"
Radar took a moment and looked at her scanner,
"There must be something wrong with this it says there's no radiaton in the immediate area"
Her Uncle took it and did the readings himself. He was surprised to realise she was right, there wasn't any readings for the area,
"There's nothing wrong with the scanner, there's no radiaton in the air at all"
The took off the hoods to their rad suits and were immediately shot at. They took cover behind a car and Radar took out three raders, hiding at different heights across the bridge, she then went up to them and took all they had,
"Maybe we'll find the answers to that question in 10 too" Radar said. She was on it now, taking out preditors and raders and mutated animals with swift ease, alongside her Uncle. As the sun was starting to set they made it onto Downing Street. Expecting to be bombarded by raders they were surprised to find that the raders were in fact already dead, having been murdered by something else. A silver dart in the kneck. Radar' Uncle took one of these darts to do research on for later and along with a vigilent Radar made his way into number 10. They searched the whole place but all they found were dead raders and broken glass littering the carpet. The one body they never found was the Prime Minister' body, "Who do you think did this?"
"That all depends on what we find behind that wall" Her Uncle said, Radar had her uncle back up and tossed a granade at the wall, "That's not going to get us anywhere" He was wrong however, Radar was a technology wiz. The hole in the wall revealed the wires and the mechanism that activated and deactivated the steal wall that hid the notorious red case, "You son of a bitch" He exclaimed as Radar got them access.
There on the table was a letter from Radar' father, the number of the vault and official notes between the UK and the US president,
"I am heading for Vaultech to destroy their computers, they have more power than you think over us. They may be on par if not worse than the Master and his Mutants" Radar read aloud,
"The air...what does that note say?" Her Uncle asked
Radar picked this up,
"The bombs that landed out there weren't nuclear...or rather they would have been but someone switched the stickers. We were hit by the Genericks rather than the nuke', someone state side saw this coming and from there it was a case of damage limitation" She said
"Guess we're going to America then...at least we know the water' safe here, I have a purifier anyway, we'll get our supplies sorted and grab a plane" Her Uncle said
"Oh sure, we're just fly on over there, any fuel for those things will have dried up years ago" Radar said
"We'll think of something" Her Uncle said, "It's dark, we should head back for the Vault"
"If the bombs weren't nukes how did all those people on the Southbank die?" Radar asked
"Damn it" Her Uncle exclaimed
The next day Radar stayed behind in the Vault to explain everything they had seen above ground and all they had learned, while her Unlce took a body and dragged it into the basement of Westminster to find out how they'd died if the bomb that fell wasn't nuclear,
"So we can go back outisde!" Radar' cousin screeched
"No, firstly we don't know how those people died and even if it wasn't at the hands of radiaton, that just one area of the country and the place above is swarming with raders and mutants and creatures, explain all of that" Radar said
Radar' Uncle worked on the body all day, doing experiment after experiment until he could be sure of his results,
"OK so they were all infected with a virus using a formula of somekind. The animals ate the bodies for survival and these mutations are a side affect. I managed to tap into the readings for probes at other sights, using a the terminal in Westminster...there are about three areas of the states almost completely rad free but getting there is going to be tricky.
We can only fly part of the way, the rest will be on foot. We know what we need to do, the sooner we can leave the better" Her Uncle said
"OK but can we go outside?" Radar' cousin asked
"If I can secure an area at least before we go then yes but only for an hour a day and you stay within the perimitre I give you"