Chapter Nine
The Plan Works
Podray and Craig were getting worried about Radar and Matt, having received no word or codes from them in the last 24 hours, so they decided to take all they had plus the synth, with them, and headed for the mall in Springfield.
The journey there was a clear one for them as Radar and Matt had taken out any threats on the way over themselves and none of the people or mutants riding with the ones tht had attacked had gone to the sights to find them.
"Radar?! Matt?!" Craig called out as they arrived
"Don't call out, what if there are raiders in the area?" Podray scolded
They heard two dogs barking and were more than surprised when Dogmeat and the female dog that had found them came bounding down the non moving escalators,
"I'm seeing things" Craig shook his head
"No there are two Dogmeat" Podray said
"Actually that's one Dogmeat and a stray, that doesn't want to kill us" Radar said as she and Matt joined them all
"Why no word?" Podray asked, dropping everything and examining the female dog
"Someone injected Dogmeat with blood thinners" Radar said, "I gave him a human blood pack, it worked...I know we have the puppy perk but I don't want to lose him"
Craig and Podray are stunned,
"Maybe he'll turn into a man once a month" Craig blurted
Podray laughed whole heartedly,
"This female is in remarkable condition, she has to have an owner nearby" Podray said
"She has no chip" Matt said, "We checked"
"Oh well, Dogmeat seems to like her I guess she stays" Podray said, "We brought everything we took, including the synth...well, the robot alien at least. Let me have the circuit"
Radar handed the circuit over,
"We need to see if he works first" She said
Matt helped Podray with the parts taken from the fake UFO and Radar helped Craig to bring the synth/robot alien up to the hardware store, where they then got to work on fixing it. It was tricky but Matt really came into his own with the tinkering and eventually cracked it.
The robot sat up and they backed up,
"We, come in pieces" It said
Radar scoffed,
"We're going to have to do something about it's speech" She said
"It doesn't need speech" Craig said, "It just needs to do as it's told"
Something came over the robot and suddenly it broke bits of itself off and went for them.
Radar, Craig, Matt and Podray got split up as they all made a run for it.
Dogmeat and protected his new girlfriend and went for the main body. The body of the robot didn't attack as it didn't register Dogmeat as a person.
Radar ran into a clothing store to get away from a hand that was making its way, very quikly towards her.
She got distracted by a jacket,
"Ooh" She exclaimed, Then she saw the hand, grabbed the coat, threw it over the hand, stamped on it and dashed out, hiding behind the wall and then shooting the moving jacket with her rifle for good measure. Her pit boy flashed, "You lost Karma" she read aloud, "For what?"
She tapped at her pit boy and it read; for putting a hole in the jacket.
The jacket had now reached her so she kicked it over the metal bars to the lower section of the mall before turning back to find the others.
Podray found himself in a computer shop. He used a bobby pin to get into the back office where he found a terminal,
"Perfect!" He grinned and he got to work on hacking it.
Craig was being chased back and forfth between rows of seats in the mall cinema by a leg. If it had been anyone else it were after he'd have laughed his head off. He jumped over seats and ran across them, jumped onto the floor, up onto the stage but it was no use the robot foot had him over a barrel,
"Can we talk about this!?" Craig yelled before bringing himself into check, "What am I saying?"
Radar found herself in the department store she and Matt had been staying, on the off chance. She only found him because she heard his screams.
Matt had gone back to the forte for supplies and an arm had found it's way through their beds and sofas and covers.
Radar had to be honest, as dangerous as this situation was, for each part had a gun, that fired at off intervals, the sight of Matt panicking and trying to get out of the forte, then running towards her with a blanket over his head was pretty funny.
He screamed again when Radar used her gun to stunn the arm past him, she then released him from the blanket,
"I needed ammo...I didn't get the ammo" He breathed
"I've got ammo, I don't know where Uncle Craig got to but I have a hunch about dad" She told him
Craig was now knackered, he lay back and tried to hide but the leg found him. In a fit of rage he kicked it across the room and it smashed through the cinema screen, affording him the time to get ouf of this room at least.
Radar and Matt found Podray in the office of the computer store, still working on the terminal. He had just hacked into it and was now adding the program to it so he could try and contol the alien robot.
"Will it work?" Radar asked
"It needs part of the robot/synth we want to control" He told her
"The same metal you mean?" Matt asked
"Yes" Podray replied
"So technically we can control anything made from that metal, we could fool mutants and raiders by flying choppers using a termal cetral to them while we use a different one to actually reach the Lincon Memorial" Radar said
"There's plenty here we could use to fix the chopper you used to get here" Podray said in agreement
"I'll go back and get something from the fake UFO" Matt said
"Be careful" Podray said
Craig was crawling along the top floor of the Mall, he could hear the foot trying to lick it's way out of the cinema.
He got to the escalator and let it take him down to the bottom just as Matt was passing by.
Craig reached out, grabbed his leg and brought Matt down,
"Hey!" Matt cried out
"Piggy bank" Craig breathed
"What's that?" Matt asked
"Carry me!" He snapped, Matt carried him on his back, "Wait, where are you going?"
"Back to where we started, Podray needs the parts you took from the UFO, he and Radar have a plan"
"Drop me!" He demanded
What Matt and Craig didn't expect was to find Dogmeat having the time of his life ripping into the robot part, that wasn't doing anything to him while the female dog just lay on the floor with a bored look on it's face.
Craig wheezed with laughter and took his phone out to record it, then used this destraction to sneak the parts from the UFO out of the store and over to the computer shop.
"Dogmeat! Lady! Come!" Criag called on the way out,
Dogmeat followed loyally and the other dog, now named Lady, came running after,
Matt and Craig were still laughing as they came into the office with the parts,
"What's so funny?" Podray asked as he took them and singed them to the program,
Craig showed him the video and Radar stroked Dogmeat, impressed,
"Who's taking after mummy then?" She said to him as he put his paws up to show affection
"He hasn't blow anything up yet" Podray said
"Give him time" Craig said
After a few short minutes that felt like an eternity Podray got the program to work for him. They left the shop and watched the body parts that had cut themselves off return to the robot. The robot then made it's way over to the computer shop and stood in front of Podray,
"How may I be of service?" It asked
"I need you to fix 5 choppers using one the metal you're made from and one with copper and then I need you to bring the copper amended chopper here and land it on the roof of the mall" Podray told him
The robot took the parts and the copper and left.
"How will we know it's worked?" Radar asked
"If he hasn't made a weapon out of..." Podray began
"I will make a weapon of these parts" The robot said
Podray went to react but Craig covered his mouth.
Night came and there was no sign of the robot so Podray and Craig followed Radar, Matt, Dogmeat and Lady to the forte, which they made bigger and better and sat around with torches to light the space,
"Why is this so satisfying to me?" Podray wondered aloud
"Something fun and innocent in War but serves a practical purpose" Radar said, "I am a little worried about the fact that we haven't come across anymore raiders though"
"Maybe they don't expect there to be anything left so why bother? The schools and the police stations and garages seem to be the thing for them" Craig said
"Not so much the garages, too many people went in and never came out again, a lot of them hide vaults you see. People tempted to retreat there thought again after obsering the place, the numbers of people going in as apposed to coming out"
At that moment they heard a mechanical walk and they all crawled out of the forte from different angles, the dogs included.
It was the robot and he had a weapon of metal and copper in his hand, that seemed to have a neon cap in the middle,
"The fuck?" Matt asked before he could stop himself
"You're weapon sir, care to test it out?" The robot said, holding it out for anyone,
Radar grinned,
"No" Podray said with a point before taking the weapon and shooting a mannequin. The mannequi blew apart and he stepped back in shock, "God damn!"
"He could not be located" The robot said
"I hear that" Matt replied
"I did as you asked and took the liberty of added markers to your terminal so you can control them all from there...I am afraid that someone will have to stay here to do this, if you shut me down I will turn" The robot said
Everyone looked at each other,
"We know how to create a new program, you take that and I'll get you to the Lincon Memorial" Podray said, then in response to Radar' expression, "No emotion, you know your task, now go do it"
Radar hugged her dad and then straightened her expression. Podray hugged her back and they swayed on the spot for a minute.
Craig eyeballed Matt,
"Are you crying?!" He asked him astonished
"Shut up" Matt replied
"My God! You actually have water squirting out of your eyes!" Craig said as though observing a strange animal,
"Shut up" Matt said
"Podray! Look at this!" Craig continued
Radar laughed