Chapter Ten

The Birth of Atom

Dogmeat left with Radar, Craig and Matt while Lady stayed behind with Podray. Podray used the computer to control the choppers in the surrounding areas and the missiles that had been equipt to them to afford Radar, Craig and Matt the time they needed to reach the copper amended chopper and get out of there.

Any houses still standing in the area got blown apart as did the choppers and then the mutants and raiders as they ventured close to capture their non existant victims.

All the while the robot stared straight ahead, facing away from Podray, eyes now red instead of white. Lady growled lowly at it, not sure what this robot was up to or why it had just turned.

"There's something odd about this reading to the West" A Nuka Vault Tech expert was saying

"It's probably a bird, they do still exist, aleit they're rare...where are the other synths, the one from Loner' vault?" Cavern asked

"They were destroyed by Matt and his friends" The Nuka Vault Tech expert replied

"They'll work even if their parts are detached, up the frequency!" Cavern replied

"There's movement coming from the Loner' vault!" Matt called, looking at his pit boy

"Reinforcements?" Radar suggested

"Not for us...Radar I think the robot has turned" Matt called nervously

He showed Radar the pit boy,

"Someone else has taken control. They're calling the broken parts, dad's in trouble" Radar said

"We're not turning around, your dad is special ops; I know him well enough he already has a plan in place"

Podray looked over at the robot and at Lady growling and clicked for the dog to slowly back up towards him. He then tapped at the computer and acted like he knew nothing, as the body parts of the synths from Loner' Vault were making their way across the Captial wasteland.

As Lady reached Podray he hit another button and a chopper came through the ceiling and Podray set off a missle to blast the robot across the mall and through the wall on the other side, cutting of the signal being used by Nuka Vault Tech.

Next he went outside to where ther broken robot lay and took out the eyeball. He took the eyeball back to the forte and got a broken laptop working again, then used it's parts to create his own pit boy. He used this pit boy to scan the eyeball,

"So you were security...if they can control the synths in the Loner' vault then you had to have had family in that vault" Podray thought aloud.

He sent a message through on his pit boy.

Matt got a shock when the message came through,

"Listen, Vault Tech can only control the synths that have a body part with the DNA of someone connected to someone from one of the Vaults. The loner wasn't the first dweller of Loner' vault, he was the last" Radar, Craig and Matt shook their heads, "They sent a whole town worth of people down and killed them then left eyes and teeth around along with rooms full of twisted metal they hoped the Loner Vault Dweller would use to create the synths.

I've updated your pit boys so you can program the right synths, use them to destroy the others while you deal with his abductors, then you need to shut Vault Tech down, once you have full control of the other synths that should be a piece of cake"

"Son of a bitch" Radar said

"OK, we have the program we just need to find a way into the Lincon Memorial" Craig said

They landed on the roof of the building before the Lincon Memorial. It was badly damaged, in fact it was impossible to tell what it had been used for at all now.

The second they did they were shot at,

Radar, Craig and Matt climbed out the other side of the chopper and used it for cover before throwing granades through the hole in the roof, not knowing what was shooting at them.

This made everything unstable and Radar, Craig and Matt had to back up to the edge of the roof as the whole thing, chopper included colapsed in.

"Not to state the obvious here but how are we getting down?" Matt asked

Radar looked down and then looked at Craig,

"We can do this" She said

Matt looked down, there were bits of furniture, walls, Mutant bodies, raiders and synths, bits of floor, bits of stairs. If they were really careful they could make it down to the bottom.

"This is stupidly dangerous" Craig said, "Let's do it"

Carefully, bit by bit, minute by minute they climbed, crawled through and shuffled and shimmied their way down, some of the Mutants were still alive but not in a position to attack. Radar and Matt stole their flamers and the fuel to go with them and carried on making their way down.

They nearly got crushed by falling masonary a few times after squeezing through certain gaps but eventually they got to the bottom and a large enough crouch space to get outside,

"I hope our granades didn't kill the Loner Vault Dweller after all that" Radar said

She, Craig and Matt walked around this massive memorial, the only thing missing was Lincon' nose,

"Wasn't he a vampire slayer?" Matt asked

"Lincon? Yeah" Craig replied, "How are we getting inside?"

There was no entrance here but beyond was a massive shallow pond. Radar looked at Craig,

"That had to have been cleaned in it's day" She said

"There must be tunnels underneath, they might lead us to what's beneath the statue" Craig grinned and with that he made a dash towards the pond.

Radar and Matt followed.

They hurried the entire distance to the other side and a broken podium, they then moved the podium to reveal a manhole cover.

They removed this and found a ladder. They were about to go down it when they heard guals climbing up. Radar used granades to sort them out and the waited for the smoke to clear, kicking body parts of guals out of the way as she climbed down the ladder.

Craig and Matt followed her down and the three of them stood shoulder to shoulder as they scoped the place out. It was clear, this made no sense but they took it anyway and began their search for the Loner Vault Dweller.

The Loner Vault Dweller was weak, he was tied to an old boiler that steamed, he had scars and burns and bruises all over him and at first when he heard Radar, Craig and Matt he thought he was hearing things,

"He's dead by now" Matt said, losing hope

Then they heard a faint tapping,

"Shut up, listen to that" Craig demanded

"Help me...someone" The Loner Vault Dweller cried, Radar, Craig and Matt found a way into the room and immediately began helping the man, Craig and Matt untied him and Radar gave him a stempack, "Thank you, thank you, whoever you are but how did you find me?"

"Never mind how we found you, where are the bastards that put you down here?" Radar wanted to know,

"Long gone, they left me for dead but they did leave guards, I heard a series of explosions a while ago but I thought I was going mad" He said

"That was us, you're beneath the Lincon Memorial, my Uncle and I and this man with us needed your synths to entomb and destroy every Atom bomb and splitter, anything driven by nuclear power to prevent something like this happening again" Radar told him, "Someone out there realised what was going on with the Master and the Mutants and Vault Tech, they swapped out the nuclear bombs for normal bombs and they are what destroyed London"

"That was me" The Loner Vault Dweller said, "I was brought in to work on the computers at a secret United States base when I heard two mutants in biohazard, they never took them off. They thought no one could understand them but I could understand them, my dad had dealings with them and the Enclave, I swapped the bombs over, thought I was safe, then I was rushed into this vault, told the rest had already arrived, more would come. After two days I realised I was on my own. I started looking around and used my skills to build a synth, just for company at first and then the Vault Tech staff started to play games, I used the synths to fight back but some of them they seemed to have control over"

"Yeah we know, some of the body parts were real, like the eyes and the teeth, we re-programmed your program, if you know where we could get new synths we can control that would be great" Radar said

"Well you know" Began the Loner Vault Dweller, "If Vault Tech can control synths with human body parts we can do the same with Mutants, kill two birds with one stone"

Everyone smiled.

Over the next few weeks the Loner Vault Dweller got strong enough to help Radar, Craig and Matt sift through broken metal and plastic to make a whole work force of synths with Mutant eyes. Even Dogmeat helped.

They had to split the work force into three, a group to infiltrate the Master' layer and plant a program that could send messages to the Mutant' brains to stop working. A second group to infiltrate Nuka Vault Tech and destroy it from the inside plus every interlinked Vault and any gual, glowing or otherwise and sympathiser with it.

The last group built a shiny new copper Megaton, slowly moving the sleeping residents from the old one in their sleep before encasing it and the leader of Atom in a block of concrete. Then from a safe distance, on the balcony of a transmission tower stood Radar, Dogmeat and Matt,

Matt hit the the button and from the cameras now within that concrete block they could see Megaton ripped apart,

"You just lost Karma" Matt joked

"You pushed the button" Radar said

"The first of many" Matt said, "We can do this"

Below, at the front of the tower Craig and Podray were waiting, alongside Lady and The Loner Vault Dweller,

"What are they doing up there?" Craig asked, getting impatient, Podray made a mock kissing sound and joking grabbed Craig chin, "Get off!" He said, howling with laughter,

"Pucker up blondie" He said

"Sod off!" He laughed

Podray laughed and backed off,

The Loner Vault Dweller shook his head and smiled,

Back up on the balcony Dogmeat was staring at Lady longingly, he then looked at Matt,

"Go on Dogmeat, go get your girl"

Dogmeat barked happily and bounded down the fire steps after Lady.

"I just thought, by being the destruction of Atom we are Atom. Their end is the birth of Atom" Radar said

Three years later: Matt and Radar sat on the bank of the river she told him all about, while her cousins played in the river with their mother, Craig and Podray debated about which army job is better and Radar' mother sat between them, shaking her head,

Lady tried to keep her puppies in line while Dogmeat sat beside Radar looking proud.

"So this is peace?" Matt said

"For now" Radar said

The End