The walker.
He hated walking. Hated it. He would rant to others that we had technology, bikes, cars, trucks, skimmers, liners and now spacecraft... Why would I walk? And yet, look at him now, walking.
He pulled the rad cloak tighter around himself; the wind was picking up and it was bringing more dust with it. The problem was that walking meant that he had his mask on, and the filter was filling up with sand. At some point he would have to choose between possible asphyxiation as he changed the filter and breathing the toxic air around him. Neither was a good choice, and his destination was still a good two hours away by foot. Deciding that the filter was still good enough, walking was the choice... For now.
Not quite an hour later the warning beep started, redundant really as he noticed 10 minutes ago that breathing was being impacted. Nothing for it, he had to change the filter. A quick scan around the area found nothing to hide behind, out of the wind. Oh well... On my knees it is. Kira would be so pleased to hear that. Laughing at his own joke he angled his back to the wind and dropped to his knees and pulled at the rad cloak so that was more like a blanket than a cloak.
While doing this did a wonderful job of blocking the wind, it also blocked the light. Changing a filter in the dark was not so much impossible, but bloody annoying. The latches are fiddly, the filter a pain to fit because it has to go in a certain way and lining it up, while easy in the light was not when the oh so helpful arrow markings can't be seen. You can tell the older, recycled filters from the freshly pressed, the old ones had marks etched into them to help. Typically, this one was new, damn his pride.
Filters made by those out in the wastelands were far superior when out in the open, but they stank and they had no resale value. All you could do was surrender them and hope they will charge you less for your next lot. New ones you could sell, they didn't stink, and you were guaranteed that they would last to the stamped date. No such stamp on a recycled filter, you took your chances, but they were usually good, they had to be, lives depended on them. People that sold dodgy filters got a return visit and chatting was not on the agenda.
The wastelands were an unforgiving place. The radiation fields were not that far away, and the fallout travelled on the wind. People didn't go outside if they could help it. Small towns with interconnected hab-domes and lined, underground tunnels had become the only way for people to exist out here.
Two minutes later and with the new filter finally in place, Walker reset his rad-cloak on his shoulders and resumed walking. Only about 30 minutes to go. Just in front of him he saw the towns boundary, not a boundary per se, more the edge of where people would go. No need for a marker or anything like that, the boundary was actually made up of a strange cactus-like plant. Large, plate sized pads growing everywhere. These were a specially engineered, genetically modified plant. Designed to live and thrive in a rad soaked shit-hole like this and to slowly filter the radiation fallout from the air and soil.
These plants would then be harvested by townspeople for food, water and fuel. The large pads would catch the wind and allow water to condense, the plant would then absorb the water through both the outer skin of the pad and the roots, then it would filter it and store it.
The plants unnatural dynamics meant that the water was now clean. So there was clean water in the main stem, the main taproot contained much needed complex carbohydrates that were made in a complex chemical and bacterial process in the main stem. The best part was that mature pads would become the fuel of the future for the great American plains.
Ha... 'Great' in this context simply meant 'big'... There was nothing much great about America now. Humbled for their own hubris. America now existed as a radiation-soaked hell hole, bereft of almost anything. Only a small handful of cities still existed, hastily built urban sprawls constructed away from the old population centres. But at least they still existed. Not like Britain.
Poor Britain. Once arguably the greatest empire in history, by the end of the 20
th
century they had allowed them all to gain independence, by doing that the commonwealth had been born. Almost all the countries that Britain had ruled over was at least friendly with it. Britain also held a lot of sway politically, around the world. 'The worlds friend' was the name banded about by some, others laughed and commented that 'friend' was all it could be now with America being what it was, the greatest superpower.
That was the thing with big, loud bullies. Anything that threatened their ego would be battered down. So, when Britain started reclaiming the old Empire America was not happy, not happy at all!
There was no big military push. No wars of occupation and no shots fired in the act of conquest with Britain's climb back to power. It was mainly in peace, with diplomacy, aid, education, and money. It started with the attempted occupation of Taiwan. The British fleet was held in a guard position along with ships from many of the south east Asian nations along with the US, Australia, Japan and Taiwan's own defence force.
When China began their offensive, they did it with rockets, missiles, and other long-range artillery. Massive casualties were suffered by the allied forces. Nobody expected THAT much of an opening salvo.
The Americans, being what they are, decided that they should push an offensive and move away from protecting the island and moving to attack the mainland. The Chinese were waiting for that. Air strikes, more artillery and the Chinese naval fleet backed by Russian submarines pushed the Americans away, then they turned to Taiwan. This brought the British forward. Rather that fighting a defensive action they had to take a more aggressive posture. Flanked by the navies of Australia, Canada, India and Japan they held the line. The heroic actions from that battle are still honoured even now.
China and Russia found a flotilla of anger waiting for them. It's not certain what they were expecting, but they didn't get it. The resulting action took a toll on both sides but it was a clear victory that destroyed China and Russia's naval ambitions for a long time.
The resulting fallout was that Britain and her commonwealth was viewed as heroes. It also began the slow re-emergence of the old Empire. Treaties of friendship became treaties of allegiance. Nations not originally in the commonwealth aligned themselves with it and slowly changed to fit their views to that of the Empire while proudly holding their own unique cultures.
America didn't like that. Not one bit. National pride having taken a beating at the hands of the Chinese and Russians and then being shown up by a has-been non-power? No... They were not going to stand for that.
So, they struck first. Rather than mess around with screwing it up they just glassed the whole country. Britain was allied with America, so she had no reason to question why America started to move their military around. Until it was too late. The strikes were not at all expected. It's almost like everything was dropped on that tiny island. Nothing would live there again. Nothing. The only British people of any denomination alive were the ones that were in other countries at the time. All told, they amounted to an estimated 25,000 people.
