The Series 
                                                   Episode Sixteen 
                                                       The Bunker 
 
On another EARTH that had experienced the terrible WIPEOUT OF 99,  two very pretty young girls sat on beds in a concrete bunker deep under the surface of a once densely populated city listening as their father sits tapping on a morse key. 
One girl says to the other. 
"Silv do you think we'll get out of here?" 
"Jana you know as well as I do there isn't anything out there, if there was what hope would we have anyway?" 
"Silv we can't give up, I'll be praying longer and harder tonight, will you join me?" 
Silv gives Jana a wry look, turns to her with a sour face with tears in her eyes. 
"You and your damn prayers, we'll need more than prayers to get us out of this mess!" 
The monotonous tapping of the morse key was the only sound they heard as the girls drifted off into a troubled sleep. 
After weeks of sitting in the bunker with nothing but the sound of a morse key was driving them crazy, Silv and Jana were resigned to the fact that they were very much alone and would probably die of starvation, their food supply was down to just a few days rations, the situation was looking grim. 
Their father looked haggard, his eyes were sunken and his skin was pale, sleepless days and nights of hammering out messages without an answer was beginning to take it's toll, suddenly he raises his hand to silence the girls from their bickering, with an incredulous look on his face he says.
"I heard something, it was really faint, but I did hear something!" 
Both girls jump to their feet almost smothering their father as they try to listen to the headphones. 
He makes some adjustments to the instruments, taps out another message, grabs a pad and pencil and starts to write. 
An answer was coming back very faintly. 
"This is rescue team number five, send your co-ordinates again." 
He sends their longitude and latitude, now all they can do is wait for a reply. 
The reply wasn't long in coming. 
"Army rescue number five here, do not, we stress, do not go above ground unless you have protective suits and oxygen, we'll make contact again when we're closer, rescue five out." 
Two long hours of expectant waiting went by, another message stronger than the last one comes through. 
"Rescue five again, do you have suits and oxygen ready for use?" 
He replies with his heart thumping in anticipation. 
"Yes we're well equipped and waiting for instructions." 
"Suit-up and don't bring anything with you, we will arrive at your co-ordinates within twenty minutes, good luck." 
Walter and the girls do as they're told, their solar powered air supply had served them well, bringing compressed air in from large storage tanks which went through an elaborate system of purification and filtration after being recycled. 
The bunker was 200 feet under the ground and had saved their lives when the atmosphere became radioactive, their father in city life had been Walter Colby, an amateur astronomer and an expert in communications with degrees in quantum electronics, he'd been highly successful manufacturing and supplying the armed forces with all kinds of electronic apparatus. 
Survival planning saved their lives with months of preparation, after his wife's death in a laboratory accident, Walter worked hard on the building of the bunker to save his daughters from a premonition he'd had of what might happen, he was aware of the dangers inherent in the experimentation by the army and the air force using nuclear satellites with laser guided neutron technology, he tried to warn them what might happen but vested interests in big contracts froze him out of the loop. 
Everything he had ran off solar, his refrigeration, the lights and the heating, recycled water, toilet and waste disposal, exhaust system, stove for cooking, even a shower, they had a library of books, comfortable bunks and an exercise program, the journey from the bunker to the surface could be made in an electric lift. 
Most people had embraced the new technological breakthrough using hydrogen power, but Walter had stubbornly stuck to old fashioned SOLAR ENERGY because he mistrusted HYDROGEN for it's ability to combine with radioactive substances, he knew that old fashioned almost unheard of morse code would be a reliable method of communication too, the laser guided radio wave transmissions would become unstable because of magnetic effects from atmospheric radiation. 
He'd been lucky the accident happened when his daughters were home, within minutes of the warning from his computers they'd been able to gain access to the bunker, warnings had come from their solar powered dishes which were linked to Walter's neuron net computers, the net  had told him  many satellites were exploding close to the atmosphere, 
Walter knew they only had minutes to get to safety, the domino effect would set off a terrible chain reaction. 
After gaining safe entry into the bunker they listened to broadcasts from all over the world in a tearfully stunned silence, they heard broadcasts made by people describing the last moments viewed by surveillance systems, it was almost more than they could stand, one after another the stations abruptly went off the air when their air conditioning became contaminated, then there was only silence. 
Now a few miles away was a chance of rescue, RESCUE TO WHERE? 

                                                               >>>