Return to Wardate

by Bill Cornwell

  ‘Oh my God, Adam, sweetheart, what have they done to you?’

  Adam found it difficult to talk, he was uncontrollably shivering in the coldness of the cellar. Small cuts and bruises covered his body and he had a painful looking black eye.

  ‘The bastards, they’ll pay for this!’ said Madeline.

  She temporarily engaged explosive motion level 5 and pulled the links of the chain apart and then carried him up in to the warmth of the inn lounge. She then spent several minutes stripping everyone bare that she had previously stunned with her laser finger and presented the pile of clothes to her moaning, groaning Adam.

  ‘Take your pick.’

  He chose a pair of designer jeans, a Versace shirt, an Armani jacket and a very nice pair of snakeskin shoes which happened to be size nine – his size. The remainder of the clothes were tossed into the open roaring fire.

  ‘It was awful, worse than a nightmare. They were like a pack of vicious dogs, thumping and kicking me. They seemed to be worked up into a frenzy. I’ve never seen anything like it,’ said Adam.

  ‘You must have done something to upset them?’

  ‘All I said was that Bert looked a bit like James T Kirk from the star ship Enterprise. Admittedly I’d had a couple of pints. It’s these implants in my ears, you get confused as to what you should and shouldn’t say.’

  ‘Adam, my poor soul, what am I going to do with you? I must say you look quite sexy without hair. As you can see, I didn’t escape a little hostility.’

  Madeline tries her best to dust herself down. Her hair and special non-stick skin has repelled all traces of the dust but her jacket is now permanently fifty shades of grey. ‘Does add to the look though, don’t you think… Anyway, better get going, they’ll all be waking in a few minutes.’

  ‘You’re not going to like this, they took that £60,000 watch,’ said Adam.

  ‘Don’t worry, it was on Captain Kirks wrist. Couldn’t help but notice it when he was flying across the bar.’

  In record time they had packed and were screaming down the road in the Volvo. The Aston had served its purpose - Nuttall could pick it up at his convenience.

  Madeline chuckled, ‘He did look a bit like James T Kirk though, didn’t he?’

  ‘Some people are just too touchy,’ said Adam wincing slightly with his injuries.

  ‘I’m trying to think who you look like… That’s it! Kojak! These Americans get everywhere… Don’t worry sweetheart, it’ll grow,’ said Madeline still smiling.

  ‘Well you can add to my injuries, getting chafed in these tight jeans,’ complained Adam.

  ‘Sorry, all the underwear went on the fire - like to be a fly on the wall there now.’

  ‘Rather chafe, than wear second hand underwear, just pull up at the nearest underpant shop!’ said Adam.

  Strangely enough people were still going about their normal business. People still went shopping, still got parking fines, cued in the supermarkets, filled the buses, took their dogs for walks and chatted on the streets. As long as you didn’t mention anything about the USA, use American products and talk with an American accent, you didn’t get been beaten up, shaved and stamped on and generally people were nice and friendly.

  Whilst Adam was in Marks and Spencer’s in the underwear department, Madeline swiped the screen on her super new watch.

  ‘Nuttall, are you there? It’s Madeline.’

  A couple of minutes passed before there was a reply.

  ‘Hi Madeline, a bit crowded in the ‘V’ room, a one way trip, coming down here. Unfortunately, no progress in stopping the invasion, especially from down here. Made a bit of progress with the Wardate list, for some strange reason some five hundred of them are on their way to Jordan of all places – you getting anywhere?’

  ‘Don’t know yet – I’ll keep you informed,’ said Madeline confidently.

  Adam emerged from a changing room, chafe free.

  ‘Nuttall?’ said Adam whilst admiring himself in a mirror. ‘Quite like the bald look, goes with these designer clothes.’

  ‘Not really sure I do… What do you know about Jordan?’

  ‘Jordan? Not much, middle of the ancient world… why?’

  ‘All the residents of Wardate are apparently going there.’

  ‘I know it’s near to the Dead Sea,’ said Adam.

  ‘What’s special about the Dead Sea?’ asked Madeline.

  ‘Very salty.’

  ‘Salt… salt, I wonder if that’s it?

  ‘Lowest point on Earth, over four hundred metres below sea level, I believe.’

  ‘Wow,’ Madeline said with indifference.

  Little did they know but Adam had hit the nail on the head. All the residents of Wardate that weren’t otherwise involved in some heinous crime, were heading to the very lowest point on dry land. This had a significance which would be revealed in the fullness of time. Madeline moved on.

  ‘Barton have you got anywhere with the ear devices?’

  ‘Well yes, it appears that they’re just simple mechanical ultrasound filters. They don’t have a power supply or anything… should be quite easy to replicate, an ultrasound oscillator tuned to that frequency should have the same effect.

  ‘So you could make some more devices then?’ said Madeline lost in techno jabber.

  ‘I could do but it will take time. However as a temporary measure, all you have to do is download a suitable ultrasound App on your smart phone – that should work just the same.’

  ‘Wonderful can you find an app and let me know?’

  ‘Okay. Obviously it a theory and will need testing.’

  ‘No one better than me to do that.’

  By the time Adam had finished admiring himself in the mirror and chomped his way through a ham and egg baguette, Barton had found a suitable app. Madeline loaded it on her super new £60,000 satellite, smart phone, GPS watch and activated it.

  ‘Let’s go somewhere quiet,’ said Madeline.

  ‘Another cosy friendly pub?’ suggested Adam.

  Eventually they found a suitable pub. It was perfect - rough, rowdy and packed with questionable characters. If the app didn’t work Madeline would certainly be having fun with her laser finger. They found an empty table and sat down without a drink between them. Madeline activated the app and waited. No apparent noise came from her watch, she just assumed it was on and emitting the neutralising ultrasound wave. After five minutes it was time to be brave and say something nice about the USA.

  ‘I feel so sorry for the Americans, I do hope they don’t get hurt,’ said Madeline at the top of her voice.

  Adam ducked, cringed and then lowered himself under the table. No bullets, knives, chairs or fists flew across the room, no bad language came forth but all went very quiet.

  ‘Oh tits!’ screamed Adam from under the table. He tensed himself ready for the onslaught of beer glasses, chairs and anything else that could cause injury.

  ‘I do too,’ said a rather large butch woman.

  ‘And me!’ said another.

  And then a remarkable thing happened, they all started weeping inconsolably. Guilt was stinging them all deeply. What had they been thinking? How could they have possibly gone along with the insane madness? The wall Television was on and spouting out perpetual war chants in subtitles but the clientele were now horrified of what they all knew was about to happen.

  ‘We can’t allow this!’ shouted someone.

  ‘No! We have to stop it!’ shouted someone else.

  A rousing chant of ‘yes, yes’ filled the room. Of course, this was just a test so Madeline turned her app off. Within seconds everyone returned to their former state of loathing the Americans.

  ‘What did you say!?’ growled the large butch woman.

  ‘I said… I don’t feel sorry for the Americans, I do hope they get hurt,’ said Madeline as viciously as possible.

  ‘Good on yer, girl. Less of the ‘A’ word though eh?’

  ‘Nuttall… Nuttall, where are you?’ Madelin
e whispered into her remarkable watch.

  ‘I’m here… what’s up?’

  ‘Sending you details of a phone app… Get everyone to install it and tell them to keep it running. It should cancel out the ultrasonic effect within a fifty metre radius.’

  ‘Excellent, excellent, we can claim back the upstairs, getting a bit claustrophobic down here. How come you’ve found this out?’

  ‘Got some very clever friends,’ said Madeline proudly.

  Chapter 22: Fast food restaurants now open

  The app worked brilliantly. It was a straight forward matter of taking back control of Capesdown Hall. The in house boffins quickly got to work and piped ultrasound with a frequency of 25.35 kHz through the PA system.

  The next step was to share this knowledge with all the other government sites, departments and military bases. A few gun shots were fired in the process but on the whole, only a few were killed, the mission was successful.

  Unfortunately, as far as the British fleet was concerned, it was too late, they had already left shore. Several methods were tried to infiltrate the ships or fly close enough to transmit the neutralising ultrasound signal but all attempts failed. Any planes and helicopters flying nearby were misinterpreted as an enemy attack and indiscriminately shot out of the sky. The signal would not pass through the radio link they had with the ships or mobile phones.

  Time was running out, it was all down to one person now, one person alone who could perhaps save the world but her priority right now was to get a recharge and smarten her self up. Her leather jacket couldn’t cope with any more rough treatment although it was developing into a fashionable look.

  There was ever only one proper solution to end this awful affair - stop the brainwashing ultrasound signal at its source.

  Bit by bit, country by country and continent by continent the message got through about using the ultrasound blocking phone app. Slowly but surely people became sane again, sobbed a little and fast food restaurants started opening again. Unfortunately all the ships from all the counties were on their way and were beginning to converge in the Atlantic.

  The most tragic aspect of all this subliminal brainwashing was the effect it had on the target nation. The whole of the USA were hearing their version of this ultrasound which made them have an extremely low esteem of themselves. They felt unworthy of being attacked. Mass suicide was contemplated to save the fleet of ships going to the trouble of attacking them. Their economy had collapsed, birth rate had stalled and only repeats were now shown on TV. No one knew if they would actually fight back or just take it, after all, hardly anyone was now working for a living - most were off sick with severe depression.

  It was essential that the information about the phone app got through to them but all communication had been severed, all air travel had stopped and their internet had been purposely infected with a very serious, debilitating virus.

  There was only one way, someone had to go to America and tell them.

  Madeline had a new mission.

  Chapter 23: Parachute training

  Her mission: Get to the USA and introduce them to the neutralising ultrasound phone app – simple. It would however, take careful planning and training. A Typhoon two seater jet fighter would take her there. It couldn’t go the direct route to the USA – over the Pacific, because it would most likely be shot down in anger so it had to go the long way round. Several hops going eastwards, several refuelling stages and then she would be dropped as far over the North American continent as fuel would allow. Madeline would then be on her own in a land that hated themselves profusely.

  Madeline had never even seen a parachute up close before let alone wear one and obviously she had never been ejected out of a fighter jet either. Now she was about to do both - at the same time. If that wasn’t enough, then she had to land without smashing up her lovely new body on the hard earth below. She was assured that it was basically a breeze, she just had to let things happen. Madeline had a problem though, Poppy was terrified of heights.

  The training instructions were basic and written on a small piece of paper:

  1 Keep your arms in when been ejected

  2 Keep your legs bent when you land.

  Adam was jealous to death and couldn’t, for the life of him, understand why Madeline was like she was. What possible harm could come to her? After all, she was safely in a tank and her android body apparently, was indestructible. She knew all this – she knew she was secured in a tank firmly attached to the ground but somehow she would be up in the air too, supported only by a thin sheet of nylon… that was the worrying part. The whole system that she was a fundamental part of, was designed to convince Poppy that she was Madeline – inside Madeline, experiencing exactly what Madeline was experiencing – in ever respect she was absolutely convinced. If something did go wrong, her indestructible body may well cope with hitting the ground at 120 mph but her mind wouldn’t.

  One practice flight, that’s all she had time for. There was no use protesting, it was her job, period. She had to do it and do it well. Who’d ever heard of a British secret agent who couldn’t glide to earth on a parachute whilst having a gun fight, eating a banana sandwich and texting ‘M’ - all at the same time?

  For a start she didn’t like the pressure suit, it didn’t do justice to her size zero, one, two or three figure and the helmet would seriously mess her hair up. After all, she didn’t need to be pressurised or heated, she was an android but the ground crew didn’t know this. She didn’t need to be told about possibly suffering a spine fracture when the seat was ejected – her spine was apparently made of unbreakable chloro bromine but it was their job. The cockpit was certainly a snug fit even for Madeline’s shapely frame. She looked at the piece of paper again and again and again even though it only had two simple instructions on it. She was terrified. What if she wasn’t strapped in properly, they seemed to strap her in remarkably quickly, perhaps a resident of Wardate was one of the ground crew. She told herself not to be stupid, everything would be fine, ordinary people do this every day but she was anything but ordinary. Would her Madeline machine fail with the high G forces? Would her connection fail? These are things human beings don’t particularly worry about – on reflection, androids have their own particular weaknesses, she thought. However, now was not the time to doubt her brilliant scientist builders.

  She experienced the acceleration as the jet engines howled into operation. Her suit tightened, holding her in place. And then she was lying on her back, the sky in front of her with the clouds rapidly approaching. She screamed with delight, this beat… anything she had ever done and then, far too quickly, it was time.

  ‘Ready?’ said the pilot.

  He didn’t give time for a reply, her seat suddenly shot upwards and then the rockets fired. She imagined the pneumatics on her Poppy tank going to the extreme position to simulate the G force. The aircraft rapidly disappeared below her and the smallest of parachutes opened above her.

  ‘What the hell!? How’s that going to stop me?’ she screamed.

  She then proceeded to free fall trapped in her seat. She was terrified - convinced that she was going to splat on the ground below. After two minutes of screaming and swearing, a much larger parachute suddenly appeared above her and her seat instantly fell away. She rapidly slowed down. Then, suddenly, it was wonderful, brilliant and so peaceful – her perception changed in an instant, why hadn’t she done this before? Soon the ground approached, she remembered to bend her legs. It was far from a gentle landing but she was safely on the ground – she wanted to do it again.

  She didn’t have to wait long.

  She said goodbye to Adam, they kissed and hugged but they couldn’t say much, the scream of the jets warming up behind her would have drowned out any sloppy talk. She had no luggage or over night bag, an android didn’t need anything like that. The minimal amount of clothes underneath her flight suit would have to do for the duration of her mission. The only necessary items she had to have were, he
r universal a charging lead complete with the US mains plug and her credit card that seemed to have bottomless funds.

  Once again she was hurtling up towards the clouds. She had a total of six hours of flight to look forward to and three refuelling stops. She decided to make friends with the pilot.

  ‘Got your ear filters in?’ asked Madeline, making sure he was definitely on her side.

  ‘Naturally! Names Jack by the way,’ said the pilot.

  ‘Madeline… I’m an android… by the way.’

  ‘Apparently so, they say you’re a technical marvel.’

  ‘Probably even better than that!’

  ‘Technical marvel and modest.’

  ‘How long do the fuel-stops take?’

  ‘Twenty minutes max; no time to even go the loo!’

  ‘Wet pants then.’

  ‘Oh yes!’

  The route was more or less over the top of the world: Finland, Russia, Siberia, Alaska, Canada and as far as fuel would allow into the North American continent. Landing on US soil was considered too dangerous for several reasons but mainly because most landing strips were now cluttered with abandoned Aircrafts. Six hours passed relatively quickly, she gave herself a last minute charge with the onboard mains inverter, said goodbye to her new friend, Jack and braced herself.

  Chapter 24: Extreme G

  Yes of course the main parachute opened far too late and she forgot to bend her knees making holes in the earth when she landed but other than that she enjoyed the experience again. If it wasn’t for her super new £60,000 satellite, smart phone, GPS watch, she wouldn’t have had a clue where she was. She was two miles outside a town called Montevideo – she still hadn’t a clue where she was.