Return to Wardate

by Bill Cornwell

  The flying suit was discarded and the stunning Madeline look returned – a new short black leather jacket over a short red dress and high heeled leather boots. Consequently it wasn’t hard to hitch a lift; a tanker truck quickly came to a halt beside her.

  ‘Going far?’ asked Madeline.

  ‘Minneapolis,’ said the truck driver.

  ‘That’ll do fine,’ said Madeline, this was place she had heard of.

  Hitching a lift always has its dangers especially if you happened to have a deliberate promiscuous appearance – not that Madeline was in any sense ‘asking for it’, it was simply one of her tools / weapons that she used to her advantage. However she would be fairly insulted if he didn’t try something – but he didn’t. He explained that normally he would have rogered her senseless on the bunk bed behind him but he was so depressed he couldn’t even think about sex. He hated who he was, hated been American, hated his job – he wanted to end it all.

  ‘I’m going to help you,’ said Madeline. ‘But it will only be temporary.’

  The driver couldn’t possibly imagine how a road hooker could help him so he ignored her and carried on driving. Madeline ran the app on her super £60,000 phone watch and then had a snack, not that you would know. Been thrown around in a fast fighter jet and then thrown out of same fast fighter jet had made her a little queasy. However, now her appetite had returned with vengeance. Hot thick minestrone soup, followed by strawberry yoghurt, sucked up a tube, filled a hole in Poppy’s tummy.

  The first indication that the phone app was working was his huge hairy hand on her silky smooth shapely thigh. Naturally Madeline removed it. The driver then brought the truck to a halt, operated the door locks and started to take his trousers off.

  Oops, perhaps helping him wasn’t such a good idea, thought Madeline.

  Farting on the driver and pushing him out on to the highway was the easy bit, the hard bit was driving the forty ton truck. How hard could it be, there are woman truck drivers all over the world, she thought. All the controls were in the same place as a car so she drove it like a… Volvo. The kangarooing eventually subsided after about two miles and then it was easy, peasy, providing she didn’t have to stop, change gear, slow down, reverse or go around corners.

  It was a shock, no other word for it, as she entered the outskirts of Minneapolis - the area was trashed, shops ransacked, cars burnt out and boarded up houses. Madeline slowed the truck down to have a closer look. Further down the road a gang of wild, frenzied men pelted the truck with bricks and stones, inevitably smashing the windscreen. Then they tried to jump aboard and open the doors. Madeline, despite her many advantages was terrified. She simply couldn’t understand it. By all accounts the brainwashing effect had made people meek and despondent, not violent and feral. Her only conclusion was that it was the anti-Americanism faction - certain citizens of the USA who hated the way of their country long before Mark Titoo came along with his brainwashing. Perhaps the brainwashing had produced a cumulative effect and turned these people into possessed fanatics. Soon the truck could go no further due to an array of abandoned vehicles – she pressed the brake pedal and juddered to a halt. No problem, she could run the rest of the way in explosive motion, surely the centre of the city was free from these mad men.

  This was, of course, wishful thinking. Ahead of her, the way was barricaded with a line of vans, buses and trucks - its purpose, either to keep these mad men out of the city or to keep the despondent ones in. Which ever it was it didn’t matter to Madeline, she was trapped and quickly surrounded by several wild maniacs. Her laser on stun would resolve the problem. She casually rubbed her thumb and forefinger together to prime her weapon. She tried again – and again – no response. Her system had gone down.

  ‘Shit!’ she cried. ‘Barton, are you there? I can’t operate my menus - I can’t activate my weaponry. Got any ideas?’

  ‘Thought you got of lightly with the extreme ‘G’s you pulled up there. Your onboard processor must have crashed. There’s nothing I can do from here. Your system should reboot eventually,’ said Barton.

  ‘Right… thanks. I’ll have to do it the hard way.’

  ‘Well, well, what have we here? …Get her!’ said the leader of the mad men.

  She could have easily fought them off with her explosive motion or laser finger, causing some nasty injuries in the process but her system was protesting against the recent rough treatment. However she was pretty much indestructible, what harm could come of her? She was curious as to their intentions so she decided to let things develop. One of them frisked her – several times and then another frisked her, and then another. All they found was a harmless charging lead. Whilst they were developing erections, Madeline activated the app on her super £60,000 watch – at least that still worked.

  ‘Boys, boys, you’ll get my dress all creased,’ said Madeline casually.

  ‘Put her with the rest!’ said the leader... ‘Wait!’

  The leader of the lunatics had spotted her watch, he had no idea that it was apparently a £60,000 satellite, smart phone, GPS watch, he just like the look of it.

  ‘I’ll have that!’ said the leader as he took it off her wrist.

  She was thrown in to a room with several other men, women all huddled together, hungry, frightened and above all, despondent. She sat amongst them, asked them who they were and how long they’d been there mainly to put them at ease – no other reason.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be out of here in a minute,’ reassured Madeline.

  ‘How do you know?’ asked one of the women.

  ‘They stole my wrist watch.’

  Naturally they thought, ‘another mad woman, that’s all we need’.

  ‘Anybody got a smart phone?’ asked Madeline.

  ‘Yes but the batteries flat,’ said one of the men.

  ‘No problem, I always carry a charging lead with me.’

  It wasn’t, strictly speaking, for charging mobile phones, more for charging androids but it could be adapted – her USB port would easily charge a mobile phone in minutes. Naturally, plugging a charging lead into her big toe raised a few eyebrows but they were far too depressed to quiz her about it. She downloaded the ultrasound app on the phone and ran the program. A few minutes later, one by one, they all came out of the trance that they didn’t realise they were in.

  ‘Oh my God, what the hell is happening to us?’ cried one of the women.

  Madeline had just enough time to tell them all about Mark Titoo and his anti-American brainwashing ultrasound before the leader of the mad men walked in.

  ‘You’re going to find this really strange but suddenly we don’t know why we’ve done this to you,’ said the leader.

  One by one his men walked in, tail between their legs, looking ashamed of what they had been doing. They apologised and the others all forgave them. Madeline let them have a few minutes hugging, shaking hands and chatting but time was pressing.

  ‘Okay, okay, you can do all this later. You may not have realised it but there is a serious problem looming ever closer off the east coast,’ said Madeline.

  ‘Oh my God, it wasn’t a dream then, we are going to be invaded,’ said one of the women.

  ‘I suppose I better introduce myself, I’m Madeline Bull, British agent MI 7.’‘No such thing,’ said one of the previously captured men.

  Madeline ignored him.

  ‘You’ve all be brainwashed by ultrasound, in fact at this moment in time, much of the world is being brainwashed to hate you, that’s why you are been invaded. There is an app running on this smart phone… and this…’

  Madeline angrily snatches the super $100,000 watch back off the wrist of the leader.

  ‘…watch, that inhibits the signal.’

  ‘You expect us to believe that cock and bull story?’ said another of the previously captured men.

  ‘It’s up to you what you believe but you are about to be invaded, that’s a fact.’

  She could have also have told them th
at she was also an android, one of the most sophisticated machines on the plant but she thought best not to for the moment, especially as she was waiting for her system to reboot.

  ‘Seems strange that the British government have sent just one female agent to solve all our problems? Bit of a tall order for you?’ queried the former madmen leader. He was right, it was a tall order for one mere human but she wasn’t a mere human at all.

  ‘I’m Alfonsino by the way, call me Alf,’ said the leader.

  Madeline activated her watch.

  ‘Nuttall, are you there?

  Everyone remained silent and let her speak.

  ‘Madeline, how are you progressing?’ asked Nuttall.

  ‘Have a group of people here free from the effects. I’m sure they’ll do their best to spread the word. How long have we got before the invasion?’

  ‘Eleven days before they reach the east coast. Did you land as planned – near Minneapolis?’

  ‘Not exactly, I’m on the outskirts of the city now. Have you got any agents here?’

  ‘Hang on… Bream, Gemma Bream, was one of MI 6’s best, I’ll text you her address.’

  ‘How’s Adam?’

  ‘Don’t know, haven’t seen him since you left... We’re homing in on Mark Titoo – The name Titoo is apparently of Russian origin. ’

  ‘Okay, let me know if you hear from Adam.’

  They all listened intently to the conversation over the super £60,000 GPS, satellite, smart phone watch.

  ‘Who’s Adam?’ asked Alf inquisitively.

  ‘My boyfriend,’ said Madeline with conviction.

  They all nodded approvingly, this proved that she was a caring person despite having the renowned reputation of a ruthless British secret agent – how little they knew. Madeline continued on regardless.

  ‘The app is effective for about a 50 metre… yard radius. If the app stops for any reason, flat battery etc, in under a minute you will be under the influence again. Somehow in the next eleven days the whole of the USA has to be ready for the invasion and that means as many people as possible being free from the brainwashing. I know it’s one hell of a task but we have to start somewhere,’ said Madeline prudently.

  ‘How long does is it before the app takes effect?’ asked another man.

  ‘Up to five minutes depending on people’s susceptibility.’

  ‘Okay everybody you know what we have to do… Mingle, spread out and spread the word,’ said Alf.

  It was a start, a small start - the first seed had been sewn but this was merely a drop in the ocean. Finding Gemma Bream was Madeline’s next move.

  ‘Does anyone know County Road in Roseville?’ asked Madeline.

  ‘I’ll take you there,’ said Alf.

  He had a minibus parked just around the corner away form the barricade. Alf seemed a pleasant chap, hard to believe that not so long ago he was behaving like a thug. All it had taken to alter his frame of mind was running a simple app on her super duper watch. Madeline happened to glance at the watch, she stroked the screen to wake it up, it was on the home screen. That’s strange, she thought, surely if the app is running it shouldn’t be on the home screen? She had another glance at her watch – no the app had been turned off. Anyway, no matter, clearly the app running on Alf’s smart phone was now blocking the ultrasound noise instead. They chatted, perhaps flirted, he was a good looking man and she, as we know, was gorgeous. What harm was there in a little flattery from both sides. Madeline was intrigued as to why the ultrasound had made him behave differently from the rest, turning him into a feral lunatic instead of being depressed and despondent.

  ‘I take it, you’ve got issues with your country?’ asked Madeline.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ asked Alf.

  ‘Well, with the brainwashing, you didn’t become downhearted like the rest, you became wild and aggressive.

  ‘Perhaps I have a stronger disposition - perhaps it was my subconscious’s way of fighting the brainwashing.’

  ‘Perhaps so,’ said Madeline doubtfully.

  They drove for about half a mile - that was all.

  ‘This is the Roseville district, we’ll walk the rest of the way,’ said Alf.

  ‘Really, so soon? That didn’t take long,’ mildly protested Madeline.

  She couldn’t really see why he couldn’t drive right up to the door. Anyway, it was a nice day - she hadn’t really noticed the weather until now. It was far better than back in England, it was hot, she could tell this by what people were wearing. It was sun shining, she could tell this because the sky was blue and not grey and it certainly wasn’t raining, she could tell this by the lack of puddles and brollies.

  ‘County road is just up here,’ said Alf.

  Madeline’s relaxed demeanour was suddenly disturbed with the sound of a woman screaming ahead of her. Her highly sensitive hearing could hear her being assaulted. She and Alf ran to the source of the distressing sound, it was coming from a basement room under a boarded up shop. Madeline rushed in first.

  The darkened room was empty except for a loudspeaker on the floor playing a recorded sound of a woman in distress. Before Madeline realised what was happening the door slammed shut. The door happened to be a reinforced heavy steel door.

  ‘Alf? What are you doing?’ shouted Madeline.

  ‘Complete your mission now, if you can,’ shouted Alf from the other side of the heavy door.

  She was well and truly pissed off. It was a trap and she had fallen for it, hook line and sinker. The barricade, the ransacked shops, burnt out cars, boarded up houses and the unfortunate hostages, all for effect. It was all an elaborate convincer and just for her. Alf and his men had never been under the influence of the ultrasound, they had all played their parts so well. The app on her super watch, as she had noticed, was turned off. Only one possible explanation, they must have been wearing the ear devices supplied by Mark Titoo presumably. The conclusion to all this was that there was still an infiltrator working with Nuttall who had leaked the details of Madeline’s destination and time of her arrival.

  The up shot of all these facts - Alf and his men knew all the time, that she was an android.

  The elaborate plan had worked, they had trapped a super strong, super cunning android equipped with a host of lethal weapons and potent flatulence - and there were no casualties.

  To find a suitable place that was in effect a fortified dungeon must have been no mean feat. The door was heavy, solid and made of thick steel. The walls were solid concrete and the ceiling consisted of steel joists with concrete beams between. To make matters worse, she was in total darkness and her super £60,000 watch couldn’t get a signal.

  However, all this fortification was superfluous. Being unable to access her weaponry, in particular her explosive motion, a rabbit hutch would have held her. She thumped the door and the walls until eventually her finger bones broke through her nanotube technology skin. Nothing gave way or even buckled, she was well and truly trapped. She sat down on the floor, next to the wall and held her head in her grazed hands. Madeline Bull, the best hope the world had been so easily defeated. She was clearly no match for Titoo, he had eyes and ears everywhere. He wasn’t a ‘state of the art’ indestructible machine with an abundance of weaponry but he had beaten her without really trying. He had done this whilst also finding time to brainwash the whole of the human race. He was, well and truly a formidable foe.

  ‘Madeline, don’t take this to heart.’ Barton’s voice came through here audio.

  ‘Good old Barton, I tend to forget your there. A bit of a joke, aren’t I?’

  ‘Rubbish! Let me tell you about a young lady I once knew. She was beautiful, vivacious and had everything she could possibly ever want. Then one day through no fault of her own everything was taken from her. No one would have blamed her for an instant if she had conceded there and then and given up on life… but she didn’t. She was uniquely special - an amazing person. Her inner strength was unparalleled and boundless, that’s why
we chose her for our remarkable project. I turns out that it was the best decision I could ever have made...

  Of course you’re going to have your downs as well as ups, that’s life but you will get through this because you will always triumph over evil. You are Madeline Bull, never forget that…’

  ‘Thanks Barton, you’re a treasure. So much at stake though, so little time. I feel so unprofessional. Old Poppy is still there and I can’t shake her off.’

  ‘She is and will always be your greatest asset, dismiss her and Madeline is nothing… Now hang tight, may take me a while but I’ll get help. By the way, your system has rebooted, you should be able to access your system now.’

  ‘Okay… thanks,’ said Madeline somberly.

  She turned her explosive motion up to maximum, pondered for a moment and then turned it back down to normal - level 1. The skin on her hands was already severely grazed, she certainly didn’t want to make matters worse and damage her weapons, most of which happened to be in the ends of her fingers. She decided to journey inwards and watch the entire box set, series 1 to 8 of Hustle – it would pass the time away.

  Fifty hours later and three quarters of the way through episode three, series seven, there was a bang on the door.

  ‘Move away from the door and protect your ears!’ a muffled shout came from the other side of the heavy steel door.

  Madeline thought the voice sounded vaguely familiar although through two inches of steel, it could have been anyone’s. She moved to the far side of the room, she had no reason to disobey the command. After a few seconds, she heard the sound of a small two stroke engine fire up and stall and fire up again and stall and fire up again and stall. Then she heard a few muffled swear words and finally the engine fired up and kept running. The next thing she heard was the sound of grinding against the steel of the door. The grinding continued for at least ten minutes until finally the door swung open and light teemed in, momentarily dazzling Madeline’s optics. A silhouetted figure stood in the doorway. Madeline’s mind played cruel tricks on her, it looked like the silhouette of the one she most want to be standing there but that was impossible, he was on the other side of the earth.