‘Get yourself plugged in quickly!’ yelled Barton.
She did as she was told. She found the charging lead in the back pack of her thermal suit, plugged one end in her navel and the other end in a conveniently placed power socket.
‘The heat has expanded the remaining liquid hydrogen in your fuel cell tank,’ explained Barton.
‘With you… like eking out the last bit of deodorant from the can by warming it up. Thanks Pops.’
She had a good twenty minutes of charge before she heard the men noisily returning. She unplugged and hid her charging lead and feigned being dead again. The door burst open and four fairly inebriated, sex starved Neanderthals rushed in. Within seconds, all four had their trousers and underpants down to their ankles.
‘Me first!’
‘Fuck off!’
‘I’m the leader, me first!’
‘Piss off… me first
‘We’ll toss for it!’
‘We can go in, two at a time.’
‘Now that… is going too far!’ said Madeline springing to life.
‘Holly shit!’
‘Is that supposed to be a euphemism,’ asked Madeline.
Her laser would use a lot of her energy up but a little flatulence would use almost none at all. After an almighty fart, all four were unconscious on the warm floor with, for some reason, an intense sardonic grin on their faces. She put her thermal suit back on and left the four sleeping men, locked in the boiler room.
Down the short corridor she soon found what presumably passed as the control centre. The console in the centre of the room was very much like you would find in a mixing studio. She sat down on the swivel chair in front of it and attached herself to another handy power socket. The panel had a count down timer at the top reading 11 hours, 15 minutes and 6 seconds decreasing a second at a time. From a rough guess it appeared that each horn outside surrounding the base had a corresponding slider, she slid the first one upwards. Out of a monitor came a foreign language, perhaps Mandarin. The next slider produced another foreign language, distinctly German, then another, probably Japanese and another, Russian. The sixth slider produced a familiar language – English.
‘Hate USA, Despise North American’s. Mark Titoo.’ The message then repeated in other languages, probably Polish, Welsh and then Urdu. The loop then repeated. Below each slider were two LCD displays: the first, direction and the second, elevation. Some sliders had the same direction but different elevations. The sixth slider - English – shared the same direction as the eighth slider which produced Spanish through the monitor. Clearly a lot of thought had gone in to the arrangement of the horns to cover virtually all the earth’s surface and transmit the appropriate language. From the fourteenth slider, an English message came through the monitor again but this time America English. The message was different this time.
‘You have no friends, you are pathetic. Poppy Cock.’
Madeline was stunned and shocked; she immediately pushed herself away from the console. Why was her alias name on the end of the American message? Then she unfavourably realised that poppycock also meant rubbish or garbage. She moved back to the console.
Of course there was an off switch, there usually is - a large red button just below the count down timer. Eventually, after Madeline had a little play with the other controls, she pressed it.
Chapter 32: Warhead on its way
That was it then. The transmitters were off. The anti-American brainwashing was over, mission accomplished – if only the top brass American’s in the Situation room knew this.
‘President Sir, we can’t afford to wait any longer, the fleet will be at our door in two days. One melted icecap is better than World War III.’ said the defence Secretary.
‘Bring me the brief case,’ said the President.
He positioned himself at a table with the opened brief case before him. Part of it was hinged upwards containing the device for his retinal scan. This moment was never meant to happen. It was always a last resort to use the briefcase, the mere presence of it was uncomfortable and wholly disturbing. The circuitry in the briefcase accepted the President’s retinal scan. All that was left was to program in the target and the job was done.
‘Missile launched Sir!’ shouted an officer called Spratt.
‘God help us all,’ said the President.
The nuclear missile would take just under fifty minutes to complete the three thousand mile journey. There was little doubt that it would be effective. The Antarctica base would be wiped off the face of the earth along with Madeline who had absolutely no idea that it was on its way.
By now the whole world had completely recovered from the anti-USA brainwashing signal. This had many effects, above all, complete astonishment at what was about to happen – the invasion. The whole fleet of war ships cut their engines and dropped anchor, awaiting further instructions. What the hell were they doing? They liked… no, loved the Americans. They loved fast food, the Internet, Ebay, Face Book and their iphones, ipads and ipods. They loved the Simpsons, Star Trek and Friends. It was a wonderful country with Disney world, Las Vegas and New York New York. Were they mad attacking dear beautiful America?? The TV news channels deeply analysed their states of minds with countless psychoanalysts, physiatrists and physiotherapists. It was pointless, no one could explain their previous hatred. The Americans also now felt good about themselves, once again they felt superior, confident and self righteous. The world was back to how it used to be but with far more love and happiness about.
There was a mystery however. Many non-American nations had now detected a missile heading southwards, apparently on route towards Antarctica. Several leaders attempted to ring the American President to ask what they were doing but he was too busy watching the nuclear missile.
Barton saw the news reports in the back of his shop in Buxton. It was a regular thing to watch the news instead of Madeline’s eye view.
‘Madeline, I don’t want to panic you but there appears to be a nuclear warhead heading in your direction.’
‘What? You’re kidding? Haven’t they noticed that the ultrasound has stopped?’
‘Obviously not – too busy watching the missile.’
‘They said they wouldn’t bomb the base because of melting the icecap… how long?’
‘I would estimate about twenty minutes at the most.’
As she couldn’t contact the Situation room, there was only one way out of this – she had to complete the mission – she had to blow up the fuel tanks. She searched her little rucksack for the explosives – they weren’t there. There was only one place they could possibly be, in the snow outside. Hopefully she had enough charge – 29%, it would have to do.
She zipped up her skin tight thermal suit up to her neck and put her thermal cap on. Obviously androids don’t feel the cold but Poppy did. Physiologically the cold passed through the air waves and straight into her tank. The immediate temperature drop from inside to outside, was a mere 90 degrees, her frame creaked with the sudden contraction. She thought about the sudden temperature drop cracking her beautiful artificial skin, wrinkle it even, which would make her look old. An aging android was something that had she had never considered before. She assumed that Madeline Bull would just never age – she would have the Dorian Grey complex. Herself, Poppy, would of course steadily age in the tank but of course this process would always be conveniently hidden. She had noticed Adam develop a few grey hairs and wrinkles around his eyes over the past year. Whether it was stress or just general aging, Adam was clearly moving on as nature intended – Madeline was not. The upshot of this train of thought - Perhaps it would be a good thing to age just a little bit.
The cold and stress of the situation was making her thoughts ramble.
The snow was drifting considerably in the strong harsh winds. Ideally she needed a sniffer dog to find the explosives but all she had was a broom handle she happened to find near the doorway. After five minutes of prodding, she finally hit something solid
two foot down. She dug with her hand and there they were – two small Mars bar sized explosive devices.
‘How long now?’
‘Ten minutes, I reckon,’ said Barton.
One of the explosive devices was placed under the first fuel tank and set to two minute. The second bar of explosive she placed under the other fuel tank and set to one minute. With hindsight these times were a little tight. She had now less than one minute to get out of the blast range. Normally this would not be a problem but explosive motion wouldn’t engage.
‘Barton!’ she yelled, ‘I can’t engage explosive motion.’
‘Your hands must be too cold for the sensors to work.’
There was nothing else for it, she had to run as fast as she could, which in the deep soft snow wasn’t very fast at all. Ten seconds to go and she was only thirty metres from either tank. Five seconds and she was thirty five metres away.
‘Bury yourself in the snow,’ shouted Barton.
She just had enough time to leap into the snow and shuffle in before the first blast and then immediately the second blast tore into the white frozen ground.
For such small amounts of explosive, the blasts were off the scale. There was a simple reason for this; the fuel tanks were filled with pure alcohol which impressively played their part in the explosion. The blasts flattened the base buildings and created two enormous craters where the tanks used to be. Madeline was not particularly injured but the explosions had ripped the thermal suit off her back. If she was human she’d certainly be dead now, joining the four oversexed, inebriated men that used to inhabit the base. Fortunately she wasn’t human but with a bare back in minus 70 degrees, her energy reserves would very soon be depleted again.
The blast could be seen from space, perhaps from the moon but not yet by the occupants of the Situation room – and now there was only four minutes before impact.
In fact it was only when the missile was two minutes from target that someone decided to glance at ground zero.
‘What the…? The base has gone Sir!’
‘Make sense Spratt! What do you mean, the base has gone?’
‘Blown up sir! Madeline must have been successful – exploded the fuel tanks.’
‘Send the DAL code!’ shouted the defence secretary.
‘It’s passed the apogee Sir, it’s in the atmosphere!’
‘Just do it!’
Madeline lay in the snow and watched the missile explode several miles above her. Her optics momentarily overexposed with the flash. A few seconds later her hearing overloaded with the boom.
Chapter 33: A load of lies
Madeline was an android so her situation would have to keep. Things had to be done: Alliances to be healed and war ships to be recalled. The world had been shaken up and a war to end all wars had nearly started. Eventually the one who had actually saved the world from this catastrophe would, of course, be attended to but surely she wouldn’t mind hanging on for a short while, after all, it’s not as if she had a soul or anything…
Bastards! She thought as she worked her way through the entire Prisoner Cell Block H box set.
Actually, to some extent, the weather hampered a rescue. With gales and unusually low temperatures, an air landing was out of the question – poor Madeline. It was three days before the winds had subsided and a specially adapted helicopter landed near to the destroyed base. Madeline was now buried under two feet of snow and as her power reserves had expired nearly three days ago, she couldn’t make herself known to her rescuers. Fortunately one of the rescuers found the broom handle. It had survived the blasts proving that you can’t beat nature’s own materials for strength and durability. They had no idea where she was so they started out at ground zero and worked outwards. As the rescue team only amounted to three it took several hours before they reached the thirty metre mark. Naturally they didn’t find her and continued right on to about a hundred metres. They almost gave up at this point but after a few sandwiches and a few hot cocoas back at the helicopter they decided to try again. This time someone had an idea of using a metal detector. This was much more effective than the wooden broom handle and after only another two hours, they found her. She was frozen but not stiff or blue because she was made of strange metals and plastics – certainly not flesh. She was, of course, dead, no heart beat and not breathing but this didn’t seem to bother the rescue team. Within minutes, the helicopter was back in the air, now with a valuable but dead cargo. They had instructions:
‘We have to plug her in!’ yelled one of the rescuers above the engine noise.
‘Plug her in what?!’ yelled the other rescuer.
‘The mains inverter!’
‘And the other end?!’
‘Hang on…’ he read the instructions, ‘In her naval!’
‘You’ve got to be joking!’
But he wasn’t, this was indeed something that one day they would tell their grandchildren – how they rescued the one who saved the planet and then plugged her into the mains.
It took an hour and a half before her system rebooted and her heating system warmed her up to optimum operating temperature. Now she wasn’t dead, just snoring. This time Madeline refused to wake up until she had finished watching a particular episode of Cell Block H. The helicopter was only a few minutes off landing before she sprung to life and demanded a mirror.
‘You didn’t warm me up too quickly!?’ she panicked.
‘No, don’t think so,’ said the rescuer.
‘Err… good,’ she examined her face in a small rectangular mirror. There didn’t seem to be any wrinkles worth talking about. She hadn’t aged! She took the little jamming device out of her pocket - the little green light had gone out.
‘You haven’t got an A23 battery, have you?’ she asked.
‘No, don’t know what one of those is,’ said the rescuer.
‘My Adam does,’ she said quietly. ‘Well don’t say anything or let me see anything of a sensitive nature. I’m bugged – in fact it might be a good idea to put a bag over my head.’
‘Will do miss.’
As it happened, she was being taken directly to the Situation room of the White House. All but the President were still there, now looking tired and unlike Madeline, definitely older. She was escorted in, still with a bag over her head.
‘Can someone please get me an A23 battery so I can take this stupid bag off my head!’ shouted Madeline angrily.
Eventually some junior clerk returned from a hardware shop with a small 12 volt battery. The same clerk fitted the jamming device with the battery. Finally the green light came on.
‘Is it set on sweep,’ asked Madeline impatiently.
‘Yes,’ said the junior clerk.’
‘Thank God for that,’ said Madeline as she removed the bag from her head.
‘Job well done,’ said the vice President.
‘Didn’t rush then?’ Madeline discretely pointed out her tardy rescue.
‘We couldn’t come any sooner, the storm prevented any landing,’ said a General.
‘Have you got in touch with the British government? Have they arrested Nuttall yet?’
‘Capesdown hall you said.’
‘Yes, Capesdown hall,’
‘Apparently it’s an old folk’s home. No technology what-so-ever and certainly no Nuttall.’
‘Did they search the right Capesdown Hall?’ said Madeline frustratedly.
‘Chair-shy-re?’ said the Vice President.
‘Cheshire, it’s pronounced. How the hell have they covered everything up so bloody quickly? There was a high tech lab where they even rebuilt me there… and the ‘V’ room. Surely that’s still there?’ said Madeline.
‘They found a basement room – completely empty.’
Time stood still whilst Madeline thought about certain things…
Nuttall was getting very good at this. His lying had become compulsive. MI 7 was a lie, the $100,000 watch was a lie, torturing Adam was a lie, which was a good thing… and now Ca
pesdown hall was mostly a lie. They had certainly meddled significantly with her body but ‘upgrade’? The Chloro Bromine for her bones and the carbon nanotube for her skin, was that bullshit too? She remembered thinking at the time that considering she had a completely rebuilt body, she felt no different and looked no different. However she had repelled quite a few bullets over the last week or so and they did spend several days doing something to her and it wasn’t just installing a satellite phone in her head – time started moving again.
During the time that time had stood still, an anomaly within an anomaly, the President had somehow managed to enter the room.
‘So that’s it… You’ve saved the day – the world. Well done Madeline,’ said the President.
‘You think so? Something’s not right. It’s been too easy. Such a colossally elaborate and intricate plan but so easily thwarted?’
‘Easily for you, not for mere mortals.’
There’s something else going on here, there has to be… and I’ve got a feeling I’m at the heart of it. Have you still got the HDU4 facilities up and running at Bangor… Maine?’ asked Madeline.
‘HDU4? Never heard of it,’ said the vice President.
‘Err, yes we have,’ interrupted the defence secretary.
‘A need to know basis,’ said the President.
‘Well maybe I should damn well know about it!’ boomed the vice President.
The HDU4’s were the American version of a Madeline Bull and except for a few minor differences: being male, being evil and being completely automanous, they were sort of similar. One significant difference though, there were thousands of HDU4’s but only ever one Madeline Bull. Naturally Madeline defeated them with the help of a few scientists and her USB toe - they all ended up in a crusher.
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