Return to Wardate (13 page)

‘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?’ Madeline 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.