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‘And what if I
say no?’ asked Madeline delicately.

‘
You’ll
go.’

Nuttall said no
more than that.

Of course she’d
go, she wanted to know - she needed to know what all the crazy
events that had happened over the last few weeks were leading up
to. Nuttall didn’t have to threaten her anymore, he knew her
curiously would do the rest. Now, however there was a difference;
with no hold over her, if at any point Madeline was unhappy about
anything, she would just refuse to do it.

Apparently her
next mission was going to be the mission of all missions. She
wondered what could possibly top almost starting World War 3,
emptying Fort Knox and corrupting major league baseball. For some
obscure reason, most of the people in the world now had had their
subconsciouses conditionally programmed – what was the true reason
for that? Surely not just for the occasional billion dollar robbery
and causing mayhem in sporting circles. What ever it was,
everything was about to culminate somewhere in Ecuador.

It was a bit of
a mystery exactly how Nuttall could just lay on a fighter jet,
complete with pilot at a drop of a hat - and how he managed to have
permission granted to fly over certain air spaces.

The jet was
waiting with its engines warmed up and screaming on an isolated
airstrip within a forest. Madeline wasn’t particularly late, no
more than half an hour. After all, she had to get dressed, checkout
of her hotel, buy a new set of colour coordinated thermals, put
fuel in the van and then find the airstrip – which wasn’t the
easiest place to find. She was really pleased that she had done all
that in two and a half hours but the ground grew of one, was not.
He threw the flight suit at her.

‘Put that on!’
he yelled, angrily in some foreign language.

The anger
didn’t last long though. Madeline had to strip down to her
underwear but being in such a rush, she had forgotten to put any
on.

‘Knew there was
something I forgot to do,’ she said nonchalantly.

Her colour
coordinated thermals, dark puce and light puce, went on first. They
were tight fitting and revealed her incredible figure even more so
than being naked. And then she put her flight suit on which, even
though several sizes too big, somehow still didn’t disappoint.

The ground crew
of one had transformed from being a bad tempered bossy boots into a
lecherous, overly tactile octopus as he helped her into the
cockpit.

The three
thousand mile flight gave her plenty of time to charge herself up,
watch an in-flight movie and have her breakfast. True, it was the
afternoon now, but with all the goings on, she had entirely
forgotten to eat. This is surprisingly easy to do when you are an
android and the only means of eating and drinking is through a
narrow tube.

Five hours
later and with almost no warning, the Perspex roof slid open, the
jet flew upside down and Madeline literally fell out. |Ejector
seats were, after all, very expensive - this was a much cheaper
option.

This was the
third time she had been dropped or thrown out of a speeding jet
plane and for an almost indestructible android it was becoming
run-of-the-mill. Exactly where she was going to land – fall - drop
was a complete mystery, the only clue for now was a large mountain
far below her. It was a gently landing mainly because she fell in
soft snow. She quickly discarded her chute and then removed her
flight suit. It was cold, not Antarctica cold but considering the
closeness to the equator it certainly wasn’t what she expected so
she put her flight suit back on.

‘
Landed
then?
’ said Nuttall through her internal audio.

‘Where the hell
am I?’

‘
Near Mount
Chimborazo.
’

‘Mount
what?’

‘
Chimborazo
- the highest point on Earth.’

‘I thought that
was Everest?’

‘
No, Earth’s
an oblate spheroid, the equator bulges.’

‘Earth has
eight haemorrhoids and four bulges?’

The connection
was breaking up.

‘
Never mind,
just make your way to the summit – can’t miss it!’

‘Why? What do I
do up there? Fly a kite?’ Madeline had every right to ask these
questions even though she knew she wasn’t going to get a just
reply.

Despite the
extreme adeptness of the pilot, she had landed a good four miles
from the summit. This was not four miles of gentle meandering
pathway but four miles horizontally and three miles vertically over
ice, snow and rock shale. She was in no hurry so explosive motion
was not engaged. The views were staggering, she enjoyed the stroll.
She wondered what she could possibly do that surpassed everything
else, at the highest point one Earth – if indeed it was. She still
maintained that Mount Everest was higher. Surely she would have
heard of Mount Chimborazo if it was the highest mountain - she
would have been taught it at school.

Slowly and
gradually as she climbed, the sky became brighter, the snow
therefore became brighter; her optics were finding it difficult to
cope with the glare. Sunglasses were never thought necessary for an
android, besides, hiding her gorgeous eyes would be such a
waste.

Finally after
two hours, the clouds parted and the summit came clearly into view,
only a mile or so now but this was mostly vertical. Her power
reserves were holding up surprisingly well, mainly because she
hadn’t used explosive motion. A good lesson had been learnt here –
use less power and get more MPG.

She sat for a
while and soaked up the view, it was the ultimate in meditation,
still, silent and euphoric. It was a while she had felt like this,
it was almost as if she was on drugs – natures own drugs and more
addictive than live itself.

She raced the
final stretch, she was eager to get to the summit – what was there?
What awaited her? What vast eternal plan was Nuttall up to?

The sky was
extraordinarily bright, too bright to directly look at so she
looked down. She was truly on top of the world, higher than any
other human being – but she wasn’t human, she would let that small
detail pass. She braved a glance at the sky, it was overly bright.
She was convinced she could see faces in the brightness – more than
faces, shapes of people leaning towards her - their white clothes
blending in with the brightness of the sky. The people were
beckoning her, she felt herself being drawn to them. It was a place
not like any other place she had ever been, glorious, exhilarating
and tangibly joyous. And then it started.

Her mouth
opened as it had done before: at fort Knox immediately before the
gold heists and at the Great American Ballpark. An ultrasound sound
blasted out from within her with the output power of a ‘Guns and
Roses’ concert - many magnitudes more powerful than ever before.
The immense power drain affected her whole system interfering with
all her senses. Despite the sound being well beyond her hearing
range, she could hear harmonics of the message: POPPY COCK… POPPY
COCK… POPPY COCK….

It was her
name, no one else’s. The powerful inaudible sound had a dramatic
effect. The ultrasound bounced off the brilliant white sky and
radiated out and down in all directions. Virtually everyone in the
world heard it, they all stopped what they were doing, stopped
driving, stood still in the streets, woke up from their dreams,
left their desks, stopped shopping, drinking, making love, playing
football and looked up at the sky. The only ones to escape the
calling were people who were at least 1000 feet below sea level -
they either had to be in a submarine
or near the Dead Sea
.
All over the world people stood like statues and began to chant in
unison – POPPY COCK in their own tongue. Poppy Cock happened to be
the same - Poppy Cock, in many other languages but there were
exceptions: Poppy Hanh
in German
, Poppy Cazzo
in
Italian
, Inso GeeBa
in Chinese
, Hash Hash Gorgika
in
Turkish
and…

Mark Titoo
in Russian.

They beckoned,
they called to her, they wouldn’t let her go. It was mass
manipulation; their righteousness drew on her soul and demanded it
to stay in their world. Within seconds the sky began to darken, no
longer was it dazzlingly bright but becoming dreary and grey. The
figures in white faded away along with their faces. Clouds formed
and it began to snow heavily. Her mouth continued to emit the sound
and the wind began to blow.

Now the sky was
black, all the brightness dimmed and her only opportunity had gone
with it. In an instant she realised everything there was to
realise.

The mystery of
the name; Mark Titoo was now fully explained. Nuttall hinted at a
cock up with the translation with the horn pointing towards
Britain. The people of Britain had been subliminally conditioned
with the Russian translation of Poppy Cock by mistake. The correct
name was sent to America - Madeline heard it - her name, the word
‘poppycock’ at the end of the American message but the penny never
dropped.

The Russian
translation of Poppy Cock was Mark Titoo (Ma
к
п
e
т
yx)

For one brief
moment, she had seen the light, she had seen a way home to Ward 8 -
Back to the world where she was Poppy Cock, not Madeline Bull - A
world where she was not permanently in a tank but experiencing the
world with all her senses.

The message
concealed in the ultrasound sound had compelled everyone on Earth
to call her back. Everyone had chanted Poppy Cock in all their
languages, from all their lands. They could not let her go and so
the white, brilliant light faded to grey. Nuttall’s intricate plan
had worked a treat and prevented her only hope of awakening.

She wept, she
screamed and then settled into a stupor.

‘You evil
bastard, Nuttall. You’ll pay for this,’ said Madeline solemnly.

‘
Bastard
maybe but not evil - you’ve got it all wrong…

This world
and everything in it is in the vast expanse of your mind – in your
subconscious. It would cease to exist without you. We had to come
up with a scheme that would prevent you from leaving and going back
to Ward 8. We knew the time would eventually come for you to waken
- we came up with a method of keeping you in here and keeping our
world intact,
’ Nuttall explained.

Reality dawned,
everything was patently clear in an instant. Madeline was in her
own dream world – a reverie – a coma. She couldn’t argue with his
morals, he was saving his world from extinction. If she did leave
it behind, would she be committing genocide on an unprecedented
scale. Adam would perish, Barton would perish, even the US
President would dissolve away. But surely no one could hold her to
account for abandoning a dream. She had another Adam in the real
world but that was not the issue, she deeply loved the Adam in this
world. He had saved her twice and even though he didn’t know it, he
was about to save her again.

Hypothermia
didn’t happen to androids but other things did. She had used nearly
all her power reserves up and with not a single power socket built
into the mountain side she was going to run out of power very soon.
She sat on a ledge and quietly spoke to Barton.

‘Ask Adam if he
will fetch me, please.’

Chapter 39: A
Honda generator

This was
certainly a tall order for Adam. At the moment he was somewhere in
Worcester. Ecuador was a long, long way away. He had used up a lot
of his savings in getting around the globe to save Madeline but she
was worth every penny he had. He would never hesitate, not for an
instant, galloping, sometimes recklessly, to her rescue. As we
know, he liked to think he was her knight in shining armour.

Within 24
hours, Adam was coming into land at Quito airport situated on a
plateau nestling between the mountains. It had been a long and
expensive flight but he was now used to such inconveniences. He
hired a car and drove the hundred or so miles to Guaranda. It was
not particularly a good time for Adam to arrive in town as a
carnival had been raving for many days. A mountain rescue
helicopter was available but due to the celebrations, no pilots
were at present sober enough to fly. Adam had no choice but to find
a hotel and enjoy the spectacle. There was no particular emergency
as he knew Madeline would have merely shut down awaiting a charge.
No doubt Poppy would be working her way through several television
box sets or browsing the internet looking for clothes and shoes.
Barton was always close by if she wanted to talk to someone –
surely she wouldn’t mind if just for once Adam let his hair down a
bit and joined in with the festivities.

For Madeline or
more so Poppy now, this wasn’t the case at all. Her subconscious
had revealed the hard truth - everything about her was not reality
but an imaginary world. An imaginary world that was as real as
reality itself. She couldn’t refute the awful logic – never before
had she thought that wakening from a dream world could be classed
as mass murder or worse - genocide. There was no denying it, she
liked her new life as a super being android. She was becoming
infamous or famous, no one was really sure which it was and she had
everything although actually she had nothing. Did she want to wake
from this world? Did she want to leave this particular Adam here?
She had a ‘like a Dad’ Barton, did she want to loose him too?

She couldn’t
bring herself to watch a movie or a box set or even turn on her
entertainment system, she was too troubled. No longer could she
look at the view from the top of the mountain or listen to the wind
and rain because contact had broken and she was now just floating
in her tank as Poppy.