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Firstly it was
only right that she researched all 27 inmates and find out what
they were in for; then and only then would she be prepared for
proper mass murder.

The research
was relatively straight forward; all 27 were well documented for
what they had done. They all had one basic thing in common - they
were all completely toxic to society. The crimes they had committed
were simply repugnant, ranging from mass murder to child abuse. Not
so many years ago they would all have been hung from a rope or
boiled on the electric chair, certainly not pampered with cosy
cells, Sky TV and gourmet food.

Yes, why not?
She would do it.

The extra wide
bed in the generously sized cell was extremely comfortable; she lay
on the soft duck down filled quilt and gazed up at the ceiling. She
wondered if the CCTV camera was infringing any human rights.

‘Any ideas,’
she said out loud, ‘… how I’m going to do it?’

Nothing came
back, clearly that was her problem. MI 7 were keeping their hands
clean – they were all human – she wasn’t. No point in rushing it,
she thought, however she did want to get back to Adam sometime
soon. She stood up, sank into the thick pile carpet and walked to
the large picture window. There were the customary iron bars on the
outside but they didn’t particularly hinder the distant views of
the countryside, the local church and the infant school. She had no
doubt with her explosive motion she could easily smash the glass,
bend the bars and escape but what was the point in that? She was on
her first mission and she was instructed to kill 27 human beings in
what ever way she thought best – what a dangerous person she was.
She lay back on the comfortable bed and went to sleep.

Morning came
abruptly with bell sounding and a clunk of the door automatically
unlocking. She decided to get to know the inmates a little before
she did the deed. She would study their habits and see if they all
had anything in common. Naturally Madeline didn’t want any
breakfast, a thirteen amp socket in her cell/room was sufficient -
but all the same, she decided to mingle in the canteen. She sat
next to a large woman, not fat but muscular and tall. Others called
her Mole grip but her real name was Daisy Grunt – probably a very
appropriate name. Madeline began a little idle chat with her – a
very much, one way conversation. Eventually Mole grip was
sufficiently annoyed to demonstrate her name sake by squeezing
Madeline’s thigh under the table. It was a powerful grip, enough to
rupture the flesh and bruise the muscle but Madeline’s thigh was
different.

‘Please get you
hand off my thigh,’ asked Madeline politely.

‘Run a few
errands for me and let me have your food and I will,’ Mole grip…
grunt-ed.

‘No, take your
hand off me or I’ll have to hurt you,’ said fragile looking
Madeline.

The grip
intensified. Madeline selected explosive motion level 3 and grabbed
hold of Mole grip’s wrist touching her thigh. A few bones cracked
and ligament snapped whilst Mole grip’s scream reverberated around
the canteen. Her outburst was largely ignored by the Officers -
they really didn’t want to get involved. Mole Grip generally scared
the shit out of everyone she came in contact with including the
Officers.

‘I’m afraid
you’ve been out squeezed,’ said Madeline calmly.

‘I’m going to
kill you,’ said Mole grip wiping a large tear from her eye.

‘Well you’re
well practiced in that aren’t you? - Six innocent teenage girls?
Was it because they were pretty and you’re dog ugly?’

‘Who the fuck,
are you?’ Mole grip raged.

‘Justice,
that’s who I am,’ said Madeline sternly.

That was enough
to convince her. Everyone locked up in this inappropriate hotel
deserved everything they were going to get. She certainly wasn’t
going to go through all the other 26 to assess their merits for
death. She knew it would be wise to get a move on, Mole grip’s
wrist would shortly be x rayed and questions would be asked.

The deed could
be done with poison in the food but that would certainly be hit and
miss, far too unreliable. Her weapons were highly effective but
mainly for individual use; even her laser would only kill one at a
time.

They were back
stabbing, murderous lumps of toxic evil - all 27 of them - maybe
she could use this fact to her advantage.

The
requirements were basic: 25 cutlery knives, a note pad, a couple of
forks and one garlic capsule. Madeline accessed the psychiatric
reports for the 27 inmates. Normally this would have been
completely inaccessible but Madeline had been given special
dispensation to access to every known data base. (This was through
a special arrangement made between Brownsword / Turner and the
certain government officials when she was originally built as an
automaton). As she expected, they all, without exception, had a
hang-up - a fact about each of them that if focused on would rile
each of them to the point of insane rage and vengeance. All
Madeline had to do was deliver a little note to each inmate
pointing out their hang-up and claim she was simply the messenger.
The note would naturally be signed by another inmate. If she did
this right she could work through all the inmates
systematically.

And so the plan
began. Meal time was ideal - she sat next to the first recipient.
Madeline explained that she was issued with a conventional steel
knife and fork because she was allergic to the type of plastic the
prison issue cutlery was made from. There was a simple reason why
plastic was the preferred material - steel knifes made excellent
weapons.

She delivered
the note, it said...

‘Your hoar of a
bitch Mother never loved you. regards Bent Tooth’

Predictably, in
an instant blind rage, this particular inmate snatched the steel
knife out of Madeline’s hand and left the canteen. Within an hour,
Bent Tooth was found dead, stabbed several times with a relatively
blunt object – presumably a cutlery knife. For each of the next 24
meal times, Madeline carried out the same procedure of innocently
delivering a note to a fresh inmate, apparently signed by a target
inmate pointing out their hang-up in a particularly colourful
language. In the fullness of time, a total of 25 metal cutlery
knives were snatched off Madeline and used to stab to death the
target inmate.

After just over
a week, there were only three inmates left alive in the prison, one
of them being Madeline. Meal times had become progressively quieter
until only two prisoners were left for Madeline to deal with. A
slightly different tactic now had to be used. It happened to be
breakfast time. Madeline sat next to one of the two remaining
inmates known as Dogfish - she gave her the note. Incidentally,
this time Madeline was using plastic cutlery, not steel.

‘A Problem?’
asked Madeline.

‘I swear I’ll
kill her,’ said Dogfish, note in hand.

‘Kill who?’

‘Mole-grip, the
fucking bitch!’

‘Why, what’s
she done?’ said Madeline innocently.

‘The bitch said
she’s had my pooches killed.’

‘Pooches?’
Madeline pretended to be taken aback.

‘Yea, my
Staffies.’

‘Oh, your dogs…
You’re in for human trafficking aren’t you?

‘So fuckin’
what?

‘Sixty died in
transit, didn’t they?’

‘Had a fuckin’
glut of them, had to cull them.’

‘Cull human
beings and you’re upset over your dogs?’

‘My pooches are
worth a thousand, no a million of those fuckin’ scum
Ethiopians.’

Of all the
intense evil that Madeline had previously come in contact with,
this was by far the most intolerable and distasteful of all. She
swallowed as best as androids can and continued with her
charade.

‘I understand,
I’m a dog lover too, tell you what, I’ve got this garlic capsule.
I’ve injected slow action poison into it - was going to use on
Dogfish for bruising my leg. You give it to her. Tell the bitch it
will do her crushed wrist good.’

The inmate
snatched to capsule off Madeline and walked over to Mole-grip.

‘What’s funkin’
that?’ said Mole-grip, almost politely.

‘Garlic
capsule, took it off Stick Insect over there. Thought it would be
good for yer wrist,’ said Dogfish.

‘Err, yes,
thanks,’ Mole-grip didn’t know what to say, it seemed like an act
of kindness and she didn’t know how to deal with that.

Timing was now
important. They both watched as Mole-grip threw the capsule in her
mouth and gulped orange juice from the glass. Seconds later,
Madeline jumped up from the table and ran over to Mole-grip.

‘Don’t take the
capsule, it’s laced,’ screamed Stick Insect (Madeline).

‘Laced?’ boomed
Mole-grip.

‘Got poison in
it! Dog-face nicked it off me, was going to use it on the guards,’
whimpered Madeline convincingly.

This time steel
cutlery wasn’t required. Within seconds, Mole-grip’s hands were
around Dogfish’s neck and she was dead. Moments later Mole-grip was
dead too, from the poison contained in the capsule. It was
Madeline’s deadliest poison she had available from her syringe
finger – last used effectively on Ray De par.

‘27 dead and
not a one by my hands,’ said Madeline out loud to whoever may be
listening. In all respects, it was a job well done. Off course
there would be questions asked, for instance, where did the 26
steel cutlery knives and the deadly poison in the capsule come from
but Madeline was innocent, instrumental yes, but completely
unblemished. The prison was now empty of inmates, the prison
officers were redundant, tax payers would save umpteen million
pounds a year and the building could be sold off as a Premier Inn –
or something.

Madeline Bull
was exonerated and all charges dropped. Her first MI 7 mission had
been completed, quicker, neater and with less loose ends than
anyone in the Ministry could ever have hoped for.

Someone deep in
government circles realised that this routine could now be
performed all over the world, Britain could sell the format. A
Madeline Bull would not be required as the notes could actually be
delivered by email or text and steel cutlery surreptitiously
deposited in convenient places.

There you are
then, mass murderers, rapist, child abusers and other very evil
people. Beware - capital punishment may not come back but there’s
always steel cutlery!

Chapter 11:
An a23 Battery

Madeline soon
found herself back home with Adam. Ten days she had been away from
him so she had a lot of catching up to do. She was now officially,
a secret agent, which meant she ran a double life. As a
consequence, if she ever discussed detail about her missions she
would then have to kill whoever was listening. Adam naturally
wanted to known where’d she been and what she’d been doing.
Madeline nicely threatened him with death. He stopped asking
questions but he knew exactly where she’d been and had a damn good
idea what she’d been up to so he used an alternative approach.

‘Have you seen
the news… no of course, how could you have done – locked up!? You
know all that hoo-ha about putting all the whole lifers together in
one prison?’

‘No, not
really,’ lied Madeline curtly.

‘Well they
ended up all killing each other. Unbelievable don’t you think?’

‘Unbelievable.’

Someone
entirely new was now listening in, bugging her, violating her - she
detested it. This arrangement was not what she signed up for, not
that she ever signed anything. Then it was only Turner, she could
handle him, even tease him a bit but the possibility of the whole
of MI 7 watching and listening in was intolerable. She wondered if
she could still shut herself down. She went through the menus
displayed in her left eye, found the ‘shut down’ command and
clicked on it.

‘Barton!’ Poppy
yelled. ‘Barton, are you there?’

A couple of
minutes went by whilst Barton opened up the communication link
directly to her tank.

‘I’m here,
what’s up?’ said Barton.

The sound of
Barton’s warm and friendly voice was comforting and settling. He
was altogether a father figure - she had a ‘wanting to cry in his
arms’ feeling. Barely remembering her real father, she never really
experienced what fathers are for but she always knew that she had
missed out on something. She loved her Mum of course and all the
wonderful things she had done for her but she often assumed that
fathers can offer other qualities to form a well balanced attitude
to life. It would never be right to call him by his first name, not
that she could remember what it was, Barton rolled off the tongue,
Barton it would always be. Madeline perhaps didn’t fully realise it
but Barton had an unconditional love for both Madeline and Poppy.
He had created Madeline and in every way possible, adopted
Poppy.

‘How can I stop
them – MI 7 - listening and watching me? I thought I could cope, I
can most of the time but when I’m with Adam I just want him in my
life and no one else.’ Poppy was clearly holding back the
tears.

‘My dear Poppy,
so you are human after all. Shouldn’t be much of a problem, you
just need a black spot.’

‘How am I going
to put my flat in a black spot?’

‘You need an
800 MHz jammer then. I’ll post one over to you, now get back there,
you’re missing out on Adam time.’

‘Okay thanks
Barton, love you.’

A second later
she was back with Adam. Madeline wakened to find herself in his
arms on the sofa. Unexpectedly but instinctively, she had sent her
love to Barton. It had taken a long time, finally Madeline realised
that she had a father figure and it was Barton. He really did care
for her, look after her and devoted his life to her as fathers do -
she found it impossible to hold a tear back.