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‘Officer!’
shouted Madeline. ‘He’s just passed out. One minute he was staring
down my cleavage and the next, he almost fell in. You don’t think
he’s had a heart attack do you?’ said Madeline tawdrily.’

No questions
were asked. Alexander was carried out by two officers and Madeline
was told to leave – in her own good time – if she wanted to – there
was no rush.

Adam was
snoozing in the Aston. The luxury clunk of the door closing woke
him up.

‘How’s
Alexander?’

‘Dead,’ said
Madeline concisely.

‘Feel
better?’

‘No, not
really. I don’t enjoy killing you know!’

Adam knew it
was best to say no more on the subject.

‘So where now?’
asked Adam.

‘We have to
deliver these.’

She displayed
the ear devices in her hand.

‘Back to
Capesdown hall then?’

‘No not quite…
Barton, I’m afraid I have no alternative, I have to pay you a
visit.’

‘
No, your
location has to be kept a secret.’

‘Barton, don’t
be ridiculous, you know you can’t leave that place without being
brainwashed again. You can’t stay there forever – you need food for
a start. I’ve got a pair of ear devices. You need to wear them…
after you’ve figured out how they work, of course.’

There was a
pause before Barton replied.

‘
That watch
he gave you will contain a tracking device.’

‘No problem,
I’ll leave it with Adam, he can stay at the inn.’

‘Hang on… no
chance, I’m coming with you,’ Adam protested.

‘Sweetheart,
how many torn out finger nails will it take before you divulge my
whereabouts?’

‘I’ll stay at
the inn then.’

‘
Nuttall’s
car will probably have a tracker too.’

‘What a pity,
looks like you’ll be going in my boring old Volvo,’ said Adam.

Chapter 20: A
shop in Buxton

Barton behaved
like the voice on a sat-nav. He wouldn’t say where she was going
just ‘next left’, ‘next right’ third exit off the roundabout’ etc,
etc. Madeline, as mentioned previously, liked the Volvo, it was a
big leather armchair with wheels but most important, it belonged to
Adam. She had made it clear that she wanted first refusal if he
ever wanted to part with it but unfortunately Adam was the sort
that ran a car into the ground.

The drive gave
her chance to think, not about the current happenings but about how
exactly she functioned. She squeezed the throttle down a touch and
tried to visualise what was really happening - she couldn’t. Now
that her unique existence had become second nature, reality was
shrouded with incredulity. As far as she was concerned, she pressed
her right foot down and the car went faster and that was it. She
was
entirely this incredible machine.

Thoughts like
this always surfaced when visiting her real self was imminent. As
far as she was concerned, never seeing her real body again was no
bad thing but she had to see Barton. As it was, he was effectively
a prisoner. He couldn’t leave the shielded room or he would be
influenced by the ultrasound and once again hate the Americans.
Then he would punish Madeline for not hating the Americans – it
didn’t bare thinking about.

Everyone under
the influence of this brainwashing was irrational, unpredictable
and intolerant of anything even remotely to do with the USA. She
watched several people as she drove past. Everyone looked happy but
had certain glazed look - a trancelike look - even the dogs barked
differently. No one seemed to realise what was happening to them.
She saw several bald people with placards around their necks; they
seemed to have embraced their punishment as though they thoroughly
deserved it. All the fast food places: MacDonald’s, KFC and Pizza
Hut’s were closed. It
had
become a very strange and
frightening world.

‘
Nearly
there,
’ said Barton.
‘Park up where you can.’

‘Buxton?’

‘
Yes, the
highest town in England.’

A few minutes
later Madeline found herself standing in front of a boarded up
shop. A few letters had obviously fallen of the battered sign above
leaving a cryptic clue as to what was once sold inside:
“
art on’s eats
”.

‘
Now the
tricky bit, I’m in a store room at the back. I have to come out of
the range of the bandpass filter let you in,
’ said Barton.

‘Be quick
then!’

In the couple
of minutes Barton took to get to the front entrance of the disused
shop and unlock the door he had changed. Madeline could clearly see
the glazed look in his eyes. The strength of the brainwashing
ultrasound was obviously at full strength now.

‘Barton, don’t
do anything stupid!’ said Madeline.

Madeline was
really hoping that she wouldn’t have to react but as a precaution,
her laser finger was ready primed on stun. Unfortunately he began
to scream out like a mad man, ‘Traitor, traitor, American
sympathiser….’

She fired
neatly at his chest dearly hoping he hadn’t got a heart
complaint.

‘I’m so, so
sorry Pops,’ she said as he collapsed into her arms.

Luckily, no one
saw or heard the incident or at least if they did, somehow mistook
it as a joyous welcome between father and daughter. She dragged him
in to the shop and locked the door behind her. At the back of the
butchers shop there was an open door with a room beyond. She knew
exactly what she would find in there – her tank – where she
was.

The reunion of
herself with herself always brought back painful memories. With
Barton on her shoulder, she hesitantly entered the room and closed
the door behind her. Carefully she lowered his limp body on to a
chair and for no reason, gave him a kiss on the forehead. The tank,
Poppy’s tank was there, prominent and imposing. She was fully aware
of it but refrained from looking in that particular direction. She
purposely concentrated on the contents of the room first. Clearly
it was no place for Barton to stay long term especially as there
was no place to sleep and a complete lack of cooking facilities.
There were copious stocks of food and drink but that was
predominantly for Poppy - to be fed down tubes, mostly as mush,
into her mouth.

The countless
pipes and cables linking her tank to the equipment were now
arranged neatly and fastened with plastic ties. This was a huge
contrast as to how it was in the cow shed - her previous location.
As usual there was a large monitor was on one wall, irritatingly
showing her eye sight and quietly howling with audio feedback – she
turned it off. Still refraining from looking at her tank, she
turned to Barton. He had aged considerably since she had last seen
him even though it was only a few weeks ago. She went all soppy
again and decided that she would be very proud to have him as a
father figure. He had sacrificed a lot for her and she was fully
aware of this fact. Because of him, she had this new wonderful
body, was inwardly fit and healthy and had a purpose in life. He
was clearly devoting his life to her and she had just stunned him
for his troubles. Yes, she had been instrumental in finding his
daughter, Zoë, saving her from an awful, lonely death but any
feisty android would have done that.

It was now
time, she clenched her teeth and slowly turned around towards her
tank. The polished stainless steel randomly reflected the light
from the room’s single fluorescent strip light. The soot stains
from the fire had been completely removed - Barton had been busy.
The unfortunate consequence was that it was now looked even more
clinical, overbearing and oppressing. She tapped one of the sides -
she heard it and felt it resounding all around her. She examined
the hatch on the top and could clearly see one of the screws had
been mauled. As she walked about she could see the pneumatics
silently adding motion to the tank. She jumped up, the pneumatics
jolted the tank downwards – she landed, the pneumatics jolted the
tank upwards. The technology was fascinating but frightening all
the same.

Finally Barton
stirred.

‘How are you,
Pops?’ said Madeline affectionately.

‘Did you have
to do that?’ said Barton trying to get to his feet.

‘Try not to
move too quickly, the effects will wear off in a moment… I
think.’

‘Astonishing…
the ultrasound brainwashing is definitely more powerful than I
thought,’ said Barton clearly still dizzy.

Madeline took
the small ear devices she had removed from Alexander’s ears, out of
her inside jacket pocket.

‘See if you can
figure out how these things work. You may want to clean them up
before you fit them in your ears.’

‘Probably some
kind of noise cancelling circuitry – unless it’s alien technology,’
said Barton seriously.

‘Alien? Do you
think it might be?’ she said gullibly.

‘Don’t be
silly! I read a paper about this, years ago. In fact I believe even
Hitler had his scientist working on something similar back in the
forties. High energy projected ultrasound.’

‘So we can
blame Hitler for all this?’

‘Fortunately,
the technology then wasn’t advanced enough to make it
possible.’

By now Barton
was on his feet and had already started plugging in various
instruments and testing equipment.

‘So… Buxton of
all places?’

‘My fathers
shop, Barton’s Meats. It’s been empty for years - thought I’d make
use of the building.’

‘Ah, so that’s
what it’s supposed to say. You come from a family of butchers
then?’

‘Yes and proud
of it! The Barton sausage was the thickest and longest in the north
of England.’

‘I’ll take your
word for that,’ said Madeline maturely, doing her best not to
childishly smile, but she did.

Barton turned
the monitor back on, it showed Madeline’s eye sight, she was just
about to complain but he quickly switched it over to a news
channel.

‘
Wonderful,
wonderful news, tomorrow we start the invasion. Nine hundred war
ships, eighty aircraft carriers and three hundred nuclear
submarines are due to sail from all points on the globe, converging
in the Atlantic. We will soon eradicate the foulness from this
glorious planet of ours….’

‘For god sake,
turn that tripe off,’ said Madeline.

‘Terrifying –
talking about Hitler, it sounds like one of his speeches,’ said
Barton.

‘I just hope
Nuttall has some good new for me but I’m not holding my breath. Bit
of bungling twerp if you ask me.’

Chapter 21: A
useful phone app

Barton was now
too busy to act as a satellite navigation service so Madeline had
to find her own way back to the inn. The journey took her two hours
longer than it should have done mainly because she went via Leeds
to get back to Cheshire. The Aston Martin was parked neatly outside
the inn - that was her Adam, probably never took it over 30 mph and
more than likely gave the bonnet a quick polish with his sleeve
before her left it. She assumed he would be in the snug on his
third or fourth pint – but he wasn’t.

‘Seen Adam?’
Madeline asked Bert the barman.

Bert turned
around slowly and trance like. His eyes were wide open and staring,
his mouth open but not smiling.

‘Are you his
friend?’ he said without emotion.

‘You know I am,
come on Bert, where is he?’

Things had
certainly got a lot worse, an awful lot worse. Last night Bert
didn’t own a country double barrel rifle but now, without
hesitation, he fired a warning shot over her head. The clientele
seemed to be oblivious to his actions and resumed with their drinks
as soon as the noise, smoke and plaster dust had settled. Madeline
was not at all happy that she was now covered in a layer of grey
dust. With one tug of her delicate hands, the nineteen stone barman
flew forwards toward size zero, one, two or three Madeline.

‘Finished? I
said… where - is - Adam?’

Acting on this
violence towards beloved Bert the barman, all his clientele jumped
from their seat to help him out.

‘Sit back
down!’ Madeline bellowed.

Credit to all
of them; they were undaunted and continued to approach Madeline
with waving fists, walking sticks and snooker cues. No doubt they
would have behaved differently if they had known about her laser
finger - the sweeping action proved most effective for mass
stunning.

‘Right Bert,
where were we… Oh yes, you were about to tell me where Adam
is.’

Of course he
wouldn’t, he couldn’t; the brainwashing influence was far too
strong for him to deviate from his mind set. Silence was the only
clue as to where he was – her super sensitive hearing heard a faint
thumping noise from somewhere below.

‘Okay… he’s in
the cellar, thanks for nothing.’

With that, the
laser finger was energised once more and Bert joined the rest – out
cold and stunned.

Madeline
clambered down the stone steps. At first she couldn’t see a thing
but slowly her highly sensitive optics adjusted. After a few
moments a feeble figure chained up to a steel loop in the brick
wall, appeared in view. It was definitely Adam but most of his hair
had been shaved off and he was completely naked. Madeline was
horrified.

‘Oh my God,
Adam, sweetheart, what have they done to you?’

Adam found it
difficult to talk, he was uncontrollably shivering in the coldness
of the cellar. Small cuts and bruises covered his body and he had a
painful looking black eye.

‘The bastards,
they’ll pay for this!’ said Madeline.

She temporarily
engaged explosive motion level 5 and pulled the links of the chain
apart and then carried him up in to the warmth of the inn lounge.
She then spent several minutes stripping everyone bare that she had
previously stunned with her laser finger and presented the pile of
clothes to her moaning, groaning Adam.