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She experienced
the acceleration as the jet engines howled into operation. Her suit
tightened, holding her in place. And then she was lying on her
back, the sky in front of her with the clouds rapidly approaching.
She screamed with delight, this beat… anything she had ever done
and then, far too quickly, it was time.

‘Ready?’ said
the pilot.

He didn’t give
time for a reply, her seat suddenly shot upwards and then the
rockets fired. She imagined the pneumatics on her Poppy tank going
to the extreme position to simulate the G force. The aircraft
rapidly disappeared below her and the smallest of parachutes opened
above her.

‘What the
hell!? How’s that going to stop me?’ she screamed.

She then
proceeded to free fall trapped in her seat. She was terrified -
convinced that she was going to splat on the ground below. After
two minutes of screaming and swearing, a much larger parachute
suddenly appeared above her and her seat instantly fell away. She
rapidly slowed down. Then, suddenly, it was wonderful, brilliant
and so peaceful – her perception changed in an instant, why hadn’t
she done this before? Soon the ground approached, she remembered to
bend her legs. It was far from a gentle landing but she was safely
on the ground – she wanted to do it again.

She didn’t have
to wait long.

She said
goodbye to Adam, they kissed and hugged but they couldn’t say much,
the scream of the jets warming up behind her would have drowned out
any sloppy talk. She had no luggage or over night bag, an android
didn’t need anything like that. The minimal amount of clothes
underneath her flight suit would have to do for the duration of her
mission. The only necessary items she had to have were, her
universal a charging lead complete with the US mains plug and her
credit card that seemed to have bottomless funds.

Once again she
was hurtling up towards the clouds. She had a total of six hours of
flight to look forward to and three refuelling stops. She decided
to make friends with the pilot.

‘Got your ear
filters in?’ asked Madeline, making sure he was definitely on her
side.

‘Naturally!
Names Jack by the way,’ said the pilot.

‘Madeline… I’m
an android… by the way.’

‘Apparently so,
they say you’re a technical marvel.’

‘Probably even
better than that!’

‘Technical
marvel and modest.’

‘How long do
the fuel-stops take?’

‘Twenty minutes
max; no time to even go the loo!’

‘Wet pants
then.’

‘Oh yes!’

The route was
more or less over the top of the world: Finland, Russia, Siberia,
Alaska, Canada and as far as fuel would allow into the North
American continent. Landing on US soil was considered too dangerous
for several reasons but mainly because most landing strips were now
cluttered with abandoned Aircrafts. Six hours passed relatively
quickly, she gave herself a last minute charge with the onboard
mains inverter, said goodbye to her new friend, Jack and braced
herself.

Chapter 24:
Extreme G

Yes of course
the main parachute opened far too late and she forgot to bend her
knees making holes in the earth when she landed but other than that
she enjoyed the experience again. If it wasn’t for her super new
£60,000 satellite, smart phone, GPS watch, she wouldn’t have had a
clue where she was. She was two miles outside a town called
Montevideo – she still hadn’t a clue where she was.

The flying suit
was discarded and the stunning Madeline look returned – a new short
black leather jacket over a short red dress and high heeled leather
boots. Consequently it wasn’t hard to hitch a lift; a tanker truck
quickly came to a halt beside her.

‘Going far?’
asked Madeline.

‘Minneapolis,’
said the truck driver.

‘That’ll do
fine,’ said Madeline, this was place she had heard of.

Hitching a lift
always has its dangers especially if you happened to have a
deliberate promiscuous appearance – not that Madeline was in any
sense ‘asking for it’, it was simply one of her tools / weapons
that she used to her advantage. However she would be fairly
insulted if he didn’t try something – but he didn’t. He explained
that normally he would have rogered her senseless on the bunk bed
behind him but he was so depressed he couldn’t even think about
sex. He hated who he was, hated been American, hated his job – he
wanted to end it all.

‘I’m going to
help you,’ said Madeline. ‘But it will only be temporary.’

The driver
couldn’t possibly imagine how a road hooker could help him so he
ignored her and carried on driving. Madeline ran the app on her
super £60,000 phone watch and then had a snack, not that you would
know. Been thrown around in a fast fighter jet and then thrown out
of same fast fighter jet had made her a little queasy. However, now
her appetite had returned with vengeance. Hot thick minestrone
soup, followed by strawberry yoghurt, sucked up a tube, filled a
hole in Poppy’s tummy.

The first
indication that the phone app was working was his huge hairy hand
on her silky smooth shapely thigh. Naturally Madeline removed it.
The driver then brought the truck to a halt, operated the door
locks and started to take his trousers off.

Oops, perhaps
helping him wasn’t such a good idea, thought Madeline.

Farting on the
driver and pushing him out on to the highway was the easy bit, the
hard bit was driving the forty ton truck. How hard could it be,
there are woman truck drivers all over the world, she thought. All
the controls were in the same place as a car so she drove it like
a… Volvo. The kangarooing eventually subsided after about two miles
and then it was easy, peasy, providing she didn’t have to stop,
change gear, slow down, reverse or go around corners.

It was a shock,
no other word for it, as she entered the outskirts of Minneapolis -
the area was trashed, shops ransacked, cars burnt out and boarded
up houses. Madeline slowed the truck down to have a closer look.
Further down the road a gang of wild, frenzied men pelted the truck
with bricks and stones, inevitably smashing the windscreen. Then
they tried to jump aboard and open the doors. Madeline, despite her
many advantages was terrified. She simply couldn’t understand it.
By all accounts the brainwashing effect had made people meek and
despondent, not violent and feral. Her only conclusion was that it
was the anti-Americanism faction - certain citizens of the USA who
hated the way of
their
country long before Mark Titoo came
along with his brainwashing. Perhaps the brainwashing had produced
a cumulative effect and turned these people into possessed
fanatics. Soon the truck could go no further due to an array of
abandoned vehicles – she pressed the brake pedal and juddered to a
halt. No problem, she could run the rest of the way in explosive
motion, surely the centre of the city was free from these mad
men.

This was, of
course, wishful thinking. Ahead of her, the way was barricaded with
a line of vans, buses and trucks - its purpose, either to keep
these mad men out of the city or to keep the despondent ones in.
Which ever it was it didn’t matter to Madeline, she was trapped and
quickly surrounded by several wild maniacs. Her laser on stun would
resolve the problem. She casually rubbed her thumb and forefinger
together to prime her weapon. She tried again – and again – no
response. Her system had gone down.

‘Shit!’ she
cried. ‘Barton, are you there? I can’t operate my menus - I can’t
activate my weaponry. Got any ideas?’

‘
Thought you
got of lightly with the extreme ‘G’s you pulled up there. Your
onboard processor must have crashed. There’s nothing I can do from
here. Your system should reboot eventually,
’ said Barton.

‘Right… thanks.
I’ll have to do it the hard way.’

‘Well, well,
what have we here? …Get her!’ said the leader of the mad men.

She could have
easily fought them off with her explosive motion or laser finger,
causing some nasty injuries in the process but her system was
protesting against the recent rough treatment. However she was
pretty much indestructible, what harm could come of her? She was
curious as to their intentions so she decided to let things
develop. One of them frisked her – several times and then another
frisked her, and then another. All they found was a harmless
charging lead. Whilst they were developing erections, Madeline
activated the app on her super £60,000 watch – at least that still
worked.

‘Boys, boys,
you’ll get my dress all creased,’ said Madeline casually.

‘Put her with
the rest!’ said the leader... ‘Wait!’

The leader of
the lunatics had spotted her watch, he had no idea that it was
apparently a £60,000 satellite, smart phone, GPS watch, he just
like the look of it.

‘I’ll have
that!’ said the leader as he took it off her wrist.

She was thrown
in to a room with several other men, women all huddled together,
hungry, frightened and above all, despondent. She sat amongst them,
asked them who they were and how long they’d been there mainly to
put them at ease – no other reason.

‘Don’t worry,
we’ll be out of here in a minute,’ reassured Madeline.

‘How do you
know?’ asked one of the women.

‘They stole my
wrist watch.’

Naturally they
thought, ‘another mad woman, that’s all we need’.

‘Anybody got a
smart phone?’ asked Madeline.

‘Yes but the
batteries flat,’ said one of the men.

‘No problem, I
always carry a charging lead with me.’

It wasn’t,
strictly speaking, for charging mobile phones, more for charging
androids but it could be adapted – her USB port would easily charge
a mobile phone in minutes. Naturally, plugging a charging lead into
her big toe raised a few eyebrows but they were far too depressed
to quiz her about it. She downloaded the ultrasound app on the
phone and ran the program. A few minutes later, one by one, they
all came out of the trance that they didn’t realise they were
in.

‘Oh my God,
what the hell is happening to us?’ cried one of the women.

Madeline had
just enough time to tell them all about Mark Titoo and his
anti-American brainwashing ultrasound before the leader of the mad
men walked in.

‘You’re going
to find this really strange but suddenly we don’t know why we’ve
done this to you,’ said the leader.

One by one his
men walked in, tail between their legs, looking ashamed of what
they had been doing. They apologised and the others all forgave
them. Madeline let them have a few minutes hugging, shaking hands
and chatting but time was pressing.

‘Okay, okay,
you can do all this later. You may not have realised it but there
is a serious problem looming ever closer off the east coast,’ said
Madeline.

‘Oh my God, it
wasn’t a dream then, we are going to be invaded,’ said one of the
women.

‘I suppose I
better introduce myself, I’m Madeline Bull, British agent MI 7.’‘No
such thing,’ said one of the previously captured men.

Madeline
ignored him.

‘You’ve all be
brainwashed by ultrasound, in fact at this moment in time, much of
the world is being brainwashed to hate you, that’s why you are been
invaded. There is an app running on this smart phone… and
this…’

Madeline
angrily snatches the super $100,000 watch back off the wrist of the
leader.

‘…watch, that
inhibits the signal.’

‘You expect us
to believe that cock and bull story?’ said another of the
previously captured men.

‘It’s up to you
what you believe but you are about to be invaded, that’s a
fact.’

She could have
also have told them that she was also an android, one of the most
sophisticated machines on the plant but she thought best not to for
the moment, especially as she was waiting for her system to
reboot.

‘Seems strange
that the British government have sent just one female agent to
solve all our problems? Bit of a tall order for you?’ queried the
former madmen leader. He was right, it was a tall order for one
mere human but she wasn’t a mere human at all.

‘I’m Alfonsino
by the way, call me Alf,’ said the leader.

Madeline
activated her watch.

‘Nuttall, are
you there?

Everyone
remained silent and let her speak.

‘
Madeline,
how are you progressing?
’ asked Nuttall.

‘Have a group
of people here free from the effects. I’m sure they’ll do their
best to spread the word. How long have we got before the
invasion?’

‘
Eleven days
before they reach the east coast. Did you land as planned – near
Minneapolis?’

‘Not exactly,
I’m on the outskirts of the city now. Have you got any agents
here?’

‘
Hang on…
Bream, Gemma Bream, was one of MI 6’s best, I’ll text you her
address.’

‘How’s
Adam?’

‘
Don’t know,
haven’t seen him since you left... We’re homing in on Mark Titoo –
The name Titoo is apparently of Russian origin. ’

‘Okay, let me
know if you hear from Adam.’

They all
listened intently to the conversation over the super £60,000 GPS,
satellite, smart phone watch.

‘Who’s Adam?’
asked Alf inquisitively.

‘My boyfriend,’
said Madeline with conviction.

They all nodded
approvingly, this proved that she was a caring person despite
having the renowned reputation of a ruthless British secret agent –
how little they knew. Madeline continued on regardless.

‘The app is
effective for about a 50 metre… yard radius. If the app stops for
any reason, flat battery etc, in under a minute you will be under
the influence again. Somehow in the next eleven days the whole of
the USA has to be ready for the invasion and that means as many
people as possible being free from the brainwashing. I know it’s
one hell of a task but we have to start somewhere,’ said Madeline
prudently.