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Madeline
suddenly had the second sinking feeling of the day.

‘I think they
did,’ said Madeline poignantly.

‘You have a
hunch?’ said the Vice President.

Madeline took
her super watch off and gave to the same officer who knew all about
the effects of nuclear weapons on icecaps.

‘What do you
make of this watch?’ asked Madeline.

‘Beautiful, bid
for one of these on ebay - went for over a hundred dollars. Tri
band smart phone, GPS, Bluetooth, 5 mega pixel camera… takes
brilliant videos as well.’ said the officer.

‘But not a
$100,000 watch though?’ asked Madeline.

The officer
shook his head.

‘Nuttall! You
piece of sputum!’ shouted Madeline.’ ‘I know you’re listening.’

‘
Yes, sorry,
Just a little misdirection,
’ said Nuttall through her
audio.

Madeline
searched her pockets in her designer jacket – she found the little
jamming device that Barton had given her and turned it on. It was
misdirection indeed; the super watch had fooled her into not using
her jamming device. Now the green light was on and hopefully
blocking Nuttall’s communication channel.

‘Sorry chaps,
it looks like I’ve been Nuttall’s eyes and ears for quite a
while.’

‘So he’s known
everything we’ve done up to now,’ said the Defence Secretary.

‘Yes… but he
doesn’t know what we’re going to do next,’ said Madeline
confidently.

‘He does, were
sending ICBM’s?’ said the Vice President.

‘There’s no
point, they’ll just intercept them like the M R… B M’s. No, someone
needs to parachute in and detonate the fuel tanks,’ said
Madeline.’

‘Absolutely
preposterous… Suicide! They’ll bring down the drop off plane and if
they miss they’ll certainly get the parachutist,’ boomed the
Defence Secretary.’

‘How close
then, do you think a jet can get
without
being seen?’ asked
Madeline.

‘You’re talking
thirty miles from the target and a minimum of 50,000 feet,’ said a
technician.

‘No problem
then.’

‘Madeline, you
don’t understand, to jump from 50,000 ft, is a specialised feat.
For a start whoever’s mad enough to do it will need a fully
pressurised suit with oxygen supply. And then to walk thirty miles
in completely hostile condition - minus 70 degrees… completely
impossible,’ said the President.

‘Impossible for
a human,’ said Madeline.

Chapter 30:
Darling Adam

It was the only
possible way of reaching and destroying the target – Madeline had
to do it alone. Despite all the hi-tech military machinery in the
possession of the USA, there was nothing that could get even close.
Whether they liked it or not, the whole world was in the hands of a
feisty, seductive, British built Android. If anyone could complete
this impossible mission it was Madeline Bull and her super android
body. No one could ever accuse her of not having confidence in
herself. Surely she could cope with the inhospitable conditions and
do what was required. She had jumped out of a plane before – it was
just a little bit higher, that was all. In explosive motion, she
could easily run thirty miles in an hour – how hard could it
be?

In her mind it
was all perfectly feasible – she had no idea.

Sometimes you
can get bogged down in the spirit of the moment and this was
exactly what Madeline was doing now. You couldn’t blame her. In the
company of the President of America, being centre of attention in
the Situation room of the White House and incidentally, about to
save the world single handed, she had completely overlooked the
most important person in her life. If she’d spent a little time
thinking about it, she would have realised that Adam was last seen
getting in a taxi with questionable company. The recent
conversation to Nuttall had revealed that he was now the enemy. It
was he who told her about Gemma Bream and it was Gemma that told
her about Zol Pidem. It would be a while before she had the
opportunity to think about such matters and make the disturbing
connections. At the moment her thoughts were preoccupied with the
humanly impossible mission she was about to embark on.

‘There’s no
doubt that you are truly remarkable but you
are
just a
machine at the end of the day. Are you sure you aren’t going beyond
your limitations?’ asked the President.

‘If you want to
get pedantic, we are all just a machine – you’re made from calcium
and biological stuff, I’m made from chloro bromine and silicone,
but believe me, I am alive in every sense of the word.’

‘Point taken
but I have to ask, are you sure you want to attempt this task?’

‘Mr President,
attempt, infers possible failure - I don’t do failure. Of course I
want to, this is exactly what the British built me for… and I
will
do my best,’ said Madeline doggedly.

That was most
likely the last time she would speak with the President. He had
always treated her courteously and called her by her first name
despite her composition and the assumption that she had an
electronic soul – how little he knew. Madeline Bull hoped that he
had set an example to others of how to treat artificial life forms.
She was glaringly aware that all too many people in her complex
world were intrinsically insensitive, narrow minded and full of a
different kind of bull.

Madeline
thought it wise to have a few quiet words with Barton on her
internal system. The upshot was that her super android body could
no more cope with the extreme cold than could a human. At sustained
low temperatures her subcutaneous fluids would freeze up, her
pneumatic muscles would seize and ultimately her power cell would
fail – in effect, she would die. Lack of oxygen was also a problem
as the fuel cell needed this vital element to function. That was
why, even though she was an android, she breathed. Running at a
sustained thirty miles per hour in explosive motion was perfectly
within limits but would inevitably use up her power reserves very
quickly. She would need a recharge somewhere in the middle of the
Antarctica. So, basically, all her weaknesses related exactly to
human weaknesses.

The cold was a
simple problem to fix – a skin tight thermal suit. She would be
wearing a standard issue pressure suit with a built in oxygen
supply for the drop so problems there should be resolved. The mid
Antarctica recharge however, was an insurmountable hurdle. She
would have to be fully charged when she left the jet and just hope
that her power lasted until she could somehow recharge herself at
the enemy base… before she blew it up.

Once again she
was in the air hurtling up through the clouds but this time in a
stealth jet. No expense spared, nothing was taken to chance on this
mission. The most advanced aircraft the US had, a B-2 Spirit, was
carrying an equally valuable cargo. She was a technical marvel but
also America’s only chance - the only chance of avoiding
Armageddon. Last time her drop was a breeze, a walk in the park.
This time she was going to be dropped from ten miles up on the edge
of the troposphere and have to freefall for nine miles to evade
detection. Despite wearing an insulated pressure suit, the extreme
conditions would still tax her artificial form to the limit.

However these
few problems would soon pale into insignificance.

The staff in
the situation room tracked the aircraft on the many wall monitors
as it hurtled across the edge of the atmosphere. Just over two
hours into the flight it was time.

‘Ready for
ejection in one minute,’ said the pilot.

‘One minute!
Well, slow down a bit then!’ shouted Madeline through the
intercom.

The pilot
didn’t answer. For two reasons, he couldn’t slow down. Firstly,
because of the thinness of the atmosphere, he had to maintain
velocity and secondly, once he’d evicted Madeline from his precious
aircraft, he wanted to get the hell out of there. Madeline just had
enough time to secure her helmet and disconnect her charging lead
before the canopy opened and she was catapulted out. This brutal
manoeuvre pulled over 100 G for a second or two and most probably
would have killed many humans. Madeline quite enjoyed it, she
didn’t enjoy the four minutes of freefall though. Four minutes is a
long time to hurtle through the air, tumbling, twisting and
spinning.

For the first
time ever, Poppy was sick. She was well aware that spewing up in
her tank would have dire consequences with the delicate and exposed
interfaces around her so this time Poppy, not Madeline, did
something truly remarkable – she kept it in her mouth and swallowed
it.

It was quite
possibly the worst and most disgusting thing she had ever done and
totally took her mind off possible chute failure. The chute did
automatically open just under 1200 feet and very soon she found
herself on the soft cold snow of Antarctica.

It was twilight
at ground level but the whiteness of the snow and ice made most use
of the available light. She took off her helmet and pressure suit
to reveal the pink, skin tight, thermal suit. It was specially made
for her – it had to be. They didn’t do off-the-peg thermal suits in
‘erotic’ style. She unfolded a small rucksack from a compartment in
the pressure suit and loaded it with four things: two high
explosive packs, her little jamming device and an android charging
lead.

She was fully
charged, explosive motion was set to level three, she donned her
snow shoes and off she set. Slowly at first and steadily built up
speed to a steady 30 mph. It was hard going, with each ten metre
stride, her snow shoes sank deeply into the soft snow. She selected
her energy reserve indicator. Normally a full charge would last a
month but at the rate the gauge was now falling, it would barely
last her an hour. Apart from this, the run was quite pleasant. She
was comfortable and enjoying the experience of running across the
inhospitable, deserted terrain. It was something humans just didn’t
do, wouldn’t want to do and definitely couldn’t do. It was also
peacefully quiet for a while, too.

‘
Madeline…
there you are - told them to try a higher band - seems your jamming
device is a bit crude.’

‘Nuttall, what
do
you
want?’

‘
Nothing
much really, just want you to abort you mission. Surely not too
much to ask?’

‘Get
stuffed!’

‘
Now, now
Madeline, remember the obedience training?’

‘Nuttall what
the hell are you playing at? In an irrational sort of way I thought
you were one of the good guys. That’s why I went along with all
your… games. I certainly have never been your puppet.’

‘
Oh but I
think you are. You see I have someone here who would like to say
hello to you… say hello.’

No ‘hello’ came
forth but a gunshot did and then a scream. It could have been
anyone’s scream but Madeline made a calculated assumption – it was
her Adam screaming in pain.

‘You bastard! I
swear I’ll kill you, Nuttall!’

Another gun
shot was heard.

‘
Arms next
and then I’ll start on some important bits. Just abort the mission
and we’ll say no more about the matter.’

Madeline
stopped running; she didn’t know what to do. It was the World or
Adam. Really there was no contest, it was Adam every time.

‘
Madeline…
please… save the world... I love you… and… always will… my
darling,
’ Adam faltered, obviously because of the pain.

Madeline
thought deeply about the matter, wiped the frozen tears from her
face and began to run again.

‘Nuttall, go to
hell!’

For the next
five miles or ten minutes she heard the screams, the gun shots,
more screams, more shots and then silence. She sobbed, she wailed
out loud and she ran faster and faster. Her footprints became
deeper and deeper in the soft snow with the impact of explosive
motion propelling her along. And then the ground opened up beneath
her.

By traversing
the snow and ice in such an ungentle and aggressive way, it was
inevitable that the ground would eventually give way. She tumbled
some forty feet down inside a crevasse and landed with a thud on a
ledge of ice. She lay there for several minutes utterly still and
utterly pissed off. It was not the best of days and then… for some
unknown reason, the word ‘darling’ came into her mind.

Darling? Hang
on, he never calls me darling! She said to herself.

Madeline
thought back. Sometime ago she had done the very same thing herself
- pieced together sound bytes to make an entirely new sentence. The
only time Adam had called her ‘darling’ was when they were acting
silly in Nuttall’s Aston Martin. He must have recorded everything
both of them said and used parts of the sound track to make an
entirely new sentence. Clearly he wasn’t very good at it because of
the several pauses. At first she thought the reason for the pauses
was because Adam couldn’t speak flowingly due to the intense pain.
Now it was clearly because of bad editing. Her mood lifted, Adam
was hopefully still alive - she would put her theory to the
test.

‘Nuttall? Are
you there? Nuttall!’

There was
nothing, no static, no sound; down in the crevasse the satellite
phone built into her head had lost contact.

‘
He’s lost
contact with you,’
said the friendly voice of Barton.

‘Hi Barton… not
a good day again. Don’t suppose you’ve heard from Adam?’

‘
No, I had a
feeling it was an edited message but I couldn’t tell you without
shutting you down. I’m sure he’s alright though… in some pub
somewhere no doubt. I’ll get a message to you if I hear from
him.’

‘Thanks… any
ideas how I’m going to get out of here?’

‘
In level
five, you should be able to jump out. You’re tibias are apparently
made of chloro bromine, shouldn’t think they’ll break. You’ll need
a hard surface to jump off though.’