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  It had been a while... in fact it had been several weeks since he’d been back to his modest town house in Bristol. In that time he had done a lot: Experienced the delights of South Wales, including Barry Island, faced death, been shot at... twice, almost blown up, poked in his neck with a gun, been gassed, crammed mercilessly into a car boot and recovered a dead body from a culvert. On the other hand life had been thrilling, stimulating and wonderful. This was mainly because he had been reunited with Poppy, his fiancée who was now Madeline and who was now very much asleep. The last time he graced the threshold there was an awkward moment with his lesbian lodger Jenny. This time the moment contrasted sharply with the previous one - Jenny was very pleased to see him and gave him a peck on the cheek and a tight hug. This somewhat took Adam by surprise.

  ‘Lovely to see you too!’ said Adam, marginally embarrassed.

  Adam entered his house even though he distinctly had the feeling that he was the guest. He stepped in to his lounge and had a quick glance around; nothing had changed except that it was unusually tidy.

  ‘Where’ve you been, I’ve missed you? The last I heard, you were in hospital with bullet wounds in your legs, my poor little soldier,’ said Jenny softly.

  Firstly he wasn’t Jenny’s little anything and secondly he wasn’t a soldier. He raced up the stairs without replying. Ten minutes later raced down the stairs even faster. In the ten minutes he had packed a small case and shaved off his small goatee beard. Jenny cornered him again at the bottom of the stairs. For some reason she had removed a layer of clothing.

  ‘You’ve shaved your goatee off, it was growing on me,’ said Jenny slightly groaning.

  ‘A spontaneous thing, not sure why I did really, the razor was there and next thing, it was off.’

  Impulsively, Jenny gently caressed his new soft cheeks with both hands. Her pupils dilated slightly, her eyes sparkled in a saucy way and without any warning pulled his lips to hers and began to kiss intensely. Immediately, after no more than thirty seconds, Adam forcibly broke free and Jenny did too, recoiling in shock of what she had just done.

  ‘Jenny, what the…? I thought you were…?’

  ‘Gay? I am! Oh my God, why I did that? I don’t know what came over me.’

  She glanced down at what she wasn’t wearing. She grabbed the hall curtains and tried her best to wrap herself in them and make herself decent.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I really don’t know what came over me.’

  ‘Don’t apologise, I quite enjoyed it, especially how you did that bit with the end of your ton…’

  ‘…I’m so embarrassed,’ interrupted Jenny. ‘If I was straight, obviously you’d be up those stairs and I’d have you, Madeline or no Madeline but… yaky yak! Girls are so much nicer to kiss!’

  ‘No offence taken… Anyway, if you were straight, you wouldn’t be staying here,’ said Adam.

  ‘No offence taken… but if I was straight, I wouldn’t dare stay here!’ said Jenny.

  She hastily rushed up stairs leaving Adam admiring his new clean shaven look in the wall mirror. A few moments later Jenny reappeared, now decently dressed.

  ‘By the way, something important you ought to know, there’s been two men pestering me almost on a daily basis wanting to know your whereabouts. They wouldn’t go away. They’ve been sitting in a car outside for nearly a fortnight, look.’

  Jenny gently moved back the net curtains of the bay window.

  ‘Well, would you credit it, they’ve gone! I’m sure they were here a few minutes ago.’

  Now it was Adam’s turn to look out of the window.

  ‘Fuck!’ Adam justifiably swore. ‘They’ve taken her!’

  Adam had not heeded Barton’s warning. True, he had been distracted somewhat but who the hell would kidnap a snoozing robot out of a parked car down a quiet street in Bristol? But... they had. Just to make it easy for who ever they were, Adam hadn’t even bothered to lock the car. Adam rushed out into the street and pointlessly searched the interior of the Volvo.

  ‘Shit, shit, fuck, fuck, shit!’

  Adam’s blood pressure instantly reached a dangerous level – his head and neck performed a neat colour change trick that all known androids, including Madeline Bull, cannot do. Sweat spontaneously formed on his red brow, steam ejected from his red ears and his collar melted into his damp neck. He had cocked up his simple mission almost before it had begun. He side steeped the imaginary hole that had open up before him just before it swallowed him up... and then phoned Barton.

  ‘Hi... err... little problem, well really huge actually, Madeline appears to have been kidnapped.’

  Barton was not one for dramatics, yelling down his mobile phone would not help matters. The tone of his reply almost reflected an expectation that this would happen.

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Literally minutes ago.’

  ‘Naturally you have to find her. I would imagine, whoever they are, their priority is to get her out of the country as quickly as possible. Where are you?’

  ‘At home - Bristol. Was going to take her to Scotland, didn’t get very far….’

  ‘Apparently not... Look, her system is down at the moment. As soon as I have the link up, I’ll concentrate on overriding her eyesight - maybe we’ll get some clues from what she can see. Perhaps one day we’ll fit her with a tracker... Have you got a smart phone?’

  ‘Yes, pretty smart.’

  ‘Good, I’ll let you know when she’s active – you’ll be able to access her sight. In the mean time do your best – there must be some clues around.’

  This was not one of Adam’s better days. Pathetic, useless, incompetent, twerp, were words Barton hadn’t used, he was far too polite to say what he was thinking. Adam was determined to put matters right, he had to find Madeline.

  ‘Jenny, can you describe the men?’

  ‘Normal really, medium height, Jeans and jacket, white skinned.’

  ‘Had they got an accent?’

  ‘Yes, now you come to mention it.’

  ‘Great, what?’

  ‘Don’t know, definitely an accent.’

  ‘Great! – I’ll go and search the gutter.’

  Whoever they were, they had been brought up properly. Nothing what-so-ever discarded through the car window, nothing left in the gutter, not even a fag end dropped. Adam scratched the back of his head; his eyes panned across the familiar street. The light was fading, soon that would be that, he might as well go inside, watch TV, open a can and eat something. What a bloody good idea, he thought, when did I last eat? But then he noticed an overflowing litter bin attached to a nearby lamp post.

  Perhaps the kitchen worktop was not the best place to sift through the entire contents of a public litter bin but the bright fluorescent pelmet lighting was in his favour. As he suspected, almost the entire contents were associated with a long stay in a car - mostly take away leftovers and packaging, several empty fag packets and fag ends, empty cans of pop and one soggy, stained, foreign newspaper. Jenny walked in.

  ‘Adam! What the hell!’

  She was not best pleased at the unhygienic waste scattered across the expanse where she buttered her toast, rolled out pastry and chopped her veg. Adam had migrated across to a clear bit of worktop with the foreign newspaper.

  ‘I’ll clear it up in a min.’

  ‘You’d better... What’ you looking at? You’ll find that’s Polish.’

  ‘You know Polish?’

  ‘No but I know ‘Nowosci’ is a Polish paper, seen it at work, some of the Polish contractors read it.

  ‘Poland! They’ve taken her to Poland!’ exclaimed Adam.

  ‘Who’s taken who?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘Those men... they’ve taken Madeline to Poland.’

  ‘Madeline? Poland? Why would they do that?’ asked Jenny, incredulously.

  ‘Yes, yes, Poland... Need my passport!’

  Adam bounded up the stairs, leaving Jenny somewhat puzzled with his rash conclusion and annoyed that in the sho
rt time Adam had been home he had managed to decimate her lovely rented kitchen.

  ‘I’ll tidy up later.’ Adam shouted down from his seriously underused bedroom.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course you will!’ said Jenny, she knew that later could mean weeks, if not months and she wanted her kitchen back well before tea time. There was no point in making a scene, pointless complaining, he was afterall, a single, undomesticated man and this was one of the many penalties of sharing a house with one. Besides, on reflection it would be better to clear the mess up herself. If Adam did eventually take on the job, he certainly wouldn’t disinfect the surfaces or recycle the rubbish in the correct coloured bins. Moments later Adam launched himself down the stairs skirting over most of the steps.

  ‘See you later, if anyone wants me, I’ll be in Poland.’

  Adam appeared to be absorbing the moment in the most hyperactive way possible, failing completely to abate his momentum from the decent of the stairs. Fortunately the front door was open or else there would have been a nasty collision, a smashed front door and another spell in hospital.

  ‘Adam, when I said an accent, I didn’t mean foreign.’

  Adam was well out of earshot before Jenny had finished her sentence. Adam was on a mission, blinkered and impetuous. Only common sense would have stopped him in his tracks but he hadn’t any time for that.

  Chapter 5: A Polish interrogation

  Adam soon found himself standing on Polish soil, Warsaw’s to be precise.

  In actual fact, Madeline had been taken to a place somewhere in Cheshire which, as most people know, is in England not Poland. The place happened to be Capesdown Hall – a huge Jacobean mansion in several acres of grounds containing wild dear, sheep and many security guards. It wasn’t widely known but rumours had it that Capesdown hall was used exclusively by the government - MI 5 or 6 or 7 or something. The number didn’t particularly matter – what did matter was what went on inside, behind the bland red brick walls and obscured glass windows.

  It would have been sensible to find a nice hotel and sit tight until he had a call from Barnton but Adam was impetuous, Adam was Adam. No harm in asking around, he thought and where better than a salt of the earth, good old Polish beer halls. Of course he had nothing to go on, he could barely speak the language and the only spending power he had was through a credit card with a woman’s name on it.

  Maybe it was this fact or the unusual question he asked the numerous barmen which roughly translated as this; ‘I would like to find two men with an attractive woman?’ Which ever it was, he found himself very swiftly in a police cell awaiting interrogation.

  ‘Damn, damn and bollocks’, he shouted out loud in his small dimly lit cell. Once again he had cocked it up and this time he worryingly knew absolutely no one was at hand to rescue him. Of course it was even worse than this because his mobile phone and credit card had been retained for evidence. ‘Damn, damn, damn and bollocks’, he pathetically repeated.

  To get burnt alive to within an inch of your life is terribly unfortunate but then, a few months later to be boiled like a cabbage really is the pits. Poppy was alive – remarkably, her heart was as strong as Gorilla glass and her constitution was undaunted. However she was unconscious and had been for several days. They say that beauty is only skin deep and that is the only consolation that could be offered. Hopefully though, she would never be in a position to see what an awful state her skin was in.

  The electronics surrounding her were relatively unaffected and took little to get up and running. Madeline had, in fact, a fully functioning GPS system within her frame. This was something Barton had completely overlooked. Why she had GPS was simply because she had a little spare space in her skull and what better to fill it with than the useful functions out of a smart phone. Not only did she have GPS but also WIFI, Bluetooth, accelerometer, FM radio, MP3 player, camera, etc, etc. None of these applications had as yet been used but with a few software commands could easily be brought into use.

  As it happened, the very same moment Barton decided to ring Adam, he was being interrogated by two members of the Polish special police. This was a stroke of luck because they were in an ideal situation to hand the phone over to Adam to answer.

  ‘Adam, good news! Well good news and bad I suppose, I’ve located Madeline with her GPS, where are you?’ chirped Barton.

  ‘Well, believe it or not, hah! at this very moment I’m being interrogated by two nice guys in Warsaw police station...’ said Adam sheepishly.

  ‘Poland eh? Well you certainly never cease to amaze me. As best as I can work out, Madeline is at a place called Capesdown Hall, Cheshire. That’s Cheshire, I’m pretty sure that’s not in Poland.’

  ‘Right, right, you’ve made your point; Capesdown Hall, never heard of it?’

  ‘Let me know when you get there,’ said Barton curtly.

  It would never be said that Barton was loosing his patience with Adam but when his sentences were short and precise, it was a clear indication of incredulity. Adam sensed the despair in his voice - it was the worst form of bollocking he could possibly get.

  Fortunately the two policemen interrogating Adam could speak a modicum of queens English so it wasn’t long before Adam had successfully conveyed his slightly embellished version of the facts: He was looking for his girlfriend, Madeline Bull. He’d been tipped off that two men had forced her on a plane bound for Poland against her will, so that’s why he was here. Of course he didn’t have to explain himself, they knew exactly who he was, the side-kick of the famous Madeline Bull known throughout the civilised world for her outrageous exploits. Consequently they had no reason to keep him locked up so gave him back the credit card with Madeline’s name on it, wished him the best of luck in his search and let him get on his way.

  However, the Polish police certainly weren’t going to miss an opportunity like this. They decided to join in with all the rest who were discretely following Adam across Europe. The reason why Adam was attracting so much interest was wholly to do with Madeline. Realistically, no one was really interested in the strange antics of her impetuous boy friend, it was just that, put cruelly, more often than not the wagging tail would inevitably find the dog.

  The problem when too many people try to follow you discreetly is that they become blatantly indiscreet; Adam couldn’t fail to notice the commotion going on in his shadows.

  Chapter 6: Infamous Madeline Bull

  Back in Evesham, England, in a burnt out cow shed, three geniuses pondered productively over Poppy’s parched pelt. Finally they all agreed it was time for activation. They had decided to use one of Dean Hake’s suggestions, a gel suit around Poppy’s body instead of floating her in saline. The gel suit made the process of reconnecting the sensors back on Poppy’s charred skin easier, quicker and more secure. Poppy would also have less pain to contend with when moving around in her tank.

  It had taken three whole days with very little rest time to get to this stage. The lid on the tank was once again, bolted down and Poppy was isolated from the real world. Only the relayed senses from Madeline Bull, the incredible android machine would now be experienced by Poppy’s entombed body. Alexander clicked the button on the computer mouse a few times, crossed his fingers and then, for no apparent reason, took a few steps back.

  Little pumps whirred into action and slowly the correct amount of drug solutions flowed along plastic pipes in to the side of the tank and on into Poppy’s veins.

  The room was virtually silent, the wall mounted TV in the distance was playing to itself – some kind of commotion outside a high security prison on a News channel but no sound, that had been turned down days ago. The three scientist stood still and silent, hardly breathing, hoping to hear somekind of response from Poppy through the small monitor speakers on the wall.

  ‘She should be stirring by now,’ said Barton.

  ‘Poppy... Can you hear me? It’s Barnton.’ there was no response.

  ‘Administering 5 cc of adrenalin.’ commented Hake as he
twisted a small valve on a plastic tube.

  After a few seconds, the PC monitor indicated faint impulses from her muscles, she was awake.

  ‘Poppy, Poppy, can you hear me? You will feel disorientated for a while but it should pass.’

  ‘Where… am I? Are you… God? Is this heaven?’ Poppy’s voice was weak and slurred.

  ‘No it’s Barton and South Wales.’

  ‘I see, definitely hell then!’

  ‘Still got your humour then, I see.’

  ‘And who am I going to be this time? Still Madeline or have I had a sex change?’ Poppy’s voice was getting stronger all the time.

  Barton ignored her comment. The reason Madeline was indeed a woman and a stunningly gorgeous one with sex oozing out of every crease was done for a reason. She was the ultimate Honey trap. With this asset she could extract more out of most people (men) than a man with a tuxedo filled with an arsenal of weapons and torture devices.

  ‘Your video and audio circuits aren’t patched through yet, sorry about the blue screens. You’re very weak, you won’t be able to operate the system yet, you need rest.’

  ‘Rest? How long have I been asleep?’

  ‘Four days.’

  ‘Four days and I still need rest? Turn the gain up or something!’

  ‘Poppy you don’t know what has happened to you.’

  ‘Yes I do, I was poached!’

  ‘Your skin is very fragile, we’ve had to place you body in a gel suit to hold it together. The gel suit is impregnated with a cocktail of steroids and cortisones which should eventually toughen up your skin but until then, movement will be painful.’

  ‘So, you think I’m not used to living with pain then, eh?’

  Barton clicked the button on his cordless optical mouse a few more times and Poppy was fully connected to Madeline. He knew it was too soon.