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‘Where did you
move the S. A. I. to? … Okay… okay’

‘S-A-I?’ asked
Madeline.

‘Systems access
interface… Thumb and forefinger, right hand,’ said Nuttall
calmly.

To be honest,
the mole on her arm was not ideally placed. Rubbing her thumb and
forefinger together was a much better arrangement. Now her weapons
could be accessed and activated much quicker and altogether more
discretely. The text was sent.

Chapter 8:
The training

It’s fair to
say that the knock out flatulence gas had been used the most and
proved very effective. Fortunately, being non lethal, her rather
indiscriminate over use of it in the past, had not particularly
proved too problematic. The tasar weapon, the crudest of any weapon
had had its uses, especially at short range. The laser weapon
fitted by the American scientists was, in every instance she used
it, a complete overkill and if it didn’t kill, it was more luck
than judgement - this was definitely an area where a spot of
training would be useful. Her hypodermic finger had been used
brazenly to kill and stun, perhaps a little training would be
useful here too. Finally her least explored weapon, explosive
motion. This temporarily enhanced her artificial muscle strength by
up to 100 times - with remarkable results. Unfortunately to become
suddenly a hundred times stronger than you were a second ago had
serious drawbacks for someone with no training. MI 7 somehow knew
all about her weapons and deemed that training was compulsory...
whether she liked it or not.

And so the
training began. It would take two months – it had to be done
properly. Madeline had to become completely in harmony with her
weaponry as Poppy had done with her new body. Deployment of any
weapon had to be instant, accurate and second nature. There had to
be no thought involved, just pure instinct. No hesitation -
killing, maiming and stunning had to be done accurately, calmly,
judgementally but quickly. She was afterall, an assassin with the
highest credentials.

Special rooms
were setup solely for each of Madeline’s weapons.

The ‘Fart
Room’, room 1, was a simple setup. Along the floor on the far wall
there were a row of cages holding wild underfed dogs. To the side
of the room, a man wearing a gas mask stood nervously with a rifle.
No pussy footing about here, the rifle contained real bullets. It
was all down to Madeline.

Remotely, a dog
would be released randomly without warning. If she could release
her knock-out gas out of her cute little bottom before the growling
dog reached her, the dog would be spared the bullet – just pass out
with the gas. It was all very clever and proved to be an excellent
incentive to improve her technique, principally because Madeline
was a dog lover. Like a gunman with finger on trigger, Madeline
learnt to poise her thumb and forefinger together ready to rub and
press. All it took was one week, the slaughter of eighty four dogs
and the occasional instance of a mauled android arm before her
response time was up to an acceptable speed. Unfortunately
sometimes the gunman would miss the dog or the gun would misfire or
Madeline would inadvertently get shot – such is life.

The process
continued almost immediately with her laser weapon. As this weapon
was far more severe and altogether more deadly, the training had to
be more intense. She was escorted into a darkened room – The ‘Laser
Room’, room 2. Another week later she could precisely and neatly
slice in half, a Desmodus rotundus, in the dark, before it had
chance to peck at her beautiful artificial skin. Vampire bats
really did exist. She was solely responsible for the death of
hundreds of these vicious little mammals and boy did she find it
satisfying.

Madeline really
was coming on leaps and bounds, her reaction times were speeding up
and she was becoming conditioned exactly how MI 7 wanted.

No training was
given for her tasar weapon. It was thought too troublesome and
ineffective for any serious battle she may endure in the future.
‘Only use if you really have to’ was the advice given. Madeline
liked this weapon for a different reason: it was a convenient way
of proving to people who needed it proving to, that she really was
an android and not a sexy minx. Using anything else un-human may
prove too dangerous when proof had to be demonstrated.

Training for
her hypodermic finger consisted of a one day computer based
training course with a recognised qualification at the end of it.
Madeline was predictably bored to tears and wanted the world to end
there and then but she eventually came to her senses - it was only
a day out of her life.

The final
weapon in her artillery was the little used ‘explosive motion’.
Understandably, Madeline didn’t like using this Hulk type feature
as it had potential to cause damage - mainly to her beautiful soft
wrinkle free skin. It also could incur internal damage as her inner
components went through hell during the process of hitting, bending
and breaking things. Regardless of this, training had to be done.
She was assured that any damage would be put right but self-harm
was never in Madeline’s to do list.

To recap,
normally her muscles worked at no more than 5% capacity – the
strength comparable to the strongest of any man but this was a
seriously detuned state. Level five ‘explosive motion’ was 100% -
full power. Level five was the strength of at least twenty men - or
put another way, a JCB. This meant she could easily jump over a
double-decker bus if she really wanted to or even lift this very
same bus off the ground - very useful if you happened to leave the
wheel jack at home. She had only used it once to push open a
heavily bolted security door and skewer and few guards with the
legs of a chair and that was only level 3. How could she possibly
do training for this unusual talent? When explosive motion was
switched on, normal movement was near on impossible, a walk turned
into a dash and a hug tuned into a crush.

This time,
training involved doing things Madeline
and Poppy
hated:
cooking and washing up. She was reluctantly sent, kicking and
screaming into the kitchens - firstly to help cook for all the MI 7
staff. As she progressed she would move on to be the chief washer
upper. Poppy’s idea of cooking was pierce the lid several times and
throw in the microwave - a dishwasher then did the washing up. To
peel potatoes and chop up carrots was a living hell but excellent
training for muscle control whilst in ‘explosive motion’.
Eventually the potato peeler peeled just the potato and not her
lovely skin off her finger bones – eventually the knife just
chopped through the carrot, not half way through the chopping
board. Two weeks it took for this degree of control and then she
was allocated a huge stainless steel sink to wash the dozens of
plates and dishes. Eventually a whole day went by without breaking
a single item of crockery. Training was now complete. As a side
effect, the kitchen had brought out many dormant qualities in her,
including discipline, commitment and working as a team. These were
virtues the old Madeline severely lacked.

But had they
really changed Madeline Bull the feisty android into some new
obedient fighting machine? …Unlikely!

‘Your training
is finished – your car is out at the front. Go home and wait for
instructions,’ said Nuttall aloofly.

Chapter 9:
Back Home

It has to be
said, Madeline Bull is the sum of all female fictional characters
ever to have been thought up, including Cat women, Black widow,
Wonder woman and Buffy – only many would agree, better looking,
sexier and much less human. However unlike other super heroes, she
was no longer a free agent. For the moment, though, this didn’t
bother her, she was just glad to be leaving Capesdown Hall
behind.

Madeline was
now effectively bugged. This violation of her personal space hadn’t
as yet, fully sunk in but Barton was fully aware of the
implications. In M.I. 7’s eyes she was a very cleverly programmed
android; they had no reason to think otherwise. If they ever found
out that she was in fact controlled remotely by assumed dead, news
reporter, Poppy Cock, it would change everything. The coexistence
worked, their sum was greater than their individual parts. Without
symbiosis there would be nothing but an inactive machine and a
severely disabled human.

After a long
enjoyable drive down a few congested motorways, she was now back in
her flat in Bristol - Barton had to talk to her privately. The only
way he could do this was to break the radio link and speak to Poppy
directly in her tank.

The radio link
was broken and Madeline collapsed ungainly in a heap on the
floor.

‘Sorry,’ said
Barton through a voice link into Poppy’s tank.

‘Barton!
Thought you’d deserted me,’ said
Poppy
amid a state of
sensory deprivation.

‘If only! They
mustn’t know about me… more importantly, they mustn’t know about
you. I just hope Adam can hold his tongue. Unfortunately, at the
moment, the only way to talk to you is to deactivate Madeline. Not
really very practical, I’ll have to put some thought into it.’

‘How am I? I
feel fine,’ enquired Poppy

‘You’re still
on 2mg of morphine per hour but you actually you’re quiet strong
and healthy.’

‘Yes, but how
am I? You know what I mean.’

‘You need
Madeline,’ said Barton succinctly.

‘Right,’ said
Poppy, suppressing a mountain of emotions.

‘I’ve moved
you, by the way; you have a new home.’

‘Are you going
to tell me where?’

‘Best it stays
with me for now,’ said Barton.

‘I understand…
Don’t get killed then, will you.’

‘Goodness knows
what MI 7 are up to. I suspect your first mission will start pretty
soon so make the most of the next few hours,’ said Barton
wisely.

‘Don’t worry, I
will!’

With that
Barton reactivated the transmitter and the radio link
re-established. Madeline took a moment to get her bearing – she was
prostrate on the floor – she quickly jumped to her feet. At that
moment the door bell rang.

It was
Adam.

It seemed like
a decade ago but finally they were together again. The last time
was in another existence where Madeline was Poppy and Adam was a
slightly different Adam. The last time Madeline and this particular
Adam were together it could hardly be described as happy
circumstances. The cow shed housing Poppy’s tank was on fire,
consequently the connection failed. As a result, Madeline, who was
in the car with Adam, racing back to the farm, entered her default
mode and fell asleep.

Now Madeline
was well and truly awake, sentient and horny. They cuddled and
kissed for a few minutes and then raced upstairs, they had a lot of
catching up to do. Madeline was now trained, disciplined,
apparently rebuilt and she had the reactions times of a house fly.
None of this made any difference when they made love apart from
folding her clothes when she took them off and making the bed when
they had finished. However this was pretty pointless because it was
now late evening and time to use the bed for another purpose.

The next
morning they both woke refreshed and decided they had time to make
love again before breakfast. In the fullness of time, Adam had a
bowl of cereals and a strong coffee, Madeline couldn’t. Instead she
reminisced about the tea rooms and the cream scone and paddling in
the stream, Adam couldn’t – he was the wrong Adam. He was, however,
the Adam who went to Barry Island, so
he
reminisced about
that.

They were about
to go out for a walk in the park just at the moment the front door
was bashed in with a battering ram.

‘Madeline Bull,
we arrest you for the murders of Ronald Poultney, Ray de Par, Tara
Gogli and Guzman Osborne,’ yelled one of the Policemen.

‘Here we go,
dare say Nuttall’s behind this. Love you lots,’ Madeline gave Adam
a hug and kiss and left peacefully with the group of fifteen
heavily armoured and gas masked riot police.

Chapter 10:
Bull sent down

In a very short
time she was locked up in a prison cell without a trial, without
interrogation, without any legal aid and without her designer
clothes.

For the past
six weeks the British prison service had undergone a radical shake
up. Madeline had been kept far too busy to be aware of this. On the
surface, it seemed like a good idea – to bring all the whole life
prisoners together, under one roof. But this didn’t mean to say
there wasn’t strong objection to the idea. The main concern was
that all the really bad eggs were in one basket.

Brackendale
prison seemed the most unlikely choice for the conglomeration of
evil. A modern low security prison, well equipped with a Gym,
swimming baths, cinema and carpeted cells. The complex nestled
aside beautiful countryside and was less than a mile or two away
from several peaceful villages and infant schools. Also for some
bizarre reason, the staffing levels and security were kept to a
minimum – it really was a calamity waiting to happen. This was
where Madeline found herself rubbing shoulders will all the
evilness this country had captured over the past years. She had a
text message…

“
27 of the
most evil people this country has spawned all under one roof. You
know what you have to do.”

‘Good God, you
have to be joking!’ shouted Madeline – to herself.

What exactly
was expected of her? …To kill 27 people? Up to now she had killed a
total of four, a distasteful fact that often haunted her in her
sleep. However in many ways, eradicating this lump of festering
toxic evil did make sense - she knew it did. Humanity was best rid
of such monsters and besides the cost to the taxpayer for keeping
these people locked up was exorbitant. It was decide that dropping
a bomb on the place was out of the question, innocent people would
certainly be killed… so someone had to pop them off individually.
To kill 27 people, this someone had to have inhuman qualities so
who better than Madeline who happened not to be human to carry out
the deed.