A wallpad ORANGE

Chapter 5. The Darkest of Revelations

... JUST FIZZLED OUT. Yes, the "w" logo fizzled into nothingness. The screens remained black.

Then, as if in a pathetic apology, the super-strengthened twisted cabling that suspended the Ball of Justice snapped with a loud crack and the polished titanium ball came crashing down, smashing the sturdy Beechwood imprisonment chair to smithereens and leaving a sizeable dent in the black hardened rubberised control room floor.

"We've done it!" shouted Sally triumphantly as she began to skip and dance about the control room. "We've scored a major victory against the nefarious wallpad ORANGE system!"

Julie added joyfully and cleverly, "We beat them with one of their own silly mantras: FAILURE is SUCCESS!"

"You're a genius, Jules!" said Sally. And she roared at the top of her voice: "FAILURE is SUCCESS! FAILURE is SUCCESS!"

Julie and Sally did a quick celebratory "Knees Up Mother Brown.", a traditional song and dance that all Londoners knew and performed at the drop of a hat whenever deliriously happy.

"Now what?" asked Julie.

"I don't know about you, but I'm tucking into that luvverly jubberly tofu-cabbage soup. I'm starving. We never have enough food down here these days. Just a few mouldy sandwiches a day and a rotten apple or two."

"But shouldn't we be trying to escape from here?" Julie cocked her head and gave Sally a mercurial sideways glance.

"Nah. We've plenty of time. Take it from me, the Filipino Alliance bombing attack will keep the London wallpad ORANGE system busy for at least another six hours or so. I'll bring you up-to-date while we're stuffing ourselves."

With that, Sally rubbed her hands gleefully and marched emphatically to the hand truck, wheeling it over with its goods to a dining table near the wall opposite the control room doors. She pulled out some plastic crockery and cutlery from a nearby cupboard. Julie quickly joined her for a slap-up meal and a right old natter!

Minutes later ...

"You numpty, I nearly wet myself when those ropes of green glowing fizzy Intelligent Plasma grabbed me," said Julie, starting her second bowl of soup.

"Yeah, I know," replied Sally, lifting a spoonful of steaming soup to her hungry mouth. Then, after greedily slurping down the soup, she continued, "Fortunately, I stopped you with my Intelligent Plasma body controller app. I didn't want your pee all over the floor."

"What! You've gasted my flabber, with that one, Sally mate."

"Pleased to be of service, Jules babe."

Between slurps and shovelling down their bread and scrumptious tofu-cabbage soup, they nattered on and on ...

"So you instructed the Soup Brigade to leave the canister of soup, the bread and the hand truck?" asked Julie, failing to prevent a chunk of soup-soaked wholemeal bread firing from her mouth towards Sally's face.

"Of course," replied Sally, dodging the aberrant missile with ease. It was just like the two of them being back in their school refectory days. "Told them it was a wallpad setup."

"So you could arrest me?"

"Exactly. For the past few days, my fellow Orange Shirt Anil Kumar and I were all that was left in this Surveillance and Security Unit. We had planned to disable the hub's wallpad ORANGE system today when we knew the chances would be good, as we knew a heavy laser bomb attack on our hub area was imminent."

"Oh. Well what happened to this Anil guy?"

"He was called up to a battle command hub yesterday night leaving me on my own with reinforcements not due until tomorrow."