... 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."
"And why did you need me?"
"It's not easy to find a co-conspirator against the omnipotent wallpad ORANGE. It's almost impossible, as I'm sure you can guess. So I had to strike while the iron was hot. I needed you to help me. I could never have disabled all those wall-tech units by my little ole self. And I knew you of all people could be trusted when the chips were down. You're my best friend. Always were, always will be."
Julie felt a wave of emotion swell through her body. She nearly choked on her bread and soup before pulling herself together and saying, "So, I take it, you had to pretend to be a loyal, evil, non-caring Orange Shirt when dealing with me, so as not to leave any evidence of your misdemeanour and sabotage?"
"And yours, Jules. The wallpad ORANGE server records will show that I was loyal, trustworthy and competent up until the moment they lost contact; and that you were certain to have been executed. The upshot of this means we will both be free to visit other units down here in this area's underground wallpad hub—at least for today."
"There are other units down here?"
"Yep. Loads of 'em. Look, Jules, it's like this. I'm pretty sure this World War Infinity has wrecked the two opposing parties. Yes, wallpad ORANGE will come out on top, there's no doubt about that. But I think hardly anyone will be left that can operate the technology. We're experiencing, right now, the descent of humanity."
"So it's sort of like we're participating in a modern Last Supper?" queried Julie with another slurp of soup.
"Yeah. 'Suppose so. And let's hope there's some sort of Resurrection," countered Sally with her own slurp of soup.
"Ironic, isn't it. Just when we've reached a height of technological progress, we're destroying the opportunity to take advantage of it."
"What the bad Lord giveth, the bad Lord taketh away."
"But Sal, are you sure wallpad ORANGE will win this war? The children have all gone into underground housing and there's almost no adults left, except us women over the age of sixty."
"Ah, but you're basing your experience mainly on London. Other cities around the world have similarly been hit, but there are underground military bases that have a lot more capability. Believe me, the Filipino Alliance are on their last legs. To be honest, as far as I am aware, the attack taking place right above us, is the last meaningful attack they will ever make."
"Really?"
"Oh yeah. They've only done it out of spite, I reckon. It's a suicide mission."
"Makes sense in a way."
"How so, Jules?"
"Well, that's how they started the war, with their terrorist suicide attacks. So why not finish it that way? How else could they ever hope to hurt the almighty despicable behemoth that is wallpad ORANGE?"
"You think they started it?"
"Well they did set off a hydrogen bomb in New York City during peacetime."
"That much is true. But I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."
"Blimey, what a mess, Sal!"
"That's what happens when you let the lunatics run the asylum."
"Or the ordinary, the fakes, the stupid, the talentless, the greedy, the immoral—"
"All right, Jules babe. Don't rub it in. I catch your drift."
Julie took a break from stuffing herself, burped and rubbed her tummy with a deep look of satisfaction.
Sally mimicked her.
"So," began Julie, leaning back lazily on her chair, "how on earth did you get roped into joining the Orange Shirts? I'm sure it wasn't out of design or choice."
"To cut a long and horrible story short. As you know, got up the duff at sixteen, and so had to marry that all-American boy, Toby Wilcox. We moved to New York City, where I had a miscarriage. To make matters worse, and as you also know, New York City was flattened with a hydrogen bomb by the Filipino terrorist group True Infection For Ever (TI4E)."
"Blimey, who would have thought a silly old boy band from the 21st century would have inspired a World War Infinity? That'll teach wallpad ORANGE for banning True Infection stories! It's amazing what trivial event can tip the balance of insanity, or be that last straw on a tired camel's back!"
"Well anyway," rejoined Sally, "Toby kicked the bucket, as he was in our sky apartment on 99th Street, right in the centre of the city. But I was in Montreal, Canada on a business trip, selling the new wallpad air keyboards—which never took off. Then I got taken hostage in the Boston Educational Underground Complex. I survived that."
"What! How? Everyone was killed. It was all over the Net. No survivors. The newly Filipino terrorists blew up the complex, killing themselves and all hostages."
"Well, that's just it. I did survive it, and that's how I ended up in the clutches of the wallpad ORANGE system. You see, I escaped by nothing simpler than climbing up a nearby airshaft in the middle of the night when a guard fell asleep."
"That seems a bit too easy to believe, Sal. Are you pulling my plonker?"
"Well, it was like this. The guards manacled us every night. But I was sick one night from the crap food we were forced to eat. And so, coming back and forth to the toilet with diarrhoea, the guard, eager to escape the overpowering stench, failed to manacle me properly on one occasion. I had a cuff on one wrist but it wasn't fixed to the holding bar properly. So I was more or less free. So, I decided to give it a go, and attempt to escape. I felt so bad that death seemed an easy way out. So I didn't care if I was caught, see?"
"But, surely I would have heard about a sole survivor?"
"Nope. Because I emerged from the airshaft and was picked up by wallpad ORANGE Special Forces. I gave them all the information I could on the terrorists. And it was the Special Forces who killed all the hostages and terrorists. They fired the first developed laser bombs down the airshaft, knowing such an attack would kill everyone."
"What! That's outrageous! Even for wallpad ORANGE that's pretty low. Why did they do that?"
"So they could blame the Filipino terrorists for it, and thereby gain international support. They were desperate, especially as people were starting to sympathise with the Filipino terrorists despite their levelling of New York City. Amazing that wallpad were so evil and corrupt by then, that people were developing sympathies for anyone who stood against them—no matter how extreme these protesters were."
"Blimey, so it was actually wallpad ORANGE who were responsible for kick-starting World War Infinity, and not the Filipino Alliance!"
"Yep, the war where Albert Einstein said 'I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.' Looks like Uncle Albert was right on two counts. One, he could never have known that laser bombs would be the weapons of choice in the next world war. And two, I reckon World War Post-Infinity will end up being fought with sticks and stones. Whatever technological weapons are left to the victors, they will quickly fall into a state of disrepair and become obsolete. That's what I reckon, anyway."
"So," rejoined Julie, "I guess after what you witnessed, wallpad ORANGE had to keep you quiet. So they took you in."
"Yeah, something like that. They could easily have killed me, but probably feared that I had left a code embedded in a wallpad story over what had happened as I quickly borrowed a young soldier's slate. I'm not a numpty, Jules babe. They could never risk killing me after that." She then nudged the side of her nose a few times and gave an exaggerated series of winks, saying in typical Londoner vernacular, "Know what I mean. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink. A nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse."
"Yeah, and let's face it, Sally mate, you helped them deliver one of their greatest victories. That sort of loyalty must be worth something. You must have felt bad about your part in mass murder and starting World War Infinity."
"Don't rub it in, Jules. How was I to know the extent of wallpad's evilness? Of course that was many years ago. They'd probably think nothing of killing me right now, as there's hardly anyone left to uncover anything."
"Oh well," said Julie. "Did you ever get married again?"
"Not on your Nelly. Couldn't trust anyone after that. Can you imagine wallpad ORANGE allowing me to have an innocent husband?"
"You've got a point there."
"What about you, Jules?"
"Oh me. Well, I married a guy called Sun Chang. We had a kid. A boy. He died when he was eighteen in the Parallel Battles. Killed by the New Zealand army when Australasia joined the Filipino Alliance along with China and Japan."
"Steep, babe."
"Yeah, I know. Then Sun died the following year."
"In which battle?"
"Not in any battle. He fell over after a moonshine drinking session and cracked his head open on the pavement."
"Very steep."
"Tell me about it." Julie looked almost philosophical.
"Well," said Sally. "I don't know about you, but I'm so full of soup, I could burst. Let's take a nap, then we'll visit one of the Units and get the hell out of here and escape from the clutches of the cruel and nasty wallpad ORANGE forever."
"Do you think there's any wallpad personnel left above?"
"There'll definitely be some left, though they'll have lost control of the majority of their technology, I reckon."
"So how can we keep out of their clutches?"
"You'll see."
"Sally, you are a one. You're full of surprises."
"Always was, always will be."
With that, the two sixty-six-year-old ex-classmates took a nap making convenient use of the control room's overnight sleeping cots. They were so full and comfortable that even the odd rumble of a distant laser bomb explosion failed to disturb them.
* * *
Julie and Sally enjoyed their one and a half hour after-dinner nap, their Londoner's siesta, and were soon chirpily up on their feet.
Julie stretched her arms up high to the ceiling while letting loose a huge long drawn out yawn.
"Brill," she said. "I haven't slept like that since my husband died.
"And I haven't had a sleep like it since I was collared into buying a ticket for the wallpad ORANGE express."
"Is that a train?"
"Nope. I was speaking metaphorically. I mean since I was forced to join the ranks of wallpad ORANGE as an Orange Shirt."
"Oh, I've got it."
"You certainly have, Jules. Just don't give it to anyone else!"
"Funny lady. Good to see wallpad failed to break you."
"Yeah well, let's get ready for the rest of the day. Luckily there are a couple of bathrooms with toilets and showers." Sally pointed to the bathroom area.
In a mixture of hope and tentativeness, Julie asked, "Hot water, by any chance?"
"Too right. Soap and shampoo too—if you don't mind the orange packaging and colouring. And don't worry, it doesn't colour your hair or skin. Smells quite neutral, if you're wondering."
"Er, I hope this isn't a hope too far, but there doesn't happen to be any toilet paper, does there? I mean proper toilet paper. I've been using news sheets for years."
"You're in luck, Jules babe. Two-ply soft-ish high quality wallpad bog rolls—if you don't mind the colour orange."
"Given the task, I don't mind one bit." Julie smiled mischievously.
"Yeah well, there's also some decent footwear and clothing we can use too. Follow me."
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I hope you enjoyed this Chapter. I welcome any votes, comments or constructive criticisms (style, spelling, grammar and punctuation errors).
T. J. P. CAMPBELL.