Jimmy Coates: Blackout

“Somebody must have paid for that tie.” He pushed himself off the floor. “And we still don’t know who.”

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There was no great fanfare to the start of the election. Felix realised that he’d been wrong to expect it. He’d never witnessed an election before. The last election in Britain had come before he was born. But he knew there’d been a time not too long ago when elections were routine events. They must have had them all the time, he thought to himself. What a hassle.

He turned up the collar of his duffel coat and hunched his shoulders against the wind.

“Vote Viggo,” he said automatically, thrusting a leaflet into a woman’s hands as she walked past, into the school hall behind them. Felix imagined school halls all over the country similarly transformed into polling stations.

“Efficiency. Stability. Security!” Felix read aloud from one of the government posters in a mock-serious voice. He went on, waggling a finger in the air, “Insanity. Stupidity. Toxicity, and a nice cuppa tea!”

“Shh!” said Georgie, with a smile.

Felix let his thoughts stray to whether the hall of his own school was also being used for the election, then he wondered whether he’d ever be going back there. He would never have admitted it out loud, but he missed some things about school life – the security, the friends, the football… his parents telling him to do his homework.

Viggo and Saffron had left Felix and Georgie to handle this location on their own, while Viggo travelled round to as many other places as he could to gather last-minute support. Every vote counts, he’d said over and over to them.

Felix peeked round the doorway into the hall. A couple of armed policemen stood chatting to a young woman with identity tags who was obviously in charge of running this polling station.

“Hey, you can’t go in there!” Georgie whispered.

Felix waved away her concern. “I’m just looking.”

Past the policemen was a registration table, piled high with papers, and beyond that Felix could see the school gym. Lined up in rows up and down the length of the hall were dozens of voting machines. Each one was a touch-screen kiosk that looked to Felix like it could have dispensed train tickets or lottery tickets.

Strange way to choose a government, he thought, imagining how great it would be if instead of having to pick one of the choices the machine gave you, you could go on the internet and select anybody in the world to be Prime Minister.

Felix watched the woman he’d given the leaflet to. At the moment she was the only voter in the hall. She bent forward so close to the screen on her kiosk that her forehead almost pressed against the name at the top of the machine. Every kiosk bore slanted silver letters saying HERMES.

After a few seconds, the woman tapped her finger against the screen, gave a firm nod, as if the machine could see her, and marched back out of the hall. Felix kept his eyes on her, searching for some clue about who she’d voted for. The woman’s face was completely blank until she passed Felix, when she briefly glanced at him and gave a quick smile. Felix drew in a sharp breath. Did that mean…?

“Hey, Felix!” Georgie whispered. Felix turned to see a gaggle of people arriving. Georgie moved towards them and forced leaflets into their hands. “Vote Viggo!” she said. “End the oppression of Neo-democracy! Vote for freedom! Put control of the country back in the hands of the people!”

From then on, they were busy all day as a constant stream of people arrived to register their votes. Some of the voters smiled at Georgie and Felix, some ignored them completely, while a few tried to shoo them away.

“Vote Viggo!” Felix recited to the ones Georgie had missed.

“Be more cheerful,” Georgie whispered. “Every vote counts!”

“How many times do I have to hear…?” Felix stopped complaining, ready to give the most cheerful greeting of all time to his next ‘customer’. “Good morrow, fine gentleman!” he exclaimed in his brightest, squeakiest voice. “Top of the morning to you!”

“Felix!” Georgie gasped. “What are you doing?”

Felix waved a leaflet above his head, dancing an odd jig that involved twirling his wrists and clicking his heels.

“Happy voting!” he declared to the bemused man hurrying past him. “Place your finger in a voting nature on the button for Signor Viggo, the finest gentleman in the whole of old Eng-er-land!”

The man hunched his shoulders and scurried to the registration table, while Felix and Georgie burst out laughing.

“You can’t do that!” Georgie protested, her giggles telling a different story.

“Votes might win an election,” Felix said grandly, “but make people laugh and you rule the world.”

Georgie shook her head in despair.

“If you had me at every polling station all over the country,” said Felix, “we’d win this, no problem.”

“Or we’d all get put in a loony bin.”

“That, my friend,” Felix replied, grandly, “is entirely possible.”

Jimmy stalked in front of the giant window on the top floor of Viggo’s headquarters, glimpsing London through the gaps in the blind. The vertical slats were beginning to feel like iron bars. He’d watched the lights come on as the afternoon faded into evening, and now the darkness seemed stronger than the illumination, as if it was creeping across the whole city, smothering the place completely.

Two copies of The Times lay on the sofa behind him, folded open to the puzzles. There was no message yet from Eva. It was too soon, and he knew that, but he’d still used the puzzles to find the message board and checked for messages every hour. It was as if his body relished the new element to his routine.

A message would come eventually. Jimmy had confidence in Eva. The only question was whether it would come too late. Despite his desperate attempts to find a doctor, and his near-obsession with learning about the effects of radiation, he had to admit he had no idea what it was doing to him.

All he had to go on was what he could see and what he could feel. His head was pounding and his muscles felt weaker than he’d ever known them to be. He flexed his fingers instinctively but closed his eyes, forcing himself not to examine them again. The blue stain made him feel like he’d dipped his hands in pure terror and couldn’t wash it away.

Now it was all he could see, as if the radiation gripped his brain and shifted every image into the shape of death. There was no comfort in the blackness. Yet Jimmy had been alone with the shadows all day, and now late into the night. He was the only one who was still being actively pursued by NJ7. Even standing this close to the window was a risk – if the Government had the building under observation, which was almost certain, Jimmy knew that advanced imaging techniques might pick out his silhouette and enable them to identify him.

I’ll be ready for them, he heard himself thinking. A rush of adrenalin fizzed through his body. But was it adrenalin, or his programming eager for action? Jimmy pictured millions of tiny tigers charging through his blood, with his body as nothing but a giant cage.

A flash made Jimmy open his eyes. Something had reflected off the window of a passing vehicle, and even with his eyes closed his retina was so sensitive he’d been aware of the change. At the very edge of the room, his back to the wall, Jimmy peeked out of the window, down to the street.

Lights. At the front of the building, right by the main gate, was a TV news van. Whatever they were filming was obscured by the trees and the top of the security fence.