Jimmy Coates: Blackout

“How did you—?”

“Were you followed?”

Eva gave a small shake of her head.

“Are you sure?”

“Jimmy!” Eva said sternly, spinning round to face him. They were standing in near-total darkness, but Jimmy’s eyes caught what little light there was.

“I wasn’t followed,” Eva insisted. “I know what I’m doing. I have to live a secret life every moment of the day and night. What do you think that’s like?” They were so close that Eva could feel the warmth of her own breath bouncing off Jimmy’s face. “I might not be genetically perfect but I’ve learned a couple of things, OK? So don’t be so…” She didn’t know how to finish her sentence. She could feel Jimmy’s tension and saw his eyes constantly darting around the car park.

“OK,” he sighed at last. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I need to trust you. It’s just… inside me…” He closed his eyes for a moment and felt his teeth grinding together. “It makes me so…” He shrugged off his thought and opened his eyes again. “Did you…?”

Eva pulled the piles of papers from under her coat and thrust them at Jimmy.

“What’s all this?” he asked. “I needed the data from his hard drive. Dr Higgins wouldn’t have printed out what I need. He couldn’t have.”

“I couldn’t get into his computer,” Eva explained. “But I will. When I’ve had more time. I’ll get the access codes and…”

Jimmy had already stepped away and was spreading the papers out on the bonnet of a Range Rover, rifling through the pages. His hands moved swiftly to pass each sheet in turn across the car’s bonnet and his eyes scanned each page for less than half a second. He was hardly even aware that his pupils were flicking at a rapid and regular pace, or that every detail seemed to be lodging somewhere in his mind.

Within a minute he swept his hand across the bonnet, letting the papers fall to the floor.

“These are useless!” he sighed. “You were meant to…” He stopped himself, struggling to contain his frustration, not wanting to shout at his friend.

“I told you!” Eva protested, scrambling on her hands and knees to gather up the papers that had slid to the floor. “It’s not easy! I can’t just break in and make a run for it. And there are NJ7 technicians in every bit of that whole department round the clock.” She paused. Her voice was trembling more and more. “Jimmy, I saw the most horrible thing.” She couldn’t carry on gathering the papers now that this memory had come back to her.

“You won’t believe what they’re doing down there,” she whispered. “They’ve got a boy, a young man I mean, but he can’t be much older than me. And he’s still alive, but unconscious, and they’re firing this laser into his eyes, as if they’re trying to zap his brain or…” She tailed off, fighting back the fear in her chest.

“I’m sorry,” said Jimmy softly, crouching down to put a hand on her shoulder. “I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, it’s just that…”

“Jimmy, tell me…” Eva took a slow breath and fixed her eyes on the boy in front of her. “Is that how they made… you?”

Jimmy looked away. It was the first time that night that Eva had seen his eyes remain still for more than a moment. Then he looked back at her and explained.

“I’ve seen that boy too,” he said, standing up and regaining his composure. “It’s Mitchell’s brother. I saw him a long time ago, when I managed to break into NJ7 to try to find out where Felix’s parents were being held. I remember Dr Higgins had Mitchell’s brother lying on a metal table. His name was Lenny. Lenny Glenthorne. I remember it. They must still have him, and they’re still experimenting on him. What are they doing to him?”

“Is he also… an assassin?”

“No,” Jimmy said quickly. “He’s not like Mitchell or me. I don’t think he is, anyway. For Mitchell and me they did have a laser, I think, but before I was even born. The laser was to build the chemical combination of my DNA. I think the laser they’re using on Lenny must be different. Otherwise—” He stopped himself suddenly and every muscle tensed, like a startled animal.

“What?” Eva whispered, but Jimmy cut her off with a firm gesture. He slowly beckoned for her to follow him round the other side of the Range Rover, where they crouched, looking over the bonnet towards the pedestrian lift.

Eva couldn’t believe how fast her heart was beating, and how thin the air felt. It was like she was being strangled.

Jimmy looked up at her, an urgent stare in his eyes. He made small, forceful gestures, pointing at her, then at his eyes, then in the direction of the lift, telling her to keep watching the lift doors. She nodded, but Jimmy knew she’d have no idea what she was meant to do if she saw anything. He dropped down to the wheel of the Range Rover and carefully removed the hubcap.

A few seconds later a crack of light appeared between the lift doors. Before they could open more than a centimetre, Jimmy was in action. A single flick of his wrist sent the hubcap spinning towards the lift with the impetus of a torpedo. As soon as it left Jimmy’s hand, he grabbed Eva’s shoulder and pulled her across the concrete to the other side of the car park, where the shadows were darkest and the down ramp offered an escape.

Jimmy moved so fast Eva was half running and half being dragged. But then came a noise that stopped them in their tracks. It wasn’t the thud of the hubcap connecting with an NJ7 attacker. Instead came a clang as the disc slammed into the back wall of the lift. It was followed immediately by a short, nervous burst of laughter, then a boy’s voice:

“That was so cool!”

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The voice echoed through the concrete structure, and sent a thrill through Jimmy’s heart. He dropped Eva’s collar, hardly noticing when she stumbled to the floor. Then came another shout, this time a girl:

“Jimmy, wait!”

It was the voice of his sister, Georgie. She was with his best friend, Felix, who for some reason had his hands pressed down on the top of his head. Together, they were strolling out of the lift, huge smiles on their faces.

“What are you…?” Jimmy’s words were breathless and soon drowned out by Eva and Georgie running to each other and crushing each other in a hug. Jimmy was so stunned he didn’t even take in the happy words they were exchanging. He quickly came to his senses again.

“You want to chat a bit louder?” he whispered. “I think there’s a deaf wombat in Australia who didn’t quite hear you. And how did you find me?”

“We nearly didn’t,” panted Felix. “You run too fast. We saw you come in here, but we didn’t know what floor you were on. We’ve just had to check every level!”

Jimmy couldn’t help smiling. He hadn’t wanted anybody to know what he was doing, but at the same time he was impressed that Felix and Georgie had managed to follow him.

“You nearly took off the top of my head!” said Felix, his grin revealing the longest line of teeth Jimmy had ever seen, every one of them at a slightly different angle. Meanwhile, his hands were still clamped down on top of his crazy nest of black hair. Finally Jimmy realised what had happened.

He jogged to the lift, where the hubcap had lodged in the back wall, trapping a clump of frizzy black hair with it. “Er, yeah,” Jimmy mumbled, realising he had aimed the missile at the level of an adult’s chest, but that instead it had skimmed the top of Felix’s head. “Sorry.”

Felix shrugged. “I needed a haircut anyway.”

“What’s going on?” Georgie asked, in her most stern voice. “You can’t just go sneaking off, you know.”

“Looks like you’ve done the same,” Jimmy replied. “Didn’t Mum notice? Or Chris? And what about the security guards?”

“Everybody is so distracted with the election we could have driven a herd of geese through the building,” Georgie explained. “And we saw what you did to the security guards so we just told them we were with you.”

Jimmy shook his head in amazement.

“I thought you might have gone out to get some midnight snacks or something,” said Felix. “I don’t think I’d have come if I’d known you were meeting Eva. No offence, or anything, Eva, it’s just, you know…” Eva glared at him, so he held up his hands and stretched his eyebrows so high they looked like they were going to merge with his hair. “What?” he squeaked.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were meeting Eva?” asked Georgie.

“It’s complicated,” Jimmy replied, sheepishly.

“So explain it.” Georgie wasn’t going to be put off. Jimmy suddenly felt as powerless as any normal boy. There were no assassin skills designed to get round an older sister. Georgie stood there, arms folded, her head tilted to one side and her lips pursed.

“You’re in so much trouble,” Felix whispered. “All the way here she’s been telling me what she’s going to—”

“Shut up, Felix,” snapped Georgie. “Let him explain.”

Jimmy felt like the pressure of a waterfall was building up inside his head. His whole life was constructed out of secrets. The first secrets had been the ones his parents kept from him: that they were really NJ7 agents given the long-term mission of raising an experimental government assassin, designed genetically and grown organically.

As soon as he’d discovered the truth about himself, Jimmy’s life had imploded. His father had betrayed him, choosing to stay loyal to NJ7 rather than join him and his mum on the side of Christopher Viggo. Then the man had revealed that he wasn’t even Jimmy’s real father. He had been richly rewarded for his loyalty to the Government: Ian Coates had risen to become Prime Minister of Britain.