Jimmy Coates: Blackout

All this flashed through Jimmy’s head as he wondered whether to reveal his latest secret to his sister. It was possibly the most dangerous secret of them all, and one that he had guarded obsessively for the last six months. He could feel his fingers shaking, while his mouth and lips seemed to have frozen, refusing to form the words.

“Well?” said Georgie, but her expression was softening. She stepped up to her brother and placed her hands gently on his shoulders. Jimmy looked up into her face. It was a long time since he’d felt like a younger brother, but Georgie’s searching brown eyes somehow made him feel glad he was.

Slowly, he raised his hands and turned them round to show his sister the backs of his fingers. In the strange half-light of the car park it took a few seconds for her to see what he was showing her. But then her expression changed.

“They’re blue,” she gasped. “What is this? What happened?”

“It’s still happening,” Jimmy said in a whisper, almost choking on the words. “I have radiation poisoning.”

His own whisper echoed back to him and spun through his head. He looked at the confusion on the faces of Felix, Georgie and Eva and suddenly found himself unable to stop.

“It was in Western Sahara,” he said quickly. “The French Secret Service tricked me. They sent me to a uranium mine. They told me it was safe, but they knew it wasn’t and…” The words tumbled out of him, as if they’d been building up for months. At times he talked so fast he hardly made any sense, but eventually his story came out, along with all the information he’d gathered in the last few months.

“I read about what happens with radiation,” he said, “but it just tells me what’s meant to happen. And some of it isn’t happening, or it’s different because, you know, I’m…” He paused, breathless.

“It’s OK, Jimmy,” said Georgie. “Go on.”

“The level of exposure I had should have… well, it should have killed me by now. I have some of the symptoms but not all, and not all the time. My muscles ache, but sometimes it might be to do with my programming and I know that sometimes I might just be feeling it because I think I’m meant to. But I also have headaches – worse than I’ve ever had – and this…” He held up his fingers again, wiggling them. “…the blue spread at first and I thought my fingers were going numb, but then it stopped, or maybe it’s just slowed down, I can’t tell any more. But I don’t know if this would happen in anybody else, or if it’s just in me. I keep thinking I should be dead by now, but I’m not, and I don’t know whether I feel weaker because of the poisoning or because my programming is changing, or taking me over and making the rest of me weak, or…”

At last he had to stop. His breath was short and he could feel the muscles in his face contorted in anguish. Felix, Georgie and Eva were staring at him. What were they thinking? Jimmy longed for them to still see him as normal. Now he felt so stupid. He should have known that eventually Georgie and Felix would find out everything.

“You need to see a doctor,” said Felix with a shrug, as if Jimmy had merely sneezed or revealed that he had a nasty rash.

“Thanks, genius,” said Jimmy. “I tried that already. The first doctor just checked that I’m not a danger to other people – which I’m not, by the way. Then NJ7 got to him. After that I tracked down a specialist, but NJ7 got to him first.” Jimmy dropped his eyes to the floor. “It looks like my illness is more deadly for doctors than it is for me.”

“You should have told us,” Georgie said softly. “Why didn’t you? You idiot!” She couldn’t help raising her voice now, and she clenched her fists in frustration. “Didn’t you think we’d help?”

“What could you have done?” Jimmy asked. “What will you do now? Invent a cure?”

“You have to tell Mum,” said Georgie. “Forget about the election. That’s nothing compared to this. Tell Mum and Chris, and they’ll help you…”

“Chris knows,” Jimmy admitted. “He found out from the first doctor I went to see. Chris was tracking me and he found my test results. It was months ago now. I made him promise not to tell anybody, then all this election stuff happened and—”

“So Chris has known about this for months?” Georgie was furious now. “But you didn’t think you should tell me? Or Mum?”

She stared at Jimmy, and all he could do was look anywhere but into her face. Then after a few seconds he heard his sister’s breathing change. When he finally looked at her, he saw that now there were lines of tears on her cheeks catching the light.

“It’s OK,” Jimmy found himself saying, unsure whether he believed it himself. “I told you – the blueness has stopped spreading.” He held up his fingers again, but the sight of them only seemed to make Georgie even more upset. “So it’s probably not getting any worse.”

“That’s just weird,” said Felix in a whisper, examining Jimmy’s fingers.

“Didn’t you notice it?” Eva asked, looking from Felix to Georgie and back. There was shock on all their faces. “I mean, you’ve been living with him for the last few months, haven’t you?”

Felix stretched his eyes in wonder and Georgie bit her bottom lip.

“Sorry, Jimmy,” Felix muttered. “I guess there’s been a lot going on. I did see that your fingers were blue once, but I just thought, I don’t know, you hadn’t washed your hands, or something.”

“It’s not your fault,” Jimmy reassured him. “I’ve been hiding everything. I didn’t want to tell you. I…” His voice faded from his throat. He wasn’t even sure why he’d been trying to keep his poisoning a secret. He told himself it was because he didn’t want to distract everybody from trying to win the election, but deep down he knew that it was something more. Telling people about his secret would have made it seem more real. Not telling made it easier to deny the danger spreading within him with every beat of his heart. It made it easier not to take notice when his condition got worse.

“I’m going to be fine,” Jimmy announced with force, pushing his fear away. “I just need to find out more about how my body works. That’s why I asked Eva to—”

“You can’t heal yourself, Jimmy,” Georgie cut in. “No matter how much you find out about yourself, you’re not going to be able to make yourself better.”

“But I told you,” Jimmy replied, anger rising in his chest, “even if I could find a doctor who knew how to cure radiation poisoning in a genetically modified freak, they’d be killed by NJ7 before I got close to them.”

Georgie immediately stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her brother.

“You’re not a freak,” she whispered into his ear. “I won’t let you say that.”

Jimmy felt himself crumbling.

“What about one of these doctors?” It was Felix’s voice, and it seemed to soothe the confusion in Jimmy’s head. Felix was picking through the piles of papers that Eva had brought from Dr Higgins’ office. He held up an old photograph.

The photo showed about a dozen people lined up in two rows, like a football team photo, except it was a mixture of men and women, who all looked at least fifty, and they were wearing white coats. They seemed to be standing in some kind of lab, and most of them were smiling awkwardly, as if they’d much rather be getting back to work.

“This lot look ugly enough to cure anything,” Felix quipped.

“How does this help?” Jimmy grunted. He knew he should be used to Felix’s humour. Maybe that’s his superpower, Jimmy thought to himself.

“This could help,” said Georgie. “Look.” She pointed to a tall man in the back row. “Isn’t that…?”

“You guys are so slow,” Felix sighed. “It’s Dr Higgins!” He shook the photo in exasperation. “This must be, like, some kind of NJ7 crazy scientist end-of-term photo.”

“I don’t think they have terms,” said Georgie. “But whatever – I think you’re right. He looks a bit younger, doesn’t he? But it’s definitely him.”

“So these other people…” The pieces were falling into place in Jimmy’s head.

“These must be some of the scientists who designed…” Eva paused, unsure how to put it. “…who worked on your genetics, Jimmy.”

Jimmy grabbed the photo and ran his finger across the faces. Dr Higgins was the only one he recognised.

“Have you seen any of these people at NJ7?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” replied Eva. “But there are hundreds of people working there. It’ll take me some time to find out who they all are and what’s happened to them since this photo was taken.” An idea flashed across her face and she dropped her voice, almost talking to herself. “I can scan it in and run it through the facial recognition programme, then the NJ7 database…”

“Is Dr Higgins still in America?” Felix asked. “He’d probably help you.”

“Maybe he would,” said Jimmy, “but he could be anywhere in the world right now. Eva…” He thrust the photo into her hand. “…if you can find one of these other scientists, that’s my best chance.”

“As long as they’re not still loyal to this Government,” said Georgie. “Otherwise they’ll turn you in and NJ7 will kill you.”

“I have to risk it,” Jimmy insisted. “I don’t have a choice.”

“OK,” announced Eva, “I’ll see what I can find out.” She started gathering all her documents together again, keeping the photograph on the top of her pile. “I’ll send you a message in the Sudoku.”

“The who-do-what?” Jimmy asked.

“You know,” said Felix. “The puzzle at the back of the paper.”