For Mary-Ann

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

The Bodies

01 - Nothing Applies

02 - The Living Boy

03 - The Class of Scientists

04 - French Champagne

05 - Operation Blackout

06 - You’re Never Alone

07 - Do You Have It?

08 - They Know, They Don’t Know

09 - Maltese Illusion

10 - Find Some Shadows

11 - Chisley Hall

12 - Decommissioned

13 - Checking Out

14 - You’re Right, But You’re Wrong

15 - Alphabetical Advantage

16 - Catching a Plane

17 - A Leash Loosened

18 - LOCO

19 - Extraction

20 - This isn’t Genetics

21 - Blackout, Whiteout

22 - He Didn’t Stand a Chance

23 - Lee Makes Sparks Fly

24 - Shadows and Echoes

25 - Fallen Idol

26 - Half a Reunion

27 - Everybody’s Listening

About the Author

Also by Joe Craig

Copyright

About the Publisher

Jimmy Coates can only trust one man to keep the country from falling into chaos. But that man has disappeared and everything and everyone is at stake…

Buried four kilometres below ground and embedded in a concrete crust fifty metres thick, one of the British Government’s seven supercomputers was about to be breached. It was housed beneath Menwith Hill Royal Air Force Station in North Yorkshire, but nobody on the base could have any idea the attack was underway. The battle was lost as soon as it began, when a new string of computer code flickered into life.

Instantly, it began worming through the system, a mere twinkle in a constellation of electrical impulses. Imperceptible. Insignificant too, if it hadn’t been for the fact that at the exact same moment, hundreds of kilometres to the north and eleven kilometres above the earth, an Aurora Blackbird SR-91 plane pierced British airspace.

The two events were timed to perfection. The worm wriggled through the computer network exactly as it had been designed to do, creating a tiny corridor in the British satellite surveillance system – a sliver of shadow, which the Aurora Blackbird ran through like a fencer’s blade. The precisely pinpointed surveillance blackout rendered the plane effectively invisible. It was high enough and fast enough to be missed by conventional, ground-based radar defence systems; its black neoprene-titanium panels didn’t glint in the night, and even the fuel was caesium-based so that the exhaust fumes would be transparent.

In no time, the plane passed over the islands to the north of Scotland and reached the mainland. It was still travelling at 1,900 kilometres an hour when the doors in its undercarriage slid open. Two black body bags dropped from the plane’s belly. Then it immediately wheeled away to leave British airspace as discreetly as it had entered.

The packages hurtled down through the atmosphere. They had reached terminal velocity even before they plunged through the clouds. They twisted as they fell, the wind pummelling the linoleum-coated material to reveal the contours of the bodies inside.

After a few seconds, two black parachutes unfurled automatically and the descent slowed. The body bags drifted and eventually bumped on to the heather, sixteen kilometres from the nearest road. That’s where they lay for almost two hours, ten metres apart, motionless but for the buffeting of the wind.

Then, at the same moment, both bags twitched. They rolled over until their zips faced upwards. On any normal body bag the zips would have been accessible only from the outside. But these were different.

Simultaneously, the two bags peeled open and out climbed two people. They staggered to their feet – a man and a woman, both tall and dressed in black jumpsuits. They peered through the darkness to each other, not making a sound. They stretched and rubbed their heads, but both moved freely enough. The man blinked rapidly and shook his brain back to full consciousness, tangles of straggly black hair blustering around his head. The woman did the same a moment later, then they both gathered in the parachutes, piling up the black silk on top of the protective body bags.

The man produced a matchbox and two boiled eggs from his pocket. In seconds the parachutes and body bags were lighting up the hillside. They waited together in silence, controlling the fire with a ring of damp heather while they carefully shelled and consumed the eggs. Soon they were able to stamp out the embers, leaving no trace of the equipment that had enabled them to survive their epic fall unharmed.

Still without a word, the woman pulled out a compass and they marched south.

Two security guards strolled back to their booth, sharing a joke.

“All clear,” said one into his walkie-talkie, still chuckling.

“Thanks, beta station,” came crackling back. “Next patrol at 0400.”

“Just enough time for a brew,” muttered the other guard in a soft Irish accent.

They clicked off their torches and hurried into the booth, eager to get out of the wind. The two men could have been built from the same Lego set: a square block from the shoulders all the way down to the ground. They wore blue uniforms with peaked caps, which revealed only the greying edges of their hair.

The booth was only just big enough for them to sit side by side, but they settled in and inspected the line of CCTV screens in front of them. From here they could watch the whole perimeter of the building they’d just been patrolling: a small glass office block set within its own walls on London’s South Bank. From here a man called Christopher Viggo had been running his election campaign – the only legitimate opposition to the British Government – and it would have been impossible for anybody to approach the main gate from the street without being in clear view of the booth window.

“What’s that?” muttered the Irish guard. He reached forward and tapped his finger on one of the screens. “Which camera is that?” The image was grainy, enhanced by the camera’s infrared night mode, but there was one spot of brightness showing two broad silhouettes in a hut.

“That’s us,” replied the other guard.

“I know that, you idiot, but what’s that?” He jabbed his finger on the screen again. “This booth doesn’t have a dome on the roof.” They both leaned forward to examine the screen more closely.

“Is someone crouching up there?”

The end of his question was cut off by an ear-splitting crack. Suddenly they were showered in splinters and a black figure crashed through the roof. It landed on top of the older guard, instantly twisting to send the man’s cap spinning across the booth. The peak of it struck the other guard precisely between the eyes. His whole body went limp and he slumped in his chair.

The first guard was pulled to the floor and rolled over until he was underneath his assailant, the centre of his chest pinned to the ground by the attacker’s knee. Only now did the guard see a face.

“Jimmy!” he gasped. “You’re—”

“I’m not here,” Jimmy cut in with a whisper. He forced his hand over the guard’s mouth and fixed him with a calm stare. The green in his eyes glinted like alligators in a swamp. “I’m inside, asleep.” He jerked his head back towards the building. The top floor had been converted into basic living quarters where he’d been staying, with his mum, his sister Georgie, and his best friend, Felix. Viggo himself lived there too, but the lights in the offices below indicated he and some of his staff were still working.

“Nobody knows I’ve slipped out,” Jimmy whispered, “and it’s going to stay that way. Got that?”

The guard nodded, his cheeks turning white under the force of Jimmy’s grip.

“I’m going to release you now,” explained Jimmy softly. “When I do, you make no sound unless I tell you to, OK?” The guard nodded frantically again. “You fix this roof with the board I’ve left behind the booth. In four minutes you revive your mate and explain everything, then when the time comes, you both go on your patrol as normal.” Jimmy’s tone was flat, but there was a burning urgency behind the words. “And I need to know that you two will let me back in later tonight. Got that?”

Jimmy slowly eased his grip and uncovered the man’s mouth.

“Yes, Jimmy,” wheezed the guard. Jimmy’s knee was constricting his lungs. “But shouldn’t I let Mr Viggo know?”

Jimmy narrowed his eyes and dug his knee in harder.

“If I wanted Chris to know,” he hissed, “I’d have spelled it out in his alphabet soup.”

“I have instructions. Rules I have to follow. Otherwise Mr Viggo will—”

“The rules don’t apply.” Jimmy forced out his words between gritted teeth. “Nothing applies. Got that?”

Jimmy heard the harshness in his own voice and reluctantly let off some of the pressure with his knee. These men were on his side, he reminded himself. They were there to protect him. They didn’t deserve any serious pain.

“And please don’t tell Chris about this,” he added.

“Please?” spluttered the guard. “Are you asking me or telling me?”

“Whatever,” said Jimmy, with a small smile. “Just keep it to yourselves or everybody will know how sloppy you two have been. What if this had been a real attack? What if someone had tried to kill Chris again?”

A darkness shivered across Jimmy’s face. His words had brought back vivid memories. The first time the Government had sent anybody to kill Christopher Viggo, they’d sent Jimmy himself. That seemed so long ago now – when Jimmy had only just discovered the truth about himself: that he was genetically designed by the Government to be an assassin.

Back then, the Government hadn’t allowed any opposition to exist at all and Viggo’s protests had made him a target. Since Jimmy had changed sides, he and Viggo had forced the Government to change their position.

“Who’s going to attack?” protested the guard. “Viggo’s legitimate now. There’s an election starting in a few hours. A real election, Jimmy! The first one for years. If there was still a threat, do you think Viggo would have been out speaking in public like he has for the last six months? Or living and working in a grand place like this and not hiding in some sewer?”

Jimmy was hardly listening to the man. He picked himself up and dusted the splinters from his tracksuit trousers and hoodie. His extraordinary abilities were still well hidden in the wiry frame of a twelve-year-old boy.

“If Chris is so legitimate now,” Jimmy mumbled, “why does he have ex-military security guards? What’s he afraid of?” His eyes flicked across the bank of CCTV screens as if the dark patches of blue hid the answer to a puzzle. “What’s out there?”

“It’s just shadows, Jimmy,” said the guard. “It’s more dangerous for you than for Mr Viggo. You’re still on the NJ7 hit list. You’re lucky they haven’t found out you’re here.”

Jimmy let out a low growl of disgust at the mention of NJ7. It was Britain’s new breed of Secret Service agency. They were the best in the world: the most efficient and the most vicious. It was also the organisation that Viggo had once worked for himself, before he decided the Government was becoming too extreme. Jimmy glanced at both the guards. They’d been NJ7 agents too, but now they shared Viggo’s views.

“You haven’t exactly stayed sharp, have you?” said Jimmy, noticing three empty packets of pork scratchings on the floor. The conscious guard opened his mouth, but had nothing to say. He looked so embarrassed that Jimmy had to shake his head and look away.

“Just let me back in later,” Jimmy sighed. “And don’t let the others find out I’ve been gone, OK?”

“OK, Jimmy,” said the guard, sheepishly. “But where are you going?”

He got no reply. Jimmy was already disappearing out of the door, into the darkness.

Eva Doren frantically pecked at the keyboard. She checked over her shoulder every few seconds now, terrified that someone would come in. The NJ7 technical computers had state-of-the-art encryption, and getting round it was taking longer than she wanted. She was no hacker, but she’d picked up a lot about NJ7 security in the months that she’d been working there, and she had clearance for most of the generic access codes.

She wiped the sweat from her face and hammered another set of figures into the machine. It failed again, and the error message seemed to flash up even brighter than before, along with a chilling image: a vertical green stripe – the emblem of NJ7.

Every time she saw that green stripe she felt another twist of horror. To her it represented the lies and the threat of violence that lurked never far from the surface. It was a threat that the whole country had been living under, even if they didn’t know it. Anybody could be taken away by NJ7 at any time and locked up, or worse, for doing anything that suggested criticism of the Government. Nobody felt the danger more keenly than Eva herself.

As far as anybody at NJ7 knew, she had betrayed Jimmy Coates and left her family to be taken on as an apprentice by NJ7’s ruthless Director, Miss Bennett. Eva lived in constant fear that someone would suspect the truth: she was still loyal to Jimmy. Jimmy’s sister, Georgie Coates, was her best friend and Eva was doing everything she could for them.

Come on, she pleaded with herself, blinking hard to force away the tiredness. She refused to give up. She carefully entered another code and this time…

Yes! She clenched her fist in triumph, then immediately straightened herself in the chair and pulled her shoulders back. It was never in any doubt, she thought to herself proudly. But as she clicked through the files on the computer, it became clear that every file was individually encrypted in a way that Eva didn’t recognise. She pursed her lips in annoyance.

“Pointless!” she muttered under her breath. It seemed to Eva like a perfect waste of time that the tech department guarded their secrets so closely. But underneath the hurt pride, Eva knew that nobody in the history of NJ7 had been more careful than the man whose files she was after tonight: Dr Higgins.

Dr Higgins had left NJ7 months ago now, in suspicious circumstances, but his shadow still seemed to loom over every corridor. He was the old NJ7 scientist who had overseen the design and creation of the first organic assassins: Jimmy Coates and Mitchell Glenthorne. Eva was at his old desk now, on the computer where his old hard drive had been stored and flagged for analysis.

If only I had more time, she thought. Why tonight? At the same time she knew that the timing was perfect: the election the following day was a huge distraction. Eva had been deep undercover at NJ7 for months, but this was the first time she’d been able to move through the tunnels of NJ7 Headquarters without worrying about being watched. With so much activity going on, nobody had paid attention to where she’d been going or what she was up to.

For a moment she pictured the streets of Central London, above. This late at night they’d be almost entirely deserted, yet the network of tunnels directly below was teeming with people. The quiet bustle of footsteps echoed off the bare walls and the rustling of papers mixed with whispered conversations. Swarms of black suits streamed through the concrete corridors, a tangle of green stripes. The NJ7 agents went about preparing for the coming election like ants building Hell.

If only Jimmy had told her which specific piece of information he wanted. She could have tried to find it some other way. But there hadn’t been the chance for any discussion. Earlier that day, Eva had accompanied Miss Bennett as she oversaw the Prime Minister’s press conference. Journalists’ questions were always carefully selected months in advance, of course, but a few new ones were also allowed so that the PM could respond to the latest developments. As it was the day before the first general election for years, everybody wanted to ask fresh questions, so Eva had been helping to filter out anything that suggested anti-government feeling.

Each question was written on an official form, and Eva had no idea how Jimmy had managed to slip an extra one into her pile. She could still feel the chills she got when she reached the page. Even before she’d read it, she’d known who it was from because of the handwriting. When she’d looked up, she’d noticed the hunched back of a civil service cleaner lumbering away. Had that been Jimmy in disguise? Or was Eva’s mind thinking up phantoms to explain what had happened?

All the note had said, in Jimmy’s scratchy pencil lettering, was that they had to meet at a nearby car park late that night. Jimmy needed Eva to bring information from Dr Higgins’ computer about the genetic design of the assassins: Jimmy’s DNA.

Suddenly a noise sent a shiver through Eva’s body. Somebody was coming, and there was nowhere to hide. At NJ7 there were no doors to the rooms, just one huge network of tunnels with open areas for desks and office space. She slammed her palm on the desk in frustration, leaving a sticky handprint on the leather which she immediately wiped off with her sleeve. The footsteps in the corridor mixed with the pounding of her heart. She would have to come back another night, when she had gathered all the access codes she needed.

Quickly and efficiently, she shut down the computer, wiped the keypad clean, and went to the filing cabinet. It was locked.

“How do they run this stupid department!?” she muttered under her breath. But she refused to let it ruffle her. On top of the filing cabinet was a yellow document box. On the spine was the number seven and another green stripe. Any information was better than nothing, Eva reasoned. The alternative was to meet Jimmy empty-handed, which was no alternative at all.

She opened the document box to find a stack of thinner, coloured folders, old computer printouts and some loose, handwritten notes. There was enough dust on the document box to suggest it hadn’t been checked in a while, so Eva quickly extracted sheets from the most dog-eared and tattered files. If there was going to be anything here about the design of the assassin DNA, Eva thought, it would be on the oldest pages. Where the folders themselves were thin enough, she grabbed them whole.

She was careful to wipe her finger marks from the dust when she closed the document box, then slipped out of Dr Higgins’ old office with a bundle of papers and folders under her arm. There were two NJ7 technicians hurrying towards her, involved in their own hushed conversation. Eva watched their faces as she passed them. Had they noticed where she’d been? All she saw were expressions of calm efficiency, but that still fuelled the anxiety in her gut.

With every step through the network of tunnels it took a huge effort to maintain an air of confidence. Only looking like she was on legitimate NJ7 business, sent by Miss Bennett, would keep her from being scrutinised. Even though she was only thirteen, the other NJ7 employees had grown used to her being around and had either accepted it, or were too scared of Miss Bennett to question Eva’s presence.

The corridors of the NJ7 tech department were less familiar to Eva than the rest of the complex. The murky haze of energy-saving light bulbs cast orange shadows around the concrete. Eva longed for the brightness of the proper light bulbs in Miss Bennett’s office. She had long since become used to the lack of sunlight.

Eva clasped the piles of papers and kept her head down, doing her best to walk at a steady, confident pace. Every time she turned a corner she was met by more tunnels stretching out for hundreds of metres, or larger rooms where teams of agents were working at banks of computers. In her head she ran over the errands she could say she was on if she was stopped.

Tell them you’re taking a message from William Lee to Miss Bennett, she decided. The two most senior people in the Government were known to hate each other. William Lee was the Government’s Head of Special Security. Once he’d tried to take over Miss Bennett’s position as Director of NJ7 – he’d even tried to become Prime Minister himself. Miss Bennett had put him in his place.

Eva could use the games they played against each other to her own advantage now. But what message was being sent? Of course: a top secret one. She wasn’t allowed to reveal it to anybody. That’s what she’d say if an agent questioned her.

The idea was still smouldering in Eva’s mind when she turned another corner and found herself in a deserted lab full of computer screens and whirring technical equipment. At the other end of the lab she realised that it wasn’t quite deserted. Sitting at a computer station, staring at her over his shoulder, was the one man on whom Eva’s cover story wouldn’t work: William Lee.

William Lee jumped up, leaving his chair swivelling dizzily behind him. Eva was frozen to the spot, staring up at the unnaturally tall Eurasian man.

“Eva,” Lee growled, the tower of hair on top of his head swaying slightly as he spoke. “Shouldn’t you be with Miss Bennett?”

“Yes,” Eva replied hurriedly. “Of course. I’m on my way now.”

There was a horrible silence. In Eva’s mind it lasted an eternity. She watched Lee’s eyes scan her up and down, lingering on the folders and loose pages under her left arm.

Since Miss Bennett had outwitted him, there had been something physically weaker about this man, as if he’d actually shrunk a couple of centimetres, but his mind was still sharp. Eva thought frantically of what she could possibly say to explain what she was doing, but at the same time she knew that too much explanation would sound suspicious. Why wasn’t Lee asking her what she was doing? Eva was almost desperate to have the chance to come up with an excuse. The silence did her no good at all.

At last, Lee spoke again. But it wasn’t what Eva was expecting.

“I was just having a look at the satellite surveillance,” he muttered. “It’s been playing up.” He stared blankly into Eva’s eyes. She just nodded. Why was he explaining himself to her? Had Miss Bennett really weakened his confidence that much?

“I’m seeing if I can fix it,” Lee went on.

“Should I fetch a technician for you?” Eva blurted out, eager to get away as quickly as possible.

“No, no,” insisted Lee. “It’s just a minor glitch. I have it under control.”

Eva nodded again, and deliberately held her breathing steady as she turned to leave. Don’t look back at him, she told herself. And don’t rush away too fast. The papers under her arm had taken on the weight of bricks.

At last she heard the squeak of Lee’s chair and the tap of his computer keyboard. Finally Eva was striding away down the next corridor. Relax, she ordered herself. He didn’t suspect. He didn’t ask.

But then the squeak of the chair echoed down the corridor. Could she really hear Lee’s footsteps coming after her, or was she imagining it? The corridor stretched out in front of her, with a crossroads about twenty metres ahead. Maybe if she could reach that she could disappear and Lee would let her go – for now. But it was too far away. She’d never make it before Lee came round the corner.

Then she saw her chance. There was a slim gap in the side of the tunnel. It was less than half a metre wide, and completely dark. Eva thanked her luck – she’d found a remnant from when different service tunnels had been joined together to create the NJ7 labyrinth. She rushed towards it, and stepped into the shadows.

To her shock, her step faltered and she nearly fell. The opening in the concrete was in fact a staircase leading downwards. Eva could make out a sliver of light at the bottom. She gingerly stepped down towards it, her shoulders brushing against the cold concrete on both sides.

She paused halfway down to listen for Lee’s footsteps. There was no noise coming from behind her. There was, however, the sound of quiet conversation coming from below. Eva crept further on, but lurked in the shadows. When her eyes adjusted to the bright light of the room in front of her, what she saw banished any worries about William Lee.

Half a dozen NJ7 technicians were hurrying around the room, passing each other papers and mumbling instructions to each other. Their white coats almost glowed under an intense green light. In the centre of the room, on a large metal slab, was the scarred and scorched body of what looked like an older teenage boy. His limbs were being held in place and gradually manipulated by metal clamps. Aimed directly into his eye was an intense green laser being fired from a large machine attached to a computer.

Eva couldn’t look away from the boy – not because of the laser, or the obvious injuries from these strange operations, but because his chest was steadily rising and falling. This boy was alive.

Jimmy took a twisting route through London, constantly scanning his surroundings. His brain was building millions of fragments of information into an instinct he couldn’t explain. Someone was out there. Someone was following him.

Get over it, he urged himself. If somebody from NJ7 was on to him they would have struck by now. It’s nothing, he insisted in his head, pausing to check the reflection of the street in a darkened shop window. Just paranoia. He rubbed his eyes hard. Every bit of him ached in a way he had never felt before: like his limbs were being compressed from every direction and his head was trapped under a spinning washing machine. He searched inside himself for the power of his genetic programming. It was constantly swirling in him, ready to burst through his veins and take him over in an instant. Jimmy relied on it more and more. Without it, the agony was too much.

He drew on that inner strength, a centre of burning power that felt like it came from just behind his stomach. It flooded through him with a violent surge, swamping the pain. Jimmy couldn’t help letting out a gasp of relief, but it was combined with a low growl of aggression: the two sides of him battling together to sustain the whole.

He sprinted off with renewed energy. There was a buzz in the air in London’s streets and Jimmy imagined it seeping into his skin. There were hundreds more people out than usual, because of all the rallies in support of both sides – final preparations before the ballot the next day. He found his way to Trafalgar Square, where a pro-government rally was just coming to an end. He mingled with the crowds to further protect himself from anybody following.

How can all these people support the Government? Jimmy wondered, looking around at the placards and banners. He considered whether they’d been paid to come out tonight, or even forced by NJ7. At the southern end of the square there was a big screen flashing messages and government slogans into the night: “Efficiency. Stability. Security.” Jimmy couldn’t help letting out a huff. In front of the screen was a middle-aged woman ranting into a microphone about how the Government would keep taxes low and manage the country better than Viggo ever could, because he had no experience.

“…And why should you have the stress of making important government decisions?” she went on. “Government is for governments! Giving people a say in what happens to the country just creates muddled decisions and confusion!” There was a general murmur of approval. “Why should you have to worry?” Everybody cheered, but Jimmy huffed again, a little too loudly this time. A bald man with a thick puffer jacket and a government placard looked round and glared at him.

Jimmy hurried to the other end of the square where a large group of Viggo supporters had set up their own, slightly smaller screen and were chanting in support of freedom, democracy and everything Viggo stood for. Viggo’s smile flashed up on the screen and Jimmy couldn’t help smiling too. For a few seconds he slowed down to watch, proud of the part he’d played in making this possible.

“Join me and change the country!” declared Viggo from the screen. It was showing some of the best bits of his speeches from the last few months. “Believe in change! Believe in democracy! Believe in freedom!” Each sentence drew a cheer from the pro-Viggo half of the square. Even the sight of the man’s face, blown up so large on the screen, seemed to have the crowd mesmerised. Jimmy delighted in the genuine enthusiasm around him. Whole families were there, including people of about Jimmy’s age. For the first time, Jimmy really felt part of something special, something historic. The country’s going to change, Jimmy thought. It’s going to be great.

Then something cut through Jimmy’s excitement. A shout was out of place. Jimmy looked round and saw the crowd from the Government rally was dispersing and some of the supporters had come over to the pro-Viggo end of the square. The bald man with the puffer jacket was waving his placard and booing. Jimmy was ready to ignore it all and run on, but a Viggo supporter in a high-visibility jacket tried to wave the bald man away. Whatever he said, it wasn’t taken well.

The bald man’s face reddened and creased into fury. Suddenly he shoved his placard into the other man’s chest. The Viggo supporter staggered backwards for a second, then hurled out his fists one after the other, trying to fight back. Jimmy responded immediately. He wove through the crowd, snatching a ‘Vote Viggo’ cap from the head of a teenager on his way past. He kept his head low, then at the last second jumped up and brought the cap down over the face of the Viggo supporter. In the same movement, he dragged the man backwards and took his place.

The bald man swished his placard clean over Jimmy’s head. Immediately Jimmy delivered a jab to the man’s gut with the knuckles of his left hand, then landed his right fist in exactly the same spot with a powerful cross punch. The man’s puffer jacket wasn’t nearly enough to cushion the blows. His eyes widened and he flailed at Jimmy even as he gasped for breath. Finally Jimmy extended his right thigh and held it steady while the lower part of the limb flicked out. His toes hit the man’s kneecap like a spike in a pinboard.

Jimmy felt a rush of calm aggression urging him to deliver one more blow – a fatal one. No, Jimmy ordered himself, locking his arms and legs. After half a second, he snatched the ‘Vote Viggo’ cap again and mashed it on to the bald man’s head.

“What was that?” the man gasped, rolling on the floor and clutching his knee. Jimmy was already sprinting away, but he heard the answer flashing through his head: that was a fouette. How did he know that? That swift kick was a move he hadn’t used before, but its devastating effect was obvious. Suddenly a new world was flooding through his mind: La Savate combat technique. His programming was still adapting, still growing.

At the edge of the square he glanced back and saw more men and women in high-visibility jackets making sure the brief eruption of violence was definitely over. Jimmy crouched in the darkness of a doorway. La Savate combat technique, he thought to himself, stretching his limbs. I like it.

Eva shivered and hugged her coat more tightly around her. It was difficult, though, with such a pile of papers hidden in her arms. How much longer will I have to wait? she wondered. She was on the ninth floor of a multi-storey car park on Great College Street in Westminster, Central London. She rocked from foot to foot and peered around her into the deep shadows.

It had taken longer than she would have liked, but she had eventually managed to slip away from the NJ7 labs unseen. Now moonlight streaked in between the pillars of the car park, casting a dim sheen over patches of empty concrete. The rest was blackness. Only the silhouettes of a couple of cars interrupted the empty expanse. Probably stolen or abandoned, she thought to herself.

Suddenly she felt hot breath on the back of her neck.

“Don’t turn round,” came Jimmy’s voice in a whisper.

“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!”

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.

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.”

“Since when do you read the paper?” Jimmy asked.

“Since your mum started trying to get me to do school work.”

“Oh, right. Sorry about that.”

“It’s OK. I just do the puzzles and tell her its maths.”

“Don’t,” Eva cut in. “Don’t ever do the Sudoku.”

“What?” Felix looked hurt. “Why?”

“Or the crossword.” Eva looked genuinely scared at the thought. “The Government controls all those puzzles. Every day the numbers and words are arranged by a government computer to make you feel calm and happy. It’s like a drug. It’s one of the ways they make sure people will do whatever they say.”

Jimmy couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“You mean the puzzles in every newspaper are designed by the Government to make everybody more obedient?”

“Every newspaper except the Daily Mail,” Eva explained. “They have too many puzzles and I think their readers are obedient anyway.”

“All this time they’ve been brainwashing me!” gasped Felix. He gripped his skull in his hands and his mouth dropped wide open. “I knew it!”

“I think your brain would take a special kind of washing, Felix,” said Georgie with a smile. Then she turned back to Eva and was serious again. “So if these puzzles are controlled by a government computer how are you going to use them to send us messages?”

“I have access to the computer programme,” beamed Eva. “So get The Times and hold the Sudoku up against the crossword clues. Whatever words it highlights, search for them online and go to the first message board that comes up. I’ll change which message board I’m on every day, and if I have an urgent message for you I’ll just put it straight into the clue words.”

“Thank you, Eva,” said Jimmy, but he wasn’t sure whether he sounded grateful enough. He knew Eva was risking her life for him. She just smiled and headed for the lifts until Felix stopped her.

“Eva, wait.” His voice was suddenly low and his eyes downcast. “When you look through all the stuff on NJ7 computers and in their documents and everything…”

“What is it?” Eva asked, but Jimmy knew straight away what was on Felix’s mind. He recognised the darkness in his friend’s eyes that had never been there before a certain day several months ago – the last time anybody had seen his parents.

“Do you ever see anything about my mum and dad?” Felix’s voice was level, but it was obvious how much effort it was taking. His parents had been seized in New York, and at first everybody had assumed it must have been NJ7 that had taken them. But Jimmy had found out the truth. The head of the CIA admitted that he’d taken them.

Jimmy would never forget how it had happened. He could still see the triumph in Colonel Keays’ eyes, the wrinkles on his face all seeming to point to his devilish smile. The man had used his power as head of the CIA to send Jimmy on a fake mission to an oil rig. The result had been Colonel Keays gaining even more power. In fact he was now on the verge of becoming President of the USA.

“The CIA has definitely got them,” Jimmy went on. “Not NJ7. Colonel Keays had no reason to lie about that. It’s going to take time, but we will get them back.”

“I just thought it was worth checking,” mumbled Felix. “In case NJ7 knew something. That’s all.” He shrugged slowly and Jimmy felt a shot of intense sadness shoot through him. It was like an injection of pure darkness. At least my programming still lets me feel sympathy, Jimmy thought to himself.

“Sorry, Felix,” whispered Eva. “If I find anything about your parents I’ll definitely send you a message straight away. But I think Jimmy’s right.”

She hurried away towards the lift, the beat of her footsteps echoing through the car park.

“We should wait until she’s gone,” Jimmy whispered to Felix and Georgie. “Then we’ll go down the other way together.”

“Oh,” Eva called out, swivelling round as she waited for the lift. “I saw William Lee. He said something about trying to fix the satellite surveillance system. It wasn’t working properly or something.”

“Across the whole of London?” Jimmy asked hopefully.

“That’s what it sounded like,” said Eva. “And it didn’t seem like he was doing a good job of fixing it.” The lift arrived and Eva stepped in. “So they might not have such good coverage of the streets as usual. I’ll send you a message if that changes. Don’t forget – the puzzles in the paper!”

“Thanks again, Eva,” whispered Jimmy.

“Good luck.” Eva’s words were lost in the shadow of the lift doors.

“We’re going to have some explaining to do,” said Felix with dread. Georgie and Jimmy nodded, silently, as the three of them looked up at Christopher Viggo’s campaign headquarters.

There were more lights on inside than when they’d left. They could make out the silhouettes of Viggo’s staff throughout the building. Most importantly the lights were on on the top floor, where Jimmy, Felix and Georgie were meant to be fast asleep.

“Looks like Mum’s up,” said Georgie. “Probably waiting for us.”

“This is when being invisible would come in handy,” said Jimmy.

“Yeah, right,” Georgie replied. “So you could sneak in and leave us to get into trouble!”

“What happens to your clothes when you become invisible?” asked Felix, sounding genuinely confused. “You know, if that was actually something you could do.”

“I don’t know.” Jimmy shrugged. “They go invisible too, I guess.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Georgie. “What would be the point of invisible clothes?”

“That’s obvious,” said Felix. “To stop other invisible people seeing you naked.”

“OK,” sighed Jimmy. “Do you want me to take you through all the reasons why that makes no sense at all?”

They grinned sheepishly at the guards, who opened the gate without question, even though they looked like they would happily have murdered all three of them. Inside, they hurried to the lifts. Members of Viggo’s campaign staff were bustling about, taking calls and having heated discussions while two TV screens showed the rolling news station. Jimmy kept his head down and his hood up. Since the campaign started, he’d been nervous about NJ7 having a mole in Viggo’s camp. There’d been no sign of it, but he still preferred to remain anonymous. If NJ7 found out he was there it would only lead to trouble for everybody.

Felix and Georgie didn’t bother to hide. In fact, Felix beamed at everybody, especially the women. He was used to joking around with Viggo’s staff whenever he got the chance.

“I told you we should have gone through the service entrance,” Jimmy muttered.

“What’s the point?” Felix replied. “Your mum obviously knows we’re not there.”

“This lot don’t talk to Mum anyway,” added Georgie while they waited for a lift. “Chris has kept it all so… separate.”

Jimmy knew Felix and Georgie were right, but he still felt awkward. He glanced at the faces of all the people working with Viggo to overthrow the Government. At the moment the Government usually ran the country without interference from ordinary people. There was normally no voting. The system was called ‘Neo-democracy’, which really meant no democracy at all. The Government had only agreed to hold this election because of the pressure from Jimmy and Viggo.

Jimmy looked again at the people busily going about their work. They believed strongly enough in democracy and freedom to risk their lives. They would all be marked out as enemies of the state if Viggo lost the election the next day. But he won’t lose, Jimmy thought with a smile. We’ll overthrow NJ7 at last.

As the lift took them up to the top floor, Jimmy felt his mind humming, but not with thoughts about the election.

“We’ll get off at the floor below,” he announced quietly. “Then take the stairs. We can be back in our rooms before Mum stops us.”

“How does that help?” asked Felix, stifling a yawn. “She’ll still go mental with us in the morning.”

“No, she won’t,” said Jimmy. “The election starts in a few hours. She’ll be too busy helping with that. Then by the time it’s over and she gets the chance to talk to us about tonight, she’ll be a lot calmer. And hopefully she’ll be so happy because Chris will have won…”

They did as he said, stepping into the darkness of the corridors on the floor below the apartment. They crept up the stairs with Jimmy leading the way.

“This is genius, Jimmy,” whispered Felix. “Maybe we can pretend we never even left.”

Jimmy held up a hand to tell him to be quiet and peered round the corner at the top of the stairs. The corridor was dark, but he could see the light from the door of the living room, where he reasoned his mum would be waiting, listening for the lift. He was about to signal for his friends to creep back to their rooms, but the sound of voices stopped him.

He moved quickly and silently into the corridor, the carpet cushioning his steps. But instead of turning left towards where he was meant to be asleep, he dashed to the right and pushed his back up against the wall outside the living room. The door was slightly ajar, and from his position Jimmy had a perfect view through the crack at the hinges.

“What are we doing?” Felix whispered, his hot breath exploding into Jimmy’s ear.

Jimmy whipped round and planted a hand over his friend’s mouth. He held it there until he felt Felix’s body relax and signalled that he was listening. In turn, Felix turned to Georgie behind him and pressed a finger to his lips. Georgie rolled her eyes and mouthed a sarcastic, ‘Oh really!?’

Jimmy’s eyes adjusted quickly to the bright light coming through the crack in the door. He could see the back of his mum’s head. She was sitting on the sofa in her dressing gown. But she wasn’t alone. To Jimmy’s surprise, Christopher Viggo was in the corner of the room, gripping the neck of an open champagne bottle in his fist.

“I told you,” said Jimmy’s mum, the frustration in her voice obvious, “you don’t need to wait with me.”

“I saw the light was on and I was worried,” Viggo replied. “That’s all.” His voice was deep, but slightly hoarse.

“You’ve been making too many speeches,” replied Helen Coates. She shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, and Jimmy could see her head subtly following the movement of the champagne bottle. “You should rest your voice.”

“Don’t worry. It’s nearly over.” Viggo ran a hand across his stubbled chin and pushed some stray strands of hair behind his ear. “Or it’s just beginning, depending on how you look at it.” There was a glint in his eye, a brown twinkle in the soft lighting. He stood fully upright, a tall man dominating the small space. The lack of any furniture apart from the sofa made him seem even more imposing. His lips were set in a flat smile.

“You need some sleep,” said Helen, pulling her dressing gown around her against the cool of the air-conditioning. “No point working through the night when you need to look fresh for tomorrow.”

“You need sleep too,” he said softly. “Is Saffron in bed?” His eyes flicked across the room, sending a shiver through Jimmy, but he was confident he couldn’t be seen.

Jimmy quickly glanced up the corridor towards the room that Viggo shared with Saffron Walden, his girlfriend. The door was closed, with no light coming through the cracks.

“What are they saying?” Felix whispered suddenly. “I can’t hear them.”

Jimmy reluctantly shuffled over slightly to give his friend a view through the door crack. Meanwhile, Georgie was less and less interested.

“This is stupid,” she whispered. “I’m going to bed. Tell me what happened in the morning.”

Just as she turned towards her bedroom, Jimmy reached out and caught her arm, then pulled her towards him until his mouth was right by her ear.

“Thanks for coming after me,” he said softly.

Georgie simply nodded and threw a smile back up the corridor as she walked away. The voice of Jimmy’s mother pulled him back to the crack in the living-room door.

“Either get back to work or go to bed,” Helen said to Viggo. “The kids will be here soon.”

“How do you know?” Viggo was confused. “Where have they been? It’s the small hours of the morning!”

“Do you care?” Helen snapped, suddenly fixing Viggo with a stare. All Viggo could do was hold up his hands in defence, letting the champagne bottle swing from his fingertips. “I checked with the guards,” Helen went on. “The three of them left a couple of hours ago. There was nobody with them. Now put that bottle down. You look ridiculous.”

“Celebrate with me,” Viggo said, almost pleading.

“You haven’t won the election yet.”

“But I will.” He smiled and every tooth seemed to gleam as brightly as his eyes.

“So what is there to celebrate tonight?” Helen stood up slowly and stepped towards Viggo. “The fact that we hardly speak to each other any more?”

“Stop this.” Viggo changed his tone, sounding more gentle than triumphant. He put the bottle on the floor and took Jimmy’s mother by her wrists. “We’re making history. I’m going to change the way this country is run. I know you want the same thing! So all this…” He hesitated and brought Helen’s hands together in his. “…it’s all going to be worth it.”

Helen Coates turned away and for the first time Jimmy could see the emotion weighing heavy on her face. Her short brown hair cast a net of shadows that seemed to accentuate the worry lines round her eyes.

“It seems like you’re worth quite a lot,” she whispered. “To somebody.”

“What do you mean?” Viggo asked, letting her go and stepping back.

“This building,” Helen explained. “All the staff downstairs. Your whole campaign. How much has it all cost? Even that.” She flicked a hand at the champagne bottle as if she wanted it to topple over. “How did you get hold of real French champagne? That’s almost impossible the way things are. Who’s providing all of this? Where’s the money coming from, Chris?”

Viggo turned his back on her and stared out of the window.

“It doesn’t matter how many times you ask me,” he grumbled, “I’m keeping my promise. I’ll tell you – of course I will. But not until I’ve won the election.”

“Why?” Helen raised her voice. “You’re driving everybody crazy! You have to trust us!”

“I do trust you.” Viggo’s voice was so low Jimmy could barely make out the words. “But it’s…”

“What? What is it? Dangerous?” Helen sighed and ran her hands through her hair. “Are you ashamed of it? Money that you’re ashamed of isn’t worth having, Chris.”

“Even if it means I can make the changes we’ve all hoped for? If I don’t win this election tomorrow, NJ7 will be more powerful than ever. The Government will never let anybody vote again. They’ll lock up or kill anybody that speaks out against them and the whole of Britain will be like one giant prison! Tomorrow is everything, Helen.” He clenched his fists and narrowed his eyes, desperate to get his message across. “We might never have a second chance to bring down this Government peacefully. And if that takes money then I don’t care where the money comes from, I’m going to use it.”

Jimmy pressed his face closer against the crack in the door. Felix was crouching below him doing the same. In the last few months they’d talked many times about where all the money had come from to fund Viggo’s campaign. Jimmy had even tried to ask Viggo about it, but Viggo always seemed distracted at just the wrong moment. Jimmy and Viggo had hardly had a proper conversation for months. It didn’t sound like his mum was having any more luck.

“I didn’t come up here to argue,” Viggo said gently. He started towards the door, so Jimmy jumped to one side, dragging Felix with him.

“We’re finished now, Jimmy,” Helen called out. “You can come in. You too, Felix.”

Jimmy and Felix looked at each other, the deep shadows not enough to hide the shock on their faces. That moment, Viggo charged out into the corridor. He turned towards the lifts without even glancing at Jimmy and Felix.

“She’s waiting for you,” he grunted, before disappearing into the lift.

Jimmy and Felix edged into the living room.

“How did you…?” Jimmy gasped.

“Don’t be surprised,” his mother replied. “I was trained by NJ7 once too. And even though you were so quiet out there…”

Jimmy dropped his head, embarrassed at the obvious sarcasm in his mum’s voice.

“Sorry, Mum, we…” Jimmy’s voice trailed off.

“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” said his mum.

Jimmy felt so stupid, and wished his programming could give him some way of dealing with the situation. His hands automatically went deep into his pockets. So far, his fingers were the most obvious sign of his poisoning, and he’d grown used to hiding them. This time, however, he was more aware of them than usual. His friends had found out his secret and there was a part of him that felt relieved. Was this the moment to explain everything to his mum? He wasn’t sure how he could do it. He wasn’t even sure of the facts himself – at times he felt fine, but at times he was convinced he was getting worse and it terrified him.

“Everything OK?” It was Saffron Walden. She’d appeared at the door, wrapped in a full-length black dressing gown. Jimmy turned to look at her, amazed that she could seem so poised and so beautiful when she’d obviously just been woken up in the middle of the night.

“Just Chris being weird again,” said Felix quickly.

“And these two running off to who-knows-where,” Helen added.

Saffron nodded slowly.

“Chris being weird isn’t news to me,” she said softly. Her voice seemed as smooth as her skin, and had some of the same darkness.

“Do you think we should, erm, keep him under surveillance?” said Felix quickly.

Jimmy smiled. He was always impressed by Felix’s ability to distract attention from anything that could get him into trouble – and as long as they were talking about Viggo, they couldn’t talk about Jimmy, Felix and Georgie sneaking off together.

“I know he has a lot on his mind,” Jimmy joined in, “but he’s kept so many secrets from us. He hardly talks to us any more.”

Saffron and Helen looked at each other, but Jimmy couldn’t read their expressions.

“It’s the money that worries me,” admitted Saffron. “You might be right, Felix. We might need to keep an eye on him – for his own safety. I don’t know how well we can trust his campaign staff or even his security guards. Everybody was hired in such a hurry.”

“We’ve come this far without any problems,” said Helen, now eyeing up Jimmy and Felix, as if to tell them she hadn’t forgotten they were in trouble. But so far, Jimmy thought, Felix’s distraction technique was working. They hadn’t been sent straight to bed yet.

“But with the election so close…” said Saffron softly. “This is when it counts. If he loses—”

“He won’t lose,” Felix cut in. “How can he? Everybody knows this Government is evil. They tried to go to war with France, and they haven’t let anybody vote about anything until now.”

“But if he does lose,” Saffron went on, “I doubt many of his so-called supporters will stick by him. And if he wins it could be worse. We’ll find out how many of them have been using him for their own power.”

There was genuine concern on her face. It was obvious to Jimmy that she still cared deeply about Viggo, despite his erratic behaviour since his campaign had become official. The man had worked against the Government in secret for so long, thought Jimmy. Maybe he just wasn’t used to being allowed to do it in public. Maybe sometimes secrets could protect you.

Jimmy felt his fingers tingling. He knew it wasn’t his programming, or even the radiation poisoning. It was his mind churning, unsure whether to show his mum.While he was deep in his thoughts, Saffron said goodnight and went back to bed. Now Jimmy looked at Felix. To Jimmy’s relief, his friend saw the uncertainty on his face and immediately understood what to do.

“OK, bye then,” said Felix brightly. “I need my beauty sleep, you know.” He tilted his head and patted his hair, as if he was some kind of supermodel, then hurried out of the room. Jimmy couldn’t help smiling, despite the dread in his heart.

“You too, Jimmy,” said his mum.

Jimmy didn’t move, but he couldn’t say anything either. It was several seconds before he forced his arm muscles to pull his hands from his pockets.

“What’s this?” asked his mum, taking his hands and turning them over to examine them.

“Mum,” choked Jimmy, “I have to explain where I went tonight, and why and…” He paused, staring at the floor, knowing that if he looked at his mother’s face he might not be able to stop himself crying. “…and I have to tell you what’s happening to me.”

The White House seemed to glow in the late-afternoon sun. The perfectly neat lines of its construction were broken by the flashes of red and blue coming from the dozens of Stars and Stripes flags that flapped wildly. In the centre of it all was Colonel Keays.

His medals glinted off his navy uniform. He was a stocky man of about sixty, but today, with his chin high and triumph in his eyes, he looked a little younger. The seal of the President of the United States was emblazoned on the lectern in front of him. It may as well have been on the man’s chest.

“…I am greatly humbled by the honour the people of this great nation have thrust upon me,” he was saying. His words boomed over the public address system. The gathered crowd listened obediently, smiles fixed. The whole occasion was perfectly stage-managed. Even the few thin hairs left on top of Colonel Keays’ head were greased flat so they wouldn’t misbehave.

“…and I promise to you all that the country will be made even greater by my efforts, within our own boundaries and beyond. For example, while our cousins in the United Kingdom struggle through their own election, I pledge to help them in their first steps towards real democracy, whatever the outcome of their vote.”

He puffed up his chest and stretched his shoulders, appearing even more broad than usual. Behind him, the marching band was given their cue. They lifted their instruments, light shimmering across the crowd as the sun reflected off the brass.

“I have already extended the hand of friendship to the British,” Keays went on, “and will continue to do so in countries around the world. We must never waver in our determination to extend our influence across the globe. This is the greatest nation on Earth.” There was a small ‘hurrah’ from the crowd. “And I pledge to you now that as President I see our future as the greatest nation the human race has ever seen.” Another cheer, slightly louder, just as well orchestrated. “God bless America!”

Finally the crowd was allowed to give full-bodied applause. The carefully positioned Secret Service staff made sure it lasted just the right amount of time, never dropping below a spirited level, but remaining civilised.

The brass band struck up a lilting chorus of ‘Hail to the Chief’ and dozens of government staff lined up for Keays to grip each hand in turn and grin into the nearby TV cameras.

At the end of the line, the cameras were escorted away and a team of aides bustled around Keays.

“Congratulations, Colonel,” whispered one, as they marched into the shadows, away from the crowds.

“I’m no longer a colonel,” Keays barked immediately. “I’m now Commander-in-Chief. You’ll address me as ‘Mr President’.”

“Yes, Mr President.” The aide was so embarrassed he almost bowed.

“Any news from Britain?”

“Not yet, Mr President. Still a few hours to go. But Operation Blackout is in play.”

President Keays let out a stabbing laugh that echoed off the colonnades, then he led his staff quickly away through the doors of the White House.

Eva felt her eye muscles twitching. She’d gone through the whole night without sleep, but so had most of the staff of NJ7, she realised. She guessed that outside the labyrinth of NJ7 HQ the sun was probably rising, but down here in the tunnels there was no difference between night and day.

She stared at her notebook, watching her pencil move across the page automatically, barely able to focus on what Miss Bennett was saying. Instead, all Eva could see were the faces from an old photograph. Not only was she exhausted, but every time Miss Bennett looked at her she imagined the woman could see straight through to her back pocket, to the scanned copy of a tattered snapshot of a dozen old scientists.

Three of them already had bold black crosses over their faces. Those three could be no help to Jimmy now. The records of their deaths had been relatively simple to find, though Eva had been shocked to discover how easy it had been for NJ7 to assassinate their own staff. Now she had to fight to force the image from her mind.

“Eva, are you bored?” Miss Bennett’s voice was cool and steady. She slipped so effortlessly from dictating notes to barbed comments that Eva almost scribbled down ‘are you bored’ before she realised what Miss Bennett meant.

“Bored? No, of course not,” said Eva in a hurry. “Sorry.” She looked up from her notebook to see a compact smile on Miss Bennett’s lips – a bright red flash across the middle of her pale face, like a ‘no entry’ sign in negative. The Director of NJ7 was leaning against her desk, her long legs crossed casually in front of her. Her brown hair was, as always, immaculate, and with a glossy sheen that made it look almost unreal. She was dressed in a sharp black business suit, with a black shirt. How did she look so smart, Eva wondered, when she’s also been up for almost 36 hours without sleeping?

“Good. Then we’re done for now,” said Miss Bennett, gliding across her office to make her way out. “No need to read anything back to me. You can deal with it all in the car on the way to the airport.”

“Airport?” Eva could feel the tiredness enveloping her mind.

“Are you under the impression that the final word of anything I say needs translating into gibberish?”

Eva froze in Miss Bennett’s glare.

“Er, no, Miss Bennett.”

“Then let’s get on with the day, shall we?”

Eva hurried after her boss, mentally kicking herself – until now she’d completely forgotten that the first item on her schedule for that day was accompanying Miss Bennett to Heathrow. She longed to run as far away from NJ7 as possible. Every hour now felt like the prelude to her execution.

“This is going to be very delicate,” Miss Bennett explained as they walked briskly through the NJ7 complex. “The United Nations inspection team hasn’t been making enough noise.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Eva asked, terrified that her tiredness and her fear would make her give something away. “Doesn’t it mean that they haven’t found anything illegal or unfair about the election campaign so far?”

“Of course, but what’s the point in me inviting the UN to send a team if they don’t make a big fuss about how fair we’re being? And are you going to ask stupid questions all day?”

“I will if you will,” quipped Eva before she could control her mouth. Miss Bennett glanced back, as shocked as Eva herself. Then, to Eva’s huge relief, Miss Bennett raised an eyebrow and smiled. She was impressed.

“So now…” Eva went on, eager to show that she wasn’t completely off the ball. She quickly flicked through her notebook, consulting her notes. “…now you’ve asked the head of the inspection team to come and oversee everything, and the Prime Minister is meeting him off the plane to introduce him to the press…” She flicked through another few pages, expertly keeping up with Miss Bennett’s rapid march while also reading her own ordered scribblings.

They hurried through a small metal door and the surroundings changed. The bare concrete was gone. Suddenly there was plush red carpet. The walls were covered in ornate golden wallpaper and there was natural daylight. But Eva was used to this. She didn’t even break stride. They’d passed through the secret entrance from NJ7 HQ into the back of Number 10 Downing Street.

“Everybody in the country…” Miss Bennett said, smoothly taking a cup of coffee from a waiting aide. “…everybody in the whole world, in fact – they’ll all know that today’s election is utterly fair. So when we win, our enemies will have no possible comeback.”

They swept through the building, their path lined with civil servants and government officials. Each of them handed Miss Bennett something she needed, or took something she was finished with. Eva noticed several of them couldn’t help bowing their heads.

“Once this election is over, it’s over,” announced Miss Bennett. “The last vestige of old-fashioned democracy dies today.”

Eva was taken aback by the certainty in Miss Bennett’s tone. Finally the front door was held open for them. The brightness of the morning made Eva blink hard, but within seconds another aide held open the back door of a waiting car and they slipped into the black leather interior.

“I’ve been waiting here for ten minutes.” Ian Coates was already in the back seat, but the Jaguar was easily roomy enough to accommodate the three of them.

“I hope you’ve used the time to memorise the speech I wrote for you,” replied Miss Bennett, giving the driver a nod.

“Watch how you talk to me, Miss Bennett,” spluttered Ian Coates, “I’m still Prime Minister. Technically, I still run the country.”

“Yes,” Miss Bennett purred, “but who’s running you?”

The Prime Minister had no response. Eva had seen these tiny battles a hundred times in the last few months, but the result was always the same. Ian Coates might have been Prime Minister, but he was nothing more than Miss Bennett’s puppet.

“Straighten your tie,” Miss Bennett ordered, as if she was talking to a teenager. Ian Coates did as he was told. “And when you get out of the car, remember to smile a little.”

Coates nervously stretched his lips into a hideous grin.

“Less than that,” Miss Bennett sighed, without even looking at him. “You’re British, remember.”

“So nobody knows how he can afford to rent this building?” asked Felix, twisting on the sofa until his knees hooked over the side.

“Get off me,” Jimmy insisted, shoving Felix’s head away from his leg.

“Get a room, lovebirds,” joked Georgie. “And keep quiet.” She pointed at the TV screen to indicate she was trying to listen. The sofa was the only place to sit to watch the TV, so the three of them were closely bunched up together. “Chris is meant to be making a speech. If we’re not allowed to be there ourselves then we can at least watch it on TV.”

Felix and Jimmy were silent for a few seconds before Felix deliberately nudged Jimmy’s thigh with the top of his head.

“That’s it!” Jimmy exclaimed with a laugh. He jumped up and landed with a bump right on Felix’s face. Felix made a big show of wriggling and twisting to escape.

“Aargh!” he cried when he’d finally pulled himself free. He clawed at his own face and staggered round the room. “It’s toxic, super-powered, genetically modified gas… Nooo!”

They all laughed, and Jimmy said, “I bet that’s the first thing you’d put into someone’s programming if you were designing them.”

“No,” Felix replied. “The first thing would be… never having to go to sleep!”

“Never sleeping?” Jimmy chuckled. “You’d be even more hyper than you are now!”

Soon they were distracted by images at the top of a news bulletin on TV. There were shots of a plane landing at Heathrow, then a tall, wiry man in a light-grey suit climbed down to the runway to shake hands with the Prime Minister.

Nobody said a word, but Jimmy could feel the joy draining from the room. He stared at the pictures of Ian Coates, the man he had thought of as his father for the first eleven and a half years of his life. On the screen, he was gripping the visitor’s hand and twisting his face into a horrible, false smile. For a second Jimmy remembered laughing with him, messing around with him – loving him.

He forced away the emotion. Instead, he shifted his attention to his sister next to him. The man on screen really was her father, as far as they knew. Jimmy knew her feelings were as painful and complicated as his own, and he wanted to say something. He opened his mouth, but nothing came to his lips and his tongue felt dry.

The TV report cut away from the Prime Minister and went back to the wiry man, showing snippets of his speech. The caption on the screen read ‘Dr Newton Longville – UN Election Inspector’. Beneath it was a scrolling message that announced, ‘Chief UN Inspector welcomed by PM to monitor today’s election.’

“My team will make sure there is no intimidation at the polls,” declared Dr Longville in a melodious American accent. In close-up he was much older than Jimmy had first thought. His nose was bony and crooked. “The ballot will be carried out under strict observation,” he went on, “using state-of-the-art technology known as HERMES – the Higher Echelon Remote Monitoring Election System.”

“HERMES?” said Felix. “Sounds like some kind of disease.”

The UN man’s grey eyes stared into the TV camera, not blinking. “The design, manufacture and testing of every component has been overseen by UN engineers in controlled conditions. I’m certain that every voter will enjoy using the secure touch-screen kiosks that are currently being installed at polling stations around the country. The votes will be sent digitally, but securely, to the central hub in a secure location near Milton Keynes, where they will be counted by the HERMES mainframe computer.”

“He looks like some kind of robot,” said Georgie.

“Do you think he’s telling the truth?” Jimmy asked, leaning towards the TV as if lies would give off a scent. Inside, his programming was rumbling, suppressing another wave of pain, but at the same time making him throb with suspicion. “Do you think NJ7 will control his team? Or him? Have they already rigged the vote?”

Before anybody could answer, the news cut to the next item – and there was Christopher Viggo. His head was held high and his presence seemed to fill the screen.

“Look!” Felix exclaimed, pointing at the very edge of the picture. “It’s your mum!” Helen Coates and Saffron Walden were standing among Viggo’s supporters, listening to his speech.

“I’ve travelled thousands of kilometres around Britain,” the man said. “I’ve heard millions of voices: in person, in letters and in messages on the internet. Every one of those voices – your voices – is telling me that change must come.”

“He shouldn’t admit that he hears voices,” Felix cut in.

“Shh,” said Georgie. “I want to hear this!”

“Those voices,” Viggo went on, “tell me that you no longer want to listen to your doubts and fears, but to your greatest hopes and aspirations!”

He was building to a climax, and so was the response from the crowd, but the report cut back to the studio, where three women were droning on.

“What about the rest of his speech?!” Georgie complained. “How is that fair? He can’t win an election if they won’t even show his speeches on the news.”

“They showed a bit of it,” Jimmy replied. “That’s better than it used to be. And at least they admitted that he made a speech – they even called him ‘the opposition leader’ instead of ‘enemy of the state’ or ‘traitor’.”

Georgie grabbed the remote control from Jimmy’s knee and switched off the TV in frustration.

“We didn’t see anything,” she said.

“He was wearing a new tie,” mumbled Felix.

“You say the most random things sometimes,” said Georgie with an exasperated sigh.

“It’s not random,” Felix replied. “I was just thinking…”

“What?”

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

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.

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