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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.
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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!”
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The voice echoed through the concrete structure, and sent a thrill through Jimmy’s heart. He dropped Eva’s collar, hardly noticing when she stumbled to the floor. Then came another shout, this time a girl:
“Jimmy, wait!”
It was the voice of his sister, Georgie. She was with his best friend, Felix, who for some reason had his hands pressed down on the top of his head. Together, they were strolling out of the lift, huge smiles on their faces.
“What are you…?” Jimmy’s words were breathless and soon drowned out by Eva and Georgie running to each other and crushing each other in a hug. Jimmy was so stunned he didn’t even take in the happy words they were exchanging. He quickly came to his senses again.
“You want to chat a bit louder?” he whispered. “I think there’s a deaf wombat in Australia who didn’t quite hear you. And how did you find me?”
“We nearly didn’t,” panted Felix. “You run too fast. We saw you come in here, but we didn’t know what floor you were on. We’ve just had to check every level!”
Jimmy couldn’t help smiling. He hadn’t wanted anybody to know what he was doing, but at the same time he was impressed that Felix and Georgie had managed to follow him.
“You nearly took off the top of my head!” said Felix, his grin revealing the longest line of teeth Jimmy had ever seen, every one of them at a slightly different angle. Meanwhile, his hands were still clamped down on top of his crazy nest of black hair. Finally Jimmy realised what had happened.
He jogged to the lift, where the hubcap had lodged in the back wall, trapping a clump of frizzy black hair with it. “Er, yeah,” Jimmy mumbled, realising he had aimed the missile at the level of an adult’s chest, but that instead it had skimmed the top of Felix’s head. “Sorry.”
Felix shrugged. “I needed a haircut anyway.”
“What’s going on?” Georgie asked, in her most stern voice. “You can’t just go sneaking off, you know.”
“Looks like you’ve done the same,” Jimmy replied. “Didn’t Mum notice? Or Chris? And what about the security guards?”
“Everybody is so distracted with the election we could have driven a herd of geese through the building,” Georgie explained. “And we saw what you did to the security guards so we just told them we were with you.”
Jimmy shook his head in amazement.
“I thought you might have gone out to get some midnight snacks or something,” said Felix. “I don’t think I’d have come if I’d known you were meeting Eva. No offence, or anything, Eva, it’s just, you know…” Eva glared at him, so he held up his hands and stretched his eyebrows so high they looked like they were going to merge with his hair. “What?” he squeaked.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were meeting Eva?” asked Georgie.
“It’s complicated,” Jimmy replied, sheepishly.
“So explain it.” Georgie wasn’t going to be put off. Jimmy suddenly felt as powerless as any normal boy. There were no assassin skills designed to get round an older sister. Georgie stood there, arms folded, her head tilted to one side and her lips pursed.
“You’re in so much trouble,” Felix whispered. “All the way here she’s been telling me what she’s going to—”
“Shut up, Felix,” snapped Georgie. “Let him explain.”
Jimmy felt like the pressure of a waterfall was building up inside his head. His whole life was constructed out of secrets. The first secrets had been the ones his parents kept from him: that they were really NJ7 agents given the long-term mission of raising an experimental government assassin, designed genetically and grown organically.
As soon as he’d discovered the truth about himself, Jimmy’s life had imploded. His father had betrayed him, choosing to stay loyal to NJ7 rather than join him and his mum on the side of Christopher Viggo. Then the man had revealed that he wasn’t even Jimmy’s real father. He had been richly rewarded for his loyalty to the Government: Ian Coates had risen to become Prime Minister of Britain.
