Jimmy Coates: Blackout. Joe Craig

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.