Revenge

by Joe Craig

  He wasn’t going to let that finish him off though. Far from it. Jimmy used the impetus of Zafi’s kick to pull himself out of her reach. He flipped on to his back and grabbed the wires that ran along the ceiling. Zafi kicked out at him again. Just in time, Jimmy pulled himself completely off the floor. Zafi’s legs swept beneath him, hurting nothing but the air.

  The next second, Jimmy dropped himself down. He caught Zafi’s ankle and skilfully redirected it towards one of the support struts. Bone clanged into metal.

  “Zut!” Zafi exclaimed, wincing at the pain in her ankle. She quickly brushed it off and the pair of them swung round the struts. Sometimes they used them for protection, then the next moment they would launch themselves off them into their opponent. It was a horizontal acrobatics display, with the pace and power of fireworks on fast-forward.

  Jimmy ducked behind a strut. For a split-second he was sheltered. He reached into his pocket, clutching at his radio set, fumbling for the alert button.

  “That won’t work up here,” Zafi announced in a scolding tone. “These are structural supports.” She crawled towards him, tantalisingly slowly. “We’re surrounded by so much metal and concrete that the only signal that makes it through is from the cellphone mast on the roof. And that’s only because it’s right above our heads, and it’s about ten thousand times bigger than the aerial on your radio.”

  Jimmy mashed the alert button over and over, but he knew Zafi was right. Nothing was happening. Then, in the instant that Jimmy’s fingers were occupied on his radio set, Zafi launched a devastating attack. She swooped between the struts. Jimmy swerved to the side. He thought he was out of Zafi’s way, but she twisted in a zigzag and landed with her head in Jimmy’s midriff.

  Jimmy crumpled in half. How does she put so much power into a single blow? his mind cried out. He pushed away the pain, letting his programming swallow him up. Zafi shoved him against the side and pulled his hands behind him. Jimmy’s face pressed up against the grate. He could feel Zafi’s breath on the back of his neck and the warmth of her body squeezed up against his. Her hair smelled of coconut. He wrenched his shoulders round to shake her off him, but Zafi had him locked down.

  While he was blinking at the dazzling white on the other side of the grate, Zafi sent two sharp kicks at one of the iron supports. The top of it snapped like it was made of chocolate. Then Zafi heaved on it with all her weight, bending it down and twisting it, still managing to keep Jimmy in place with her thighs. She crushed his hands under her knee. Finally, she pulled the metal strut over Jimmy’s wrists.

  He could wriggle and shout, but he was stuck.

  “Nice to see you, Jimmy,” Zafi cooed. “But don’t disturb me at work again.”

  Jimmy didn’t bother struggling any more. He pushed his hands apart to try to break the metal, but his arms were behind him and that made them much weaker. He twisted his shoulders, trying to loosen the metal. His wrists grated against the sharp edges.

  A centimetre from his eyes was the lattice side-panel, and beyond that a perfect aerial view of the press conference. The hall was packed with journalists, all fighting to get their questions answered before anybody else’s. Dozens of bald heads bobbed up and down for attention.

  Security agents lined the walls and the area in front of the two heads of state. Jimmy immediately recognised Paduk, He was a lot taller than any other agent, with a skull that looked as if it was constructed out of industrial scaffolding.

  Behind him stood Ian Coates. They weren’t directly above him, so Jimmy could see the man’s face. He gulped at the sight of his ex-father, expecting to be overcome by sadness, or anger, or even relief – anything. But everything inside him was numb. His gut contorted, desperate to grab hold of any emotion. But Jimmy’s head refused to feel. He doesn’t deserve that, he thought. He’s nothing.

  A click pulled Jimmy out of his thoughts. He looked up at Zafi. Her attention was focused on a black metal rod nearly a metre long. She carefully screwed it into something shaped like the handle of a revolver. The light shimmered off it. Zafi was building her assassination weapon. Her slim fingers worked efficiently, covered in those black leather gloves she had been wearing last time they met.

  When the rod was in place, she reached to her side and from a brown leather satchel she produced a coil. It was about half a metre of thick metal and the silver shone out of the shadows. Zafi placed it over the metal rod and secured it in place. If this was a gun, it wasn’t like any one Jimmy had ever seen.

  “How’s Felix?” Zafi asked, without even turning to look at him. Even so, Jimmy knew there was a hint of a smile on her face. Clearly, all this was still amusing to her. She flicked her hair back behind her ear.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Jimmy replied, choking back the dust in the air. “There’s no reason to kill anybody.”

  “What if it avoids a war?” Zafi shot back immediately. “Killing could save lives.”

  Jimmy didn’t know how to answer. “But, but…”

  “Stop snivelling,” Zafi ordered. “This is nothing to do with us.”

  “What? So who else is there up here?”

  Zafi giggled.

  “You’re cute,” she mewed. “But you know what I mean. This isn’t our responsibility.” Her hands were busy mounting her weapon on a tripod that she’d put together out of the pieces in her bag. Then she detached the leather strap of her satchel and fastened it to her weapon, tying the other end round the tripod. Everything was held in place perfectly. “Nothing we do is up to us. It’s in our blood. It’s in our instincts. Don’t you feel it too?” At last she glanced at Jimmy.

  Her eyes caught the light. The sight of her, so calm, almost smiling, with one gloved hand wrapped around the handle of her weapon, sent a ferocious anger through Jimmy’s veins.

  “Take control!” he yelled. “Of course it’s your responsibility. Who else has their finger on the trigger?”

  “Oh, Jimmy,” Zafi sighed, smiling sweetly. “That’s just the last moment in a chain of events that started a long, long time ago. It’s not my fault. It just happens to be my finger. My actions obey my programming, and my programming had nothing to do with me.”

  She turned back to look down the length of the metal rod. She took aim.

  “Stop!” Jimmy pleaded. He writhed against his makeshift handcuffs, squirming with all the strength he could muster. But there was nothing he could do.

  Zafi pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER TWENTY – MARS

  As Zafi’s hand squeezed the handle of her gun, Jimmy winced. He felt a shudder up his entire body. When he opened his eyes again, he looked through the grate to witness the carnage.

  But below him, nothing had changed. The journalists were still waving their pens in the air, the lights from the TV cameras were still glaring and the security guards stood their ground. Most important of all, the President was still standing, fidgeting with the microphone in front of him, taking yet another question.

  Jimmy looked back at Zafi. What had gone wrong? There had been no sound when she pulled the trigger, but Jimmy had expected that. Any gun as fancy as hers would have an inbuilt silencer.

  “Did you miss?” he whispered in shock.

  A flicker went across her face. “I don’t miss,” she snapped, still in that light, girly tone. “This isn’t a gun.”

  Jimmy stared at her blankly.

  “Does it look like a gun?” Zafi asked. She maintained her steady gaze down the black metal rod, watching, waiting. But what for? “This is MARS – the Magnétism Appareil Rigolo Super-Spécifique. I invented it.” There was a proud smile across her face. “What do you think?”

  Jimmy shrugged. “What does it do?” he asked meekly.

  Zafi giggled softly. “The first time I pull the trigger, it locks on to the resonance of the specific metal object it’s aimed at. The second time, it attracts that object towards it with an electron-boosted magnet. It’s incredibly powerful.” She flicked her hair behind her ear again an
d a haughty expression came over her face. “Any object up to the size of a pétanque ball will be pulled towards it at nine times the speed of a machine-gun bullet.”

  “What’s pétanque?” Jimmy asked. “Never mind,” he added quickly, shaking his head. He stared at the weapon, awed at the contraption that this girl had designed and built.

  “Oh, you’re impressed,” Zafi squeaked. “I like it when you’re impressed, Jimmy Coates.” There were shadows across her face from the grate, but Jimmy was sure her eyelashes fluttered at him.

  “And that’s not even the best part,” Zafi went on. “He’s wearing a metal pin on his lapel. I’ve locked on to that. Now all I have to do is wait for him to turn round. When I pull the trigger again, it will look like he’s been shot, but from completely the opposite direction, leaving me time to get away while everybody’s running about in the wrong place.” The light had left her eyes. This was the most serious Jimmy had ever seen her. “That Union Jack badge will rip straight through his heart.”

  Jimmy slowly absorbed everything she was saying. It was disgusting to hear it in such detail. He struggled harder against the metal round his wrists. The press conference would be over in a matter of minutes. Jimmy had to do something fast. But as the thoughts sunk in, Jimmy stopped dead.

  “Wait,” he whispered, almost to himself. “Why is President Grogan wearing a Union Jack lapel badge?” He peered down at the President, trying to make out any kind of badge on his suit jacket. But there was nothing.

  “He’s not, mon cher,” Zafi replied.

  “But you said that was what you locked on to.”

  “That’s right. But President Grogan’s not wearing it. The Prime Minister is.” She turned to Jimmy, her eyes wide. Never had someone so dangerous looked so innocent.

  “So how will that kill the President?” Jimmy asked. His brain was processing steadily, trying to work out what was really going on.

  “Don’t be silly, Jimmy,” Zafi urged. “It won’t kill the President. I’m not here to kill President Grogan. I’m here to kill Ian Coates.”

  Jimmy’s head snapped back to the press conference. He’d been looking on the wrong man’s suit. There it was – a bright Union Jack on Ian Coates’ lapel. Jimmy’s breathing quickened. He racked his brains, but all he found was doubt.

  “No,” he gasped. “The images – they were so specific. I was sure. It was definite: an assassin would be here to kill President Grogan.” His voice rose up in his panic. “I saw Grogan’s face,” he insisted. “Why has everything else come true and not this? There must be an assassin to kill the President! Tell me the truth!”

  Zafi looked at him for a long time. When Jimmy saw the pity in her eyes he hated her more than he ever had.

  “Maybe there is an assassin up here to kill Grogan,” Zafi whispered. Jimmy felt the air in his lungs freeze. He suddenly knew what she was about to suggest. “Don’t you remember, Jimmy? You’re an assassin too.”

  Jimmy tried to shout. But there was nothing inside to come out. He looked down at the President. The man’s face merged with the image in Jimmy’s head – the image of death itself. There was an assassin here to kill the President – but it wasn’t Mitchell and it wasn’t Zafi. It was Jimmy Coates.

  Then came that searing pain in his head. Jimmy cried out, his whole body convulsing. It was the strongest attack he’d had yet. He writhed and screamed and kicked, knocking loose a panel in the floor by his feet.

  At last the pain subsided. There were tears in Jimmy’s eyes. When he looked along the floor to his feet, he saw something to complete the horror – thin horizontal strips in the colours of the rainbow. It was the final image from his nightmare. The panel cover he’d accidentally kicked away revealed a highway of electronic wiring.

  At first, Jimmy couldn’t look at anything else. He couldn’t even blink. Then his programming seized his muscles. With no control, he turned back to the hall below. Inside came a flash of understanding. To him the hall was instantly transformed into a complex puzzle of structural engineering, yet he knew it better than he knew his own name. It was as if he could see through the walls. He’d seen the blueprints. Without even knowing it, his programming had memorised every line, every dot and every centimetre of the Museum’s circuitry.

  Now he leaned forward, closer to the grate. His eyes focused solely on Grogan.

  “What’s he saying?” Jimmy whispered, fighting all the time to regain control within himself.

  “Oh, I gave up trying to listen,” Zafi replied. “It’s all lies about how America is going to make sure Britain and France let the UN sort out all their problems diplomatically. Blah blah blah.” She gave a little laugh, but Jimmy was far from amused. “They’re both saying they’re best buddies and that they’ll do everything they can to avoid a war between Britain and France. But they’re both lying. Coates scratches his nose too much and Grogan keeps fidgeting with his microphone. Look, there, he did it again.”

  Jimmy saw it and it sent his mind spiralling into freefall. His eyes traced the lead of the President’s microphone to the base of the lectern. From there it went into the floor and disappeared. But Jimmy kept following it. He knew the power lines. He ran his eyes along the floor to the wall and kept going – all the way up the wall, across the ceiling and right into the intersection at his feet. One damning fact combined with another, faster and faster, until the only conclusion was that the President would die, and by Jimmy’s hand.

  His programming had drawn him here. He knew that now and he knew why – to kill the President. The rainbow stripes – the wiring – that was the murder weapon. A misconnection here would send thousands of volts down the wires and into the only appliance plugged into that line – the President’s microphone. And every time the President lied, he touched the microphone.

  A quiet voice in Jimmy’s head thanked his luck that Zafi had trapped his hands behind his back. He closed his eyes. Stay like this, he ordered himself. Don’t move and you won’t kill. Inside was an urge so strong he thought he was going to throw up. His mind was a furnace of contradictions, like a computer overheating and about to crash. The desire to kill had never been so strong. He clenched up every muscle.

  “No,” he cried out, tears running down his face. “Don’t do it.”

  “You can’t stop me, Jimmy,” Zafi whispered, thinking he was talking to her. She leaned forwards over her weapon, holding it steady.

  Jimmy peeled his eyes open just enough to see her. What could he do? If he didn’t break free, Zafi would assassinate the Prime Minister. But if he did, he knew he would have a tougher fight – to stop himself killing the President.

  It was that moment of distraction that weakened Jimmy’s resistance. While he was grappling with his dilemma, the 62 per cent of him that was raw, unfeeling assassin forced more power into his arms than there had ever been. The constant drive to kill throbbed in his muscles, tearing at the metal strut that was bent round his wrists. After two seconds, it was loose enough for Jimmy to pull his arms free.

  Zafi didn’t even notice. Beneath them, the questioning was coming to an end. The press conference was nearly over. The photographers moved to the front as a journalist asked the final question.

  “Come on,” Zafi urged between her teeth. “Turn round.”

  Without making a sound, Jimmy bent down to the wires. An expert tug pulled them apart. Jimmy moved his hands with short, sharp movements. He was the model of efficiency. With his fingernail he stripped the plastic cover from two of the wires – one blue, one red. Nobody would notice that the President’s microphone wasn’t working until he tried to speak. As soon as he did, a single lie would kill him.

  Jimmy’s human voice was frantically calling out for help – but it was stuck inside his head and rolled into a ball so small it was almost lost completely. He held the two wires a centimetre apart. The assassin in him was waiting for the perfect moment.

  “Turn round!” Zafi whispered, exasperated.

  Jimmy looked at her
out of the corner of his eye. Her hands were steady, just like Jimmy’s. They were two professionals going about their jobs as if it were the most normal thing in the world. But inside Jimmy was screaming. Was Zafi too? Jimmy looked more closely. Why were her eyes glistening? Was that a tear? Suddenly, Jimmy felt like he could see deep into Zafi’s heart. Her body might have been poised to kill, but Jimmy could see something more about her. Something that was terrified.

  In that moment, Jimmy knew that Zafi had never done this before. Despite all her cocky behaviour, and all the pride in her skills and her gadgets, she was no more a killer than Jimmy was. He knew that in Zafi’s mind was the same struggle that had been Jimmy’s constant battle since the second he had found out he was designed to kill. Until today, he had been winning – would Zafi prove as strong?

  Jimmy’s fingers were moving towards each other, bringing together the two wires that would mean death. Beneath him, the President leaned towards his microphone to begin his answer. His hand reached up to grip the microphone. Another lie. He started to talk. When nobody heard him he leaned in closer and gripped the microphone tighter. This was the moment. Jimmy’s fists trembled, squeezing tight. He was moving them together and pulling them apart at the same time. Then his hands crept towards each other. He couldn’t stop them. The wires trembled, millimetres from each other, millimetres from killing the President of the USA.

  Jimmy couldn’t stop his hands now. They were too strong. He looked again at Zafi. On her face was the same fear that was in Jimmy’s heart. Her expression connected directly with every contradiction that was pumping through Jimmy’s veins. They were united. For a second, it wasn’t a French girl crouching there by her weapon – in Jimmy’s eyes, he could have been looking at himself.

  A surge of warmth swept through his limbs. It felt like there was a suit of ice keeping his muscles locked in battle mode, but now at last it was melting. One finger at a time his grip dissolved. The wires dropped to the floor. They sparked, but they never connected.