by Craig Jones
“And no one will believe you?”
Jimmy shook his head. “Aries still resents me for taking Martin Bull’s place, and she is the only one who could prove that I’m telling the truth.”
“This is such a shame,” Walsh said thoughtfully. “If only my cameras had arrived a little bit earlier, they would have filmed it and you would be in the clear. Such a shame.”
Jimmy agreed. He didn’t care whether it was one of Libra’s, Gemini’s, or Mister Walsh’s cameras that picked up on him calling the shot, just as long as one of them had.
“I’ll tell you what,” Walsh began. He opened the top draw of his desk and brought out a tiny mobile phone.
“I would hate for this to happen to you again, Jimmy. I want to help you. I want to help you now just like I helped you through the contest. If you need anything at all, use this phone to call me, day or night.”
He slid the phone across his desk.
“And don’t worry about Zodiak finding out. It’s been encrypted so not even Gemini could hack into it.”
Jimmy felt his face heat up. “That’s really kind of you, Mister Walsh, but I couldn’t. You’ve done so much for me already.”
“Think of it as us providing each other with a service. I’ll be on the end of that phone whenever you need advice, and all I ask in return is that you occasionally let me know when you’re going on a mission. So I can have my cameras there to make sure no one ever misses you making the call on a shot again.”
Jimmy’s stomach flipped. Mister Walsh was right: If the film crew had arrived a couple of minutes earlier, the truth would have been recorded. But if he was found out to be giving information to WWW News, then he could get in real trouble.
“Heck, they already think I’m giving you tipoffs,” he said, remembering Aries’ harsh accusations.
“Maybe you should take some time to think it over,” Walsh suggested.
Jimmy felt his resolve tighten; he stuffed the phone into his pocket.
“I don’t think I have to,” he said.
43
“Why are we back here?” Aries asked. She glared at Jimmy. “The scene of your greatest triumph, huh?”
Libra had flown all twelve of Zodiak back to the gold vault and had left the team on board the ship while he and Gemini had gone inside.
“It seems we were contacted by one of the security staff,” Lord Crabbe said. “Libra was really quite insistent that we all come here today.”
Jimmy noticed that even Lord Crabbe was now no longer defending him against Aries’ jabs.
He looked towards Virgo. Although she didn’t look as frail as the first time he saw her, it was still apparent that her recovery was not a rapid one. There were times when Jimmy wondered if she even knew where she was.
“Here they come,” Capricorn said as he gazed out the front windows of the flight deck.
Libra and Gemini jogged into the hovership.
“You are all going to have to see this,” Libra announced, spinning a compact disk on his index finger. He walked across to his control station and slid the disk into a narrow slit. Using his fingertips, he expanded one of the screens until it was the size of a pool table.
Gemini wrapped an arm around Jimmy’s shoulders and guided him to the front of the group as they gathered around the screen.
Libra pressed a button and the outside of the gold vault appeared on the monitor. He made a scrolling motion with his finger and the suited terrorists ran towards the entrance at high speed, shoving one of the security guards as they did so.
Libra advanced the footage to Zodiak surrounding the vault and the first two would-be robbers being taken down as the third fled. Libra paused the video.
“Now, the sound quality isn’t perfect, but watch and listen.”
He let the video run. Jimmy felt his chest tighten as he saw Brown Suit start running away, his footfalls slapping on the ground, and then sidestep the flatfooted Aries. Her curse as her left foot slipped away from her was easily audible. His mouth went dry as he saw himself run into frame, raising his rifle to his shoulder. Jimmy watched his face become obscured as he turned away from the camera, tracking the villain down the barrel of his gun.
“I…the shot,” was clear in the audio track before the roar of Scorpio’s motorcycle drowned out all other sound. Libra, mindful that no one wanted to see their colleague getting hurt, stopped the footage. He rewound it and played it through to the same point a second, and then a third, time.
“I think that proves Bull’s Eye wasn’t lying,” he said. “Well done, kid. You called the shot.”
Murmurs crossed the room as Lord Crabbe pushed his wheelchair towards Aries.
“You knew this.” His tone was filled with condemnation. “You knew this and you let your petty—”
“I loved him!” Aries shouted. “I loved him, okay? Martin? Taurus? We were more than friends…and he just left.”
Stunned silence filled the flight deck.
Finally, Virgo broke it.
“Jimmy? How do you feel, my child? Do you feel any anger?”
“I don’t,” Jimmy replied quietly. “I feel relief.”
“Then we can move on from this. Together, we can move on,” Virgo said. “Aries, my child. In time, I shall help you with your heartbreak.”
Gemini stepped forward. “There’s more to it. They did have a bomb. It just was not explosive.”
“What in heaven’s name do you mean?” Crabbe asked.
“Electromagnetic pulses,” Libra clarified. “They wouldn’t show up on any scans, but they would take down our surveillance equipment.”
“But who would—?” Aquarius began.
The sudden, startling glow of Virgo’s dress stopped him.
“The cameras, they film us. People want to see us… They want more now than just the news. They want reality. They want to hear Martin Bull talk about being Zodiak; they want to see Jimmy Taurus becoming Zodiak… We are in danger of becoming nothing more than ratings…”
Lord Crabbe sat up in his chair. “Are you suggesting—?”
“I suggest nothing. My powers have not returned since we became twelve again, so I dare not suggest that which I do not see clearly.”
Jimmy’s head felt like it was going to explode, so much information had he taken on in such a short span of time.
Scorpio met his eyes from across the room. He nodded solemnly, and, right then, that was enough for Jimmy. It was all, however, too much for Leo. She slumped down into one of the black leather chairs.
“Ow,” she said as she felt something sharp dig into her lower back. She reached behind her and dug around in the folds of the fabric as Virgo started to speak again.
“My senses may be failing me, but my logic does not. There are those who wish to see us fail. I am unsure if this is for their personal gain alone or as part of some more elaborate plan. I ask you to leave Lord Crabbe and me now while we discuss this.”
The younger members of Zodiak left the flight deck to Virgo and Crabbe and headed for the prep room, conversing amongst each other in a flurry. Jimmy hung back and didn’t speak to anyone as they walked. He could only think about the phone hidden under his pillow and how he was never going to use it.
Leo was the last to leave the flight deck. She ambled into the prep room a few moments after everyone else and held up the object that had poked her in the back.
“Hey?” she asked. “Has anyone lost a pen?”
44
“You really must rest,” Lord Crabbe pressed.
“I cannot rest,” Virgo said, her head bowed. “If I rest now, then I cannot dare think of what will happen.”
“If you don’t rest, you could die!”
“And if I do rest, all of us could die. Everyone on this planet.”
Crabbe’s eyes grew wide. He then made a gruff sound in his throat and ran his fingers fretfully through his untidy ginger hair.
“Virgo, I implore you. You must tell me what is going on.”
“I do not recover because, every minute of every day, I am fighting a battle that I do not think I can win,” she told him. She paused and tried to smile. A single tear escaped and ran down her left cheek, and Lord Crabbe reached over and wiped it away.
“You are one of twelve,” he said. “You need never fight a battle alone.”
“This time I must. I am fighting to keep the fissure closed. The tear between our dimensions is under great pressure.”
Lord Crabbe shook his head. “And what will happen if it rips?”
“That is my biggest fear,” she said. “That it has, and that something has already come through.”
45
Jimmy had just hung up the phone after talking with Shane when a knock on the door disturbed him. He opened it to find Aries and Scorpio standing outside, both looking uncomfortable and edgy.
“Can we talk to you?” Aries asked
“Of course, come in,” Jimmy said, even though he felt tense at the sight of them. “But I don’t want to argue with your guys anymore.”
They stepped inside and closed the door.
“No more arguing, no more fighting,” Scorpio said. “We’ve come to apologize.”
“I’m really sorry, Jimmy,” Aries said. Her voice sounded close to breaking. “I let my feelings for Martin get in the way of the team. I never gave you a chance, and that wasn’t fair.”
Jimmy felt a mixture of and validation and pride. After all that had happened, he had started to doubt his abilities and his right to be a part of Zodiak. And now…
“I still shot you, though,” he said to Scorpio.
“You called the shot, we all know that now,” Scorpio replied. He shrugged. “And my bike is fixed already. Besides, I’ve taken worse falls than that.”
Jimmy smiled. “So everything is okay?”
“No, but it will be,” Aries said. “I’ve got a lot to make up for.”
“Tomorrow is another day, Jimmy. Let’s make sure it’s a good one,” Scorpio told him.
They shook hands and Aries, surprisingly, gave him a brief hug.
“Get to bed, kid,” Scorpio said. “We can’t have one of ours sleeping on the job.”
They left and Jimmy climbed into bed with just a hint of a comfort he hadn’t felt in days. Before he flicked the light off, he dug William Walsh’s mobile phone out from under his pillow. Virgo’s words about Zodiak becoming nothing more than ratings grated at his mind. He stared at it for a moment, then sighed and slipped the phone back into its hiding place and turned off the light.
Half an hour later, he was still awake. He opened his eyes. In the darkness, images played across his field of vision. He was back in his changing room, listening to Walsh counsel him before each stage of the competition.
But that quiet, uneventful thought didn’t last long. In the dim, he saw the criminal on the train leaping into the black car, then news of Duane Bullock being thrown out of the contest after he had beaten Jimmy. He saw the man with the shaved head who had recognized him outside of Walsh’s office—he’d saluted Jimmy like he was a national hero.
“Hey, look who it is! Jimmy Taurus!”
You’re the people’s champion, Walsh had told him.
He saw the sleek, dark car pulling up in front of his home. He saw the helicopter swinging around in front of the hovership, filming the scene. Cameras, always cameras. And they were always one step ahead of Zodiak. Filming Zodiak. Using Zodiak.
No, not using, Jimmy thought.
But yes. Yes, they were.
As the knot in his stomach grew, Jimmy recalled Martin Bull quitting Zodiak and going to work for Walsh, the shock of seeing Martin in Walsh Towers—the man who’d tipped him a salute in Walsh Towers.
The prisoner on the train tipping him a salute before he jumped.
William Walsh driving the black car that had driven Jimmy away from his home.
Jimmy sat up and scrambled to turn the light on. The stark brightness made him blink multiple times. His vision may have been momentarily impaired, but in his mind, he saw everything clearly.
He got out of bed and began to pace his room furiously. After a minute of frenetic, muddled deliberation, he stopped dead in his tracks, then rushed back to his bed. He grabbed the phone out from under his pillow.
“Mister Walsh? It’s Jimmy Taurus. I know it’s late, but can I come to see you?”
46
The security guard was waiting to let Jimmy into Walsh Towers. At three o’clock in the morning, the rest of the lobby was deserted. He rode the elevator up to the top floor alone, his anger matched only by the fear that dwelled in the pit of his stomach. He knew that coming here alone was insane, that he didn’t know how things were going to turn out.
The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. Most of the lights were switched off, but the door to Walsh’s office stood ajar and a corona of light spilled out from inside and into the hallway.
“Jimmy, is that you?” Walsh called out.
“Yes, yes,” Jimmy said, the elevator doors closing behind him.
“Come on in.” Walsh’s voice was pleasant, unnervingly so. “You were lucky I was working late. But then, I always work late.”
Jimmy walked into the office and closed the door behind him.
“I almost don’t recognize you in normal clothes,” Walsh said, waving a hand at Jimmy’s jeans and black jacket. “I’m so used to seeing you as Bull’s Eye.”
Walsh was sat behind his broad oak desk. Behind him, the city of London was framed by a window that took up the whole wall. The only light lit was a desk lamp. For the first time, seeing him in the gloomy, too-small ring of light, Jimmy thought Walsh looked sinister, dangerous.
“Are you okay, my boy? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Why did you say you were my friend?” Jimmy asked, trying his best to keep his voice from wavering.
“Excuse me?” Walsh sounded affronted.
“I’m serious. Why?”
“Jimmy, has something happened? Has this feud with Aries reached another level?”
Jimmy steeled himself.
“You said you were my friend, but you were just using me. Why don’t you just admit it?”
William Walsh’s next action surprised Jimmy. He simply shrugged.
“To be honest, I didn’t think you would work it out so quickly.”
Jimmy went utterly still for a moment, startled.
“So you admit it?”
“Television ruled the world before the Entertainment Laws were passed,” Walsh practically sighed. “And do you know what that meant? It meant I ruled the world. And I had that stripped away from me. But by convincing Martin Bull to leave Zodiak, I’ve been able to bring back entertainment, to bring back the viewers, to allow me to rule the airwaves again.”
Jimmy shook his head. “You’re mad.”
“Maybe,” Walsh said, getting to his feet. “But the line between insanity and genius is a thin one. I’ve engineered all that has happened, every step of the way. The bank raid in Liverpool, the breakout on the prison train, the gold vault. Television had become boring. People were switching off. But now? Now the news is entertainment!”
“I’m going to tell Lord Crabbe,” Jimmy warned, hoping he sounded as sure as his words. “You won’t get away with this!”
“I think you’ll find I already am. Kid, I gave you every child’s dream, and you come threatening to tell that useless old politician on me?” Walsh paused and reached under his desk. He made no attempt to hide that he was pressing a concealed button. “You’re not at paintball club now, Jimmy.”
The office door opened and Jimmy to face it.
“Well, look who’s here,” Martin Bull drawled as he walked in.
“The little loser who thought he’d really beat me,” Duane Bullock laughed from behind the former Taurus.
The third man, tall and thin with a shaved head, tipped Jimmy that same salute. “Remember me, buddy?” he asked.
The final man t
o walk in was the only one who was armed. Peter, Walsh’s head of security, aimed a pistol at Jimmy’s chest.
“Sorry, Jimmy,” he said.
“So you’re just going to shoot me?” Jimmy asked, not taking his eyes off the gun.
Walsh snorted a laugh. “No, not just shoot you. First of all, Martin, Duane and Dan… Oh, you don’t know Dan Bradley, do you? Mass murderer. A good friend of mine. Killed my wife for me to boost ratings… Anyway, you’ll have a little scuffle with these three first, and then Peter will shoot you.”
Walsh paused and pointed up at a security camera in the corner of the room. A tiny red light blinked beside the lens.
“You see, once the footage has been edited, it will look like these three”—he nodded at Martin, Duane and Dan—“came in here to threaten me, perhaps to even kill me. And then you turned up to defend me. Poor Peter will arrive and, unfortunately, his single shot will hit the wrong person… Poor Jimmy Taurus will die a hero, and Zodiak will need to find a replacement.”
“And you get to make another television programme,” Jimmy added with a halfhearted nod.
“A top-rated television show, if you don’t mind,” Walsh corrected. “I’m sorry it has to be this way, Jimmy. Just as you become famous, it’s time to die.”
47
Jimmy reached into his jacket and pulled a silver pen from his pocket.
Walsh froze.
“Oh, of course,” Jimmy said. “This is your pen, isn’t it?”
“Boss,” Peter said quietly.
Jimmy ignored him. Walsh merely scowled.
“Leo found this shoved down the back of the seats on the hovership. When Libra scanned it, he found out it was a transmitter. A transmitter with your fingerprints all over it.”
Walsh started at him, and stared. Then, the man loosened up and a lazy smile stretched across his face. “So I’ve been listening in on Zodiak,” he chortled dismissively. “I have to get my leads somewhere. Let’s face it, you were pretty useless.”