Dr Higgins had the power of science at his disposal and Paduk was as physically intimidating as any man Mitchell had ever seen. But the person he was most afraid of had a lipstick-red smile curling up one cheek and one eyebrow permanently cocked in an expression of disdain. Mitchell had no idea how a woman so beautiful could be so severe, but he couldn’t imagine anyone disobeying Miss Bennett.
“You’re ready,” Miss Bennett announced, clearly relishing the moment. The sickness in Mitchell’s stomach hadn’t disappeared, it had just mutated into something else. An eerie power waiting to explode. He had to know when to push it down and when to let it take him over.
“Your target is dangerous,” Miss Bennett continued. “We need him dead and you back here alive. You were very expensive.” Mitchell nodded. It was almost an automatic response. “And if you attract the attention of the French police, you’ll be useless on any future missions. So blend in and make it look like an accident.”
She was about to walk away, but one more thought occurred to her. “There’s no chance of you going off-mission, is there?” Her eyes narrowed. Mitchell shook his head hurriedly. “Remember: there’s nowhere you can go that we can’t track you. And working with us is the only chance you have to be forgiven for what you did to your brother.”
Mitchell nodded again, this time trying to make it seem like the most natural thing in the world. He had no intention of going “off-mission” as Miss Bennett called it. The second he had seen his brother’s battered face, he had begun to hate his human weakness. Learning that only 38 per cent of him was human had come almost as a relief. Now he needed to build a new life. Killing an enemy of the state was the first step towards doing that.
He followed Paduk through the dark corridors of NJ7 headquarters. His mission had begun.
Dr Higgins tutted wearily.
“Get over it, Kasimit,” snapped Miss Bennett. “Soon only one of your babies will be left alive.”
“Oh, they were never really my babies,” Dr Higgins sighed, gently stroking his cat. “The true genius behind them was chased out of NJ7 thirteen years ago.”
He closed his eyes and let the photograph in his hand fall to his desk. It was remarkably detailed considering it had been taken from 200 kilometres above the Earth’s surface. Every feature of Jimmy Coates’s face was clearly visible as he ran across the roof of a French farmhouse.
Jimmy tried to sleep on the way back from Paris, but tension hunched his shoulders. The roads were quiet. It was easy to see no one was following and his mother drove smoothly.
Jimmy leaned his head against the window. The vibrations of the truck drummed into his head. The road flashed past outside, but Jimmy wasn’t watching that. In the corner of his eye he could make out his mother’s face reflected in the glass.
Do I know her? Jimmy wondered. He knew he could trust her, but he no longer knew anything about her. She was just another ex-agent now, so different from the time before any of this business started. Jimmy wished he had happy memories of a normal family life, but he couldn’t think about that time any more without bitterness. His parents had been keeping secrets from him. Not just secrets about themselves and their jobs, but about him, Jimmy Coates, and who he was.
Helen glanced across at him as if she knew that he was thinking about her. Jimmy forced a smile then turned away. What makes her right and dad wrong? he wondered. His father supported Hollingdale’s view that the public shouldn’t be allowed to vote because they weren’t qualified to know how to run the country. So what? That wasn’t hurting anybody, was it? And if the Prime Minister held on to power through force, well, how was that different to Helen being prepared to use force to get rid of him?
“You OK, Jimmy?” his mother asked suddenly, interrupting the drone of the motorway.
“Yeah, I think so,” he replied. He was going to leave it at that, but something was on his mind more than ever. “Mum,” he started. His voice croaked so he cleared his throat before going on. “If they’d examined me, what would they have found?”
Helen Coates didn’t divert her eyes from the road, but Jimmy could see that his question had affected her. “I’m not a scientist, Jimmy,” she said.
“But you are my mum.”
There was a long silence. Helen’s eyes flickered in the lights of the road. “I don’t understand it completely,” she said at last, “but I know that they programmed a special computer chip, and that chip controlled a laser – I think it was called a microlaser. The laser operated on a single strand of DNA, which eventually created you.” She glanced across at her son. Jimmy was engrossed.
“But was I a baby like everyone else?” he asked.
“You were a beautiful baby,” his mother said, smiling. “They put you in my womb, and they even implanted the computer chip into you when you were just an embryo so that nothing could go wrong while you were growing inside me.”
Jimmy tensed up again. There was a chip inside him? His mother noticed and gave a short laugh.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “The chip was completely absorbed into your body by the time you were born. That’s what guarantees you’re unique.”
They drove on in silence for a few more miles. Jimmy marvelled at the years of research that must have gone into him. He tingled with excitement at the thought of the world’s top scientists poring over his chemical make-up. But one thought still wouldn’t let his mind relax.
“When Mr Stovorsky was at the farm, he said there was another one of me.”
His mother took her time answering, clearly choosing every word carefully. “There’s only one you, but yes, there were two chips. There was another assassin. He would be two years older than you, but they don’t know where he is. He ran away from his home. He’s probably leading a normal life somewhere. I’m sorry you can’t do that too, Jimmy.”
“It’s OK, I suppose,” he replied, trying to work out how he felt.
“Jimmy,” his mother said hesitantly, “if I’d known…” she trailed off. Jimmy watched her.
“If you’d known what, Mum?” Jimmy asked.
“Nothing,” was the response. “It’s just that…things were different back then.”
“When?”
“When I agreed to be your mother.”
Jimmy tried to imagine his mother as a younger woman. He shuddered at the thought of her standing with Dr Higgins, Paduk and Hollingdale, acting as one of them. Couldn’t she have known then the whole thing would lead to trouble?
“Why did you do it?” Jimmy asked.
His mother took in a deep breath. “A lot of reasons,” she began, sounding distant, as if remembering was difficult – or painful. “It had to do with me and your father. It had to do with Georgie. She was a baby then. I suppose I thought that it would be a way for me to stay working for NJ7, but not really be working for them, do you see what I mean?”
Jimmy shook his head, but his mother wasn’t watching him.
“It was a way out. I thought it would give me eighteen years of a relatively normal life.”
“But what about me?” Jimmy whispered, unable to force out his proper voice.
“I knew that once you were eighteen you’d work for NJ7. But by then, with your programming fully developed, I thought you’d want that life.”
Jimmy couldn’t help himself. His brain vibrated with the words: / won’t have a choice.
Helen reached across and ruffled Jimmy’s hair. “I didn’t realise you’d be…you,” she added, trying a smile. Jimmy could see how sad