54 Becoming Mr White

Chapter 54 Becoming Mr White Nerys put the hat back on her head. She walked over to the wall and started to rub out the door marked NYC—the one that had taken Peanut, Little-Bit and Rockwell to New York on their last visit. Peanut winced. 'Why did you decide to call yourself Mr White?' asked Little-Bit from the cage. 'Why not something more... imaginative?' 'Yeah,' said Rockwell, 'like Mr Partypooper or Mr Vlbekill?' 'Very witty,' said Nerys, sarcastically. 'Well, if you must know, the name Nerys comes from the traditional Welsh name Generys, which means White Lady,' she replied proudly. 'So the name White was a no-brainer, really.'

'No-brainer is right,' scoffed Rockwell. Nerys scowled at him. 'HEY!' A muffled cry came from the hatch, followed by lots of banging. 'LET US OUT!' It was Dad. 'NERYS?' shouted Mum. 'IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE LIKE THIS. WHATEVER HAS HAPPENED, WHATEVER YOU'VE DONE, WE CAN SORT IT JUST LET US OUT!' 'The name White also made my outfit choice easier, continued Nerys, totally ignoring the voices. 'Image is important when running for office, and I wanted to stand out from the crowd. In a city that's full of colour, a white suit worked perfectly. I thought a hat would help me to keep a certain amount of anonymity, and I was obviously right- you lot had no Idea who I really was!'

Peanut turned away, still annoyed at the fact that she'd been wrong about White's true identity. That's when she first noticed Alan staring at her. It was almost as if he was trying to catch her eye. It kind of creeped Peanut out. 'Wearing this costume really helped,' said Nerys as she began rubbing out the door marked M for Milan. 'I felt like a different person. Much more confident. More assertive. More powerful. All my insecurities just seemed to... disappear. Over the years, I gained people's trust, people of real influence in the city, like Josephine Engelberger, whose ideas about robotics immediately appealed to me. I imagined what it would be like to have an entire robot army at my beck and call. I don't suppose Nerys would ever have thought like that, and she certainly wouldn't have been able to talk all these people into following her. But Mr White had no problems whatsoever. As White, I would drop little nuggets into the conversation here and there, y'know, telling people what I would do if I were running things in Chroma. How I would colour-correct the Rainbow Lake more regularly, build more art galleries, make sure that every child was given their own set of water-soluble magic markers. All that nonsense. Everybody lapped it up.

Peanut nodded. She could see exactly how White had gradually forced his will onto the unsuspecting public, and all it took was a few insincere promises. It was scary how easy it was for this sort of thing to happen. Horrifying, really. At this point, Alan caught Peanut's eye again. He was staring straight at her, eyebrows raised, and he appeared to be jerking his head towards the hatch. Peanut had no idea what he was doing. 'I was so successful,' continued Nerys while rubbing out the Paris door, 'that by the time I announced that I was going to run for mayor, nobody was surprised. In fact, they all predicted that I'd win by a landslide. And guess what? They were right!' How long until they realised you were a complete and utter fraud?' spat Peanut. Nerys smiled and moved on to the door marked B for Beijing. 'Oh, that happened very quickly, lovely. Just after I'd passed the law banning anyone from swimming in the Rainbow Lake. Or maybe it was when I'd made all artistic apparatus illegal. I don't recall. Either way, by the time they realised what was happening, it was too late. Much, much too late.