Ian Hocking - Déjà Vu

She closed her eyes.

She saw the hawk.

The hawk that returned.

Three old women on a dark plain. The Fates: Clotho, she spins the thread of life. Lachesis, she measures a length. Atropos, she cuts it. One of the women turned. Her skin was baggy and her eyes empty. ‘You will return,’ she said, ‘as you have returned before.’

Spin, measure, snip.

She saw Jago. Poor, dear Scotty. It was night. He was walking towards a small boat, which was tied to a pontoon. On the boat was a hooded man. Saskia called out and Scotty turned. He smiled and said something she couldn’t make out ( Don’t worry about me, hen ) and reached into his pocket. He withdrew something ( a Zippo lighter ) from his pocket and struck it on his thigh: the lid opened on the down stroke and the wick lit on the upstroke. She waved. His lips moved but she couldn’t hear ( The gift of fire ) his words. He spoke again from ( Remember what you’re carrying ) a far away place (… Ute ).

‘So,’ said Bruce. ‘Your unconscious mind is a stranger, your conscious one a ghost. But it is a digital ghost. You are one of us. Welcome to the world of the un-’

A concussive wave clapped her ears and a confetti of sharp fragments sparkled across her back. With a kiss of negative pressure, Saskia removed the mask and let it rise to its ceiling dock. She turned, crunching the fragments of the cubicle door, to see a distinguished, suited gentlemen holding a gun. A hair of smoke strayed from its barrel. The man was frowning at Saskia.

She was unhurt. She slipped forward and watched her body perform. Her wrist struck the man’s gun hand. She moved to his right, beyond the angle of the weapon should it discharge, gripped the gun barrel securely, twisted, and stepped behind him. She pushed and he fell onto his belly, sliding over the tiles until he came to a rest at David’s feet.

‘Good, isn’t she?’ said David.

Saskia swung out the cylinder, counted five bullets, and snapped it shut. ‘You’re too old to be a guard,’ she said to the man. ‘Who are you?’

‘Saskia,’ David said, ‘allow me to introduce John Hartfield, owner of Met Four Base and the cure for cancer. Third richest man in the world.’

‘Second,’ Hartfield said. ‘Rottstein died on Mars last Tuesday. More money than air.’

Jennifer stepped from her cubicle and touched Saskia’s shoulder. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes. The bullet missed.’

Hartfield laughed but the sound was wrong. His eyes seemed dead. Saskia understood, right then, that he was insane. ‘I was wrong to send Klutikov. You’re too…lucky.’

‘Beckmann sent Klutikov, not you. What is your association with Beckmann?’

He laughed. Again, it sounded like a bad copy.

‘Answer me,’ she said, pointing the gun at his knee.

‘Why? You’ll shoot me anyway.’

‘Perhaps I won’t.’

‘Wait,’ David said. He fished his wallet from his jacket pocket. From that, he produced his personal computer. ‘Ego, switch to speaker mode. I want you to analyze our voice stress patterns for their veracity.’

‘Understood,’ replied a new, quiet voice.

Saskia said, ‘Hartfield will be unharmed if he answers truthfully. Correct?’

‘You are telling the truth,’ Ego replied.

Hartfield eased himself upright. At the flick of Saskia’s wrist, he moved more slowly. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I have no concealed weapons.’

‘Mr Hartfield, you are also telling the truth.’

‘Empty your pockets,’ Jennifer said, and Hartfield consented. He gave up a set of keys, a wallet, and a blue pass-card. Jennifer spread the pile. ‘No more weapons.’

‘Answer my question first,’ Saskia said. ‘What is your relationship to Beckmann?’

Hartfield paused. ‘In Norse mythology, Odin had two ravens, Munin and Hugin. They would fly out at the beginning of each day and return at dusk with news from the world of Man.’ He checked her expression. ‘Munin is the name of your section, Saskia, and Beckmann has been in my pocket for years. As for you, I had you recruited specifically to deal with the Proctor problem.’

Ego said, ‘He is telling the truth.’

‘Tell us only when he doesn’t,’ said David. ‘What, pray, is the Proctor problem?’

‘There were reports that the Onogoro computer was back online. Further reports implicated Bruce Shimoda. I suspected your hand in this, David, and I was glad when McWhirter requested your assistance. Within the research centre I had good, invasive surveillance. I had hoped that Colonel McWhirter could handle you. He could not. Perhaps I could have a glass of water?’

Saskia fired the gun. The cubicle door behind Hartfield shattered. David and Jennifer looked at one another. Hartfield straightened his tie. ‘I was unprepared, David, for your second terrorist attack. Onogoro was my Plan B.’

‘Bloody hell, how many times? There was no first attack. Not by me.’

‘You sent me,’ said Saskia, ‘after David to collect information.’

‘No. At that point, I merely wanted you to collect him. Then I began to understand how persuasive a man David could be, and how difficult it had been for Beckmann to fully control your behaviour. I decided to end the matter by sending Klutikov. If he found you here, then my suspicions would be confirmed because only David could lead you to his daughter. If he had not found you, then David would be in your custody and on the way back to England.’

He sighed, chin on chest.

Jennifer raised her hand. ‘I have a question. Why are you here, now?’

‘The most important question, Jennifer,’ said Hartfield, smiling. ‘You recall that, when I was a young man, I offered my fortune to any person who could cure me of my cancer. The one who came forward was Fernando Orza. His treatment involved nanobots—robots smaller than blood cells—that could seek out and destroy cancer cells. I was cured. That, in sum, is the official version of the story. Unofficially, the nanobots killed not only cancerous cells but healthy ones too, particularly the oligodendrocytes in my frontal lobes. I was left with a severe mental handicap. I received a number of treatments, but, finally, the doctors informed me that I had a permanent condition. I…no longer see meaning. Conversation is difficult and empathy impossible. I remember kindness and justice but I no longer feel them.

‘Orza’s nano-treatment became public after 2010. But that day in 2002, when I received the all-clear, I turned my energies towards investment in radical technologies. Onogoro, for example, was intended—although you did not understand until later, David—to unlock the secrets of our genes using the kind of rapid experimental approach only previously possible with lower animals. With those codes unravelled, my brain could be rebuilt. Another example is your project, Jennifer.’

Saskia sensed a change in David. His eyes became narrow and severe. In a clipped voice, he said, ‘Jennifer, what did you build for him?’

‘I -’

‘ What, Jennifer?’ he spat, and Saskia felt the elemental rage of a father at his daughter’s mistake. When Jennifer shrugged fiercely, David turned to Saskia, though his words seemed for the benefit of Jennifer too. ‘Saskia, do you remember what I said when we first met?’

She frowned. ‘Yes, you claimed to have met me before.’

‘It took me until now to fully understand. Before, it didn’t make sense.’

‘What didn’t?’

‘You, Saskia, helped me escape from the West Lothian Centre four days ago.’

Saskia laughed coldly. Only the determination in David’s face stilled her retort. He leaned against his cubicle door. ‘It didn’t make sense because you were twenty years older than you are now. In the time we’ve spent together, I’ve thought through the alternatives in an attempt to talk myself out of that preposterous conclusion. Did you have an older sister? Could it be your mother? Was it some other kind of doppelganger, transformed by plastic surgery? Now, here, I realise that my gut feeling was correct. It was an older you. You are going to travel backwards in time.’ He continued to look at her with an expression that communicated grim fascination, even disgust. ‘Tell her, Jennifer.’