Ian Hocking - Déjà Vu

But no.

Helen was destined to die and Saskia was destined to survive, just as the young woman called Ute Schmidt was destined to be raped and another woman was set to be killed, diced, and live again as data—as Saskia.

A tear cut through the dust on her cheek. She collapsed, defeated.

‘Are you okay?’

She wiped the hair from her eyes. There was a woman standing before her. It was Helen Proctor. ‘Listen to me, you’re going to be fine.’

‘You listen,’ Saskia said. ‘Your daughter, Jennifer—’

The woman frowned. ‘Jennifer?’

‘My name is Saskia. Your daughter will grow into a beautiful young woman. I am from the future—Jennifer loves you.’

Helen smiled. Saskia smiled too. She had got through. ‘You’re going to be all right,’ Helen said. ‘You’ve had a knock on the head.’

Saskia’s smile switched off. ‘No, listen to me.’

The ceiling opened. Saskia saw the steel joist fail. Fist-sized pieces of concrete began to rain. She pulled Helen to the floor and flung herself on top.

She turned to look up into the abyss. Daggers of twisted steel reinforcement were poised.

Kill me, then. Prove me wrong.

She screamed as the ceiling buckled and fell. Ribbons of metal stopped centimetres from her neck, her abdomen and her legs. The dust was as thick as smoke. Coughing, she remembered her hood and pressed the button to close it. Nothing happened. The computer was broken.

She wafted the dust away. ‘Helen, come on.’ But as the murk thinned, Saskia turned and knew that Helen was dead. The ceiling had fallen to leave her own body untouched, but a chunk of reinforced concrete had struck Helen’s skull above the eye. Her breathing was shallow.

Saskia put a hand to her cheek. ‘I am so sorry.’

She heard a man calling, ‘Helen! Helen!’

It was David. His face was young and angry. She stepped back. David looked at Saskia once, questioning, then turned to kneel by Helen. He took her hand and held it to his lips.

Saskia touched his shoulder and left. She was not destined to know him. She found a stairwell and pushed at a door marked with a green exit sign. Then she remembered. She still had to write the message to herself.

The door immediately to her left was hanging from its hinges. She wandered inside. It was a storage room. There were cans of spray paint on a far shelf. She put her hand among the cans, closed her eyes, and pulled one at random. She checked the label. It described security paint visible only in infra-red light. She remembered her confusion when she had read that cryptic message on the wall, seconds after McWhirter left her alone in the darkened corridor. And she remembered the envelope.

There was a door in the cupboard, and it led to a room full of office supplies. She felt dizzy with fatalism. Even the hand of the architect had not been his own.

She took a pen, an envelope, a plastic folder, and printed the word ‘Munin’ on the reverse of her ID card, which was useless in the year 2003. The word would be read in twenty years’ time. She tried to write something else—as an artistic flourish, a token rebellion—but could think of nothing to add. She sealed the envelope, addressed it, and returned to the corridor.

David had gone. Helen remained. Saskia put the envelope inside the plastic folder. She put the folder underneath the rock that had killed Helen. On the wall, she wrote, in German: By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. Then she drew an arrow pointing to the rock.

She dropped the can and ran away from Helen. Her breath stuttered with sobs. She made it to the stairwell and, from there, to the surface. The exit was at the rear of the hotel. Saskia emerged into weak daylight. A temporary field hospital had been erected on the lawn. Army ambulance crews stood by. Shocked personnel walked slowly and silently nowhere. Some cried. She saw McWhirter on a stretcher. He wore an oxygen mask. Inspired, Saskia feigned a breathing problem. An ambulance took her to a nearby hospital. Within the hour, she had escaped.

Night came to the woodland. The moon was large. Saskia built a fire. She remembered the life of Ute as though it were a huge, cherished novel from her youth. One of Ute’s many foster parents, Hans, had been a Wandersmann. He had taught her how to make fire using a wooden bow drill. Instead, Saskia selected the fire-starter in the small survival kit in her flight suit. Nothing else in the suit worked. It was smashed and torn. She collected moss, dry kindling, and some logs. The fire-starter was a ferrocerium rod, down which she scraped the striking blade. The fire caught and she tended it.

The stars were closer in 2003 than they would be in 2023. The sphere of humanity—the reach of its radio and television signals—was smaller. She looked now at the trees around her. Conifer, oak, sycamore, beech and horse chestnut. She remembered them all from the life of Ute.

She noticed the pink sheet protruding from the map pocket on her thigh. The crayon drawing reminded her of David and Jennifer; a crude home; a memento. On the reverse, David had written a list headed ‘Financial Times for the Lady What Bets’. It contained a list of British prime ministers and American presidents since 2001, some British Grand National winners, and all of the football world cup winners, prefixed with ‘bloody’.

On the final page were these words:

So good luck and bon voyage!

PS If you could stick a flask of soup in the shed for when it gets chilly, I’d be much obliged! And one of those ‘space blankets’ like they have in marathons.

PPS Nothing vegetarian, mind—I’ll be weak enough as it is.

Westminster, London: November 6th, 2023

From his bench next to the Thames, David saw a pigeon flutter to a stop near his feet. The special committee was due to reconvene at 2:00 p.m. He had fifteen minutes to finish his lunch. He watched the pigeon fly away. The MPs had been unimpressed by his ethical choices, even with the motivation afforded by the loss of his house to fire. It would take more than Ego’s pictures and crackly audio to exonerate David from the crime of detonating that second bomb in the West Lothian Centre. David’s best intents were of little import.

‘Hello,’ she said.

David laughed. She was there, finally. ‘You look—’

‘I know.’ She kissed him and sat on the bench. She wore a black greatcoat with the collar turned up. Her hair was short. She smiled as he stared, and he noticed the lines at the corners of her eyes and dimples in her cheeks. She was older but her face was leaner and more striking. ‘It’s been a while.’

‘I thought it was best,’ she said.

‘Walk me back?’

He broke up the remainder of his sandwich and scattered the pieces. He and Saskia then made their way towards Westminster Bridge.

‘You lost your accent,’ he said.

‘It’s still there. Today, I’m playing British.’

‘And what could be more British than a stroll along the river?’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Westminster,’ David said. Unconsciously, his hand rubbed his chest, where pre-cancerous growths had been found a month before: a vestige of the radioactive dust in the West Lothian Centre. His nano-treatment was scheduled for January. ‘I’m still trying to explain myself.’

‘To whom?’

‘A closed parliamentary inquiry. Closed to the public, that is. Ostensibly, they want to find out what happened at the West Lothian Centre. The Chairman is Lord Gilbert. A Lib-Dem guy. He’s OK.’

Saskia looked at the Palace of Westminster. ‘What are you telling them?’