Déjà Vu: A Technothriller by Hocking, Ian (ebook reader that looks like a book .TXT) 📗

haven’t done anything wrong. This is the job I was asked to do. I’m still in the process of doing it. And what about you, David? Frank was never told about you. You are, however, the reason that I’m out here. It makes no sense. Why would my boss let you off the hook? He gave me the specific task of doing that, and now he just gives up. No sense.”

David said evenly, “Sense, yes. Your boss thinks you have performed badly, he wants you back. He sends out an agent.”

“The same agent who gave me misinformation earlier this week. Quite a coincidence.”

“You do not know that the information was bad. Perhaps you are too…suspicious.”

Saskia stared at Met Four. “Suspicion is what I’m paid for. I’m a detective.”

Jennifer looked at Saskia for the first time. “Detective –”

“Saskia,” she corrected.

“– Saskia, do you still want to take David back?”

Saskia smiled bitterly. “My life depends on it.”

“I can prove that my father is innocent.”

“How?” asked Saskia and David simultaneously.

Their footsteps echoed on the wrought-iron stairs. They walked in single file. Jennifer led, followed by Saskia, then David. Saskia had needed convincing. The chances of getting into Met Four security was low. He rolled the dice one more time. Saskia had to reach the time machine somehow. If the universe itself would conspire to keep her appointment, perhaps they could all ride her luck.

They reached the top. The wind was so strong that it was an effort to breathe. David surveyed Met Four. There were two buildings, old and worn. Atop the second building was a clutch of antennas. Two flags rolled in the wind. Immediately before him was a high wire gate with an inset door. Jennifer swiped her card through the box near the handle and the gate opened. She stepped through and closed it behind her. Saskia repeated the procedure with her stolen blue-clearance pass.

David watched them go through. His card was least likely to succeed, because his card was Ego, which had read the magnetic code from the Saskia’s blue card. After a few seconds of analysis, Ego had announced that the code was a several-billion digit prime number. Jennifer suggested that Ego pick the next-highest prime and present the number to the lock. Ego found it seconds later on a university website.

David swiped it through the reader. Nothing happened.

John Hartfield shouted, “If Proctor makes an entrance, I want him to be allowed in. Did you get that?”

He strained to hear the reply over the thump of the rotor blades. The helicopter banked. They were twenty minutes from Met Four.

“Hold on, sir,” said the pilot. Another gust of wind turned the aircraft. They began to fly sideways.

The Mojave washed by. Banks of sand rolled beneath them. The voice on the mobile phone finally replied to Hartfield’s question: “Copy that, sir. Updating the computer now.”

The lock sprang open. Jennifer was numb to the surprise she had every right to feel. She had not thought clearly since Frank’s arrival that morning. Now she watched her father close the gate behind him. He was dizzy with relief.

And where was her anger? When she had argued for extended lunch privileges at a committee meeting the day before, she had ridden it hard, as always, and she knew its source. She had not shouted at the chairman but at her father. At her father, who had left her in a school in New York and returned to England.

She looked at him. He shrank. He shrank like a rebuked little boy. Her fury, too, shrank to nothing. Perhaps she had passed into its eye. Her father had given her the best education in his power.

For him, the pursuit of education – the mind, science, truth – was the noblest of causes. It was the one true aspiration. He had put that aspiration above their relationship. He was a principled man. But for others who did not share those principles, what was he?

Saskia said, “Keep moving.”

The Golden Thread

They said nothing the whole way. Nothing as they walked into the second building, nothing as they descended in the rock, nothing as they took their first steps into the research centre proper. It was not until they had been walking for five minutes through low-ceilinged, busy but well-lit corridors that David whispered, in English, “Where are we going?”

Jennifer said, “You’ll see.”

They came to a door. Like all others, it was large enough to accommodate the passage of machinery. It was heavy and closed. Underneath David could see blue flashes. To one side was a swipe-card reader. Jennifer ignored it. She glanced up and down the corridor – David couldn’t see what she was checking for – and then rapped her knuckles on the door.

The welding stopped. They heard footsteps. The door swished open. A man stood in the doorway with his welding visor tilted. He had a great, bushy beard and wore huge dungarees. Around his waste was a utility belt brimming with tools. To complete the costume, he wore a tent-like lab coat. His welding gun was perched on a shoulder, pointing at the ceiling. Its cable snaked away into space behind him.

“Help you?” he asked curtly.

All eyes were drawn to Jennifer. She smiled. “Hi, Groove.”

“Hey, little lady,” he said. He did nothing other than chew his gum.

“These are the VIPs Mikey told you about,” she began. “Mikey did tell you, right?”

David and Saskia stood slowly to attention. Groove glanced over them. “Mikey didn’t. If you got clearance, how come you didn’t use your ID card to get in?”

Jennifer faltered. “I…did, but it didn’t work. I’ll get it checked out later. Damn thing must have a glitch.”

Groove nodded. “Don’t these two have ID cards?”

Jennifer said, “Well now,” in a way that made David realise she had no idea what to say next. He cleared his throat.

“There was no time to have them activated for your lab,” David said irritably. “We’re making an unscheduled stop. As you know, part of our rolling review programme means that