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

and say the same of the mistakes of her twenties, and again when she was forty.

These thoughts flashed through her mind in a second.

She looked now into the garage.

The first thing she saw was the Workmate. She saw that there were two balloons jammed, trapped, between its two planks of wood. Good. That meant ‘air’.

She pinched her father’s nose with her right hand and kept his head tilted with her left. She sealed her lips over his and blew. It really felt like blowing into a balloon: there was a building resistance, the sound of rushing air, and the expansion of her father’s chest. When she withdrew, her warm breath was returned to her. Nothing else happened.

Her father’s eyes were open. She could only see the whites.

There were two balloons so she breathed twice.

David awoke slowly. He blinked because there were strong lights in the room. He was on his back. Close by, two women were talking in a low murmur. He blinked again to clear the haze from his mind. He remembered nothing.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Dad,” said a voice. It was Jennifer. She came into view. It was shock to see her so old. He realised that he had been dreaming of her as a child. “Do you remember anything?”

He nodded and sat up. “Yes, everything. I feel sick.”

“You stopped breathing. I gave you mouth-to-mouth.”

David closed his eyes and took some long, slow breaths. The blood was draining from his head so he lay back down. As the back of his skull tapped the floor, he gave a yell.

“What’s wrong?” asked another voice. It was Saskia.

“Did I walk into a door?”

Jennifer squeezed his hand. “Do you remember when I was kid and said that, when confronted with a problem, I should use my head?”

David groaned. “Now I remember.”

He opened his left eye a fraction and looked at Jennifer. Her hair had fallen from its Alice Band. Her features had relaxed. She seemed younger. He felt an awkwardness inside and it was so familiar – and so destructive – that he threw it aside and said, “Jennifer, I love you. Very much.”

Jennifer let out a burst of laughter. “Well. Great. I love you too.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever said that before,” David said.

“Me either,” Jennifer replied.

The awkwardness returned, but it had a different character.

Saskia said, “Na prima, the English brain. Once delivered a stunning blow, it works fine.”

“Tell me what happened,” David said.

Saskia recounted the last moments of their dealings with Frank. David laughed when he heard that Bruce had cheated death once more. It was somehow unsurprising. “What happened to the bloke at the computer out there?”

“Mikey electrocuted himself,” Saskia said quietly. She gave Jennifer a sympathetic look.

David caught it. “Was he your boyfriend?”

“Not really,” Jennifer replied. “But I think he tried to save us.”

“Yes,” David said. “He did. I saw him. He was working hard. But how did manage to get electrocuted?”

“He tried to shut down the computer with a fire axe,” Saskia said.

“Oh. And what about Frank?”

“He’s on ice,” Jennifer said.

David, who had sat up to listen, looked over to Frank’s cubicle. Their assailant was encased in a fine yellowish film. It had to be made of microbots.

Saskia said, “I think we should keep him there until we leave.”

“Leave?” David asked. “I don’t think we’re in a position to leave yet. For one thing, you’re still here.”

Saskia sighed. “What do you mean, ‘still here’? Please do not tell me that you still subscribe to this time travel theory.”

Jennifer said, “It is a theory, but it works. We can send you back.”

Saskia slapped her forehead. “How many times do I have to say this? I do not wish to go back. There is no reason. Am I speaking English?”

“Very well,” David said evenly. “But I saw you. Bruce saw you. That means you’re going back, and I don’t think you have a choice.”

“I always have a choice. Everybody does.”

“Do they?” David asked playfully.

“This is not a tutorial, Professor,” Saskia said. “And it is time to leave.”

“Oh, I disagree. You should all stay a little longer,” said a voice. The tone was so similar to David’s own that he was forced to check that he had not uttered the words himself. And then he saw a figure in the doorway.

Jennifer said, “Mr Hartfield!”

And Saskia hissed, “Jobanique.”

“This is a gun. Keep still.”

Saskia felt her cheeks burn. Even as this newcomer had spoken, she had not been sure, but her suspicion was barely formed before she knew. This was Jobanique. His voice. She tried to wrestle from his power – the fascination she had with his true, ordinary face, his simple suit – but she could not.

He was three metres away. If she could get a metre closer, she could slap the gun aside. Her only tool was her shoulder bag, which she had retrieved from the floor.

Her breathing became tidal. She sank back and watched.

“Hartfield,” David said slowly. “Long time, no see.”

The man blinked but his eyes were dead; grinned but it was wrong, a bad copy. She understood, right then, that he was insane. “Hello again, David. And perhaps I should say hello to the two ladies. Hello and hello.”

“Hello, Mr Hartfield,” Jennifer said solemnly. His rictus turned at one corner, its single variation.

“Guten Tag, Jobanique,” Saskia said.

“Jobanique,” he repeated, as though the name had touched a cherished memory. “Saskia, I have a number of identities that allow me to –” he paused, but his expression did not change. She felt that he already had the next word. He merely wished to pause for effect. He continued, “They allow me to perform certain duties, or to solve certain problems. This face –” he pointed to his chin with the gun, and in that instant Saskia knew (or judged, or guessed) that he had never undertaken firearms training – “this face is rather too well known.” He looked at David. “Is it not?”

“Saskia,” David said weakly, “allow me to introduce John Hartfield, eighth richest man in the world. Owner of