Déjà Vu: A Technothriller (44 page)

“These are the facts, lady and gentlemen,” Castle said. She was a sharp, lawyerly woman in her early fifties. She wore a blue power suit and thin-rimmed glasses. David liked her. “At the moment, all I’m concerned with are three things: Professor Michaels, your unauthorised use of government property; Jennifer, your compliance in this and the illegal entry of two other persons; David, your illegal entry. In good time, I would also like to discover the whereabouts John Hartfield, our co-patron, and Detective Saskia Brandt, who gained entry along with you, David.”

David raised a hand. “Yes?” she asked.

“I could clear most of this up if I tell you what has happened over the course of this week.”

She sipped her tea, no milk, and raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure you don’t want any medical attention before you begin?”

David smiled. “The opportunity to put my – our – side of the story may not arise again. The only attention I need is yours. May I?”

“Please.”

Jennifer and Professor Michaels looked on as David fought to remove his wallet from his trousers. He opened it and produced a little card. “This is my personal computer. Ego, switch to presentation mode, please. I would like you illustrate my story with pictures as you see fit, and audio and video where possible.” He turned to the others. “Ego has been recording every step of my journey. It is equipped with Eye Witness software. The British police use it. It’s tamper-proof.”

“I’m aware of that, David,” said Castle. “Tell your story. This is a modern office. It will accept communications from your computer.”

“Very well. Ego, patch into the conference facilities in this room. Dim the lights. Display a picture of the West Lothian Complex. This, Ms Castle, is where our story begins.”

Jennifer had her elbows on the table. She was nervous. Ms Castle would surely make a decision about their future based on David’s testimony. She stole a glance at Professor Michaels. He smiled and she relaxed.

“So Hartfield,” David said, “was sent back in time to the precise point of the explosion. In fact, he caused it. We think that the time machine’s computer was hacked by my own personal computer just before we entered the cavern.”

“And why do you think that?” Castle asked.

“It would need to be an external computer…but, more than that, we have to remember who gave me this computer.”

“It was Saskia Brandt,” Castle said. “She provided the equipment that was left in the shed. The shed that was in the field where the glider went down. I remember.”

“So?” prompted David.

“I see. You believe that Saskia Brandt carried out her objective after all. She managed to stop Hartfield contacting his younger self. She sabotaged his time travelling at source. By all accounts a girl with a long memory.”

“A very clever girl,” Jennifer said.

“I don’t suppose you can prove this, David? After all, even with a plausible story, if you have no evidence then we must fall back on the available facts: the computer belongs to you. You must accept responsibility for its actions. The Automaticity Act, 2006, I believe.”

David raised a hand and let it fall. “Well, whatever. I never expected to get off Scott-free. I all can do is give you the facts.”

Another voice came from the conference speakers: “Excuse me. I am Ego, the personal computer involved. I am now authorised to tell you that Saskia Brandt has provided three signed copies of her story. I must tell you that it tallies precisely with David’s version. For safe keeping, copies were given to three legal firms in each of the three cities of New York, London and Geneva.

Saskia filed them one year ago today. Physical, hand-written copies were also placed in safety deposit boxes in those countries. I can give full details.”

Castle smiled. “Perhaps we could also meet Ms Brandt.”

“I do not have that information,” Ego said.

There was a long silence. “Well,” Castle said. “I have a board meeting.” She stood and folded her computer away. David scooped Ego from the desk and dropped it in his wallet.

“Wait,” Jennifer said. “What about us?”

“For the time being you’ll stay in guest quarters here. They are quite comfortable. I have to speak to the board about this. At the very least, we need to discuss future funding proposals, if Mr Hartfield’s absence proves to be permanent.”

“I’m sure it will,” David said quietly.

“You will also need to speak to our legal team. However, I will advise the board that no charges be pressed. David, because you are here illegally, you will sent back to Britain. There you will answer any charges. I will ask the board to provide legal representation for you; as a recipient of monies from the Hartfield foundation, I’m sure that our board will agree that we share some responsibility for your present situation. Professor Michaels and Dr Proctor, you will each have your security clearance suspended. Again, I’m sure this will be temporary.”

Jennifer asked, “How long?”

Castle looked at Proctor. “Two months. Take a holiday. I hear the weather in Britain is awful.”

“And our funding?” asked Professor Michaels.

“Professor, you have invented a time machine. You’ll get your money.”

Castle shook their hands. “The guards will take you to your quarters. You can speak to nobody apart from each other. I’ll see you tomorrow. Oh, David?”

“Yes, Ms Castle?”

“Keep an eye on your wallet.”

Smoke filled the five levels of the West Lothian Centre. At the bottom, near the New World computer, the fire raged. Hartfield’s body had destroyed a small electricity plant. The time machine had inserted him only metres below David’s laboratory. The fire had begun slowly. It reached up to the Liquid Storage Device. Its hardened exterior did not crack; it digital inhabitants did not die; but the computer initiated an emergency shutdown. As Hartfield evaporated, New World froze, to be awakened in twenty years.

McWhirter opened his eyes. An alarm whistled in his earpiece. The continuous tone meant fire. He lay behind the reception desk. He remembered talking to a person, perhaps a guard, but nothing else. He forehead was crusty with blood. He climbed to feet. He saw a stampede of personnel. A guard, who was directing them, asked, “What happened, sir?”

“Nothing. Keep these people moving.”

Two days later, McWhirter would check the surveillance footage for that afternoon. It would be blank. The fire had reached the computer before its data were archived at an off-site computer. It did not occur to McWhirter that an assailant had knocked him unconscious. He checked the tapes because he was a thorough man who thoroughly cherished his Distinguished Conduct Medal. Later, at the hearings, he told the panel that he had been making a manual confirmation of the computer’s fire shut-down procedures. The panel nodded. Nobody checked his story.

The guard turned away and shouted, “Keep moving, keep moving.”

The concert theatre was ten metres below. It could seat one hundred people. When the explosions began they had been listening to Dr David Proctor take his antique guitar through the strains of Cavatina. Soon they poured through the exits. All of them made it to the emergency stairwells ahead of the other personnel. David fought against them, back down the corridor towards his wife’s laboratory. The explosions intensified and the floor dropped. Everybody fell prone.

But not David. He took advantage of the pause and charged over them. Helen worked five doors down on the left. He needed to make sure that she made it. He needed it for himself; he needed it for her; but, most of all, he needed it for their infant daughter, Jennifer, who was at home in Whitburn with a child minder.

He picked his way by the red emergency lights.

Saskia lifted her head. She licked her lips. They were covered with dust. Her eyes were dry and raw. She looked around for Bruce and saw that he had gone. She was not disappointed. She needed no further demonstration of his heroism. He was a blind man in a collapsing building. She must have lost consciousness and been unable to answer his calls.

As much as she was scared, she was satisfied. Hartfield was dead. The time machine had killed him.

The structure had stabilized. Although it was barely moments before that the walls and ceiling had ground together like teeth, they were now still and the illusion of strength had returned. It was a feeling that something this big could never crumble. Like a mountain, it was eternal.

Saskia stood. She was quite fearless. She was destined to survive this catastrophe.

Ahead of her, southwards and away from the nearest stairway, she could see that some emergency lighting had been knocked out. She had seen Helen Proctor fall into that blackness. She clambered over. She stepped on glass, cabling, masonry and other debris. Her intention was clear. She would save this woman’s life and restore the lives of David and Jennifer, give them the opportunity to avoid that future pain.

But Helen was destined to die; Saskia was destined to survive, just as the young girl called Ute Schmidt was destined to be raped and Kate Falconer destined to be killed and live again as a digital facsimile.

Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos: who were they? What were they?

A tear of frustration cut through the dust on her cheek. Her arms were pinned by Time, by an unthinking, controlling God-not-God that would never ask her permission, would only pull her strings this way and what. For what was fate but the pulling of strings?

And at what scale was her destiny planned out?

She had been destined to travel backwards in time. She had been destined to enter the building at, say, 3:55 p.m. because that was what she had already done. She had no control. She placed here foot here and here not because she wanted to…she placed them because of the determined arrangement of the muscles in her legs, the state of the nerves connected to them, the state of her brain. And what determined the state of her brain?

The state of her brain a micro-second before.

She was a doll, a puppet with strings, and none was her own. Jobanique had not controlled her because he could not control himself. He was as predestined as every other man, other woman, any other object in the whole universe from the beginning of time.

She could see it so clearly now. History was fixed and unchangeable because everything was unchangeable. She had never worried about the fixedness of the past because its fixedness seemed self-evident. But she had not realised the implication of this: the future was fixed too.

She screamed.

“Are you OK?” someone asked.

Saskia blinked. She wiped the hair from her eyes. There was a woman stood before her. It was Helen Proctor. Helen smiled. Déjà vu. Jennifer smiled. “Listen to me, you’re going to be fine. You’re going to be fine.”

I know. But you will die.

“Listen to me,” Saskia said. “I am front...from the future. Your daughter, Jennifer –”

The woman frowned. “Who are you?”

The ground rumbled. Saskia felt and heard a small stone hit her head. “My name is Saskia. Your daughter will grow into a beautiful young woman, I’m from the future – she says that she loves you.”

Helen smiled. Saskia smiled too; she had got through to her. “You’re going to be alright,” Helen said. “We’re going to talk you out of here. You’ve have a knock on the head.”

Saskia’s smile switched off. “No, listen to me!”

There was a splintering sound from above them. They were three metres from the spot where, twenty years later, David Proctor and Harrison McWhirter would look up to see a crack appear. The gap grew wider. Saskia was spellbound. It was like a time-lapse film of a geological event.

The ceiling opened. Saskia saw the steel joist bending under its deadly cargo. Fist-sized pieces of concrete began to fall. She grabbed Helen and pulled her to the floor. She made sure that David’s wife was completely covered by her body.

She turned to look up into the abyss

Prove me wrong.

The ceiling caved. She felt the building hit the ground around her. Edges cut and scratched her. Twisted fingers of metal ended their journeys bare centimetres from her neck, her abdomen and her legs. Then it was over. The dust was thick. She remembered the hood on her suit and pressed the button. Nothing happened. The computer was broken.

She climbed to her feet and tried to waft the dust away. “Helen, get up.” But as the dust thinned, Saskia knew that Helen was dead. The ceiling had fallen to leave her own body untouched, but a finger of steel had passed through Helen’s head. She was conscious. Her breathing was shallow. Clear fluid ran from the wound.

“I am so sorry,” Saskia said.

Helen’s eyes were fixed and black.

If Saskia had not been there, this woman would not have died. And yet that thought seemed to give the illusion of choice. There was none. Saskia held the woman’s hand until she just stopped living, like a clock not wound.

She heard a man calling, “Helen! Helen!”

It was David. He had black hair that was long enough to tie in a pony tail. Saskia stepped back. He took Helen’s hand and held it to his cheek. He did nothing. Both of them were a tableau.

Saskia touched his face and left. She was not destined to know him. David gave a long, guttural wail. It reminded her of a wolf howling at the moon. An instinctive, unthinking behaviour. Saskia found a stairwell and pushed at a door. Then she remembered. She still had to write the message to herself.

The door immediately to her left was open. She wandered inside. It was a storage room. There were cans of spray paint on a shelf. She put her hand amongst the cans, closed her eyes, and pulled one at random. She checked the label. It was a security paint. It would only be visible in infra-red light. Saskia smiled. She remembered her confusion when she had read that cryptic message on the wall, seconds after Garrel left her alone in the darkened corridor. She remembered the envelope. She needed stationery.

There was a door in the cupboard that led to another. It was full of stationary. She felt dizzy with fatalism. Even the pen of the architect had not been his own.

She took a sheet of A4 paper, a pen, an envelope, a plastic folder, and scribbled the message that she would read in twenty years’ time. She wrote from memory, wondering who the author truly was. She tried to write something different – as an artistic flourish, a token gesture of her defiance against Time – but could think of nothing better to say. Finally she wrote, “To prove this is me, there will be a bullet hole just about here:” and drew an arrow towards the middle, where Hartfield’s bullet would pass through. She sealed the envelope, addressed it, and returned to the corridor.