Déjà Vu

Chapter Thirty-Six

It was a disappointingly mechanical affair. A hatch opened in the bottom of the gondola and she tumbled into a bright, cold sky. She opened her arms and legs to form an ‘H’ as David had described. Webbing stretched between her elbows and her chest.

The tumbling stopped. She was still falling, but more slowly. There was a Heads-Up Display on the inner rim of the helmet. The text read:

Without the Global Positioning System, she could miss her landing by hundreds of metres.

Saskia looked down. The Earth was rising.

New text:

The ground seemed to expand. The horizon flattened.

Locks acquired.

The display marked her drop-zone with a green circle. A ghostly figure representing her body overlapped with a solid figure. She tilted until the two aligned.

The parachute opened and she was jerked skyward. Sudden calm. She aimed for the green circle but the drop-down cords were difficult to use. As she pulled right, she banked steeply and swung towards the ground. She had barely enough height to curse the design of the parachute before her boots hit Scotland. Remembering David’s instructions, she held her feet together and rolled to one side. After the silence of the slow parachute descent, her impact was as startling as a gunshot.

She detached her parachute, gathered it, and switched off her hood. She had landed in the valley on the south side of the research centre. The young David Proctor and his colleagues were working directly beneath her.

Help was twenty years away.

If Jennifer had been correct in her calculations, Hartfield would arrive at the centre in twenty minutes. Saskia fantasised that she would hide nearby, tackle him, and destroy his notes on the nanotechnology, thus creating the future she knew. But she also knew that she was destined to write a message for her future self, place it under a rock outside Proctor’s laboratory, and paint a prophecy on the wall.

So the guards came. She smiled. They ignored her German apologies.

They led her downhill towards the river and up again, past the tennis courts, until they arrived at the hotel entrance. An unarmed guard walked alongside her while three others walked ten paces behind. There were no blind spots. Again, she felt the gravel crunch under her feet. Again, she smelled the pine. The hotel loomed.

She passed the fountain with its stone Prometheus. She imagined him chained to a rock and tormented by the hawk sent from Zeus, but the thought was the key to a room that was long unlocked.

They entered the lobby. It still had twinned staircases that rose like the edges of a cobra’s hood, and brown and black tiles. Her boots were silent as she approached the desk. The man behind it was had grey-black hair, bleached eyes and a heavy moustache.

‘Can I help you, miss?’

McWhirter.

She faltered. Why hadn’t he recognised her in 2023? Then she remembered. She had worn glasses. Now she beamed at him. ‘Ja, ja. Ich weiss nicht, wo ich bin. I am…lost. Understand?’

He twitched. ‘You’re German.’

‘Ja. Genau.’

‘My name is Harrison McWhirter. I’m in charge of the hotel.’ To the guards, he said, ‘Back to your duties.’ They fell away. The foyer was soon empty but for herself and McWhirter. She shook his hand.

‘My name is Adler. Sabine Adler.’

‘Perhaps you could tell me how you came to be parachuting into our grounds.’

‘I am with a—how do you call it—“parachute school”? I have lost my friends.’

‘I’ll get you a phone,’ he said, turning.

‘Thank you.’

As she moved away, Saskia walked silently in his shadow. When he was behind the desk, she put a hand on his neck and drove his forehead onto the edge of the counter. He sighed and fell slowly, pulling the telephone to the floor. Saskia pushed him into the chair cavity.

She adjusted her watch to match McWhirter’s. There were ten minutes until Hartfield arrived.

‘Good afternoon,’ said a cheerful voice.

Saskia struck her wrist computer and became transparent.

The suit’s camouflage worked by diverting light, but her eyes needed those rays. Without them she was blind. She heard the man stop. ‘I must say that you’re looking particularly handsome today, Colonel McWhirter.’

Who would compliment an empty desk?

His footsteps moved on.

Saskia lost her transparency and followed the man across the foyer, moving from column to column, checking for the sweep of surveillance cameras. A guard walked by. She curled into a ball behind a plant and became transparent once more. She held her breath as the guard passed.

At last corner before the cloak room, the man turned. His eyes roamed. He had high cheekbones and a restless, smiling mouth. Saskia was not surprised at his youthful appearance. Inside the computer, realised as a twenty-one-year-old, he would be no different.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I believe we’re walking the same way.’

‘I’m…new here,’ she said, shaking his offered hand.

‘I know. One, your footsteps. Two, we don’t have any German scientists. Aren’t you warm in gloves?’

Saskia looked for cameras. ‘Can we be overheard?’

‘Not here. Why?’

She pulled him towards the wall. ‘Your name is Bruce Shimoda. During the past few weeks, you’ve been having nightmares about children with no eyes. You have told nobody about them. I know about this and your plan to destroy Onogoro. I am from the future. You need to trust me.’

Bruce’s composure shattered. He released a shuddering breath. ‘What do you want?’

‘I need to get into the research centre.’

‘Security will never let you in.’

‘They will. We have only minutes before a bomb goes off near your laboratory. I have to stop it.’

A lie, but she needed Bruce’s help. They had five minutes until Hartfield arrived. The bomb might detonate at any time.

‘It can’t be ours, can it?’

‘No. This is a second, larger bomb. Let’s go. And remember, security can’t help us. Only I can defuse it.’

The open lift travelled to the lowest level of the centre. Saskia, invisible, heard the bustle and conversation of each floor, but saw nothing. As the lift stopped, Bruce said to the guard, ‘Hello, my friend. Jeremy, right? Is that a new aftershave?’

Saskia dashed to one side. She felt for a wall and crouched. Working by Bruce’s description, she was underneath the sill of the guard’s booth. It was a sheer surface with holes for the guard’s machine gun. To one side was a bombproof door.

She heard Bruce collide with the wall. ‘This wasn’t here yesterday.’

The guard said, ‘Dr Shimoda, please. You’ll hurt yourself.’

She became opaque. She saw a guard enter the reception area and take Bruce by the arm. She grimaced. The guard was less than a metre away. If he turned in her direction, she would be seen.

The guard led Bruce through the doorway. Saskia followed silently. Once through, she kept to the guard’s back and skipped down the corridor to a rack of lab coats. She took one. She deactivated her hood and tousled her hair. The lab coat buttoned easily and she studied a mounted floor plan, which she was too excited to memorise. Bruce touched her arm.

‘Now what?’ he asked.

‘I told you we would get in. I have powerful friends.’

‘Keep your voice down. Where? The lab?’

She looked at her watch. Two minutes until Hartfield arrived.

The corridor stretched ahead in ten-metre sections marked by blue fire doors. Dozens of people passed: friendly, academic, scruffy. Saskia wondered how many would die in the explosion. ‘Where is everybody going?’ she asked.

‘There’s a concert, one of David’s guitar things.’

‘How far to the laboratory?’

‘A couple of minutes. Do you think you’ll have time to disable the device?’

Saskia checked her watch again. She had never intended to reach the laboratory in time. It was 3:04 p.m. Game over. She slowed her pace.

They strolled through the next set of doors. Ahead of them, chatting to a colleague, was Jennifer Proctor. Saskia stopped. Jennifer?

‘What’s wrong?’ Bruce whispered.

‘Nothing. Just a feeling of…’

The woman turned. Her hair was darker, she was older, and she had a grace that had escaped her daughter. This was Helen Proctor. The connections formed. Jennifer’s mother. David’s wife.

‘Never mind that. What about the bomb?’

Saskia was about to answer when the floor shuddered. The lights flickered and extinguished. Then emergency lighting washed the corridor red. Saskia heard the infrastructure groan. Dust fell from new cracks.

‘We’re too late,’ said Bruce.

And then the explosions began. They started as distant firecrackers. Then the corridor was shaken by louder detonations. The smell of burning plastic. Heat. Shouts; some stifled, some ringing out.

The floor dropped an inch and they were thrown from their feet. The air pressure increased. Saskia screamed. She was caught in a giant machine never meant for humans; gaps would appear, only to close. The very walls might chew them. Saskia told herself that she would survive. Her God was Time, and It would protect her.