Déjà Vu: A Technothriller by Hocking, Ian (red scrolls of magic .TXT) 📕

He gobbled some more croquette, “My name is Fang Hoe.”

“What?”

He tossed the croquette from one side of his mouth to another and made little gasping sounds. “Sorry. It’s hot. Frank Stone. I am an agent for J. I’m stationed in Moscow. I’m on leave.”

“Jobanique.”

“Call him J. I’m the guy he sent to search your apartment on the Saturday afternoon. I found the woman in your fridge...”

“Hang on. J said as much when he first briefed me on Sunday, but that was before I’d found out...the true identity of the murderer. You were part of the backstory. You didn’t have to actually be there.”

“Yes, I did. You see, J was concerned that your previous self would have planted clues, even though you killed that woman under a form of mind control.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I mean, your past self could have made it really easy for your future self by, say, writing a note and concealing it somewhere. Like a note saying ‘It was you what did it!’ Of course, that was expressly against J’s instructions, but not everybody follows orders, do they? Especially when greater things are at stake.” He winked again. “I was called in to clean the place, make sure that no obvious clues were lying about. Not tamper with evidence. Clean.”

Saskia finished her croquette and threw the paper on the floor. A robot scampered over and grabbed the ball before it had stopped moving and tossed it into its hopper. Then it ran away to find more leaves.

“You didn’t go to this trouble to tell me that.”

Frank ate the last of his croquette. He put the paper in his pocket and retrieved his cigarettes. He lit two and gave one to Saskia. “You should have this.”

She looked at the little stick. Her hand, quite independently, took it. “Yes, I think I should.”

Frank sat on the edge of the plinth and stared into the sky. “Here’s my story. One year ago, I found out that I was...a fraud. I had been working cases for ten years – or so I thought. In fact I had been working as a detective in Moscow for about two months. Before that, I was a bit of a naughty boy. I guess that J told you what you were, didn’t he? About his unconventional recruiting methods?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Well, when he told me, he must have had my memory wiped again. I thought I was a detective and always had been. Then I had a big wake-up call. This summer I was on holiday in Poland and I was practically lynched.”

“By who?”

“Who do you think?” His cigarette wagged. “It was a father fishing with his two sons. He took one look at me and practically had a heart attack. I had no clue. He went after me with the rod. Finally he managed to get it across to his sons – his grown-up sons – that I was the bastard who had killed his wife – their mother

– last year during a bank robbery. Can you believe that shit?” Saskia was rapt. “That you were a bank robber, or that you were recognised?”

“Both!”

“Like winning the lottery.”

“Tell me about it.”

“What did you do?”

“What did I do? What could I do? I couldn’t let them raise the alarm. I shot ’em up and came back later, dug a pit for their bodies, and that was it. The local police couldn’t find a stitch in a quilt, as the Polish saying goes. I was two hundred miles away by morning. I went straight to J, confronted him, and he spilled the beans.”

They sat in silence for a while. Saskia watched some pigeons descend on the statue. The air was damp and chill. The robot manager leaned moodily on his cane and kept one eye on the scurrying robots. They were nearly finished. The grass was immaculate. “Listen,” Frank said, “I...I don’t normally do this. Talk to other agents, that is. But I wanted to warn you.”

“About what?”

“You know what. If Jobanique finds out that you’ve been investigating your own history then you’re in big trouble.”

Saskia sighed. “I know. Execution.”

“I saw you in the internet café. You were trying to download biographical stuff about yourself, weren’t you?”

“How did you know that?”

He leaned forward, uncomfortably close, and she saw the tell-tale circle of a contact lens around his iris. Embedded in the lens were squares of grey that rotated and flashed.

“My lenses have image enhancers. They read my blinks. Cool, eh?”

“Did they come free with your electric bug glove?”

Frank looked hurt. “Actually, no.”

She punched his shoulder. “I was kidding,” she said. She smiled. It was the first genuine, non-sarcastic, non-threatening smile she had produced since...since she could remember.

“OK, now for the hard stuff. I’m going to show you something.”

“Is this the kind of thing strangers like to show women in parks?”

Frank blushed and Saskia was reminded of her English boyfriend, Simon. Or rather, the false memory of him. “Oh. Nice one.”

He handed her the front page of a broadsheet newspaper. The script was Cyrillic, the language probably Russian. The leading story had a picture of her, Saskia Brandt, glaring defiantly at the camera. Her hair was much longer and the wind had blown it wide. She looked good. Two German police officers held her arms. Immediately above the picture were four Russian words.

“Sorry it’s in Russian. I could translate it for you, but you don’t need to the know the details. I can’t let you keep it, I’m afraid. CYA is in operation – Cover Your Arse. Mine, in this case.”

“What does it say?”

Frank took another glance around the park. “Which bit? That bit? Oh, ‘Angel of Death in Custody’, or, more accurately ‘Angel of Death is Grabbed.”

Saskia felt a tingle in her belly. “They call me the Angel of Death.”

“Yes. The story basically says that you are a mass murderer. You were captured in Germany. Near Leipzig, I think.”

“No. No. That can’t be. I’m not a murderer.”