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

before me?” He clasped his eyes with one hand and reached towards the audience with the other in the parody of clairvoyant. “Is there anybody here who has recently lost a...son? Bernard, Berty, Bruce? Ah, you, father,” he said. He opened his eyes and smiled at his father. “So this is it. Goodbye. I know you didn’t quite approve when I came to England. I guess you’ll never approve now.” Bruce bowed his head. He said something in fast Japanese that David, though he knew a few words of the language, couldn’t catch. Bruce’s father nodded.

“And, mother...”

The organ music start became louder. It was difficult to hear what Bruce was saying. Then David almost cried out as the holographic projector threw a harsh beam at him. The light was painfully bright.

Someone grabbed his ankle. He opened one eye and looked down. The hand had emerged from a crack in the floor. A slab had been moved sideways like a manhole cover. Was it Bruce? Was he already down there? A second hand grabbed his other ankle and, with a sharp tug, hauled him feet-first into the floor.

Because his feet were chained he landed cleanly. He rolled to one side in a parachutist’s fall. It was gloomy and very damp. There was a sense of space in the darkness. It reminded him of the bombed-out research centre. A woman’s voice said, “Keep quiet. I mean silent.”

Slowly, she dragged the slab back into position. It became black. She said, “Are you OK?”

There was a click as her torch was turned on. David watched as it played up and down his body.

“Yes thanks, the chains broke my fall,” he said acidly. “Who are you?”

“I gave the service.” She placed the torch on the floor and reached inside her robes. “The speech will last for another five minutes. That’s how long we’ve got.” She added grimly, “Unless you were noticed.”

David guffawed. “Well, gee, how could they notice? The floor just opened up and pulled me down. Happens every day...in cartoons.”

“Shut up, David. They didn’t see you. I recorded your image earlier and the projector is now playing it back, as a hologram, right in the place where you were sitting.”

“Well, I hope it’s a good projector.”

She produced a device that looked like a pair of garden shears. “Hold still.” She grabbed the crossover point of his leg chains and placed it between the jaws of the shears. There was a hiss of compressed air and the shears cut through. David looked at her. His hands were still cuffed.

“Now for my handcuffs.”

“Be quiet and follow me.”

She took the torch and left in a direction that, by David’s reckoning, would take them underneath the altar. He could hear Bruce’s voice above their heads. He had given a final message to his father. Was there a final message for David too? He would never know.

They walked down a narrow channel with a low ceiling. To the left and right were cots with lead coffins. David glanced at the Latin inscriptions. The tomb was incredibly old. Burials dated back to the fifteenth century.

“Where are we going?”

“Nearly there.”

They came to a larger, newer room. It smelled musty. There was a small mattress, some candles, tins of food, and some gardening tools. There was a wooden door on the left wall – an exterior door, judging by its halo of daylight. Rather incongruously, there was a satellite dish behind the mattress. It was connected to an old-fashioned laptop computer. On its screen was the view from a plane or a helicopter. A rough sheet of pink paper with some handwritten notes lay on the keyboard. He could just make out that they were instructions for remote control. Next to the computer there was a small blue rucksack. The minister said, “Take that rucksack and put it on.”

“How do I do that with my hands cuffed?”

She stopped and scratched her head. Then she grabbed the rucksack and began to untie the straps. Obviously she would re-tie them around his arms. “Look,” he said, taking advantage of the lull, “thanks for helping. But what do I call you?”

She pulled a strap tight. “Not ‘Your Holiness’. I’m not a priest. The real minister is otherwise engaged.”

She grabbed two strips of sacking and pushed them under his cuffs.

“What’s that for?” he asked.

She checked the computer. Then she studied the pink notepaper and, with crossed fingers, pressed a key. “It’s done. There’s not much time. Let’s go.” She flung open the door.

As they ran outside, David heard a noise behind him. In the far corner, some rags moved to reveal an elderly lady, woken by the sunshine. It had to be the real minister. The fake one grabbed his arm and said, “David, come on, keep moving.”

The day was dull, but he felt the light as a physical force. He almost tripped. The minister zigzagged through the graveyard and jumped over the wall. David followed. The autumn wind blew up the valley, which, after his spell in the cool church, cut him to the bone. They headed towards a lonely tree. He found that he could not run very fast with his hands tied. He panted. At the back of his mind was the thought that men younger and fitter than him had been known to collapse and die for less.

They reached the tree and the woman checked her watch. “A few more seconds,” she said. “Give me a boost.”

“What?” David gasped.

“A boost.”

David just did it. She put her foot in the stirrup made by the handcuffs and, before David could whisper that his wrists were breaking, she was gone. He waited. He glanced at the church: no sign of pursuit. He stamped his feet to warm them. His slippers were wet.

“What the hell are you doing?” he called. “How far do you think I can climb with my hands cuffed? What a crap escape plan.”

“Like I said,” she shouted down, “you’ll need those cuffs.” She looked back towards the church. “Scheisse. They’re coming.”

David