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

the runway lights stream by. She became drowsy. She could hear a stream of English inside her head. They were nonsense words. She supposed that part of her brain that processed language was still working. She let it and fell asleep.

David recalled a phrase from his youth: ‘highway hypnosis’. Strange how phrases drifted into a language, took a bow, and left again. Most were fleeting clichés. But highway hypnosis was apposite. The feel of road: the warp of objects and contours as the world flowed past, slower in the middle and faster towards the edge; ideas that could only feed on the thoughts of a few moments before, feed on the same things, over and over, like the bike wheel turning, over and over. Midnight was far away.

The Grantham, being a light aircraft with no oxygen cylinders, could not climb above the weather. It flew low where the air was thick and contrary. The rain was a constant. It was 9:30 p.m. before they touched down. Saskia had not moved since she had climbed aboard, but when she stepped onto the concrete of the holding lot, she almost collapsed with fatigue. “Thanks, Sam,” shouted Hannah above the propeller noise.

“No problem. I have to park. See you.”

Saskia gave him a little salute and searched for a terminal building. She could see none in the fierce rain. The area was flat and huge. It was full of small aircraft. “Where now?” she asked. She ducked to avoid the wing as Sam taxied away.

Hannah pulled his suit jacket over his head. “There’s a blue light over there.”

They watched as a traffic patrol car approached. It weaved cautiously through the still aircraft and came to a stop ten metres away. A uniformed officer jumped out with an umbrella. He ran across and opened it over Hannah. “Piss off,” Hannah said. They climbed in the back. The men made conversation. It was a twenty-minute journey to Heathrow. Saskia fell asleep against the window before the car pulled away.

When she awoke, she knew that too much time had passed. She looked at her watch. It was 10:30 p.m. Ahead, the traffic was heavy. Some larger vehicles were flashing their hazard lights.

“Why haven’t we arrived?” she asked.

Hannah looked over. He was sweating. A vein throbbed in his forehead. “An accident. It happened just in front of us.” He dabbed at the vein with a handkerchief.

“What’s wrong?” She put a hand to his forehead, expecting it to feel hot. But it was cold.

He grimaced. “Heart burn. You know, acid indigestion. The bloody sandwiches. I knew I shouldn’t’ve eaten them.”

Saskia heard the co-driver talk urgently into his radio. The words were abbreviated. She didn’t understand, but when he replaced the handset on the dashboard, everybody but her swore. Hannah said to her, “These guys have to secure the scene.”

She nodded calmly. Perhaps some over her calm would creep over Hannah. “Then they will call us another car.”

The car shook as their co-driver slammed the boot. He shrugged a fluorescent jacket over his shoulders and jogged ahead alongside the driver. Saskia gripped the handle. She felt an urge to see the accident. Hannah looked at her. Saskia opened her mouth but stopped. They talked with their eyes. He wanted to go too, but he felt too ill to leave the car; Saskia would stay with him, and judged that she would force him to leave if she told him so; he smiled, knowing that he was understood, and she smiled in return.

When David blinked, his eyelids scratched his eyeballs. He took an enormous breath and said, “Come on, come on, not long now.” The bike computer’s graphic indicated that he was nearly there. He was on the M4. He was five minutes from Heathrow.

“Ego, what will happen when I open that locker?”

“I cannot tell you that.”

David pulled a wry smile. It was not the first time he had asked.

He crouched forward. This was his second riding position. His first was to lean back, let the wind push his chest. Occasionally the bike would wobble when he alternated between the two. He didn’t care. He thought of his daughter. He had taught her to ride in a cul de sac near the old house in Oxford. He had pushed her for miles, constantly reassuring her that he had a firm grip.

Finally, he let go and she wobbled all the way to the turning space. He felt proud. He felt like a real father. At the end of the road, he heard her faint voice say, “I nearly did it that time, daddy,” and he cupped his hands and shouted, “You did! I’m back here!” and she turned around and fell off with a scream. He ran down and picked her up, bike and all, and took her inside. He sat her on the washing machine and dabbed her grazes with TCP. Through her tears, she smiled. “I did it.” That became her catchphrase. When she passed her maths GCSE aged nine, had her poems published, when she got into the New York school, she always said, “I did it.”

And now he had learned to ride too. He had done it.

A blue light flashed on the dashboard. He glanced down, thinking it was a warning. But the light was merely a reflection. He turned around

(and fell off with a scream) and the bike wobbled. There was a police car bearing down on him. He indicated right and slid into the slow lane.

“Hello hello hello,” said the co-driver. She leaned forward. She turned to her colleague and muttered something.

“What is it now?” Saskia asked. She felt travelsick and she longed to leave the car, stretch her legs. They had been at the accident site for over an hour but Heathrow was, finally, only five minutes away. Hannah jerked awake and rubbed his eyes.

“What’s the description of Proctor’s bike?” asked the codriver.

“A bit fuzzy,” said Hannah. “A new bike. It could be a trail bike. Green, but possibly