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

“Yeah. You see, we’re out here to visit my younger brother, Bruce. He’s a bit of tearaway. He works in computers. Now, we know for sure he’s in Las Vegas, but he’s fond of practical jokes.”

“And cryptic crossword clues,” Saskia said brightly.

“Yes, and those. He’s given us this clue.” David handed her the napkin strip. “Knowing Bruce, it’s a clue to where he lives. That’s all we have. It’s like a treasure hunt.”

The waitress stared at the napkin. Saskia stared at David. He stared right back. They waited while waitress sighed, nodded, frowned and shifted from one slouch to another. “You hang on there, I’ll be right back.” She walked through a beaded curtain that led to the kitchen.

“Have you done this type of thing before?” Saskia asked.

“Subterfuge? No.”

“I thought not.”

David sipped the coffee. It was weak and stale. He gulped it down.

The waitress returned. She smiled and refilled David’s cup. “It ain’t cheating to ask a stranger?” she asked.

Saskia and David shook their heads. “Certainly not,” Saskia said.

The waitress pondered for a moment longer. She knew how to heighten the suspense. David’s idiot smile began to sag. “OK,” she said finally. She put the napkin strip back on the table. She pointed to the first part. “A ‘parking attendant’. That’s a valet. And ‘finest’. That means the police or the fire service. Probably, it means fire service.”

“Yes, we got the first bit,” David said. “But why the fire service?”

“Because ‘valet’ sounds like ‘valley’, and there ain’t a ‘police valley’ around here. There is a ‘fire valley’, though: the Valley of Fire national park. It’ll take you about half an hour to get there on the interstate.”

They collected a new Ford from a nearby Rent-A-Car. David drove. The sun was high in the sky and dust blew in from the north-east. It collected under the wipers. Saskia looked at the map and announced that they would need to drive along the Strip. David said a prayer as they did so. His fingernails dug into the wheel. The traffic was so thick it felt like they were in a car park.

David said, “Are you sure this the right road?”

Saskia consulted the map. “Yes. Turn right here towards the I-15.”

They drove on. Saskia reached into her jacket and David shouted, “Hey!”

“My sunglasses, not my gun,” she said wearily. “Anyway, it is not loaded.”

He relaxed. The sunglasses were tinted and reminded him of John Lennon. He didn’t dare to mention it. She would ask, “Who is John Lennon?” and he would despair.

On the interstate, the world opened before them. Las Vegas was a large city by America standards, but withered in comparison to the surrounding spectacle. Within its limits were green trees and water. Beyond them the trees died and the water evaporated. David opened his window. Loud, cool air invaded the car. It dried his throat. The road ahead was empty, so he turned to his right and admired the view. He was struck by its emptiness. On the map, it was called the Mojave Desert. In the middle of that desert you could die just for walking. Incredible.

Saskia said, “I hear the view is also good with the window shut.”

David pressed a button. The window closed and his mind fell back into the car. They drove for another two miles or so. David said, “What do you think of the view?”

“I don’t like it. No trees.”

She tugged at her jacket and smoothed the material of her trousers. David had seen her do that once or twice in the time he had known her. She was formulating a difficult question. “When we met on the aeroplane, do you remember what you said?”

“No.”

“You asked me if we’d met somewhere before. That made me think that you were an FIB agent.”

David laughed. “Don’t you need to be a certain height to get in?”

“I’m serious, David.”

She’s calling me David, not Proctor, he thought. Politicians call it detente.

“Go on.”

“That is a code-phrase. Surely you remember what I told you yesterday.”

“Yes, you have a boss called Jobanique who wiped your memory and gave you a new personality. If I didn’t remember that, then I wouldn’t be able to threaten you with switching it off.”

Saskia pushed her sunglasses a little further up the bridge of her nose. David wondered why she was wearing them. The day was quite cloudy. “I wonder if you are another of Jobanique’s agents,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“I have been tricked before to test my detective powers.”

“Wow. You must have got some bonus paranoia software on that chip.”

“Be serious.”

David let one hand drop from the wheel. There was no gear stick so he drummed his fingers on his knee-cap. “What do you want me to say, Saskia? I told you my story. You know why I’m doing this.”

Saskia said, “That is precisely my point. Your story did not seem very plausible.”

David’s voice rose in pitch. “What do you mean, not plausible?”

“Just that, not plausible. Incredible. Unlikely.”

“I know what ‘implausible’ means,” he snapped.

“David, keep your voice down.”

He shifted uncomfortably. The clothes he wore – the businessman’s disguise – were not ideal for travelling. He would buy new at the next opportunity. “Do you know why I asked you if we’d met before?”

“No, that is my point –”

“It’s because we have. We have met before. You might be chasing me now, Saskia, but precisely three days ago you helped me escape. You gave a funeral service in a church in Scotland. You overpowered the real minister. You arranged to have me towed away by a glider. And, into the bargain, you were about forty years old.”

The Valley of Fire

Saskia watched the rocks. She tried to find a flaw in his story. David claimed that she – the fake minister – had been about forty years old. It would be a difficult make-up to make someone look forty years old, but not impossible. Film actors could radically change their appearance. Plus, the fact that this impostor had been elderly meant that only an approximation of