The Woman Who Died a Lot: A Thursday Next Novel (31 page)

I
arrived home having slept almost the entire journey in a hunched-up position, and I was so stiff when I awoke that Friday had to heave me out of the passenger seat. He helped me for the first few steps until my leg had loosened up sufficiently so that I could walk on my own. I noticed that one of the SLS troopers was standing on guard outside and that the lights were still on in Tuesday’s laboratory.

“How did it go?” asked Landen.

“Truly weird,” I said, “but I could do with wearing a gravity suit more often. You can almost dance in them.”

I had something to eat and talked to Landen about the afternoon’s fun at the timepark and just how Smite Solutions planned to avert the cleansing. Landen already knew about this, as Miles had dropped around earlier in the evening to explain that despite protracted negotiations and last-minute submissions by Joffy’s team of top-class theologians and ethicists, God’s winged tribunes had confirmed that the smiting would go ahead as planned. Joffy had apparently grown quite angry at this and announced that he would elect to remain in his cathedral during the smiting, there to be incinerated within as a protest against the Lord’s intransigence.

“You’re kidding me,” I said, my heart falling.

“I’m afraid not,” said Landen, resting his hand on mine, “but it could be a bluff.”

“It’s not,” I said, taking a deep breath and rubbing my eyes wearily. “It’s not possible to bluff an all-seeing Deity.”

“Well, it’s put a cat among the pigeons. The Lord’s people are all in a lather about it and pleading with Joffy not to question His will and judgment.”

It didn’t sound good, but then there were other possible outcomes to the event. Smite Solutions—and, as an outside bet, Tuesday and her shield.

On the other hand, there had been some news about Aornis. Millon and the Wingco had traced the Alfa-Morris Spyder that Aornis got the lift from at Agutter Services. They had traced the car on motorway cameras all the way back to Swindon. Landen had asked them why she would do that, and no one had a good answer.

“Does she have any family left in the city?” I asked.

“None that I know of. All the others are in prison or moved away, and the Hades family mansion was given to the city council to be used as a hospital.”

“She must be hiding
somewhere.
Somewhere we wouldn’t think to look for her.”

“I know where she is!” said Landen quite suddenly.

“Where?”

“I had it for a moment,” he said, looking mildly confused, “but it’s gone.”

“Senior moment?”

He nodded.

“How did you get that bruise on your face?”

“I don’t know,” he said, touching a purple area above his eye. “I’ve got some cuts on my knuckles, too. Did you drop into the tattooist’s?”

“Forgot again.”

“Damn,” he said. “We need to find out why you’ve got the tattoo on
your
hand when it should be on
Tuesday’s
.”

Suddenly I stopped what I was doing.
“What did you just say?”

He repeated himself, and I felt a sense of rising panic. But then there was a thump outside the door, and when I investigated, a vase was lying on the carpet. I didn’t believe in poltergeists, but just recently we’d been having all the hallmarks of one—things moving around, doors swinging open, that sort of thing. When I got back to Landen, he asked me if anything was up, as I had looked alarmed when he told me about Tuesday’s mindworm.

“Nothing of any importance,” I said quietly, while having the oddest feeling that I was missing something very important, that there was something I hadn’t seen, something vital just out of reach.

“But you’re right,” I added, “I did forget.
And
I passed the tattooist’s three times today.”

We sat there for a while in silence, mildly annoyed.

“You’re back,” said the Wingco, who had popped his head around the door. “I made some progress into my Dark Reading Matter project. Do you want to hear about it?”

“Are you distracting Tuesday from calculating the Unentanglement Constant? I’ve got a brother in line to be barbecued, which I’m really not happy about.”

The Wingco had to admit that he might have—but that Tuesday often said that going away from a problem often made her fresher on her return, so it wasn’t as much of a distraction as we thought.

“Go on, then,” I said, getting to my feet and walking with him down the hall to Tuesday’s laboratory. “Did the dodo idea work?”

“Quite well, actually—and don’t worry, we didn’t use Pickwick. We obtained a V3.2 called Beaky that was at a knockdown price at Pete and Dave’s Dodo Emporium. The V10s are just in, so they’re getting a few preowned in for part exchange.”

“I’m not sure I like the idea of preowned classic dodos being used for experimentation.”

“There are risks in everything,” said the Wingco with a shrug, “and the Dark Reading Matter
is
important.”

We walked into Tuesday’s laboratory to find her dozing in her armchair. She’d been working hard, and it was late. We were going to sneak back out, but she jumped awake.

“Mum,” she said, “it
worked
!”

I sat down in front of the screen as the Wingco told me what they’d done.

“One of my Imaginary Childhood Friends was about to leave for the DRM, as his host and creator was in the Daniel Street Home for the Almost Gone. The ICF was called Joey, and I convinced him to take Daphne with him when he went across.”

“Okay, let me get this straight in my mind. Imaginary Childhood Friends go to the DRM because they’re like living fiction?”

“Pretty much,” said the Wingco, “but we think that
everything
that has been unrecorded within a deceased person’s mind also transfers to the Dark Reading Matter. I think that’s why the Dark Reading Matter is so big. It’s not just books that have been destroyed but is loaded with
memories.
In fact, with seventy or so billion people having already died, the fabric of the DRM might be composed almost entirely of Lost Moments.”

“Lost Moments? How many?”

“Lots—and I think they’re packed quite tight.”

“Okay,” I said, somewhat dubiously, “so where do we go from here?”

“Right,” said Tuesday who was getting more excited, “we took the Encephalovision to the Home of the Almost Gone and made sure it was tuned in to Daphne the dodo’s cerebral buffer. At half past nine, we got what we were after. The Imaginary Childhood Friend’s host died, and Joey moved across, taking Daphne the dodo with him.”

“In the same way that I could once jump into the BookWorld with someone holding on to me?”

“Pretty much.”

“And?” I asked.

“We waited for a minute, but . . . nothing. The Encephalovision simply showed static. But then Daphne suffered an overload of sensory input, and her buffer started to fill. We started receiving a picture a minute after that.
These are the first images ever of the Dark Reading Matter!
”

Tuesday flipped a switch, and the playback began. At first it was it difficult to make out anything at all, but soon shapes started to form on the screen. Strange creatures that looked a lot like pepperpots, with bumps all over their lower bodies, domed heads and a sink-plunger sticking out in front.

“What are they?” I asked.

“We think they’re Daleks,” said Tuesday. “An early type.”

“You’re saying the Dark Reading Matter is populated by Daleks?”

“No—we believe this might be a lost
Doctor Who
episode, from one of the master tapes wiped in the seventies.”

“Wiped because they didn’t have room to store it?”

“Probably because it wasn’t very good,” said the Wingco. “It’s possible the Dark Reading Matter might contain all forms of lost or discarded storytelling endeavor.”

“Or Daphne has a Dalek fixation. You know how obsessive dodos can be.”

“All too well,” said Tuesday, looking across at Pickwick, who was on the floor attempting to sort dust motes into their various colors. “But it wasn’t only Daleks. Watch the rest.”

So I did, and in those seven minutes of buffered dodo thoughts, we observed what appeared to be several half-completed buildings and then a woman hunting tortoises, apparently alone on an island. But just as it was getting interesting, the vision feed cut off and the images were gone.

“That’s it,” said the Wingco. “We won’t get any more.”

“It’s not conclusive,” I said, “but the reference to the tortoise hunting sounds like Melville’s ‘Norfolk Isle and the Chola Widow’.”

“That’s not lost,” observed the Wingco.

“No, but
Isle of the Cross
is most definitely lost, and it was often assumed the survivor might have been a reworking of the lost original. It’s not a hundred-percent proof, but it’s the closest so far to establishing that the Dark Reading Matter exists. Write it all up and get a report over to Commander Bradshaw as soon as you can.”

It was an interesting development, but I had too much on my mind to be either excited or worried about it, and I saw it simply as an ongoing part of my continued interest in the BookWorld, even though I hadn’t been able to read myself into the BookWorld since my accident. It wasn’t simply being physically well enough to cross the the barrier between the real and the read, but also the mental concentration required.

I ordered Tuesday to her room to get some sleep, kissed her good night and then walked upstairs to my bedroom.

“I wonder if I could read myself into the BookWorld while a Day Player?” I mused as I brushed my hair.

“With a brain like that, I’d be seriously surprised if you couldn’t.”

I read until I fell asleep and slept soundly until I woke quite suddenly at four in the morning, thinking I’d heard a noise. I went downstairs to find the TV and the lights on, then made myself a sandwich and some hot chocolate and watched a rerun of
The Streets of Wootton Bassett,
which was every bit as bad as I remembered.

But the odd thing was, even though I’d made myself a sandwich and a hot chocolate, I couldn’t remember eating them, yet they were gone—so I made myself some more.

I didn’t sleep after that and was still awake when
The Early Breakfast Show with Adrian Lush
came on at 5:00
A
.
M
. I threw my shoe at the television but missed.

30.

Thursday: Budget

Budget meetings have never been interesting, ever, despite numerous attempts over the years to try to josh them up a bit. Notable uplifting techniques involved the use of fire-eaters and performing elephants, but it didn’t work. The dry proceedings are well known to bring on a form of lethargy that can stay for the rest of the week, and Budget Therapy was used with great success in the treatment of patients suffering an excess of good-natured perkiness.

Randolph Moles,
Modern Living

“Y
ou don’t look very well,” said Duffy.

I was sitting at my desk, head down on the cool walnut surface, my temples throbbing as though fit to burst. I was tired, annoyed, frustrated, and my leg hurt badly.

“I don’t
feel
very well,” I answered.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Painkillers or something?”

“It won’t work. I’ve got so many patches stuck on my arse that my cheeks look like a couple of shrink-wrapped turkeys.”

I was silent for a moment.

“Duffy,” I said, face still resting on the cool desktop, “I
do
need someone to go and score me some stronger painkillers. Not the stuff you get in chemists’ or from doctors—the sort you buy in a pub car park at night from a guy named Nobby who pretends he’s your best mate.”

Duffy gave a polite cough. “Commander Hicks is here, ma’am.”

I looked up to see that yes, Braxton was here, and presumably he must have heard my attempt to coerce my subordinate into scoring illegal patches on my behalf.

“It’s the pain talking,” I said quickly. “I wasn’t serious. What I really need is a new body—and that’s not as daft as you might imagine. Are you here for the meeting?”

He nodded and placed a copy of his budget proposal on my desk. It looked suspiciously thin.

“How’s the job going, Thursday?” he asked somewhat portentously.

“I got shot at yesterday morning. Mrs. Hilly of the Blyton Fundamentalist movement has made death threats, and Colonel Wexler of the SLS is none too pleased that I won’t sanction dawn raids for overdue books.”

“Librarying is a harder profession than the public realizes,” he said. “People think it’s all rubber stamps, knowing that Dewey 521 is celestial mechanics and saying. ‘Try looking under fiction’ sixty-eight times a day.”

“I was an assistant librarian when at uni,” I told him. “The Dewey system stays with you
forever.
”

“Listen,” said Braxton, suddenly becoming more serious, “I want you to know that despite what happens in there, I’m on your side.”

This
did
sound ominous.

“What
is
going to happen in there?”

“I’m on your side,” he repeated. “Just remember that. See you in there.”

He left to go through to the boardroom, and I heaved myself to my feet, wincing badly.

“Want a hand?” said Duffy, who
was
at my side.

“I’ll be fine. The muscles work, it’s the ragged nerve endings that are giving me hell.”

“What did Braxton mean by saying he was ‘on your side’?”

“Don’t know. Now, let’s kick some budget butt.”

***

The boardroom was down the corridor from my office, and I was stopped just outside it by Phoebe, who looked agitated.

“Can I have a word?” she said. “It’s important.”

“Okay.”

I told Duffy I’d only be a moment and moved a little way along the corridor. “So what’s up?”

Phoebe looked left and right and lowered her voice. “I’m thinking of killing Jack Schitt during the budget meeting.”