First Among Sequels

  I quickly and noiselessly retraced my steps to where Thursday5 was waiting for me, and within a few minutes we had returned to the Piano Squad’s headquarters.

  As we reentered, the squad room was in chaos. Warning lights were flashing, klaxons were going off, and the control console was a mass of flickering indicator lights. I was relieved to see—if such a word could be used in such uproar—that Roger and Charles had both returned and were trying to bring some sort of semblance of order back to the piano-distribution network.

  “I need the Thürmer back from Agnes Grey!” yelled Roger. “And I’ll swap it for a nonworking Streicher—”

  “What the hell’s going on, Thursday?”

  It was Commander Bradshaw, and he didn’t look very happy.

  “I don’t know. When I left everything was fine.”

  “You left?” he echoed incredulously. “You left the piano room unattended?”

  “I left—”

  But I stopped myself. I was responsible for any cadet’s actions or inactions, irrespective of what they were and where they happened. I’d made a mistake. I should have called Bradshaw to cover for me or to get someone to go into Mirrors.

  I took a deep breath. “No excuses, sir—I screwed up. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?” repeated Bradshaw, “That’s it? You’re sorry? I’ve got a dead Holmes on my hands, one of the Outland’s most favorite series is about to unravel, and I really don’t need one of your idiot cadets suddenly thinking that she’s god of all the pianos.”

  “What did she do?”

  “If you’d been supervising properly, you’d know!”

  “Okay, okay,” I retorted, seriously beginning to get pissed off, “this one’s down to me, and I’ll face the music, but I’d like to know what she’s done before I wipe the smirk off her face for good.”

  “She decided,” he said slowly and with great restraint, “to do her own thing with piano supply in your absence. Every single piano reference has been deleted from Melville, Scott and Defoe.”

  “What?” I said, looking around the room and finally catching sight of Thursday1–4 on the other side of the room, where she was standing arms folded and apparently without a care in the world.

  “As I said. And we don’t have the time or the pianos to replace them. But that’s not the worst bit.”

  “It gets worse?”

  “Certainly. For some reason known only to herself, she dropped an upright Broadwood straight into Miss Bates’s drawing room inside Austen’s Emma.”

  “Have they noticed?”

  “Pianos aren’t generally the sort of thing one can miss. As soon as it arrived, speculation began on where it might have come from. Miss Bates agrees with Mrs. Cole that it’s from Colonel Campbell, but Emma thinks it’s from Mrs. Dixon. Mrs. Weston is more inclined to think it was from Mr. Knightley, but Mr. Knightley believes it’s from Frank Churchill. Quite a mess, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Can we get it out?”

  “It’s embedded itself now. I’m going to get Churchill to take the rap, and it shouldn’t inflict too much damage. But this is down to you, Thursday, and I’ve got no choice but to suspend you from Jurisfiction duties pending a disciplinary inquiry.”

  “Let’s keep a sense of perspective on this, Bradshaw. I know I’m responsible, but it’s not my fault—besides, you told me to do this, and I said I couldn’t.”

  “It’s my fault, is it?”

  “Partly.”

  “Humph,” replied Bradshaw, bristling his mustache in anger. “I’ll take it under advisement—but you’re still suspended.”

  I jerked a thumb in the direction of Thursday1–4. “What about her?”

  “She’s your cadet, Thursday. you deal with it.”

  He took a deep breath, shook his head, softened for a moment to tell me to look after myself and departed. I told Thursday5 to meet me up at the CofG and beckoned Thursday1–4 into the corridor.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing?”

  “Oh, c’mon,” she said, “don’t be such a hard-ass. There’s no seriously lasting damage. So I dropped a piano into Emma—it’s not like it landed on anyone.”

  I stared at her for a moment. Even allowing for Thursday1–4’s supreme arrogance, it still didn’t make any sense.

  “You’re not stupid. You knew it would get you fired once and for all, so why do it?”

  She stared at me with a look of cold hatred. “You were going to fire me anyway. There wasn’t a ghost’s chance I’d have made it.”

  “The chance was slim,” I admitted, “but it was there.”

  “I don’t agree. You hate me. Always have. From the moment I was first published. We could have been friends, but you never even visited. Not once in four entire books. Not a postcard, a footnote, nothing. I’m closer to you than family, Thursday, and you treated me like crap.”

  And then I understood.

  “You put the piano into Emma to stitch me up, didn’t you?”

  “After what you’ve done to me, you deserve far worse. You had it in for me the moment I arrived at Jurisfiction. You all did.”

  I shook my head sadly. She was consumed by hate. But instead of trying to deal with it, she just projected it onto everyone around her. I sighed.

  “You did this for revenge over some perceived slight?”

  “That wasn’t revenge,” said Thursday1–4 in a quiet voice. “You’ll know revenge when you see it.”

  “Give me your badge.”

  She dug it from her pocket and then tossed it onto the floor rather than hand it over.

  “I quit,” she spat. “I wouldn’t join Jurisfiction now if you begged me.”

  It was all I could do not to laugh at her preposterous line of reasoning. She couldn’t help herself. She was written this way.

  “Go on,” I said in an even tone, “go home.”

  She seemed surprised that I was no longer angry.

  “Aren’t you going to yell at me or hit me or try to kill me or something? Face it: This isn’t much of a resolution.”

  “It’s all you’re going to get. You really don’t understand me at all, do you?”

  She glared at me for a moment, then bookjumped out.

  I stood in the corridor for a few minutes, wondering if there was anything else I might have done. Aside from not trusting her an inch, not really. I shrugged, tried and failed to get TransGenre Taxis to even answer the footnoterphone and then, checking the time so I wouldn’t be late for the policy-directive meeting, made my way slowly toward the elevators.

  24.

  Policy Directives

  The Council of Genres is the administrative body that looks after all aspects of BookWorld regulation, from making policy decisions in the main debating chamber to the day-to-day running of ordinary BookWorld affairs, from furnishing plot devices to controlling the word supply coming in from the Text Sea. They oversee the Book Inspectorate, which governs which books are to be published and which to be demolished, and also Text Grand Central and Jurisfiction—but only regarding policy. For the most part, they are evenhanded but need to be watched, and that’s where I come into the equation.

  I didn’t go straight to either Jurisfiction or the Council of Genres but instead went for a quiet walk in Wainwright’s Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells. I often go there when in a thoughtful or pensive mood, and although the line drawings that I climbed were not as beautiful nor as colorful as the real thing, they were peaceful and friendly, imbued as they were with a love of the fells that is seldom equaled or surpassed. I sat on the warm sketched grass atop Haystacks, threw a pebble into the tarn and watched the drawn ripples radiate outward. I returned much refreshed an hour later.

  I found Thursday5 still waiting for me in the seating area near the picture window with the view of the other towers. She stood up when I approached.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Why?” I responded. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “But it
certainly wasn’t yours.”

  “That’s the thing,” I replied. “It was. She’s a cadet. She has no responsibility. Her faults are mine.”

  I stopped to think about what I’d just said. Thursday 1–4 was impetuous, passionate and capable of almost uncontrollable rage. Her faults really were mine.

  I took a deep breath and looked at my watch. “Showtime,” I murmured despondently. “Time for the policy-directive meeting.”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Thursday5, and then searched through her bag until she found a small yellow book and a pen.

  “I hope that’s not what I think it is.”

  “What do you think it is?”

  “An autograph book.”

  She said nothing and bit her lip.

  “If you even think about asking Harry Potter for an autograph, your day ends right now.”

  She sighed and dropped the book back into her bag.

  The policy meeting was held in the main debating chamber. Jobsworth’s chair was the large one behind the dais, with the seats on either side of him reserved for his closest aides and advisers. We arrived twenty minutes early and were the first ones there. I sat down in my usual seat to the left of where the genres would sit, and Thursday5 sat just behind me. The Read-O-Meter was still clicking resolutely downward, and I looked absently around the chamber, trying to gather my thoughts. Along the side walls were paintings of various dignitaries who had distinguished themselves in one way or another during the Council of Genres’ rule—my own painting was two from the end, sandwiched between Paddington Bear and Henry Pooter.

  “So what’s on the agenda?” asked Thursday5.

  I shrugged, having become somewhat ticked off with the whole process. I just wanted to go home—somewhere away from fiction and the parts of me I didn’t much care for.

  “Who knows?” I said in a nonchalant fashion. “Falling Read-Rates, I imagine—fundamentally, it’s all there is.”

  At that moment the main doors were pushed open and Jobsworth appeared, followed by his usual retinue of hangers-on. He saw me immediately and chose a route that would take him past my desk.

  “Good afternoon, Next,” he said. “I heard you were recently suspended?”

  “It’s an occupational hazard when you’re working in the front line,” I replied pointedly—Jobsworth had always been administration. If he understood the remark, he made no sign of it. I added, “Are you well, sir?”

  “Can’t complain. Which one’s that?” he asked, pointing to Thursday5 in much the same way as you’d direct someone to the toilet.

  “Thursday5, sir.”

  “You’re making a mistake to fire the other one,” said Jobsworth, addressing me. “I’d ask for a second or third opinion about her if there was anyone left to ask. Nevertheless, the decision was yours, and I abide by it. The matter is closed.”

  “I was down in the maintenance facility recently,” I told him, “and Isambard told me that the CofG had insisted on upgrading all the throughput conduits.”

  “Really?” replied Jobsworth vaguely. “I do wish he’d keep himself to himself.”

  He walked to the raised dais, sat in the central chair and busied himself with his notes. The room fell silent, aside from the occasional click of the Read-O-Meter as it heralded another drop in the Outland ReadRate.

  The next delegate to arrive was Colonel Barksdale, head of the CofG Combined Forces. He sat down four desks away without looking at me. We had not seen eye to eye much in the past, as I disliked his constant warmongering. Next to arrive was Baxter, the senator’s chief adviser, who flicked a distasteful look in my direction. In fact, all eight members of the directive panel, except for the Equestrian senator Black Beauty, didn’t much like me. It wasn’t surprising. I wasn’t just the only Outlander member on the panel, I was the LBOCS and consequently wielded the weapon that committees always feared—the veto. I tried to discharge my duties as well as I could, despite the enmity it brought.

  I could see Thursday5 move expectantly every time the door opened, but apart from the usual ten members of the committee and their staff, no one else turned up.

  “Good afternoon, everyone,” said Jobsworth, standing up to address us. There weren’t many of us in the debating chamber, but it was usually this way—policy meetings were closed-door affairs.

  “Sadly, I have to advise you that Mr. Harry Potter is unable to attend due to copyright restrictions, so we’re going to leave the ‘supplying characters from video games’ issue for another time.”

  There was a grumbling from the senators, and I noticed one or two put their autograph books back into their bags.

  “Apologies for absence,” continued Jobsworth. “Jacob Marley is too alive to attend, the Snork Maiden is at the hairdresser’s, and Senator Zigo is once more unavailable. So we’ll begin. Item One: the grammasite problem. Mr. Bamford?”

  Senator Bamford was a small man with wispy blond hair and eyes that were so small they almost weren’t there. He wore a blue coverall very obviously under his senatorial robes and had been in charge of what we called “the grammasite problem” for almost four decades, seemingly to no avail. The predations of the little parasitical beasts upon the books on which they fed was damaging and a constant drain on resources. Despite culling in the past, their numbers were no smaller now than they’d ever been. Mass extermination was often suggested, something the Naturalist genre was violently against. Pests they might be, but the young were cute and cuddly and had big eyes, which was definitely an evolutionary edge to secure survival.

  “The problem is so well known that I will not outline it here again, but suffice it to say that numbers of grammasites have risen dramatically over the years, and in order to keep the naturalists happy I suggest we undertake a program of textualization, whereby representative specimens of the seven hundred or so species will be preserved in long-winded accounts in dreary academic tomes. In that way we can preserve the animal and even, if necessary, bring it back from extinction—yet still exterminate the species.”

  Bamford sat down again, and Jobsworth asked for a show of hands. We all agreed. Grammasites were a pest and needed to be dealt with.

  “Item Two,” said Jobsworth. “Falling readership figures. Baxter?”

  Baxter stood up and addressed the room, although, to be honest, the other delegates—with the possible exception of Beauty—generally went with Jobsworth on everything. The person Baxter really needed to address was me. As the holder of the only veto, I was the one he would have to swing.

  “The falling readership figures have been a matter of some concern for a number of years now, and increased expenditure in the Well of Lost Plots to construct thrilling new books has failed to grasp the imagination of the reading public. As head of the Readership Increasement Committee, I have been formulating some radical ideas to rekindle interest in novels.”

  He turned over a paper and coughed before continuing.

  “After a fact-finding mission conducted in the real world, I have decided that ‘interactivity’ is the keyword of the new generation. For many readers books are too much of a one-sided conduit of information, and a new form of novel that allows its readers to choose where the story goes is the way forward.”

  “Isn’t that the point of books?” asked Black Beauty, stamping his hoof angrily on the table and upsetting an inkwell. “The pleasure lies in the unfolding of the plots. Even if we know what must happen, how one arrives there is still entertaining.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” remarked Baxter, “but our core readership is aging, and the world’s youth is growing up without being in the habit of reading books.”

  “So what’s your suggestion?” asked Jobsworth.

  “To create a new form of book—an interactive book that begins blank except for ten or so basic characters. Then, as it is written, chapter by chapter, the readers are polled on whom they want to keep and whom they want to exclude. As soon as we know, we write the new section, and at the end of the new c
hapter we poll the readers again. I call it a ‘reality book show’—life as it really is, with all the human interactions that make it so rich.”

  “And the boring bits as well?” I asked, recalling my only experience with reality TV.

  “I don’t suggest that every book should be this way,” added Baxter hurriedly, “but we want to make books hip and appealing to the youth market. Society is moving on, and if we don’t move with it, books—and we—will vanish.”

  As if to reinforce his argument, he waved a hand at the Read-O-Meter, which dropped another seventeen books by way of confirmation.

  “Why don’t we just write better books?” I asked.

  “Because it’s expensive, it’s time-consuming, and there’s no guarantee it will work,” said Senator Aimsworth, speaking for the first time. “From what I’ve seen of the real world, interactivity is a sure-fire hit. Baxter is right. The future is reality book shows based on democratic decision making shared by the creators and the readers. Give people what they want and in just the way they want it.”

  “Once the ball starts rolling downhill, it can’t be stopped,” I remarked. “This is the wrong route—I can feel it.”