The Woman Who Died a Lot

  “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

  “You 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.”

  “We favor reasoned debate.”

  “It’s not about the budget. It’s about Judith. Judith Trask.”

  “Who?”

  “The name I gave Jack when he asked me at the Adelphi. Judith Trask.”

  “You mean it wasn’t a fake name?”

  “No,” said Phoebe, her eyes wide with shock and the enormity of what had happened. I felt my heart fall, too.

  “He killed her?”

  “Someone did. Judith’s name was the first that popped into my head. She’s not even an active SpecOps agent—simply a logistics officer at SO-31. An accountant. Someone took her out at the junction of Goddard and Mill. She was married and had two children.”

  “Okay,” I said, having come across this sort of thing before. “Firstly, that might not be Jack Schitt in there. Secondly, when you want to take on Goliath, you play the long game. Promise me you’ll do nothing.”

  She looked at me. “But—”

  “Promise me. If you want to be like me, this is one thing you have to do.”

  “I promise.”

  “Good. We’ll talk later.”

  I patted her arm and walked into the boardroom.

  It was a large room with one wall entirely glazed so there was a somewhat precipitous view to the main lending floor five stories below. Settled neatly in a recessed alcove at one end of the room was a bust of Andrew Carnegie, and at the other end of the room was another of Sir Thomas Bodley. Everyone was there when I arrived but was yet to be seated. Jack Schitt caught my eye immediately, and we stared at each other. I was wondering if he was the real or the Synthetic, and he was doubtless wondering the same about me.

  “Good morning,” I said as I lumbered to my seat. “I’m Thursday Parke-Laine-Next, the new Wessex Region chief librarian. We’ll run around the room briefly for anyone unfamiliar with who is present. On my left, Regional SpecOps Commander Braxton Hicks.”

  He nodded a greeting to the room, but everyone knew who he was.

  “Next to him is the newly appointed divisional chief of SO-27, Phoebe Smalls.”

  She nodded a greeting and ignored Jack’s patronizing stare.

  “Next to Miss Smalls is Mr. Jack Schitt, who is representing Goliath while Mr. Lupton Cornball is on . . . other duties. Just what are those duties, Mr. Schitt?”

  Jack Schitt looked at me and smiled, then addressed the room.

  “Mr. Cornball is currently liaising with the city council and Goliath subsidiary company Smite Solutions to spare Swindon’s downtown from the scheduled smiting tomorrow.”

  “And how do they plan to do that, Mr. Schitt?”

  He stared at me for a moment. Using convicted felons to avert a smiting would not be popular, even if they were ax murderers. It would be a sorry return to those dark, barbaric days when nations actually executed their own citizens. Jack looked at me and smiled.

  “We have engaged the services of convicted felons, who have agreed to be vaporized in order that property be saved. Their considerable fee—over a million pounds per man—will be paid to their dependents and families as well as victims, if any are living. I would like to stress that this is entirely voluntary, and we will be erecting a marble tablet for those who sacrificed everything to bring about the saving of Swindon’s valuable architectural heritage.”

  That didn’t go quite how I’d planned it. Miles hadn’t said they were volunteers. I looked around the table, and everyone nodded sagely at the felons’ selfless sacrifice. One of the city councilors wiped her eyes with a handkerchief.

  “Right,” I said. “Sitting next to Mr. Schitt is Mrs. Bunty Fairweather of the City Council, and her assistant, Mr. Banerjee. Next to them is the Wessex Library Service chief accountant Conrad Spoons, and Colonel Wexler of the SLS is sitting next to him.”

  I had the six others introduce themselves, as I weren’t sure who they were, then ended up by explaining that Geraldine would be taking the minutes and that we could drop the “Fatso’s” part of the Wessex Library Service title, as we needed to be done by midday.

  First up was Conrad Spoons, and he outlined in a drab monotone the annual budget of the Wessex Library Service, beginning with the current and projected running costs, then outlining his plans for capital expenditure. I was quite glad when Duffy sneaked into the room to whisper in my ear that Miles wanted to have a quick word.

  “Carry on,” I said, making for the door. “I’ll be back soon.”

  I found Miles in the corridor.

  “Is Jack Schitt in there?” he asked.

  “Maybe yes, maybe no. I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Eh?”

  “Never mind. Did you hear that the felons up at Wroughton actually agreed to be vaporized in exchange for some cash for their victims and family?”

  “That’s a lie,” said Miles. “Goliath doesn’t give money to anyone, especially ax murderers. Besides, such an act of self-sacrifice would show considerable empathy and remorse, and that could engender a limited form of absolution—they would hardly be effective at all in drawing the fire from Swindon.”

  Miles’s argument rang true—never believe anything Goliath says.

  “What are you here for anyway?” I asked. “I’m in a really boring budget meeting, but it’s kind of important.”

  “They nobbled him!”

  “Nobbled who? Joffy?”

  “No—our righteous man. Goliath managed to infiltrate our defenses, and after forty minutes of careful argument they succeeded in persuading our man to pursue a life of hedonistic self-destruction. He’s currently down at a lap-dancing bar getting plastered and running up gambling debts while eating delicacies made from pandas’ ears.”

  “That was quick work.”

  “Smite Solutions have a team of dedicated Debasers, specially trained to darken and pervert even the purest mind. If someone has a weakness, they’ll find it. Our man’s weakness was licorice, and once they knew that, it was a short hop to a life of immoral excess.”

  “So what do we do now?” I asked.

  Miles looked around and lowered his voice. “We thought this might happen, so we kept a righteous man in reserve—just in case. But since we’ve obviously got a mole at the GSD blabbing stuff to Goliath, we need someone we can trust to bring him in. Someone with guile, cunning and resourcefulness.”

  “You want me to bring him in?”

  “No, we wanted you to ask Phoebe Smalls for us. Just kidding. Yes, of course we want you to do it.”

  I tried to tell
him I was in no fit state to do anything, and he said that all I would have to do was to drive the righteous man up to Wroughton and get him to within twenty yards of the felons at midday on Friday. It seemed easy enough, so I agreed. He then said he would contact me tomorrow morning with an address and left. I was about to go back in when Duffy stopped me.

  “Lucy got this from a guy loitering near the bins.”

  It was an adhesive patch about the size of Post-it, upon which was printed a smiley face.

  “Nice work,” I said, pulling up my shirt so he could stick it on my lower back. “Not a word to Braxton about this.”

  “Sorry about that,” I said as I walked back into the boardroom. “Where have we got to?”

  “We were just talking about Special Library Services’ budgetary requirements for next year,” said Colonel Wexler, “and extra staffing levels if we are to implement dawn raids for overdue books.”

  “Is there a legal framework for that?”I asked.

  “Indeed there is,” said Conrad Spoons. “The Library Act of 1923 specifically states that a library may do everything in its power to retrieve its property.”

  “And I’ll need funding for an indoor water cannon,” continued Wexler. “The riot over Mr. Colwyn Baye’s new book nearly got out of hand.”

  “The SLS should be under the jurisdiction of SO-27,” said Phoebe Smalls, “so their budget should be transferred across to me. That is, unless you have any objection?”

  “Not at all,” said Colonel Wexler. “My duties will remain the same, yes?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Will I be able to lead dawn raids for overdue books?”

  “Dawn raids certainly. Not sure about overdue books—that will be outside our mandate.”

  “Oh,” said Wexler, mildly disappointed.

  Braxton confirmed that switching the Special Library Services to SO-27 made a lot of sense, and also that this was a good time to outline just how much of the Wessex Library’s budget should be transferred to SO-27, and he suggested as a starting point fifty million pounds, about a third of our current budget. I looked at Conrad Spoons, and he nodded. Without the policing budget, we could concentrate on core library activities, such as lending, the pursuit of knowledge and Finisterre’s antiquarianbook section.