The Woman Who Died a Lot

  “Wait.”

  The Cleaning Lady raised an eyebrow and stared at me.

  “I want to keep her.”

  “What?” exclaimed Landen.

  “I want to keep her. You might as well tell me you were going to scrub Friday.”

  “Mum,” said Tuesday, “she’s not your daughter and never was. Just a notion designed by Aornis—based on the daughter she had and lost.”

  I fixed my look at Tuesday. “Can you remember her?”

  “Yes.”

  “And those memories are good?”

  “It’s irrelevant, Mum. Sure, she was a hoot and great fun to have around, but I know she’s not real. Besides, by tomorrow you won’t even know she was once here.”

  “But I know about it now, and it’s the wrong decision.”

  “But you won’t even know about your wrong decision,” said Friday in an exasperated tone. “If it’s wrong at all—which I doubt.”

  “All my decisions will be forgotten eventually,” I said quietly, “but it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t make the right ones. I’m going to keep her. Can I?”

  “It would be a lot easier,” said the Cleaning Lady, “and with less risk of peripheral memory loss.”

  “I think you’re nuts, Mum,” said Tuesday.

  “I want to keep her, too,” said Landen, reaching out to hold my hand. “You’ll not be the only one in the house who has fond memories of a child with existence issues.”

  There was silence for a moment.

  “I’m in, too,” said Friday. “Sis?”

  “Okay, fine,” said Tuesday. “She always made me laugh, the little scamp.”

  “All righty,” said the Cleaning Lady. “Looks like I’m going to make that train to Whitby after all.”

  She pulled a cell phone from her pocket and pressed a couple of buttons. “Remember that ten-seater tiltrotor that came down near Barnstaple two years ago due to a gearbox failure?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Jenny would have been on that, en route to visiting a pen pal in Liskeard.”

  Landen and I looked at each other. I held his hand, and he blinked away a tear.

  “Graham?” said the Cleaning Lady into the phone. “You were right. They’re going to keep her. Get onto the Falsification Department and tell them we need a memorial stone in Aldbourne Cemetery.”

  She looked at me. “Jennifer Houson Parke-Laine-Next,” I said, tears welling up in my eyes, “1990 to 2002.”

  “Under the yew,” added Landen. “The dappled shade during the summer will make it a peaceful spot.”

  I gave out a choke of grief, and Landen got up to give me a hug. I had seen her not half an hour ago, and soon she would be gone forever. But we’d remember the good times, even if they’d never happened—or at least not to us.

  “Don’t start blubbering, Mum,” said Friday wiping his eyes. “You’ll set us all off.”

  But it was too late.

  “All set,” said the Cleaning Lady, snapping the phone shut. “I’ll bid you good-bye. You might hear from me again, and if you do, you’ll do me a favor but never know why. We often need favors. Now,” she said, cracking her knuckles, “let’s put everything to rights.”

  “Can I ask a question before we lose all this?” asked Landen.

  “Of course.”

  “Has something like this happened before? A daughter like Jenny, a family like us?”

  “Many times.”

  “And do they always opt to keep them?”

  She smiled and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Always.”

  36.

  Friday: Morning

  The GSD has a fairly elastic set of rules, as it endeavors to cater to all faith tastes, from those who enjoy the dressing up and high theater to those who rarely, if ever, attend church. The GSD’s ten Bastions are the central pillars of the church, and it is prescribed that everyone undertake “at least four” of the Bastions every day. How one undertakes this is up to personal choice. The Third Bastion, “Pause and Consider,” can take less than a second or over an hour, depending upon taste. The Seventh Bastion, “Moment of Levity,” is often considered one of the most important.

  David Twiglet, The Unification of Man

  My eyes flickered open, and I rolled over. I was lying in bed and could feel Landen’s warm body beside me. I glanced at the clock. It was just past seven, and I’d not slept better for weeks. The room was dark, and outside I could hear the faint hooting of an immature tawny owl. Beyond this was the distant murmur of the M4, and as I stared into the darkness, I heard the distinctive hum of the induction motors as a Skyrail car moved through the village below, doubtless taking early risers into work. I looked across at Landen and put out an exploratory hand. He rolled over, placed his hand on my stomach, moved it up, then down—and was out of bed within about an eighth of a second with a shriek of alarm.

  “What the . . . ?” I cried, and then realized. I didn’t know what a Tawny Owl would have sounded like, and I’d have to have superhuman hearing to detect the hum of a Skyrail a mile away. But then I wasn’t me. I lifted the sheets and had a look. Something was missing. I’d been replaced again.

  “I thought I was feeling a little too good,” I said in a resigned manner, jumping out of bed and looking around the bedroom.

  “You won’t find what you’re missing by looking around,” said Landen, rolling a sock onto his stump and reaching for his leg.

  “I’m not looking for that,” I said, “I’m looking for me.”

  I checked the closet, the bathroom, then the upstairs corridor, the linen cupboard, and eventually I found myself in the guest bedroom, tucked up snug and warm with a sandwich and a glass of water in case I was hungry or thirsty when my tenure in this body was up. I’d seen myself like this before, up at Booktastic, but this time there was more opportunity to stare. I looked different from how I’d imagined, not simply because I usually saw myself reversed in a mirror but because there was something ineffably alien about seeing oneself directly.

  “I look kind of peaceful, don’t I?”

  “Very,” said Landen, who had been assisting in the search, “but then I’m used to seeing you like this.”

  “Asleep?”

  “No—out of your head.” He laughed.

  “Very funny.”

  “In all seriousness,” he said, “you’re not going to kill me or anything, are you?”

  “If I’d wanted to, I’d have done it already,” I replied, “as you slept. No, Krantz is delivering these Day Players to help us defeat Jack.”

  “Glad to hear it. Defeat him doing what, exactly?”

  “Okay, to find out what he’s doing and then defeat him.”

  We stared for a few moments more at the real me. “I’m going to make some breakfast,” said Landen. “I know you don’t eat, but do you drink?”

  “Aside from respiration,” I said, not knowing how I knew, “I’m totally self-contained.”

  “Well, I’m not,” he said, and went downstairs to make some coffee.

  I told him I needed to check something out and walked outside, then down the gravel path in the early-morning light. There wasn’t a breath of wind in the air. Everything seemed somehow peaceful, even though the day did not portend well for a number of reasons, an inevitable murder being one of them and a cleansing pillar of fire the other.

  I made my way through the grounds to the yew walk, the tropical hothouse and then the walled garden, thence to the cascade and lake. I wasn’t expecting to see Millon, as he rarely appeared before eleven, but I was curious to know how my Day Player had gotten past our security system, and I had found a small piece of what looked like the bark of the European beech, or Fagus sylvatica, under my fingernail. I followed the tall closemesh security fence toward the bottom field, took a right into the beech wood, and there, parked about fifty yards outside our high-perimeter fence was a large box van. I chose the most likely-looking tree, quickly climbed to the uppermost boughs, swung twice on a handy b
ranch and leaped clean across the fence, doing a closed triple-forward somersault simply because I could. I caught the bough I was aiming for and dropped noiselessly to the soft forest floor.

  I found Krantz still sitting in the cab of the rented box van. He was purple and puffy, and both his eyes were open, although one was looking upward, and a small amount of blood had leaked from his ear and nose. On his lap was a pad of paper on which he had been writing when he died. I twisted the pad from his stiff fingers and read:

  Use yourself well, my friend. Protect the dark world we love from all who would do her harm. I have been twice dead, so once more makes little difference. Here’s what’s been happening: I was asked to

  I stared at his words for a moment until the meaning suddenly became clear. A “past best” Day Player was probably not a terrific thing to be once the organs started to shut down one by one, and he’d wanted out. Goliath’s Whistleblower had done for him. Jack had been right. Day Players of Goliath staff also had them fitted.

  I opened the back of the van to find the same sort of medical paraphernalia we had found at the Finis Hotel. But aside from the discarded Tupperware coffin lying outside the van, there was only a single sarcophagus remaining, the seals unbroken and marked “T.Next Mark VII—Activate within one hour if seal broken.” I peered through the semitranslucent polyethylene and could see a figure inside. I quickly added up the Day Players on the manifest and how many we’d seen. One more go at this and I’d be back to single me again.

  I gently heaved Krantz into the passenger seat and drove the van around to the front of the house, keyed in the security numbers and went to the coach house to deposit the sealed sarcophagus into a disused stable. Next I carried Krantz to the rose garden to bury him in one of the beds, despite the “Recycle Responsibly” mark I found on his forearm. It wasn’t a human body, so I wasn’t breaking any laws and could have put him out with the trash quite legally, but it was the last vestige of Krantz, even if whatever made Krantz Krantz had left the real Krantz a week ago. It seemed the least I could do.

  “Morning, Mum,” said Friday as I walked into the kitchen. “You look . . . different.”

  “And you seem very perky for a potential murderer. What gives?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve kind of resigned myself to it. The Manchild told me that the future me was pretty smart and I should have more confidence in my own abilities. The truth of the matter is that this afternoon, at 14 02 and two seconds, Gavin will be dead by my hand, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”

  I gave him a hug, but he sensed that something wasn’t right and pulled away.

  “Mum . . . ?”

  “It’s me and it’s not,” I said, and explained what I was. Once Friday had told me it was “pretty weird, even for Mum” and Landen had agreed but added loyally, “it’s still your mother— kind of,” Friday accepted it, but I saw him looking at me strangely for the rest of breakfast.

  Gavin appeared soon afterward, yawning and scratching.

  “Hey, Friday,” he said, “still going to kill me this afternoon?”

  “I guess.”

  “D’you know why?”

  “I can think of a number of reasons why I might,” he said, “but none as to why I should.”

  “Any luck with the Unentanglement Constant?” I asked Gavin.

  “None at all,” he said, pouring himself some Shreddies. “We went down a dead end until four A.M. and restarted the calculations in a different direction at six. I’ll be honest, it’s not looking good.”

  “Shit,” I said to myself. If Gavin and Tuesday failed, it meant Smite Solutions would be the first line of defense against the smiting and I’d have to swap twenty seasoned felons for Joffy, always supposing I could deliver the righteous man on time and in the right place.

  “Gavin?” said Landen.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s not good manners to come to breakfast dressed in only a T-shirt.”

  Gavin stared at him. “It’s worse manners to murder a guest. Your son is going to kill me, and you’re worrying that I’m half dressed?”

  Landen fell silent at this. Gavin was right. It didn’t make much sense.

  Tuesday walked in, hair damp from a shower. She knew instantly that something was wrong about me. But she was less freaked out than Friday had been, and she peered closely at my skin and eyes, then asked several probing questions about metabolic functions until I felt like a frog on a dissecting table.

  “What am I,” I said, “your science project?”

  “Oh, boy, if only,” said Tuesday admiringly. “Where’s Mum if you’re not her and you’re here?”

  I told her I was upstairs and asked her about the Uc, but she gave the same answer as Gavin.

  “We’ve only been working on it since yesterday,” said Tuesday, helping herself to some orange juice. “These things generally take a lifetime. If we work really hard, we might get a small amount of preparatory work done before Gavvers bites the bullet.”

  She laid a hand on Friday’s arm.

  “I know that this is a whole destiny thing, but if there’s any way to avoid his early demise, I’d really appreciate it.”

  They stood there together in silence for a few moments until Gavin belched, then got up to fetch some coffee from the machine.

  “Oh, for all that is good and decent,” muttered Tuesday angrily, “put some trousers on, Gav—no one here wants to see your arse.”

  And she took him by the hand and led him out the door, telling him he should at least have a shower—if for nothing more than to at least be clean for his own autopsy.

  “She’s taking it quite well, isn’t she?” said Landen.

  “Resigned to it, I guess,” I replied. “It must be her scientific mind. Once she feels that something is inevitable, then worrying is a waste of time. Mycroft was the same.”

  “I wish I could feel the same way,” grumbled Friday.

  My cell phone rang. It was Joffy. I paused for a moment, unwilling to answer it. I’d not spoken to Joffy since Miles had told me he was going to stay in his cathedral to be vaporized with it, and I wasn’t sure what I could say, given that my actions might assist his demise. But I wasn’t going to not answer it. I flipped open the phone to hear him laughing.

  “Hello?” I said, but the laughing continued for a moment until he came onto the line.

  “Hi, Thursday?”

  I told him it was me and asked him with rising hope if the smiting had been canceled.

  “Sadly, no,” he answered. “We were just running through the ten Bastions of the GSD and had gotten to Moment of Levity.”

  He asked me if there was a chance that the Anti-Smite Shield would be up and running by midday, and I had to admit I wasn’t that hopeful, even though our best minds were working on it. I then asked him if he would reconsider leaving the Smite Zone.

  “It’s complicated,” he said, “but the bottom line is this: Unless we at least get an indication of when talks might begin as to seeking the Ultimate Question of Existence, this flock might have to look for another shepherd who is more willing to listen to our requests.”

  It was a dramatic disclosure and presumably, given His omniscience, would already be known to Him.

  “You’re threatening to switch allegiances?” I asked incredulously.

  “Nothing’s off the table,” he replied. “We thought Diana the Huntress might make a solid alternative. Strong, a good looker and more feminist in her views. Smiting would be off the agenda, and we might tip the current gender imbalance away from the malecentric.”

  It was a radical notion, and not one that I thought God would accept without some degree of anger, especially as it flagrantly contravened Article One. I suggested this, but Joffy was well ahead of me.

  “According to Expectation-Influenced Probability, if we stop believing in Him, He will cease to exist. It’s a last resort, of course, so He has to know we are serious, and my sacrifice would do it.”

  “I’m
not sure I follow.”

  “Me neither, but He’s big on self-sacrifice, martyrdom and extreme signs of loyalty. Put it this way,” added Joffy. “I’ve run out of ideas, and this seems the best bet.”

  “Joffy . . . ?”

  He guessed what I was thinking of.

  “I know I’m asking you to do a lot,” he said, “but I can’t have Smite Solutions use the sinful as a smite magnet. You’re going to have to do your best work with this righteous man. We asked you to do it for a reason. Well,” he added with an air of finality, “I guess this is good-bye.”

  “The hell it is,” I responded. “I’ll figure something out.”

  He laughed, told me he loved me, that I was a good sister, none better, and that Miles would call me nearer the time to tell me where to find the righteous man—but that if I positioned myself near Chiseldon from eleven onward, it might help.

  I said I would, and he hung up.

  I snapped the phone shut and looked at Landen.

  “He’s serious, isn’t he?”

  I nodded and called Phoebe. Chiseldon was about ten minutes’ drive from the Wroughton airfield, and I’d doubtless have to fight every step of the way. Goliath would be taking no chances.

  “Hey,” I said, “it’s Thursday. Do you have access to a sniper rifle?”

  “Of course. What Swindon girl doesn’t?”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I.”

  “Oh—right. Well, I need someone to cover my back.” “Is it illegal?”

  “Quite possibly.”

  “Might I have to kill someone?”

  “I’m hoping not,” I said, “but can’t guarantee it.”

  There was a pause, and I could sense her reticence. The last time I’d asked her for help, we had—technically speaking at least—sexually assaulted a Goliath Top One Hundred at gunpoint, a consequence of which Judith Trask had been murdered.