The Woman Who Died a Lot

  The large marquee that contained the sinful was in the center of the deserted runway, and we pulled up outside the tent with nine minutes to go. The sky had darkened more by now, and the brightest part of it was the circular hole in the clouds through which a beam of sunlight was shining vertically downwards illuminating the center of Swindon as a graphic precursor of what was to happen next.

  “Do I have to do anything?” asked Tim.

  I told him he just had to be himself, then jumped out of the car to make sure I hadn’t been hoodwinked. I hadn’t. Through a gap in the tent, I could see a group of dangerous-looking men, all in their own clear plastic cells watching TV and seemingly unaware of the fate that until recently had been about to befall them. There was a sudden shower of hail, and I looked up. The hole in the clouds had widened, and the clouds around it were beginning to rotate faster.

  Despite the success of my mission, my heart sank. Most of the financial district of Swindon would be annihilated, and the cathedral, and, worst of all, Joffy.

  “So long, Joff,” I said under my breath. It didn’t seem right, but I was at least glad, if such is the right word, that family had helped him be the agent of his chosen end and that somehow the GSD would benefit from his sacrifice.

  I felt a lump in my throat, but no tears came. I was a Synthetic, and tear ducts in Day Players don’t reflect emotion.

  “It’s impressive, isn’t it?” said Tim, who had climbed out of the car and was staring at the strange cloud formation. We could see the air suddenly soften with another localized hail shower, and a bolt of lightning plunged to earth somewhere near the M4. Another minute ticked by, and all I could think of was Joffy. The stuff we’d done, the stuff we’d never do.

  “You’re going to lose someone, aren’t you?” asked the righteous man, who had been watching me.

  “Yes,” I said, “but I won’t be able to weep for him until I’m back in my own body.”

  “I’m not sure I under—”

  “Hang on,” I said, for I’d just noticed a distant smudge in the low horizon. It was an aircraft of some description, and it seemed to be moving toward us at a good speed. As it grew closer, I heard the distinctive thup-thup-thup of a tiltrotor, and I suddenly grew suspicious that perhaps this was not quite the end of it. The small craft orbited twice, then touched down not fifty feet from us. The engines continued running, and the passenger door opened. I could tell by the labored way in which the passenger clambered out that this was no copy, no Day Player, but an original—in all his obnoxious glory.

  It was Jack Schitt.

  38.

  Friday: The Smiting

  Of the six smites (to date) since the Oswestry event in 2002, the scientific community has gathered much relevant data, allowing leading smite researchers to conclude that past unexplained phenomena around the planet might actually have been divine. It is now believed that the unexplained and violent Tunguska event of 1908 was likely a “practice smite,” undertaken by a deity who thought no one would be watching in an empty region of the planet.

  Charles Fang, Mankind and the Modern Smite

  “Well, well,” said Jack as he walked up, “so Joffy found a righteous man after all? And there we were, making sure they were all either fully booked, dead or defiled. Goes to show: The unworthy can always trust the righteous to louse things up.”

  Jack Schitt made a move to his coat, and I pulled out my pistol, only to see my forearm explode as a high-velocity round passed straight through it. The hand, with the gun still in it, went cartwheeling off past the righteous man. It didn’t hurt, and the Day Player’s military self-sealing design parameters had the blood flow stopped in less than two seconds. In an instant I went for my second pistol but stopped when I saw Jack pointing his weapon at the righteous man.

  “Thanks for that,” I said in as sarcastic manner as I could, the somewhat distant relationship I had with my disposable body still surprising me.

  “My pleasure,” said Jack with a smile. “Always useful to have a sniper covering your back, isn’t it? Crabbe,” he said, addressing his henchman, “would you?”

  The Goliath agent I had last seen at the Lobsterhood divested me of my ankle Beretta and my dagger, then handcuffed me by my ankle to one of the marquee poles. He took my left hand and placed my pistol in it, then held my arm tight in the direction of the righteous man, who looked impassively at us both. I tried to move my arm, but I think Crabbe was a Day Player, too, and his two arms were more than a match for my one.

  “Smite minus six minutes,” said Crabbe.

  Jack lowered his weapon and walked up to me with a supercilious grin.

  “It’s over, Thursday. The unrighteous will be destroyed, and you with them.”

  “I’m a Day Player,” I told him, “as you well know.”

  “Indeed.” He held the cell phone he’d been carrying to his ear. “Are you in place? Good.”

  He turned back to me. “I have one of my people in your house at the moment with a weapon pressed against the head of the real you. This is what’s going to happen: The righteous man will be killed in order that the sinful may continue to attract the pillar of fire away from Swindon. I could kill the righteous man myself, but I thought, Hey! Wouldn’t it be more fun if it were Thursday?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Undoubtably. Two choices. Option A: You kill the righteous man and we let the the Sleeping Thursday live. Or Option B: I kill the righteous man myself, and the real you is no more. Either way he’s dead, but using Option A you get to survive. What will it be?”

  “Do you get some kind of weird kick out of all this?” I asked.

  Jack Schitt smiled. “I do, actually. Like having Judith Trask killed. Unnecessary, but with a certain virtuosity in the baseness of the act, don’t you think?”

  “So,” I said, “what you didn’t understand about ‘Go to hell’?” He laughed again.

  “Smite minus four minutes,” muttered Crabbe, this time with a hint of nervousness.

  “Really, Thursday,” said Jack, “it’s a no-brainer. Him and you, or just him.”

  “I think you should kill me,” said the righteous Man. “Joffy always spoke well of you, and you have earned this one small transgression in an otherwise blameless life.”

  “You see?” said Jack Schitt. “Even the righteous man wants you to kill him. Count of three.”

  I glared at Jack, then struggled to be free without success.

  “One,” said Jack.

  “I know all about the palimpsests.”

  “Two.”

  “And I know about you traveling to Dark Reading Matter. We’ll fight you every step of the way.”

  “Three.”

  And without pausing, he find two shots into the chest of the righteous man, who slumped to the ground without a sound.

  “Bastard!”

  “Correct.” Jack smiled. “Both literally and metaphorically.”

  Crabbe took the gun out of my hand and headed back to the tiltrotor. Jack lifted the cell phone to his mouth, said “Kill the bitch,” then tossed it aside.

  I thought I might have felt something, but I didn’t. The thing about Day Players was that they felt just like oneself—and I hadn’t yet been in a Day Player long enough to feel one start to die.

  “Mr. Schitt, sir!” called out Crabbe from the tiltrotor. “Smite minus three minutes!”

  “We’ve big plans for the Dark Reading Matter,” said Jack. “A pristine land ripe for domination—and, what’s more, independent of humans. It will be the perfect lifeboat when HR-6984 strikes. Just imagine: seven billion inhabitants all looking for a new home ahead of the collision, and Goliath able to offer them one in the Dark Reading Matter—and on a sliding scale of payment. Five-star hotels, so-so apartments, fetid slums—or standing room.”

  “You’d be able to transport everyone across?”

  “Each survivor who can afford it. Each will be given a Synthetic to inhabit, then read into an original work, which is de
stroyed to take them into the DRM. But these Synthetics won’t be Day Players. They’ll be fully functional models, or at least they will be if you can afford one. Sort of an ironic finish, isn’t it? Mankind surviving the end of the world by retreating into the forgotten thoughts of our forefathers. The current residents of the Dark Reading Matter aren’t taking it too well, but they’ll come around.”

  “I should have killed you long ago.”

  “Yes, it was most remiss of you. There! At least we agree on something— good to end on a positive note, don’t you think? Here.”

  He dug the key to the handcuffs out of his pocket.

  “If you run really quickly, you can make it out of the Smite Zone. But don’t forget, the real you is dead. I’m giving you this opportunity to say good-bye to your family before you’re slowly poisoned by your own waste products. Day Players are named Day Players for a very good reason. Good-bye, Thursday. You’ve been a worthy adversary, but it’s time to move on.”

  He tossed me the handcuff keys, then quickly boarded the tiltrotor, which spooled up to full power, lifted into the hover and sped away.

  I looked up at the clouds, which were now circling ever faster. The sky had become darker and a sharp wind had whipped up, throwing whorls of dust and dirt into the air. I picked up the handcuff key and released myself, then ran across to the righteous man, who opened one eye.

  “Well,” said Tim, “he wasn’t very nice, was he?”

  “You’re alive?”

  “Of course! I’m righteous, not stupid.”

  He opened his jacket to reveal a thick padded Kevlar breastplate that was snugly fitted around his chest. There were two slugs lodged in the padding.

  “Makes me less than truly righteous, doesn’t it?” said Tim with a smile. “The sin of suspicion?”

  “Shit,” I said as I realized something. “Now that you’re alive, the smiting will move back to Swindon and my brother will be vaporized.”

  “No chance of that,” said Tim cheerfully. “I’m not nearly righteous enough to move a smiting any appreciable distance. My sin is not just suspicion but vengeance, and calculation.”

  “So . . . we’re about to get smitten here and now with all the ax murderers?”

  The righteous man divested himself of the breastplate, murmured that he thought he might have a broken rib, then stood up and looked around. “Where is that nasty piece of work right now?”

  I pointed to where the tiltrotor had positioned itself about two miles away, static in the hover, presumably to watch Smite Solutions’ success— and the hundred-million-pound price tag that went with it.

  “Ooh,” said Tim, looking up. “Impressive, don’t you think?”

  I followed his gaze. The hole in the center of the swirling clouds was now bright white, and, with a deep rumbling sound, tendrils of a plasma-like substance began to descend. The tendrils grouped, then fused and were soon a dense tongue of fire. As we watched, the pillar of fulminating power moved sideways and headed toward us. I made to run, but the righteous man held my arm.

  “Wait a moment,” he said. “Few get to see something like this at such close range.”

  The pillar of fire moved nearer, and the air became warmer. The wind dropped, and we heard a noise like the soft crackle of burning pine needles. The concentrated wrath gathered speed, and a high-pitched whine filled the air. The smite was almost upon us when it abruptly shifted direction and with a sound like a tornado moved rapidly toward the most evil, unjust, debased and sinful person within the immediate vicinity. Not “Mad Axman” McGraw or the “Butcher of Naples” and not even the infamous “Toe Cutter of Southend.” No, the pillar of all-consuming fiery vengeance was seeking to punish the transgressions of just one man: Jack Schitt.

  I think Jack might have realized what was happening, as the tiltrotor suddenly dipped toward us and became larger, the noise of the rotor increasing as it tried to outrun the long and blazing arm of punishing redemption. The small craft was almost overhead when the smite caught it, and the machine exploded into a bright ball of fire that evaporated into nothing, leaving only softly cascading specks of glowing embers that fell about us like snow. Almost immediately the pillar of fire vanished like smoke, and the clouds high above closed with a distant rumble, and we heard the applause from the gathered spectators in the far distance. A moment or two later, the sun came out, and I blinked and stared at the righteous man.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “I never get bored of those,” he said with a smile. “Like a dozen bonfire-night displays all squeezed into one. Well done, Thursday.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  He placed a hand on my arm and smiled. “Don’t undersell yourself. I’m moderately righteous, but I can’t divert a twentyfelon smiting, even with someone as bad as Jack nearby. No, the reason it worked was your selfless adherence to what was right and just and true. You were willing to sacrifice yourself and your brother rather than kill an innocent man. With you and me pushing the smite away and Jack pulling, it was a cinch. Teamwork.”

  He nodded toward where the murderers were incarcerated. “They won’t thank you, though. Welcome to being righteous.”

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  He smiled again.

  “Let’s just say I’m someone who wouldn’t want to see any harm come to you or your brother. The GSD has a large and committed flock, and we sometimes make . . . plans in the background.”

  “You’re not going to tell me who or what you are, are you?”

  “No.”

  “But I did come to harm,” I said with a falling heart. “I was killed by Jack’s assassin at home. I’ve got about sixteen hours left to live.”

  “I took the liberty of calling your husband earlier. The assassin got no further than the back door. That was the Wingco responding on Jack’s phone. And Joffy was never in any danger either. You just had to think he was for this to work.”

  “You planned all this?”

  “Righteousness is a tricksy beast,” he replied with a shrug, “and has to be helped sometimes. But you came out with flying colors. Can you drop me at the station?”

  So we drove quietly out of the airfield and past the cordon, now manned by confused-looking Goliath security personnel. We found Phoebe where she had been released, next to the wreckage of her Mini. I thanked her for watching my back earlier, and she climbed into the back of the Sportina.

  “Where’s your arm?” she asked.

  “Long story. This is Tim. He’s a righteous man.”

  “Hello,” said Phoebe. “Got any advice for someone who has caused the death of another?”

  “You need to contact Judith’s husband and explain. It will not be easy, but you can and will find forgiveness.”

  “You know about Trask?” asked Phoebe.

  “He knows things,” I said. “I’m not sure asking questions actually helps.”

  “Right,” said Phoebe.

  We left Tim at the railway station. I told Phoebe all about Jack Schitt and the Day Players and the palimpsests and the Dark Reading Matter and HR-6984 and everything else he’d been up to—and that Goliath would doubtless continue this course without him.

  “There are many more like Jack at Goliath,” I said.

  “If he was Laddernumber ninety-one,” said Phoebe, “then there are probably about ninety worse than him. With Jack dead, the object of my hatred has moved to Goliath. What would you say to a merger of our departments? Your funding would be restored. We can recruit from within the library service and then really start to hit Goliath where it hurts.”

  “Let’s see: run the Wessex Library Services, assist at the new SO-27 and kick some Goliath butt?”

  “How about it?” asked Phoebe.

  I smiled. “I am so totally on board.”

  I gave her my hand to shake, and she squeezed it gratefully.

  We drove back to my house in silence, and I let her take the Sportina into town. Phoebe, I reflected, was a good sort, reli
able in a scrap, driven, and she disliked big business and all that it stood for—particularly Goliath. We’d make a good team.

  I pushed open the doors to be greeted by Landen and the others. My erstwhile assassin was being carted off by the local police.

  “What happened to your arm?” asked Landen.

  “Long story.”

  I related the day’s events over lunch and described as best I could what it was like to be within spitting distance when a truly sinful man is vaporized by the all-consuming wrath of God.

  “Cool,” said Gavin once I’d finished the story. “So all’s well that ends well?”

  “Not precisely,” I replied, glancing at the clock. “It’s now one-thirty. Destiny is heading toward you and Friday and will be with them in thirty-two minutes and four seconds. If it can be sidestepped, so much the better.”

  “How do you sidestep destiny?”

  “It depends what sort of mood she’s in—warm and forgiving or cold and immovable.”

  “How do we tell?”

  “We can’t—until afterward.”

  Gavin’s face fell. “Bummer.”

  39.

  Friday: Destiny

  Of all the implausible notions with which the unconventional scientist has to battle, destiny is the one that gives the most trouble. The notion of predestination, that the future might be already fixed, irrespective of the billions of random interactions that precede it, sits poorly within the laws of physics and probability. But from a spiritual point of view, destiny sits very comfortably and in some cases is the sole guide to a sentient being. A beacon to follow, a guiding light in an otherwise empty existence.

  Millon de Floss, Intelligent-Sounding Stuff to Spout, from The Hermiting Manual (edition 2)

  “Okay,” I said once everyone had gathered in Tuesday’s lab, only because it was conveniently large, “let’s just talk this through point by point. Friday, you’re not due to kill Gavin for”—I looked at my watch—“another twenty-six minutes.”