Lost in a Good Book

  They shut the door behind them. Molly, overcoming her initial shyness, stared at Pickwick, who stared back.

  'Plock,' said Pickwick.

  'Dodo,' said Molly.

  Pickwick grasped Molly by the cuff and led her into the kitchen to show off her egg.

  'What do you do, David?' I asked as I looked out of the kitchen window. I needn't have worried; the two cars and their occupants were in the same place.

  'I'm a fund-raiser,' he replied. 'I've wanted to meet you for some time.'

  'Why?'

  He shrugged.

  'Dunno. Interested to see the sort of person who can travel around in books, I guess.'

  'Ah,' I replied absently, pausing to consider just how wholly unlikely it was that Cordelia's guest had found my keys when other passing residents had missed them.

  'Can I ask you a question, Miss Next?' asked David.

  'Call me Thursday. Hang on a minute.'

  I nipped into the living room to fetch the entroposcope and shook it as I walked back in.

  'Well, Thursday,' continued David, 'I was wondering—'

  'Shit!' I exclaimed, looking at the swirling pattern within the rice and lentils. 'It's happening again!'

  'Your dodo says she's hungry,' observed Molly.

  'It's a scam for a marshmallow. Cordelia, would you give Molly a marshmallow to feed to Pickwick? They're on top of the fridge.'

  Cordelia put down her bag and reached up for the glass jar.

  'Sorry, David, you were saying?'

  'Here it is. How did—'

  But I wasn't listening. There was someone sitting on the wall at the entrance to the apartment block. She was in her mid-twenties, dressed in slightly garish clothes and was reading a fashion magazine.

  'Aornis?' I whispered. 'Can you hear me?'

  The figure turned to look at me as I said the words and my scalp prickled. It was her, no doubt about it. She smiled, waved and pointed to her watch.

  'It's her,' I mumbled. 'Goddamned sonofabitch – it's her!'

  '—and that's my question,' concluded David.

  'I'm sorry, David, I wasn't listening.'

  I shook the entroposcope but the pulses were no more patterned than before – whatever the danger was, we weren't quite there yet.

  'You had a question, David?'

  'Yes,' he said, slightly annoyed, 'I was wondering—'

  'Look out!' I shouted, but it was too late. The glass marshmallow jar had slipped from Cordelia's grasp and fell heavily on the worktop – right on top of the small evidence bag full of the pink goo from beyond the end of the world. The jar didn't break, but the bag did, and Cordelia, myself and David were sprayed in gooey slime. David got the worst of it – a huge gob went right in his face.

  'Ugh!'

  'Here,' I said, handing him a Seven Wonders of Swindon tea towel, 'use this.'

  'What is that gick?' asked Cordelia, dabbing at her clothes with a damp cloth.

  'I wish I knew.'

  But David licked his lips and said:

  'I'll tell you what this is. It's Dream Topping.'

  'Dream Topping?' I queried. 'Are you sure?'

  'Yes. Strawberry flavour. Know it anywhere.'

  I put a finger in the goo and tasted it. No mistake, it was Dream Topping. If only forensics had looked at the big picture instead of staring at molecules, they might have figured it out for themselves. But it got me thinking.

  'Dream Topping,' I wondered out loud, looking at my watch. There were eighty-seven minutes of life left on the planet. 'How could the world turn to Dream Topping?'

  'It's the sort of thing,' piped up David, 'that Mycroft might know.'

  'You,' I said, pointing a finger at the pudding-covered individual, 'are a genius.'

  What had Mycroft said? Tiny nanomachines barely bigger than a cell building food protein out of nothing more than garbage? Banoffee pie from landfills? Perhaps there was going to be an accident. After all, what stopped nanomachines from making banoffee pie once they had started? I looked out of the window. Aornis had gone.

  'Do you have a car?' I asked.

  'Sure,' said David.

  'You're going to have to take me over to ConStuff. Dilly, I need your clothes.'

  Cordelia looked suspicious.

  'Why?'

  'I've got watchers. Three in, three out – they'll think I'm you.'

  'No way on earth,' replied Cordelia indignantly, 'unless you agree to do all my interviews and press junkets.'

  'At my first appearance I'll have my head lopped off by Goliath or SpecOps – or both.'

  'Perhaps that's so,' replied Cordelia slowly, 'but I'd be a fool to pass on an opportunity as good as this. All the interviews and appearances I request for a year.'

  'Two months, Cordelia.'

  'Six.'

  'Three.'

  She sighed. 'Okay. Three months – but you have to do The Thursday Next Workout Video and talk to Harry about The Eyre Affair film project.'

  'Deal.'

  So Cordelia and I switched clothes. It felt very odd to be wearing her large pink sweater, short black skirt and high heels.

  'Don't forget the Peruvian love beads,' said Cordelia, 'and my gun. Here.'

  Molly and Pickwick were playing hide-and-seek in the living room but were soon rounded up.

  'Excuse me, Miss Flakk,' said David in a slightly indignant tone. 'You promised I could ask Miss Next a question.'

  Flakk pointed a finely manicured fingertip at him and narrowed her eyes. 'Listen here, buster. You're on SpecOps business right now – a bonus, I'd say. Any complaints?'

  'Er, no, I guess,' stammered David.

  I led them outside, past the Goliath and SpecOps agents waiting for me. I made some expansive Cordelia-like moves and they barely gave us a second glance. We were soon in David's hired Studebaker and I directed him across town as I switched back to my own clothes.

  'Thursday?' asked David.

  'Yes?' I replied, looking around to see if I could see Aornis and shaking the entroposcope. Entropy seemed to be holding at the 'slightly odd' mark.

  'Your father – how does he manage to stop the clock like he does?'

  'It's a ChronoGuard thing,' I told him. 'Any activity in the timestream gives off ripples that are easily detected. Dad places us both in a sort of stasis – as soon as the Chronos pick up a disturbance, he's already gone. Does that answer your question?'

  'I guess.'

  'Good. Okay, pull up over there. I'll walk the rest of the way.'

  They dropped me by the side of the road and I thanked them before running up the street. It was already quite dark and the streetlamps were on. It didn't look as if the world was about to end in twenty-six minutes, but then I don't suppose it ever does.

  32

  The end of life as we know it

  * * *

  'After failing to get Landen back, dealing with armageddon didn't really hold the same sort of excitement for me that it would later. They always say the first time you save the world is the hardest – personally I have always found it tricky, but this time … I don't know. Perhaps Landen's loss numbed my mind and immunised me against panic. Perhaps the distraction actually helped.'

  THURSDAY NEXT – private diaries

  Consolidated Useful Stuff was situated in a large complex on the airfield at Stratton. There was a guardhouse but I had coincidence on my side – all three guards had been called away on some errand or other, and I was able to slip through unnoticed. I rubbed my arm, which had inexplicably twinged with pain, and followed the signs towards MycroTech Developments. I was just wondering how to get into the locked building when a voice made me jump.

  'Hello, Thursday!'

  It was Wilbur, Mycroft's boring son.

  'No time to explain, Will – I need to get into the nanotechnology lab.'

  'Why?' asked Wilbur, fumbling with his keys.

  'There's going to be an accident.'

  'Absolutely impossible! he scoffed, throwing the door
s open to reveal a mass of spinning red lights and the raucous sound of a klaxon.

  'Heavens!' exclaimed Wilbur. 'Do you think it's meant to be doing that?'

  'Call someone.'

  'Right.'

  He picked up the phone. Predictably enough, it was dead. He tried another but they were all dead.

  'I'll get help!' he said, tugging at the doorknob, which came off in his hand. 'What the—'

  'Entropy's decreasing by the second, Will. Are you using Dream Topping in any of your nanomachines?'

  He led me to a cabinet where a tiny drop of pink goo was suspended in midair by powerful magnets.

  'There she is. The first of her kind. Still experimental, of course. There are a few problems with the discontinuation command string. Once it starts changing organic matter into Dream Topping, it won't stop.'

  I looked at my watch and noticed that there were barely twelve minutes left.

  'What's keeping it from working at the moment?'

  'The magnetic field keeps the nanodevice immobilised and the refrigeration system keeps it below its activation temperature of minus ten degrees … What was that?'

  The lights had flickered.

  'Power grid failure.'

  'No problem, Thursday – there are three back-up generators. They can't all fail at the same time, that would be too much of a—'

  'Coincidence, yes, I know. But they will. And when they do that coincidence will be the biggest, the best – and the last.'

  'Thursday, that's not possible!'

  'Anything is possible right now. We're in the middle of an isolated high coincidental localised entropic field decreasement.'

  'We're in a what?'

  'We're in a pseudoscientific technobabble.'

  'Ah!' replied Wilbur, having witnessed quite a few at MycroTech Developments. 'One of those.'

  'What happens when the final back-up fails, Wilbur?'

  'The nanodevice will be expelled into the atmosphere,' said Wilbur grimly. 'It is programmed to make strawberry-flavoured pudding mix and will continue to do so as long as it has organic material to work with. You, me, that table over there … Then, when someone comes to let us out in the morning, the machine will get to work on the outside.'

  'How quickly?'

  'Well,' said Wilbur, thinking hard, 'the device will make replicas of itself to carry out the work even faster, so the more organic matenal is swallowed up, the faster the process becomes. The entire planet? I'd give it about a week.'

  'And nothing can stop it?'

  'Nothing I know of,' he replied sadly. 'The best way to stop this is to not allow it to start – sort of minimum entry requirement for man-made disasters, really.'

  'Aornis!' I shouted at the top of my voice. 'Where the hell are you?'

  There was no reply.

  'Aornis!'

  And then she answered. But it was from such an unexpected quarter that I cried out in fright. She spoke to me – from my memory. It was as though a barrier had been lifted in my mind. The day on the Skyrail platform. The moment I first set eyes on Aornis. I thought it had only been a glimpse, but it wasn't. We had spoken together for several minutes as I waited for the shuttle. I cast my mind back and scanned the newly recovered memories as my palms grew sweaty. The answers had been there all along.

  'Hello, Thursday,' said the young woman on the bench, dabbing her nose with a powder compact.

  I walked over to her.

  'You know my name?'

  'I know a lot more than that. My name is Aornis Hades – you killed my brother.'

  I tried not to let my surprise show.

  'Self-defence, Miss Hades. If I could have taken him alive, I would have.'

  'No member of the Hades family has been taken alive for over eighty-three generations.'

  I thought about the twin puncture, the Skyrail ticket, all the chance happenings to get me on the platform.

  'Are you manipulating coincidences, Hades?'

  'Of course!' she replied as the shuttle hissed into the station. 'You're going to get on that shuttle and be shot accidentally by an SO-14 marksman. An ironic end, don't you think? Shot by one of your own?'

  'What if I don't get on the Skyrail? What if I take you in right here and now?'

  Aornis giggled.

  'Dear Acheron was a fine and worthy Hades despite the fact he killed his brother – something Mother was very cut up about – but he was never truly aufait with some of the family's more diabolical attributes. You'll get on that train, Thursday – because you won't remember anything about this conversation.'

  'Don't be ridiculous!' I laughed, but Aornis returned to her powder compact and I had got on the train.

  'What is it? asked Wilbur, who had been staring at me as the memories of Aornis came flooding back.

  'Recovered memories,' I replied grimly as the lights flickered. The first back-up generator had failed. I checked my watch. There were six minutes to go.

  'Thursday?' murmured Wilbur, lower lip trembling. 'I'm frightened.'

  'Me too, Will. Quiet a sec.'

  And I thought back to my next meeting with Aornis. At Uffington, when she had posed as Violet De'ath. On this occasion we had been in company so she hadn't said anything, but the next time, when I was in Osaka, she had sat next to me on the bench, just after the fortune-teller was struck by lightning.

  'Clever trick,' she said, arranging her shopping bags so they wouldn't fall over, 'using the coincidence that way. Next time you won't be so lucky – and while we're on the subject, how did you get out of the jam on the Skyrail?'

  I really didn't want to answer her questions.

  'What are you doing to me?' I demanded instead. 'What are you doing to my head?'

  'A simple recollection erasure, Thursday. My particular edge is that I am instantly forgettable – you will never capture me because you will forget that we ever met. I can erase your memory of me so instantaneously I am rendered invisible. I can walk where I please, steal what I wish – I can even murder in broad daylight.'

  'Very clever, Hades.'

  'Please, call me Aornis – I'd like us to be pals.'

  She pushed her hair behind her ear and looked at her nails for a moment before asking:

  'I saw a beautiful cashmere sweater just now; it's available in turquoise or emerald – which do you think would suit me better?'

  'I have no idea.'

  'I'll get them both,' she replied after a moment of reflection. 'It's on a stolen credit card, after all.'

  'Enjoy your game, Aornis. It won't last for ever. I defeated your brother – I'll do the same to you.'

  She laughed. 'And how do you propose to do that? When you can't recollect anything about our meetings at all? My dear, you won't even remember this one – until I want you to!'

  And she gathered up her bags and walked off.

  The lights in the nanotechnology lab flickered again Wilbur and I looked at one another as the second back-up generator failed. He tried the phones again in desperation, but everything was still dead. Death by coincidence. What a way to go. But it was now, with only two minutes to go, that Aornis lifted the final barrier and I clearly remembered the last occasion she and I had faced one another. It had occurred not twenty minutes before at the ConStuff reception. It hadn't been empty at all; Aornis had been there, waiting for me – ready to deliver the coup de grâce.

  'Well!' she exclaimed as I walked in. 'Figured this one out, did you?'

  'Damn you, Hades!' I retorted, reaching for my pistol. She caught my wrist and pulled me into a painful half nelson with surprising speed.

  'Listen to me,' she whispered in my ear while holding my arm locked tightly behind me. 'There's going to be an accident in the nanotechnology lab. Your uncle hoped to feed the world, when in fact he will be the father of its destruction. The irony is so heavy you could cut it with a knife!'

  'Wait'' I said, but she pulled my arm up harder and I yelped.

  'I'm talking, Next. Never interrupt a Hades when they'
re talking. You will die for what you have done to our family, but just to show I'm not a total fiend, I will allow you one last heroic gesture, something your pathetic self-righteous character seems to crave. At precisely six minutes before the accident, you will begin to remember all our little chats together.'

  I struggled but she held me tight.

  'You'll remember this meeting last. So here's my offer. Take your pistol and turn it upon yourself— and I'll spare the planet.'

  'And if I don't?' I shouted. 'You'll die too!'

  She laughed again 'No. I know you'll do it. Despite the baby. Despite everything. You're a good person, Next. A fine human being. It will be your downfall. I'm counting on it.'

  She leaned forward and whispered in my ear.

  'They're wrong, you know, Thursday. Revenge is so sweet!'

  'Thursday?' asked Wilbur. 'Are you all right?'

  'No, not really,' I muttered as I saw the clock tick into the final minute. Acheron was nothing compared to Aornis, in either his powers or his sense of humour. I'd messed with the Hades family and now I was paying the price.

  I pulled out Cordelia's gun as the clock ticked into the last half-minute.

  'If Landen ever comes back, tell him I love him.'

  Twenty seconds.

  'If who ever comes back?'

  'Landen. You'll know him when you see him. Tall, one leg, writes daft books and had a wife named Thursday who loved him beyond comprehension.'

  Ten seconds.

  'So long, Wilbur.'

  I closed my eyes and placed the gun to my temple.

  33

  The dawn of life as we know it

  * * *

  'Three billion years ago the atmosphere on earth had stabilised to what scientists referred to as A-II. The relentless hammering of the atmosphere had created the ozone layer, which in turn now stopped new oxygen from being produced. A new and totally different mechanism was needed to kick-start the young planet into the living green ball that we know and enjoy today.'

  DR LUCIANO SPAGBOG – How I Think Life Began on Earth

  'No need for that,' said my father, gently taking the gun from my hand and laying it on the table. I don't know whether he purposely arrived late to increase the drama, but there he was. He hadn't frozen time – I think he was done with that. Whenever he had appeared in the past he had always been smiles and cheeriness, but today he was different. And he looked, for the first time ever, old. Perhaps eighty – maybe more.