A Thursday Next Digital Collection: Novels 1-5 (175 page)

T
hanks for tipping us the wink about the dodo fanciers,” I said as we drove through the darkened streets of Swindon two hours later. A tow truck had removed the wreckage of the fanciers' car, and the police had been around to collect statements. Despite its being a busy neighborhood, no one had seen anything. They had, of course, but the Parke-Laine-Nexts were quite popular in the area.

“Are you sure we weren't followed?” asked Millon as we pulled up outside an empty industrial unit not a stone's throw from the city's airship field.

“Positive,” I replied. “Have you got buyers for it?”

“The usual cheeseheads are all champing at the bit, recipes at the ready. The evening air will be rich with the scent of Welsh rarebit to night.”

A large seventy-seat airship rose slowly into the sky behind the factory units. We watched while its silver flanks caught the colors of the late-evening sun as it turned and, with its four propellers beating the still air with a rhythmic hum, set course for Southampton.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Ready,” said Millon.

I beeped the horn twice, and the steel shutters were slowly raised on the nearest industrial unit.

“Tell me,” said Millon, “why do you think the Old Town Stiltonistas gave you the flaming Camembert?”

“A warning, perhaps. But we've never bothered them, and they've never bothered us.”

“Our two territories don't even overlap,” he observed. “Do you think the Cheese Enforcement Agency is getting bolder?”

“Perhaps.”

“You don't seem very worried.”

“The CEA is underfunded and knows nothing. Besides, we have customers to attend to—and Acme needs the cash. Think you can liberate five grand by tomorrow morning?”

“Depends what they've got,” he said after a moment's reflection. “If they're trying to peddle common-or-garden Cheddaresque or that processed crap, then we could be in trouble. But if they've got something exotic, then no problem at all.”

The roller shutter was high enough to let us in by now, and we drove inside, the shutter reversing direction to close behind us.

We climbed out of the van. The industrial unit was empty except for a large Welsh-registered Griffin-V8 truck, a long table with leather sample cases lying on it and four men wearing black suits with black ties and sunglasses and looking vaguely menacing. It was all bravado, of course—Scorsese movies were big in the Welsh Republic. I tried to see by the swing of their jackets if any of them were packing heat and guessed that they weren't. I'd only carried a gun once in the real world since SpecOps was disbanded and hoped I never had to again. Cheese smuggling was still a polite undertaking. As soon as it turned ugly, I was out.

“Owen Pryce the Cheese,” I said in a genial manner, greeting the leader of the group with a smile and a firm handshake, “good to see you again. I trust the trip across the border was uneventful?”

“It's getting a lot harder these days,” he replied in a singsong Welsh accent that betrayed his roots in the south of the republic, probably Abertawe. “There are dutymen everywhere, and the bribes I have to pay are reflected in the price of the goods.”

“As long as it's fair price, Pryce,” I replied pleasantly. “My clients love cheese, but there's a limit to what they'll pay.”

We were both lying, but it was the game we played. My clients would pay good money for high-quality cheese, and as likely as not he didn't bribe anyone. The border with Wales was 170 miles long and had more holes than a hastily matured Emmentaler. There weren't enough dutymen to cover it all, and to be honest, although it was illegal, no one took cheese smuggling that seriously.

Pryce nodded to one of his compatriots, and they opened the sample cases with a flourish. It was all there—every single make of cheese you could imagine, from pure white to dark amber. Crumbly, hard, soft, liquid, gas. The rich aroma of well-matured cheese escaped into the room, and I felt my taste buds tingle. This was top-quality shit—the best available.

“Smells good, Pryce.”

He said nothing and showed me a large slab of white cheese. “Caerphilly,” he said, “the best. We can—”

I put up a hand to stop him. “The punks can deal with the mild stuff, Pryce. We're interested in Level 3.8 and above.”

He shrugged, set the Caerphilly down and picked up a small chunk of creamy-colored cheese.

“Quintuple Llanboidy,” he announced, “a 5.2. It'll play on your taste buds like the plucked strings of a harp.”

“We'll have the usual of that, Pryce,” I muttered, “but my clients are into something a little stronger. What else you got?”

We always went through this charade. My specialty was the volatile cheese market, and when I say volatile, I don't mean the market—I mean the cheese.

Pryce nodded and showed me a golden yellow cheese that had veins of red running through it.

“Qua druple-strength Dolgellau Veinclotter,” he announced. “It's a 9.5. Matured in Blaenafon for eighteen years and not for the fainthearted. Good on crackers but can function equally well as an amorous-skunk repellent.”

I took a daringly large amount and popped it on my tongue. The taste was extraordinary; I could almost
see
the Cambrian Mountains just visible in the rain, low clouds, gushing water and limestone crags, frost-shattered scree and—

“Are you all right?” said Millon when I opened my eyes. “You passed out for a moment there.”

“Kicks like a mule, doesn't it?” said Pryce kindly. “Have a glass of water.”

“Thank you. We'll take all you have—what else you got?”

“Mynachlog-ddu Old Contemptible,” said Pryce, showing me a whitish crumbly cheese. “It's kept in a glass jar because it will eat through cardboard or steel. Don't leave it in the air too long, as it will start dogs howling.”

“We'll have thirty kilos. What about this one?” I asked, pointing at an innocuous-looking ivory-colored soft cheese.

“Ystradgynlais Molecular Unstable Brie,” announced Pryce, “a soft cheese we've cloned from our cheese-making brethren in France—but every bit as good. Useful as a contact anesthetic or a paint stripper, it can cure insomnia and ground to dust is a very useful self-defense against muggers and wandering bears. It has a half-life of twenty-three days, glows in the dark and can be used as a source of X-rays.”

“We'll take the lot. Got anything
really
strong?”

Pryce raised an eyebrow, and his minders looked at one another uneasily. “Are you sure?”

“It's not for me,” I said hastily, “but we've got a few serious cheeseheads who can take the hard stuff.”

“We've got some Machynlleth Wedi Marw.”

“What the hell's that?”

“It's what you asked for—
really
strong cheese. It'll bring you up in a rash just by looking at it. Denser than enriched plutonium, two grams can season enough macaroni and cheese for eight hundred men. The smell alone will corrode iron. A concentration in air of only seventeen parts per million will bring on nausea and unconsciousness within twenty seconds. Our chief taster ate a half ounce by accident and was dead to the world for six hours. Open only out of doors, and even then only with a doctor's certificate and well away from populated areas. It's not really a cheese for eating—it's more for encasing in concrete and dumping in the ocean a long way from civilization.”

I looked at Millon, who nodded. There was
always
someone stupid enough to experiment. After all, no one had ever died from cheese ingestion. Yet.

“Let us have a half pound, and we'll see what we can do with it.”

“Very well,” said Pryce. He nodded to a colleague, who opened another suitcase and gingerly took out a sealed lead box. He laid it gently on the table and then took a hurried step backward.

“You won't attempt to open it until we're at least thirty miles away, will you?” Pryce asked.

“We'll do our best.”

“Actually, I'd advise you not to open it at all.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

The trading went on in this manner for another half hour, and with our order book full and the cost totted up, we transported the cheese from their truck to the Acme van, whose springs groaned under the weight.

“What's that?” I asked, pointing at a wooden crate in the back of their truck. It was securely fixed to the floor with heavy chains.

“That's nothing,” Pryce said quickly, his henchmen moving together to try to block my view.

“Something you're not showing us?”

Pryce took me by the arm as they slammed the rear doors and threw the latch.

“You've always been a good customer, Ms. Next, but we know what you will and won't do, and this cheese is not for you.”

“Strong?”

He wouldn't answer me.

“It's been nice doing business with you, Ms. Next. Same time next month?”

“Yes,” I said slowly, wondering just how strong a cheese has to be before you've got to keep it chained down. More interestingly, the box was stenciled with the code X-14.

I handed over the Welsh cash, it was swiftly counted, and before I knew it, Owen Pryce and his marginally threatening flunkies had revved up the truck and vanished into the night, off to sell cheese to the Stiltonistas in the Old Town. I always got first dibs—that was probably what the flaming Camembert was all about.

“Did you see that cheese chained up in the back?” I asked Millon as we got back into the van.

“No—what cheese?”

“Nothing.”

I started the van, and we drove out of the industrial estate. This was the point at which the CEA would have pounced if they'd have known what was going on, but they didn't. All was quiet in the town, and within a few minutes Millon had dropped me off at home, taking the Acme van himself to start peddling the cheese.

I had only just opened the garden gate when I noticed a figure standing in the shadows. I instinctively moved to grab my pistol, before remembering that I didn't carry one in the Outland anymore. I needn't have worried: It was Spike.

“You made me jump!”

“Sorry,” he replied soberly. “I came to ask you if you wanted any help disposing of the body.”

“I'm sorry?”

“The body. The ground can be hard this time of year.”

“
Whose
body?”

“Felix8. You did him in, right?”

“No.”

“Then how did he escape? You, me and Stig have the only keys.”

“Wait a moment,” I said nervously. “Felix8 has
gone
?”

“Completely. Are you
sure
you didn't kill him?”

“I think I would have remembered.”

“Well,” said Spike, handing me a spade, “you better give this back to Landen, then.” I must have looked horrified, because he added, “I told him it was to plant some garlic. Listen, you get inside and keep the doors and windows locked—I'll be in my car across the street if you need me.”

I went into the house and locked the door securely behind me. Felix8 was a worry, but not tonight—I had a complimentary block of Llangloffan, and nothing was going to come between me and Landen's unbeatable macaroni and cheese.

T
he news on the radio that morning was devoted—once again—to the ongoing crisis of the week—namely, where the nation's stupidity surplus could be discharged safely. Some suggested a small war in a distant country against a race of people we weren't generally disposed toward, but others thought this too risky and favored crippling the efficiency of the public services by adding a new layer of bureaucracy at huge expense and little benefit. Not all suggestions were sensible: Fringe elements of the debate maintained that the nation should revitalize the stupendously costly Anti-Smite Shield project. Designed to protect mankind—or at least England—against the potential threat by an enraged deity eager to cleanse a sinful race with a rain of fire, the shield project would have the twin benefits of profligate waste of good cash plus the possibility that other European nations could be persuaded to join and thus deal with Europe's combined stupidity excess in one fell swoop.

Prime Minister Redmond van de Poste took the unusual step of speaking on live radio to not only reject all the suggestions but also to make the inflammatory statement that despite the escalating surplus they would continue the Commonsense approach to government. When asked how the stupidity surplus might be reduced, Van de Poste replied that he was certain something would come along that “would be fantastically dim-witted but economical,” and added that as a conciliatory dumb mea sure to appease his critics they would be setting fire to a large quantity of rubber tires for no very good purpose. This last remark was met with a cry of “too little, too late” from Mr. Alfredo Traficcone of the opposition Prevailing Wind Party, which was gradually gaining ground promoting policies of “immediate gain,” something that Mr. Traficcone said was “utterly preferable to the hideously longsighted policies of cautious perceptiveness.”

“What a load of old poo,” said Landen, giving Tuesday a boiled egg for breakfast and putting one in front of Jenny's place, then yelling up the stairs to her that breakfast was on the table.

“What time did Friday get in last night?” I asked, since I had gone to bed first.

“Past midnight. He said he was making noise with his mates.”

“The Gobshites?”

“I think so, but they might as well be called the Feedbacks and working on the single ‘Static' from the
White Noise
album.”

“It's only because we're old and fuddy-duddy,” I said, resting an affectionate hand on his. “I'm sure the music we listened to was as much crap to our parents as his music is to us.”

But Landen was elsewhere. He was composing an outline for a self-help book for dogs, called
Yes, You CAN Open the Door Yourself,
and was thus functionally deaf to everything.

“Land, I'm sleeping with the milkman.”

He didn't look up, but said, “That's nice, darling.”

Tuesday and I laughed, and I turned to look at her with an expression of faux shock and said, “What are you laughing about? You shouldn't know anything about milkmen!”

“Mum,” she said with a mixture of precocity and matter-of-factness, “I have an IQ of two hundred and eighty and know more about everything than you do.”

“I doubt it.”

“Then what does the ischiocavernosus muscle do?”

“Okay, you
do
know more than I do. Where is Jenny? She's
always
late for breakfast!”

 

I took the tram toward the old SpecOps Building to do some investigations. The escape of Felix8 was fresh in my mind, and several times I saw someone who I thought was him, but on each occasion it was a harmless passerby. I still had no idea how he had escaped, but one thing I
did
know was that the Hades family had some pretty demonic attributes, and they looked after their friends. Felix8, loathsome cur that he was, would have been considered a friend. If he was still in their pay, then I would have to speak to a member of the Hades family. It had to be Aornis: the only one in custody.

I got off the tram at the Town Hall and walked down the hill to the SpecOps Building. It was eerily deserted as I stepped in, a strong contrast to the hive of activity that I had known. I was issued a visitor's badge and headed off down the empty corridors toward the ChronoGuard's office. Not the briefing hall we had visited the previous evening but a small room on the second floor. I'd been here on a number of occasions, so knew what to expect—as I watched, the decor and furniture changed constantly, the ChronoGuard operatives themselves jumping in and out, their speed making them into little more than smears of light. There was one piece of furniture that remained unchanged while all about raced, moved and blurred in a never-ending jumble. It was a small table with an old candlestick telephone upon it, and as I put out my hand, it rang. I picked up the phone and held the ear-piece to my ear.

“Mrs. Parke-Laine-Next?” came a voice.

“Yes?”

“He'll be right down.”

And in an instant he was. The room stopped moving from one time to the next and froze with a decor that looked vaguely contemporary. There was a figure at the desk who smiled when he saw me. But it wasn't Bendix or my father—it was
Friday
. Not the mid-twenties Friday I'd met at my wedding bash or the old Friday I'd met during the Samuel Pepys Fiasco but a young Friday—almost indistinguishable from the one who was still fast asleep at home, snoring loudly in the pit of despair we called his bedroom.

“Hi, Mum!”

“Hi, Sweetpea,” I said, deeply confused and also kind of relieved. This was the Friday I thought I was meant to have—clean-cut, well presented, confident and with an infectious smile that reminded me of Landen. And he probably bathed more than once a fortnight, too.

“How old are you?” I asked, placing a hand on his chin to make sure he was real, and not a phantasm or something, like Mycroft. He
was
real. Warm and still needing to shave only once a week.

“I'm sixteen, Mum, the same age as the lazy slob asleep at home. In a context that you'd understand, I'm a
Potential
Friday. I started with the Junior Time Scouts at thirteen and popped my first tube at fifteen—the youngest ever to do so. The Friday you know is the Friday
Present
. The older me that will hopefully be the director-general is the Friday
Last,
and because he's indisposed due to a mild temporal ambiguity caused by the younger alternative me not joining the Time Scouts, Bendix reconstituted me from the echoes of the might-have-been. They asked me to see what I can do.”

“Nope,” I replied in some confusion, “didn't understand a word.”

“It's a split-timeline thing, Mum,” explained Friday, “in which two versions of the same person can exist at the same time.”

“So can't
you
become the director-general at the other end of time?”

“Not that easy. The alternative timelines have to be in concurrence to go forward to a mutually compatible future.”

I understood—sort of.

“I guess this means you haven't invented time travel yet?”

“Nope. Any idea why the other me is such a slouch?”

“I asked you to join the Time Scouts three years ago, but you couldn't be bothered,” I murmured by way of explanation. “You were too busy playing on computer games and watching TV.”

“I don't blame you or Dad. Something's seriously out of joint, but I don't know what. Friday Present seems to have the intelligence but not the pizzazz to want to do anything.”

“Except play the guitar in the Gobshites.”

“If you can call it playing,” said Friday with an unkind laugh.

“Don't be so—” I checked myself. If this wasn't self-criticism, I didn't know what was.

All of a sudden, there was
another
Friday standing next to Potential Friday. He was identical, except he was carrying a manila folder. They looked at each other curiously. The newest Friday said “Sorry” in an embarrassed fashion and walked a little way down the corridor, where he pretended to be interested in the carved wood around the doorframe.

“This morning I only had one son,” I muttered despondently. “Now I've got three!”

Friday glanced at the second Friday over his shoulder, who was caught staring at us and quickly looked the other way. “You've only got one, Mum. Don't worry about him.”

“So what's gone wrong?” I asked. “Why is Friday Present so unlike Potential Friday?”

“It's difficult to tell. This 2002 isn't like the one in the Standard History Eventline. Everyone seems introspective and lacking in any sort of charisma. It's as though a heavy sky is forcing lassitude on the population—in a word, a
grayness
seems to have spread across the land.”

“I know what you mean,” I said, shaking my head sadly. “We've seen a sixty percent drop in book readership; it seems no one can be bothered to invest their time in a good novel.”

“That would figure,” replied Friday thoughtfully. “It's not supposed to be like this, I assure you—the best minds have it as the beginning of the Great Unraveling. If what we suspect is true and time travel isn't invented in the next three and a half days, we might be heading toward a spontaneously accelerated inverse obliteration of all history.”

“Can you put that into a carpet metaphor I might understand?”

“If we can't secure our existence right at the beginning, time will start to roll up like a carpet, taking history with it.”

“How fast?”

“It will begin slowly at 22:03 on Friday with the obliteration of the earliest fossil record. Ten minutes after that, all evidence of ancient hominids will vanish, swiftly followed by the sudden absence of everything from the middle Holocene. Five minutes later all megalithic structures will vanish as if they'd never been. The pyramids will go in another two minutes, with ancient Greece vanishing soon after. In the course of another minute, the Dark Ages will disappear, and in the next twenty seconds the Norman Conquest will never have happened. In the final twenty-seven seconds, we will see modern history disappear with increased rapidity, until at 22:48 and nine seconds the end of history will catch up with us and there will be nothing left at all, nor any evidence that there was—to all intents and purposes, we won't ever have existed.”

“So what's the cause?”

“I've no idea, but I'm going to have a good look around. Did you want something?”

“Oh—yes. I need to speak to Aornis. One of her family's old henchmen is on the prowl—or was.”

“Wait a moment.”

And in an instant he was gone.

“Ah!” said the other Friday, returning from just up the corridor.

“Sorry about that. Enloopment records are kept in the twelfth millennium, and being accurate to the second on a ten-thousand-year jump is still a bit beyond me.”

He opened the manila file and flicked through the contents.

“She's done seven years of a thirty-year looping for unlawful memory distortion,” he murmured. “We had to hold her trial in the thirty-seventh century, where it actually
is
a crime. The dubious legality of being tried outside one's own time zone would have been cause for an appeal, but she never lodged one.”

“Perhaps she forgot.”

“It's possible. Shall we go?”

We stepped outside the SpecOps Building, turned left and walked the short distance to the Brunel Shopping Centre.

“Have you seen anything of my father?” I asked. I hadn't seen him for over a year, not since the last potential life-extinguishing Armageddon anyway.

“I see him flash past from time to time,” replied Friday, “but he's a bit of an enigma. Sometimes we're told to hunt him down, and the next moment we're working under him. Sometimes he's even
leading
the hunt for himself. Listen, I'm ChronoGuard and even I can't figure it out. Ah! We're here.”

I looked up and frowned. We didn't seem to be “here” anywhere in particular—we were outside T.J. Maxx, the discount clothes store.