A Thursday Next Digital Collection: Novels 1-5 (194 page)

I didn't waste a moment. I opened the TravelBook, read the required text and was soon back in the Great Library.

I
impatiently drummed my fingers on the wall of the elevator as I rose to the twenty-sixth floor of the Great Library and the Council of Genres. I checked in my bag and found I still had two eraserheads but wasn't sure if a show of force was the correct way to go about this. If what Bradshaw had said was true and Evil Thursday was commanding a legion of Danvers, I might not even have a chance to plead my own case, let alone
Pride and Prejudice
's.

I decided that the best course of action was simply to wing it and was just wondering how I should approach even this strategy when the elevator doors opened and I was confronted by
myself,
staring back at me from the corridor. The same jacket, the same hair, trousers, boots—everything except a black glove on her left hand, which covered the eraserhead wound, I imagined. Bradshaw was right—Thursday1–4 had divested herself of her own identity and taken mine—along with my standing, integrity and reputation—an awesome weapon for her to wield. Not only as the CofG's LBOCS and as a trusted member of Jurisfiction, but
everything.
Jobsworth, in all his dreary ignorance, probably thought that this
was
me, having undergone a bizarre and—to him—entirely fortuitous change of mind about policy directives.

We stared at each other for a moment, she with a sort of numbed look of disbelief, and I—I hoped—with the expression that a wife rightly reserves for someone who has slept with her husband.

“Meddling fool!” she said at last, waving a copy of
Pride and Prejudice
that she'd been reading. “I can only think this is your doing. You may have won the first round, but it's merely a postponement—we'll have the reality book show back on track after the first three chapters have run their course!”

“I'm going to erase you,” I said in a quiet voice, “and, what's more,
enjoy it.
”

She stared at me with a vague look of triumph. “Then I was wrong,” she replied. “We
are
alike.”

I didn't have time to answer. She took to her heels and ran off down the corridor toward the debating chamber. I followed; if we were externally identical, then the first to plead her case to the CofG had a clear advantage.

Thinking about it later, the pair of us running hell for leather down the corridors must have been quite a sight, but probably not
that
unusual, given the somewhat curious nature of fiction. Annoyingly, we were evenly matched in speed and stamina, and her ten-foot head start was still there when we arrived at the main debating chamber's door two minutes and many startled CofG employees later. She had to slow down at the door, and as she did so, I made a flying tackle and grabbed her around the waist. Toppled by the momentum, the pair of us went sprawling headlong on the carpet, much to the astonishment of three heavily armed Danverclones who were just inside the door.

The strange thing about fighting with yourself is that not only are you of equal weight, strength and skill, but you both know all the same moves. After we had grappled and rolled around on the carpet for about five minutes and achieved nothing but a lot of grunting and strained muscles, my mind started to shift and think about other ways in which to win—something my opponent did at
exactly
the same moment—and we both switched tactics and went for each other's throats. The most this achieved was that Landen's birthday locket was torn off, something that drove me to a rage I never knew I had.

 

I knocked her hand away, rolled on top of her and punched her hard in the face. She went limp, and I climbed off, breathing hard, picked up my bag and locket and turned to Jobsworth and the rest of the security council, who had come into the corridor to watch.

“Arrest her,” I panted, wiping a small amount of blood from my lip, “and bind her well.”

Jobsworth looked at me and the other Thursday, then beckoned to the Danverclones to do as I asked.

She was still groggy but seemed to regain enough consciousness to yell, “Wait, wait! She's not the real Thursday—I am!”

Jobsworth, Barksdale and Baxter all swiveled their heads to me, and even the Danverclones took notice. In the CofG, my veto counted for everything, and if there was any doubt at all over which was the correct Thursday, I had to quash it here and now.

“Want me to prove it?” I said. “Here it is: The interactive book project stops
now.
”

Jobsworth's face fell. “Stop it? But you were all for it not less than an hour ago!”

“That wasn't me,” I said, pointing an accusing finger at the disheveled and now-defeated Thursday, who was at that moment being cuffed by the Danverclones. “It was the
other
Thursday, the one from the crappy-as-hell TN series, who has been trying, for reasons of her own personal vindictiveness, to screw up everything I've worked so hard to achieve.”

“She's lying!” said the other Thursday, who now had her arms secured behind her back and still seemed unsteady from when I'd hit her. “
She's
the ersatz Thursday—
I'm
the real one!”

“You want more proof?” I said. “Okay. I'm also reinforcing my veto on the insane decision to invade the Racy Novel genre. Diplomacy is the key. And I want all Jurisfiction agents released from their books and returned to work.”

“But that was
your
idea!” muttered Jobsworth, who, poor fellow, was still confused. “You said there was a bad apple at Jurisfiction and you needed to flush it out!”

“Not me,” I said. “Her. To keep me from returning. And if you need any more proof, here's the clincher: We're
not
going to have her reduced to text. She's going to spend the next two years contemplating her navel within the pages of
The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco.
She's smart and resourceful, so we'll keep her in isolation in case she wants to try to be me again, and if she even
attempts
to escape, she'll be reduced to text.”

Jobsworth needed no further convincing.

“It shall be so,” he said in a faintly pompous way, and the other Thursday was dragged off, still uselessly proclaiming her unbogusness.

I took a deep breath and sat down at my desk. I could feel a bruise coming up on the side of my neck and my knee hurt. I stretched my hand and rubbed it where I'd struck her.

“Well,” said Baxter, “I can't say I'm glad you've decided against either invading Racy Novel or canceling the reality book shows, but I am a lot happier that you are the one making the wrong decisions, and not some poorly written wannabe. What the hell was she up to?”

“As you say. Just a jumped-up generic who wanted to be real. Better put a Textual Sieve Lockdown on
The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco
both in and out—I don't want to even
entertain
the possibility of someone rescuing her.”

Jobsworth nodded to one of his aides to do as I'd asked and also—very reluctantly—to put a halt to the interactivity project and the Racy Novel invasion plans.

“But look here,” said Colonel Barksdale, who seemed to be somewhat miffed that he wasn't going to spearhead an invasion of Racy Novel, “we can't just ignore Speedy Muffler and those heathens.”

“And we shan't,” I replied. “After we have followed all possible diplomatic channels,
then
we'll have a look at other means of keeping them in check—and I rule out nothing.”

Barksdale stared at me, unconvinced.

“Trust me,” I said. “I'm Thursday Next. I know what I'm doing.”

He seemed to find some solace in this—my name counted for a lot.

“Right,” I said, “I'm bushed. I'm going to go home. We'll discuss things tomorrow, right?”

“Very well,” replied Jobsworth stonily. “We can talk at length then about the falling ReadRates and what you intend to do about them.”

I didn't reply and left his office. But instead of going back to Swindon, I took a walk in the corridors of power at the CofG. Everything was busy as usual, the debating chamber in full swing, and there was little—if any—evidence that we were no longer at war or rewriting the classics. I stopped by the large picture window that faced out onto the other towers. I'd never really looked out of here for any length of time before, but now, with time and the BookWorld as my servant, I stared out, musing upon the new responsibilities that I had and how I would exercise them first.

I was still undecided twenty minutes later when Bradshaw tapped me lightly on the shoulder. “Old girl?”

He startled me, and I looked around, took one glance at who was with him and drew my automatic.

“Whoa, whoa!” said Bradshaw hurriedly. “This is
Thursday5.
”

“How do you know?” I barked, pointing my gun directly at her, my sensibilities keenly alert to any sort of look-alike subterfuge. “How do we know it isn't the evil bad Thursday back here in disguise or something?”

Bradshaw looked mildly shocked at my suggestion. “Because she's not left my side since we last saw you, old girl.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely! Here, I'll prove it.” He turned to Thursday5. “What were the names of the von Trapp children in
The Sound of Music
?”

Thursday5 didn't pause for an instant and recited in one breath: “Kurt, Friedrich, Louisa, Brigitta, Marta, Gretl and Liesl.”

“You see?”

“You're right,” I said. “Only a total drip like Thursday5 would know
that
—or at least,” I added hurriedly, “that's what Evil Thursday would think.”

I clicked on the safety and lowered the gun.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “It's been a tough day, and my nerves are in shreds. I need to get home and have a long, hot bath and then a martini.”

Thursday5 thought for a moment. “After you've drunk the long, hot bath,” she observed, “you'll never have room for the martini.”

“Say what?”

“Never mind.”

“We just came to congratulate you,” said Bradshaw, “on rereversing the vetoes.
Pride and Prejudice
is running precisely as it should, and without the Interactive Book Council idiots to set any new tasks, we're in the clear. The Bennets wanted me to send you their very best and to tell you to drop around for tea sometime.”

“How very proper of them,” I said absently, feeling a bit hot and bothered and wanting them to go away. “If there's nothing else…?”

“Not really,” replied Bradshaw, “but we wondered: Why did you lock her up in
The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco
?”

I shrugged. “Punishment to fit the crime, I guess. Are you questioning my judgment?”

“Of course not, old girl,” replied Bradshaw genially, exchanging a glance with Thursday5.

“
that
explains why I can't get back in,” murmured Thursday5 in dismay. “Is this permanent? I know my book's unreadable—but it's home.”

“Listen,” I said, rubbing my scalp, “that's your problem. Since when were you part of the decision-making process?”

Bradshaw's mobilefootnoterphone rang.

“Excuse me,” he said, and wandered off to answer it.

“It's been a long day,” murmured Thursday5, staring out the window at the view. “You must be tired. Do you want me to fetch you a chai?”

“No, I don't drink any of that rubbish. What were you saying about the hot bath and the martini again?”

She didn't have time to answer.

“That was Text Grand Central,” said Bradshaw as he returned. “We've been getting some Major Narrative Flexations inside
The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco.
It seems the entire first chapter has broken away from the rest of the book.”

“What?”

“As I said. It's a good thing no one reads it these days. We've tracked Thursday to page two hundred and eight.”

I took a deep breath and looked at Bradshaw and Thursday5 in turn. “This is unfinished business,” I said quietly. “I'm going to put an end to her once and for all.”

They didn't try to argue with me. I should have killed her there and then in the corridor. What
was
I thinking of?

“The book's been two-way-sieved,” said Bradshaw. “Call me when you're about to jump, and I'll get Text Grand Central to open you a portal. As soon as you're in, we'll close it down and you'll both be trapped. Do you have your mobilefootnoterphone?”

I nodded.

“Then call me when you're done. Use Mrs. Bradshaw's middle name so I know it's you and
really
you. Good luck.”

I thanked them, and they walked off down the corridor before evaporating from view. I tried to calm my nerves and told myself that facing Thursday couldn't be
that
bad, but the consequences if I failed were high indeed. I took another deep breath, wiped my sweaty palms on my trousers, made the call to Bradshaw and jumped all the way to page 208 of
The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco.

I
came to earth in Swindon. Or at least, the
Fiasco
touchy-feely version of Swindon, which was sunny and blue-skied and every garden an annoying splash of bright primary colors that gave me a headache. The houses were perfect, the cars clean, and everything was insanely neat and orderly. I pulled out my automatic, removed the clip to check it, replaced it and released the safety. There would be no escape for her this time. I knew she was unarmed, but somehow that didn't fill me with such confidence; after all, she was almost infinitely resourceful. The thing was,
so was I
. After I'd killed her, I would just jump out and everything would be right—forever. I could reinstate the interactive book project before the readers had finished the first three chapters—then go to the Outland and savor the joys of Landen once more. Following that and after paying a small amount of lip ser vice to diplomacy, I could also deploy two legions of Mrs. Danvers into Racy Novel. Who knows? I might even lead the attack myself. That, I had discovered, was the best thing about being Thursday Next—you could do anything you damn well pleased and no one would, could or dared oppose you. I had only two problems to deal with right now: disposing of the
real
Thursday Next and trying to figure out Mrs. Bradshaw's middle name, the code word to get out. I hadn't a clue—I'd never even met her.

I pulled the glove off my hand and looked at where the mottled flesh still showed signs of the eraserhead. I rubbed the itchy skin, then moved to the side of the street and walked toward where this version of Thursday's house was located. It was the same as the one that was burned down in the first chapter of my book, so I knew the way. But the strange thing was, the street was completely deserted. Nothing moved. Not a person, not a cat, squirrel—
nothing
. I stopped at a car that was abandoned in the street and looked in the open passenger door. The key was still in the ignition. Whoever had once populated this book had left—and in a hurry.

I carried on walking slowly down the road. That pompous fool Bradshaw had mentioned something about a chapter breaking away from the main book—perhaps that was where all the background characters were. But it didn't matter. Thursday was here now, and she was the one I was after. I reached the garden gate of Landen5's house and padded cautiously up the path, past the perfectly planted flowers and windows so clean and sparkly they almost weren't there. Holding my gun outstretched, I stepped quietly inside the house.

Thursday5's idea of home furnishing was different from mine and the real Thursday's. For a start, the floor covering was seagrass, and the curtains were an odiously old-fashioned tie-dye. I also noticed to my disgust that there were Tibetan mandalas in frames upon the wall and dream catchers hanging from the ceiling. I stepped closer to the pictures on the mantelpiece and found one of Thursday5 and Landen5 at Glastonbury. They had their faces painted as flowers and were grinning stupidly and hugging each other, with Pickwick5 sitting between them. It was quite sickeningly twee, to be honest.

“I would have done the same.”

I turned. Thursday was leaning on the doorway that led through to the kitchen. It was an easy shot, but I didn't take it. I wanted to relish the moment.

“What would you have done the same?” I asked.

“I would have spared you, too. I'll admit it, your impersonation of me was about the most plausible I'll ever see. I'm not sure there's anyone out there who would have spotted it. But I didn't think you could keep it up. The
real
you would soon bubble to the surface. Because, like it or not, you're not enough of me to carry it off. To be me you need the seventeen years of Jurisfiction experience—the sort of experience that means I can take on people like you and come out victorious.”

I laughed at her presumption. “I think you overestimate your own abilities, Outlander. I'm the one holding the gun. Perhaps you're a little bit right, but I
can
and
will
be you, given time. Everything you have, everything you are. Your job, your family, your
husband
. I can go back to the Outland and take over from where you left off—and probably have a lot more fun doing it, too.”

I pointed my gun at her and began to squeeze the trigger, then stopped. She didn't seem particularly troubled, and that worried me.

“Can you hear that?” she asked.

“Hear what?”

She cupped a hand to her ear. “That.”

And now that she mentioned it, I
could
hear something. A soft thrumming noise that seemed to reverberate through the ground.

“What is it?” I asked, and was shocked to discover that my voice came out cracked and…afraid.

“Take a look for yourself,” she said, pointing outside.

I wiped the sweat from my brow and backed out the door, still keeping my gun firmly trained on her. I ran down to the garden gate and looked up the street. The houses at the end of the road seemed to have lost definition and were being eaten away by a billowing cloud of sand.

“What the hell's that?” I snapped.

“You'd know,” she replied quietly, “if only you'd gone to Jurisfiction classes instead of wasting your time on the shooting range.”

I looked at the mailbox on the corner of the street, and it seemed to crumble to fragments in front of my eyes and then was taken up into the cloud of dust and debris that was being sucked into a vortex high above us. I pulled out my footnoterphone and frantically dialed Bradshaw's number.

“But you don't know Melanie Bradshaw's middle name,” observed Thursday, “do you?”

I lowered the phone and stared at her uselessly. It was a setup. Thursday must have spoken to Bradshaw, and together they'd tricked me into coming here.

“It's
Jenny,
” she added. “I named my second daughter after her. But it won't help you. I told Bradshaw not to lift the Textual Sieve on any account, password or not. As soon as you were inside and the generics were safely evacuated, he was instructed to begin…the
erasure
of the entire book.”

“How did you contact him?” I asked.

“He contacted
me,
” she replied. “Thursday5 suggested to Bradshaw that you might have pulled the same trick as she did. I couldn't get out, but we could trick you
in
.”

She looked at her watch.

“And in another eight minutes, this book and everything in it—you included, will be gone.”

I looked around and saw to my horror that the erasure had crept up without my noticing and was less than ten feet away—we were standing on the only piece of remaining land, a rough circle a hundred feet across containing only Landen's house and its neighbors. But they wouldn't stay for long, and even as I watched, the roofs were turning to dust and being whirled away, consumed by the erasure. The dull roar was increasing, and I had to raise my voice to be heard.

“But this will erase you, too!” I shouted.

“Maybe not—it depends on you.”

She beckoned me back into the house as the garden gate turned to smoke and was carried away into the dust cloud. As soon as we were in the kitchen, she turned to me.

“You won't need that,” she said, pointing at my gun. I fumbled the reholstering clumsily, and it fell to the floor with a clatter. I didn't stoop to pick it up. I looked out the window into the back garden. The shed and the apple tree had both gone, and the erasure was slowly eating its way across the lawn. The ceiling was starting to look blotchy, and as I watched, the front door turned to dust and was blown away in the wind.

“Ballocks!”
I said, as realization suddenly dawned. Not that I was going to be erased, no. It was the cold and sobering revelation that I wasn't nearly as smart as I thought I was. I'd met a foe immeasurably superior to me, and I would suffer the consequences of my own arrogance. The question was, would I give her the pleasure of knowing it? But on reflection she didn't want or need that sort of plea sure, and everything suddenly seemed that much more peaceful.

I said instead, “I'm truly flattered.”

“Flattered?” she inquired. “About what?”

The ceiling departed in a cloud of swirling dust, and the walls started to erode downward with the pictures, mantel and furniture rapidly crumbling away to a fine debris that was sucked up into the whirlwind directly above us.

“I'm flattered,” I repeated, “because you'd erase a whole book and give your own life just to be rid of me. I must have been a worthy adversary, right?”

She sensed my change of heart and gave me a faint smile.

“You almost defeated me,” said Thursday, “and you still might. But if I
do
survive this,” she added, “it is my gift to you.”

The walls had almost gone, and the seagrass flooring was crumbling under my feet. Thursday opened a door in the kitchen, beyond which a concrete flight of steps led downward. She beckoned me to follow, and we trotted down into a spacious subterranean vault shaped like the inside of a barrel. Upon a large plinth, there were two prongs across which a weak spark occasionally fired. The noise of the wind had subdued, but I knew it was only a matter of time before the erasure reached us.

“This is the core-containment room,” explained Thursday. “You'd know about that if you'd listened in class.”

“How,” I asked, “is your survival a gift to me?”

“That's easily explained,” replied Thursday, removing some pieces of packing case from the wall to reveal a riveted iron hatch. “Behind there is the only method of escape—across the emptiness of the Nothing.”

The inference wasn't lost on me. The Nothing didn't support textual life—I'd be stripped away to letters in an instant if I tried to escape across it. But Thursday wasn't text: She was flesh and blood and
could
survive.

“I can't get out of here on my own,” she added, “so I need your help.”

I didn't understand to begin with. I frowned, and then it hit me. She wasn't offering me forgiveness, a second chance or rescue—I was far too bitter and twisted for that. No, she was offering me the one thing that I
would
never,
could
never have. She was offering me redemption. After all I'd done to her, all the things I'd
planned
to do, she was willing to risk her life to give me one small chance to atone. And what's more,
she knew I would take it.
She was right. We were more alike than I thought.

The roof fell away in patches as the erasure started to pull the containment room apart.

“What do I do?”

She indicated the twin latching mechanisms that were positioned eight feet apart. I held the handle and pulled it down on the count of three. The hatch sprung open, revealing an empty, black void.

“Thank you,” she said as the erasure crept inexorably across the room. The sum total of the book was now a disk less than eight feet across, and we were in the middle of what looked like a swirling cloud of dirt and detritus, while all about us the wind nibbled away at the remaining fabric of the book, reducing it to undescriptive textdust.

“What will it be like?” I asked as Thursday peered out into the inky blackness.

“I can't tell you,” she replied. “No one knows what happens after erasure.”

I offered her my hand to shake. “If you ever turn this into one of your adventures,” I asked, “will you make me at least vaguely sympathetic? I'd like to think there was a small amount of your humanity in me.”

She took my hand and shook it. It was warmer than I'd imagined.

“I'm sorry about sleeping with your husband,” I added as I felt the floor grow soft beneath my feet. “And I think this is yours.”

And I gave her the locket that had come off when we fought.

 

As soon as Thursday1–4 returned my locket, I knew that she had finally learned something about me and, by reflection,
her
. She was lost and she knew it, so helping me open the hatch and handing over the locket could only be altruism—the first time she had acted thus and the last time she acted at all. I climbed partially out of the hatch into the Nothing. There was barely anything left of the book at all, just the vaguest crackle of its spark growing weaker and weaker. I was still holding Thursday1–4's hand as I saw her body start to break up, like sandstone eroded by wind. Her hair was being whipped by the currents of air, but she looked peaceful.

She smiled and said, “I just got it.”

“Got what?”

“Something Thursday5 said about hot baths and a martini.”

Her face started to break down, and I felt her hand crumble within mine like crusty, sun-baked sand. There was almost nothing left of
Fiasco
at all, and it was time to go.

She smiled again, and her face fell away into dust, her hand turned to sand in mine, and the spark crackled and went out. I let go and was—