The Woman Who Died a Lot

36. Friday: Morning

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 branch 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 U_c, 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.

“It will involve causing a serious amount of grief for Goliath,” I said, “not to mention humiliation and a potential hundred million-pound loss.”

“Ah!” said Phoebe in a happier tone. “I’m in.”

I told her where to position herself, but after that there was little to do except wait, so once I’d checked that Gavin and Tuesday were working on U_c— they were, I was relieved to find—I made myself a coffee out of habit, then realized I couldn’t drink it, so I smelled it instead. I was amused, in an abstract kind of way, to discover that I could not tell only which country the coffee came from but also the probable region and year of cultivation. I then tuned the wireless to Toad-AM and listened to Lydia Startright’s live broadcast from just outside the Smite Zone. Little seemed to have changed— Lupton Cornball of Goliath came on air to reiterate the lie that the murderers were all willing adherents to their own destruction—and after that I listened to a spokesperson for the GSD, who confirmed that Joffy would indeed be in the cathedral at the Time of Smite and that a last-minute reprieve of the smiting had been turned down due to issues regarding infallibility.

I paced around the kitchen for the next hour and a half, interrupted variously by either Millon, who was still cramming for his hermiting certificate and who wanted testing on logical positivism, or the Wingco, who despite Tuesday’s expectations had been receiving sporadic images all morning from the Dark Reading Matter through Daphne the dodo’s buffer, which was still transmitting sporadically.

I told him I had a moment, so he showed Landen and me the images that had been sent back. The pictures were again fuzzy and indistinct and difficult to interpret. I could see what I thought were mountains and streams and clouds and a unicorn or two, then explosions and large tracked vehicles.

“Do those look like battle tanks to you?” said Landen.

“I’ve been watching glimpses of conflict all morning,” replied the Wingco. “Things don’t look good in there.”

“Can we get another dodo inside to see some more?”

“Interesting point. I spoke to the Swindon Dodo Fanciers Club, who tell me that pre-V2 dodos have almost four times the sensory bit rate and a larger buffer. If we could get a Version Two or lower in there, we might get some better images—and sound.”

“You wouldn’t get a Version Two in any condition these days for less than half a million,” I replied, a comment that reflected the greatly increasing value of early home-builds.

“It was just an idea,” replied the Wingco, “but a sound one. I would even volunteer to take it myself.”

“How would you enter the DRM?” I asked.

He gave a few instances of how it might be done, and I froze as a sudden thought struck me. Jack Schitt’s inexplicable behavior of late—in having an assistant destroy the pages with the lost works of Homer written beneath the later, crappier works— might not be so inexplicable after all, and it might just explain why the pro-literature Krantz was so willing to help us by supplying Day Players on a regular basis.

“By the Gods,” I murmured. “I think I know what Jack Schitt and Goliath are up to.”

The Wingco and Landen looked at me.

“Krantz worked for decades on the Book Project at Goliath, and it was his love of literature and the written word that set him on his self-destructive course.”

“I hope you’re not going to do one of those bullshit ‘I’ll tell you more when I know for sure’ deals,” said Landen. “That could be a serious annoyance.”

“Not at all,” I replied. “As the Wingco will tell you, travel to the Dark Reading Matter is a one-way journey. You can never get back. Unless you have one of these.” I pointed to myself.

“A left breast?” said Landen.

“No, clot, a Day Player. What I’m walking around in here might have been designed to be a twenty-four-hour disposable office worker or soldier, but it’s also the perfect way of getting into the Dark Reading Matter.”

I paused for a moment, waiting for this to filter in.

“Nope,” said Landen, “not getting this at all.”

“Okay, let’s start with his apparent escape from the Lobsterhood. He didn’t fast descend to escape and he didn’t BASE jump. He read his way into the lost work on the palimpsest. He then had his confederate destroy the pages. It was the only copy, so, once destroyed, the now-deleted work entered the Dark Reading Matter, with Jack in it.”

They stood and stared at me in silence.

“Jack could read himself into a book?” said Landen. “I thought that was something only you could do?”

“A Day Player can do almost anything. I’d say we were almost designed to be able to cross the transfictional border. Jack could stay for as long as his Day Player holds out, then die or be killed—and come straight back out of the DRM and into the RealWorld, memories and consciousness intact.”

“I think you might be right,” said Landen. “But why Krantz?” “He spent fifteen years on the Book Project ostensibly because he loved literature. I guess he didn’t want to see mankind’s lost works defiled and exploited.”

There was a long pause while we all thought about what this might mean. The Wingco broke the silence.

“What are they up to in there?”

“I’m only guessing here,” I said, “but past experience might indicate there is a seriously large pot of cash involved. They’ve probably been infiltrating the BookWorld for months. All those tanks we saw could well be Goliath—attempting to subjugate the Dark Reading Matter. I’ll find out more the next time I meet Jack Schitt.”

“I need to report this to Commander Bradshaw,” said the Wingco. “We may have to start sending troops in on a one-way journey. I don’t think it’ll be considered a suicide mission any longer—just a permanent reassignment.”

“And I’ve got to go,” I said, glancing at the clock. “Joffy told me I should be ready and waiting at Chiseldon from eleven.”

Landen asked me if I was going to be okay, which seemed a bit daft, to be honest. The only thing to fear was the failure of my set task—the good thing about being a Day Player was that death was downgraded from a vexatious lack of existence to merely a temporary inconvenience.

“If the worst comes to the worst,” I said, “you’ll know about it, because I’ll be yelling for a cup of tea from the guest room.”

I kissed Landen, checked that both my pistols were fully loaded and took spare clips from the gun safe, slipped a dagger into my sock and then popped my head around the door of Tuesday’s lab. To my silent question, she simply shook her head, and once back in the kitchen I asked Friday if I could borrow the Sportina.

“Why?”

“It’s the closest thing we have to a tank, and I could really do with one of those right now.”

“Game on, Mum,” he said, tossing me the keys.

“Thanks—and don’t do any murdering until I get back. Promise?”

“Promise.”