First Among Sequels

34. Rescue/Capture

When I awoke, nothing had changed. The sea was still gray, the sky a dull overcast. The water was choppy but not dangerously so and had a sort of twenty-second pattern of movement to it. With nothing better to do, I sat up and watched the waves as they rose and fell. By fixing my eyes on a random part of the ocean, I could see that the same wave would come around again like a loop in a film. Most of the BookWorld was like that. Fictional forests had only eight different trees, a beach five different pebbles, a sky twelve different clouds. It was what made the real world so rich by comparison. I looked at my watch. The reality book show of The Bennets would be replacing Pride and Prejudice in three hours, and the first task of the house hold would be unveiled in two. Equally bad, that worthless shit Wirthlass-Schitt might well have the recipe by now and would be hoofing it back to Goliath. But then again, she might not. I’d visited enough Poetry to know that it’s an emotionally draining place and on a completely different level. Whereas story is processed in the mind in a straightforward manner, poetry bypasses rational thought and goes straight to the limbic system and lights it up like a brushfire. It’s the crack cocaine of the literary world.

My mind, I knew, was wandering. It was intentional. If I didn’t let it, it returned like an annoying default setting to Landen and the kids. Whenever I thought of them, my eyes welled up, and that was no good for anything. Perhaps, I mused, instead of lying to Landen after the Minotaur had shot me in 1988, I should have just stayed at home and led a blameless life of unabashed domestication. Washing, cleaning and making meals. Okay, with some part-time work down at Acme in case I went nuts. But no SpecOps stuff. None. Except maybe dispatching a teensy-weensy chimera. Or two. And if Spike needed a hand? Well, I couldn’t say no, now could- [4]

My thoughts were interrupted by my mobilefootnoterphone. Until now it had been resolutely silent. I dug it out of my bag and stared at it hopefully. There was still no signal, which meant that someone else was within a radius of about 10 million words. Not far in a shelf of Russian novels, perhaps, but out here in the oral tradition it could mean over a thousand stories or more. It was entirely possible that whoever it was wasn’t a friend at all, but anything was better than slow starvation, so I keyed the mike and pretended I was a communications expert from OFF-FNOP, the watchdog responsible for overseeing the network.

“OFF-FNOP tech number…um, 76542: Request user ident.”

I looked carefully all around me, but the horizon was clear. There was nothing at all, just endless gray. It was like- [5]

I paused. Footnoterphones weren’t like normal phones-they were textual. It was impossible to tell who was talking. It was a bit like text messages back home, but without the dopey CUL8R shorthand nonsense.

“I say again: Request user ident.”

I looked around desperately, but still nothing. I hoped it wasn’t another poor twit like me, compelled to take over the reins as ethical arbiter. [6]

My heart suddenly leaped. Whoever it was, was somewhere close-and didn’t read like anyone who would do me harm. I needed to tell the person how to find me, but the only directions I could think of were “I’m near a wave,” which was marginally less useful than “I’m in a boat.” Then I had an idea.

“If you can hear me,” I said into my phone, “head for the rainstorm of text.”

I tucked the phone in my pocket and took out my pistol. I released the safety, pointed it into the air and fired. There was a low thud, and the air seemed to wobble as the eraserhead arced high into the sky. It was a risky move, as it would almost certainly be picked up by the weather stations dotted around the genres and from there to Text Grand Central. If they were looking for me, they’d know instantly where I was.

It took a few seconds for the charge to reach the thick stratus of cloud, but when it hit, the effect can be described only as spectacular. There was a yellow-and-green starburst, and the textual clouds changed rapidly from gray to black as the words dissolved, taking the meaning with them. A dark cloud of letters was soon fluttering down toward the sea like chaff, a pillar of text that could be seen for miles. They landed on me and the boat, but mostly the sea, where they settled like autumn leaves on a lake.

I looked up and saw that the hole in the clouds was already healing itself, and within a few minutes the text would start to sink. I opened the pistol and reloaded, but I didn’t need to fire a second time. On the horizon and heading toward me was a small dot that gradually grew bigger and bigger until it was overhead, then circled twice before it slowed to a stop, hovering in the air right next to the lifeboat. The driver rolled down his window and consulted a clipboard.

“Are you Ms. Next?” he asked, which was mildly surprising, to say the least.

“Yes, I am.”

“And you ordered me?”

“Yes, yes I did.”

“Well, you better get in, then.”

I was still in mild shock at the turn of events but quickly gathered my thoughts and my belongings and climbed into the yellow vehicle. It was dented and dirty and had the familiar TransGenre Taxis logo on the door. I’d never been so glad to see a cab in my entire life.

I settled myself into the backseat as the driver switched on the meter, turned to me with a grin and said, “Had the devil’s job finding you, darling-where to?”

It was a good point. I thought for a moment. Pride and Prejudice was definitely in dire peril, but if the Now got any shorter, then all books were in danger-and a lot more besides.

“Longfellow,” I said, “and make it snappy. I think we’re going to have some unwanted company.”

The cabbie raised his eyebrows, pressed on the accelerator, and we were soon scooting across the sea at a good rate of knots.

He caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“The worst kind,” I replied, thinking that I was going to have to trust this cabbie to do the right thing. “I’m subject to a shoot-to-kill order from the CofG, but it’s bullshit. I’m a Jurisfiction agent, and I could seriously do with some help right now.”

“Bureaucrats!” he snorted disparagingly, then thought hard for a moment and added, “Next, Next-you wouldn’t be Thursday Next, would you?”

“That’s me.”

“I like your books a lot. Especially the early ones with all the killing and gratuitous sex.”

“I’m not like that. I’m-”

“Whoa!”

The cabbie swerved abruptly, and I was thrown violently to the other side of the taxi. I looked out the rear window and could see a figure in a long black dress hit the sea in a cascade of foam. They were onto me already.

“That was strange,” said the cabbie, “but I could have sworn that was a fifty-something, creepy-looking house keeper dressed entirely in black.”

“It was a Danverclone,” I said. “There’ll be more.”

He clicked down the central locking and turned to stare at me. “You’ve really pissed someone off good and proper, haven’t you?”

“Not without good reason-Look out!”

He swerved again as another Danverclone bounced off the hood and stared at me in a very unnerving way as she flew past the window. I watched her cartwheel across the the waves behind us. That was the thing about Danverclones. They were wholly expendable.

A moment later a heavy thump on the roof shook the cab. I looked behind, but no one had fallen off, and then I heard a noise like an angle grinder from above. It was another Danverclone on the roof, and she was planning on getting in.

“This is too heavy for me,” said the cabbie, whose sense of fair play was rapidly departing. “I’ve got a livelihood and a very expensive backstory to support.”

“I’ll buy you a fleet of new cabs,” I told him somewhat urgently. “And Master Backstoryist Grnksghty is a personal friend of mine; he’ll spin you a backstory of your choice.”

Before the cabbie could answer, another Mrs. Danvers landed heavily on the hood near the radiator. She stared at us for a moment and then, by pushing her fingers into the steel bodywork, began to crawl up the hood toward us, lips pursed tightly, the slipstream flapping her clothes and tugging at her tightly combed black hair. She wore the same small dark glasses as the rest of them, but you didn’t need to see her eyes to guess her murderous intent.

“I’m going to have to turn you in,” said the cabbie as yet another Danverclone landed on the taxi with a crash that shattered the side window. She hung on to the roof trim and flapped around for a bit before finally getting a hold, and then, reaching in through the broken window, she fumbled for the door handle. I reached across, flicked off the lock and kicked the door open, dislodging the Danverclone, who seemed to hang in the air for a moment before a large wave caught her and she was left behind the rapidly moving taxi.

“I’m not sure I can help you any further,” continued the cabbie. “This is some seriously bad shit you’re gotten yourself into.”

“I’m from the Outland,” I told him as another two Danvers fell past, vainly flailing their arms as they attempted to catch hold of the taxi. “Ever wanted something Outlandish? I can get it for you.”

“Anything?” asked the cabbie. There was a screech of metal from the roof as the Danverclone up there began to cut her way in. Sparks fell from the roof as the angle grinder bit into the metal.

“Anything!”

“Well, now,” said the cabbie, ignoring still another Danvers, who landed on the one crawling up the hood. There was the sort of sound a squeaky toy makes when you sit on it heavily, and then they both bounced off and were gone. “What I’d really like,” he continued, completely unfazed, “is an original Hoppity Hop.”

It seemed an unusual request until you realized just how valuable Outlander memorabilia was. I’d once seen two generics almost kill each other over a traffic cone.

“Orange and with a face on the front?”

“Is there any other? You’ll find a seat belt in the back.” he said. “I suggest you use it.”

I didn’t even have time to search for it before he suddenly pointed the cab straight up and went into a vertical climb toward the clouds. He turned to look at me, raised his eyebrows and smiled. He thought it was something of a lark. I was…well, concerned. I looked behind me as the Mrs. Danvers fell from the roof along with the gasoline-driven grinder and tumbled in a spiraling manner toward the sea, which was now far below. A few moments later, we were enveloped by the soft grayness of the clouds, and almost immediately, but without any sensation of having righted ourselves, we left the cloud on an even keel and were moving slowly between a squadron of French sailing ships and a lone British one. That might have been nothing to worry about, except that they were both armed naval vessels and were firing salvos at one another, and every now and again a hot ball of iron would sail spectacularly close to the cab with a whizzing noise.

“I had that Admiral Hornblower in the back of my cab once,” said the taxidriver, chatting amiably to me in that curious way cabbies do when they talk over their shoulder and look at the road at the same time. “What a gent. Tipped me a sovereign and then tried to press me into ser vice.”

“Where are we?” I asked.

“C. S. Forester’s Ship of the Line,” replied the cabbie. “We’ll hang a left after the HMS Sutherland and move through The African Queen to join the cross-Maritime thoroughfare at The Old Man and the Sea. Once there we’ll double back through The Sea Wolf and come out at Moby-Dick, which neatly sidesteps Trea sure Island, as it’s usually jammed at this hour.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to go via 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and hang a left at Robinson Crusoe?”

I could see him staring at me in the rearview mirror. “You want to try it that way?” he asked, annoyed that I might question his judgment.”

“No,” I replied hastily. “We’ll do what you think best.”

He seemed happier at this. “Okeydokey. Whereabouts in Longfellow were you wanting to go?”

“‘The Wreck of the Hesperus.’”

He turned around to stare at me. “Hesperus? You’re one whole heap of trouble, lady. I’ll drop you off at ‘A Psalm of Life,’ and you can walk from there.”

I glared at him. “An original Hoppity Hop was it? Boxed?”

He sighed. It was a good deal, and he knew it.

“Okay,” he said at last. “Hesperus it is.”

We moved slowly past a small steam launch that was shooting some rapids on the Ulanga, and the cabbie spoke again. “So what’s your story?”

“I was replaced by my written other self, who is rubber-stamping the CofG’s most harebrained schemes with the woeful compliance of our prime minister back home. You’ve heard about Pride and Prejudice being serialized as a reality book show called The Bennets? That’s what I’m trying to stop. You got a name?”

“Colin.”

We fell silent for a moment as we followed the Ulanga down-river to where it joined the Bora and then into the lake, where the gunboat Königin Luise lay at anchor. I busied myself reloading my pistol and checking the last two eraserheads. I even took the pistol’s holster and clipped it to my belt. I didn’t like these things, but I was going to be prepared. Mind you, if they decided to send in the clones, I’d be in serious shit. There were seven thousand Danvers and only one of me. I’d have to erase over three thousand per cartridge, and I didn’t think they’d all gather themselves in a convenient heap for me. I pulled out my cell phone and stared at it. We were in full signal, but they’d have a trace on me for sure.

“Use mine,” said Colin, who’d been watching me. He passed his footnoterphone back to me, and I called Bradshaw.

“Commander? It’s Thursday.” [7]

“I’m in a taxi heading toward Moby-Dick via The Old Man and the Sea.” [8]

“Apparently not. How are things?” [9]

“No; I’ve got to destroy something in Hesperus that will hopefully raise the Outlander ReadRates. As soon as I’m done there, I’ll go straight to Jobsworth.” [10]

I looked out of the window. We were over the sea once again, but this time the weather was brighter. Two small whaling boats, each with five men at the oars, were pulling toward a disturbance in the water, and as I watched, a mighty, gray-white bulk erupted from beneath the green water and shattered one of the small boats, pitching the hapless occupants into the sea.

“I’m just coming out the far end of Moby-Dick. Do you have anything for me at all?” [11]

I closed the phone and handed it back. If Bradshaw was short on ideas, the situation was more hopeless than I had imagined. We crossed from Maritime to Poetry by way of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and after hiding momentarily in the waste of wild dunes, marram and sand of “False Dawn” while a foot patrol of Danvers moved past, we were off again and turned into Longfellow by way of “The Light house.”

“Hold up a moment,” I said to Colin, and we pulled up beneath a rocky ledge on a limestone spur that led out in the deep purple of the twilight to a light house, its beam a sudden radiance of light that swept around the bay.

“This isn’t a wait-and-return job, is it?” he asked nervously.

“I’m afraid it is. How close can you get me to the actual wrecking of the Hesperus?”

He sucked in air through his teeth and scratched his nose. “During the gale itself, not close at all. The reef of Norman’s Woe during the storm is not somewhere you’d like to be. Forget the wind and the rain-it’s the cold.”

I knew what he meant. Poetry was an emotional roller coaster of a form that could heighten the senses almost beyond straining. The sun was always brighter, the skies bluer, and forests steamed six times as much after a summer shower and felt twelve times earthier. Love was ten times stronger, and happiness, hope and charity rose to a level that made your head spin with giddy well-being. On the other side of the coin, it also made the darker side of existence twenty times worse-tragedy and despair were bleaker, more malevolent. As the saying goes, “They don’t do nuffing by half measures down at Poetry.”

“So how close?” I asked.

“Daybreak, three verses from the end.”

“Okay,” I said, “let’s do it.”

He released the handbrake and motored slowly forward. The light moved from twilight to dawn as we entered “The Wreck of the Hesperus.” The sky was still leaden, and a stiff wind scoured the foreshore, even though the worst of the storm had passed. The taxi drew to a halt on the sea beach, and I opened the door and stepped out. I suddenly felt a feeling of strong loss and despair, but knowing full well that these were simply emotions seeping out of the overcharged fabric of the poem, I attempted to give it no heed. Colin got out as well, and we exchanged nervous looks. The sea beach was littered with the wreckage of the Hesperus, reduced to little more than matchwood by the gale. I pulled my jacket collar close against the wind and trudged up the shoreline.

“What are we looking for?” asked Colin, who had joined me.

“Remains of a yellow tour bus,” I said, “or a tasteless blue jacket with large checks.”

“Nothing too specific, then?”

Most of the flotsam was wood, barrels, ropes and the odd personal artifact. We came across a drowned sailor, but he wasn’t someone from the Rover. Colin became emotional over the loss of life and lamented how the sailor had been “sorely taken from the bosom of his family” and “given his soul to the storm” before I told him to pull himself together. We reached some rocks and chanced across a fisherman, staring with a numbed expression at a section of mast that gently rose and fell in the sheltered water of an inlet. Lashed to the mast was a body. Her long brown hair was floating like seaweed, and the intense cold had frozen her features in the expression she’d last worn in life-of abject terror. She was wearing a heavy seaman’s coat, which hadn’t done much good, and I waded into the icy water to look closer. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have, but something was wrong. This should have been the body of a young girl-the skipper’s daughter. But it wasn’t. It was a middle-aged woman. It was Wirthlass-Schitt. Her eyelashes were encrusted with frozen salt, and she stared blankly out at the world, her face suffused with fear.

“She saved me.”

It was a little girl’s voice, and I turned. She was aged no more than nine and was wrapped in a Goliath-issue down jacket. She looked confused, as well she might; she hadn’t survived the storm for over 163 years. Wirthlass-Schitt had underestimated the power not only of the BookWorld, the raw energy of Poetry…but also herself. Despite her primary goal of corporate duty, she couldn’t leave a child to drown. She’d done what she thought was right and suffered the consequences. It was what I was trying to warn her about. The thing you discover in Poetry…is your true personality. The annoying thing was, she’d done it all for nothing. A cleanup gang from Jurisfiction would be down later, putting everything chillingly to rights. It was why I didn’t like to do “the rhyming stuff.”

Colin, overcome by the heavy emotions that pervaded the air like fog, had begun to cry. “O wearisome world!” he sobbed.

I checked Anne’s collar and found a small necklace on her cold flesh. I pulled it off and then stopped. If she’d been on the Hesperus, perhaps she had picked up his jacket?

The seaman’s coat was like cardboard, and I eased it open at the collar to look beneath. My heart fell. She wasn’t wearing the jacket, and after checking her pockets I found that she wasn’t carrying the recipe either. I took a deep breath, and my emotions, enhanced by the poem, suddenly fell to rock bottom. Wirthlass-Schitt must have given the jacket to her crewmates-and if it was back at Goliath, I’d have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting to it. Friday had entrusted me with the protection of the Long Now, and I had failed him. I waded back to shore and started sniffing as large, salty tears ran down my face.

“Oh, please dry up,” I said to Colin, who was sobbing into his hankie next to me. “You’ve got me started now.”

“But the sadness drapes heavily on my countenance!” he whimpered.

We sat on the foreshore next to the fisherman, who was still looking aghast, and sobbed quietly as though our hearts would break. The young girl came and sat down next to me. She patted my hand reassuringly.

“I didn’t want to be rescued anyway,” she announced. “If I survive, the whole point of the poem is lost-Henry will be furious.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’ll all be repaired.”

“And everyone keeps on giving me their jackets,” she continued in a huffy tone. “Honestly, it gets harder and harder to freeze to death these days. There’s this one that Anne gave me,” she added, thumbing the thick pile on the blue Goliath jacket, “and the one the old man gave me seventeen years ago.”

“Really, I’m not interested in-”

I stopped sobbing as a bright shaft of sunlight cut through the storm clouds of my melancholia.

“Do…you still have it?”

“Of course!”

And she unzipped the Goliath jacket to reveal-a man’s blue jacket in large checks. Never had I been happier to see a more tasteless garment. I quickly rummaged through the pockets and found a yo-yo string, a very old bag of jelly beans, a domino, a screwdriver, an invention for cooking the perfect hard-boiled egg and…wrapped in a plastic freezer bag, a paper napkin with a simple equation written upon it. I gave the young girl a hug, my feeling of elation quadrupled by the magnifying effect of Poetry. I breathed a sigh of relief. Found! Without wasting a moment, I tore the recipe into small pieces and ate them.

“Riublf,” I said to Colin with my mouth full, “leb’s get goinf.”

“I don’t think we’re going anywhere, Ms. Next.”

I looked up and saw what he meant. Occupying every square inch of space-on the sea beach, the foreshore, the dunes and even standing in the sea-were hundreds upon hundreds of identical black-clad Mrs. Danvers, staring at me malevolently. We’d killed five of their number recently, so I guessed they wouldn’t be that pleased. Mind you, they were always pretty miserable, so it might have had nothing to do with it. I instinctively grasped the butt of my pistol, but it was pointless-like using a peashooter against a T-54 battle tank.

“Well,” I said, swallowing the last piece of the recipe and addressing the nearest Danverclone, “you’d better take me to your leader.”