The Woman Who Died a Lot

He turned back to me. “I have one of my people in your house at the moment with a weapon pressed against the head of the real you. This is what’s going to happen: The righteous man will be killed in order that the sinful may continue to attract the pillar of fire away from Swindon. I could kill the righteous man myself, but I thought, Hey! Wouldn’t it be more fun if it were Thursday?”

“Go to hell.”

“Undoubtably. Two choices. Option A: You kill the righteous man and we let the the Sleeping Thursday live. Or Option B: I kill the righteous man myself, and the real you is no more. Either way he’s dead, but using Option A you get to survive. What will it be?”

“Do you get some kind of weird kick out of all this?” I asked.

Jack Schitt smiled. “I do, actually. Like having Judith Trask killed. Unnecessary, but with a certain virtuosity in the baseness of the act, don’t you think?”

“So,” I said, “what you didn’t understand about ‘Go to hell’?” He laughed again.

“Smite minus four minutes,” muttered Crabbe, this time with a hint of nervousness.

“Really, Thursday,” said Jack, “it’s a no-brainer. Him and you, or just him.”

“I think you should kill me,” said the righteous Man. “Joffy always spoke well of you, and you have earned this one small transgression in an otherwise blameless life.”

“You see?” said Jack Schitt. “Even the righteous man wants you to kill him. Count of three.”

I glared at Jack, then struggled to be free without success.

“One,” said Jack.

“I know all about the palimpsests.”

“Two.”

“And I know about you traveling to Dark Reading Matter. We’ll fight you every step of the way.”

“Three.”

And without pausing, he find two shots into the chest of the righteous man, who slumped to the ground without a sound.

“Bastard!”

“Correct.” Jack smiled. “Both literally and metaphorically.”

Crabbe took the gun out of my hand and headed back to the tiltrotor. Jack lifted the cell phone to his mouth, said “Kill the bitch,” then tossed it aside.

I thought I might have felt something, but I didn’t. The thing about Day Players was that they felt just like oneself—and I hadn’t yet been in a Day Player long enough to feel one start to die.

“Mr. Schitt, sir!” called out Crabbe from the tiltrotor. “Smite minus three minutes!”

“We’ve big plans for the Dark Reading Matter,” said Jack. “A pristine land ripe for domination—and, what’s more, independent of humans. It will be the perfect lifeboat when HR-6984 strikes. Just imagine: seven billion inhabitants all looking for a new home ahead of the collision, and Goliath able to offer them one in the Dark Reading Matter—and on a sliding scale of payment. Five-star hotels, so-so apartments, fetid slums—or standing room.”

“You’d be able to transport everyone across?”

“Each survivor who can afford it. Each will be given a Synthetic to inhabit, then read into an original work, which is destroyed to take them into the DRM. But these Synthetics won’t be Day Players. They’ll be fully functional models, or at least they will be if you can afford one. Sort of an ironic finish, isn’t it? Mankind surviving the end of the world by retreating into the forgotten thoughts of our forefathers. The current residents of the Dark Reading Matter aren’t taking it too well, but they’ll come around.”

“I should have killed you long ago.”

“Yes, it was most remiss of you. There! At least we agree on something— good to end on a positive note, don’t you think? Here.”

He dug the key to the handcuffs out of his pocket.

“If you run really quickly, you can make it out of the Smite Zone. But don’t forget, the real you is dead. I’m giving you this opportunity to say good-bye to your family before you’re slowly poisoned by your own waste products. Day Players are named Day Players for a very good reason. Good-bye, Thursday. You’ve been a worthy adversary, but it’s time to move on.”

He tossed me the handcuff keys, then quickly boarded the tiltrotor, which spooled up to full power, lifted into the hover and sped away.

I looked up at the clouds, which were now circling ever faster. The sky had become darker and a sharp wind had whipped up, throwing whorls of dust and dirt into the air. I picked up the handcuff key and released myself, then ran across to the righteous man, who opened one eye.

“Well,” said Tim, “he wasn’t very nice, was he?”

“You’re alive?”

“Of course! I’m righteous, not stupid.”

He opened his jacket to reveal a thick padded Kevlar breastplate that was snugly fitted around his chest. There were two slugs lodged in the padding.

“Makes me less than truly righteous, doesn’t it?” said Tim with a smile. “The sin of suspicion?”

“Shit,” I said as I realized something. “Now that you’re alive, the smiting will move back to Swindon and my brother will be vaporized.”

“No chance of that,” said Tim cheerfully. “I’m not nearly righteous enough to move a smiting any appreciable distance. My sin is not just suspicion but vengeance, and calculation.”

“So . . . we’re about to get smitten here and now with all the ax murderers?”