The Woman Who Died a Lot

“Miss Next,” he said, “so very glad to make your acquaintance, and congratulations on your new appointment. I am Swindon’s Goliath representative: Lupton Cornball. Don’t laugh. We’ll be formally introduced tomorrow at the library, but today I’d like to talk to you about some stolen property that might make itself available to you.”

They were definitely after the Synthetic, but Goliath always spoke euphemistically, as it afforded deniability. I wasn’t going to play along.

“What sort of property?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Then how will I know when it has made itself available to me?”

He stared at me for a moment, lost for words. But it told me what I needed to know: If these guys meant to do us harm, we’d both be unconscious in the back of a van by now with flour sacks over our heads.

“We’re done,” I said as they parted to let us through. I had often bested the Goliath Corporation in the past, and because of this I had a protocol all to myself. It was numbered 451 and declared that I was not to be approached for any purpose. I had probably cost them a trillion pounds in lost revenue, and they had no desire to lose any more. I was the thorn in the side that you didn’t touch—you simply left it alone and dealt with the pain.

“I love the way you talk to them,” said Landen with a chuckle. “What’s the next step? Look for Mr. Krantz?”

“I guess.”

“I hope that’s the end of it,” he murmured. “One sarcophagus, one Synthetic.”

“Don’t be too sure,” I said, handing him some paperwork I had fished out of the waste bin. It was a Gravitube ticket all the way from the Tarbuck International, the most convenient place to depart from the island corporate city-state of Goliathopolis, situated in the middle of the Irish Sea.

“At least we’re no longer in doubt the Synthetic was from Goliath,” said Landen.

“Yes,” I replied, “but look at the luggage manifest.”

“Shit,” he muttered, once he’d examined the ticket stub.

“Right,” I replied, “five crates came by Gravitube Freight. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Synthetic Me.”

16. Tuesday: Tuesday

The mandatory hermit requirements for estates larger than eighty acres was one of the many “Inverse Consequences” directives undertaken by the Commonsense Party. The theory was not sound, but that was the point: Bearing in mind that well-meant ideas often had negative unforeseen consequences, it was argued that daft, pointless or downright bizarre ideas might have unforeseen positive outcomes. Hence mandatory hermits. Aside from the weekly gruel allowance and the construction of a damp cave, it cost little.

The Commonsense Party Inverse Consequence Directive Explained

Tuesday was already back home when we got there at a little after one-thirty. She and the Wingco were in the far paddock with a quarter-size mockup of the anti-smote field generator. The Wingco was readying the high-speed camera, and standing around were assorted observers and representatives of various interested parties. Landen and I exchanged new passwords, and while he made a sandwich, I took the golf buggy down to see how things were going. The far paddock was the place usually reserved for Tuesday’s tests, partly because it was a good distance from the house but mostly because there was a useful screen of mature leylandii to absorb blast damage.

“I thought I told you to go to school this morning,” I said, making sure we were out earshot of the small crowd.

“Mum, like, duh, I did go to school. I went into math class and proved that there actually is a highest number, and then I helped Derek in the chemistry lab to make a new type of quick-setting PVC substitute from potato starch and an enzyme readily grown on onions. During the break I figured that Janice Lovegrove was up the duff and probably by Scooter Davis, that Debbie Trubshaw is now putting it about in a big way, and that Sian Johnson’s new hairstyle was pinched from page nine of the Swindon edition of Vogue.”

“Anything regarding Gavin Watkins?” I asked, considering that Friday was destined to murder him on Friday and had yet to have a motive.

“He didn’t offer me any money to see my boobs again.”

“That’s good.”

“No, he said he’d give me five pounds for sex.”

“He did what!?!” I yelled, outraged. “You said no, right? I’m going to report him to the headmaster.”