The Woman Who Died a Lot

“In focus more often than it’s not. And that’s good, right?”

“A Zen dog dreams of a medium-size bone.”

“Actually, there is one thing you could do. Can you put my all phone in my right pocket so I can get it out?”

Landen did as I asked. I’d been working on the grip of my left hand, but it was slow going. The damage to my hand had been caused by the taxi’s indicator stalk as it passed through my forearm during the vehicle’s sudden stop in the swamp, and it had caused all sorts of mayhem on the way. The stalk broke off when it hit my jaw. These days I used it as a tea stirrer. The stalk, that is, not my jaw.

“I’ll meet you in TJ-Maxx around two,” said Landen, giving me an affectionate nuzzle. “And don’t be too mean with the shrink, will you? They’ve got feelings, too.”

“I’ll play nice. What’s the password this time?”

For a few years now, Goliath had been sending Synthetic Thursdays out into the world to try to get information from people who would speak only to me—Landen being an obvious example. They had also tried to gain access to my house, to the SpecOps records department, and they’d even tried to scam a free membership at a health farm. The copies were initially crude but had made steady and sustained advances in sophistication since first appearing a eighteen months before. The Mark IVs and Vs wouldn’t have fooled anyone, but the Mark VIs were impressive and had been able to crack single code words, which was why we used the more cloak-and-daggerish sentences and responses.

“What about if I say, ‘No cookies at the hunt, sir!’ and then you reply with, ‘It’s not a cookie, it’s a Newton’?”

“Sounds random enough.”

So with the passwords committed to memory, we limped off in opposite directions. I turned once to take a look at him, and he turned as well, and we smiled a simple smile of understanding. Parting for us was generally sweet sorrow, as past experience had taught us there was a fair possibility we might not see each other for a while, if at all—a state of affairs for which I took full responsibility. Sadly, a lifetime in law enforcement tends not to create a bunch of grateful villains happy that you have shown them the error of their ways, but rather a lot of disgruntled ne’er-do-wells eager for payback.

I hobbled across the pedestrian walkway and passed beneath the shadow of Swindon’s centrally located anti-smite tower, the primary defense against God’s planned cleansings of the sinful. I stopped to stare for a moment at the sixty-foot tower. It looked like an electricity pylon topped with a domed metallic mushroom. The burnished copper sheathing glowed in the sun, and even though the many towers dotted about the country were mechanically complete, there were still several hurdles to overcome. The software regulating the 8.2 million independently controlled lasers inside the dome had yet to be fine-tuned, and until it was, the defense shield remained nonoperational.

Perhaps the members of the city council wasn’t so bothered about Swindon’s smiting because they’d convinced themselves the tower would be running in good time to deflect the wrath of the Almighty four days from now. I didn’t think it would, and with good reason: I knew the genius behind the technology, and despite much midnight oil, the Anti-Smite Defense Shield remained firmly on the theoretical side of reality.

I hurried on, past the Thistle Hotel to my right, and presently found myself outside the front entrance of the Wessex Special Operations headquarters.

2. Monday: Phoebe Smalls

The SpecOps division most associated with Thursday Next was SO-27, the Literary Detectives. It was their job to protect the citizenry against literary fraud, overenthusiastic interpretations of protected plays and the illegal trade in bogus Shakespeareana. Miss Next joined in the Swindon branch in 1985, not long before the adventure that came to be known as the Eyre Affair. She worked there on and off in various capacities until disbandment in 1991 and was always suspected of continuing her job under the radar in the years since.

Millon de Floss,

The Thursday Next Chronicles