The Woman Who Died a Lot

I glared at him hotly and opened my mouth in order to make things worse. Luckily, Phoebe was there first, told Jack that we would most definitely leave him well alone, that we were terribly sorry for disturbing him, that he was truly magnanimous, and then she took me by the arm. The door slammed shut behind us, and we quickly beat a retreat to the elevators.

“Damn,” I muttered as we walked back down the corridor to the elevators, “he’s got it all sorted out.”

“You’ve got nothing,” said Phoebe. “In fact, you’ve got less than nothing. So until you have, we’re going to do exactly as he says. Who was Flossie, by the way?”

“Flossie Buxton,” I told her. “We were good friends at school. Ver y different career paths. Who’s Judith Trask?”

“The first name that popped into my head,” she said with a shrug.

“I always use ‘Linda Cosgrove’ when I’m in a sticky spot,” I said, thinking things over. “Jack’s Day Player must have died already—or maybe Flossie was a Day Player. Perhaps we should have checked her, too.”

I stopped walking, but Phoebe took my arm again and steered me firmly toward the elevators. She pressed the call button and stared at me.

“Your friend Miss Buxton would doubtless say anything Jack asked her to. I think we were lucky to get away with our jobs.”

“If you want to be a Thursday,” I told her, “being fired is very much an occupational hazard.”

“I heard that. I also heard a rumor that Goliath had SpecOps disbanded simply to get rid of you. And if that is the case, then your being fired had huge and very negative repercussions for law enforcement in general.”

I’d heard the rumor, too.

“That was never proved,” I said. “Besides—ballocks to them. I do what I do.”

“I’ve noticed. Asking to see a top Goliath executive’s whatnot. I ask you.”

She shook her head at my audacity and then started to giggle. I joined her at that point, and we were so helpless with laughter that we dismissed the first lift and caught the second.

Suitably composed, I told Phoebe what had been going on as we descended to the lobby, and the admission from Jack’s Day Player that they were stealing and destroying palimpsests because of something vaguely to do with asteroid HR-6984— and that it was something I put them up to.

“Really? Any idea what?”

“None at all. Lunch? I’m meeting Landen at the Happy Wok at one, and it’s only in Wanborough. I’ve got a Blyton Fundamentalist stuck to me like glue, so she’ll probably come, too.”

“Mrs. Hilly?”

“Met her?”

“She’s been leaving messages on my phone. The Blyton Modernists apparently took umbrage at Mrs. Hilly’s demand that females in the books should be seen doing more cooking and cleaning, and they threatened to ‘rough her up.’”

“Then you’ve got something to talk about.”

“Gee, thanks.”

We walked out of the Adelphi, and Mrs. Hilly pulled up in her Austin-Maserati. I introduced them to each other.

“Can I leave my car here and drive yours?” asked Phoebe with an eager gleam in her eye.

We made it to the Happy Wok in record time. Phoebe’s driving was as fast as Mrs. Hilly’s but a little less terrifying.

24. Wednesday: Blyton

The Office for Ultimate Risk is one of the many departments within the Ministry of National Statistics. Although it was originally an “experimental” department, the statisticians at Ultimate Risk proved their worth by predicting the entire results of of three football World Cups in succession, a finding that led to the discontinuation of football as a game and the results being calculated instead. The Asteroid Strike Likelihood Committee is based within the department and takes thousands of factors into account when calculating the risk factor.

Dr. S. A. Orbiter, The Earthcrossers

“Have you seen the news?” asked Landen when we were all seated about twenty minutes later, the three of us smelling of hot exhaust and burned rubber. I read the news story he had indicated on page four, sandwiched between an article suggesting which obscure illness would be most fashionable in the spring and the best way to achieve the neanderthal look then very much in vogue. It was about HR-6984: The Asteroid Strike Likelihood Committee had recalculated the possibility of a cataclysmic impact as up from 34 percent to 68 percent, which was the first time it had gone above a fifty-fifty chance in ninety years.

“Was this to do with the ChronoGuard Destiny Aware meeting last night?” I asked. “I saw Mr. Chowdry of the ASLC.”