The Woman Who Died a Lot

I leaned my head against the door pillar, my leg feeling as though it were on fire. I tried to gather my thoughts over what had happened, but it was too much effort, and in an instant I was in deep, grateful slumber.

29. Wednesday: Dodo Buffer

The first dodo was brought back to life in 1966, and that was the official start of the home-cloning revolution. “Dodo 1A” lived a year before being dismantled for inspection, and the second dodo wasn’t sequenced until 1971, as a precursor to the popular home-cloning kit. A Dodo V1.2 made from a Genome Dynamics kit in early 1978 is the earliest still living, and the model has been steadily improving since then. The latest GD-V10 is a huge improvement upon early models, able to undertake basic double-entry bookkeeping, and it can be updated wirelessly through a home network.

Haynes Dodo Manual

I arrived home having slept almost the entire journey in a hunched-up position, and I was so stiff when I awoke that Friday had to heave me out of the passenger seat. He helped me for the first few steps until my leg had loosened up sufficiently so that I could walk on my own. I noticed that one of the SLS troopers was standing on guard outside and that the lights were still on in Tuesday’s laboratory.

“How did it go?” asked Landen.

“Truly weird,” I said, “but I could do with wearing a gravity suit more often. You can almost dance in them.”

I had something to eat and talked to Landen about the afternoon’s fun at the timepark and just how Smite Solutions planned to avert the cleansing. Landen already knew about this, as Miles had dropped around earlier in the evening to explain that despite protracted negotiations and last-minute submissions by Joffy’s team of top-class theologians and ethicists, God’s winged tribunes had confirmed that the smiting would go ahead as planned. Joffy had apparently grown quite angry at this and announced that he would elect to remain in his cathedral during the smiting, there to be incinerated within as a protest against the Lord’s intransigence.

“You’re kidding me,” I said, my heart falling.

“I’m afraid not,” said Landen, resting his hand on mine, “but it could be a bluff.”

“It’s not,” I said, taking a deep breath and rubbing my eyes wearily. “It’s not possible to bluff an all-seeing Deity.”

“Well, it’s put a cat among the pigeons. The Lord’s people are all in a lather about it and pleading with Joffy not to question His will and judgment.”

It didn’t sound good, but then there were other possible outcomes to the event. Smite Solutions—and, as an outside bet, Tuesday and her shield.

On the other hand, there had been some news about Aornis. Millon and the Wingco had traced the Alfa-Morris Spyder that Aornis got the lift from at Agutter Services. They had traced the car on motorway cameras all the way back to Swindon. Landen had asked them why she would do that, and no one had a good answer.

“Does she have any family left in the city?” I asked.

“None that I know of. All the others are in prison or moved away, and the Hades family mansion was given to the city council to be used as a hospital.”

“She must be hiding somewhere. Somewhere we wouldn’t think to look for her.”

“I know where she is!” said Landen quite suddenly.

“Where?”

“I had it for a moment,” he said, looking mildly confused, “but it’s gone.”

“Senior moment?”

He nodded.

“How did you get that bruise on your face?”

“I don’t know,” he said, touching a purple area above his eye. “I’ve got some cuts on my knuckles, too. Did you drop into the tattooist’s?”

“Forgot again.”

“Damn,” he said. “We need to find out why you’ve got the tattoo on your hand when it should be on Tuesday’s.”

Suddenly I stopped what I was doing. “What did you just say?”

He repeated himself, and I felt a sense of rising panic. But then there was a thump outside the door, and when I investigated, a vase was lying on the carpet. I didn’t believe in poltergeists, but just recently we’d been having all the hallmarks of one—things moving around, doors swinging open, that sort of thing. When I got back to Landen, he asked me if anything was up, as I had looked alarmed when he told me about Tuesday’s mindworm.

“Nothing of any importance,” I said quietly, while having the oddest feeling that I was missing something very important, that there was something I hadn’t seen, something vital just out of reach.