“I don’t know that for certain,” he replied. “Not yet anyway. I’d like you to be her, naturally, but there have been others who looked a lot like her. Not quite as much as you do, but pretty similar. Goliath is keen to know what Thursday gets up to when she’s not at home, and they’ve sent one or two to try to trick me into giving information. The first was just a voice on the phone, then one who could be seen only from a distance. The last one almost took me in, but up close she didn’t pass muster. Her texture was all wrong, the smell was different, the smile lopsided and the ears too high. I don’t know why they keep sending them, to be honest—nor where they end up. After I booted the last one out the door, someone from Goliath’s Synthetic Human Division came round demanding to know what I’d done with it. Then, after I asked about the legality of such a device, he denied there had been any, or even that he was from the Synthetic Human Division. He then asked to read the meter.”
“So how can they lose two synthetic Thursdays?”
“They lost three. There was another that I hadn’t even seen. They said it was the best yet. They dropped it off two weeks ago near Clary-LaMarr and haven’t heard anything since. Are you that one?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I replied, vaguely indignant. “I’m not a Goliath robot.”
“Not a robot—a synthetic. Human in everything but name.”
I took a deep breath. I had to lay my cards on the table. “She’s missing, isn’t she?”
There was a flicker of consternation on Landen’s face. “Not at all. Her absences are quite long, admittedly, but we’re always in constant communication.”
“From the BookWorld?”
He laughed. “That old chestnut! It was never proved she could move across at will. I think you’ve perhaps spent a little too much time listening to deranged theories.”
It sounded like a cover story to keep the real nature of the BookWorld secret. I didn’t expect him to tell me anything. He didn’t know who or what I was, after all. But he had to know.
“I’m the written her,” I told him. “She may have spoken to you about me. I was the tree-hugging version in the Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco, who then took over from the evil Thursday who was deleted with Pepys. I run books one to five now—less along the lines of the old Thursday, but more how the real Thursday wanted them to be. Less sex and violence. It explains why we’re out of print.”
If I thought he would be surprised or shocked, however, I was mistaken. I guess when you’re married to Thursday, the nature of weird becomes somewhat relative. Landen smiled.
“That’s a novel approach. Mind you, there’s nothing you’ve told me that I couldn’t find out by rereading First Among Sequels. Goliath has access to that book, too, so if you were one of the synthetic Thursdays, I’d expect you to come up with something like that.”
“Commander Bradshaw of Jurisfiction sent me.”
He stared at me. The relevance wasn’t lost on him. Jurisfiction and Bradshaw were never mentioned in the books.
“I’m not yet convinced,” he said, giving nothing away, “but let’s suppose Thursday is missing—you want my help to find her?”
“If she’s missing, then you and I can help each other. I’ll be going home in less than twelve hours. Any information learned out here might be helpful.”
He took a deep breath. “She’s been gone four weeks, that much is common knowledge. Everyone wants to find her. It’s a national obsession. The Mole, The Toad, Goliath, SO-5, the police, the Cheese Squad, the government, the NSA—and now you claim the BookWorld, too.”
“Do you have any idea where she is?”
He poured the boiling water into the teapot.
“No. And the thing is,” he added, looking at the clock, “we need to resolve this one way or another pretty soon.”
“Because of the police and the NSA and whatnot?”
Landen laughed. “No, not them. The kids. Friday won’t get away from his shift at B&Q until six, but Tuesday will be home in two hours, and although my mind has been rendered as supple as custard when it comes to things Thursday, the kids are still at an impressionable age—besides, I don’t think the doors in the house will take much more slamming.”
And he smiled again, but it was sadder, and more uncertain.
“I understand.”
“Do you? Can you?”
“I think so.”
“Hmm,” he said, pondering carefully, “does anyone else know you’re here?”
“Cordelia Flakk’s the only one we need to worry about.”
“That’s bad,” he murmured. “Flakk’s the worst gossip in the city. I’ve a feeling you’ve less than forty minutes before the press starts to knock at the door, two hours before the police arrive with an arrest warrant and three hours before President van de Poste demands you hand over the plans.”
“What plans?”
“The secret plans.”
“I don’t have any secret plans.”
“I’d keep that to yourself.”
He poured out the tea and placed it in front of me. He was standing close to me, and I felt myself shiver within his proximity. I wanted to take him in my arms and hug him tightly and breathe in great lungfuls of Landen with my face buried in his collar. I’d dreamed of the moment for years. Instead I did nothing and cursed my restraint.
“Does Thursday know the president?”
“He often seeks her counsel. Thursday?”
“Yes?”
“How like her are you?”
I rolled up my sleeve to reveal a long scar on my forearm. “I don’t know how I got that one.”
“That was Tiger.”
“Was Tiger a tiger?”
“No, Tiger was a leopard. Your mother’s. Only Mrs. Next would name a leopard Tiger. May I?”
“Please do.”
He looked at my scalp where there was another scar, just above my hairline.
“That was Norman Johnson at the close of the 1989 Super-Hoop,” I said. “ Something Rotten, page 351.
He went and sat at the other end of the table and stared at me for a while.
“You even smell like her,” he said, “and rub your forehead in the same way when you’re thinking. I have a lot of respect for Goliath, but they never got synthetics this good.”
“So you believe I’m the written one?”
“There’s another possible explanation.”
“Who would I be if not Goliath or the written one?”
He looked at me for a long time, an expression of concern on his face. I understood what he was trying to say.
“You think I might be Thursday, but suffering some sort of weird delusion?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“I’ve spent my entire life in books,” I explained. “I’m really only five years old. I can remember popping out of the character press as plain old D8-V-67987, and my first day at St. Tabularasa’s. I did well, so I was streamed into the First-Person fast-track program. Long story short, I look after the Thursday books one to five but also work for JAID—that’s the Jurisfiction Accident Investigation Department. I can tell you about Sprockett and Carmine, and how Lorina/Pickwick doesn’t approve of her bringing goblins home and likes to bore us stupid by quoting Latin mottos, and the new book that arrived in the neighborhood. And there’s Bradshaw, and the metaphor shortage, and Jobsworth wanting me to go up-country to help deal with Speedy Muffler in the peace talks on Friday. That’s me. I’m not Thursday. I’m nothing like her. Show me a frightening situation and I’ll run a mile. Square will vouch for me.”
And I called his name, but there was no answer.
“Right,” I said, wondering where he’d gone. “That makes me look stupid.”
We both fell silent, and Landen stared at me for a long time once more. I saw his eyes moisten, and mine spontaneously did the same.