What had Mycroft said? Tiny nanomachines barely bigger than a cell building food protein out of nothing more than garbage? Banoffee pie from landfills? Perhaps there was going to be an accident. After all, what stopped nanomachines from making banoffee pie once they had started? I looked out of the window. Aornis had gone.
'Do you have a car?' I asked.
'Sure,' said David.
'You're going to have to take me over to ConStuff. Dilly, I need your clothes.'
Cordelia looked suspicious.
'Why?'
'I've got watchers. Three in, three out – they'll think I'm you.'
'No way on earth,' replied Cordelia indignantly, 'unless you agree to do all my interviews and press junkets.'
'At my first appearance I'll have my head lopped off by Goliath or SpecOps – or both.'
'Perhaps that's so,' replied Cordelia slowly, 'but I'd be a fool to pass on an opportunity as good as this. All the interviews and appearances I request for a year.'
'Two months, Cordelia.'
'Six.'
'Three.'
She sighed. 'Okay. Three months – but you have to do The Thursday Next Workout Video and talk to Harry about The Eyre Affair film project.'
'Deal.'
So Cordelia and I switched clothes. It felt very odd to be wearing her large pink sweater, short black skirt and high heels.
'Don't forget the Peruvian love beads,' said Cordelia, 'and my gun. Here.'
Molly and Pickwick were playing hide-and-seek in the living room but were soon rounded up.
'Excuse me, Miss Flakk,' said David in a slightly indignant tone. 'You promised I could ask Miss Next a question.'
Flakk pointed a finely manicured fingertip at him and narrowed her eyes. 'Listen here, buster. You're on SpecOps business right now – a bonus, I'd say. Any complaints?'
'Er, no, I guess,' stammered David.
I led them outside, past the Goliath and SpecOps agents waiting for me. I made some expansive Cordelia-like moves and they barely gave us a second glance. We were soon in David's hired Studebaker and I directed him across town as I switched back to my own clothes.
'Thursday?' asked David.
'Yes?' I replied, looking around to see if I could see Aornis and shaking the entroposcope. Entropy seemed to be holding at the 'slightly odd' mark.
'Your father – how does he manage to stop the clock like he does?'
'It's a ChronoGuard thing,' I told him. 'Any activity in the timestream gives off ripples that are easily detected. Dad places us both in a sort of stasis – as soon as the Chronos pick up a disturbance, he's already gone. Does that answer your question?'
'I guess.'
'Good. Okay, pull up over there. I'll walk the rest of the way.'
They dropped me by the side of the road and I thanked them before running up the street. It was already quite dark and the streetlamps were on. It didn't look as if the world was about to end in twenty-six minutes, but then I don't suppose it ever does.
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