Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next 2)

The end of life as we know it

* * *

'After failing to get Landen back, dealing with armageddon didn't really hold the same sort of excitement for me that it would later. They always say the first time you save the world is the hardest – personally I have always found it tricky, but this time … I don't know. Perhaps Landen's loss numbed my mind and immunised me against panic. Perhaps the distraction actually helped.'

THURSDAY NEXT – private diaries

Consolidated Useful Stuff was situated in a large complex on the airfield at Stratton. There was a guardhouse but I had coincidence on my side – all three guards had been called away on some errand or other, and I was able to slip through unnoticed. I rubbed my arm, which had inexplicably twinged with pain, and followed the signs towards MycroTech Developments. I was just wondering how to get into the locked building when a voice made me jump.

'Hello, Thursday!'

It was Wilbur, Mycroft's boring son.

'No time to explain, Will – I need to get into the nanotechnology lab.'

'Why?' asked Wilbur, fumbling with his keys.

'There's going to be an accident.'

'Absolutely impossible! he scoffed, throwing the door

s open to reveal a mass of spinning red lights and the raucous sound of a klaxon.

'Heavens!' exclaimed Wilbur. 'Do you think it's meant to be doing that?'

'Call someone.'

'Right.'

He picked up the phone. Predictably enough, it was dead. He tried another but they were all dead.

'I'll get help!' he said, tugging at the doorknob, which came off in his hand. 'What the—'

'Entropy's decreasing by the second, Will. Are you using Dream Topping in any of your nanomachines?'

He led me to a cabinet where a tiny drop of pink goo was suspended in midair by powerful magnets.

'There she is. The first of her kind. Still experimental, of course. There are a few problems with the discontinuation command string. Once it starts changing organic matter into Dream Topping, it won't stop.'

I looked at my watch and noticed that there were barely twelve minutes left.

'What's keeping it from working at the moment?'

'The magnetic field keeps the nanodevice immobilised and the refrigeration system keeps it below its activation temperature of minus ten degrees … What was that?'

The lights had flickered.

'Power grid failure.'

'No problem, Thursday – there are three back-up generators. They can't all fail at the same time, that would be too much of a—'

'Coincidence, yes, I know. But they will. And when they do that coincidence will be the biggest, the best – and the last.'

'Thursday, that's not possible!'

'Anything is possible right now. We're in the middle of an isolated high coincidental localised entropic field decreasement.'

'We're in a what?'