One of Our Thursdays Is Missing (Thursday Next 6)

“Do I drink it?”

“Gallons of it, usually.”

“At a single sitting?”

“No, generally one cup at a time.”

“Then I’d love some, thank you.”

He went to put the kettle on.

“You look a lot like Thursday,” he said.

“I’m often mistaken for her,” I replied, feeling less nervous around familiar questions. “In fact, I’m surprised you needed so little convincing I wasn’t the real Thursday.”

“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.