One of Our Thursdays Is Missing (Thursday Next 6)

He frowned at me. “As you wish. All that metaphor—”

He didn’t have time to finish his sentence. With a tremendous crash, the door was pushed off its hinges, and two Men in Plaid entered. From door to death was scarcely less than fifteen seconds, and much happened. Sprockett was between us and the MiP, and he valiantly made a lunge for the intruders. The first Plaid was quicker and before we knew it had popped Sprockett’s inspection panel and pressed his emergency spring release. In an instant the butler fell lifeless. Before Sprockett hit the floor, the Plaid had advanced, knocked my pistol from my grasp and pushed me sideways. As I lay sprawling, the second Man in Plaid picked up Sir Charles and threw him bodily out the window, while the first Plaid moved towards me, his expressionless eyes boring into mine like a pair of gimlets. We’d just killed six of their compatriots; I didn’t think there was much room for negotiation.

I quickly scrambled across the floor and was grabbed by my foot. I wriggled out of my boot, and it was this, I think, that saved us. The Man in Plaid was put off balance and gave me the split second I needed to find my pistol. Without hesitation I turned and fired. There was a whompa noise, and the air wobbled as the Cherry Fondue hit home. With an agonizing scream of pain, the Man in Plaid exploded into not graphemes but the infinitely more painful words, many of which embedded themselves into the woodwork like shards of glass. The blast caught the second Man in Plaid and cut him in two. He fell to the floor with a heavy thump, the lower half of him spilling cogs, springs and brass actuating rods onto the floor.

“You’re robotic?” I said, moving closer. The Man in Plaid was moving his arms in a feeble manner, and his eyes followed me as I approached. He was still functioning, but it was clear he was damaged well beyond economic repair. He looked as though he was out of warranty, too.

“You are impressive, Miss Next,” he managed to say. “A worthy adversary.”

“Who sent you?”

“I don’t answer questions. I ask them.”

I noticed I was shaking. I retrieved my boot and walked to the broken window. Lying on the grass four stories below was Sir Charles. The heavy impact had caused the binding matrix of his body to become fused to the ground, and he was beginning to merge with the lawn. I could see several people staring up and pointing, first at me and then at the remains of Sir Charles. We didn’t have long before someone called Jurisfaction. Lyell could be rewritten, but these things take time and money, and Biography’s budget was tighter than ours.

Sprockett was lying flat on his face in an undignified manner, and I quickly rewound him. As soon as his gyros, thought cogs and speech diaphragm were back to speed, he sat up.

“I’ve had the most peculiar dream,” he told me, his eyebrow clicking through each emotion in turn and then back again, “about being caught by my mother oiling a Mark III Ford Capri in an ‘inappropriate’ manner.”

“I didn’t know you had a mother.”

“I don’t—that’s what was so peculiar.”

“See what you can get out of him,” I said, pointing to the damaged Man in Plaid. “I’m going to have a look around.”

I didn’t waste any time and hunted through the remains of Lyell’s study to see what—if anything—had been left behind. The short answer was not much, until I went through the wastepaper basket and came across a pencil sketch of Racy Novel with WomFic on one side and Dogma on the other. A rough outline of the geology had been sketched in, and for the most part the strata were more or less identical beneath all the genres, except for a shaded patch the shape of a tailless salmon that seemed to be mostly beneath Racy Novel. I returned to where Sprockett had been talking with the badly damaged Plaid.

“He’s a Duplex-6,” said Sprockett with a sense of deep respect. “I was wondering why they managed to stay on our tail so easily during the Oversize Books section.”

“Who is he working for?”

“He won’t tell us, but it’s of no matter—the Duplex automaton’s memories are recorded on punched tape. We can have it read.”

“So remove his tape and let’s get out of here.”

In reply the Duplex-6 took a large brass key from his jacket pocket and inserted it into the socket in the base of his neck. We could see he was almost run down, and before we could stop him, he had started to turn the key.

“Good Lord,” said Sprockett. “The Duplex-6 has a self-wind capability.”

Sprockett tried to stop the damaged Man in Plaid from winding himself up, but the 6’s superior strength was too much, and we watched with increased hopelessness as the Plaid’s tension indicator neared the red line.

“We’re leaving,” said Sprockett, and without waiting for a reply he took me by the hand and we ran to the bathroom window and out the fire escape at the back of the building.

We were two flights down when the Duplex-6’s mainspring finally ruptured in an almighty outburst of stored mechanical energy. There was a loud twuuung noise, and the shattered remains of the Man in Plaid erupted out the windows of Lyell’s apartment. We were showered with minute cogs, sprockets, bevel gears, and dogs, chains, pushrods and actuators.

“A self-winding capability,” said Sprockett, who was obviously deeply impressed. “I wonder if they would retrofit that feature for us Duplex-5s?”

32.

Homecoming

Islands to Visit #124: Photography. This beautifully expressive and lyrical island has been divided between Black-and-White and Color for many years, and the two factions are almost constantly at war, an event that is itself documented by resident war photographers. The recording of the war recording is also recorded, with Martin Parr photographing the ears and neckties of those who are recording the people who are recording the people recording the events.

Bradshaw’s BookWorld Companion (5th edition)

We dodged Jurisfaction officers for two hours and eventually negotiated a ride home aboard a copy of the recently discredited President Formby War Diaries, which was on a one-way trip to Historical Counterfactuals.

“May I be so bold,” said Sprockett once we had landed and were on