First Among Sequels (Thursday Next 5)

The real adventure that came to be known as The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco was my first proper sojourn into nonfiction, which was, as the title suggests, one of my more embarrassing failures. I don’t really know why, but nothing ever went right. I tried to convey a sense of well-meaning optimism in the book where I was caught between two impossible situations, but it came across as mostly inept fumbling, with a lot of hugging and essential oils.

I came to earth in Swindon. Or at least, the Fiasco touchy-feely version of Swindon, which was sunny and blue-skied and every garden an annoying splash of bright primary colors that gave me a headache. The houses were perfect, the cars clean, and everything was insanely neat and orderly. I pulled out my automatic, removed the clip to check it, replaced it and released the safety. There would be no escape for her this time. I knew she was unarmed, but somehow that didn’t fill me with such confidence; after all, she was almost infinitely resourceful. The thing was, so was I. After I’d killed her, I would just jump out and everything would be right—forever. I could reinstate the interactive book project before the readers had finished the first three chapters—then go to the Outland and savor the joys of Landen once more. Following that and after paying a small amount of lip service to diplomacy, I could also deploy two legions of Mrs. Danvers into Racy Novel. Who knows? I might even lead the attack myself. That, I had discovered, was the best thing about being Thursday Next—you could do anything you damn well pleased and no one would, could or dared oppose you. I had only two problems to deal with right now: disposing of the real Thursday Next and trying to figure out Mrs. Bradshaw’s middle name, the code word to get out. I hadn’t a clue—I’d never even met her.

I pulled the glove off my hand and looked at where the mottled flesh still showed signs of the eraserhead. I rubbed the itchy skin, then moved to the side of the street and walked toward where this version of Thursday’s house was located. It was the same as the one that was burned down in the first chapter of my book, so I knew the way. But the strange thing was, the street was completely deserted. Nothing moved. Not a person, not a cat, squirrel—nothing. I stopped at a car that was abandoned in the street and looked in the open passenger door. The key was still in the ignition. Whoever had once populated this book had left—and in a hurry.

I carried on walking slowly down the road. That pompous fool Bradshaw had mentioned something about a chapter breaking away from the main book—perhaps that was where all the background characters were. But it didn’t matter. Thursday was here now, and she was the one I was after. I reached the garden gate of Landen5’s house and padded cautiously up the path, past the perfectly planted flowers and windows so clean and sparkly they almost weren’t there. Holding my gun outstretched, I stepped quietly inside the house.

Thursday5’s idea of home furnishing was different from mine and the real Thursday’s. For a start, the floor covering was seagrass, and the curtains were an odiously old-fashioned tie-dye. I also noticed to my disgust that there were Tibetan mandalas in frames upon the wall and dream catchers hanging from the ceiling. I stepped closer to the pictures on the mantelpiece and found one of Thursday5 and Landen5 at Glastonbury. They had their faces painted as flowers and were grinning stupidly and hugging each other, with Pickwick5 sitting between them. It was quite sickeningly twee, to be honest.

“I would have done the same.”

I turned. Thursday was leaning on the doorway that led through to the kitchen. It was an easy shot, but I didn’t take it. I wanted to relish the moment.

“What would you have done the same?” I asked.

“I would have spared you, too. I’ll admit it, your impersonation of me was about the most plausible I’ll ever see. I’m not sure there’s anyone out there who would have spotted it. But I didn’t think you could keep it up. The real you would soon bubble to the surface. Because, like it or not, you’re not enough of me to carry it off. To be me you need the seventeen years of Jurisfiction experience—the sort of experience that means I can take on people like you and come out victorious.”

I laughed at her presumption. “I think you overestimate your own abilities, Outlander. I’m the one holding the gun. Perhaps you’re a little bit right, but I can and will be you, given time. Everything you have, everything you are. Your job, your family, your husband. I can go back to the Outland and take over from where you left off—and probably have a lot more fun doing it, too.”

I pointed my gun at her and began to squeeze the trigger, then stopped. She didn’t seem particularly troubled, and that worried me.

“Can you hear that?” she asked.

“Hear what?”

She cupped a hand to her ear. “That.”

And now that she mentioned it, I could hear something. A soft thrumming noise that seemed to reverberate through the ground.

“What is it?” I asked, and was shocked to discover that my voice came out cracked and…afraid.

“Take a look for yourself,” she said, pointing outside.

I wiped the sweat from my brow and backed out the door, still keeping my gun firmly trained on her. I ran down to the garden gate and looked up the street. The houses at the end of the road seemed to have lost definition and were being eaten away by a billowing cloud of sand.

“What the hell’s that?” I snapped.

“You’d know,” she replied quietly, “if only you’d gone to Jurisfiction classes instead of wasting your time on the shooting range.”

I looked at the mailbox on the corner of the street, and it seemed to crumble to fragments in front of my eyes and then was taken up into the cloud of dust and debris that was being sucked into a vortex high above us. I pulled out my footnoterphone and frantically dialed Bradshaw’s number.

“But you don’t know Melanie Bradshaw’s middle name,” observed Thursday, “do you?”

I lowered the phone and stared at her uselessly. It was a setup. Thursday must have spoken to Bradshaw, and together they’d tricked me into coming here.

“It’s Jenny,” she added. “I named my second daughter after her. But it won’t help you. I told Bradshaw not to lift the Textual

Sieve on any account, password or not. As soon as you were inside and the generics were safely evacuated, he was instructed to begin…the erasure of the entire book.”

“How did you contact him?” I asked.

“He contacted me,” she replied. “Thursday5 suggested to Bradshaw that you might have pulled the same trick as she did. I couldn’t get out, but we could trick you in.”

She looked at her watch.

“And in another eight minutes, this book and everything in it—you included, will be gone.”

I looked around and saw to my horror that the erasure had crept up without my noticing and was less than ten feet away—we were standing on the only piece of remaining land, a rough circle a hundred feet across containing only Landen’s house and its neighbors. But they wouldn’t stay for long, and even as I watched, the roofs were turning to dust and being whirled away, consumed by the erasure. The dull roar was increasing, and I had to raise my voice to be heard.