The Woman Who Died a Lot (Thursday Next 7)

“They’re well, mostly. Friday still doesn’t have a purpose since his future was erased, and Tuesday is going to be the keynote speaker at the annual Mad Inventors Convention on Thursday. Jenny keeps herself to herself most of the time. When do you restart SO-13?”

“We start now. But work no different to past thirteen years. Just legal and paid—end to beetle soup, leaky roof, and sixteenmile walk to work. Afford bus.” And he gave another grunty laugh. “But why?” he added.

“Why what?”

“Why SpecOps back? Something change?”

“I don’t know,” I confessed, “I’m seeing Braxton later. I’ll ask him.”

“Detective Next?” said the receptionist, having finally decided to answer the plaintively wailing intercom, “Dr. Chumley will see you now.”

I wished Stig good day and walked past the receptionist, who had reverted to her bleached hair and modern dress. I took a deep breath, knocked on the door and—when I heard a muffled “enter!”—walked in.

4.

Monday: Shrink to Fit

The somewhat bizarre nature of SpecOps work and the high level of stressrelated retirements led SpecOps management to undertake a top-down psychological overhaul as early as 1952, when a stringent psychological appraisal of all personnel revealed that few, if any, were completely free of work-related mental issues. Before the entire service was retired, it was discovered that a control sample of ordinary citizens were probably just as mad as those in SpecOps and that the “ordinary” classification was simply set unrealistically high. Once that had been adjusted accordingly, the matter was resolved to the satisfaction of everyone.

Dr. Franz Egg, The effect of SpecOps work on the human psyche, its possible ramifications to a healthy life and comments upon needlessly long titles to academic reports

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Dr. Chumley was turned away from me when I entered and seemed to be leaning on the filing cabinet for support while his back moved in that way it does when people are silently sobbing.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Never better,” he replied, his voice with a forced quietness— like you reset when someone steps on your toe with a baby asleep nearby. “Are you here to talk about issues regarding your work as a serving SpecOps officer?”

“No,” I replied, “I’m here for a psychiatric evaluation at Commander Braxton Hicks’s behest.”

“Thank God for that,” he said with obvious relief. “I thought I’d have to listen to the crazy antics of some deranged operative who should have been straitjacketed long ago.”

He paused for a second. “I just said that out loud, didn’t I?” “I’m afraid so.”

“Damn. I’m Dr. Newton Chumley by the way.”

“Detective Thursday Next,” I said, shaking his hand.

He placed a file in the cabinet, then took out a manila folder. It was big, and Dr. Chumley heaved it to the desk with a thump. He was a young man, probably recently graduated, but the work was already having an affect. His eyes were red, and he had a noticeable tremor.

“You have no idea what I have to go through,” he said, offering me a seat before sitting himself. “It’s intolerable, I tell you, intolerable.”

He rested his face in his hands.

“Early this morning,” he said quietly through his fingers, “I had someone who had killed a zombie with a sharpened spade.”

“That would be Spike,” I replied brightly, having joined him on a few of these expeditions myself.

“And doesn’t anything about that seem remotely unusual to you?”

I reflected for a moment. “Not really . . . Wait—”

“Yes?”

“Spike usually favors a semiauto twelve-gauge. He must have been out of cartridges and used whatever was at hand. It’s one of his many talents. Adaptability.”

“Very . . . laudable,” murmured Dr. Chumley, lapsing once more into quiet despondency.