“No,” he said, “it’s always a summary. A side of letter-size paper on what we would have done and the same again of what we will. An entire life compressed into barely five hundred words.”
“Right,” I said, “so you don’t know for certain you won’t a have a few boffo laughs and some good times, now, do you?”
“What’s going on?” asked Landen, who happened to be walking past the open door of the dining room.
“Friday’s lost his life function,” I said.
“He looks fairly alive to me.”
“No, no, his purpose. His raison d’être.”
“Everyone has a function,” said Landen, coming in to lay a comforting hand on his son’s shoulder, “even if he doesn’t know what it is. Some of us are lucky enough to have a clear function. I wasn’t sure what mine was for a while, until I realized it was to support your mother—and make sure you and Tuesday survived into adulthood.”
“Don’t forget Jenny,” I said.
“Yeah, her, too. Yours might not be obvious right now or even known—but it’s there. Everyone has a function. A small role to play in the bigger picture.”
Friday detached himself from my arms and continued to set the table. “You’re wrong, both of you. Here’s the thing: My life didn’t even warrant a full sheet of paper. This Friday at 1402 and four seconds, I murder someone. I’m in custody by the evening. In three months’ time, I’m sentenced to twenty-two years in the clink. Fifteen years into my sentence, I stab Danny ‘The Horse’ Bomperini to death in the prison laundry. It was self-defense but the courts don’t see it that way. My sentence is extended. I finally get out on February first, 2041. A few days later, I’m found in the car park of Sainsbury’s. It looks like they used a baseball bat, and the police never find who did it.”
There was silence. It explained the sullen mood he’d been in ever since his future had arrived from the Union of Federated Timeworkers.
“My money’s on the Bomperini family,” said Landen thoughtfully. “Payback for offing the Horse, y’know.”
“Landen!” I scolded. “This is serious shit we’re talking here.”
“I beg to differ, wifey darling,” he replied emphatically, “but it’s not. You can change it. The Standard History Eventline’s not fixed. If we’ve learned anything over the past two decades, it’s precisely that. Yes, it follows a general course that remains the same, but detail can be changed. We’ve all altered the future— and the past, on occasion—and so can he.”
“I could,” replied Friday, “but I have this strange feeling that I won’t. That I’ll let it go ahead.”
There was a pause.
“Do you know who you’re going to murder on Friday?”
“Yes. It’s . . . Gavin Watkins.”
“Gavin Watkins?”
“Do you know him?” Lande asked me.
“A boy in Tuesday’s year,” I replied, “not very pleasant. He paid fifty p to see her boobs.”
“I might have to kill him myself,” said Landen. “Does that have something to do with it?” he asked Friday.
“I don’t think so,” said Friday with a shrug, “but I’m amazed she didn’t hold out for at least a pound.”
“Market forces,” I observed. “We’ve already established that the boob-flashing market isn’t what it used to be. But we can warn the Watkinses. Have him taken into protective custody or something.”
“I’ve got four days,” said Friday, “so we might learn some more before it happens. Who else did you say sent their regards to me?”
“ Jimmy-G at TJ-Maxx,” I replied. “He’s setting up a Destiny Aware Support Group for those who have been summarized, and he wanted to know if you would attend. Eight P.M. at the sports center tomorrow.”
“I’m not really into support groups,” Friday grumbled. “Are we going to get this table set or not?”
So we did, and chatted of lighter things, such as Friday’s part-time job at B&Q and whether his fellow workers actively pursued a policy of looking busy when customers needed assistance.
“It’s the first thing we learn,” he said. “But you have to remember that most customers are as dumb as pig shit and couldn’t find the floor if they fell on it, so there’s a sound reason behind it.”
Once the table was set, Friday went off to tinker with his motorbike, and Landen and I managed to have a few words in the kitchen together. Friday’s future looked bleak, but he was right— we’d changed the timeline before and could do it again.