Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next 2)

'Wow!' exclaimed Lamb, patting his pockets for a pen. 'Aornis Hades! How did you figure that out?'

'I've glimpsed her several times over the past few weeks.'

'You must have a good memory,' observed Slaughter.

'I have help.'

Lamb found a pen, discovered it didn't work and borrowed a pencil from his partner. The point broke. I lent him mine.

'What was her name again?'

I spelt it out for him and he wrote it down painfully slowly.

'Good!' I said once they had finished. 'What are you guys doing here anyway?'

'Flanker wants a word.'

This was interesting. He'd obviously not found the cause of tomorrow's armageddon.

'I'm busy.'

'You're not busy any more,' replied Slaughter, looking very awkward and wringing her hands. 'I'm sorry about this – but you're under arrest.'

'What for now?'

'Possession of an illegal substance.'

I didn't have time for this.

'Listen, guys, I'm not just busy, I'm really busy, and Flanker sending you along with some bullshit trumped-up charge is just wasting your time and mine.'

'Cheese,' said Slaughter, holding out an arrest warrant. 'Illegal cheese. SO-1 found a block of flattened cheese under a Hispano-Suiza with your prints all over it. It was part of a cheese seizure, Thursday. It should have been consigned to the furnaces.'

I groaned. It was just what Flanker wanted. A simple internal charge which usually meant a reprimand – but could, if needed, result in a custodial sentence. A solid gold arm-twister, in other words. Before the two agents could even draw breath I had slammed the door in their faces and was heading out on to the fire escape. I heard them yell at me as I ran on to the road, just in time to be picked up by Schitt-Hawse. It was the first and last time I would ever be pleased to see him.

So there I was, unsure whether I had just got out of the frying pan and into the fire or out of the fire and into the frying pan. They had taken my automatic, keys and Jurisfiction travel book. Schitt-Hawse drove and I was sitting in the back seat – wedged tightly between Chalk and Cheese.

'I'm kind of glad to see you, in a funny sort of way.'

There was no answer so I waited ten minutes and then asked:

'Where are we going?'

This didn't elicit a response either so I patted Chalk and Cheese on the knees and said:

'You guys been on holiday this year?'

Chalk looked at me for a moment, then looked at Cheese and answered: 'We went to Majorca,' before he lapsed back into silence.

The Goliath establishment we arrived at an hour later was their Research & Development Facility at Aldermaston. Surrounded by triple fences of razor wire and armed guards patrolling with full-sized sabre-tooths, the complex was a labyrinth of aluminium-clad windowless buildings and concrete bunkers interspersed with electrical substations and large ventilation ducts. We were waved through the gate and parked in a lay-by next to a large marble Goliath logo where Chalk, Cheese and Schitt-Hawse offered up a short prayer of contrition and unfailing devotion to the Corporation. That done, we were on our way again past thousands of yards of pipework, buildings, parked military vehicles, trucks and all manner of junk.

'Be honoured, Next,' said Schitt-Hawse. 'Few are blessed with seeing this far into the workings of our beloved Corporation.'

'I can feel myself more humbled by the second, Mr Schitt-Hawse.'

We drove on to a low building with a domed concrete roof. This had even higher security than the main entrance, and Chalk, Cheese and Schitt-Hawse had to have their half-Windsor tie knots scanned for verification. The guard on duty opened a heavy blast door that led to a brightly lit corridor which in turn contained a row of elevators. We descended to Lower Ground 12, went through another security check, and then along a shiny corridor past doors either side of us which had brass placards screwed to the polished wood explaining what went on inside. We walked past Electronic Computing Engines, Tachyon Communications, Square Peg in a Round Hole and stopped at The Book Project. Schitt-Hawse opened the door and we entered.

The room was quite like Mycroft's laboratory apart from the fact that the devices seemed to have been built to a higher benchmark of quality. Where my uncle's machines were held together with baler twine, cardboard and rubber-solution glue, the machines in here had all been crafted from high-quality alloys. All the testing apparatus looked brand new and there was not a single atom of dust anywhere. There were about a half-dozen technicians, all of whom seemed to have a certain pallid disposition, and they looked at me curiously as we walked in. In the middle of the room was a doorway a little like a walk-through metal detector; it was tightly wrapped with thousands of yards of fine copper wire. The wire ended in a tight bunch the width of a man's arm which led to a large machine that hummed and clicked to itself. A technician pulled a switch, there was a crackle and a puff of smoke, and everything went dead. It was a Prose Portal, but more relevant to the purpose of this narrative, it didn't work.