The Woman Who Died a Lot Read online

  “Wasn’t the wallpaper from the seventies just now?” I asked as the room wobbled for a moment and suddenly became a more modern pastel shade.

  “It was a backflash,” said the receptionist, “the residual effect of the offices once being ChronoGuard. There’ll be another in a few moments. They usually come in pairs.”

  There was another ripple, and her modern dress was replaced by one from the fifties.

  “Always in pairs,” she said without looking up. She was about twenty, doing her nails a garish blue and eating a packet of M&M’s. Up until a few moments ago, she’d had bleached hair. She looked better in the more reserved style of the fifties, but, interestingly, she seemed utterly indifferent to the sudden change, so I ventured a theory.

  “You would have been ChronoGuard, wouldn’t you?”

  She gazed up at me with large, intelligent eyes. The grammatical inference of my question showed I understood the complexities of the service.

  “I would have had a successful career in the timestream,” she replied with a sad smile, “but the way things stand at the moment, I marry a guy named Biff I don’t much like, have two unremarkable kids and then get hit by a car in 2041, aged fifty-five.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, musing on the misguided wisdom that allowed ex–potential employees to have both their original and new lives summarized in a paragraph or two. It was dubbed the “Letter of Destiny” and was apparently part of the Union of Federated Timeworkers severance package. The unions were powerful but had achingly slow bureaucracy. Despite the time engines’ being shut down over two years ago, the Letters of Destiny were only just falling through people’s mailboxes. To many they came as a complete surprise and met with mixed feelings. Yes, it was good to know you might have been a hero at ChronoGuard, and yes, it was good to know that you make it to fifty-one without losing your mind or your hair, but no, perhaps you could do without knowing that your wife/husband is going to sleep with your best friend and enjoy it more, and no, it’s not healthy to know that you’re going to have an arm torn off by a gorilla in six hours and there’s nothing you can do about it.

  “You would have known my son,” I said. “Friday Next.”

  “Ooh,” she said, eyes opening a bit wider at the mention of his name, “I’d have left my husband for him. We’d have spent a sweaty weekend consummating our affair in his Late Pleistocene weekend retreat.”

  This was news to me, and I wasn’t happy knowing that my son might once—in an alternative future—be sleeping with another man’s wife. There was the ethical question of second homes, too.

  “I never knew he would’ve had a holiday home in the Late Pleistocene.”

  “One interglacial back so with good weather, nothing too bitey and only twelve thousand years ago, so easy access for Friday afternoons—the time engines would have gotten really clogged as soon as work ended.”

  “If you must have a second home, best have it someplace where it doesn’t inflate house prices,” I mused. “Have you met him in this timeline?”

  “No. I only got my Letter of Destiny last week.”

  “Are you okay about it?” I asked, as my son Friday had also been summarized recently and was being a bit more reticent as to how it turned out for him.

  “I’m fine about it,” she said cheerily. “Before, I suspected I might not amount to anything, and now I know I won’t, so at least it takes away the wearisome burden of delusive hope.”

  “Very . . . philosophical of you.”

  She thought for a moment.

  “Will you tell Friday that Shazza says, ‘It would have been seriously good’?”

  My son and father would both have been in the ChronoGuard if the engines hadn’t been switched off, so the seemingly pointless discussions on the might-have-been were not exactly relevant but certainly of interest.

  I told her I’d pass on her message, and she gave a half smile before returning to her nails and bag of M&M’s.

  The door to Dr. Chumley’s office opened, and a short, heavyset man walked out. He had prominent brow ridges, dark eyes, and a broad nose. He wore a well-tailored suit woven from three different colors of baling twine, and his head was topped by a shock of unruly hair that had violently resisted all attempts to be combed. When he moved, he had the side-to-side gait of a sailor, and the smell of woodsmoke and hot mud moved with him. This was not at all unusual. He was a resequenced neanderthal named Stiggins and soon to be, I assumed, divisional head of SO-13, the department that policed all unextincted creatures. Not just the legal ones like mammoths, dodos, saber-toothed tigers and himself but also all the ones that were illegal— Diatrymas, to list an example never far from the news, and a host of chimeras—creatures that had sprung not from the random machinations of evolution but from garden-shed laboratories of meddling hobby geneticists who should have known better.

  “Hello, Stig.”

  He gave a snorty grunt of pleasure, and we hugged and smelled each other—once in the armpit, once in the hair, as was the neanderthal custom.

  “ Co-op generic shampoo,” he said with a grimace, the ’thal version of a smile, “but stored in a Pantene container.”

  “I like the shape of the bottle.”

  “Us, too. Bacon and eggs for breakfast with arabica coffee, pushy-down, not bubble-bubble. Toast with jam. Raspberry. You travel Skyrail, sit next to someone too much Bodmin aftershave, and I smell much-much painkiller, Dizuperadol patches, two per cheek.” He took another deep breath. “But no oofy-oofy with husband. Not for weeks. Not like you. Problems?”

  “I’m still a bit mashed,” I replied with a smile, well used to neanderthal ways, which were dazzlingly direct and unencumbered by the complex peculiarities of human etiquette, “but thanks for the concern.”

  “Oofy-oofy very important.”

  “I’ll second that,” I said with a sigh. “I’d like to but have no desire to. How are Felicity and the boys?”

  “We are all well, thank you. Mrs. Stiggins is ripe at present, and the boys passed their flint-plus with distinction.”

  “You must send them our congratulations.”

  “We shall. And your own childer, Thursday?”

  “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 reportsr />
  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.

  “Actually,” I added in order to fill the silence, “technically speaking, zombies are already dead, so you can’t kill them—just disable the diseased part of the cortex that gives them locomotion and an insatiable thirst for human flesh.”

  “I so didn’t want to know that,” said Chumley, staring at me, “and will now have to do my very best to forget it. But I have a feeling the thought will remain and fester in my subconscious until it bubbles to the surface as a fullyfledged neurosis a dozen years from now, when I begin to have an inexplicable aversion to buttons and hedgehogs.”

  He took a deep breath, calmed himself, and then opened the bulging file, which I noted had my name on the cover. I’d forgotten how much stuff I’d done.

  He indicated the closed door. “Do you know Officer Stiggins?”

  “Yes, very well.”

  “He uses ‘we’ when he means ‘I.’ Is that an affectation?”

  “Neanderthals are hardwired Marxist,” I told him, “and have no concept of the first-person singular pronoun. He would die tomorrow without fear or worry if he felt it would better serve his community.”

  “Are you saying Karl Marx was a neanderthal?”

  “He was exceptionally hairy,” I said reflectively, “but no, I don’t think so.”

  “You know what’s really strange?”

  “You could once buy lion cubs at Harrods?” I replied helpfully. “That’s pretty strange.”

  “Not as strange as this: Of everyone I’ve interviewed, Officer Stiggins is the most normal. Sensible, thoughtful and utterly without ego. That’s strange, given that he’s the only one who’s not human.”

  “Have you met Officer Simpkin?” I asked.

  “Yes—charming lady.”

  “She’s not human.”

  He frowned. “What is she, then?”

  “Perhaps it’s better you don’t know,” I replied, considering Chumley’s delicate mental state.

  “In that you are correct, and I thank you for it.”

  He looked at my file for a moment, read the good-conduct report and then the summary. He stopped after a minute or two and grimaced. “Did you really kill Acheron Hades with a silver mullet?”

  “I think you’ll find it says ‘bullet.’ ”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, peering closer. “That makes a lot more sense.”

  “Acheron’s sister wasn’t best pleased that I did,” I said. “In fact—”

  “Can I stop you there?” said Chumley abruptly. “I’d be happier not knowing who Acheron’s sister is. My job is to give Commander Hicks an appraisal of your psychological well-being. Now, do you have any delusions, hallucinations, unresolved and deep-seated personal issues, inexplicable phobias or any other related aberrations that might negatively affect your working efficiency?”

  “I don’t . . . think so.”

  “Thank heavens,” he said with a contented sigh as he produced a small book of certificates. “I’m going to mark you NUT-1 on the internationally recognized but tactlessly named scale of psychological normality: ‘disgustingly healthy and levelheaded.’ There, that was easy. I can have a break until my twelve-o’clock—she had to kill a man with her thumb and now can’t tie her shoelaces or change her mind without losing her temper. Well, nice meeting you. Close the door on your way out. Cheerio.”

  But I didn’t get up. No one I knew in SpecOps had been given a clear bill of mental health for decades. In fact, it struck me now that it was possibly a disadvantage. After all, who would ever do the stuff we did without being a little bit nuts? Victor Analogy had run SO-27 for twenty-six years and was never ranked higher than a NUT-4: “prone to strange and sustained delusional outbursts but otherwise normal in all respects.” I had respected Analogy a great deal, but even I felt slightly ill at ease when he confided in me with all seriousness that he was pregnant with an elephant, foisted on him by an overamorous server at Arby’s.

  “Actually,” I began, “I think someone might be trying to kill me.”

  Chumley stopped what he was doing and stared at me over the top of his spectacles. “Oh, no,” he said, “I’m not falling for that. First you say you’re fine, then you say your not. We call it Hamlet syndrome—an attempt to get your own way by feigning insanity, generally by saying what comes into your head and talking a lot. Mind you,” he added thoughtfully, “it works a lot better if you’re a prince.”

  “I’m not kidding,” I replied. “Goliath is out to cause me harm.”

  I stared at him earnestly, and he narrowed his eyes. It was true, too. The Goliath Corporation and I had not seen eye to eye over the past two decades. They no longer controlled SpecOps but had run the police force ever since the entire service had been privatized.

  “In my experience that’s hardly evidence of delusion,” he said. “Goliath is out to get lots of people. Being wary of multinationals shouldn’t be paranoia, and more a case of standard operating procedure.”

  Goliath wasn’t universally loved, but since it employed almost a fifth of England’s workforce, no one was keen to rock the boat. Few ever dared to speak out against the behemoth.

  “I see,” Chumley said, pen poised above the “signature” part of the certificate. “And what form does this harm take? Assassination?”

  “I’m too valuable to assassinate,” I told him. “They’re more interested in attempting to access information by impersonation. There are people who might talk only to me about information that Goliath is after.”

  “They’d have to be good impersonators to fool people who know you well.”

  I thought for a moment. I wanted to aim for what Analogy had been given: a NUT-4. Anything saner and I was probably too normal; anything more insane and I’d be disqualified. I wondered what Phoebe Smalls had been given. She was utterly sane—but smart, too, so I’d have to assume that she knew the system as well as I did. She’d probably go for the same. It
would be a delicate task not merely to feign madness but just the right level of madness. I leaned forward.

  “It’s not the sort of impersonators you imagine. The Goliath Corporation has made considerable advances in the manufacture of Homo syntheticus,” I told him, “and for a few years now they’ve been manufacturing Thursdays who try to pass themselves off as me—six times that we know of.”

  “Did you take these synthetics to the police?”

  “The police are run by Goliath. I have a feeling we’d be wasting our time.”

  “I see. And where are those Synthetics now?”

  I stared at him thoughtfully. Although the Homo syntheticus were wholly artificial, they appeared sentient. If they were shown to be legally equivalent to neanderthals, we could be convicted of murder. If they were deemed illegally spliced chimeras, we were in no trouble at all—and could even claim a bounty by presenting an eyelid as proof. I decided to play it safe.

  “I have no idea of their precise whereabouts.”

  He stared at me for a moment, attempting to gauge if this idea could be real or was only a complex delusion.

  “Okay,” he said, “I’m going to make you a NUT-2: ‘generally sane.’ Seven Thursdays? Interesting.”

  It was a step in the right direction, but it wasn’t enough.

  “There weren’t seven,” I said quickly. “There were ten.”

  “Ten?”

  I counted them out on my fingers. “Six synthetics, two fictional Thursdays, me and my gran, who wasn’tactually my gran— just a version of me that I thought was my gran, hiding in our present rather than hers. She had to spend the last twenty years of her life in gingham and read the ten most boring classics.”

  “I’m sure there was a good reason.”

  “Because she—I—changed the ending of Jane Eyre. It was an Illegal Narrative Flexation; they would have liked to let me off, but the law is the law. Oh, perhaps I should have added that for much of my career I’ve worked for Jurisfiction. It’s a sort of policing agency in the BookWorld, the realm that exists beyond the other side of the printed page.”