First Among Sequels tn-5 Read online

  “Stranger things have happened.” Bradshaw sighed. “Where are Peter and Jane?”

  “The new feline in The Tiger Who Came to Tea got stage fright,” said Lady Cavendish, “and after that they said they needed to deal with a troublesome brake van in The Twin Engines.”

  “Very well,” said Bradshaw, tingling a small bell. “Jurisfiction meeting number 43,369 is now in session. Item One: The number of fictioneers trying to escape into the real world has increased this month. We’ve had seven attempts, all of them rebuffed. The Council of Genres has made it abundantly clear that this will not be tolerated without a Letter of Transit, and anyone caught moving across or attempting to move across will be reduced to text on sight.”

  There was silence. I was the only one who crossed over on a regular basis, but no one liked the idea of reducing people to text, whether they deserved it or not. It was irreversible and the closest thing there was to death in the written world.

  “I’m not saying you have to do that,” continued Bradshaw, “and I want you to pursue all other avenues before lethal force. But if it’s the only way, then that’s what you’ll do. Item Two: It’s been six months, and there’s still no sign of the final two volumes of The Good Soldier Švejk. If we don’t hear anything more, we’ll just bundle up the four volumes into one and reluctantly call it a day. Thursday, have you seen anything around the Well that might indicate they were stolen to order to be broken up for scrap?”

  “None at all,” I replied, “but I spoke with our opposite number over at Jurisfiktivní, and he said they’d lost it over there, too.”

  “That’s wonderful news!” breathed Bradshaw, much relieved.

  “It is?”

  “Yes-it’s someone else’s problem. Item Three: The inexplicable departure of comedy from the Thomas Hardy novels is still a cause for great concern.”

  “Hadn’t we put a stop to that?” asked Emperor Zhark.

  “Not at all,” replied Bradshaw. “We tried to have the comedy that was being leached out replaced by fresh comedy coming in, but because misery has a greater natural affinity for the Wessex novels, it always seems to gain the ascendancy. Hard to believe Jude the Obscure was once the most rip-roaringly funny novel in the English language, eh?”

  I put up my hand.

  “Yes, Thursday?”

  “Do you think the Comedy genre might be mining the books for laughs? You know how those guys will happily steal and modify from anything and everywhere for even the most perfunctory of chuckles.”

  “It’s possible, but we need hard evidence. Who wants to have a trawl around Comedy for a Thomas Hardy funnyism we can use to prove one way or the other?”

  “I will,” said the Red Queen, before I could volunteer.

  “Better get busy. If they are sucking the comedy out of Jude, we don’t have much time. Now that the farce, rib-cracking one-liners and whimsical asides have all been removed, a continued drain on the novel’s reserves of lightheartedness will place the book in a state of negative funniness. Insufferably gloomy-miserable, in fact.”

  We thought about it for a moment. Even until as little as thirty years ago, the whole Thomas Hardy series was actually very funny-pointlessly frivolous, in fact. As things stood at the moment, if you wanted a happy ending to anything in Hardy, you’d be well advised to read it backward.

  “Item Four,” continued Bradshaw, “a few genre realignments.”

  There was an audible sigh in the air, and a few agents lost interest. This was one of those boring-but-important items that, while of little consequence to the book in question, subtly changed the way in which it was policed. We had to know what novel was in what genre-sometimes it wasn’t altogether obvious, and when a book stretched across two genres or more, it could open a jurisdictional can of worms that might have us tied up for years. We all reached for our note pads and pencils as Bradshaw stared at the list.

  “Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods? has been moved from nonfiction to fiction,” he began, leaving a pause so we could write it down, “and Orwell’s 1984 is no longer truly fiction, so has been reallocated to nonfiction. Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan is no longer Sci-fibut Philosophy.”

  This was actually good news; I’d thought the same for years.

  “The subgenre of Literary Smut has finally been disbanded, with Fanny Hill and Moll Flanders being transferred to Racy Novel and Lady Chatterley’s Lover to Human Drama.”

  We diligently wrote it all down as Bradshaw continued:

  “The History of Tom Jones is now in Romantic Comedy, and The Story of O is part of the Erotic Novel genre, as are Lolita and The Autobiography of a Flea. As part of a separate genre reappraisal, Orwell’s Animal Farm belongs not just to the Allegorical and Political genres but has expanded to be part of Animal Drama and Juvenilia as well.”

  “Four genres bad, two genres good,” murmured Mr. Fainset.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Good,” said Bradshaw, stroking his large white mustache. “Item Five: The entire works of Jane Austen are down in the maintenance bay for a refit. We’ve diverted all the Outlander readings through a book-club boxed set, and I want someone to patrol the series until the originals are back online. Volunteers?”

  “I will,” I said.

  “You’re on cadet assessment, Thursday. Anyone else?”

  Lady Margaret Cavendish put up her hand. Unusually for a resident of fiction, she had once been real. Originally a flamboyant seventeenth-century aristocratic socialite much keen on poetry, women’s issues and self-publicity, our Lady Cavendish hailed from an unfair biography. Annoyed by the slurs committed, as so often to the defamed dead, she took flight to the bright lights of Jurisfiction, in which she seemed to excel, especially in the poetry form, which no one else much liked to handle.

  “What would you have me do?” she asked.

  “Nothing, really-just maintain a presence to make sure any mischievous character understudies think twice before they do their own dialogue or try to ‘improve’ anything.”

  Lady Cavendish shrugged and nodded her agreement.

  “Item Six,” said Bradshaw, consulting his clipboard again, “Falling Outlander ReadRates.”

  He looked at us all over his glasses. We all knew the problem but saw it more as a systemic difficulty rather than something we could deal with on a book-to-book policing basis.

  “The Outlander Reading Index has dropped once again for the 1,782nd day running,” reported Bradshaw, “and although there are certain books that will always be read, we are finding that more and more minor classics and a lot of general fiction are going for long periods without even being opened. Because of this, Text Grand Central is worried that bored characters in lesser books might try to move to more popular novels for work, which will doubtless cause friction.”

  We were all silent, and the inference wasn’t lost on any of us: The fictional characters in the BookWorld could be a jittery bunch, and it didn’t take much to set off a riot.

  “I can’t say any more at this point,” concluded Bradshaw, “as it’s only a potential problem, but be aware of what’s going on. The last thing we need right now is a band of disgruntled book-people besieging the Council of Genres demanding the right to be read. Okay, Item Seven: The MAWk-15H virus has once again resurfaced in Dickens, particularly in the death of Little Nell, which is now so uncomfortably saccharine that even our own dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell complained. I need someone to liaise with the BookWorld Communicable Textual Diseases Unit to deal with this. Volunteers?”

  Foyle reluctantly put up his hand. Working for the BCTD on Bookviruses was never popular, as it required a lengthy quarantine on completion; most of Victorian melodrama was to some degree infected with MAWk-15H, and it was often blamed on Jurisfiction agents with poor hygiene.

  “Item Eight: Jurisfiction recruitment. The percentage of recruits making it to full agent status is currently eight percent, down from twenty-two percent t
hree years ago. I’m not saying that standards need to slip or anything, but Senator Jobsworth has threatened to force agents upon us if we can’t recruit, and we don’t want that.”

  We all muttered our agreement. Just recently a few cadets had been making themselves conspicuous by their poor performance. None of us wanted to be understaffed, but then neither did we want the ser vice swamped with knuckleheads.

  “So,” continued Bradshaw, “on the basis that poor training makes failed cadets, I want you all to think about giving them all a little more of your time.”

  He put down his clipboard.

  “That’s it for now. Do the best you can, keep me informed as to progress and, as regards health and safety, we’ve had the welcome news that you can ignore safety practices to save time, but you must complete the paperwork. Good luck, and…let’s be careful out there.”

  Everyone started to talk among themselves, and after I told Thursday5 to wait at my desk, I threaded my way through the small gathering to speak to Bradshaw. I caught up with him as he was heading back to his desk.

  “You want me to report on the Jane Austen refit?” I asked him. “Any par tic ular reason?”

  Bradshaw was dressed as you might expect a colonial white hunter to dress: in a safari suit with shorts, pith helmet and a revolver in a leather holster. He didn’t need to dress like that anymore, of course, but he was a man of habit.

  “That was mostly misdirection,” he asserted. “I do want you to take a gander, but there’s something else I’d like you to look at-something I don’t want Senator Jobsworth to know about, or at least not yet.”

  Senator Jobsworth was the head of the Council of Genres and a powerful man. Politics within Jurisfiction could be tricky at times, and I had to be particularly diplomatic as far as Jobsworth was concerned-I often had to cross swords with him in the debating chamber. As the only real person in fiction, my advice was often called for-but rarely welcomed.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Bradshaw rubbed his mustache thoughtfully. “We’ve had a report of something that sounds transfictional.”

  “Another one?”

  It was the name given to something that had arrived from the real world-the Outland, as it was known. I was a transfictional, of course, but the term was more usually used to refer to something or somebody that had crossed over unexpectedly.

  Bradshaw handed me a scrap of paper with the title of a book on it. “I feel happier with you handling it, because you’re an Outlander. Appreciate a woman who’s proper flesh and blood. By the way, how’s Thursday5 doing?”

  “She isn’t,” I replied. “Her timidity will end up getting her killed. We had a run-in with a grammasite inside Lord of the Flies while dealing with the glasses problem, and she decided to give the Verbisoid the benefit of the doubt and a very large hug.”

  “What type of Verbisoid? Intransitive?”

  I shook my head sadly. “Nope. Ditransitive.”

  Bradshaw whistled low. He hadn’t been kidding over recruitment troubles or Senator Jobsworth’s involvement. Even I knew there were at least three totally unsuitable candidates Jobsworth was pressuring us to “reappraise.”

  “She’s lucky to have a single verb left in her body,” said Bradshaw after a pause. “Give her the full three days before firing her, yes? It has to be by the book, in case she tries to sue us.”

  I assured him I would and moved back to my desk, where Thursday5 was sitting on the floor in the lotus position. I had a quick rummage through my case notes, which were now stacked high on my desk. In a rash moment I’d volunteered to look at Jurisfiction “cold cases,” thinking that there would only be three or four. As it turned out, there were over a hundred infractions of sorts, ranging from random plot fluctuations in the Gormenghast trilogy to the inexplicable and untimely death of Charles Dickens, who had once lived long enough to finish Edwin Drood. I did as much as I had time for, which wasn’t a lot.

  “Right,” I said, pulling on my jacket and grabbing my bag, “we’re off. Stick close to me and do exactly as I say-even if that means killing grammasites. It’s them or us.”

  “Them or us,” repeated Thursday5 halfheartedly, slinging her felt handbag over her shoulder in exactly the same way as I did. I stopped for a moment and stared at my desk. It had been rearranged.

  “Thursday?” I said testily. “Have you been doing feng shui on my desk again?”

  “It was more of a harmonization, really,” she replied somewhat sheepishly.

  “Well, don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just…just don’t.”

  5. Training Day

  The BookWorld was a minefield for the unwary, so apprenticeships were essential. We’d lost more agents through poor training than were ever taken by grammasites. A foot wrong in the imaginatively confusing world of fiction could see the inexperienced Jurisfiction Cadet mispelled, conjugated or reduced to text. My tutor had been the first Miss Havisham, and I like to think it was her wise counsel that had allowed me to survive as long as I did. Many cadets didn’t. The average life expectancy for a raw recruit in BookWorld was about forty-seven chapters.

  We stepped outside the colonnaded entrance of Norland Park and basked in the warmth of the sunshine. The story had long ago departed with the Dashwood family to Devon, and this corner of Sense and Sensibility was quiet and unused. To one side a saddled horse was leaning languidly against a tree with a hound sitting on the ground quite near it. Birds sang in the branches, and clouds moved slowly across the heavens. Each cloud was identical, of course, and the sun didn’t track across the sky as it did back home, and, come to think of it, the birdsong was on a twenty-second loop. It was what we called “narrative economics,” the bare amount of description necessary to create a scene. The Book-World was like that-mostly ordered, and without the rich texture that nature’s randomness brings to the real world.

  We sat in silence for a few minutes to wait for my taxi. I was thinking about the mostly bald Pickwick, Friday’s ChronoGuard pre sen ta tion, Felix8’s return and my perfidy to Landen. Thursday5 had no such worries-she was reading the astrology section of the BookWorld’s premier newspaper, The Word.

  After a while she said, “It’s my birthday today.”

  “I know.”

  “You do? How?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Listen to what it says in the horoscopes: ‘If it is your birthday, there may be an increased amount of mail. Expect gifts, friendly salutations from people and the occasional surprise. Possibility of cake.’ That’s so weird-I wonder if any of it will come true?”

  “I’ve no idea. Have you noticed the amount of Mrs. Danvers you see wandering around these days?”

  I mentioned this because a pair of them had been seen at Norland Park that morning. They were becoming a familiar sight in fiction, hanging around popular books out of sight of the reader, looking furtive and glaring malevolently at anyone who asked what they were up to. The excess of Mrs. Danvers in the Book-World was easily explained. Generics, or characters-in-waiting, are created blank, without any personality or gender, and are then billeted in novels until called up for training in character schools. From there they are sent either to populate the books being built or to replace characters who are due for retirement or replacement. The problem is, generics have a chameleonic habit of assimilating themselves to a strong leading character, and when six thousand impressionable generics were lodged inside Rebecca, all but eight became Mrs. Danvers, the creepy house keeper of Manderley. Since creepy house keepers are not much in demand these days, they were mostly used as expendable drones for the Mispeling Vyrus Farst Respons Groop or, more sinisterly, for riot control and any other civic disturbances. At Jurisfiction we were concerned that they were becoming another layer of policing, answerable only to the Council of Genres, something that was stridently denied.

  “Mrs. Danvers?” repeated Thursday5, studying a pullout guide to reading tea leaves. “I’ve got one or t
wo in my books, but I think they’re meant to be there.”

  “Tell me,” I said by way of conversation, “is there any aspect of the BookWorld that you’d like to learn about as part of your time with me?”

  “Well,” she said after a pause, “I’d like to have a go and see what it’s like inside a story during a recitation in the oral tradition-I’ve heard it’s really kind of buzzing.”

  She was right. It was like sweaty live improv theater-anything could happen.

  “No way,” I said, “and if I hear that you’ve been anywhere near OralTrad, you’ll be confined to The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco. It’s not like books where everything’s laid out and orderly. The oral tradition is dynamic like you’ve no idea. Change anything in there and you will, quite literally, give the narrator an aneurysm.”

  “A what?”

  “A brain hemorrhage. The same can be said of Poetry. You don’t want to go hacking around in there without a clear head on your shoulders.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s like a big emotion magnifier. All feelings are exacerbated to a dangerous level. You can find things out about yourself that you never knew-or never wanted to know. We have a saying: ‘You can lose yourself in a book, but you find yourself in Poetry.’ It’s like being able to see yourself when drunk.”

  “Aha,” she said in a quiet voice.

  There was a pause.

  “You’ve never been drunk, have you?”

  She shook her head. “Do you think I should try it?”

  “It’s overrated.”

  I had a thought. “Have you ever been up to the Council of Genres?”

  “No.”

  “A lamentable omission. That’s where we’ll go first.”

  I pulled out my mobilefootnoterphone and called TransGenre Taxis to see where my cab had gone. The reason for a taxi was not altogether obvious to Thursday5, who, like most residents of the BookWorld, could bookjump to any novel previously visited with an ease I found annoying. My intrafictional bookjumping was twenty times better than my transfictional jumps, but even then a bit ropey. I needed to read a full paragraph to get in, and if I didn’t have the right section in my TravelBook, then I had to walk via the Great Library or get a taxi-as long as one was available.