It was eight-thirty, and the girls had already gone to school.
“Jenny didn’t eat her toast again,” I said, setting the plate with its uneaten contents next to the sink. “That girl hardly eats a thing.”
“Leave it outside Friday’s door,” said Landen. “He can have it for lunch when he gets up-if he gets up.”
The front doorbell had rung, and I checked on who it might be through the front-room windows before opening the door to reveal…Friday. The other Friday.
“Hello!” I said cheerily. “Would you like to come in?”
“I’m in a bit of a hurry,” he replied. “I just wondered whether you’d thought about my offer of replacement yesterday. Hi, Dad!”
Landen had joined us at the door. “Hello, son.”
“This,” I said by way of introduction, “is the Friday I was telling you about-the one we were supposed to have.”
“At your ser vice,” said Friday politely. “And your answer? I’m sorry to push you on this, but time travel has still to be invented and we have to look very carefully at our options.”
Landen and I glanced at each other. We’d already made up our mind.
“The answer’s no, Sweetpea. We’re going to keep our Friday.”
Friday’s face fell, and he glared at us. “This is so typical of you. Here I am a respected member of the ChronoGuard, and you’re still treating me like I’m a kid!”
“Friday!”
“How stupid can you both be? The history of the world hangs in the balance, and all you can do is worry about your lazy shitbag of a son.”
“You talk like that to your mother and you can go to your room.”
“He is in his room, Land.”
“Right. Well…you know what I mean.”
Friday snorted, glared at us both, told me that I really shouldn’t call him “Sweetpea” anymore and walked off, slamming the garden gate behind him.
I turned to Landen. “Are we doing the right thing?”
“Friday told us to dissuade him from joining the ChronoGuard, and that’s what we’re doing.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to remember.
“He did? When?”
“At our wedding bash? When Lavoisier turned up looking for your father?”
“Shit,” I said, suddenly remembering. Lavoisier was my least favorite ChronoGuard operative, and on that occasion he had a partner with him-a lad of about twenty-five who’d looked vaguely familiar. We figured it out several years later. It was Friday himself, and his advice to us was unequivocaclass="underline" “If you ever have a son who wants to be in the ChronoGuard, try to dissuade him.” Perhaps it wasn’t just a complaint-perhaps it had been…a warning.
Landen placed a hand on my waist and said, “I think we should follow his best advice and see where it leaves us.”
“And the End of Time?”
“Didn’t your father say that the world was always five minutes from total annihilation? Besides, it’s not until Friday evening. It’ll work itself out.”
I took the tram into work and was so deep in thought I missed my stop and had to walk back from MycroTech. Without my TravelBook I was effectively stuck in the real world, but instead of feeling a sense of profound loss as I had expected, I felt something more akin to relief. In my final day as the LBOCS, I had scotched any chance of book interactivity or the preemptive strike on Speedy Muffler and the ramshackle Racy Novel, and the only worrying loose end was dealing with slutty bitchface Thursday1-4. That was if she hadn’t been erased on sight for making an unauthorized trip to the Outland. Well, I could always hope. Jurisfiction had gotten on without me for centuries and would doubtless continue to do so. There was another big plus point, too: I wasn’t lying to Landen quite as much. Okay, I still did a bit of SpecOps work, but at least this way I could downgrade my fibs from “outrageous” to a more manageable “whopping.” All of a sudden, I felt really quite happy-and I didn’t often feel that way. If there hadn’t been a major problem with Acme’s overdraft and the potential for a devastating chronoclasm in two and a half days, everything might be just perfect.
“You look happy,” said Bowden as I walked into the office at Acme.
“Aren’t I always?”
“No,” he said, “hardly at all.”
“Well, this is the new me. Have you noticed how much the birds are singing this morning?”
“They always sing like that.”
“Then…the sky is always that blue, yes?”
“Yes. May I ask what’s brought on this sudden change?”
“The BookWorld. I’ve stopped going there. It’s over.”
“Well,” said Bowden, “that’s excellent news!”
“It is, isn’t it? More time for Landen and the kids.”
“No,” said Bowden, choosing his words carefully, “I mean excellent news for Acme-we might finally get rid of the backlog.”
“Of undercover SpecOps work?”
“Of carpets.”
“You mean you can make a profit selling carpets?” I asked, having never really given it a great deal of thought.
“Have you seen the order books? They’re full. More work than we can handle. Everyone needs floor coverings, Thurs-and if you can give some of your time to get these orders filled, then we won’t need the extra cash from your illegal-cheese activities.”
He handed me a clipboard.
“All these customers need to be contacted and given the best deal we can.”
“Which is?”
“Just smile, chat, take the measurements, and I’ll do the rest.”
“Then you go.”
“No, the big selling point for Acme is that Thursday Next-the Z-4 celebrity Thursday Next-comes and talks to you about your floor-covering needs. That’s how we keep our heads above water. That’s how we can support all these ex-SpecOps employees.”
“C’mon,” I said doubtfully, “ex-celebrities don’t do retail.”
“After the disaster of the Eyre Affair movie, Lola Vavoom started a chain of builders’ merchants.”
“She did, didn’t she?”
I took the clipboard and stared at the list. It was long. Business was good. But Bowden’s attention was suddenly elsewhere.
“Is that who I think it is?” he asked, looking toward the front of the store. I followed his gaze. Standing next to the cushioned-linoleum display was a man in a long dark coat. When he saw us watching him, he reached into his pocket and flashed a badge of some sort.
“Shit,” I murmured under my breath. “Flanker.”
“He probably wants to buy a carpet,” said Bowden with a heavy helping of misplaced optimism.
Commander Flanker was our old nemesis from SO-1, the SpecOps department that policed other SpecOps departments. Flanker had adapted well to the disbanding of the ser vice. Before, he made life miserable for SpecOps agents he thought were corrupt, and now he made life miserable for ex-SpecOps agents he thought were corrupt. We had crossed swords many times in the past, but not since the disbandment. We regarded it as a good test of our discretion and secrecy that we had never seen him at Acme Carpets. Then again, perhaps we were kidding ourselves. He might know all about us but thought flushing out renegade operatives just wasn’t worth his effort-especially when we were actually doing a ser vice that no one else wanted to do.
I walked quickly to the front of the shop.
“Good morning, Ms. Next,” he said, glancing with ill-disguised mirth at my name embroidered above the company logo on my jacket. “Literary Detective at SO-27 to carpet layer? Quite a fall, don’t you think?”
“It depends on your point of view,” I said cheerfully. “Everyone needs carpets-but not everyone needs SpecOps. Is this a social call?”
“My wife has read all your books.”