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21. 'Alice in Wonderland, just after the "Alice's Evidence" chapter. The Gryphon will be representing you. Don't forget! – three o'clock.'
22. '… Dear Friend, I am a fifty-year-old lady from the Republic of Gondal. I got your details from the Council of Genres and decided to contact you to see if you could help. My husband Reginald Jackson was the rebel leader in Gondal in Turmoil. (RRP: £4.99) and just before he was assassinated he gave me 12 million dollars and I departed the book to be a refugee in The Well of Lost Plots with my two children. On arrival, I decided to deposit this money in a security company for safekeeping. Right now, I am seeking assistance from you so that I can transfer the funds from the Well to your Outland account. If this offer meets your approval, you could reach me on my footnoterphone. Thank you, Mrs R. Jackson …'
23. The Jurisfiction office vanished and was replaced by a large and shiny underground tube. It was big enough to stand up in but even so I had to keep pressed against the wall as a constant stream of words flashed past in both directions. Above us another pipe was leading upwards, and every now and then a short stream of words was diverted into this small conduit.
'Where are we?' I asked, my voice echoing about the steel walls.
'Somewhere quite safe,' replied Deane. 'They'll be wondering where you went.'
'We're in the Outland – I mean, home?'
Deane laughed.
'No, silly – we're in the footnoterphone conduits.'
I looked at the stream of messages again.
'We are?'
'Sure.'
'Come on, let me show you something.'
We walked along the pipe until it opened out into a bigger room – a hub where messages went from one genre to the next. The exits closest to me were marked 'Crime', 'Romance', 'Thriller' and 'Comedy', but there were plenty more, all routeing the footnoterphone messages towards some sub-genre or other.
'It's incredible!' I breathed.
'Oh, this is just a small hub,' replied Deane, 'you should see the bigger ones. It all works on the ISBN number system, you know – and the best thing about it is that neither Text Grand Central nor the Council of Genres knows that you can get down here. It's sanctuary, Thursday. Sanctuary away from the prying eyes of Jurisfiction and the rigidity of the narrative.'
I caught his eye.
'Tweed thinks you killed Perkins, Snell and that serving girl.'
He stopped walking and sighed.
'Tweed is working with Text Grand Central to make sure UltraWord™ is launched without any trouble. He knew I didn't like it. He offered me a plot realignment in The Squire of High Potternews to "garner my support".'
'He tried to buy you?'
'When I refused he threatened
to kill me – that's why we escaped.'
'We?'
'Of course. The maidservant that I ravage in chapter eight and then cruelly cast into the night. She dies of tuberculosis and I drink myself to death. Do you think we could allow that?'
'But isn't that what happens in most Farquitt novels?' I asked. 'Maidservant ravaged by cruel squire?'
'You don't understand, Thursday. Mimi and I are in love.'
'Ah!' I replied slowly, thinking of Landen. 'That can change things.'
'Come,' said Deane, beckoning me through the hub and dodging the footnoterphone messages, 'there is a settlement in a disused branch line. After Woolf wrote To the Lighthouse and Mrs Dalloway the Council of Genres thought Stream of Consciousness would be the next Detective – they built a large hub to support the rack-loads of novels that never appeared.'
We turned into a large tunnel about the size of the underground back in Swindon, and the messages whizzed back and forth, almost filling the tube to capacity.
After a few hundred yards we came to another hub and took the least used – barely two or three messages a minute buzzed languidly past, and these seemed to be lost; they moved around vaguely for a moment and then evaporated. The sides of the tube were less shiny, rubbish had collected at the bottom and water leaked in from the roof. Every now and then we passed small unused offshoots, built to support books that were planned but never written.
