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Rescue/Capture
There was only one Jurisfiction agent who worked exclusively in the oral tradition. He was named Ski, rarely spoke and wore a tall hat in the manner of Lincoln—but that was the sum total of his recognizable features. When appearing at the Jurisfiction offices, he was always insubstantial, flickering in and out like a badly tuned TV. Despite this he did some of the best work in the OralTrad I’d seen. Rumor had it that he was a discarded Childhood Imaginary Friend, which accounted for his inconsolable melancholy.
W hen I awoke, nothing had changed. The sea was still gray, the sky a dull overcast. The water was choppy but not dangerously so and had a sort of twenty-second pattern of movement to it. With nothing better to do, I sat up and watched the waves as they rose and fell. By fixing my eyes on a random part of the ocean, I could see that the same wave would come around again like a loop in a film. Most of the BookWorld was like that. Fictional forests had only eight different trees, a beach five different pebbles, a sky twelve different clouds. It was what made the real world so rich by comparison. I looked at my watch. The reality book show of The Bennets would be replacing Pride and Prejudice in three hours, and the first task of the household would be unveiled in two. Equally bad, that worthless shit Wirthlass-Schitt might well have the recipe by now and would be hoofing it back to Goliath. But then again, she might not. I’d visited enough Poetry to know that it’s an emotionally draining place and on a completely different level. Whereas story is processed in the mind in a straightforward manner, poetry bypasses rational thought and goes straight to the limbic system and lights it up like a brushfire. It’s the crack cocaine of the literary world.
My mind, I knew,
was wandering. It was intentional. If I didn’t let it, it returned like an annoying default setting to Landen and the kids. Whenever I thought of them, my eyes welled up, and that was no good for anything. Perhaps, I mused, instead of lying to Landen after the Minotaur had shot me in 1988, I should have just stayed at home and led a blameless life of unabashed domestication. Washing, cleaning and making meals. Okay, with some part-time work down at Acme in case I went nuts. But no SpecOps stuff. None. Except maybe dispatching a teensy-weensy chimera. Or two. And if Spike needed a hand? Well, I couldn’t say no, now could— 1
My thoughts were interrupted by my mobilefootnoterphone. Until now it had been resolutely silent. I dug it out of my bag and stared at it hopefully. There was still no signal, which meant that someone else was within a radius of about 10 million words. Not far in a shelf of Russian novels, perhaps, but out here in the oral tradition it could mean over a thousand stories or more. It was entirely possible that whoever it was wasn’t a friend at all, but anything was better than slow starvation, so I keyed the mike and pretended I was a communications expert from OFF-FNOP, the watchdog responsible for overseeing the network.
“OFF-FNOP tech number…um, 76542: Request user ident.”
I looked carefully all around me, but the horizon was clear. There was nothing at all, just endless gray. It was like— 2
I paused. Footnoterphones weren’t like normal phones—they were textual. It was impossible to tell who was talking. It was a bit like text messages back home, but without the dopey CUL8R shorthand nonsense.
“I say again: Request user ident.”
I looked around desperately, but still nothing. I hoped it wasn’t another poor twit like me, compelled to take over the reins as ethical arbiter. 3
My heart suddenly leaped. Whoever it was, was somewhere close—and didn’t read like anyone who would do me harm. I needed to tell the person how to find me, but the only directions I could think of were “I’m near a wave,” which was marginally less useful than “I’m in a boat.” Then I had an idea.
“If you can hear me,” I said into my phone, “head for the rainstorm of text.”
I tucked the phone in my pocket and took out my pistol. I released the safety, pointed it into the air and fired. There was a low thud, and the air seemed to wobble as the eraserhead arced high into the sky. It was a risky move, as it would almost certainly be picked up by the weather stations dotted around the genres and from there to Text Grand Central. If they were looking for me, they’d know instantly where I was.
It took a few seconds for the charge to reach the thick stratus of cloud, but when it hit, the effect can be described only as spectacular. There was a yellow-and-green starburst, and the textual clouds changed rapidly from gray to black as the words dissolved, taking the meaning with them. A dark cloud of letters was soon fluttering down toward the sea like chaff, a pillar of text that could be seen for miles. They landed on me and the boat, but mostly the sea, where they settled like autumn leaves on a lake.
I looked up and saw that the hole in the clouds was already healing itself, and within a few minutes the text would start to sink. I opened the pistol and reloaded, but I didn’t need to fire a second time. On the horizon and heading toward me was a small dot that gradually grew bigger and bigger until it was overhead, then circled twice before it slowed to a stop, hovering in the air right next to the lifeboat. The driver rolled down his window and consulted a clipboard.
“Are you Ms. Next?” he asked, which was mildly surprising, to say the least.
“Yes, I am.”
“And you ordered me?”
“Yes, yes I did.”
“Well, you better get in, then.”
I was still in mild shock at the turn of events but quickly gathered my thoughts and my belongings and climbed into the yellow vehicle. It was dented and dirty and had the familiar TransGenre Taxis logo on the door. I’d never been so glad to see a cab in my entire life.
I settled myself into the backseat as the driver switched on the meter, turned to me with a grin and said, “Had the devil’s job finding you, darling—where to?”
It was a good point. I thought for a moment. Pride and Prejudice was definitely in dire peril, but if the Now got any shorter, then all books were in danger—and a lot more besides.
“Longfellow,” I said, “and make it snappy. I think we’re going to have some unwanted company.”
The cabbie raised his eyebrows, pressed on the accelerator, and we were soon scooting across the sea at a good rate of knots.
He caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“The worst kind,” I replied, thinking that I was going to have to trust this cabbie to do the right thing. “I’m subject to a shoot-to-kill order from the CofG, but it’s bullshit. I’m a Jurisfiction agent, and I could seriously do with some help right now.”
“Bureaucrats!” he snorted disparagingly, then thought hard for a moment and added, “Next, Next—you wouldn’t be Thursday Next, would you?”
“That’s me.”
