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uard 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 unequivocal: “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.
