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“Detective Smalls,” I said, shaking the proffered hand, “you’ve been making quite a name for yourself.”
“I looked to your career for inspiration,” she said. “Everything I’ve ever done was because you did it first.”
“I never lost an ear on the mayor’s account,” I told her, indicating the ragged thing on the side of her head.
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“Pardon?”
“I said, ‘I never lost—’ ”
“Just kidding. I can hear perfectly.” She looked down at my walking stick. “I heard you took all this in pursuit of the law,” she said. “I only tackled the separatists because I knew you would. Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be just like Thursday Next—only more so.”
She gave me the steely gaze of the supremely ambitious, and my hackles, which had already risen, rose further.
“Like me only more so? How’s that meant to work?”
“Go further, achieve more, fail less.”
“Oh, yes?” I replied. “And how’s that working out for you so far?”
“I’m already taller.”
“But not older.”
“I’m working on that daily. I think you should be flattered— someone who wants to be a better version of you. I think we should schedule a longer meeting,” she added, “to have a chat. Find out the areas in which there could be improvement.”
“That’s the point about failure,” I said. “It’s an intrinsic part of success. You win some, then you lose some. But with experience and luck, you learn to lose less as the years go on.”
Smalls nodded in agreement. “Like in sports,” she said. “It all boils down to lose/save ratios. I’ve been studying your stats, Thursday. You’ve got a career lives lost/saved ratio of thirty-two to one over one hundred and eighty-six encounters and a solve ratio of sixty-two percent. That places you at number twenty-eight in the global tables.”
“Is that a fact?” I said.
“Yes,” she replied eagerly. “It’s all very scientific.”
“There’s nothing scientific in tackling a crazed lunatic coming at you with an ax,” I said. “How did you do in the league table?”
“Okay so far. But if I’m to improve my ratio, I need to know where you failed and how I might do better. In that way I can make your mistakes the mistakes I would have made but now won’t. It’s for the good of the citizenry we protect, Miss Next. I’m not in this for the glory, as I’m sure neither were you.”
“Neither was I?”
“Sorry,” she said, “I wasn’t suggesting that your career was effectively over.”
But she just had. I sighed. I didn’t want to fight her. She was good, it was undeniable. Just a bit . . . well, intense—and obsessed with figures.
There was a pause.
“So,” I said, “would you like to be my second-in-command when Braxton offers me the SO-27 job?”
“Generous, if a little misguided,” she replied with a smile. “As far as I can see, I’m the only viable candidate.”
“Not quite correct,” I replied with a smile. “Braxton values experience above all.”
She looked at my stick and my leg, then back to me. “Yes, I’m fully confident that Commander Hicks will come to the correct decision. I’d still like us to be friends, Thursday. Together we have much to offer the service. Youth, vitality, vigor . . . and experience. See you around.”
And she left me there in an empty pause in which I was thinking up a pithy rejoinder. I did think of one, but her back had already turned and it was too late to be anything but a lame attempt to get the final word.
“Detective Smalls is the gold standard in law enforcement,” said the officer at the main desk as he watched her walk elegantly to the exit. “Can I help?”
