'Filthy, damp, disease-ridden and pestilential.'
'He said it was like London, Your Grace.'
St Zvlkx looked at the weathered arch, the only visible evidence of his once great cathedral, and asked:
'What happened to my cathedral?'
'Burned durring the dissolution of the monasteries.'
'Got damn,' he muttered, eyebrows raised, 'should have seen that coming.'
'Duis aute dolor in fugiat nulla pariatur,' murmured Friday, pointing at St Zvlkx's retreating form, rapidly vanishing in a crowd of well-wishers and newsmen.
'I have no idea, sweetheart — but I've a feeling things are just beginning to get interesting.'
'Well,' said Lydia to the camera, 'a Revealment that could spell potential disaster for the Goliath Corporation and—'
Her producer was gesticulating wildly for her not to connect 'tyrant' with 'Kaine' live on air.
'—an as yet unnamed tyrant. This is Lydia Startright, bringing you a miraculous event live for Toad News. And now, a word from our sponsors, Goliath Pharmaceuticals, the makers of Haerrmarelief.'
12
I pushed Friday back towards my car, deep in thought. The stakes had just been raised and any chance that I might somehow influence the outcome of the Superhoop were suddenly made that much more impossible. With Goliath and Kaine both having a vested interest in making sure the Swindon Mallets lost, chances of our victory had dropped from 'highly unlikely' to 'nigh impossible'.
'It explains,' said a voice, 'why Goliath are changing to a faith-based corporate management system.'
I turned to find my stalker, Millon de Floss, walking close behind me. It must have been important for him to contravene the blanket restraining order. I stopped for a moment.
'Why do you think that?'
'Once they are a religion they won't be a company named Goliathe, as stated in Zvlkx's prophecy,' observed Millon, 'and they can avoid the Revealment coming true. Sister Bettina, their own corporate precog, must have foreseen something like this and alerted them.'
'Does that mean,' I asked slowly, 'that they're taking St Zvlkx seriously?'
'He's too accurate not to be, Miss Next, however unlikely it may seem. Now that they know the complete seventh Revealment, they'll try and do anything to stop Swindon winning — and continue with the religion thing as a back-up just in case.'
It made sense — sort of. Dad must have known this or something very like it. None of it boded very well, but my father had said the likelihood of this armageddon was only 22 per cent, so the answer must be somewhere.
'I'm going to visit Goliathopohs this afternoon,' I said thoughtfully. 'Have you found out anything about Kaine?'
Millon rummaged in his pocket for a notepad, found it and flicked through the pages, which seemed to be full of numbers.
'It's here somewhere,' he said apologetically. 'I like to collect vacumn-cleaner serial numbers and was investigating a rare Hoover XB-23E when I got the call. Here it is. This Kaine fellow is a conspiracist's delight. He arrived on the scene five years ago with no past, no parents, nothing. His national insurance number was only given to him in 1982, and it seems the only jobs he has ever held was with his publishing company and then as MP.'
'Not a lot to go on, then.'
'Not yet, but I'll keep on digging. You might be interested to know that he has been seen on several occasions with Lola Vavoom.'
'Who hasn't?'
'Agreed. You wanted to know about Mr Schitt-Hawse? He heads the Goliath tech division.'
'You sure?'
Millon looked dubious for a moment.
'In the conspiracy industry the word "sure" has a certain plasticity about it, but yes. We have a mole at Goliathopolis. Admittedly they only serve in the canteen, but you'd be surprised the sensitive information that one can overhear giving out shortbread fingers. Apparently Schitt-Hawse has been engaged in something called "The Ovitron Project". We're not sure but it might be a development of your uncle's ovinator. Could it be something along the lines of The Midwich Cuckoos?'
'I sincerely hope not.'
I made a few notes, thanked Millon for his time and continued heading back to my car, my head full of potential futures, ovinators and Kaine.
Ten minutes later we were in my Speedster, heading north towards Cricklade. My father had told me that Cindy would fail to kill me three times before she died herself, but there was a chance the future didn't have to turn out that way — after all, I had once been shot dead by a SpecOps marksman in an alternative future, and I was still very much alive.
I hadn't seen Spike for over two years but had been gratified to learn he had moved out of his dingy apartment to a new address in Cricklade. I soon found his street — it was a newly built estate of Cotswold stone which shone a warm glow of ochre in the sunlight. As we drove slowly down the road checking door numbers, Friday helpfully pointed out things of interest.
'Ipsum,' he said, pointing at a car.
I was hoping that Spike wasn't there so I could speak to Cindy on her own, but I was out of luck. I parked behind his SpecOps black-and-white and climbed out. Spike himself was sitting in a deckchair on the front lawn, and my heart fell when I saw that not only had he married Cindy but they had also had a child -a girl of about one was sitting on the grass next to him playing under a parasol. I cursed inwardly as Friday hid behind my leg. I was going to have to make Cindy play ball — the alternative wouldn't be good for her and would be worse for Spike and their daughter.
'Yo!' yelled Spike, telling the person on the other end of the phone to hold it one moment and getting up to give me a hug. 'How you doing, Next?'
'I'm good, Spike. You?'
He spread his arms, indicating the trappings of middle England suburbia. The UPVC double glazing, the well-kept lawn, the drive, the wrought-iron sunrise gate.
'Look at all this, sister! Isn't it the best?'
'Ipsum,' said Friday, pointing at a plant pot.
'Cute kid. Go on in. I'll be with you in a moment.'
I walked into the house and found Cindy in the kitchen. She had a pinny on and her hair tied up.
'Hello,' I said, trying to sound as normal as possible, 'you must be Cindy.'
She looked me straight in the eye. She didn't look like a professional assassin who had killed sixty-seven times — sixty-eight if she did Samuel Pring — yet the really good ones never do.
'Well, well, Thursday Next,' she said slowly, crouching down to pull some damp clothes out of the washing machine and tweaking Friday's ear. 'Spike holds you in very high regard.'
'Then you know why I'm here?'
She put down the washing, picked up a Fisher-Price Webster that was threatening to trip someone up, and passed it to Friday, who sat down to scrutinise it carefully.
'I can guess. Handsome lad. How old is he?'
'He was two last month. And I'd like to thank you for missing yesterday.'
She gave a wan smile and walked out of the back door. I caught up with her as she started to hang the washing on the line.
'Is it Kaine trying to have me killed?'
'I always respect client confidentiality,' she said quietly, 'and I can't miss for ever.'
'Then stop it right now,' I said. 'Why do you even need to do it at all?'
She pegged a blue Babygro on the line.
'Two reasons: first, I'm not going to give up work just because I'm married with a kid, and second, I always complete a contract, no matter what. When I don't deliver the goods the clients want refunds. And the Windowmaker doesn't do refunds.'
'Yes.' I replied, 'I was curious about that. Why the Window-maker?'
She glared at me coldly.
'The printers made a mistake on the notepaper and it would have cost too much to redo. Don't laugh.'
She hung up a pillowcase.
'I'll contract you out, Miss Next, but I won't try today — which gives you some time to get yourself together and leave town for good. Somewhere where I can't find you. And hide well — I'm very good at what I do.'
She glanced towards the kitchen. I hung a large SO-17 T-shirt on the line.
'He doesn't know, does he?' I said.
'Spike is a fine man,' replied Cindy, just a little slow on the uptake. You're not going to tell him and he's never going to know. Grab the other end of that sheet, will you?'
I took the end of a dry sheet and we folded it together.
'I'm not going anywhere, Cindy,' I told her, 'and I'll protect myself in any way I can.'
We stared at one another for a moment. It seemed like such a waste.
'Retire!'
'Never!'
'Why?'
'Because I like it and I'm good at it — would you like some tea, Thursday?'
Spike had entered the garden carrying the baby.
'So, how are my two favourite ladies?'
'Thursday was helping me with the washing, Spikey,' said Cindy, her hard-as-nails professionalism replaced by a silly sort of girlie ditsiness. 'I'll put the kettle on — two sugars, Thursday?'
'One.'
She skipped into the house.
'What do you think?' asked Spike in a low tone. 'Isn't she just the cutest thing ever?'
He was like a fifteen-year-old in love for the first time.
'She's lovely, Spike, you're a lucky man.'
'This is Betty,' said Spike, waving the tiny arm of the infant with his huge hand. 'One year old. You were right about being honest with Cindy — she didn't mind me doing all that vampire sh— I mean stuff. In fact I think she's kinda proud.'
'You're a lucky man,' I repeated, wondering just how I was going to avoid making him a widower and the gurgling child motherless.
We walked back into the house, where Cindy was busying herself in the kitchen.
'Where have you been?' asked Spike, depositing Betty next to Friday. They looked at one another suspiciously. 'Prison?'
'No. Somewhere weird. Somewhere other.'
'Will you be returning there?' asked Cindy innocently.
'She's only just got back!' exclaimed Spike. 'We don't want to be shot of her quite yet.'
'Shot of her — of course not,' replied Cindy, placing a mug of tea on the table. 'Have a seat. There are Hobnobs in that novelty dodo biscuit tin over there.'
'Thank you. So,' I continued, 'how's the vampire business?'
'So-so. Been quiet recently. Werewolves the same. I dealt with a few zombies in the city centre the other night but Supreme Evil Being containment work has almost completely dried up. There's been a report of a few ghouls, bogeys and phantoms in Winchester but it's not really my area of expertise. There's talk of disbanding the division and then taking me on freelance when they need something done.'
'Is that bad?'
'Not really. I can charge what I want with vampires on the prowl, but in slack times I'd be a bit stuffed — wouldn't want to send Cindy out to work full time, now, would I?'
He laughed and Cindy laughed with him, handing Betty a rusk. She gave it an almighty toothless bite and then looked puzzled when there was no effect. Friday took it away from her and showed how it was done.
'So what are you up to at present?' asked Spike.
'Not much. I just dropped in before I go off up to Goliathopolis — my husband still isn't back.'
'Did you hear about Zvlkx's Revealment?'
'I was there.'
'Then Goliath will want all the forgiveness they can get — you won't find a better time for forcing them to bring him back.'
We chatted for ten minutes or more until it was time for me to leave. I didn't manage to speak to Cindy on her own again, but I had said what I wanted to say — I just hoped she would take notice, but somehow I doubted it.
'If I ever have any freelance jobs to do, will you join me?' asked Spike as he was seeing me out of the door, Friday having eaten nearly all the rusks.
I thought of my overdraft.
'Please.'
'Good,' replied Spike, 'I'll be in touch.'
I drove down to the M4 to Saknussum International, where I had to run to catch the Gravitube to the James Tarbuck Graviport in Liverpool. Friday and I had a brief lunch before hopping on the shuttle to Goliathopolis. Goliath had taken my husband from me, and they could bring him back. And when you have a grievance with a company, you go straight to the top.
14
The Isle of Man had been an independent corporate state within England since it was appropriated for the greater fiscal good in 1963. The surrounding Irish Sea was heavily mined to deter unwanted visitors and the skies above protected by the most technologically advanced anti-aircraft system known to man. It had hospitals and schools, a university, its own fusion reactor and also, leading from Douglas to Kennedy Graviport in New York, the world's only privately run Gravitube. The island was home to almost 200,000 people who did nothing but support, or support the support of, the one enterprise that dominated the small island: the Goliath Corporation.
The old Manx town of Laxey was renamed Goliathopolis and was now the Hong Kong of the British archipelago, a forest of glassy towers striding up the hillside towards Snaefell. The largest of these skyscrapers rose higher even than the mountain peak behind it and could be seen glinting in the sunlight all the way from Blackpool, weather permitting. In this building was housed the inner sanctum of the whole vast multinational, the cream of Goliath's corporate engineers. An employee could spend a lifetime on the island and never even get past the front desk. And it was on the ground floor of this building, right at the heart of the corporation, that I found the Goliath apologarium.
I joined a small queue in front of a modern glass-topped table where two smiling Goliath employees were giving out questionnaires and numbered tickets.
'Hello!' said one of the clerks, a youngish girl with a lopsided smile. 'Welcome to the Goliath Corporation's Apology Emporium. Sorry you had to wait. How can we help you?'
'The Goliath Corporation murdered my husband.'
'How simply dreadful!' she responded in a lame and insincere display of sympathy. 'I'm so sorry to hear that. Goliath, as part of their move to a faith-based corporate management system, are committed to reversing all the unpleasant matters we may previously have been engaged in. You need to fill in this form, and this form — and section D of this one — and then take a seat. We'll get one of our highly trained apologists to see you just as soon as they can.'
She handed me several long forms and a numbered ticket, then indicated a door to one side. I opened it and walked into the apologarium. It was a large hall with floor-to-ceiling windows that gave a serene view of the Irish Sea. On one side was a row of perhaps twenty cubicles containing suited apologists, who all sat listening intently to what they were being told with the same sad and contrite expression. On the other side were rows upon rows of wooden seating that held eager and once bullied citizens, anxiously clasping their numbered tickets and patiently waiting their turn. I looked at my ticket. It was number 6,174. I glanced up at the board, which told me that number 836 was now being interviewed.
'Dear, sweet people!' said a voice through a Tannoy. 'Goliath is deeply sorry for all the harm it may inadvertently have caused you in the past. Here at the Goliath Apologarium™ we are only too happy to assist in your problem, no matter how small . . .'
'You!' I said to a man who was hobbling past me towards the exit. 'Have Goliath repented to your satisfaction?'
'Well, they didn't really need to,' he replied blandly. 'It was I who was at fault — in fact, I apologised for wasting their valuable time!'
'What did they do?'
'They bathed my neighbourhood with ionising radiation, then denied it for seventeen years, even after people's teeth fell out and I grew a third foot.'
'And you forgave them?'
'Of course. I can see now that it was a genuine accident and the public have to accept risks if we are to have abundant clean energy, limitless food and household electro-defragmentisers.'
He was carrying a sheath of papers; not the application forms that I had to fill out but leaflets on how to join New Goliath. Not as a consumer, but as a worshipper. I had always been deeply distrustful of Goliath but this whole 'repentance' thing smelt worse than anything I had so far witnessed. I turned, tore up my numbered ticket and headed for the exit.
'Miss Next!' called out a familiar voice. 'I say, Miss Next!'
A short man with pinched features and a rounded head covered with the fuzz of an aggresively short crew cut was facing me. He was wearing a dark suit and heavy gold jewellery and was arguably the person I liked least — this was Jack Schitt, once Goliath's top advanced weapons guru and ex-convict of The Raven. This was the man who had tried to prolong the Crimean War so he could make a fortune out of Goliath's latest super-weapon, the plasma rifle.
Anger rose quickly within me. I turned Friday in the other direction so as not to give his young mind any wrong ideas about the use of violence and then grasped Schitt by the throat. He took a step back, stumbled and collapsed beneath me with a yelp. Sensing I had been in this position before, I released him and placed my hand on the butt of my automatic, expecting to be attacked by a host of Jack's minders. But there was nothing. Just sad citizens looking on sorrowfully.
'There is no one here to help me,' said Jack Schitt, slowly getting to his feet. '1 have been assaulted eight times today — I count myself fortunate. Yesterday it was twenty-three.'
I looked at him and noticed, for the first time, that he had a black eye and a cut on his lip.
'No minders?' I echoed. 'Why?'
'It is my absolution to face those I have bullied and harangued in the past, Miss Next. When we last met I was head of Goliath's Advanced Weapons Division and corporate laddernumber 329.' He sighed. 'Now, thanks to your well-publicised denouncement of the failings of our plasma rifle, the corporation has decided to demote me. I am an Apology Facilitation Operative second class, ladder-number 12,398,219. The mighty have fallen, Miss Next.'
'On the contrary,' I replied, 'you have merely been moved to a level more fitting to your competence. It's a shame. You deserved much worse than this.'
His eyes twitched as he grew angry. The old Jack, the homicidal one, returned for a moment. But the feelings were short-lived and his shoulders fell as he realised that without the Goliath Security Service to back him up, his power over me was minimal.
'Maybe you're right,' he said simply. 'You will not have to wait your turn, Miss Next, I will deal with your case personally. Is this your son?' He bent down to look closer. 'Cute fellow, isn't he?'
'Eiusmod tempor incididunt adipisiting elit,' said Friday, glaring at Jack suspiciously.
'What did he say?'
'He said: "If you touch me my mum will break your nose.'"
Jack stood up quickly.
'I see. Goliath and myself offer a full, frank and unreserved apology.'
'What for?'
'I don't know. Have it on account. Would you care to come to my office?'
He beckoned me out of the door and we crossed a courtyard with a large fountain in the middle, past a few suited Goliath officials chattering in a corner, then through another doorway and down a wide corridor full of clerks moving backwards and forwards with folders tucked under their arms.
Jack opened a door, ushered me in, offered me a chair and then sat himself. It was a miserable little office, devoid of any decoration except a shabby Lola Vavoom calendar on the wall and a dead plant in a pot. The only window looked out on to a wall. He arranged some papers on his desk and spoke into the intercom.
'Mr Higgs, would you bring the Thursday Next file in, please?'
He looked at me earnestly and set his head at a slight angle, as though trying to affect some sort of apologetic demeanour.
'None of us quite realised,' he began in the sort of soft voice that undertakers use when attempting to persuade you to buy the deluxe coffin, just how appalling we had been until we started asking people if they were at all unhappy with our conduct.'
'Why don't we cut the cr—' I looked at Friday, who looked back at me. '—cut the, cut the . . . nonsense and go straight to the place where you atone for your crimes.'
He sighed and stared at me for a moment, then said:
'Very well. What did we do wrong again?'
'You can't remember?'
'I do lots of wrong things, Miss Next, you'll excuse me if I can't remember details.'
'You eradicated my husband,' I said through gritted teeth. 'Of course! And what was the name of the eradicatee?'
'Landen,' I replied coldly, 'Landen Parker-Laine.'
At that moment a clerk arrived with a file marked 'most secret' and laid it on his desk. Jack opened it and leafed through.
'The record shows that at the time you say your husband was eradicated your case officer was Operative Schitt-Hawse. It says here that he pressured you to release Operative Schitt — that's me — from within the pages of The Raven by utilising an unnamed ChronoGuard operative who volunteered his services. It says that you complied but our promise was revoked owing to an unforeseen and commercially necessary overriding blackmail continuance situation.'
'You mean corporate greed, don't you?'
'Don't underestimate greed, Miss Next — it's commerce's greatest motive force. In this context it was probably due to our plans to use the BookWorld to dump nuclear waste and sell our extremely high-quality goods and services to characters in fiction. You were then imprisoned in our most inaccessible vault from which you escaped, methodology unknown.'
He closed the file.
'What this means, Miss Next, is that we kidnapped you, tried to kill you, and then had you on our shoot-on-sight list for over a year. You may be in line for a generous cash settlement.'
'I don't want cash, Jack. You had someone go back in time to kill Landen, now you can just get someone to go back again and unkill him!'
Jack Schitt paused and drummed his fingers on the table for a moment.
'That's not how it works,' he replied testily. 'The apology and restitution rules are very clear — for us to repent we must agree as to what we have done wrong, and there's no mention of any Goliath-led illegal time-related jiggery-pokery in our report. Since Goliath's records are time-audited on a regular basis, I think that proves conclusively that if there was any timefoolery it was instigated by the ChronoGuard — Goliath's chronological record is above reproach.'
I thumped the table with my fist and Jack jumped. Without his henchmen around him he was a coward, and every time he flinched, I grew stronger.
'This is complete and utter sh—' I looked at Friday again. '—rubbish, Jack. Goliath and the ChronoGuard eradicated my husband. You had the power to remove him — you can be the ones that put him back.'
'That's not possible.'
'GIVE ME BACK MY HUSBAND!'
The anger in Jack returned. He also rose and pointed an accusing finger at me. 'Have you even the slightest idea how much it costs to bribe the ChronoGuard? More money than we care to spend on the sort of miserable half-hearted forgiveness you can offer us. And another thing, I . . . excuse me.'
The phone had rung and he picked it up, his eyes flicking instantly to me as he listened.
'Yes, it is . . . Yes, she is . . . Yes, we do . . . Yes, I will.'
His eyes opened wide.
'This is indeed an honour, sir . . . No, that would not be a problem at all, sir . . . Yes, I'm sure I can persuade her about that, sir . . . no, it's what we all want . . . And a very good day to you, sir. Thank you.'
He put the receiver down and fetched an empty cardboard box from the cupboard with a renewed spring in his step.
'Good news!' he exclaimed, taking some junk out of his desk and placing it in the box. 'The CEO of New Goliath has taken a special interest in your case and will personally guarantee the return of your husband.'
'I thought you said that timefoolery had nothing to do with you?'
'Apparently I was misinformed. We would be very happy to reactualise Libner.'
'Landen.'
'Right.'
'What's the catch?' I asked suspiciously.
'No catch,' replied Jack, picking up his desk nameplate and depositing it in the box along with the calendar, 'we just want you to forgive us and like us.'
'Like you?'
'Yes. Or pretend to, anyway. Not so very hard, now, is it? Just sign this Standard Forgiveness Release Form at the bottom here, and we'll reactualise your hubby. Simple, isn't it?'
I was still suspicious.
'I don't believe you have any intention of getting Landen back.'
'All right, then,' said Jack, taking some files out of the filing cabinet and dumping them in his cardboard box, 'don't sign and you'll never know. As you say, Miss Next — we got rid of him so we can get him back.'
'You stiffed me once before, Jack. How do I know you won't do it again?'
Jack paused in his packing and looked slightly apprehensive.
'Are you going to sign?'
'No.'
Jack sighed and started to take everything back out of the cardboard box and return it to its place.
'Well,' he muttered, 'there goes my promotion. But listen: whether you sign or not you walk out of here a free woman. New Goliath have no argument with you any longer. Besides, what do you have to lose?'
'All I want,' I replied, 'is to get my husband back. I'm not signing anything.'
Jack took his nameplate out of the cardboard box and put it back on his desk.
The phone rang again.
'Yes, sir . . . No, she won't, sir . . . I tried that, sir . . . very well, sir.'
He put the receiver down and picked up his nameplate again; it hovered over his box.
'That was the CEO. He wants to apologise to you personally. Will you go?'
I paused. Seeing the head honcho of Goliath was an almost unprecedented event for a non-Goliath official. If anyone could get Landen back, it was him.
'Okay.'
Jack smiled, dropped the nameplate in his box and then hurriedly threw everything else back in.
'Well,' he continued, 'must dash — I've just been promoted up three laddernumbers. Go to the main reception desk and someone will meet you. Don't forget your Standard Forgiveness Release Form, and if you could mention my name I'd be really grateful.'
He handed me my unsigned forms as the door opened and another Goliath operative walked in, also holding a cardboard box full of possessions.
'What if I don't get him back, Mr Schitt?'
'Well,' he said, looking at his watch, 'if you have any grievances about the quality of our contrition you had better take it up with your appointed Goliath apologist. I don't work here any more.'
And he smiled a supercilious smile, put on his hat and was gone.
'Well!' said the new apologist as he skirted the desk and started to arrange his possessions around his new office. 'Is there anything you'd like us to apologise for?'
'Your corporation,' I muttered.
'Full, frank and unreservedly,' replied the apologist in the sincerest of tones.
15
I walked to the main desk and gave my name to the receptionist, who, raising her eyebrows at my request, called the 110th floor, registered some surprise and then asked me to wait. I pushed Friday towards the waiting area and gave him a banana I had in my bag. I sat and watched the Goliath officials walking briskly backwards and forwards across the polished marble floors, all looking busy but seemingly doing nothing.
'Miss Next?'
There were two individuals standing in front of me. One was dressed in the dark Goliath blue of an executive; the other was a footman in full livery, holding a polished silver tray.
'Yes?' I said, standing up.
'My name is Mr Godfrey, the CEO's personal assistant's assistant. If you would be so kind?'
He indicated the tray.
I understood his request, unholstered my automatic and laid it on the salver. The footman paused politely. I got the message and placed my two spare clips on it as well. He bowed and silently withdrew, and the Goliath executive led me silently towards a roped-off elevator at the far end of the concourse. I wheeled Friday in and the doors hissed shut behind us.
It was a glass elevator that rose on the outside of the building and from our vantage point as we were whisked noiselessly heavenward I could see all of Goliathopolis's buildings reaching almost all the way down the coast to Douglas. The size of the corporation's holdings was never more so demonstrably immense — all these buildings simply administered the thousands of companies and millions of employees around the world. If I had been in a charitable frame of mind I might have been impressed by the scale and grandeur of Goliath's establishment. As it was, I saw only ill-gotten gains.
The smaller buildings were soon left behind as we continued upward, until even the other skyscrapers were dwarfed. I was staring with fascination at the spectacular view when without warning the exterior was suddenly obscured by a white haze. Water droplets formed on the outside of the elevator and I could see nothing until a few seconds later we burst clear of the cloud and into bright sunshine and a deep blue sky. I stared across the top of the clouds, which stretched away unbroken into the distance. I was so enthralled by the spectacle that I didn't realise the elevator had stopped.
'Ipsum,' said Friday, who was also impressed, and he pointed in case I had missed the view.
'Miss Next?'
I turned. To say the boardroom of the Goliath Corporation was impressive would not be doing it the justice it deserves. I was on the top floor of the building. The walls and roof were all tinted glass, and from here on a clear day you must be able to look down upon the world from the viewpoint of a god. Today it looked as though we were afloat on a cotton-wool sea. The building and its position, high above the planet both geographically and morally, perfectly reflected the corporation's dominance and power.
In the middle of the room was a long table with perhaps thirty suited Goliath board members all standing next to their seats, watching me in silence. No one said anything, and I was about to ask who the boss was when I noticed a large man staring out of the window with his hands clasped behind his back.
'Ipsum!' said Friday.
'Allow me,' began my escort, 'to introduce the Chief Executive Officer of the Goliath Corporation, John Henry Goliath V, great-great-grandson of our founder, John Henry Goliath.'
The figure staring out of the window turned to meet me. He must have been over six foot eight and was large with it. Broad, imposing and dominating. He was not yet fifty, had piercing green eyes that seemed to look straight through me, and gave me such a warm smile that I was instantly put at my ease.
'Miss Next?' he said in a voice like distant thunder. 'I've wanted to meet you for some time.'
His handshake was warm and friendly; it was easy to forget just who he was and what he had done.
'They are standing for you,' he announced, indicating the board members. 'You have personally cost us over a billion pounds in cash and at least four times that in lost revenues. Such an adversary is to be admired rather than reviled.'
The board members applauded for about ten seconds, then sat back down at their places. I noticed Brik Schitt-Hawse among them; he inclined his head to me in recognition.
'If I didn't already know the answer I would offer you a position on our board,' said the CEO with a smile. 'We're just finishing a board meeting, Miss Next. In a few minutes I shall be at your disposal. Please ask Mr Godfrey if you require any refreshments for yourself or your son.'
'Thank you.'
I asked Godfrey for an orange juice in a beaker for Friday, took him out of his pushchair and sat with him on a nearby armchair to watch the proceedings.
'Item seventy-six,' said a small man wearing a Goliath-issue cobalt-blue suit, 'Antarctica. There has been a degree of opposition to our purchase of the continent by a small minority of do-gooders who believe our use is anything but benevolent.'
'And this, Mr Jarvis, is a problem because—?' demanded John Henry Goliath V.
'Not a problem but an observation, sir. I propose that to offset any possible negative publicity we let it be known that we merely acquired the continent to generate new ecotourism-related jobs in an area traditionally considered poor in employment opportunities.'
'It shall be so,' boomed the CEO. 'What else?'
'Well, since we will take the role of "eco-custodians" very seriously, I propose sending a fleet of ten warships to protect the continent against vandals who seek to harm the penguin population, illegally remove ice and snow and create general "mischief".'
'Warships eat heavily into profit margins,' said another member of the board. But Mr Jarvis had already thought of that.
'Not if we subcontract the security issue to a foreign power eager to do business with us. I have formulated a plan whereby the United Caribbean Nations will patrol the continent in exchange for all the ice and snow they want. With the purchase of Antarctica we can undercut snow exports from all the countries in the Northern Alliance. Their unsold snow will be bought by us at four pence a ton, melted and exchanged for building sand with Morocco. This will be exported to sand-deficient nations at an overall profit of twelve per cent. You'll find it all in my report.'
There was a murmur of assent around the table. The CEO nodded his head thoughtfully.
'Thank you, Mr Jarvis, your idea finds favour with the board. But tell me, what about the vast natural resource that we bought Antarctica to exploit in the first place?'
Jarvis snapped his fingers and the elevator doors opened to reveal a chef, who wheeled in a trolley with a covered silver dish on it. He stopped next to the CEO's chair, took off the cover and laid a small plate with what looked like sliced pork on it on the table. A footman laid a knife and a fork next to the plate along with a crisp napkin, then withdrew.
The CEO took a small forkful and put it in his mouth. His eyes opened wide in shock and he spat it out. The footman passed him a glass of water.
'Disgusting!'
'I agree, sir,' replied Jarvis, 'almost completely inedible.'
'Blast! Do you mean to tell me we've bought an entire continent with a potential food yield of ten million penguin units per year only to find we can't eat any of them?'
'Only a minor setback, sir. If you would all turn to page seventy-two of your agenda . . .'
All the board members simultaneously opened their files. Jarvis picked his report up and walked to the window to read it.
'The problem of selling penguins as the Sunday roast of choice can be split into two parts: one, penguins taste like creosote, and two, many people have a misguided idea that penguins are somewhat "cute" and "cuddly" and "endangered". To take the first point first, I propose that as part of the launch of this abundant new foodstuff there should be a special penguin cookery show on GoliathChannel 16, as well as a highly amusing advertising campaign with the catchy phrase: "P-p-p-prepare a p-p-penguin".'
The CEO nodded thoughtfully.
'I further suggest,' continued Jarvis, 'that we finance an independent study into the health-imbuing qualities of seabirds in general. The findings of this independent and wholly impartial study will be that the recommended weekly intake of penguin per person should be . . . one penguin.'
'And point two?' asked another board member. 'The public's positive and non-eatworthy perception of penguins in general?'
'Not insurmountable, sir. If you recall, we had a similar problem marketing baby seal burgers, and they are now one of our most popular lines. I suggest we depict penguins as callous and unfeeling creatures who insist on bringing up their children in what is little more than a large chest freezer. Furthermore, the "endangered" marketing problem can be used to our advantage by an advertising strategy along the lines of "Eat them quick before they're all gone!'"
'Or,' said another board member, '"Place a penguin in your kitchen — have a snack before extinction.'"
'Doesn't rhyme very well, does it?' said a third. 'What about: "For a taste that's more distinct, eat a bird before it's extinct?'"
'I preferred mine.'
Jarvis sat down and awaited the CEO's thoughts.
'It shall be so. Why not "Antarctica — the new Arctic" as a byline? Have our people in advertising put a campaign together. The meeting is over.'
The board members closed their folders in one single synchronised movement and then filed in orderly fashion to the far end of the room, where a curved staircase led down. Within a few minutes only the CEO and Brik Schitt-Hawse remained. He placed his red-leather briefcase on the desk in front of me and looked at me dispassionately, saying nothing. For someone like Schitt-Hawse who loved the sound of his own voice, it was clear the CEO called every shot.
'What did you think?' asked Goliath.
'Think?' I replied. 'How about "morally reprehensible"?'
'I believe you will find there is no moral good or bad, Miss Next. Morality can only be asserted from the safe retrospection of twenty years or more. Parliaments have far too short a life to do any long-term good. It is up to corporations to do what is best for everyone. The tenure of an administration may be five years — for us it can be several centuries, and none of that tiresome accountability to get in the way. The leap to Goliath as a religion is the next logical step.'
'I'm not convinced, Mr Goliath,' I told him. 'I thought you were becoming a religion to evade the seventh Revealment of St Zvlkx.'
He gazed at me with his piercing green eyes.
'It's avoid, not evade, Miss Next. A trifling textual change but legally with great implications. We can legally attempt to avoid the future but not evade it. As long as we can demonstrate a forty-nine per cent chance that our future-altering attempts might fail, we are legally safe. The ChronoGuard are very strict on the rules and we'd be fools to try and break them.'
'You didn't ask me up here to argue legal definitions, Mr Goliath.'
'No, Miss Next. I wanted to have this opportunity to explain ourselves to you, one of our most vociferous opponents. I have doubts too, and if I can make you understand then I will have convinced myself that what we are doing is right, and good. Have a seat.'
I sat, rather too obediently. Mr Goliath had a strong personality.
'Humans are moulded by evolution to be short-termists, Miss Next,' he continued. His voice rumbled deeply and seemed to echo inside my head. 'We need only to see our children to reproductive age to be successful in a biological sense. We have to move beyond that. If we see ourselves as residents on this planet for the long term we need to plan for the long term. Goliath has a thousand-year plan for itself. The responsibility for this planet is far too important to leave to a fragmented group of governments, constantly bickering over borders and only looking towards their own self-interest. We at Goliath see ourselves not as a corporation or a government but as a force for good. A force for good in waiting. We have thirty-eight million employees at present; it isn't difficult to see the benefit of having three billion. Imagine everyone on the planet working towards a single goal — the banishment of all governments and the creation of one business whose sole function it is to run the planet, by people on the planet, for the people on the planet, equally and sustainable for all — not Goliath but Earth, Inc. A company with every member of the world holding a single, equal share.'
'Is that why you're becoming a religion?'
'Let's just say that your friend Mr Zvlkx has goaded us into a course of action that is long overdue. You used the word religion but we see it more as a single, unifying faith to bring all mankind together. One world, one nation, one people, one aim. Surely you can see the sense in that?'
The strange thing was, I almost could. Without nations there would be no border disputes. The Crimean War alone had lasted for nearly 132 years, and there were at least a hundred smaller conflicts going on around the planet. Suddenly, Goliath seemed not so bad after all, and was indeed our friend. I was a fool not to realise it before.
'He said it was like London, Your Grace.'
St Zvlkx looked at the weathered arch, the only visible evidence of his once great cathedral, and asked:
'What happened to my cathedral?'
'Burned durring the dissolution of the monasteries.'
'Got damn,' he muttered, eyebrows raised, 'should have seen that coming.'
'Duis aute dolor in fugiat nulla pariatur,' murmured Friday, pointing at St Zvlkx's retreating form, rapidly vanishing in a crowd of well-wishers and newsmen.
'I have no idea, sweetheart — but I've a feeling things are just beginning to get interesting.'
'Well,' said Lydia to the camera, 'a Revealment that could spell potential disaster for the Goliath Corporation and—'
Her producer was gesticulating wildly for her not to connect 'tyrant' with 'Kaine' live on air.
'—an as yet unnamed tyrant. This is Lydia Startright, bringing you a miraculous event live for Toad News. And now, a word from our sponsors, Goliath Pharmaceuticals, the makers of Haerrmarelief.'
12
Spike and Cindy
'Operative Spike Stoker was with SO-17, the Vampire and Werewolf disposal operation, undeniably the most lonely of the SpecOps divisions. SO-17 operatives worked in the twilight world of the semi-dead, changelings, vampires, lycanthropes and those of a generally evil disposition. Spike had been decorated more times than I had read Three Men in a Boat, but then he was the only staker in the South-west and no one in their right mind would do what he did on a SpecOps wage, except me. And only then when I was desperate for the cash.'
THURSDAY NEXT — My Life in SpecOps
I pushed Friday back towards my car, deep in thought. The stakes had just been raised and any chance that I might somehow influence the outcome of the Superhoop were suddenly made that much more impossible. With Goliath and Kaine both having a vested interest in making sure the Swindon Mallets lost, chances of our victory had dropped from 'highly unlikely' to 'nigh impossible'.
'It explains,' said a voice, 'why Goliath are changing to a faith-based corporate management system.'
I turned to find my stalker, Millon de Floss, walking close behind me. It must have been important for him to contravene the blanket restraining order. I stopped for a moment.
'Why do you think that?'
'Once they are a religion they won't be a company named Goliathe, as stated in Zvlkx's prophecy,' observed Millon, 'and they can avoid the Revealment coming true. Sister Bettina, their own corporate precog, must have foreseen something like this and alerted them.'
'Does that mean,' I asked slowly, 'that they're taking St Zvlkx seriously?'
'He's too accurate not to be, Miss Next, however unlikely it may seem. Now that they know the complete seventh Revealment, they'll try and do anything to stop Swindon winning — and continue with the religion thing as a back-up just in case.'
It made sense — sort of. Dad must have known this or something very like it. None of it boded very well, but my father had said the likelihood of this armageddon was only 22 per cent, so the answer must be somewhere.
'I'm going to visit Goliathopohs this afternoon,' I said thoughtfully. 'Have you found out anything about Kaine?'
Millon rummaged in his pocket for a notepad, found it and flicked through the pages, which seemed to be full of numbers.
'It's here somewhere,' he said apologetically. 'I like to collect vacumn-cleaner serial numbers and was investigating a rare Hoover XB-23E when I got the call. Here it is. This Kaine fellow is a conspiracist's delight. He arrived on the scene five years ago with no past, no parents, nothing. His national insurance number was only given to him in 1982, and it seems the only jobs he has ever held was with his publishing company and then as MP.'
'Not a lot to go on, then.'
'Not yet, but I'll keep on digging. You might be interested to know that he has been seen on several occasions with Lola Vavoom.'
'Who hasn't?'
'Agreed. You wanted to know about Mr Schitt-Hawse? He heads the Goliath tech division.'
'You sure?'
Millon looked dubious for a moment.
'In the conspiracy industry the word "sure" has a certain plasticity about it, but yes. We have a mole at Goliathopolis. Admittedly they only serve in the canteen, but you'd be surprised the sensitive information that one can overhear giving out shortbread fingers. Apparently Schitt-Hawse has been engaged in something called "The Ovitron Project". We're not sure but it might be a development of your uncle's ovinator. Could it be something along the lines of The Midwich Cuckoos?'
'I sincerely hope not.'
I made a few notes, thanked Millon for his time and continued heading back to my car, my head full of potential futures, ovinators and Kaine.
Ten minutes later we were in my Speedster, heading north towards Cricklade. My father had told me that Cindy would fail to kill me three times before she died herself, but there was a chance the future didn't have to turn out that way — after all, I had once been shot dead by a SpecOps marksman in an alternative future, and I was still very much alive.
I hadn't seen Spike for over two years but had been gratified to learn he had moved out of his dingy apartment to a new address in Cricklade. I soon found his street — it was a newly built estate of Cotswold stone which shone a warm glow of ochre in the sunlight. As we drove slowly down the road checking door numbers, Friday helpfully pointed out things of interest.
'Ipsum,' he said, pointing at a car.
I was hoping that Spike wasn't there so I could speak to Cindy on her own, but I was out of luck. I parked behind his SpecOps black-and-white and climbed out. Spike himself was sitting in a deckchair on the front lawn, and my heart fell when I saw that not only had he married Cindy but they had also had a child -a girl of about one was sitting on the grass next to him playing under a parasol. I cursed inwardly as Friday hid behind my leg. I was going to have to make Cindy play ball — the alternative wouldn't be good for her and would be worse for Spike and their daughter.
'Yo!' yelled Spike, telling the person on the other end of the phone to hold it one moment and getting up to give me a hug. 'How you doing, Next?'
'I'm good, Spike. You?'
He spread his arms, indicating the trappings of middle England suburbia. The UPVC double glazing, the well-kept lawn, the drive, the wrought-iron sunrise gate.
'Look at all this, sister! Isn't it the best?'
'Ipsum,' said Friday, pointing at a plant pot.
'Cute kid. Go on in. I'll be with you in a moment.'
I walked into the house and found Cindy in the kitchen. She had a pinny on and her hair tied up.
'Hello,' I said, trying to sound as normal as possible, 'you must be Cindy.'
She looked me straight in the eye. She didn't look like a professional assassin who had killed sixty-seven times — sixty-eight if she did Samuel Pring — yet the really good ones never do.
'Well, well, Thursday Next,' she said slowly, crouching down to pull some damp clothes out of the washing machine and tweaking Friday's ear. 'Spike holds you in very high regard.'
'Then you know why I'm here?'
She put down the washing, picked up a Fisher-Price Webster that was threatening to trip someone up, and passed it to Friday, who sat down to scrutinise it carefully.
'I can guess. Handsome lad. How old is he?'
'He was two last month. And I'd like to thank you for missing yesterday.'
She gave a wan smile and walked out of the back door. I caught up with her as she started to hang the washing on the line.
'Is it Kaine trying to have me killed?'
'I always respect client confidentiality,' she said quietly, 'and I can't miss for ever.'
'Then stop it right now,' I said. 'Why do you even need to do it at all?'
She pegged a blue Babygro on the line.
'Two reasons: first, I'm not going to give up work just because I'm married with a kid, and second, I always complete a contract, no matter what. When I don't deliver the goods the clients want refunds. And the Windowmaker doesn't do refunds.'
'Yes.' I replied, 'I was curious about that. Why the Window-maker?'
She glared at me coldly.
'The printers made a mistake on the notepaper and it would have cost too much to redo. Don't laugh.'
She hung up a pillowcase.
'I'll contract you out, Miss Next, but I won't try today — which gives you some time to get yourself together and leave town for good. Somewhere where I can't find you. And hide well — I'm very good at what I do.'
She glanced towards the kitchen. I hung a large SO-17 T-shirt on the line.
'He doesn't know, does he?' I said.
'Spike is a fine man,' replied Cindy, just a little slow on the uptake. You're not going to tell him and he's never going to know. Grab the other end of that sheet, will you?'
I took the end of a dry sheet and we folded it together.
'I'm not going anywhere, Cindy,' I told her, 'and I'll protect myself in any way I can.'
We stared at one another for a moment. It seemed like such a waste.
'Retire!'
'Never!'
'Why?'
'Because I like it and I'm good at it — would you like some tea, Thursday?'
Spike had entered the garden carrying the baby.
'So, how are my two favourite ladies?'
'Thursday was helping me with the washing, Spikey,' said Cindy, her hard-as-nails professionalism replaced by a silly sort of girlie ditsiness. 'I'll put the kettle on — two sugars, Thursday?'
'One.'
She skipped into the house.
'What do you think?' asked Spike in a low tone. 'Isn't she just the cutest thing ever?'
He was like a fifteen-year-old in love for the first time.
'She's lovely, Spike, you're a lucky man.'
'This is Betty,' said Spike, waving the tiny arm of the infant with his huge hand. 'One year old. You were right about being honest with Cindy — she didn't mind me doing all that vampire sh— I mean stuff. In fact I think she's kinda proud.'
'You're a lucky man,' I repeated, wondering just how I was going to avoid making him a widower and the gurgling child motherless.
We walked back into the house, where Cindy was busying herself in the kitchen.
'Where have you been?' asked Spike, depositing Betty next to Friday. They looked at one another suspiciously. 'Prison?'
'No. Somewhere weird. Somewhere other.'
'Will you be returning there?' asked Cindy innocently.
'She's only just got back!' exclaimed Spike. 'We don't want to be shot of her quite yet.'
'Shot of her — of course not,' replied Cindy, placing a mug of tea on the table. 'Have a seat. There are Hobnobs in that novelty dodo biscuit tin over there.'
'Thank you. So,' I continued, 'how's the vampire business?'
'So-so. Been quiet recently. Werewolves the same. I dealt with a few zombies in the city centre the other night but Supreme Evil Being containment work has almost completely dried up. There's been a report of a few ghouls, bogeys and phantoms in Winchester but it's not really my area of expertise. There's talk of disbanding the division and then taking me on freelance when they need something done.'
'Is that bad?'
'Not really. I can charge what I want with vampires on the prowl, but in slack times I'd be a bit stuffed — wouldn't want to send Cindy out to work full time, now, would I?'
He laughed and Cindy laughed with him, handing Betty a rusk. She gave it an almighty toothless bite and then looked puzzled when there was no effect. Friday took it away from her and showed how it was done.
'So what are you up to at present?' asked Spike.
'Not much. I just dropped in before I go off up to Goliathopolis — my husband still isn't back.'
'Did you hear about Zvlkx's Revealment?'
'I was there.'
'Then Goliath will want all the forgiveness they can get — you won't find a better time for forcing them to bring him back.'
We chatted for ten minutes or more until it was time for me to leave. I didn't manage to speak to Cindy on her own again, but I had said what I wanted to say — I just hoped she would take notice, but somehow I doubted it.
'If I ever have any freelance jobs to do, will you join me?' asked Spike as he was seeing me out of the door, Friday having eaten nearly all the rusks.
I thought of my overdraft.
'Please.'
'Good,' replied Spike, 'I'll be in touch.'
I drove down to the M4 to Saknussum International, where I had to run to catch the Gravitube to the James Tarbuck Graviport in Liverpool. Friday and I had a brief lunch before hopping on the shuttle to Goliathopolis. Goliath had taken my husband from me, and they could bring him back. And when you have a grievance with a company, you go straight to the top.
14
The Goliath Apologarium™
DANISH CAR 'A DEATHTRAP' CLAIMS KAINIAN MINISTER
Robert Edsel, the Kainian minister of road safety, hit out at Danish car manufacturer Volvo yesterday, claiming the boxy and unsightly vehicles previously considered one of the safest cars on the market to be die complete reverse — a deathtrap for anyone stupid enough to buy one. 'The Volvo fared very poorly in the rocket-propelled grenade test,' claimed Mr Edsel in a press release yesterday, 'and owners and their children risk permanent spinal injury when dropped in the car from heights as low as sixty feet.' Mr Edsel continued to pour scorn on the pride of the Danish motoring industry by revealing that the Volvo's air filters offered 'scant protection' against pyroclastic flows, poisonous fumes and other forms of common volcanic phenomena. 'I would very much recommend that anyone thinking of buying this poor Danish product should think again,' said Mr Edsel. When the Danish foreign minister pointed out that Volvos were, in fact, Swedish, Mr Edsel accused the Danes of once again attempting to blame their neighbours for their own manufacturing weaknesses.
Article in The Toad on Sunday. 16 July, 1988
The Isle of Man had been an independent corporate state within England since it was appropriated for the greater fiscal good in 1963. The surrounding Irish Sea was heavily mined to deter unwanted visitors and the skies above protected by the most technologically advanced anti-aircraft system known to man. It had hospitals and schools, a university, its own fusion reactor and also, leading from Douglas to Kennedy Graviport in New York, the world's only privately run Gravitube. The island was home to almost 200,000 people who did nothing but support, or support the support of, the one enterprise that dominated the small island: the Goliath Corporation.
The old Manx town of Laxey was renamed Goliathopolis and was now the Hong Kong of the British archipelago, a forest of glassy towers striding up the hillside towards Snaefell. The largest of these skyscrapers rose higher even than the mountain peak behind it and could be seen glinting in the sunlight all the way from Blackpool, weather permitting. In this building was housed the inner sanctum of the whole vast multinational, the cream of Goliath's corporate engineers. An employee could spend a lifetime on the island and never even get past the front desk. And it was on the ground floor of this building, right at the heart of the corporation, that I found the Goliath apologarium.
I joined a small queue in front of a modern glass-topped table where two smiling Goliath employees were giving out questionnaires and numbered tickets.
'Hello!' said one of the clerks, a youngish girl with a lopsided smile. 'Welcome to the Goliath Corporation's Apology Emporium. Sorry you had to wait. How can we help you?'
'The Goliath Corporation murdered my husband.'
'How simply dreadful!' she responded in a lame and insincere display of sympathy. 'I'm so sorry to hear that. Goliath, as part of their move to a faith-based corporate management system, are committed to reversing all the unpleasant matters we may previously have been engaged in. You need to fill in this form, and this form — and section D of this one — and then take a seat. We'll get one of our highly trained apologists to see you just as soon as they can.'
She handed me several long forms and a numbered ticket, then indicated a door to one side. I opened it and walked into the apologarium. It was a large hall with floor-to-ceiling windows that gave a serene view of the Irish Sea. On one side was a row of perhaps twenty cubicles containing suited apologists, who all sat listening intently to what they were being told with the same sad and contrite expression. On the other side were rows upon rows of wooden seating that held eager and once bullied citizens, anxiously clasping their numbered tickets and patiently waiting their turn. I looked at my ticket. It was number 6,174. I glanced up at the board, which told me that number 836 was now being interviewed.
'Dear, sweet people!' said a voice through a Tannoy. 'Goliath is deeply sorry for all the harm it may inadvertently have caused you in the past. Here at the Goliath Apologarium™ we are only too happy to assist in your problem, no matter how small . . .'
'You!' I said to a man who was hobbling past me towards the exit. 'Have Goliath repented to your satisfaction?'
'Well, they didn't really need to,' he replied blandly. 'It was I who was at fault — in fact, I apologised for wasting their valuable time!'
'What did they do?'
'They bathed my neighbourhood with ionising radiation, then denied it for seventeen years, even after people's teeth fell out and I grew a third foot.'
'And you forgave them?'
'Of course. I can see now that it was a genuine accident and the public have to accept risks if we are to have abundant clean energy, limitless food and household electro-defragmentisers.'
He was carrying a sheath of papers; not the application forms that I had to fill out but leaflets on how to join New Goliath. Not as a consumer, but as a worshipper. I had always been deeply distrustful of Goliath but this whole 'repentance' thing smelt worse than anything I had so far witnessed. I turned, tore up my numbered ticket and headed for the exit.
'Miss Next!' called out a familiar voice. 'I say, Miss Next!'
A short man with pinched features and a rounded head covered with the fuzz of an aggresively short crew cut was facing me. He was wearing a dark suit and heavy gold jewellery and was arguably the person I liked least — this was Jack Schitt, once Goliath's top advanced weapons guru and ex-convict of The Raven. This was the man who had tried to prolong the Crimean War so he could make a fortune out of Goliath's latest super-weapon, the plasma rifle.
Anger rose quickly within me. I turned Friday in the other direction so as not to give his young mind any wrong ideas about the use of violence and then grasped Schitt by the throat. He took a step back, stumbled and collapsed beneath me with a yelp. Sensing I had been in this position before, I released him and placed my hand on the butt of my automatic, expecting to be attacked by a host of Jack's minders. But there was nothing. Just sad citizens looking on sorrowfully.
'There is no one here to help me,' said Jack Schitt, slowly getting to his feet. '1 have been assaulted eight times today — I count myself fortunate. Yesterday it was twenty-three.'
I looked at him and noticed, for the first time, that he had a black eye and a cut on his lip.
'No minders?' I echoed. 'Why?'
'It is my absolution to face those I have bullied and harangued in the past, Miss Next. When we last met I was head of Goliath's Advanced Weapons Division and corporate laddernumber 329.' He sighed. 'Now, thanks to your well-publicised denouncement of the failings of our plasma rifle, the corporation has decided to demote me. I am an Apology Facilitation Operative second class, ladder-number 12,398,219. The mighty have fallen, Miss Next.'
'On the contrary,' I replied, 'you have merely been moved to a level more fitting to your competence. It's a shame. You deserved much worse than this.'
His eyes twitched as he grew angry. The old Jack, the homicidal one, returned for a moment. But the feelings were short-lived and his shoulders fell as he realised that without the Goliath Security Service to back him up, his power over me was minimal.
'Maybe you're right,' he said simply. 'You will not have to wait your turn, Miss Next, I will deal with your case personally. Is this your son?' He bent down to look closer. 'Cute fellow, isn't he?'
'Eiusmod tempor incididunt adipisiting elit,' said Friday, glaring at Jack suspiciously.
'What did he say?'
'He said: "If you touch me my mum will break your nose.'"
Jack stood up quickly.
'I see. Goliath and myself offer a full, frank and unreserved apology.'
'What for?'
'I don't know. Have it on account. Would you care to come to my office?'
He beckoned me out of the door and we crossed a courtyard with a large fountain in the middle, past a few suited Goliath officials chattering in a corner, then through another doorway and down a wide corridor full of clerks moving backwards and forwards with folders tucked under their arms.
Jack opened a door, ushered me in, offered me a chair and then sat himself. It was a miserable little office, devoid of any decoration except a shabby Lola Vavoom calendar on the wall and a dead plant in a pot. The only window looked out on to a wall. He arranged some papers on his desk and spoke into the intercom.
'Mr Higgs, would you bring the Thursday Next file in, please?'
He looked at me earnestly and set his head at a slight angle, as though trying to affect some sort of apologetic demeanour.
'None of us quite realised,' he began in the sort of soft voice that undertakers use when attempting to persuade you to buy the deluxe coffin, just how appalling we had been until we started asking people if they were at all unhappy with our conduct.'
'Why don't we cut the cr—' I looked at Friday, who looked back at me. '—cut the, cut the . . . nonsense and go straight to the place where you atone for your crimes.'
He sighed and stared at me for a moment, then said:
'Very well. What did we do wrong again?'
'You can't remember?'
'I do lots of wrong things, Miss Next, you'll excuse me if I can't remember details.'
'You eradicated my husband,' I said through gritted teeth. 'Of course! And what was the name of the eradicatee?'
'Landen,' I replied coldly, 'Landen Parker-Laine.'
At that moment a clerk arrived with a file marked 'most secret' and laid it on his desk. Jack opened it and leafed through.
'The record shows that at the time you say your husband was eradicated your case officer was Operative Schitt-Hawse. It says here that he pressured you to release Operative Schitt — that's me — from within the pages of The Raven by utilising an unnamed ChronoGuard operative who volunteered his services. It says that you complied but our promise was revoked owing to an unforeseen and commercially necessary overriding blackmail continuance situation.'
'You mean corporate greed, don't you?'
'Don't underestimate greed, Miss Next — it's commerce's greatest motive force. In this context it was probably due to our plans to use the BookWorld to dump nuclear waste and sell our extremely high-quality goods and services to characters in fiction. You were then imprisoned in our most inaccessible vault from which you escaped, methodology unknown.'
He closed the file.
'What this means, Miss Next, is that we kidnapped you, tried to kill you, and then had you on our shoot-on-sight list for over a year. You may be in line for a generous cash settlement.'
'I don't want cash, Jack. You had someone go back in time to kill Landen, now you can just get someone to go back again and unkill him!'
Jack Schitt paused and drummed his fingers on the table for a moment.
'That's not how it works,' he replied testily. 'The apology and restitution rules are very clear — for us to repent we must agree as to what we have done wrong, and there's no mention of any Goliath-led illegal time-related jiggery-pokery in our report. Since Goliath's records are time-audited on a regular basis, I think that proves conclusively that if there was any timefoolery it was instigated by the ChronoGuard — Goliath's chronological record is above reproach.'
I thumped the table with my fist and Jack jumped. Without his henchmen around him he was a coward, and every time he flinched, I grew stronger.
'This is complete and utter sh—' I looked at Friday again. '—rubbish, Jack. Goliath and the ChronoGuard eradicated my husband. You had the power to remove him — you can be the ones that put him back.'
'That's not possible.'
'GIVE ME BACK MY HUSBAND!'
The anger in Jack returned. He also rose and pointed an accusing finger at me. 'Have you even the slightest idea how much it costs to bribe the ChronoGuard? More money than we care to spend on the sort of miserable half-hearted forgiveness you can offer us. And another thing, I . . . excuse me.'
The phone had rung and he picked it up, his eyes flicking instantly to me as he listened.
'Yes, it is . . . Yes, she is . . . Yes, we do . . . Yes, I will.'
His eyes opened wide.
'This is indeed an honour, sir . . . No, that would not be a problem at all, sir . . . Yes, I'm sure I can persuade her about that, sir . . . no, it's what we all want . . . And a very good day to you, sir. Thank you.'
He put the receiver down and fetched an empty cardboard box from the cupboard with a renewed spring in his step.
'Good news!' he exclaimed, taking some junk out of his desk and placing it in the box. 'The CEO of New Goliath has taken a special interest in your case and will personally guarantee the return of your husband.'
'I thought you said that timefoolery had nothing to do with you?'
'Apparently I was misinformed. We would be very happy to reactualise Libner.'
'Landen.'
'Right.'
'What's the catch?' I asked suspiciously.
'No catch,' replied Jack, picking up his desk nameplate and depositing it in the box along with the calendar, 'we just want you to forgive us and like us.'
'Like you?'
'Yes. Or pretend to, anyway. Not so very hard, now, is it? Just sign this Standard Forgiveness Release Form at the bottom here, and we'll reactualise your hubby. Simple, isn't it?'
I was still suspicious.
'I don't believe you have any intention of getting Landen back.'
'All right, then,' said Jack, taking some files out of the filing cabinet and dumping them in his cardboard box, 'don't sign and you'll never know. As you say, Miss Next — we got rid of him so we can get him back.'
'You stiffed me once before, Jack. How do I know you won't do it again?'
Jack paused in his packing and looked slightly apprehensive.
'Are you going to sign?'
'No.'
Jack sighed and started to take everything back out of the cardboard box and return it to its place.
'Well,' he muttered, 'there goes my promotion. But listen: whether you sign or not you walk out of here a free woman. New Goliath have no argument with you any longer. Besides, what do you have to lose?'
'All I want,' I replied, 'is to get my husband back. I'm not signing anything.'
Jack took his nameplate out of the cardboard box and put it back on his desk.
The phone rang again.
'Yes, sir . . . No, she won't, sir . . . I tried that, sir . . . very well, sir.'
He put the receiver down and picked up his nameplate again; it hovered over his box.
'That was the CEO. He wants to apologise to you personally. Will you go?'
I paused. Seeing the head honcho of Goliath was an almost unprecedented event for a non-Goliath official. If anyone could get Landen back, it was him.
'Okay.'
Jack smiled, dropped the nameplate in his box and then hurriedly threw everything else back in.
'Well,' he continued, 'must dash — I've just been promoted up three laddernumbers. Go to the main reception desk and someone will meet you. Don't forget your Standard Forgiveness Release Form, and if you could mention my name I'd be really grateful.'
He handed me my unsigned forms as the door opened and another Goliath operative walked in, also holding a cardboard box full of possessions.
'What if I don't get him back, Mr Schitt?'
'Well,' he said, looking at his watch, 'if you have any grievances about the quality of our contrition you had better take it up with your appointed Goliath apologist. I don't work here any more.'
And he smiled a supercilious smile, put on his hat and was gone.
'Well!' said the new apologist as he skirted the desk and started to arrange his possessions around his new office. 'Is there anything you'd like us to apologise for?'
'Your corporation,' I muttered.
'Full, frank and unreservedly,' replied the apologist in the sincerest of tones.
15
Meeting the CEO
'. . . Fifty years ago we were only a small multinational with barely 7,000 employees. Today we have over 38,000,000 employees in 14,000 companies dealing in over 12,000,000 different products and services. The size of Goliath is what gives us the stability to be able to say confidently that we will be looking after you for many years to come. By 1980 our turnover was equal to the combined GNP of 72 per cent of the planet's nations. This year we see the corporation take the next great leap forward — to fully recognised religion with our own gods, demigods, priests, places of worship and prayerbook. Goliath shares will be exchanged for entry into our new faith-based corporate management system, where you (the devotees) will worship us (the gods) in exchange for protection from the world's evils and a reward in the afterlife. I know you will join me in this endeavour as you have in all our past endeavours. A comprehensive leaflet explaining how you can help further the corporation's interest in this matter will be available shortly. New Goliath. For all you'll ever need. For all you'll ever want. Ever.'
Extract from the Goliath Corporation CEO's 1988 conference speech
I walked to the main desk and gave my name to the receptionist, who, raising her eyebrows at my request, called the 110th floor, registered some surprise and then asked me to wait. I pushed Friday towards the waiting area and gave him a banana I had in my bag. I sat and watched the Goliath officials walking briskly backwards and forwards across the polished marble floors, all looking busy but seemingly doing nothing.
'Miss Next?'
There were two individuals standing in front of me. One was dressed in the dark Goliath blue of an executive; the other was a footman in full livery, holding a polished silver tray.
'Yes?' I said, standing up.
'My name is Mr Godfrey, the CEO's personal assistant's assistant. If you would be so kind?'
He indicated the tray.
I understood his request, unholstered my automatic and laid it on the salver. The footman paused politely. I got the message and placed my two spare clips on it as well. He bowed and silently withdrew, and the Goliath executive led me silently towards a roped-off elevator at the far end of the concourse. I wheeled Friday in and the doors hissed shut behind us.
It was a glass elevator that rose on the outside of the building and from our vantage point as we were whisked noiselessly heavenward I could see all of Goliathopolis's buildings reaching almost all the way down the coast to Douglas. The size of the corporation's holdings was never more so demonstrably immense — all these buildings simply administered the thousands of companies and millions of employees around the world. If I had been in a charitable frame of mind I might have been impressed by the scale and grandeur of Goliath's establishment. As it was, I saw only ill-gotten gains.
The smaller buildings were soon left behind as we continued upward, until even the other skyscrapers were dwarfed. I was staring with fascination at the spectacular view when without warning the exterior was suddenly obscured by a white haze. Water droplets formed on the outside of the elevator and I could see nothing until a few seconds later we burst clear of the cloud and into bright sunshine and a deep blue sky. I stared across the top of the clouds, which stretched away unbroken into the distance. I was so enthralled by the spectacle that I didn't realise the elevator had stopped.
'Ipsum,' said Friday, who was also impressed, and he pointed in case I had missed the view.
'Miss Next?'
I turned. To say the boardroom of the Goliath Corporation was impressive would not be doing it the justice it deserves. I was on the top floor of the building. The walls and roof were all tinted glass, and from here on a clear day you must be able to look down upon the world from the viewpoint of a god. Today it looked as though we were afloat on a cotton-wool sea. The building and its position, high above the planet both geographically and morally, perfectly reflected the corporation's dominance and power.
In the middle of the room was a long table with perhaps thirty suited Goliath board members all standing next to their seats, watching me in silence. No one said anything, and I was about to ask who the boss was when I noticed a large man staring out of the window with his hands clasped behind his back.
'Ipsum!' said Friday.
'Allow me,' began my escort, 'to introduce the Chief Executive Officer of the Goliath Corporation, John Henry Goliath V, great-great-grandson of our founder, John Henry Goliath.'
The figure staring out of the window turned to meet me. He must have been over six foot eight and was large with it. Broad, imposing and dominating. He was not yet fifty, had piercing green eyes that seemed to look straight through me, and gave me such a warm smile that I was instantly put at my ease.
'Miss Next?' he said in a voice like distant thunder. 'I've wanted to meet you for some time.'
His handshake was warm and friendly; it was easy to forget just who he was and what he had done.
'They are standing for you,' he announced, indicating the board members. 'You have personally cost us over a billion pounds in cash and at least four times that in lost revenues. Such an adversary is to be admired rather than reviled.'
The board members applauded for about ten seconds, then sat back down at their places. I noticed Brik Schitt-Hawse among them; he inclined his head to me in recognition.
'If I didn't already know the answer I would offer you a position on our board,' said the CEO with a smile. 'We're just finishing a board meeting, Miss Next. In a few minutes I shall be at your disposal. Please ask Mr Godfrey if you require any refreshments for yourself or your son.'
'Thank you.'
I asked Godfrey for an orange juice in a beaker for Friday, took him out of his pushchair and sat with him on a nearby armchair to watch the proceedings.
'Item seventy-six,' said a small man wearing a Goliath-issue cobalt-blue suit, 'Antarctica. There has been a degree of opposition to our purchase of the continent by a small minority of do-gooders who believe our use is anything but benevolent.'
'And this, Mr Jarvis, is a problem because—?' demanded John Henry Goliath V.
'Not a problem but an observation, sir. I propose that to offset any possible negative publicity we let it be known that we merely acquired the continent to generate new ecotourism-related jobs in an area traditionally considered poor in employment opportunities.'
'It shall be so,' boomed the CEO. 'What else?'
'Well, since we will take the role of "eco-custodians" very seriously, I propose sending a fleet of ten warships to protect the continent against vandals who seek to harm the penguin population, illegally remove ice and snow and create general "mischief".'
'Warships eat heavily into profit margins,' said another member of the board. But Mr Jarvis had already thought of that.
'Not if we subcontract the security issue to a foreign power eager to do business with us. I have formulated a plan whereby the United Caribbean Nations will patrol the continent in exchange for all the ice and snow they want. With the purchase of Antarctica we can undercut snow exports from all the countries in the Northern Alliance. Their unsold snow will be bought by us at four pence a ton, melted and exchanged for building sand with Morocco. This will be exported to sand-deficient nations at an overall profit of twelve per cent. You'll find it all in my report.'
There was a murmur of assent around the table. The CEO nodded his head thoughtfully.
'Thank you, Mr Jarvis, your idea finds favour with the board. But tell me, what about the vast natural resource that we bought Antarctica to exploit in the first place?'
Jarvis snapped his fingers and the elevator doors opened to reveal a chef, who wheeled in a trolley with a covered silver dish on it. He stopped next to the CEO's chair, took off the cover and laid a small plate with what looked like sliced pork on it on the table. A footman laid a knife and a fork next to the plate along with a crisp napkin, then withdrew.
The CEO took a small forkful and put it in his mouth. His eyes opened wide in shock and he spat it out. The footman passed him a glass of water.
'Disgusting!'
'I agree, sir,' replied Jarvis, 'almost completely inedible.'
'Blast! Do you mean to tell me we've bought an entire continent with a potential food yield of ten million penguin units per year only to find we can't eat any of them?'
'Only a minor setback, sir. If you would all turn to page seventy-two of your agenda . . .'
All the board members simultaneously opened their files. Jarvis picked his report up and walked to the window to read it.
'The problem of selling penguins as the Sunday roast of choice can be split into two parts: one, penguins taste like creosote, and two, many people have a misguided idea that penguins are somewhat "cute" and "cuddly" and "endangered". To take the first point first, I propose that as part of the launch of this abundant new foodstuff there should be a special penguin cookery show on GoliathChannel 16, as well as a highly amusing advertising campaign with the catchy phrase: "P-p-p-prepare a p-p-penguin".'
The CEO nodded thoughtfully.
'I further suggest,' continued Jarvis, 'that we finance an independent study into the health-imbuing qualities of seabirds in general. The findings of this independent and wholly impartial study will be that the recommended weekly intake of penguin per person should be . . . one penguin.'
'And point two?' asked another board member. 'The public's positive and non-eatworthy perception of penguins in general?'
'Not insurmountable, sir. If you recall, we had a similar problem marketing baby seal burgers, and they are now one of our most popular lines. I suggest we depict penguins as callous and unfeeling creatures who insist on bringing up their children in what is little more than a large chest freezer. Furthermore, the "endangered" marketing problem can be used to our advantage by an advertising strategy along the lines of "Eat them quick before they're all gone!'"
'Or,' said another board member, '"Place a penguin in your kitchen — have a snack before extinction.'"
'Doesn't rhyme very well, does it?' said a third. 'What about: "For a taste that's more distinct, eat a bird before it's extinct?'"
'I preferred mine.'
Jarvis sat down and awaited the CEO's thoughts.
'It shall be so. Why not "Antarctica — the new Arctic" as a byline? Have our people in advertising put a campaign together. The meeting is over.'
The board members closed their folders in one single synchronised movement and then filed in orderly fashion to the far end of the room, where a curved staircase led down. Within a few minutes only the CEO and Brik Schitt-Hawse remained. He placed his red-leather briefcase on the desk in front of me and looked at me dispassionately, saying nothing. For someone like Schitt-Hawse who loved the sound of his own voice, it was clear the CEO called every shot.
'What did you think?' asked Goliath.
'Think?' I replied. 'How about "morally reprehensible"?'
'I believe you will find there is no moral good or bad, Miss Next. Morality can only be asserted from the safe retrospection of twenty years or more. Parliaments have far too short a life to do any long-term good. It is up to corporations to do what is best for everyone. The tenure of an administration may be five years — for us it can be several centuries, and none of that tiresome accountability to get in the way. The leap to Goliath as a religion is the next logical step.'
'I'm not convinced, Mr Goliath,' I told him. 'I thought you were becoming a religion to evade the seventh Revealment of St Zvlkx.'
He gazed at me with his piercing green eyes.
'It's avoid, not evade, Miss Next. A trifling textual change but legally with great implications. We can legally attempt to avoid the future but not evade it. As long as we can demonstrate a forty-nine per cent chance that our future-altering attempts might fail, we are legally safe. The ChronoGuard are very strict on the rules and we'd be fools to try and break them.'
'You didn't ask me up here to argue legal definitions, Mr Goliath.'
'No, Miss Next. I wanted to have this opportunity to explain ourselves to you, one of our most vociferous opponents. I have doubts too, and if I can make you understand then I will have convinced myself that what we are doing is right, and good. Have a seat.'
I sat, rather too obediently. Mr Goliath had a strong personality.
'Humans are moulded by evolution to be short-termists, Miss Next,' he continued. His voice rumbled deeply and seemed to echo inside my head. 'We need only to see our children to reproductive age to be successful in a biological sense. We have to move beyond that. If we see ourselves as residents on this planet for the long term we need to plan for the long term. Goliath has a thousand-year plan for itself. The responsibility for this planet is far too important to leave to a fragmented group of governments, constantly bickering over borders and only looking towards their own self-interest. We at Goliath see ourselves not as a corporation or a government but as a force for good. A force for good in waiting. We have thirty-eight million employees at present; it isn't difficult to see the benefit of having three billion. Imagine everyone on the planet working towards a single goal — the banishment of all governments and the creation of one business whose sole function it is to run the planet, by people on the planet, for the people on the planet, equally and sustainable for all — not Goliath but Earth, Inc. A company with every member of the world holding a single, equal share.'
'Is that why you're becoming a religion?'
'Let's just say that your friend Mr Zvlkx has goaded us into a course of action that is long overdue. You used the word religion but we see it more as a single, unifying faith to bring all mankind together. One world, one nation, one people, one aim. Surely you can see the sense in that?'
The strange thing was, I almost could. Without nations there would be no border disputes. The Crimean War alone had lasted for nearly 132 years, and there were at least a hundred smaller conflicts going on around the planet. Suddenly, Goliath seemed not so bad after all, and was indeed our friend. I was a fool not to realise it before.