The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [233]
I yelled, “NO!” and pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.
I yelled, “NO!” and pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.
I yelled, “NO!” and pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.
I yelled, “NO!” and pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.
I yelled, “NO!” and pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.
I yelled, “NO!” and pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.
I yelled, “NO!” and pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.
I yelled, “NO!” and pulled out my gun and aimed it at the man who held Billden.
The next thing I knew I was disarmed, sitting on the ground and feeling shocked and disoriented after my brief enloopment. It was how I imagine a stuck record might feel. Two SO-12 operatives stared at me while my father and Lavoisier talked in angry voices close by. Billden was breathing heavily and sobbing into the damp earth, holding his still-unconscious wife.
“Bastards!” I spat. “My husband’s in there!”
“So much to learn,” muttered Lavoisier as I got to my feet and stood by my father’s side. “The infant Parke-Laine is not your husband, he is an accident statistic—or not. It rather depends on your father.”
“A lackey for the Goliath Corporation, Lavoisier?” said Dad quietly. “You disappoint me.”
“Greater need prevails, Colonel. If you’d handed yourself in I wouldn’t have had to take these extreme measures. Besides, the ChronoGuard can’t function without corporate sponsorship.”
“And in return you do a few favors?”
“As I said, greater needs prevail. And before you start waving charges of corruption at me, this combined Goliath/Chrono-Guard operation has been fully sanctioned by the Chamber. Now, it’s so simple even you can understand it. Give yourself up and your daughter can have her husband back—whether or not she decides to help Goliath. As you can see, I am in a very generous mood.”
I looked at Dad and saw him bite his lip. He rubbed his temples and sighed. He had spent years fighting corruption in the ChronoGuard, and despite Landen’s being so close to reactualization, I wasn’t going to see Dad lose his liberty over either of us. What had he said?—“No one is truly dead until they are forgotten.” Landen was still strong in my memory—we would have another chance.
As Dad opened his mouth to reluctantly agree, I said: “No.”
“What?” exclaimed Lavoisier.
“No,” I repeated. “Dad, don’t do it—I’ll get Jack Schitt out— or something!”
Dad smiled and rested his hand on my shoulder.
“Bah!” went Lavoisier. “Each as hideously self-righteous as the other!”
He nodded to his men, who raised their weapons. But Dad was quick. I felt him grasp my shoulder tightly and we were off. The sun rose quickly as we leapt forward in time, leaving Lavoisier and the others several hours away before they realized what had happened.
“Let’s see if we can lose him!” muttered my father. “As for that Chamber stuff—bullshit. Landen’s eradication was murder, pure and simple. In fact, it’s just the sort of information I need to bring Lavoisier down!”
Days amounted to no more than brief flashes of alternate dark and light as we hurtled into the future. But the odd thing was, we didn’t actually move physically from the place we were standing. The world just aged about us.
“We’re not at full speed,” Dad explained. “He might overtake me without thinking. Keep an eye out for—”
Lavoisier and his cronies appeared for no more than the briefest glimpse as they moved past us into the future. Dad stopped abruptly and I staggered slightly as we returned to real time. We moved off the road as a fifties-style truck drove past, horn blaring.
“What now?”
“I think we shook him off. Blast—!”
We were off again—Lavoisier had reappeared. We lost him for a moment but pretty soon he was back again, keeping pace with us, matching our speed as we moved through history. As Dad slowed down slightly, so did Lavoisier. As he accelerated, Lavoisier did the same. It was like a transtemporal game of follow the leader.