The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [281]
“I wish I knew.”
But James licked his lips and said: “I’ll tell you what this is. It’s Dream Topping.”
“Dream Topping?” I queried. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Strawberry flavor. Know it anywhere.”
I put a finger in the goo and tasted it. No mistake, it was Dream Topping. If only forensics had looked at the big picture instead of staring at molecules, they might have figured it out for themselves. But it got me thinking.
“Dream Topping?” I wondered out loud, looking at my watch. There were eighty-seven minutes of life left on the planet. “How could the world turn to Dream Topping?”
“It’s the sort of thing,” piped up James, “that Mycroft might know.”
“You,” I said, pointing a finger at the pudding-covered individual, “are a genius.”
What had Mycroft said before he left about his R&D work at ConStuff? Miniaturized machines, nanomachines barely bigger than a cell, building food protein out of nothing more than garbage? Banoffee pie from landfills? Perhaps there was going to be an accident. After all, what stopped nanomachines from making banoffee pie once they had started? I looked out of the window. Aornis had gone.
“Do you have a car?” I asked.
“Sure,” said James.
“You’re going to have to take me over to ConStuff. Dilly, I need your clothes.”
Cordelia looked suspicious.
“Why?”
“I’ve got watchers. Three in, three out—they’ll think I’m you.”
“No way on earth,” replied Cordelia indignantly. “Unless you agree to do all my interviews and press junkets.”
“At my first appearance I’ll have my head lopped off by Goliath or SpecOps—or both.”
“Perhaps that’s so,” replied Cordelia slowly, “but I’d be a fool to pass on an opportunity as good as this. All the interviews and appearances I request for a year.”
“Two months, Cordelia.”
“Six.”
“Three.”
“Okay,” she sighed, “three months—but you have to do TheThursday Next Workout Video and talk to Harry about the Eyre Affair film project.”
“Deal.”
So Cordelia and I switched clothes. It felt very odd to be wearing her large pink sweater, short black skirt and high heels.
“Don’t forget the Peruvian love beads,” said Cordelia, “and my gun. Here.”
“Excuse me, Miss Flakk,” said James in a slightly indignant tone. “You promised I could ask Miss Next a question.”
Flakk pointed a finely manicured fingertip at him and narrowed her eyes. “Listen here, buster. You’re both on SpecOps business right now—a bonus I’d say. Any complaints?”
“Er—no, I guess not,” stammered James.
I led them outside, past the Goliath and SpecOps agents waiting for me. I made some expansive Cordelia-like moves and they barely gave us a second glance. We were soon in James’s hired Studebaker, and I directed him across town as I switched back to my own clothes.
“Thursday?” asked James.
“Yes?” I replied, looking around to see if I could see Aornis and shaking the entroposcope. Entropy seemed to be holding at the “slightly odd” mark.
“Who is the father of Pickwick’s egg?”
I get asked some odd questions sometimes. But he was driving me across town, so I thought I would show him some slack.
“I think it was one of the feral dodos down at the park,” I explained. “I caught Pickwick doing a sort of coy come-hither dodo thing a month back, with a large male near the bandstand. Pickwick’s amour plocked noisily outside the house for a week, but I didn’t know anything had actually happened. Does that answer your question?”
“I guess.”
“Good. Okay, pull up over there. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
They dropped me by the side of the road, and I thanked them before running up the street. It was already quite dark and the streetlamps were on. It didn’t look like the world was about to end in twenty-six minutes, but then I don’t suppose it ever does.
32.
The End of Life as We Know It
After failing to get Landen back, dealing with Armageddon didn’t really hold the same sort of excitement for me that it would later. They always say the first time you save the world is the hardest— personally I have always found it tricky, but this time, I don’t know. Perhaps Landen’s loss numbed my mind and immunized me against