The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [284]
“Wait—!” I said, but she pulled my arm up harder and I yelped.
“I’m talking, Next. Never interrupt a Hades when they’re talking. You will die for what you have done to our family, but just to show I’m not a total fiend, I will allow you one last heroic gesture, something your pathetic self-righteous character seems to crave. At precisely six minutes before the accident, you will begin to remember all our little chats together.”
I struggled, but she held me tight.
“You’ll remember this meeting last. So here’s my offer. Take your pistol and turn it upon yourself—and I’ll spare the planet.”
“And if I don’t?” I shouted. “You’ll die too!”
“No,” she laughed, “I know you’ll do it. Despite the baby. Despite everything. You’re a good person, Next. A fine human being. It will be your downfall. I’m counting on it.”
She leaned forwards and whispered in my ear.
“They’re wrong, you know, Thursday. Revenge is so sweet!”
“Thursday?” asked Wilbur. “Are you all right?”
“No, not really,” I muttered as I saw the clock tick into the final minute. Acheron was nothing compared to Aornis, either in his powers or his sense of humor. I’d messed with the Hades family and now I was paying the price.
I pulled out my automatic as the clock ticked into the last half minute.
“If Landen ever comes back, tell him I love him.”
Twenty seconds.
“If who ever comes back?”
“Landen. You’ll know him when you see him. Tall, one leg, writes daft books and had a wife named Thursday who loved him beyond comprehension.”
Ten seconds.
“So long, Wilbur.”
I closed my eyes and placed the gun to my temple.
33.
The Dawn of Life as We Know It
Three billion years ago the atmosphere on earth had stabilized to what scientists referred to as A-II. The relentless hammering of the atmosphere had created the ozone layer, which in turn now stopped new oxygen from being produced. A new and totally different mechanism was needed to kick-start the young planet into the living green ball that we know and enjoy today.
DR. LUCIANO SPAGBOG,
How I Think Life Began on Earth
NO NEED FOR THAT,” said my father, gently taking the gun from my hand and laying it on the table. I don’t know whether he purposely arrived late to increase the drama, but there he was. He hadn’t frozen time—I think he was done with that. Whenever he had appeared in the past he had always been smiles and cheeriness, but today he was different. And he looked, for the first time ever, old. Perhaps eighty—maybe more.
He thrust his hand inside the nanodevice container as the final generator failed. The small blob of nanotechnology fell on his hand, and the emergency lights flicked on, bathing us all in a dim green glow.
“It’s cold,” he said. “How long have I got?”
“It has to warm up first,” replied Wilbur glumly. “Three minutes?”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, sweetpea, but self-sacrifice is not the answer.”
“It was all I had left, Dad. Me alone or me and three billion souls.”
“You don’t get to make that decision, Thursday, but I do. You’ve got a lot of good work to do, and your son, too. Me, I’m just glad that it all ends before I become so enfeebled as to be useless.”
“Dad—!”
I felt the tears start to roll down my cheeks. There was so much I wanted to ask him. There always is.
“It all seems so clear to me now!” he said, smiling as he cupped his hand so none of the all-consuming Dream Topping would fall to the ground. “After several million years of existence I finally realized my purpose. Will you tell your mother there was absolutely nothing between me and Emma Hamilton?”
“Oh—Dad! Don’t, please!”
“And tell Joffy I forgive him for breaking the windows of the greenhouse.”
I hugged him tightly.
“I’ll miss you. And your mother of course, and Sévé, Louis Armstrong, the Nolan Sisters—which reminds me, did you get any tickets?