The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [421]
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Tweed. “Find anything else?”
“Not yet. I was hoping to discover what Snell said before he died. It was badly mispeled but I thought perhaps I could unmispel it by repeating it close to a mispeling source.”
“Good thought, but we must take care.” Tweed donned a pair of dictosafe gloves. “Sit here and repeat Snell’s words.” He placed a chair not a yard from the pile of dictionaries. “I’ll remove one OED at a time and we’ll see what happens.”
“Wode—Cone, udder whirled—doughnut Trieste,” I recited as Tweed pulled a single dictionary from the large pile that covered the vyrus. “Wode—Cone, ulder whirled—dougnut Trieste.”
“Who else knows about this?” he asked. “If what you say is true, this knowledge is dangerous enough to have killed three times—I hate to say it, but I think we have a rotten apple at Jurisfiction.”
“I told no wun at Jurizfaction. Wede—Caine, ulder whorled—dogn’ut Triuste.”
Harris carefully removed another dictionary. I could see the faint purple glow from within the stacked books.
“We don’t know who we can trust,” he said somberly. “Who did you tell, precisely? It’s important, I need to know.”
He removed another dictionary.
“Twede—Caine, ulter whorled—dogn’t Truste.”
My heart went cold. Twede. Could that be Tweed? I tried to look normal and glanced across at him, attempting to figure out if he had heard me. I had good reason to be concerned; if he removed one too many dictionaries, I could be fatally mispeled into a Thirsty Neck or something—and nobody knew I was here.
“I cane right you a liszt if it wood yelp,” I said, trying to sound as normal as I could.
“Why not just tell me,” he said, still smiling. “Who was it? Some of those Generics at Caversham Heights?”
“I tolled the bell, man.”
The smile dropped from his face. “Now I know you’re lying.”
We stared at one another. Tweed was no fool; he knew his cover was blown.
“Tweed,” I said, the unmispeling now complete, “Kaine—Ultra Word—Don’t trust!”
I jumped aside as soon as I had said it. I was only just in time—Tweed yanked out three dictionaries near the bottom and the dictosafe partially collapsed.
I sprawled on the ground as the heavy glow, emanating in one direction from the disrupted pile of dictionaries, instantly turned the hospital bed behind me into an hospitable ted, a furry stuffed bear who waved his paw cheerfully and told me to pop round for dinner any day of the week—and to bring a friend.
I threw myself at Tweed, who was not as quick as I, my speech returning to normal almost immediately.
“Snell and Perkins?!” I yelled pinning him to the ground. “Who else? Havisham?”
“It’s not important,” he cried as I took his gun and forced his chin into the carpet.
“You’re wrong!” I told him angrily. “What’s the problem with Ultra Word™?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it,” he replied, trying to sound reasonable. “In fact, everything’s right with it! Control of the BookWorld will have never been easier. And with modern and freethinking Outlanders like you and I, we can take fiction to new and dizzying heights!”
I pushed my knee harder into the back of his neck and he yelped.
“And where does Kaine come into this?”
“Ultra Word™ benefits everyone, Next. Us in here and publishers out there. It’s the perfect system!”
“Perfect? You need to resort to murder to keep it on track? How can it be perfect?”
“You don’t understand, Next. In the Outland murder is morally reprehensible, but in here it as a narrative necessity—without it and the jeopardy it generates, we’d have lost a million readers long ago!”
“She was my friend, Tweed!” I yelled. “Not some cannon fodder for a cheap thriller!”
“You’re making a big mistake,” he replied, face still pressed into the carpet. “I can offer you an important position at Text Grand Central. With UltraWord™ under our control we will have the power to change anything we please within fiction. You gave Jane Eyre a happy ending—we can do the same with countless others and give the reading public what they want. We will dictate terms