The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [434]
XAVIER LIBRIS,
Ultra Word™—the Ultimate Reading Experience
HAMLET AND JUDE Fawley exchanged glances and shrugged their shoulders as I walked up the steps and looked out at the crowd. Heathcliff, to whom all of this was merely delaying his moment of honor, glowered at me angrily. Oddly, I didn’t feel at all nervous—only a sort of numb elation. I would do some serious throwing up in the loo later, but for now, I was fine.
“Good evening,” I began to the utterly silent audience. “No one would deny that we need more plots, but there are one or two things about Ultra Word™ that you should know.”
“Grand Central?!” barked Tweed uselessly into his mobilefootnoterphone. “Tweed to Text Grand Central, come in please!”
I didn’t have long. As soon as TGC knew what had happened, they could write themselves another footnoterphone link.
“Firstly, there are no new plots. In all the testing that has been done, not one has been described or hinted at. Libris, would you care to outline a ‘new’ plot now?”
“They won’t be available until Ultra Word™ is on-line,” he said, glaring at Tweed, who was still trying to contact Text Grand Central.
“Then they are untested. Secondly,” I went on, “Ultra Word™ carries a thrice-read-only feature.”
There was a gasp from the audience.
“This means no more book lending. Libraries will close down overnight, secondhand bookshops will be a thing of the past. Words can educate and liberate—but TGC want to make them a salable commodity and nothing more.”
The crowd started to murmur to one another. Not one of those murmurs, which is just a descriptive term, you usually get in the BookWorld, but a real murmur—seven million people all discussing what I had just said.
“Orlick!” I heard Tweed shout. “Get to TGC—run if you have to—and get the footnoterphone repaired!”
“This is preposterous!” yelled Libris, almost apoplectic with rage. “Lies, damnable lies!”
“Here,” I said, tossing Deane’s copy of The Little Prince onto the table right at the front. The displacement-field technology worked perfectly—a single book landed on each of the hundred thousand tables.
“This is an UltraWord™ book,” I explained. “Read the first page and pass it on. See how long it takes before you can’t open it.”
“Tweed!?” yelled Libris, who was still next to me on the stage and becoming more agitated by the second. “Do something!”
I pointed at Xavier. “WordMaster Libris could refute my arguments with ease, simply by rewriting the facts. He could have unblocked the book already but for one thing—all the lines are down to Text Grand Central. As soon as they are up again, each of these books will be unblocked. Perkins was murdered when he found out what they were up to. He told Snell and he was killed, too. Miss Havisham didn’t know, but TGC suspected that she did, so she had to be silenced.”
The Bellman had risen to his feet and was walking to the front of the stage. “Is this true?” he asked, eyes blazing.
“No, Your Bellship,” replied Libris, “on my honor. As soon as we get back on-line, we will refute every single claim the misinformed Miss Next has made!”
The Bellman looked at me. “Better get a move on, young lady. You have the crowd, but for how long, I have no idea.”
“Thirdly and more importantly, all books written using the UltraWord™ system can be fixed direct using the source storycode from Text Grand Central—there will be no need for Jurisfiction. Everything we do can be achieved by low-skilled technicians at TGC.”
“Ah!” said Libris, interrupting.