Jasper Fforde: The Well of Lost Plots

'Where are we?' I asked, my voice echoing about the steel walls.

'Somewhere quite safe,' replied Deane. 'They'll be wondering where you went.'

'We're in the Outland — I mean, home?'

Deane laughed.

'No, silly — we're in the footnoterphone conduits.'

I looked at the stream of messages again.

'We are?'

'Sure.'

'Come on, let me show you something.'

We walked along the pipe until it opened out into a bigger room — a hub where messages went from one genre to the next. The exits closest to me were marked 'Crime', 'Romance', 'Thriller' and 'Comedy', but there were plenty more, all routeing the footnoterphone messages towards some sub-genre or other.

'It's incredible!' I breathed.

'Oh, this is just a small hub,' replied Deane, 'you should see the bigger ones. It all works on the ISBN number system, you know — and the best thing about it is that neither Text Grand Central nor the Council of Genres knows that you can get down here. It's sanctuary, Thursday. Sanctuary away from the prying eyes of Jurisfiction and the rigidity of the narrative.'

I caught his eye.

'Tweed thinks you killed Perkins, Snell and that serving girl.'

He stopped walking and sighed.

'Tweed is working with Text Grand Central to make sure Ultra Word™ is launched without any trouble. He knew I didn't like it. He offered me a plot realignment in The Squire of High Potternews to "garner my support".'

'He tried to buy you?'

'When I refused he threatened to kill me — that's why we escaped.'

'We?'

'Of course. The maidservant that I ravage in chapter eight and then cruelly cast into the night. She dies of tuberculosis and I drink myself to death. Do you think we could allow that?'

'But isn't that what happens in most Farquitt novels?' I asked. 'Maidservant ravaged by cruel squire?'

'You don't understand, Thursday. Mimi and I are in love.'

'Ah!' I replied slowly, thinking of Landen. 'That can change things.'

'Come,' said Deane, beckoning me through the hub and dodging the footnoterphone messages, 'there is a settlement in a disused branch line. After Woolf wrote To the Lighthouse and Mrs Dalloway the Council of Genres thought Stream of Consciousness would be the next Detective — they built a large hub to support the rack-loads of novels that never appeared.'

We turned into a large tunnel about the size of the underground back in Swindon, and the messages whizzed back and forth, almost filling the tube to capacity.

After a few hundred yards we came to another hub and took the least used — barely two or three messages a minute buzzed languidly past, and these seemed to be lost; they moved around vaguely for a moment and then evaporated. The sides of the tube were less shiny, rubbish had collected at the bottom and water leaked in from the roof. Every now and then we passed small unused offshoots, built to support books that were planned but never written.

'Why did you come for me, Vern?'

'Because I don't believe you would kill Miss Havisham, and, like it or not, despite my rejection of Farquitt, I love stories as much as anyone. UltraWord™ is flawed. Havisham, Perkins, Snell and I were all trying to figure out some sort of a proof when Perkins was eaten.'

The tunnel opened out into a large chamber where a settlement of sorts had been built from rubbish and scrap wood — items that could be removed from the BookWorld without anyone noticing. The buildings were little more than tents with the orange flicker of oil lamps from within.

'Vern!' came a voice, and a dark-haired young woman waved at him from the nearest tent. She was heavily pregnant and Deane rushed up to hug her affectionately. I watched them with a certain degree of jealousy. I noticed I had placed my hand on my own turn quite subconsciously. I sighed and pushed my thoughts to the back of my mind.

'Mimi, this is Thursday,' said Vern. I shook her hand and she led us into their tent, offering me a small wooden box to sit on that I noticed had once been used to held past tenses.

'We scrounge a lot from the Well,' explained Deane, making some coffee. 'It's pretty unregulated down there and we can pinch almost anything.'

'So what's wrong with UltraWord™?' I asked him, my curiosity overcoming me.

'Flawed by the need for control,' he said slowly. 'Think the BookWorld is over-regulated? Believe me, it's an anarchist's dreamworld compared to the future seen by TGC!'

And so, over the next hour, he proceeded to tell me exactly what he had discovered. The problem was, it might very well be seen as hearsay. We needed something more than possibilities and allegations, we needed proof .

'Proof,' said Deane, 'yes, that was always the problem. I don't have any. Perkins died trying to protect the only proof he said we have. I'll go and fetch it.'

He returned with a birdcage containing a skylark and set it on the table.

I looked at the bird and the bird looked back.

'This is the proof?'

'So Perkins said.'

'Do you have any idea what he meant?'

'None at all.' He sighed. 'He was minotaur shit long before he tried to explain it to any of us.'

I leaned forward for a closer look and smelt — cantaloupes .

'It's UltraWord™ ,' I breathed.

'It is?' echoed Deane in surprise. 'How can you tell?'

'It's an Outlander thing. Do you still have your UltraWord™ copy of The Little Prince ?'

He handed me the slim volume.

'What's on your mind?'

'I have a plan,' I told him, 'but to do it I have to be at liberty — and free from the Bellman's suspicions.'

'I can arrange that.' Deane smiled. 'Come on, let's do this thing before it gets any worse.'

Mimi was standing outside the footnoterphone tube entrance to Text Grand Central and looking at her watch. The words sped backwards and forwards, darting inside the tunnel, which had a sturdy grate across it streaked with rust. Every now and then messages were deflected off. It was a textual sieve — used here for deleting unwanted junk footnoterphone messages.

She gestured to the man accompanying her and stepped back.

Quasimodo—who had found sanctuary, finally—grunted in reply and gently placed a copy of Das Kapital next to Mein Kampf , separating them with only a thin metal sheet. The 'book sandwich' was held together by rubber bands and a string was attached to the metal sheet. Quasimodo tied the books to the grate and then retired down the conduit, paying out the string as he went. He joined Mimi at a little-used sub-genre pipe entitled 'Squid Action/Adventure' and waited for Thursday's signal.

Mimi nodded to Quasimodo, who pulled the string. The steel plate shot out and Das Kapital and Mein Kampf came together, their conflicting ideologies starting to generate heat. The books turned brown, smouldered for a moment and then, as Mimi and Quasimodo scurried away, the two volumes reached critical mass, turned white hot, and exploded. The detonation echoed down the footnoterphone pipes, followed by a deathly silence. They had done it. The footnoterphone conduit was destroyed — Libris and Tweed were cut off from Text Grand Central.

'Thursday! It's Mimi, are you there?'

'They are rerouting messages through the auxiliary ducts past Spy Thrillers and through Horror. If you haven't got a vote, get one now!'