Jasper Fforde - Lost in a Good Book

‘Urban legend,’ I assured her as she started to tidy up the garden. I looked at my watch. I would have to run if I was to get to Osaka that evening.

I took the train to the busy Saknussum International Gravitube Terminus, located just to the west of London. I made my way into the departures terminal and studied the board. The next DeepDrop to Sydney would be in an hour. I bought a ticket, hurried to the check-in and spent ten minutes listening to a litany of pointless anti-terrorist questions.

‘I don’t have a bag,’ I explained The woman looked at me oddly so I added. ‘Well, I did but you lost it the last time I travelled. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had a bag returned to me after tubing.’

She thought about this for a moment and then said:

‘ If you had a bag and if you had packed it yourself, and if you had not left it unattended, might it contain any of the following?’

She showed me a list of prohibited items and I shook my head.

‘Would you like an in-drop meal?’

‘What are my choices?’

‘Yes or no.’

‘No.’

She looked at the next question on her sheet.

‘Who would you prefer to sit next to?’

‘A nun or a knitting granny, if that’s possible.’

‘Hmm,’ mused the check-in girl, studying the passenger manifest carefully. ‘All the nuns, grannies and intelligent non-amorous males are taken. It’s technobore, lawyer, self-pitying drunk or copiously vomiting baby, I’m afraid.’

‘Technobore and lawyer, then.’

She marked me down on the seating plan and then announced:

‘There will be a slight delay in receiving the excuse for the lateness of the DeepDrop to Sydney, Miss Next. The reason for the delay in the excuse has yet to be established.’

Another check-in girl whispered something in her ear.

‘I’ve just been informed that the reason for the excuse for the delay has been delayed itself. As soon as we find out why the reason for the excuse has been delayed we will tell you—in line with government guidelines. If you are at all unhappy with the speed with which the excuse has been delivered, you might be eligible for a one per cent refund. Have a nice drop.’

I was handed my boarding card and told to go to the gate when the drop was announced. I thanked her, bought some coffee and biscuits and sat down to wait. The Gravitube seemed to be plagued with delays. There were a lot of travellers sitting around looking bored as they waited for their trip. In theory every drop took under an hour irrespective of destination; but even if they developed a twenty-minute accelerated DeepDrop to the other side of the planet, you’d still spend four hours at either end waiting for baggage or customs or something.

The PA barked into life.

‘Attention, please. Passengers for the 11.04 DeepDrop to Sydney will be glad to know that the delay was due to too many excuses being created by the Gravitube’s Excuse Manufacturing Facility. Consequently we are happy to announce that since the excess excuses have now been used, the 11.04 DeepDrop to Sydney is ready for boarding at Gate Six.’

I finished my coffee and made my way with the throng to where the shuttle was waiting to receive us. I had ridden on the Gravitube several times before, but never the DeepDrop. My recent tour of the world had all been Overmantles, which is more like a train. I carried on through passport control, boarded the shuttle and was shown to my seat by a stewardess whose fixed smile reminded me of a synchronised swimmer. I sat next to a man with a shock of untidy black hair who was reading a copy of Astounding Tales .

‘Hello,’ he said in a subdued monotone. ‘Ever DeepDropped before?’

‘Never,’ I replied.

‘Better than any rollercoaster,’ he announced with finality, and returned to his magazine.

I strapped myself in as a tall man in a large-check suit sat down next to me. He was about forty, had a luxunant red moustache and wore a carnation in his buttonhole.

‘Good morning, Miss Next!’ he said in a friendly voice as he proffered his hand. ‘Allow me to introduce myself—Akrid Snell.’

I stared at him in surprise and he laughed.

‘We needed some time to talk and I’ve never been on one of these before. How does it work?’

‘The Gravitube? It’s a tunnel running through the centre of the earth. We freefall all the way to Sydney. But… but… how on earth did you find me?’

‘ Jurisfiction has eyes and ears everywhere, Miss Next.’

‘Plain English, Snell—or I could turn out to be the most difficult client you’ve ever had.’

Snell looked at me with interest for a few moments as a stewardess gave a monotonous safety announcement, culminating with the warning that there were no toilet facilities until gravity returned to 40 per cent.

‘You work in SpecOps, don’t you?’ asked Snell as soon as we were comfortable and all loose possessions had been placed in zippered bags.

I nodded.

‘Jurisfiction is the service we run inside novels to maintain the integrity of popular fiction. The printed word might look solid to you, but where I come from movable type has a much deeper meaning.’

‘The ending of Jane Eyre ,’ I murmured, suddenly realising what all the fuss was about. ‘I changed it, didn’t I?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ agreed Snell, ‘but don’t admit that to anyone but me. It was the biggest Fiction Infraction to a major work since someone futzed so badly with Thackeray’s Giant Despair we had to delete it completely.’

‘Drop is D minus two minutes,’ said the announcer. ‘Would all passengers please take their seats, check their straps and make sure all infants are secured.’

‘So what’s happening now?’ asked Snell.

‘Do you really not know anything about the Gravitube?’

Snell looked around and lowered his voice.

‘All of your world is a bit strange to me, Next. I come from a land of trench coats and deep shadows, complex plot lines, frightened witnesses, underground bosses, gangsters’ molls, seedy bars and startling six-page-from-the-end dénouements.’

I must have looked confused for he lowered his voice farther and hissed:

‘I’m fictional , Miss Next. Co-lead in the Perkins & Snell series of crime books. I expect you’ve read me?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ I admitted.

‘Limited print run.’ Snell sighed. ‘But we had a good review in Crime Books Digest . I was described as “a well-rounded and amusing character… with quite a few memorable lines”. The Mole placed us on their Read of the Week list but The Toad were less enthusiastic—but listen, who takes any notice of the critics?’

‘You’re fictional ? I said at last.

‘Keep it to yourself, though, won’t you?’ he urged. ‘Now, about the Gravitube?’

‘Well,’ I replied, gathering my thoughts, ‘in a few minutes the shuttle will have entered the airlock and depressurisation will commence—’

‘Depressurisation? Why?’

‘For a frictionless drop. No air resistance—and we are kept from touching the sides by a powerful magnetic field. We then simply freefall the eight thousand miles to Sydney.’

‘So all cities have a DeepDrop to every other city, then?’

‘Only London and New York connecting to Sydney and Tokyo. If you wanted to get from Buenos Aires to Auckland you’d first take the Overmantle to Miami, then to New York, DeepDrop to Tokyo and finally another Overmantle to Auckland.’

‘How fast does it go?’ asked Snell, slightly nervously.

‘Peaks at fourteen thousand miles per hour,’ said my neighbour from behind his magazine, ‘give or take. We’ll fall with increasing velocity but decreasing acceleration until we reach the centre of the earth, at which point we will have attained our maximum velocity. Once past the centre our velocity will decrease until we reach Sydney, when our velocity will have decreased to zero.’