“What’s that?” asked Thursday5 in a deferential whisper.

“It’s the spark, the notion, the core of the book, the central nub of energy that binds a novel together.”

We watched for a few moments as the arc of energy moved in a lazy wave between the poles. Every now and then, it would fizzle as though somehow disturbed by something.

“It moves as the crickets talk to each other upstairs,” I explained. “If the book were being read, you’d really see the spark flicker and dance. I’ve been in the core of Anna Karenina when it was going full bore with fifty thousand simultaneous readings, and the effect was better than any fireworks display-a multi-stranded spark in a thousand different hues that snaked and arced out into the room and twisted around one another. A book’s reason for being is to be read; the spark reflects this in a shimmering light show of dynamic proportions.”

“You speak as though it were alive.”

“Sometimes I think it is,” I mused, staring at the spark. “After all, a story is born, it can evolve, replicate and then die. I used to go down to core containment quite a lot, but I don’t have as much time for it these days.”

I pointed at a pipe about the width of my arm that led out from the plinth and disappeared into the floor.

“That’s the throughput pipe that takes all the readings to the Storycode Engine Floor at Text Grand Central and from there to the Outland, where they’re channeled direct to the reader’s imagination.”

“And…all books work this way?”

“I wish. Books that are not within the influence of Text Grand Central have their own onboard Storycode Engines, as do books being constructed in the Well of Lost Plots and most of the vanity publishing genre.”

Thursday5 looked thoughtful. “The readers are everything, aren’t they?”

“Now you’ve got it,” I replied. “Everything.”

We stood in silence for a moment.

“I was just thinking about the awesome responsibility that comes with being a Jurisfiction agent,” I said at last. “What were you thinking about?”

“Me?”

I looked around the empty room. “Yes, you.”

“I was wondering if extracting aloe vera hurt the plant. What’s that?”

She was pointing at a small round hatch that was partially hidden behind some copper tubing. It looked like something you might find in the watertight bulkhead of a submarine. Riveted and of robust construction, it had a large central lever and two locking devices farther than an arm span apart, so it could never be opened accidentally by one person.

“That leads to…Nothing,” I murmured.

“You mean a blank wall?”

“No, a blank wall would be something. This is not a nothing but the Nothing, the Nothing by which all Somethings are defined.”

She looked confused, so I beckoned her to a small porthole next to the hatch and told her to look out.

“I can’t see anything,” she said after a while. “It’s completely black… No, wait, I can see small pinpoints of light-like stars.”

“Not stars,” I told her. “Books. Each one adrift in the firmament and each one burning not just with the light that the author gave it upon creation but with the warm glow of being read and appreciated. The brighter ones are the most popular.”

“I can see millions of them,” she murmured, cupping her hands around her face to help her eyes penetrate the inky blackness.

“Every book is a small world unto itself, reachable only by bookjumping. See how some points of light tend to group near others?”

“Yes?”

“They’re clumped together in genres, attracted by the gravitational tug of their mutual plotlines.”

“And between them?”

“An abstraction where all the laws of literary theory and storytelling conventions break down-the Nothing. It doesn’t support textual life and has no description, form or function.”

I tapped the innocuous-looking hatch.

“Out there you’d not last a second before the text that makes up your descriptive existence was stripped of all meaning and consequence. Before bookjumping was developed, every character was marooned in his or her own novel. For many of the books outside the influence of the Council of Genres and Text Grand Central, it’s still like that. Pilgrim’s Progress and the Sherlock Holmes series are good examples. We know roughly where they are, due to the literary influence they exert on similar books, but we still haven’t figured out a way in. And until someone does, a bookjump is impossible.”

I switched off the light, and we returned to Geppetto’s kitchen.

“Here you go,” said Julian Sparkle, handing me a cardboard box. Any sort of enmity he might have felt toward us had vanished.

“What’s this?”

“Why, your prize, of course! A selection of Tupperware™ containers. Durable and with ingenious spillproof lids, they’re the ideal way to keep food fresh.”

“Give them to the tiger.”

“He doesn’t like Tupperware-the lids are tricky to get off with paws.”

“Then you have them.”

“I didn’t win them,” replied Sparkle with a trace of annoyance, but then he added after a moment’s thought, “However, if you would like to play our Super Wizzo Double Jackpot game, we can double your prize the next time you play!”

“Good, fine-whatever,” I said as a phone on the kitchen table started jangling. Julian picked it up.

“Hello? Two doors, one tiger, liar/nonliar puzzle speaking.” He raised his eyebrows and grabbed a handy pen to scribble a note. “We’ll be onto it right away.”

He replaced the phone and addressed the two guards, who were watching him expectantly. “Scramble, lads. We’re needed on a boring car journey on the M4 westbound near Lyneham.”

The room was suddenly a whirl of activity. Each guard removed his door, which seemed to be on quick-release hinges, and then held it under his arm. The first guard placed his hand on the shoulder of Sparkle, who had turned his back, and the second on the shoulder of his compatriot. The tiger, now free, stood behind the second guard and placed one paw on his shoulder and with the other lifted the telephone off the table.

“Ready?” called out Sparkle to the odd line that had formed expertly behind him.

“Yes,” said the first guard.

“No,” said the second.

“Growl,” said the tiger, and turned to wink at us.

There was a mild concussion as they all jumped out. The fire blazed momentarily in the grate, the cat ran out of the room, and loose papers were thrown into the air. Phone call to exit had taken less then eight seconds. These guys were professionals.

Thursday5 and I, suitably impressed and still without a taxi, jumped out of Pinocchio and were once again in the Great Library.

She replaced the book on the shelf and looked up at me.

“Even if I had played Liars and Tigers,” she said with a mournful sigh, “I wouldn’t have been able to figure it out. I’d have been eaten.”

“Not necessarily,” I replied. “Even by guessing, your chances were still fifty-fifty, and that’s thought favorable odds at Jurisfiction.”

“You mean I have a fifty percent chance of being killed in the ser vice?”

“Consider yourself lucky. Out in the real world, despite huge advances in medical science, the chance of death remains unchanged at a hundred percent. Still, there’s a bright side to the human mortality thing-at least, there is for the BookWorld.”

“Which is?”

“A never-ending supply of new readers. Come on, you can jump me back to the Jurisfiction offices.”

She stared at me for a moment and then said, “You’re not so good at bookjumping anymore, are you?”

“Not really-but that’s between you and me, yes?”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”