“Five hundred machines on each floor!” I shouted above the tumult. “With each one capable of handling up to fifty thousand concurrent readings. The ones in the blue overalls are the storycode technicians, known affectionately as ‘word monkeys.’ They keep the engines running smoothly, clean out the dialogue injectors and make sure there isn’t a buildup of irony on the compressors. The man dressed in the white lab coat is the ‘text collector.’ There is a reader echo that pings back to the engine to throughput the next word, so we can use that to check if the book is running true to the author’s original wishes. Any variance is termed a ‘textual anomaly’ and is caught in the waste gate of the echo skimmers, which are those large copper things on the top.”

“This is all really fascinating technological stuff,” observed Thursday1–4 drily, “but I’m waiting to see how it relates to pianos.”

“It doesn’t, O sarcastic one. It’s called education.”

“Pointless exposition, if you ask me.”

“She’s not asking you,” retorted Thursday5.

“Exactly,” I replied, “and some people enjoy the techie stuff. Follow me.”

I opened an arched oak door that led off the engine floor and into the administrative section of Text Grand Central, a labyrinth of stone corridors lit by flaming torches affixed to the walls. It was insufferably gloomy but economical—part of the unfinished Gothic Horror novel from which all of TGC was fashioned. As soon as the door closed, the noise from the main engine floor ceased abruptly.

“I was just trying to explain,” I said, “how we find out about narrative flexations. Most of the time, the anomalies are just misreads and lazy readers getting the wrong end of the stick, but we have to check everything, just in case.”

“I can get this on the Text Grand Central tour for twenty shillings and with better company,” said Thursday1–4, looking pointedly at Thursday5.

“I’m interested, ma’am.”

“Creep.”

“Slut.”

“What did you call me?”

“Hey!” I shouted. “Cut it out!”

“She started it,” said Thursday1–4.

“I don’t care who started it. You’ll both be fired if you carry on like this.”

They fell silent, and we walked along the echoing corridors, past endless oak doors, all relating to some textual activity such as word meanings, idea licensing and grammasite control.

“The problem with pianos,” I began, “is that there aren’t enough to go around. Lots of people in the BookWorld play them, they frequently appear in the narrative, and they’re often used as plot devices. Yet for an unfathomable reason that no one can fully explain, there are only fifteen to cover the entire BookWorld.”

“Fifteen?” snorted Thursday1–4, who was lagging behind in a petulant manner. “How do they manage that, then?”

“With a lot of difficulty. Have a look.”