The Fractal Prince

‘Then I can’t be a stranger, can I? My name is Mieli.’

The boy considers for a second. ‘I’m Matjek.’

‘How long have you been here, Matjek?’

‘I came in the morning, with Mom and Dad. They just left and said that I could play a little longer. It’s almost time to go home, but not quite.’

Mieli swallows. Can I really take him out of here? Out of a childhood memory? The thief claims he will never know. We can leave him running after we are done, for ever if need be, it will be all right, he will never tell the difference.

That’s the kind of thing Sobornost always says, she thinks. But I just fought side by side with my other selves and won, and they all died willingly, just like I would have done. Perhaps Sobornost are not wrong about everything.

And even if they are, you are the only one who can take me to Sydan, little Matjek.

‘It’s time to go, Matjek,’ she says. ‘Your mother and father are worried.’

‘But I haven’t finished building the castle.’

‘Don’t worry. It will still be here tomorrow.’

‘Promise?’

‘I promise,’ Mieli says.

She holds out her hand to the boy. Together, they start walking away from the sea.

She is back in the metal shaft. Above, there is fire and thunder. Her metaself flashes her a series of staccato updates. Nuwas’s mercenaries are attacking, and her other selves are defending the entrance against them. She checks her systems. A copy of the jannah is running in her metacortex. She starts the ascent, spreading her wings.

‘I’ve got the package,’ she tells Perhonen. ‘I need extraction.’

The pellegrini got us a Gourd orbital hook we can deploy. Just hold on.

She rises past the circle of her other selves and salutes them just as the tendril from the sky crashes through the dome and carries her up and away.

27 THE THIEF AND MIELI

Perhonen and I watch in awe from orbit as Mieli fights an army by herself. Around us, the Gourd boils with conflict: we barely made it out of the Teddy Bears’ station alive. The pellegrini copies I seeded the ancestor vir with have activated, and are taking on the hsien-kus everywhere. The surface of the vast Sobornost structure seethes like a disturbed anthill. So we go up, to a Lagrange point, hiding amongst the technological debris there, calculate a trajectory to pick Mieli up. Perhonen is in full stealth mode, getting ready for the Hunter – although there has been no sign of the bastard yet.

I taste the story in my mind. It feels like a loose tooth. It wants out, wants to be told. Almost there, I tell it.

I still don’t like this, Perhonen says.

‘Any other suggestions are welcome, but it is getting late in the game. Mieli’s stunt was impressive, but it’s going to bring the whole Sobornost down on our heads. I doubt even Chen can afford to ignore what’s going on.’

No kidding, the ship says and shows me the spimescape view. He’s only a couple of hours away. It just appeared. It had some sort of massive metamaterial cloak before that.

There is a new star in the sky. A guberniya is approaching Earth, one of the major Sobornost megastructures, moving. It is using a Hawking drive, lighting up half the Solar System behind it. A halo of countless raions and oblasts surrounds it. It has been coming for days. The pellegrini is gambling with high stakes, inviting him. Clearly, Chen wants something very, very badly, and he’s not going to be subtle about taking it.

For a moment, my gut goes cold. I fab myself two fingers of whiskey. Drinking it wakes up an older voice in my head, a wiser voice. The scale does not matter, it says. It has never mattered. A con is a con, a heist is a heist. Even gods fight stupidity in vain. Or, to put it another way, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Mieli has the gogol, the ship says. She is on her way up.

I swallow the rest of the whiskey and let it burn in my throat.

‘Let’s pick her up. The show is about to begin.’

The familiarity of Perhonen’s main cabin and the feeling of its systems enmeshing with her mind almost makes Mieli cry. The thief watches her breathe it all in for a moment, and grins.

‘Now you know what it feels like to die a thousand times,’ he says. ‘Not my favourite experience in the world. But you got the job done – and everything else is in place. Let’s see the goods.’

Mieli holds up the mind-bullet she has copied the Matjek gogol into. “Here he is. He is . . . on a beach. He is very happy. It was hard to leave.’

‘The afterlife designers of the old upload corporations were pretty damn good,’ the thief says. ‘We can admire it later. Just give it here. I’ll be in and out before he knows it.’

We are expecting company, Perhonen says. Chen and the Hunter, not necessarily in that order.

‘I’m afraid things are going to get a little difficult for the people of Earth,’ the thief says. ‘They don’t deserve this. But before you get pangs of conscience, this really was not our fault. It was an anomaly that they were able to survive this long, just that crazy wildcode thing. The way things are going in the System, it’s going to come down to the Sobornost and the zokus, and once we are done with this job, we are at least going to be free to choose sides. No offence, but I’m not including Oort on my list. A bit too chilly for me. Or too hot, with the saunas. Now, hand the kid over so we can make retirement plans.’

Mieli hesitates. Happiness. Just before going home. Surely, that cannot be the Founder Code of Matjek Chen.

‘There is something you are not telling me,’ Mieli says. ‘What exactly are you going to do to him? It’s not the Code, is it? It’s not even something he knows. He’s a child. Innocent. What are you going to do to him?’

‘You really don’t have to worry about it,’ the thief says. ‘It’s going to be fine.’

Mieli grits her teeth. ‘I just fought half the mercenaries of the System and the whole wildcode desert to get this. Don’t push me, Jean. I told you I can make you talk if I have to.’

Mieli, maybe he is right, Perhonen says. One of its butterfly avatars tickles Mieli’s cheek. Maybe you should let him do his job, that’s what he is here for. We need to move. I can’t keep us hidden when that guberniya gets here.

‘Not you too,’ Mieli whispers. ‘I told you. I don’t want you to protect me. If I make mistakes, they are mine to make. Now, thief, tell me what you are going to do with this gogol.’

‘Mieli, you do realise this is Matjek Chen we are talking about? Do you really care about what is going to happen to him?’

Her scar burns with rage on her cheek, like a fiery tear. She gives the thief one look with all her anger in it.

‘All right,’ the thief says, massaging the bridge of his nose. ‘I’m going to tell him a story. It’s not going to hurt. But it’s going to insert me and the pellegrini into his mind. That was another reason we needed to go to Earth. I had to find out how to do that.’

‘You are going to become him? You are going to wear his skin?’

‘I wouldn’t put it that way, the whole entwinement thing is far more complex than that, you should talk to