The Quantum Thief

really does hate me.’

‘Tanglemother. No, she doesn’t. She’s just being over-protective. First child created on Mars, you know, gevulot compatibility, bridge between two worlds, blah blah blah. And they are still shocked that I end up dating one of you. They deserve to be offended a little. They still think that we are going to go back to Jupiter one day, even though there is nothing there except dust and Sobornost drones that eat it. We live here now, and no one else wants to acknowledge it at all.’

‘So,’ Isidore says. ‘You were using me.’

‘Of course I was. It’s a game. The optimal resource allocation thing is no joke. We are going to do whatever is best for each other, that’s the way it works, we can’t help it. In this case, rebelling a little is the best thing to do.’

‘So it’s not really rebelling, is it?’

‘Oh, come on,’ she says. ‘You do this stuff with people all the time. You’re good at it. Why do you think you are with me? Because I’m a puzzle. Because you can’t figure me out, like you do with them. I’ve seen you talking to people, and you tell them something, and it’s not you, it’s just something you have deduced. Don’t try to tell me it’s not a game to you too.’

‘It’s not just a game,’ Isidore says. ‘I almost died today. A girl killed her father in a horrible way. These things happen, and someone has to solve them.’

‘Solving them makes it better?’

‘It does for me,’ Isidore says quietly. ‘You know that.’

‘Yes, I know. And I thought other people should, too. You are doing well, somebody should be keeping score. So I invited Adrian, here where he could talk to you without any of that gevulot nonsense. He is going to make you famous.’

‘Pixil, that was a bad thing to do. I’m going to be in a lot of trouble because of that. Do you think you can just decide what I need? I’m not part of your zoku. It doesn’t work that way with me.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Pixil says. ‘With the zoku, I don’t have a choice.’ She touches her zoku jewel, embedded at the base of her throat, where her collar-bones meet. ‘With you, it’s because I want to.’

A distant part of him knows that she is lying, but somehow it does not matter, and he kisses her anyway.

‘You know,’ she says, ‘you did lose the bet. Come on. I’m going to show you something.’

Pixil takes his hand and leads him to a plain door that was not there a moment before. Entanglement electric arcs flare up again behind them as they walk through together.

For a moment there is another discontinuity.

They emerge into a huge, cavernous space that is full of black cubes of different sizes, ranging from a cubic metre to the size of a house, stacked on top of each other. The walls, floor and the ceiling – somewhere high, high up – are white and faintly luminescent. The illumination makes even Pixil seem pale.

‘Where are we?’ Isidore asks. His voice has an eerie echo.

‘You know we are mercenaries, right? We raid things. Well, this is where we keep the treasure.’ Pixil lets go of his hand and runs ahead, touching a cube. It flashes into transparency in an instant. Inside, is a strange, glittering beast, like a feathered serpent, swirling in the air, trapped in a cage of light. A floating spime bubble tells him it is a Langton worm, captured in the wilder virtual reaches of the Realm and given physical form.

Pixil laughs. ‘You can find almost anything here.’ She runs around, touching things. ‘Come on, let’s explore.’

There are glass eggs and ancient clocks and candy from old Earth. Isidore finds an ancient spacecraft inside one of the larger cubes. It looks like a giant’s dirty molar, brown stains marring the white ceramic surfaces. Pixil opens a cube full of theatrical costumes and presses a bowler hat on Isidore’s head, laughing.

‘Isn’t someone going to be upset if they find us here?’ Isidore asks.

‘Don’t worry, slave,’ Pixil says, grinning mischievously. She pulls the costumes down and makes a thick pile of them onto the floor, humming to herself. ‘I told you. Resource optimisation.’ She wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him, hard. Her clothes dissolve under her touch. She pulls him down onto the nest of cloaks and dresses. The anger drains from him, and then he has no room for any shape but hers.

Interlude GOODNESS

Like every Sol Solis, Xuexue comes to the garden to smile at the red robot.

It stands alone, away from the clusters of fighting machines arranged on the black-and-white marble grid. Its design is a little different, too: sleek crimson lines of a sports car beneath a layer of rust, and a glinting little horse on top of its helmet.

Xuexue sits on a small folding chair in front of it, looks directly at the dark slit in its helmet and smiles, keeping as still as she possibly can. Her record is two hours. The hard part is maintaining the feeling of the smile. Today, it is easy: she had a good day with the children in the kindergarten. The little emperors and empresses of the Oubliette – bought dearly with Time by their parents and spoiled accordingly – can be difficult, but they have their moments. Maybe she will break her record today.

‘Excuse me?’ says a voice.

With some effort, Xuexue fights down a frown and keeps smiling, not turning to look.

A hand touches her shoulder and she flinches. Damn it. She should have closed her gevulot, but it would have spoiled the smile.

‘I’m trying to concentrate,’ Xuexue says chidingly.

A young man looks at her, amused. He has jet-black hair and a hint of the sun in his skin, dark eyebrows arching above heavy eyelids. He is dressed as if going to a party, sleek jacket and pants, with a pair of blue-tinted glasses against the bright glare of Phobos above.

‘I do apologise,’ he says with a hint of mirth in his voice. ‘What did I interrupt?’

Xuexue sighs. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘Try me.’ He removes his glasses and regards Xuexue with a curious expression. His complexion is just a little too perfect, a different style from standard Oubliette bodies. He is smiling, but there is a distracted look in his eyes, as if he were listening to more than one conversation.

‘I have been smiling at the red gladiator,’ she says. ‘For the last year or so. At least an hour every week.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, there is a theory that there are slow gogols running inside them,’ she says. ‘An old Kingdom game. For them, this is a fierce battle. They are fighting for their freedom. They move, you know, if you look long enough. So I figured that they must see us, too. If we stand very still. Like ghosts, perhaps.’

‘I see.’ He squints at the robots. ‘I don’t think I would have enough patience for that. And why that one in particular?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘It looks lonely.’

The young man touches the robot’s breastplate. ‘Don’t you think it’s possible that you’ll end up distracting it? So that it loses the fight? Never gets to go free?’

‘The Kingdom is gone. They have been free almost a hundred years,’ she says. ‘I think someone should tell them.’

‘It’s a nice thought.’ He offers her his hand. ‘I am Paul. I got a little lost: all those moving streets. I was hoping you could tell me the way out.’

A trickle of emotion bleeds through his rough visitor’s gevulot: a sense of unease, a weight, a guilt. Xuexue can imagine the old man of the sea sitting on his back. It feels very familiar. And suddenly it is more important to talk to the stranger than to smile at the robot.

‘Sure I can,’ she says. ‘But why don’t you stay for a little while? What brings you to the Oubliette?’ As she speaks, she crafts a gevulot contract in her mind and offers it to Paul. He blinks. ‘What is that?’