The Quantum Thief

thought ever thought. But here—’

Beneath his fingers, Jupiter explodes. For a moment, his hand is a red silhouette against bright whiteness. He blinks, feels the glider shudder around them, its wings curling into strange shapes like paper twisted by flame. He feels Owl Boy’s cold hand in his own. Then his lover is shouting, words that do not make sense, larynx-tearing glossolalia. All around, the sky is burning. And then they fall.

It is not until much later that Marcel hears the word Spike, after the Quiet have brought their bodies from the desert and the Resurrection Men have put them back together.

The cities have suffered. There is damage in the exomemory itself. Beyond the sky, things are worse: Jupiter is gone, eaten by a singularity, gravitational or technological or both, no one knows. The Sobornost claim to be containing a cosmic threat and offer an upload asylum to all citizens of the Oubliette. The remaining zokus out in Supra City are moving in response. There is talk of war.

Marcel cares little about any of it.

‘Well, this is an unexpected pleasure,’ says Paul Sernine, sitting in Marcel’s studio. Perhaps Marcel only imagines it, but his rival’s gevulot betrays a hint of silent envy as he looks at the claytronic models and sketches and found objects. ‘I really did not expect to be the first point of a social call after such a long absence. How are things?’

‘Well,’ Marcel says. ‘Come see for yourself.’

Owl Boy is in the nicest room in Marcel’s Edge house, looking away from the city. Most of the time he sits by the window quietly in his medfoam cocoon, eyes blank. But every now and then he speaks, long strings of rough throat-tearing clicks and metallic sounds.

‘The Resurrection Men don’t understand it,’ Marcel says. ‘There is a permanent coherent state in his brain, like one of the old quantum theories of consciousness: a condensate in the microtubules of his neurons, entangled with his exomemory. He may recover if it collapses, or he may not.’

‘I am very sorry to hear that,’ Sernine says. To Marcel’s surprise, the concern in his voice sounds genuine. ‘I wish there is something I could do.’

‘There is,’ Marcel says.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I’m giving up,’ Marcel says. ‘You have obviously found my ideas worth emulating in the past. So I’m going to sell them to you.’ He gestures at the studio. ‘All of them. I know you can afford it.’

Sernine blinks. ‘Why?’

‘It’s not worth it,’ Marcel says. ‘There are giants out there. We do not matter. Someone can step on us without noticing. There is no point in making pretty pictures. It’s all been done, anyway. We are ants. The only thing that matters is looking after each other.’

Marcel touches Owl Boy’s hand. ‘I can do that for him,’ he says. ‘It is my responsibility. I can wait for him until he gets better. But I need Time to do that.’

Sernine looks at them for a long time. ‘You are wrong,’ he says. ‘We are just as big as they are. Somebody needs to show them that.’

‘By building toy houses? If you wish.’ Marcel waves a hand, thinks a gevulot contract at Sernine. ‘It’s all yours. You won.’

‘Thank you,’ Sernine says quietly. Then he stands still and listens to the Owl Boy’s sounds. Finally, he clears his throat. ‘If we do this,’ he says slowly, ‘could I visit, from time to time?’

‘If you wish,’ Marcel says. ‘It makes a little difference to me.’

They shake hands on the agreement. Out of courtesy, Marcel offers him cognac, but they drink quietly and after they are finished, Sernine leaves.

Owl Boy is quieter after Marcel feeds him. He sits with him for a long time, telling the house to play ares nova. But when the stars come out, Marcel closes the curtains.

13 THE THIEF IN THE UNDERWORLD

We stage my death the next morning, at the Place of Lost Time. This is where the Time beggars come to draw their last breath. It is an agora, with dark bronze statues of death and bones and suffering. And it is a show, meant to win the performers a few more precious seconds.

‘Time, Time, Time is running out,’ I shout at a passing couple, shaking a musical instrument made from fabber-printed bones. Behind me, two beggars make desperate love in the shadow of the statues. A group of nude morituri with painted faces dance a wild dance, pale bodies twisting and shaking.

My throat is hoarse from shouting at tourists from other worlds who form the majority of our audience. A puzzled-looking Ganymedean in a willowy exoskeleton keeps throwing us slivers of Time as if feeding pigeons, seemingly missing the point.

Don’t overdo it, Mieli says in my head. She is observing in the crowd, looking at the danse macabre of the square.

It has to be believable I tell her.

Of course you are. Anytime you are ready.

All right. Go.

‘Time is the great Destroyer,’ I yell. ‘I could be Thor the God of Thunder and the Old Age would still wrestle me to the ground.’ I take a bow. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, behold – Death!’

Mieli shuts me down remotely. My legs give away. My lungs stop working, and there is a terrible sense of drowning. Absurdly, the world remains as crisp and sharp as ever. My mind is still running inside the Sobornost body, but in stealth mode, while the rest of the body shuts down. My view lurches and I fall to the ground, as part of the Danse Macabre pattern I have been practising with my fellow soon-dead for the last couple of days. Our fallen bodies form words on the square: MEMENTO MORI.

A ragged cheer goes up from the watching crowd, a note that is a mixture of guilt and fascination. There is a moment’s silence. The square resonates to the sound of heavy footsteps, approaching in unison. The Resurrection Men are coming.

The crowd parts to let them pass. Over the years, the whole thing has been turned into a ritual, and even the Resurrection Men have accepted it. They walk to the square in rows of three, perhaps thirty of them, red-robed, with very tight gevulot hiding their faces and gait, Decanters hanging from their belts. A group of Resurrection Quiet follow them. They are vaguely humanoid but huge, three or four metres in height, with blank slabs of black shiny carapace for faces and a cluster of arms from their torso. I can feel their footsteps in the ground below me.

A red-hooded figure appears above me, and holds a Decanter above my hacked Watch. For a moment, I feel irrational fear: surely these grim reapers have seen every possible attempt to cheat Death. But the brass device makes whirring sounds and then chimes, once. Gently, the Resurrection Man bends over and closes my eyes with one flick of his fingertips, a quick, professional movement. A Quiet lifts me up, and the slow drumming of the footsteps begins again, carrying me to the underworld.

I can’t see anything, I tell Mieli. Any other senses you could turn on for me?

I don’t want them noticing anything. And besides, you are supposed to play your part properly.

It is an odd feeling, being carried through the tunnels into the underworld, listening to the echoes of footsteps in the city beneath the city and smelling the odd seaweed smell of the Quiet. The movement lulls me into a strange melancholy. I’ve never died, not in all my centuries. Perhaps the Oubliette has it right, the right approach to immortality; die every now and then and appreciate life.

Still having fun? Perhonen asks.

Hell, yes.

I find that worrying. Time to wake up.

I am back from the dead a second time, but without transition dreams. My eyes feel like they are covered in a layer of dust. I float in a clammy gel in a small space. It takes only a moment to regurgitate the little q-stone tool I