The Quantum Thief

can sense that there is some order to its structure. And the surfaces do form spaces resembling rooms and hallways, only oddly distorted as if by a funhouse mirror. A plaque near what could be called an entrance has a small plaque that says Eternitas.

The structure looks like something designed by an algorithmic process, rather than a human being. And parts of it look fuzzy, as if the surfaces continued to fork and divide fractally beyond the human range of vision. On the whole, it looks rather forbidding. Someone local has made the black interior slightly less sinister and tomblike by placing a few flower-pots inside: vines have grown to curl around the jutting spikes and surfaces to find light.

There is a little local exomemory that opens up while Isidore studies the structure. It describes Eternitas as an ‘experiment in transforming exomemory data directly into architecture and livable spaces.’ The Oubliette is full of similar art projects – indeed, many of Isidore’s fellow students work on considerably stranger things – but clearly there is something deeper here, something that is or has been important to the thief.

On impulse, he takes out his magnifying glass. He gasps. When he zooms in, the surface reveals immense complexity, black leaves and spikes and pyramids, whole architectures with alarming regularity that go all the way down to the molecular level. And the material is something the glass does not even recognise, something resembling what it calls zoku q-matter, but denser: in spite of its relatively small size, the structure must be immensely heavy. Underneath, it looks less like a piece of architecture than a part of some unimaginably complex machine, frozen in time.

And there are nine of these? Isidore takes a deep breath. Maybe I really am out of my depth.

*

Deep in thought, he starts walking towards the next Reflection piece, only a few hundred metres away, trusting his sense of direction to guide him through the Maze.

How is all this related to Unruh? he thinks. Time, memory castles, Dignities of God? Maybe it doesn’t make sense: maybe le Flambeur is insane. But his every instinct tells him there is a logic here; that everything so far is a sliver of some larger iceberg.

He jumps at a sudden noise. There is the silhouette of a parkrouller on a nearby rooftop. This is one of the parts of the Maze where construction was started and then stopped when the drifting of the city platforms moved it to an unfavourable position: everything here is half-finished and deserted. The buildings lining the narrow streets look like decayed teeth. As he watches, the parkrouller disappears, becoming a gevulot blur. He quickens his pace and keeps walking.

After a minute, he hears the footsteps, following him. At first, he thinks the sound belongs to one person. But when he stops to listen, it is clear from their echo that there are several followers, marching in perfect synchrony, like soldiers. He walks briskly and turns away from the main street, into a small alley, only to see the slow drift of the Maze close the other end and turn it into a dead end. When he turns around, he sees the four Sebastians.

They all look like Elodie’s boyfriend: sixteen, perfect features, blond hair, a young Martian’s zoku-influenced, tight-fitting clothes. At first their faces are expressionless. Then they all smile in unison, mouths twisting into cruel, mirthless lines.

‘Hello, copykiller,’ one of them says.

‘We recognise you now,’ says the second.

‘You should have—’

‘—minded your own business,’ finishes the last.

‘Foolish to come to our domain, smelling of the underworld.’

‘Foolish to come near the places the hidden ones have told us to guard.’

Like trained soldiers, they take a single step forward, and draw out small knives.

Isidore turns and runs, as fast as he can, looking for handholds to climb up the obstacle that has closed the alley.

The parkroulling Sebastian takes him down in a flying tackle. Air escapes his lungs, and he slams both elbows at the pavement, followed by his nose. The world goes red for a second. When his vision returns, he is prone on his back, and four perfect porcelain faces loom in a circle above him. There is something cold and sharp, pressing against his throat. Hands hold his limbs down. Desperately, he opens his gevulot, reaching for the police Quiet’s emergency feed. But it feels distant and slippery: the gogol pirates are doing something to stop it.

Upload tendrils dance above his face like the firework snakes at the party: he imagines them hissing. He feels a little pinprick of pain at his throat. One of the Sebastians lifts up a small injection needle. ‘We are going to have your mind, copykiller,’ he says. ‘It was such a blessing to find out what you looked like. We praised Fedorov when we saw the paper. You are going to scream now, just like the chocolatier in my brother’s memories. Pray that the Founders in their wisdom give you a part of the Great Common Task. As a missile guidance system. Or food for the Dragons, perhaps.’ The tips of the tendrils feel like sharp, electric kisses on his scalp.

‘Let him go,’ says a rasping chorus voice.

The Gentleman stands at the other end of the alley, just at the limit of Isidore’s blurring vision, a black shape with a glint of silver.

‘I don’t think so,’ the first Sebastian says. Some of the tendrils peek out of his mouth like a bouquet of glowing snakes. ‘I am touching his brain. Even your witch fog is not faster than light, bitch.’

Light. The Sebastians are looking at the Gentleman now. With a thought, he dissolves the q-bubble that holds the thief’s rose in his bag. I hope it works fast enough. I hope it works on them. He opens his gevulot to the Gentleman, enough to show his surface thoughts. Fireworks, he thinks at the tzaddik. Light.

‘In fact, you can listen to his screams—’

There is a flash of light, and then a long fall, down somewhere dark.

Eventually, the light comes back. Something soft cradles Isidore. The faces of the Sebastians still flicker in his vision, but after a moment he realises it is his own, reflecting from the Gentleman’s mask.

‘Don’t try to talk,’ says the tzaddik. ‘Help is on its way.’ Isidore is floating in the air, on a soft cushion of something: it feels nicer than his bed.

‘Let me guess,’ Isidore says. ‘That was the second stupidest thing you have ever seen?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘That was good timing,’ Isidore says. ‘We could have used you at the party last night.’

‘We cannot be everywhere. I take it that this foolish pursuit of yours involves the infamous uninvited guest?’

Isidore nods.

‘Isidore, I have been meaning to talk to you. To apologise. My judgement after our last case was … harsh. I do feel that you have what it takes to be one of us. I never had any doubts about that. But that does not mean that you have to be. You are young. There are other things you can do with your life. Study. Work. Create. Live.’

‘Why are we talking about this now?’ Isidore asks. He closes his eyes. His head is throbbing: a double dose of the optogenetic weapon in less than a day. The tzaddik’s voice sounds hollow and far away.

‘Because of this,’ the tzaddik says. ‘Because you keep getting hurt. And there are more dangerous things than vasilevs out there. Leave the thief to us. Go home. Sort things out with that zoku girl of yours. There is more to life than chasing phantoms and gogol pirates.’

‘And why … should I listen to you?’

The tzaddik does not reply. But there is a gentle touch on his cheek, and, suddenly, a light kiss on his forehead, accompanied by an odd sensation of a silver mask flowing aside. The touch is so light and smooth that, for once, Isidore is prepared to admit that Adrian Wu was right. And there is a perfume, smelling faintly of pine—

‘I’m not asking you to listen,’ the tzaddik says. ‘Just be careful.’

The kiss burns on his forehead when he opens his eyes. Suddenly, there is a bustle of activity and voices around him: Resurrection Men and red-and-white medical Quiet. But the tzaddik is gone. Lights flash in Isidore’s eyes again, and he closes his eyes. Like fireworks, he thinks. And with that, just before