The Quantum Thief

Except that it looks like all the roots are also generated from another pair. A master key, if you like. Whoever holds those is able to access every exomemory in the Oubliette, and to rewrite them. For people who pass through Quiet, that means their entire mind. That’s where these new edits to Unruh’s mind came from. The cryptarchs must have some sort of automated system that modifies everybody who passes through the Quiet.

‘Mother Ilmatar,’ Mieli breathes. ‘So potentially—’

—if they want, they can view and change every memory and thought of anyone who has been a Quiet. Of course, that is too much information for any one person to keep track of, so I assume they have some mechanical ways of augmenting it. Given the minor edits they have made to Unruh’s mind, I would imagine that they only have limited resources to do this.

But the bottom line is, the Oubliette is not a place of forgetting. It’s not a privacy heaven. It’s a panopticon.

It has been a long time. So at first, everything is a hot fast blur of flesh and skin and mouths and touches and bites. She is much stronger than me, and not afraid to show it. She plays with Mieli’s enhancements too, teasing me with a hot q-dot at her fingertip, grinning like a cat.

By the third time, we discover that her wings are touch-sensitive, and that’s when things get really interesting.

‘So what can we do with this?’

Well, we can’t do anything about the root access. But – the gogols say – we can put another encryption layer on top of all that. With the pirate engines, we can make fake Oubliette identities. We made a few of those with keys that did not come from the Oubliette key generator interface.

‘And?’

Well, that allowed us to make co-memories that the cryptarchs will never have access to. Anyone we share those with will be inoculated against any manipulation by the cryptarchs, passing through Quiet or otherwise. It’s viral: you can pass it on to as many people as you want. And we made another that makes you forget the edits that have already been made. In fact, the thief suggested publishing them through a newspaper—

‘Wait. The thief suggested what?’

Yes, we had this conversation already. While you were singing. It really did not take that long for the maths gogols to come up with all this.

‘He knows about this already? Does he have the co-memories?’

Yes. The ship pauses. He played me, didn’t he? Bastard. Mieli lets it sink in. ‘Yes. Yes, he did. And I think someone else is about to be played too.’

It is early morning before we stop to rest. At some point, we made it to my bedroom. I lean back on the pillows, eyes half-closed, and look at her, reclining on the other side of the bed, naked apart from her temporary Watch, wings still half-open, catching the light of the dawn.

‘I did teach you well, didn’t I?’ she says.

‘You did. Were we … you know, alone?’

‘Oh, you are worried about hurting poor little Mieli’s feelings? How nice of you to get attached to her. I admit I’m a little sentimental about her as well. It’s like having a favourite pen or a lucky charm.’ She stretches. Even the scar looks different on her face, more mischievous. ‘But don’t worry, she is with the ship. We are all alone. I have you all to myself. I should have done this sooner, but there are only so many of me, you know.’

‘It’s hard to believe that I don’t remember you,’ I say. ‘Except – when I came out from the Prison, there was a flash. Another prison, on Earth. I was reading a book—’

‘That was the first time we met,’ she says. ‘You were a street apache, back then, in the big city, with desert sand between your toes. So rough, so brave. And look at you now. A diamond. Or you will be one again soon. And then—’ she smiles – ‘and then you can thank me properly.’

‘You heard what I told Mieli, right?’ I say. ‘I don’t approve of what you are doing with the cryptarchs.’

She waves her hand. ‘Nonsense. Jean, you don’t know anything about what is really going on here. They have done a good job with this place. The Oubliette works. They are happy here. Even you thought you were happy here when you came here, last time.’ She looks at me, with a hint of poison in her eyes. ‘I think your idealism has less to do with politics than with a desire to impress that freckle-faced little bitch.’

‘A prison is a prison even if you don’t know it is one,’ I say. ‘And I have a problem with prisons.’

‘Poor baby. I know you do.’

‘And do you know what else I have a problem with? Breaking promises.’ I swallow. ‘I know I owe you. And I will pay my debt no matter what. But I’m not going to go back on my word, not even for you.’

‘And how are you going to keep your promises, my little flower prince?’

‘Well,’ I say. ‘I promised to be a good boy. So I’m going to start by getting arrested.’

‘What?’

‘You know that q-spider I made? The time-stealing trick? Well, I made two.’ I look at my Watch. ‘This would never have worked on Mieli: I have to say it seems she knows me much better than you do. And you were much more susceptible to certain … distractions: you should have seen the charm I turned on her last night, with no results. But you? You are about to run out of Time.’

She moves, faster than I can see. Her knee presses painfully in my stomach. Her hands are around my throat. Her face is a mask of rage. I can’t breathe. I can see the dial of her Watch, ticking towards zero—

‘I’m – going to—’ she screams.

There is a little brass ting from her Watch. She becomes a black, still statue. Whatever you say about Oubliette technology, the temporary gevulot system they give visitors is pretty good, almost like military-grade utility fog. You don’t go to the Quiet, but it cuts you off from the rest of the world, shuts your vital functions down. Her grip on my throat loosens and she topples off the bed, a winged statue of black marble, unmoving.

I shower and get dressed, whistling to myself. Down at the hotel lobby, I tip my hat to the white-uniformed immigration official and the two large Quiet with him: I love it when civil servants do their jobs efficiently.

Outside, it is going to be a beautiful day. I put on my blue-tinted glasses and go looking for Raymonde.

16 THE THIEF AND MEMORY

I send Raymonde a co-memory to meet me at the park, on our vantage point near Montgolfiersville. The reply comes quickly: I remember she will be there. I make my way through the Maze in a full gevulot wrapping, hoping that Perhonen’s new anti-cryptarch co-memory will do its job according to plan.

She is there before me, sitting on our bench with a temp-matter coffee cup, watching the balloons. She raises her eyebrows when she sees I’m alone.

‘Where is your Oortian chaperone? If you think this is going to be another one of your romantic encounters —’

‘Ssh.’ I flick the viral co-memory at her. She accepts it and wrinkles her nose. Her expression changes from a frown to pain to astonishment. Good. It worked. The only side effect I noticed was the lingering bad smell.

‘What the hell was that?’ She blinks. ‘I have a headache now.’

In words and co-memories, I fill her in on the results of the Unruh operation, the visit from the cryptarchs and my disagreement with Mieli’s employer – although I leave out a few more intimate details about the latter.

’You did this?’ she says. ‘I never thought you would—’

‘You can do whatever you want with it,’ I say. ‘Stage a revolution. Give them to the other tzaddikim as a weapon. I don’t care. We don’t have a lot of time. When Mieli comes back online, she is going to shut me down: if you have any pull with the immigration Quiet, please try to get them to slow the process down. I need to find my secrets before that.’