The Quantum Thief

‘We have no way to reconstruct anything that happened here, except the old-fashioned way. And, as much as it pains me to admit it, you do seem to have the talent for it.’

Up close, the tzaddik has a strange, sweet smell, like spices, and it feels like the metal mask radiates heat. Isidore takes a step back and clears his throat. ‘I will do what I can, of course,’ he says, pretending to look at his Watch – a simple copper disc on his wrist, with a single hand, ticking down to his time as a Quiet. ‘I expect it to be quick,’ he says, nonchalance spoiled by the quiver in his voice. ‘I have a party to go to tonight.’

The Gentleman says nothing, but Isidore can imagine the cynical smile beneath the mask.

Another factory machine sputters into life. This one looks much more sophisticated than the stainless steel conching machines. The ornate brass lines hint at a Kingdom-era design: a fabber. An intricate clockwork arm dances above a metal tray, painting a neat row of macarone into being with a series of neat atom beam brushstrokes. The drones pack the sweets into small boxes and carry them away.

Isidore raises his eyebrows disapprovingly: a traditional Oubliette craftsman is not really expected to rely on technology. But something about the device does fit in the nascent shape that he can feel forming in his mind. He examines it more closely. The tray is covered in thin strips of chocolate residue.

‘I will need whatever else you have, of course, to begin with,’ he says.

‘His assistant says she found the body.’ With a flick of a white-gloved hand, the Gentleman passes Isidore a small co-memory: a face and a name. He recalls her like a passing acquaintance. Siv Lindström. Dusky skin and a pretty face, dark hair arranged in a swirl of dark cocoa. ‘And the family has agreed to speak to us – what are you doing?’

Isidore puts a piece of the chocolate from the fabber tray in his mouth, ’blinking as fast as he can, cringing at the headache of alien memories. They let him recognise the faint red berry taste and bitterness, and the strange terroir of the soil in Nanedi Valley. There is something wrong about it, about the fragility. He walks over to the chocolatier’s body and tries some of the chocolate from the vat he is holding. And that, of course, tastes exactly right.

Unbidden, the shape of the chocolatier’s story emerges in his mind, brushstroke by brushstroke, like the macarone a moment before.

‘Detecting,’ Isidore says. ‘I want to see the assistant first.’

The walk back to town leads Isidore and the Gentleman across the Tortoise Park.

That, in itself, is a testament to the chocolatier’s success. The red-brick building with a huge mural depicting cocoa beans sits in one of the most desirable locations of the city. A green space with low, rolling hills perhaps three hundred metres across, like all the interlocking parts of the City, the park is carried by a walking robotic platform. The green fields are dotted with tall, graceful, Kingdom-era villas that the young Time-rich of the Oubliette restore and incorporate into the city. Isidore has never understood the need of some of his generation to burn their Time fast on material goods and services, spending their Noble lives in brief opulence before the long, back-breaking labour as a Quiet. Especially when there are mysteries to solve.

Even though the park is an open space, it is not an agora, and walking down the sandy pathways, they pass several gevulot-obscured people, their privacy fog shimmering like the morning dew of the grassy fields around them.

Wanting to be alone with his thoughts for a moment, Isidore walks fast, holding his hands inside his overcoat sleeves against the chill: with his long legs, he usually manages to keep a distance between himself and others. But the Gentleman stays with him, seemingly without effort.

You are bored, aren’t you? Pixil’s qupt is abrupt. Along with her voice, it brings a tangle of sensations: a taste of espresso, the odd too-clean smell of the zoku colony.

Isidore massages the entanglement ring he wears on the index finger of his right hand: a silver band with a tiny blue stone, speaking directly to his brain. He has yet to get used to the zoku method of qupting. Sending brain-to-brain messages directly through a quantum teleportation channel seems like a dirty, invasive way to communicate compared to Oubliette co-remembering. The latter is much more subtle: embedding messages in the recipient’s exomemory so that information is recalled rather than received. But as with everything else with Pixil and her people, it is all about compromises.

I can’t believe it. Your tzaddik friend snaps its fingers and you leave me behind, to get ready for the party, all by myself. And now you are bored.

I’m not bored, he protests, too quickly, and realises that it is the wrong answer.