The Quantum Thief

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I don’t know who you are talking about.’ I block the gardener’s gevulot request, or at least I think I do. The gevulot interface they give to visitors is not really meant to deal with all the subtleties of daily Oubliette interactions, but just to provide a few rough settings ranging from full sharing to perfect privacy. I have a vague recollection of an actual privacy sense: compared to it, this is like having a monochrome vision.

‘Your body designers must like the same movie star,’ the gardener says. ‘You look just like a guy who used to come here with his girlfriend. A pretty girl, too.’

I climb down the robot, slowly.

‘What were you doing up there, anyway?’ he asks, looking puzzled.

‘I just wanted to get a better view of the gameboard,’ I say. ‘You could say I’m something of a games enthusiast.’ I dust off dirt from my jacket. ‘Is it you who maintains all the flowers here? It’s beautiful.’

‘That’s me.’ He hooks his thumbs under the suspenders of his coveralls, grinning. ‘Years of work. It’s always been a place for lovers. I’m too old for that – a few rounds as a Quiet takes those kinds of thoughts out of you – but I enjoy keeping it nice for the young people. Are you visiting?

‘That’s right.’

‘Well spotted; this is the kind of place most tourists would not find. Your girlfriend seems to like it, too.’

‘What do you mean my girlfriend – oh.’

Mieli is standing in the shadow of one of the bigger robots, with a firefly guide hovering above her head. ‘Hello, darling,’ she says. I tense, expecting to be plunged into an inferno. But she just smiles like an icicle.

‘Did you get lost?’ I ask her. ‘I missed you.’ I wink at the gardener.

‘I’ll give you youngsters some privacy. Nice meeting you,’ the gardener says and blurs out, disappearing into the robot ruins.

‘You know,’ Mieli says, ‘a while back you said that we were going to be professionals.’

‘I can explain—’

I don’t even see the punch coming, just feel a sudden impact on my nose, calculated precisely to cause maximum amount of pain without breaking the bone, that tosses me back against the robot. Then, a series of kicks that hammer me against it and empty my lungs, setting my solar plexus on fire. And finally, light knuckle percussions on my cheekbones and one that rattles my jaw. Ever faithful to its cruel parameters, my body leaves me gasping for breath and feeling oddly disassociated, as if looking at Mieli’s impossibly fast movements from the outside.

‘That is me being professional,’ she hisses. ‘In my koto in Oort, we never cared that much for explanations.’

‘Thanks,’ I gasp. ‘For not pressing the hell button.’

‘That’s because you found something.’ She gets a distant look that tells me she is going through this body’s short-term memories. ‘Let’s see it.’ She holds out a hand.

I pass her the Watch. She tosses it up and down thoughtfully. ‘All right. Get up. We will talk about this later. Sightseeing is over.’

‘I know you are thinking about stealing it back,’ she says as we take a spidercab back to the hotel. She seems to be enjoying the ride as the diamond legs of the carriage-like vehicle telescope out, taking it up to the rooftops of the Maze.

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. I can recognise the signals now. You caught me twice with that pickpocket trick, but not again.’

‘Sorry, it’s a reflex. Makes it more of a challenge, I suppose,’ I say, massaging my smarting face. ‘How long does it take for this body to heal?’

‘As long as I want it to.’ She leans back. ‘What is it about it, anyway? Stealing.’

‘It’s …’ It’s an instinct, I want to say. It’s like making love. It’s becoming more than I am. It’s art. But she would not understand, so I merely repeat the old joke. ‘It’s about respecting other people’s property. I make it my property so that I can properly respect it.’

She is silent after that, watching the scenery leap past.

The hotel is a massive building near the glider port where we arrived from the beanstalk station. We have a set of large, impressively Time-consuming rooms near the top floor, not decorated opulently enough for my taste (sleek lines and glass surfaces of Xanthean designers), but at least there is a fabber so I can replace my clothes.

Except that I don’t get a chance. She points at the small table and chair in front of the balcony. ‘Sit.’ She places the Watch in front of me. ‘Talk to me. What in Dark Man’s name happened at the agora?’ She clenches and unclenches her fingers. I swallow.

‘All right. I saw myself.’ She raises her eyebrows.

‘It was not another memory, not like on the ship. It must have been a gevulot construct of some kind: somebody else saw it too. It led me to the garden. So clearly, we are getting somewhere.’

‘Perhaps. It did not occur to you to fill me in on this? Are there any reasons for me to let you out of my sight again? Or not to recommend to my employer that we should take off the silk gloves and take a more … direct approach with your brain?’