The Quantum Thief

They stand in silence for a moment. Isidore looks at the crumbling relief on the wall, all the faces and landscapes his father has carved into it. There is a tree lovingly rendered in stone, its branches full of large-eyed owls. Maybe Élodie was right, he thinks. It is all unfair.

‘I have something to tell you,’ he says. The guilt clings to his back and shoulders and belly, wet and heavy, like the old man of the sea. It is difficult to speak while in its grip.

‘I did something stupid. I talked to a journalist. I was drunk.’

He feels weak and sits down on the sand, taking his father’s statuette in his hand. ‘It was inexcusable. I’m sorry. I’ve already had some trouble, and you may have some too.’

Two statuettes this time, the larger holding his hand across the smaller one’s back.

‘I know you trust me,’ Isidore says. ‘I just wanted to tell you.’ He gets up and looks at the relief: running horses, abstract shapes, faces, Noble, Quiet. The quicksuit lets some of the gunpowder smell of the freshly worked stone through.

‘The reporter asked me why I try to solve things. I told him something stupid.’ He pauses.

‘Do you remember what she looked like? Did she leave you that?’

The Quiet stands up, all angles and metal. It runs its shaper limbs along a row of blank female faces, each subtly different, each an attempt to capture something he has lost.

Isidore remembers the day he stopped remembering his mother, when her gevulot closed. There was sudden awareness of an absence. Before, there was always a sense of safety, that someone always knew where he was, always knew what he was thinking.

The Quiet makes another statue in the sand, a female one, faceless, holding an umbrella above the other two.

‘I know you think she was trying to protect us. I don’t believe that.’ He kicks at the statue. It crumbles back to dust. The regret comes immediately.

‘I didn’t mean to do that. I’m sorry.’ He looks back at the wall, at his father’s endless labour. They break it, and he makes it again. Only the phoboi here to see it. Suddenly, he feels foolish. ‘Let’s not talk about her.’

The Quiet sways, like a tree in the wind. Then it makes another pair of statues, with familiar features, holding hands. ‘Pixil’s fine,’ Isidore says. ‘I … I don’t know where we are going. But once we figure it out, I’ll bring her to see you again.’

He sits down again, leaning against the wall. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you have been up to?’

Back in the city, in the bright daylight, Isidore feels lighter again, and it is not just the lack of the quicksuit’s weight. He is carrying the first statue in his pocket: its weight is comforting.

He treats himself to lunch in a fancy Italo-Chinese place along Persistent Avenue. The Ares Herald is still running the story, but this time he is able to focus on his food instead.

‘Don’t worry, M. Beautrelet,’ a voice says. ‘All publicity is good publicity.’

Startled, Isidore looks up. There is a woman sitting on the other side of the table. He didn’t sense even a ripple in the gevulot. She has a tall, young designer body, a face that is beautiful in a carefully unconventional fashion: short-cropped hair, a strong, sweeping nose, full lips and arching eyebrows. She is dressed in white, a Xanthean jacket over an expensive variant of the Revolution uniform. Two tiny jewels wink at him from her earlobes.

She lays two slender hands on top of the newspaper, long fingers arcing like the back of a cat.

‘What does fame feel like, M. Beautrelet?’

‘I’m sorry, I haven’t had the pleasure—’ Again, he makes a gevulot offer, at least to learn her name; he’s not even sure she should be able to know his, or to see his face. But it is as if there was a solid wall of privacy around her, a one-way mirror.

She waves a hand. ‘This is not a social call, M. Beautrelet. Just answer my question.’

Isidore looks at her hands, resting on the black-and-white picture. He can see his own drowsy eyes from the reporter’s picture between her fingers.

‘Why do you care?’

‘How would you like to solve a case that would give you real fame?’ There is something childlike about her smile. ‘My employer has been watching you for some time. He never fails to notice talent.’

Isidore is awake enough now to deduce, to access exomemory. She is comfortable in her body, which means she has spent a lot of time as a Noble, too long perhaps to look so young. She has the slightest hint of a slowtown accent, but carefully hidden. Or perhaps hidden just enough for him to notice.

‘Who are you?’

She folds the newspaper in two. ‘You will find out if you accept our offer.’ She gives it to him, and with it, a tiny comemory. ‘Have a pleasant day, M. Beautrelet.’ Then she gets up slowly, flashes that smile at him again and walks away, becoming a gevulot blur in the crowd.

Isidore opens the memory, something just at the tip of his tongue flashing into his consciousness. A place, a time. And a name.