The Quantum Thief

Isidore is alert, walking around, observing, deducing; it is not hard to see social patterns below the flow of gevulot. Here is the composer responsible for the music the Quiet will play later tonight, fishing for compliments; here, a Quiet resurrection activist trying to get a donation from Unruh for their cause. He tries to feel more than look, brushing a mental fingertip over his surroundings, reading a Braille of reality that has always been there for him, looking for things that do not belong.

‘Good evening.’

Isidore looks up, his concentration interrupted. A dark-skinned man in a white tie stands in front of him. He is of indeterminate age, a little shorter than Isidore. The stranger’s waistcoat glitters with golden ornamental Watches – ostentatiously, in Isidore’s opinion – and in spite of the dim firefly lighting, he is wearing blue-tinted glasses. There is a strikingly red flower in his lapel. He brings with him the faintest whiff of a feminine perfume, a fine scent of pine.

The man removes his glasses and gives Isidore a smile made world-weary by his heavy eyelids. His eyebrows are very dark, almost as if sketched with a sharp pen. His gevulot is carefully closed.

‘Yes?’

‘I am sorry, I am looking for … how do you say, a private place?’

Isidore frowns. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘For … bodily functions, you understand?’

‘Oh. Are you an offworlder?’

‘Yes. Jim Barnett. I’m afraid I find it difficult to navigate here.’ The man taps his temple. ‘My brain, it hasn’t yet adjusted, yes? Can you help?’

‘Of course.’ Isidore passes the man a little co-memory, indicating the restrooms in the castle. He feels a quick twinge of a beginning headache as he does so. Perhaps I have been working too hard.

The man grins and pats him on the shoulder. ‘Ah! So convenient. Thank you very much. Have a nice time.’ Then he disappears into the crowd.

Isidore wonders if he should direct a guard Quiet to keep an eye on him. But an anomaly catches his eye from a nearby agora. There is something familiar about a short man dressed as Sol Mercurii, all blazing silver and heat and wearing a winged helmet, having a conversation with a young woman in a Gemini costume – a foglet image of herself shadowing her every move. The man’s eyes are fixed on something far away.

Isidore whispers to one of the Quiet, approaches the pair and touches the man on the shoulder.

‘Adrian Wu.’

The journalist jumps.

‘Let’s talk,’ Isidore says.

‘But I have an invitation,’ Wu protests. ‘Unruh has been handing them out right and left. I need to cover this. I’m surprised to see you here, though. Is there something my readers should know?’

‘No.’ Isidore frowns. ‘Have you been taking analog photographs?’

‘Well—’

One of the assault Quiet pads soundlessly next to Isidore. Its faceless head stares at the journalist. There is a silent, subsonic hum around it that echoes in Isidore’s lungs. Wu stares at it.

‘You know, I’m in charge of security around here,’ Isidore says.

‘But—’

‘Give them to me, and I’ll let you stay.’

Wu takes off his helmet, unscrews a cylinder-like object from it and hands it to Isidore. It is an analog camera, apparently triggered by his chin strap, a primitive device with light-sensitive film, far too simple to be affected by gevulot.

‘Thank you,’ Isidore says. He nods to the Gemini woman. ‘I would be very careful what you say around this man. Let me know if he causes any problems.’ He smiles at Wu. ‘You can thank me later.’

The first dance has started. Isidore decides he deserves a drink and finds a glass of white wine. Then he checks the time: Unruh still has an hour left until his Timely demise.

That is when he realises his entanglement ring is gone from its chain. His heart pounds. He ’blinks at his encounter with the man with the blue-tinted glasses and sees the stranger steal it, with an almost imperceptible motion, separating his Watch from the chain and then putting it back, removing the ring, in a matter of seconds, talking to Isidore all the while, masking what can be masked with gevulot.

Isidore takes a deep breath. Then his mind is racing through the agoras of the party, sending the co-memory of the man to Odette and the Quiet guards. But he is nowhere to be seen, either gone or masked by gevulot. He walks around frantically, trying to locate all the gevulot blurs that could be hiding the uninvited guest that he has no doubt was no other than Jean le Flambeur. But the man seems to have vanished. Why did he come to talk to me? Just to taunt me? Or – He feels the odd headache again and a bizarre sense of déjà vu, flashes of faces, as if he was in two places at once.