The Quantum Thief

Isidore touches the bubble. It feels insubstantial and slick, but the harder he pushes against it, the harder it pushes back. Every push he makes just ends up sliding along its surface. He thinks about Pixil. Let me in. But there is no response. ‘I want to talk to the Eldest,’ he says aloud. ‘I know about the Kingdom.’

For a moment, nothing happens. Then the bubble yields under his hand and he almost falls down. He walks through it: it passes over his skin exactly like a soap bubble, wet and tickling.

In the zoku colony, everything is in motion. The diamond buildings are folding, becoming smaller, changing shape, as if they were papercraft castles being disassembled and put away. There are zoku creatures everywhere, in a variety of shapes from faces in foglet clouds to green monsters, manipulating matter with gestures.

A man-sized q-dot sphere appears in front of him, like the inverse of a soap bubble popping. Pixil steps out, still wearing her armour and sword. Her face is grim.

‘What is happening out there?’ she asks. ‘Our raid got cancelled. And the whole zoku is getting ready to leave. I would have told you, but—’ She touches her zoku jewel helplessly.

‘I know, I know. Resource optimisation. I think we are about to have a revolution,’ Isidore says. ‘I need to talk to the Eldest.’

‘Oh, good,’ Pixil says. ‘Perhaps this time you can really make her mad.’

The q-dot bubble takes Isidore and Pixil into the treasure cave. It, too, is full of activity: the black cubes rise off the ground and vanish into the portals of silver. The Eldest is in the middle of it, a giant, shimmering female form, serene face surrounded by a circle of floating jewels.

‘Young man,’ she says. ‘You are always welcome to visit us, but I must say you have chosen a particularly bad time.’ Her voice is the same as that of the blonde woman Isidore met, deep and warm.

Isidore looks up at the Eldest, summoning all the anger and defiance he can before the posthuman. ‘Why did you do it? Why did you help the cryptarchs?’

Pixil stares at him incredulously. ‘Isidore, what are you talking about?’

‘You know the cryptarchs that the tzaddikim out there have been talking about today? Do you remember that Realm that you said Drathdor whipped up? Well, that is the Kingdom. That’s where all the memories anyone in the Oubliette has about the Revolution and before come from. Your zoku made that possible.’

‘That’s not true!’ She stares at Isidore, eyes blazing. ‘That does not even make sense!’ She turns to the Eldest. ‘Tell him!’

But the Eldest says nothing.

‘You have got to be kidding,’ Pixil says.

‘We had no choice,’ the Eldest says. ‘After the Protocol War, we were broken. We needed a place where we could hide from the Sobornost while we healed. We made a deal. It seemed like a small thing: we rewrite our pasts and memories all the time. So we gave them what they wanted.’

Pixil takes Isidore’s hand. ‘Isidore, I swear I didn’t know about this.’

‘We made you to be like them, to go among them,’ the Eldest says. ‘So we couldn’t let you know any more than they did.’

‘And you just let them do what they wanted?’ Isidore asks.

‘No,’ the Eldest says. ‘We had some … regrets after we saw what happened. So we created the tzaddikim – gave technology and assistance to young Oubliette idealists. We hoped that they would act as a counterweight. Clearly, we were wrong, and this thief of yours has disrupted things.’

‘Tell me one thing,’ Isidore says. ‘What was this place before?’

The Eldest pauses. An expression of sadness flickers across her serene face.

‘Isn’t that obvious?’ she says. ‘The Oubliette was a prison.’

18 THE THIEF AND THE KING

I stand in the robot garden with my old self, weighing the gun in my hand. He is holding it too, or a dream reflection of it. It’s strange how it always comes down to two men with guns, real or imaginary. Around us, the slow war of the ancient machines goes on.

‘I’m glad you made it,’ he says. ‘I don’t know where you have been. I don’t know where you are going. But I know you are here to make a choice. Pull the trigger, and you get to be who we were. Do nothing and – well, you will go on with your life, doing smaller things, dreaming smaller dreams. Or you can go back to listening to the music of the spheres, and the musical sound of breaking their laws. I know what I would do if I were you.’

I open the gun and look at the nine bullets. Each has a name on it, holding a quantum state, entangled with the Time in a person’s Watch. Isaac’s. Marcel’s. Gilbertine’s. The others. If I pull the trigger nine times, their Time will run out. The engine will start. Nine people will become Quiet, Atlas Quiet, beneath the city. They will make my memory palace. And I will never see them again.

I close it and spin the chamber, like in Russian roulette. The young me grins. ‘Go on,’ he says. ‘What are you waiting for?’