Greg Egan - Quarantine

The sky grows dark quickly once the sun truly sets. Karenwalks beside me, silent at first, but I only need the sight of her in the corner of my eye, and the faint scent of her skin, to take the edge off my loneliness.

We find ourselves in an open-air market, an endless expanse of stalls and tables piled with souvenirs, trinkets and high-tech consumer junk. Clashing multicoloured light, spilling from the holograms jostling above the stalls like demon spruikers, renders everything in the strangest hues.

'Do we want an intelligent salad-maker? "Faster and more dextrous than any mere human with a chef mod".' She shakes her head.

'What about this? A key eliminator. "Memorizes and mimics the geometric, electrical, magnetic and optical properties of up to one thousand different keys, active or passive".'

'I don't think so.'

'Come on. My hotel bill's under the quota; I have to buy something, or they'll never let me in again. The Chamber of Commerce computer will veto my visa application.'

'How about a horoscope?' She nods towards a nearby astrologer's booth.

My stomach tightens. 'Since when did you believe in that shit?' A young boy turns to stare at me addressing empty space, but his friend grabs his elbow and drags him on, whispering an explanation.

'I don't. Just humour me.'

I glance at the booth, and force out a laugh. 'Astrology … without any fucking stars. That says it all.' Her face is unreadable. 'Humour me.'

My guts are squirming, but I say, almost calmly, 'Okay. If you want a horoscope, I'll buy you a horoscope. April 10th.' She shakes her head. 'Not mine, you idiot. Laura's.'

I stare at her, then shrug. There's no point arguing. I still have all the Hilgemann patient records in my head. Laura was born on August 3rd, 2035.

The astrologer is a shaven-headed girl, four or five years old, dressed in fake silk and dripping glass jewellery. I give her Laura's details. She sits cross-legged on a cushion and writes with a bamboo pen on ersatz parchment. Her calligraphy is rapid, but undeniably elegant; the mod for it must have cost a fortune — manual skills never come cheap. When she's covered the sheet, she turns it over and writes an English version on the back. I hand her my credit card, and put my thumb to the scanner. When I take the parchment, she clasps her hands together and bows.

Karenhas vanished. I read the prediction, which boils down to success in business and happiness in love (after many tribulations). I crumple the sheet and toss it in a bin, then head back for the hotel.

I ring Bella, download the pharmaceutical suppliers' records, and start hunting for patterns. I don't feel much like trusting the hotel room's terminal, so I do the analysis in my head; CypherClerkhas a virtual workstation, with all the usual data-shuffling facilities.

Pangloss specified five categories of drugs. One hundred and nine different businesses score five out of five. I start wading through their animated presentations in the phone directory; not surprisingly, it looks as if they're all going to turn out to be either major hospitals, where orthopaedic reconstruction is carried out, or cosmetic surgery clinics, specializing in much the kind of thing that Laura must have been through. Nose jobs, cheek jobs, rib removals, hand reshaping, vertebrae adjustments, limb reductions and extensions; I can never quite believe that anyone would undergo this kind of mutilation for the sake of fashion, but dozens of smiling customers testify to their satisfaction, right before my eyes.

Laura could be hidden in any one of these places; a big enough bribe would silence any awkward questions. But every outsider brought in on the kidnapping is one more unreliable amateur, one more potential informant. Better to be self-contained.

The ninety-third entry on the list, Biomedical Development International, displays nothing but an animated logo as unenlightening as its name — the letters BDI rendered in shiny chromed tubing, constantly rotating and endlessly sparkling with implausible-looking highlights — and a single line of text: Contract research in biotechnology, neurotechnology and pharmaceuticals.

I plough through the rest, but apart from the Osteoplasty Research Group of New Hong Kong, every other entry is some kind of hospital or clinic, seeking out customers. This proves nothing — but I'd certainly like to know what kind of contract research BDI has been doing lately.

I almost call Bella, then I change my mind. If I am getting close, I'd better start taking more care. Bella is good, but no hacker can guarantee that they won't be detected, and the last thing I want to do is panic the kidnappers into moving Laura again.

I find BDI in a business directory. Because they're not listed on the stock exchange, disclosure requirements are minimal. Founded in 2065. Wholly owned by an NHK citizen, Wei Pai-ling. I've heard of him; a moderately wealthy entrepreneur with a wide range of profitable but unspectacular technological interests.

It's half past two. I shut down CypherClerkand slump into bed. Biomedical Development International. Maybe I was right first time; maybe some pharmaceutical company whose product screwed up Laura's brain is preparing for a future lawsuit. Everything would make perfect sense. Well … almost. Why would BDI — or whoever they hired to collect Laura — break into the Hilgemann only to let her out of her room, twice, before the actual kidnapping? Why would anyone? It's bizarre. If the point was to create the impression that Laura could escape on her own, who did they think they were kidding?

As I stare at the ceiling, trying to choose sleep, the incident with the astrologer keeps running through my head. Karenis not compelled to behave in character; sometimes she's true to my memories, sometimes she's pure wish-fulfilment, sometimes her actions are as cryptic as the plot of a dream. But why should I 'dream' her asking for Laura's horoscope, of all things? Sheer perversity? Karen would never have done such a thing in a million years.

I try to relax, to forget it, but I can't. The irony doesn't escape me: nothing offends me more than the pathological assignment of meaning — religion, astrology, superstitions of every kind — and here I am, hunting for meaning in the actions of a subconsciously controlled hallucination of my dead wife. What kind of ludicrous necromancy is that?

Horoscopes. Propitious birthdays. My skin crawls. I summon up the pilfered Hilgemann data again. Laura was born on August 3rd, 2035. The birth was slightly premature; her medical records state that the gestation period was thirty-seven to thirty-eight weeks. That puts the date of conception within a week of November 15th, 2034; perhaps even on Bubble Day itself.

Of itself, this means nothing to me. It would have meant nothing to Karen. There are probably ten billion people on the planet who wouldn't give a shit if the stars went out the very moment Laura's father came.

None of which matters, none of which counts, none of which renders the coincidence meaningless and safe.

The question is: what does it signify to the Children of the Abyss?

Marcus Duprey was born on Bubble Day, in the small town of Hartshaw, Maine, sometime during the Earth's last sixteen minutes of starlight. At what age he began to attach significance to this fact is anybody's guess; Duprey himself isn't telling, and his parents, his grandparents, his aunts, his uncles, his cousins, most of his teachers, and most of his peers, all died together on his twentieth birthday, which he celebrated by introducing toxic bacteria into the Hartshaw water supply. His third-grade and seventh-grade teachers, lucky enough to have moved out of town, could scarcely remember him. Surviving ex-classmates described him as quiet and slightly aloof, but not studious, and not introverted enough to have attracted ridicule. Charismatic? Influential? A born leader? A prophet? No.