Hannu Rajaniemi - The Quantum Thief

‘What look?’

‘You are deducing something.’

‘I’m not.’ He is trying, but it is hard to think. Liquid anger goes round and round in his belly, refusing to settle down.

‘Tell me,’ Pixil says, tousling his hair. ‘I get to guess what you are thinking about. If I get it right, you will be my slave tonight.’

Isidore downs the rest of his drink from a plastic cup – some sort of overly sweet punch thing with guarana in it that they got from the last group, teenage girls in sailor outfits. It takes some of the drowsiness away, but also makes him jittery.

‘All right,’ he says. ‘I’m game.’

‘You are thinking about your tzaddik. Are you trying to make me jealous?’

‘No. It didn’t go well. I’m not going to be a tzaddik. But that’s not what I’m thinking about.’

‘Oh no.’ There is a look of genuine concern on her face. ‘What did that bastard want? You are a genius. You solved the… whatever it was, right?’

‘Yeah. But it wasn’t enough. Don’t worry. I don’t want to talk about it. Keep guessing.’ The feeling of failure is a yawning pit beneath his denial.

‘All right, then.’ She caresses his hand, tickling his palm with a forefinger. ‘You are trying to work out what is the best way to get me to bed as soon as possible?’

‘No.’

‘No?’ She makes a mock offended sound. ‘You might want to call a cab in that case, M. Detective. Why are you not thinking about that? I am.’

‘You still get a third guess,’ Isidore says.

‘Well.’ Pixil looks serious. She presses her fingers against her temples and closes her eyes. ‘You are thinking…’

‘No cheating with qupts or gevulot,’ Isidore says.

‘Are you kidding? I never cheat.’ She purses her lips. ‘I’d say you are thinking about Adrian and why I invited him here, and why did I ask Cyndra to parade you in front of the elders and why does my poor old tanglemother hate you?’ She gives him a sweet smile. ‘Does that sound about right? Do you think I am completely stupid?’

‘Yes,’ Isidore says. ‘I mean, no. You are right. So why did you?’ The anger is clotting into a tight clump inside his chest. His temples throb.

‘You are cute when you are confused.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Slaves don’t get to make demands. I won,’ Pixil says.

‘I don’t want to play just now. Why?’

‘Well, for one thing, I wanted to show you off.’ She takes his hand in her lap.

‘Show me off? I managed to offend them in the first five minutes. And your mother really does hate me.’

‘Tanglemother. No, she doesn’t. She’s just being over-protective. First child created on Mars, you know, gevulot compatibility, bridge between two worlds, blah blah blah. And they are still shocked that I end up dating one of you. They deserve to be offended a little. They still think that we are going to go back to Jupiter one day, even though there is nothing there except dust and Sobornost drones that eat it. We live here now, and no one else wants to acknowledge it at all.’

‘So,’ Isidore says. ‘You were using me.’

‘Of course I was. It’s a game. The optimal resource allocation thing is no joke. We are going to do whatever is best for each other, that’s the way it works, we can’t help it. In this case, rebelling a little is the best thing to do.’

‘So it’s not really rebelling, is it?’

‘Oh, come on ,’ she says. ‘You do this stuff with people all the time . You’re good at it. Why do you think you are with me? Because I’m a puzzle . Because you can’t figure me out, like you do with them . I’ve seen you talking to people, and you tell them something, and it’s not you , it’s just something you have deduced . Don’t try to tell me it’s not a game to you too.’

‘It’s not just a game,’ Isidore says. ‘I almost died today. A girl killed her father in a horrible way. These things happen, and someone has to solve them.’

‘Solving them makes it better?’

‘It does for me,’ Isidore says quietly. ‘You know that.’

‘Yes, I know. And I thought other people should, too. You are doing well, somebody should be keeping score. So I invited Adrian, here where he could talk to you without any of that gevulot nonsense. He is going to make you famous.’

‘Pixil, that was a bad thing to do. I’m going to be in a lot of trouble because of that. Do you think you can just decide what I need? I’m not part of your zoku. It doesn’t work that way with me.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Pixil says. ‘With the zoku, I don’t have a choice.’ She touches her zoku jewel, embedded at the base of her throat, where her collar-bones meet. ‘With you, it’s because I want to.’

A distant part of him knows that she is lying, but somehow it does not matter, and he kisses her anyway.

‘You know,’ she says, ‘you did lose the bet. Come on. I’m going to show you something.’

Pixil takes his hand and leads him to a plain door that was not there a moment before. Entanglement electric arcs flare up again behind them as they walk through together.

For a moment there is another discontinuity.

They emerge into a huge, cavernous space that is full of black cubes of different sizes, ranging from a cubic metre to the size of a house, stacked on top of each other. The walls, floor and the ceiling – somewhere high, high up – are white and faintly luminescent. The illumination makes even Pixil seem pale.

‘Where are we?’ Isidore asks. His voice has an eerie echo.

‘You know we are mercenaries, right? We raid things. Well, this is where we keep the treasure.’ Pixil lets go of his hand and runs ahead, touching a cube. It flashes into transparency in an instant. Inside, is a strange, glittering beast, like a feathered serpent, swirling in the air, trapped in a cage of light. A floating spime bubble tells him it is a Langton worm, captured in the wilder virtual reaches of the Realm and given physical form.

Pixil laughs. ‘You can find almost anything here.’ She runs around, touching things. ‘Come on, let’s explore.’

There are glass eggs and ancient clocks and candy from old Earth. Isidore finds an ancient spacecraft inside one of the larger cubes. It looks like a giant’s dirty molar, brown stains marring the white ceramic surfaces. Pixil opens a cube full of theatrical costumes and presses a bowler hat on Isidore’s head, laughing.

‘Isn’t someone going to be upset if they find us here?’ Isidore asks.

‘Don’t worry, slave,’ Pixil says, grinning mischievously. She pulls the costumes down and makes a thick pile of them onto the floor, humming to herself. ‘I told you. Resource optimisation.’ She wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him, hard. Her clothes dissolve under her touch. She pulls him down onto the nest of cloaks and dresses. The anger drains from him, and then he has no room for any shape but hers.

Like every Sol Solis, Xuexue comes to the garden to smile at the red robot.

It stands alone, away from the clusters of fighting machines arranged on the black-and-white marble grid. Its design is a little different, too: sleek crimson lines of a sports car beneath a layer of rust, and a glinting little horse on top of its helmet.

Xuexue sits on a small folding chair in front of it, looks directly at the dark slit in its helmet and smiles, keeping as still as she possibly can. Her record is two hours. The hard part is maintaining the feeling of the smile. Today, it is easy: she had a good day with the children in the kindergarten. The little emperors and empresses of the Oubliette – bought dearly with Time by their parents and spoiled accordingly – can be difficult, but they have their moments. Maybe she will break her record today.