Hannu Rajaniemi - The Quantum Thief

‘It’s very good, you know.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘The music. The sheet is analog, so I couldn’t resist reading it.’ I offer her a little gevulot. She accepts. Yes .

‘I’m Raoul. I’m sorry about the intrusion, but I have wanted an excuse to talk to you for a long time.’

It’s not going to work , whispers Perhonen .

Of course it is. A woman can never resist a good narrative. A mysterious stranger on a park bench? She is loving it .

‘Well, I’m glad you found one,’ she says. A little more gevulot: she has a boyfriend. Damn; but we’ll see how much of an obstacle that one is.

‘Is someone patroning you?’ Another gevulot block. ‘Apologies for prying, I’m just interested. What is it about?’

‘An opera. About the Revolution.’

‘Ah. That makes sense.’

She gets up. ‘I’m meeting a student. Nice meeting you.’

There you go, Perhonen says. Down in flames .

Her perfume – a hint of pine – goes right to my amygdala, triggering a memory of a memory. Dancing with her in a glass-floored club in the Belly, until dawn. Was that when I met her the first time?

‘You have a problem with the a cappella bit,’ I say. She hesitates. ‘I can tell you how to fix it if you meet me for dinner.’

‘Why should I take your advice?’ she asks, taking the music sheet from my hand.

‘Not advice, merely suggestions.’

She studies me, and I give her my best new smile. I spent a long time practising it in front of the mirror, fitting it to this new face.

She flicks a lock of her black hair over a pale earlobe. ‘All right. You’ll have to convince me. But I’ll decide where we are going.’ She passes me a co-memory, indicating a place near the Revolution memorial. ‘Wait for me there, at seven.’

‘Deal. What did you say your name was?’

‘I didn’t,’ she says, gets up and walks away past the playground, heels clicking on the pavement.

While the thief is out in the city looking for love, Mieli tries to force herself to interrogate the vasilev.

The ghostgun bullet – barely the size of a pinhead – has just enough computational power to run a human-level mind. She weighs it in the sapphire casing that keeps it dormant, tossing it up and down, still unused to the novelty of gravity. Even the tiny thing feels heavy, like failure; small impacts on her hand, again and again.

This is war , she tells herself. They started it. What else can I do?

The hotel room feels too small, too confined. She finds herself walking out to the city, the bullet still clutched in her hand, wandering the now-familiar Persistent Avenue in the afternoon lull.

Perhaps the restlessness comes from the thief’s biot feed. She has not dared to suppress it after the thief’s escape attempt – especially now, with his reluctantly granted permission to change his face and mental makeup. So she is painfully aware of his excitement, a constant phantom itch.

She stops to eat some of the rich, flavoured food here, served by a young man who keeps smiling at her, throwing suggestive co-memories at her, until she wraps herself in gevulot and eats in silence. The dish is called cassoulet and leaves her feeling bloated and heavy.

‘How is it going in there?’ she asks Perhonen .

He just got her to agree to a first date , the ship says.

‘Great.’

You don’t sound enthusiastic. Not very professional . ‘I need to be alone for a while. Keep an eye on him for me.’

Of course. You should follow him yourself, though. It’s sort of entertaining .

Mieli cuts the link. Entertaining . She walks, trying to emulate the light stride of the white-clad Martians, wishing she could fly again. After a while, the sky feels too big. The nearest building is a church of some kind, and she walks in, trying to find shelter.

She does not know the god they worship there, and has no wish to find out. But the high arches of the ceiling remind her of the open spaces of the temples of Ilmatar in Oort, ice caverns of the goddess of the air and space. So somehow it seems appropriate to sing a quiet prayer.

Air mother, grant me wisdom,

daughter of sky, strength provide

help an orphan to find a way home,

guide a lost bird to the land of south

Forgive a child with bloody hands

a poor shaper who mars your work

with ugly deeds, and uglier thoughts

with cuts and scars befouls your song

Repeating the apology makes her think of home, and of Sydän, and that makes it easier. After sitting quietly for a while, she returns to the hotel, darkens the windows and takes out the ghost bullet.

‘Wake up,’ she tells the vasilev mind.

Where? Ah .

‘Hello, Anne.’

You .

‘Yes. The servant of the Founder.’

The vasilev mind laughs. Mieli gives it a voice, not a child’s voice but a vasilev voice, male, smooth and low. Somehow, that makes it easier, ‘He was no Founder. Clever enough to deceive us. But no chen, no chitragupta,’ the mind says.

‘I’m not talking about him,’ Mieli whispers. ‘You are done ,’ she says. ‘You have hindered the Great Common Task. But out of mercy, I give you one opportunity to speak out of your free will before oblivion, to redeem yourself.’

The vasilev laughs again. ‘I don’t care who you serve; you are a poor servant. Why waste words to find what is in my mind? Get it over with, and don’t waste a Founder’s time with your prattle.’

Disgusted, Mieli shuts the thing up. Then she pulls the surgeon gogol from her metacortex and tells it to begin. It traps the vasilev into a sandbox and starts cutting; separating higher conscious functions, rewarding and punishing. It is like some perversion of sculpting, not trying to find the shape hiding in a stone but breaking it to pieces and reassembling them into something else.

The surgeon gogol’s outputs are cold readouts of associative learning in simulated neuron populations. After a while she shuts them down. She barely makes it to the bathroom before the sick comes, the remains of her lunch, stinking and undigested.

She returns to the vasilev with an acid taste in her mouth.

‘Hello, darling,’ it says, in an odd, euphoric tone. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘You can start by telling me everything you know about Jean le Flambeur,’ Mieli says.

Raymonde arrives late, taking care to walk across the small agora, hand in hand with a tall, handsome man with leonine hair, younger than her. He gives her a goodbye kiss. Then she waves at me. I get up and hold the chair for her as she sits down. She accepts the gesture, slightly cockily.

I have been sitting at the small restaurant she chose, outside by the heater. It is a strange little place, with plain glass doors and a blank sign; but the inside is a riot of colour and exotica, jars filled with exotic taxidermy, glass eyes and lush paintings. I have been replaying our first meeting, thinking about what she reacted to – not the mystery, but the banter. I have even altered my appearance subtly, nothing that could not be expected with more revealing gevulot, but appearing ever so slightly more mischievous. It is enough to warm her smile a degree.

‘How was the class?’

‘Good. A young couple’s daughter. Lots of potential.’

‘Potential is what it’s all about. Like your music.’

‘Not really,’ she says. ‘I’ve been thinking. You are bluffing . There is nothing wrong with that piece. I’ll have you know that this is the Oubliette, and I am a beautiful girl. That means this stuff happens all the time .’ She cocks her head, letting her hair hang loose. ‘A mysterious stranger. Serendipity. Seriously? Old hat.’