The Quantum Thief

12. THE DETECTIVE AND CARPE DIEM

On the evening of the carpe diem party, the garden has the hushed tone of a performer holding his breath, muttering his lines.

There are tables with champagne glasses in orderly rows, little pavilions for more exotic offworld vices, and foglet fireflies still unlit. A Quiet orchestra test their instruments – parts of their body – creating a gentle brass cacophony. A fireworks expert, wearing a tall hat, is laying out multicoloured rockets in a device that looks like a miniature pipe organ.

‘So, what do you think, M. Detective?’ Unruh asks. He is dressed as Sol Jovis, the last day of the Darian calendar week. The colours of the long-lost gas giant blaze across the fabric of his tunic. In the shadows of the trees, it glows faintly in hues of bright red and white.

‘It looks like one of the old Kingdom parties,’ Isidore says.

‘Ha. Yes. Not a bad way to spend a few hundred mega-seconds, in any case,’ Unruh says. He holds up his Watch, attached with a chain to his waistcoat, surprisingly plain: a black disc with a single golden dial. ‘When do you think I will be robbed?’

‘We are as prepared as we can be. Le Flambeur or not, we will make him work hard for his loot.’

In the end, the security arrangements consist of a few carefully placed agoras and additional Quiet servants hired from the Voice by Odette – assault anti-phoboi Quiet with a variety of specialised sensors and weapons. Isidore hopes it will be enough. He considered a variety of more elaborate options involving black market tech, but in the end, he concluded that they would introduce more vulnerabilities than strengths.

‘That’s the spirit,’ Unruh says, patting Isidore on the shoulder. ‘You know, we never discussed the matter of your fee.’

‘M. Unruh, I assure you that-’

‘Yes, yes, very noble of you. I want you to have the library. Perhaps you will be able to make sense of it. Or burn the whole thing down. Odette has already drawn up the contract; I will be sure to transfer the gevulot to you before the end of the night.’

Isidore stares at the millenniaire blankly. ‘Thank you.’

‘No need to thank me. Just give our uninvited guest a run for his money. Are you bringing a date tonight, by any chance?’

Isidore shakes his head.

‘A pity. Now, I have some debauchery to engage in before I die. Excuse me.’

Isidore watches the preparations for a while and instructs the Quiet – low, panther-like creatures with sleek, black carapaces – on their patrol routes on the grounds. Then he goes to one of the guest rooms where his Sol Lunae costume has been laid out. It still looks a little feminine, too tight in the wrong places. He puts it on anyway. It feels like something is missing, and realises that the entanglement ring is in his trouser pocket. He takes it out and hangs it on his Watch chain.

So this is what stage fever feels like, he thinks.

Raymonde and I arrive at the party fashionably late, and so does everyone else. Around us, spidercabs disgorge men and women in elaborate costumes, Xanthean dreams of silk, lace and smartmatter. Time is the theme, so there are Indian gods and goddesses of the Darian calendar, planets and stars, and, of course, prominently displayed Watches.

‘I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,’ Raymonde says. A humanoid Quiet servant in dazzling livery, sculpted face covered by a mask, checks our invitation co-memories and guides us along with the flow of the crowd that is slowly filling the sundial garden, pooling into small groups. The tinkle of glasses, aching ares nova music and the voices of the guests all merge into an intoxicating symphony of its own.

I smile at Raymonde. She is a seductive Phobos, in a deep-cut dress that includes white gloves and a glowing sphere of light in her abdomen, bright enough to cover strategic areas with luminescence. I am content to be a modest peacock next to her, in white tie, with several ornamental Watch replicas and a flower in my lapel.

‘I assure you, this is one of the least immoral jobs I’ve ever been involved in,’ I say. ‘Robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. After a fashion.’

‘Still.’ She nods to a passing couple dressed as Venus and Mars whose gevulot reveals just enough to ensure that they are seen. ‘This is not what we do. Quite the opposite of what we do, in fact.’ The glow of the little Phobos in her belly highlights the elegant bone structure of her face: she reminds me of a sculpture of some Greek goddess.

‘Your masked friends need proof. We’ll give them proof.’ I pick up a champagne glass from a passing Quiet servant. I brush a dust particle away from the front of its coat, giving it an invisible dose of Part A of the plan from my flower. Potent stuff, but it is good to release it early: it will take some time for it to do its work. ‘Don’t worry. Provided that your friend can get us an introduction, everything will be as smooth as silk.’

How are we doing on security? I whisper to Mieli. She is our backup in the hotel, coordinating things with Perhonen. Minimal, she says. Still, more than you expected. War Quiet concern me: they actually have pretty decent sensors.

‘Do me a favour,’ Raymonde says. ‘Don’t try to put me at ease. Come on, let’s mingle.’

Raymonde got us invitations with surprising ease. Apparently, Christian Unruh is a patron of the arts and a Kingdom enthusiast, so a friend of Raymonde’s at the Academy of Music thought it would be an excellent idea if she could discuss her opera concept with him. Of course, the party is full of would-be artists seeking patronage, but her contact promised to get us a personal introduction. And that’s all I need.

‘Raymonde!’ A short older woman waves at us. She is wearing a smartmatter dress that is like an hourglass without the glass: there is no fabric, just red Martian sand that runs down her generous figure. The effect is hypnotic. ‘How wonderful to see you here! And who is this handsome gentleman?’

I bow and open my gevulot a little as common courtesy dictates, but take care not to allow her any permanent memories of my appearance. ‘Raoul d’Andrezy, at your service.’ Raymonde introduces my cover identity, the emigré from Ceres. The hourglass lady’s gevulot reveals that she is Sofia dell’Angelo, a lecturer in the Academy of Music and Drama.

‘Oh, I’m sure we can think of something,’ Sofia says. ‘Now, what happened to poor Anthony? I loved his hair.’

Raymonde blushes a little, but does not reply. Sofia winks at me. ‘You should watch out, young man. She is going to steal your heart and keep it.’

‘Hush, I don’t want you to scare him away. It took a lot of effort to catch him,’ Raymonde says. ‘Any sign of our host yet?’

Sofia looks crestfallen, plump cheeks flushed. ‘No, I’m afraid not. I have spent almost an hour trying to find him. I absolutely think he should hear about your new piece. But apparently he is only going to show himself to a close circle of friends tonight. Do you know, I think he is actually afraid of that le Flambeur character? Terrible,’ she says in a hushed tone.

‘Le what?’ Raymonde asks.

‘Haven’t you heard?’ Sofia says. ‘The rumour has it that some sort of offworld criminal invited himself here – even sent a letter announcing himself. It is all terribly exciting. Christian actually hired a detective, you know, the young boy who was in all the papers.’

Raymonde’s eyes widen. Announced himself? hisses Mieli in my mind. Announced?

I have no idea what she is talking about, I protest. That would be terribly unprofessional. It’s true: the preparations over the past few days have kept me too busy to incorporate additional flourishes. I feel a sudden twinge of regret: sending a RSVP would have played exactly the right note. I’m innocent, I swear. It is the same thing as with the gogol pirates. Somebody knows too much.

We are going to abort, Mieli says. If they are expecting you, the risk is too great.

Don’t be ridiculous. We are not going to get an opportunity like this anytime soon. It’s just going to make this a little more exciting. Besides, I have an idea.

We are not going to argue about this, Mieli says.

Are you telling me that we are going to run away with our tails between our legs? What kind of warrior are you? I trust you to deal with the violence, all right? Let me make this call. This is what I do. Any sign of trouble, and we are gone.

Mieli hesitates. Fine. But I’ll be watching you, she says.

I know you will be.

Raymonde thanks Sofia for the attempt and we excuse ourselves, finding a little pavilion near the clearing where a group of acrobats perform with a pair of gracile elephants – trunks weaving intricate patterns with torches – and a flock of trained megaparrots, a riot of screeching colour.

‘I knew this was a bad idea,’ Raymonde says. ‘We are not going to get close to Unruh. And – why does he have to be here?’ She stares at a young man across the clearing, tall and lanky with tousled hair, dressed in an ill-fitting black and silver outfit. He is wandering through the crowd with a distracted, daydreaming look on his face.

‘Is that the detective?’

‘Isidore Beautrelet, yes.’

‘Interesting. Close to Unruh, apparently.’

Raymonde gives me a flinty look. ‘Don’t get him involved.’

‘Why not?’ I feel the gogol pirate tools in my mind. The identity theft engine is something I have not tried yet, but it is there, waiting to be used. ‘You know him, right? Any gevulot access you could share?’

She takes a deep breath.

‘Come on, don’t be such a goody-two-shoes,’ I say.

‘We are trying to commit a crime here. We have to use all the tools we have.’

‘Yes, I have a lot of his gevulot,’ she says. ‘So what?’

‘Oh? Is he a former lover? Another one whose heart you stole?’

‘None of your business.’

‘Help me out. Give me his gevulot, and we can do what we came here for.’

‘No.’

I fold my arms. ‘All right, then. Let’s go home, and let your hidden puppeteers continue pulling your strings. Their strings. His strings.’ I gesture at the detective and the crowd. ‘This is exactly what I was talking about. You have to compromise to win.’

She turns away from me. Her face is hard. I try to take her hand, but she does not open her fingers. ‘Look at me. Let me do this. So you won’t have to.’

‘Damn you.’ She grabs my wrist. ‘But whatever I give you, you’ll give back, after it’s over. Swear it.’

‘I swear.’

‘And I swear too,’ she says. ‘If you hurt him, you’ll wish you were still in your Prison.’

I look at the young man. He is leaning on a tree, eyes half-closed, almost as if asleep.

‘Raymonde, I’m not planning on hurting him. Well, perhaps his ego, a little bit. It’ll do him good.’

‘You were never much good at doing good,’ she says.

I spread my hands, give her a small bow and go to meet the detective.

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.

He takes out his magnifying glass and Wu’s camera and looks at the film. Without effort, the zoku device translates the grains on the film into full-colour images. He flips through them, tapping the glass disc. Society women. Performers. And there – Unruh. A picture taken only minutes ago, according to the timestamp, showing the millenniaire laughing with a group of friends, among whom there is a familiar figure in black and silver, with tousled hair-

Isidore drops the camera and starts running.

Duplicating the detective’s physical appearance takes only a moment. I do it in one of the full privacy pavilions our host has considerately provided for his guests’ carnal and other clandestine activities: imprinting his three-dimensional image to my own flesh and reprogramming my clothes to resemble his. The match does not have to be absolute: a lot can be hidden with gevulot.

Absently, I look at the ring I stole from him: zoku tech, clearly. Deciding to investigate it later, I put it in my pocket.

The real problem is his identity signature, and that’s what I need the gevulot Raymonde provided for. And I need Perhonen’s quantum computation capability as well, to approximate the quantum state his Watch uses to identify itself.

I thought being a thief was easy, the ship says, as we bounce information back and forth. This is hard work.

‘Waiting and sheer terror, as I said.’ I try to ignore the memories that scroll through my mind as the ship and the identity theft engine work on them, to keep my promise to Raymonde. There are flashes of blank faces sculpted on a wall, and a girl with a zoku jewel at her throat. There is a strange innocence about the memories, and briefly I wonder what this boy is doing chasing gogol pirates and criminals like me.

I brush them aside: it is not the detective’s past I’m here to steal, but Time. The gogol engine chimes, announcing success, talking to my hacked Watch and making the world think I’m Isidore Beautrelet. Only a few moments before his Watch renews his identity signature with the ambient gevulot, so I have no time to waste. I check my remaining equipment – the q-spider and the trigger in my mind – and decide it is time for the main event of the night.

I approach Unruh’s group – the borrowed gevulot now allows me to see them – and imitate the detective’s distracted, meandering walk. My mark is talking to a tall woman in icy white, and looks cheerfully drunk.

‘M. Beautrelet!’ he shouts when he sees me. ‘How goes the villain hunt?’

‘There are too many to choose from,’ I say. Unruh bursts out laughing, but the woman in white looks at me curiously. Better make this quick.

‘You are in a festive mood, I see,’ Unruh says. ‘Good for you! Here’s to that.’ He drains his glass.

I hand Unruh another glass from a passing Quiet waiter. As he takes it, I give the q-spider a quick instruction. It runs up my arm, leaps to his palm and vanishes into his gas-giant-coloured sleeve. Then it goes looking for his Watch.

The spider took three days to grow and another protracted argument with Mieli to play with the Sobornost body. Perhonen and I came up with the design, and it grew in the crook of my arm, a little many-legged lump, storing inside it some of the EPR states that both Mieli and I use for our superdense communication link with the ship. I smile at Unruh and guide it with my mind.

‘It’s hard not to be,’ I say, ‘when the fireworks are about to start.’

There. The spider nestles on his Watch and crawls inside it, connecting little q-dot threads to the ion traps that store Unruh’s personalised, unforgeable units of Time, quantum states that his Watch sends to the resurrection system one by one, counting down his lifetime as a human. Then it shoots a little signal up at Perhonen. One, two, three, ten, sixty seconds of Time, quantum teleported away, transformed into quantum states up in the sky, stored in Perhonen’s wings. Yes.

Unruh frowns. ‘I was saving the fireworks for my big moment tonight,’ he says.

I smile. ‘Shouldn’t every moment be a big moment?’

Unruh laughs again. ‘M. Beautrelet, I don’t know where you found your wit – at the bottom of a glass or on a pretty girl’s lips – but I’m glad you did!’

‘M. le Flambeur, I presume?’

The detective stands in front of me flanked by two of the Quiet guards, two sleek black creatures made of sheer power and ferocity. I raise my eyebrows. Faster than I expected, much faster. He deserves the bow I give him.

‘At your service.’ I let my features revert to my own. I grin at Unruh. ‘You have been a gracious host, but I’m afraid I must take my leave now.’

‘M. le Flambeur, I must ask you not to move.’

I throw my flower into the air and form the mental image of pressing a large red button.

The fireworks go off all at once. The sky is full of trails of fire, weaving double and triple spirals, stars bursting into flakes of silver and sudden thunderclaps. After a cascade of bright purple confetti, two blue rockets draw a sign of infinity. There is a smell of gunpowder.

Around me, the party stops. The Quiet guards are statues. The music dies. Unruh drops his glass, but remains upright, eyes glazed. There are a few slow collapses, but overall, almost everyone at the party remains standing, gazes fixed on something far, far away, but unseeing, as the fireworks fizzle and die above us.

Another trick from the gogol pirate handbook: an opto-genetic virus that makes brain cells hypersensitive to certain wavelengths of light. It was not hard to customise it not for the purposes of uploads, but for creating a period of inactivity. It looks like the infection from my flower spread even faster than I thought. And there are only so many fireworks manufacturers in the Moving City: bribing them with the pretence of a little innocent surprise for M. Unruh was the easy part.

I wrap myself in gevulot and make my way past the stunned, silent, thoughtless crowd. Raymonde is waiting for me at the garden gate, also wrapped in full privacy.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to stay for one more dance?’ I ask her. I close my eyes and wait for the slap. It doesn’t come. When I open my eyes, she is looking at me, face unreadable.

‘Give it back. His gevulot. Now.’

And I do, returning all the rights to the detective’s memories she gave me, purging all of him out of myself, becoming just Jean le Flambeur again.

She sighs. ‘That’s better. Thank you.’

‘I take it that your crowd will cover our tracks here?’

‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘Just go and do your part.’

‘In case it makes you feel any better,’ I say, ‘the next part involves me dying.’

We are in the public park. It is dark. Raymonde becomes the Gentleman and floats into the air. The dying fireworks reflect from her silver mask. ‘I never wanted you to die,’ she says. ‘It was always about something else.’

‘What? Revenge?’

‘Let me know when you figure it out,’ she says and is gone.

Amazingly, the party continues after the period of stolen time expires. Ten minutes have passed. The band picks up the tune, and the conversations begin again. And of course, there is only one topic.

Isidore’s temples throb. With the Quiet guards and Odette, he searches the grounds and the garden’s exomemory, over and over. But there is no sign of le Flambeur. The sense of failure and disappointment is a leaden weight in his belly. When the hour approaches midnight, he finally returns to the party.

Unruh has opened his gevulot to the public. He is the centre of attention and loving it, complimented on his bravery facing the thief. But eventually he waves his hand. ‘My friends, it is time for me to leave you,’ he says. ‘Thank you for your patience with our unplanned entertainment number.’ Laughter. ‘But at least – and thanks to the bravery of our very own M. Beautrelet – he went away empty-handed.

‘It was my intention to do this in bed between my lovely ladies here,’ he says, clutching two Serpent Street courtesans, ‘and possibly while being crushed by an elephant.’ He raises his glass to the gracile pachyderm looming behind the crowd. ‘But perhaps it is better to do it here, with friends. Time is what we make of it; relative, absolute, finite, infinite. I choose to let this moment last forever so that when I toil to clean your sewers and protect you from phoboi and carry your city on my back – I can remember what it is like to have such friends.’

‘And so, with a drink, and a kiss,’ Unruh kisses both girls – ‘or two’ – laughter – ‘I die. See you in the-’

He falls to the ground, dropping his glass. Blinking, staring at the still form of the millenniaire, Isidore looks at his Watch. It shows one minute to midnight. But how? He planned it so carefully, to the last word. But his thoughts are drowned by cheers and popping champagne bottles, all around.

As the Resurrection Men come to take the body away and the wake part of the celebrations begins, Isidore sits down with a glass of wine and begins to deduce.