‘I don’t,’ Matjek says. ‘I like being me.’
‘Even when you play war with the Green Soldier?’ I ask softly. ‘Or when you wanted to be the Silence?’
‘That’s just pretending.’
‘Well, this is the same. You just have to pretend hard enough.’
I adjust the shape of the nose a bit. I have met Barbicane before, and so I need to pitch my disguise carefully, close enough to my self-image to avoid cognitive dissonance
‘So, who are you going to be?’ Matjek asks.
I tell the vir to change my mindshell. Broader shoulders, a more military bearing, a swarthier complexion, a flashy suit and a vest with golden chains. I used to be rather pleased with Raoul. He is based on an identity I previously used on Mars.
Matjek’s eyes widen.
‘This is Raoul d’Andrezy,’ I say with a new voice. ‘An antiques dealer.’
A matchstick smell comes to me, unbidden. Thaddeus’s breath. The first glass of wine I drank with Raymonde. Damn these old dream virs. Not enough detail to have a real drink, just memories.
I shake my head. Pretend harder, Jean.
‘He looks boring,’ Matjek says. ‘Why would you want to be him?’
‘Being boring is the point. He has to look trustworthy. A bit weary. Experienced. Somebody competent. Somebody who has seen things. Somebody who is tired and just wants a comfortable life, who is ready to bend the rules a little bit to get it.’
‘That is boring. But I liked how you changed. Show me how.’
‘No. I think you have played with virs enough for a while.’ I restore my mindshell to normal and put the mirror on the table. ‘Why don’t you—’ Fatally, I pause, trying to think of something for the boy to do.
‘It’s boring here. You are boring. The fish-men are boring. I want to change, too.’
‘I told you, that’s not going to—’
‘I want to I want to I want to!’
The structure of the vir ripples. Matjek starts changing. His features flow into the first face in the mirror, a caricature me.
‘Look!’ he shouts with glee. ‘I did it all by myself!’
The pain in my temples turns into white noise. Something dark and scaly opens its claws in my chest. I raise my hand. There is a flash of fear in Matjek’s eyes. I bring my fist down onto the mirror, roaring the bloody Founder code of Sumanguru the warlord in my mind – rust and fire and blood and dead children.
The vir time stops. Matjek freezes, his normal mindshell restored. The mirror fragments float in the air, glittering and sharp and myriad, like the Highway ships.
The rage drains from me. The echoes of Sumanguru’s Code in my mind die. The look of terror on the boy’s face makes me turn away.
Almost immediately, the firmament software running the vir does something unexpected. It accesses a hidden cache and executes a complex command that I don’t entirely follow. I take a deep breath.
He has already been there.
Matjek starts moving again, faster and faster. In an instant, he is darting between the shelves and around the table faster than I can follow, a flickering grey blur.
‘Matjek, wait!’ I match our clockspeeds.
He stands in front of me, tears running down his face.
‘Don’t be angry, Prince,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry about Narnia. You went away, and I didn’t know what to do. You said I could help Mieli, too, but you are doing it all on your own.’
I conjure a silk handkerchief from my sleeve and wipe his face. ‘I know, Matjek. I should not have gotten angry. It’s not your fault. Something … something bad happened and I have been thinking about it too much.’
‘What was it?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ I smile. ‘But that was a nice trick you did, just now, with time. Can you tell me how it’s done?’
He shrugs. ‘I used to play time games a lot, on the beach, when I got bored. You always need to have a trigger like that that speeds you up if you get too slow by accident, so you don’t blink and miss the end of the world.’
Uh oh.
My plan was to sandbox the Wardrobe’s vir and slow Matjek’s clockspeed down while I was off doing the Iapetos job so that he would not even notice my absence. Clearly, that is not going to work. I could try to design a more secure vir, but I don’t have enough time, and I am starting to doubt that any construct I could come up with would even hold him.
I look at Matjek, at the thin dark hair that will go grey too early, at his snub of a nose and serious mouth, and there is an odd, warm tingle in my chest.
I need a babysitter. It would be so much easier if I could just leave a copy of myself here. Unfortunately, Joséphine made sure I’m a singleton white male now, unable to spawn off gogols of myself, and I can’t trust a partial to keep up with Matjek. The people of Sirr are compressed data, and until I complete my mission, I can’t bring them back. I don’t dare to bring in anybody from outside, either: Matjek is hot property, an early gogol of a Sobornost Founder.
That leaves—
I sigh. There are no two ways about it. I need to talk to the Aun.
Carefully, I gather the shards of the thought-mirror and put them onto the table. ‘I’ll tell you what. Here is a puzzle for you. If you manage to put the mirror back together, you get to keep it. I need to go and take care of something, but I won’t be gone long, and after I come back, I’m going to make some hot chocolate. How does that sound?’
Feigning obedience, Matjek sits back down and starts moving the glass fragments around with one forefinger.
‘Be careful, they are sharp,’ I tell him.
I can almost hear the wheels turning in his head as I walk towards the back of the shop and the many volumes of Sirr.
It is dark there, and the only light comes from the faint silver lettering on the spines of the night-blue books. Everything feels soft, dreamlike: around the edges, the vir forgoes a detailed physics simulation and exploits the brain’s ability to lie to itself. In the narrow passage between the looming shelves, I feel like an insect inside a book, pressed between porous, heavy pages.
I swallow. I don’t really understand the Aun. They were let loose in the Collapse – or long before that, by Matjek, if you believe what they say. They are pure self-loops, living memes that inhabit minds as parasites. They claim that I am one of them, their lost brother. I’m not sure I believe them. I never claimed to be a god. But the simple fact is they make my skin crawl. And the way you talk to them is by letting them become you.
I run my fingers along the books until I find the right one. I open it, and they rise from the pages, the never-human gods of Earth, serpents of light, coiling and uncoiling, illuminating the stacks around me with a fluttering will-o-the-wisp glow.
I close my eyes and let them in.
The one that comes to me is called the Chimney Princess. She speaks to me in a voice that sounds like my own inside my head.
Hello, brother.
I am not your brother.
Have you come to join us?
No.
Have you come to deliver our children to our new home?
No. Not yet. I massage my temples. Sirr. The last city on Earth, snatched from the jaws of Dragons. A child is one thing, an entire civilisation another. I promised Tawaddud that I would save them. Only promises left. I grit my teeth.
Spinning lies is what you do, brother. We hope you have not forgotten your promise.
I haven’t. You will have your new home, and so will the people of Sirr. But there is something I need to do first.
Something you need to steal.