‘Maybe it is,’ Paul says. He smiles at her, and there is genuine warmth in his eyes this time. ‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ Xuexue says. ‘I’m here every week. Come by again if you decide to stay.’
‘Thanks,’ Paul says. ‘Maybe I will.’
They sit together and look at the robot. Slowly, her smile returns. She listens to the young man’s breathing. Maybe she will break her record today.
6. THE THIEF AND PAUL SERNINE
‘Time, just a little Time, please, miss-’
‘I am going to be a Quiet for the third time, I have paid my debts, please help-’
‘I am a craftsman, a tailor, you can have my mind for a little Time, it will fetch a good price-’
Mieli is struggling in the crowd of Time beggars. Some are naked like the first one, others look just like everybody else on the Avenue, but they all share a look of hunger and desperation. Some wear masks and hoods. They are pushing at each other to get to her, a tangled ring of heaving bodies tightening around her, and some of her more autonomous defence gogols are waking up. I need to get out of here before I blow my cover.
She pushes one beggar aside, rams another with her shoulder: they go down, in a mess of limbs. She rushes past. One of the beggars on the ground grabs her leg. She falls. One of her elbows makes a painful impact with the pavement. An arm tightens around her throat. A voice hisses in her ear.
‘Give us Time or we’ll see if the Resurrection Men will bring you back, offworld bitch.’
‘Help!’ she shouts. Her vision goes black, and her temples start pounding. Her metacortex wakes up and muffles the pain, slows time down and starts waking the rest of her systems up. It would be so easy to sweep this rabble aside like so many rag dolls-
A wind rises. The pressure around her throat disappears. Someone screams, and running feet echo in the agora. She opens her eyes.
There is a man in black and silver floating in the air, perfectly polished shoes two metres above the ground, holding a cane. A living wind dances around him, a heat ripple, full of the telltale ozone smell of combat utility fog. They should not have that here, she thinks.
Hands made from heat haze hold the masked beggars on the ground – countless nanites, forming invisible structures that are the extensions of the black-clad man’s limbs. Other beggars make a run for it past the boundary of the agora and turn into gevulot blurs, disappearing into the crowd.
‘Are you all right?’ the man says, in a strange rasping voice. He comes down next to Mieli, shoes hitting the marble with a sharp tap. He is wearing a polished metal mask that covers his entire head: Mieli is fairly certain it is a q-dot bubble. He holds out a white-gloved hand. Mieli takes it and allows herself to be helped up.
A tzaddik. Great. The Sobornost database she studied during the journey had scant details on the Oubliette vigilantes. They have been active for two decades or so, and clearly have access to technology from outside Mars. Sobornost vasilevs – infiltrator agents – operating with the local gogol pirates, speculate they have something to do with the zoku colony established on the planet after the Protocol War.
‘I’m fine,’ Mieli says. ‘Just a little shaken.’
My, my, Perhonen says. Who is this? A handsome prince on a white horse?
Shut up and figure out how I avoid blowing my cover.
‘Let’s get you away from the agora before the journalists arrive,’ the tzaddik says, offering Mieli his arm. To her surprise, her legs are a little shaky, so she takes it and lets him lead her back to the shade of the cherry trees and the noise of the Persistent Avenue. There are people – mainly tourists – watching the scene, but the tzaddik gestures, and Mieli can tell that they are now private again.
‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Journalists?’
‘Yes, they tend to watch agoras very carefully. As do we. As do beggars looking for easy prey, as you found out.’ He motions towards the masked attackers on the ground with his cane.
‘What is going to happen to them?’
The tzaddik shrugs. ‘That will depend on what the Voice decides. An early or extended Quiet, probably: but that’s what was waiting for them anyway.’ There is a strange, angry note in its chorus voice. ‘That is the price we pay for the other good things here, I’m afraid.’ Then he takes off his hat and bows. ‘But my apologies. The Gentleman – which is the nom de guerre I have been given – at your service. I hope your day has not been completely ruined.’
He is flirting with you, Perhonen says. Oh my god. He so is.
Of course he isn’t. He has no face. Mieli feels a tickle that tells her the tzaddik is scanning her. Nothing that will penetrate the camouflage layers beneath her gevulot, but serves as another reminder that the natives have more than just bows and arrows.
Neither do I, and that has never stopped me.
Never mind. What do I do? I can’t tap into the thief’s feed with him scanning me.
He’s a do-gooder. Ask him for help. Stick to your cover, silly girl. Just try being nice for a change.
Mieli tries to smile, trying to think what her cover identity – a tourist from a mixed asteroid belt habitat – would say. ‘You are a policeman, yes? A sysadmin?’
‘Something like that.’
‘I lost my friend when… they came. I don’t know where he is.’ Perhaps the ship is right: the thief is not the only one who can do a little social engineering.
‘Ah, I see. And you don’t know how to use co-memories to send him a message? You did not share gevulot to know where you are? Of course you didn’t. It is really terrible: the customs Quiet are very strict about leaving all your native tech behind, but never really tell you how to use ours.’
‘We just wanted to see the sights,’ Mieli says. ‘The Olympus Palace, maybe go on a phoboi hunt.’
‘Here is what we can do,’ the Gentleman says. ‘Let’s have a look at the agora memory – like this.’ The sensation is sudden, like finally finding the word that was at the tip of your tongue. Mieli remembers seeing the agora from high up, in incredible detail, knowing that she can recall every face in the crowd. She has a clear memory of the thief running across the agora.
‘Oh,’ the Gentleman says. There is a sudden gevulot request from him, asking her to forget his reaction. She accepts: the metacortex will store it anyway. She bookmarks it for later perusal. Curious.
‘What I can do is bend the rules a little to help you find him. We tzaddiks have some… special resources.’ The tzaddik unscrews the top of his cane. A tiny sphere of utility fog bops out, like a soap bubble. It hovers in the air next to Mieli, and starts glowing. ‘That should do it: just follow the firefly, and it will take you to him.’
‘Thank you.’
‘My pleasure. Just stay out of trouble.’ The tzaddik tips its hat again, is surrounded by heat haze, and rises up to the air.
See? That wasn’t so hard, was it? says Perhonen.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I don’t know who you are talking about.’ I block the gardener’s gevulot request, or at least I think I do. The gevulot interface they give to visitors is not really meant to deal with all the subtleties of daily Oubliette interactions, but just to provide a few rough settings ranging from full sharing to perfect privacy. I have a vague recollection of an actual privacy sense: compared to it, this is like having a monochrome vision.
‘Your body designers must like the same movie star,’ the gardener says. ‘You look just like a guy who used to come here with his girlfriend. A pretty girl, too.’