Matthew said.
this job will need criminals, Homo quantus,
“I would like to hire you.”
the People of the Mongrel, the Puppets, and a
“I can’t do any jobs, Mister Arjona. Stealing
people who have been lost in the wilderness
isn’t right.”
for years.”
“I’ve been thinking about you and your role
Saint Matthew’s heavy painted brows
as an apostle.”
creased, and the fleshy lips pressed tight.
“Really?” The great holographic head leaned
“Nothing will be the same after this job,”
over him, brush strokes visible as different
Belisarius said. “I need some minor miracles,
emotions moved across it. Excitement. Expec-
and you’ll have a fateful role.”
tation. Caution. Fear.
“Your plans always involve something crim-
“The original apostles wouldn’t have gotten
inal.”
anything done if they’d stayed at home either,
“What hypocrisy!” Belisarius said.
Saint Matthew. No one needs you here. No
“What?”
one here is facing a trial requiring faith.”
“You’re not the reincarnation of anyone.”
40
DEREK KÜNSKEN
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
“I’m Saint Matthew!”
ey did not make class and status in the Con-
“Would a real Saint Matthew be sitting in a
gregate. One could not buy a way into being
safe, empty church, or would he be out there,
pur laine or de souche, those descriptors re-carrying the gospel to the world? To the lep-
served for the oldest of Venusian bloodlines.
ers. To the tax collectors. To the prostitutes.
Yet money never hurt. Winning and losing
I’m offering you a chance to see the Puppets,
money was a sport, and the Lanoix was a
face to . . . face. And the Tribe of the Mongrel.
good arena.
What would you say to them if you had the
Belisarius was body-scanned at the high-
chance? They suffer. If nothing else, you will
ceilinged reception area on a red carpet lead-
know the world and what its people face right
ing to the concourses. The casino would have
now.”
him on file from times he’d been a bit more of
“I have to reflect on this.”
a regular. No doubt the X-rays had spotted his
“Take all the time you need,” Belisarius said,
electroplaques again, and perhaps even some
but he didn’t move. In pure computational
of the nanocarbon f ilaments networking his
terms, Saint Matthew thought even faster than
body. The six networked Fortuna AIs knew he
Belisarius. After 8.61 seconds, an eternity to
was Homo quantus, and might assign a bit of
an AI as fast as Saint Matthew, the painted
extra surveillance, but not much more.
head frowned.
Belisarius checked his coat, brushed at the
“I need a sign of good faith from you.”
dark wool of his evening suit, and was offered
“What?” Belisarius asked.
a man, woman, or intersex companion to es-
“I want you to be baptized.”
cort him around the casino. He chose an at-
“Would that make me the first human bap-
tractive woman in a blue evening gown. They
tized?”
linked arms and stepped into the f irst con-
“Not counting religious extremists, the first
course.
in about three centuries, yes.”
“Bel!” she whispered in français 8.1. “It’s
“And you’ll come with me, then?”
been so long! You’ve grown up.”
“If only to care for your soul.”
“You flatter, Madelaine.”
“What form does this caring take?” Belisar-
“Where have you been?”
ius asked.
“Here and there,” he said. “I’m acquiring
“I’ll provide you with moral and spiritual
Puppet art in the Free City now.”
guidance,” Saint Matthew said.
“Really? What’s it like?”
“That sounds pointless, as I don’t have a
“As disturbing as you’d expect.”
soul. I’m simply trying to help you achieve
She batted his arm playfully. “You should
your goals.”
have come here more often, had a little fun.”
The holographic painted head tilted down-
“Sadly, I’m out of practice, and I’m on busi-
ward. “You have a soul. I’ve been watching
ness.”
you for years. Your problem is that your soul is
She rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t sound like the
torn in two.”
old Bel I knew. I still remember that fight you
“I need your help for this job,” Belisarius
and William got into in the back concourse
said. “If you think it will help, I’ll be . . . bap-
bar! I can’t believe you tried to—”
tized.”
“That’s old news,” he said quickly. “I just
A smile cracked wide the paint marks on
buy and sell art now.”
the big holographic face.
She slowed, offered him a spot at the
roulette wheel. He shook his head. They
Chapter Fourteen
strolled, arm in arm. She pulled two glasses of
Saguenay may only have been a provincial
Scotch from a passing waiter—a real, human
capital, but it had high expectations. The
waiter. The Lanoix had expectations.
Lanoix Casino at Saguenay Station was
“Art sounds so boring,” she mused.
brighter and louder than Belisarius remem-
“I’ve always been boring, Mado. Memories
bered, bubbling with lights and life. Not hav-
make everything seem better than they were.”
ing access to old Congregate money, it made
“Ha! They still call you the magician in
new money f low well enough through com-
some of the clubs, when they get to telling tall
peting shipyards and their supply chains. Mon-
tales.”
THE QUANTUM MAGICIAN, PART I
41
ANALOG
“All the tales are tall, Mado.”
high-ceilinged rooms. The poker wing.
She laughed. “What kind of business you
Belisarius surveyed the sea of tables hosting
on?”
f ive-card and seven-card stud, draw games,
“I’m looking for a doctor by the name Anto-
and more exotic ones. Each of the three cham-
nio Del Casal.”
bers contained sixty tables. The scattered,
Madelaine’s smile did not shift as she sur-
terse speech revived longings. He’d outplayed
veyed the room, but tiny glints in her eye
a lot of people in this casino.
meant she was accessing the guest list in
Casino games hadn’t changed much since
corneal displays.
the late nineteenth century. Technology had
“A geneticist? What do you want? Trying to
transfor
med many people, but it had done
get some augments, or take some out?”
nothing to the cards except wrap them in
“He may know someone who wants to buy
counter-measures to protect the purity of the
some art.”
games. The Lanoix probably had more Faraday
“You came all the way out to Saguenay for
cages built into its walls than an Anglo-Spanish
that?”
Bank. Low white noise generators worked in
“You’d be surprised how many people are
the ceilings, the walls, even the floors. EM in-
looking for Puppet art.”
terference engines worked the non-visual por-
Now she looked into his eyes. She had
tions of the spectrum, especially thermal and
beautiful eyes, old Northern European blue,
UV. Much like the Puppet shipping business
contrasting with skin almost as dark as his. But
across their wormhole, casinos lived and died
faint, doubtful light glinted in them as she ac-
on their perceived integrity.
cessed information on Puppet art from the
“He’s in the third chamber,” Madelaine said.
net. She frowned. “Ewww.” Then the frown
The highest stakes area.
deepened. “Tabarnak!” she swore. “What’s
“This is where you’ll have to let me go,”
wrong with them? Other than the obvious, I
Belisarius said. She gave him a disappointed
mean.”
look. “I want to be able to observe him for a
“Do they need more than the obvious?”
bit before I talk business.”
“I guess not.” Madelaine shivered and the
Her shoulders drooped. He slipped her a
light in her eyes was gone. “Ick. Time isn’t go-
large tip and his glass.
ing to improve that memory.”
“Let me know if you need anything else,”
She strolled him down the middle of the
she smiled, not entirely innocently. “I like
f irst concourse, past roulette tables, craps
how you’ve grown up, Bel.”
games, blackjack dealers, and baccarat tables,
“I promise.”
to the stairs. The thinnest of vines wrapped
She laughed at his lie. He passed through
up a narrow, smooth-barked tree trunk. Trans-
the mid-stakes chamber and into the high-
parent gossamer leaves sprouted from it at reg-
stakes area.
ular intervals. These stairs looked so fragile
Antonio Del Casal sat at a f ive-card draw
that he expected them to bow under her
table, watching a hand play out. Like Belisar-
weight, but Madelaine led him up the leaves.
ius, Del Casal traced his descent many genera-
They fluoresced as she passed.
tions back to Colombian roots. But where
His brain ripped apart the engineering in
Afro-Caribbean and indigenous blood had cir-
the stairs as he followed her: plant cells engi-
culated in Belisarius’ ancestry for centuries,
neered to grow carbon nanof ilament, proba-
Del Casal possessed colonial paleness, with
bly reinforcing the xylem and phloem to
only black eyes and hair hinting at deft mesti-
steely hardness. And likely colonized intracel-
zo additions.
lularly by bioluminescent bacteria that glowed
Belisarius moved to a set of chairs at the
under pressure. Lovely.
edge of the room, looking down at the games.
“Del Casal is in the poker room off the mez-
Cards possessed a kind of purity. The appar-
zanine,” she said.
ent evenness of the probability was Platonical-
A shallow stream ran along the mezzanine,
ly untouchable. Politics, violence, foolishness,
babbling low over crystal. Footsteps of quartz
poverty, and wealth meant nothing to proba-
and glass stood above the surface, and they
bility. That was the Homo quantus in him.
skipped across to a set of interconnected,
Gambling was like coming home.
42
DEREK KÜNSKEN
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
And cards possessed a kind of stability
“Arjona,” he said. “You weren’t much more
through time. By the sixteenth century, some-
than a boy when I last saw you in the casinos,
thing like modern cards were already circulat-
and I don’t think we’ve ever spoken.”
ing in Europe, and their final form, with four
“That’s true.” Belisarius took a drink from a
suits of thirteen cards, had fallen into place by
waiter and moved closer.
the nineteenth century. Then, like lizards and
“You’re Homo quantus,” Del Casal said, one
sharks and snakes, they ceased to change, not
eyebrow rising curiously, “although not a very
because of their charm, but because mimetic
good one if you’re out here, with the rest of
selection had perfectly adapted them to a so-
us.”
ciological niche. It comforted him to be part
Belisarius toasted the doctor. “ Two things
of that stability, if only for what it told him
the quantum fugue doesn’t have are Scotch
about consciousness.
and women.”
As intelligence was an emergent property of
Del Casal smiled and raised his own drink.
life, so games of controlled chance were an
“Might the fugue help with cards?” he asked.
emergent property of intelligence. Intellect
“Quantum perceptions, in their sum, give
was an adaptive evolutionary structure, allow-
counter-intuitive results, which is why you
ing humanity not only to sense the world in
don’t see investors breaking down the gates of
space, but to predict future events through
the Garret to throw money at us.”
time. Games of chance tested that predictive
“So I wonder why you’re here talking to
machine—so much so that games of con-
me?” Del Casal said slowly. “Ten years ago,
trolled chance discriminated consciousness
you were partners with William Gander.”
from unconsciousness far better than Turing.
“You have good sources.”
Belisarius had never trusted the Turing test.
“It pays to subscribe to the right informa-
It depended on emulating consciousness
tion-scraping services.”
enough to deceive a conscious being. But con-
“I haven’t worked with Gander in a while.”
scious beings were very deceivable, so Turing
“He’s in jail now,” Del Casal said. “I guess he
skewed to false positives. Belisarius had played
conned the wrong person.”
against computers and even AIs like Saint
“I deal in outsider art now.”
Matthew. Sooner or later, a good player would
“Yes,” Del Casal said, “although I doubt
detect the rules laid down by the program-
you’re here to sell me art.”
mers, and Belisarius was a very good playe
r.
“I’m an admirer of your work. I have a pro-
Changing styles at random, even randomizing
ject that could use your skills, and I’m paying
the threshold values used to make decisions,
far more than market rates.”
all just masked the rules at the bottom, and
“There are many good geneticists,” Del
only for a time. Playing against any computer,
Casal said.
and by extension, against even a Homo quan-
“Not on this work.”
tus in the fugue , was playing against nothing Del Casal’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe we
but a set of decipherable algorithms.
should retire to someplace quieter,” he said. “I
Del Casal rose and moved to a table on the
keep an apartment in the casino.”
bar overlooking the main concourse. Belisar-
Belisarius followed Del Casal out of the con-
ius followed. A discordance of roulette wheel
courses, past the restaurants, and over a
ticking, bet making, dealer calls, and cheers
bridged stream. Water lilies and f ish glinted
and groans travelled up to the bar, mixing in
with bioluminescence in an ostentatious dis-
the wash of white noise.
play of wealth. Belisarius’ brain sniffed at pat-
“Doctor, I’ve been hoping to speak with
terns. The bioluminescent f lashes weren’t
you,” Belisarius said in Anglo-Spanish.
responding to mechanical disturbance. The
Del Casal surveyed Belisarius. Augments
plants and f ish f luoresced in cascades of dif-
surely worked behind Del Casal’s eyes, with-
ferent colors. The patterns were beautiful, but
out the characteristic glinting of light; Del
also full of information. Simple signal trans-
Casal would have the most expensive ones,
duction in an ecosystem, hidden in what any
feeding directly to his visual cortex, skipping
other tourist would see as a lightshow. Surely
the retinal middleman. His eyes narrowed
Del Casal’s work. What was the signal?
slightly.
They reached a garden of transparent and
THE QUANTUM MAGICIAN, PART I
43
ANALOG
mercurially shining plants that climbed a slop-
“What’s the trigger?”
ing hill of sintered regolith. Another stairwell
Del Casal tapped a f inger to his head. “My
of the rigid-leaved plants led to a balcony.
own thoughts transmit a radio signal through
“Your work?” Belisarius asked.
neural augments. The base of the bulbs con-
“The Lanoix is making its mark as one of the
tain radio antennae, grown in fractal shape to
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