The Quantum Magician

by Derek Künsken

  It might still be worse, though. It was always probably worse.

  Hemoglobins were remarkably sensitive to partial pressures because they flexed from one shape to another as they functioned: fold to grab the oxygen, unfold to let the oxygen go. It was real possible that the Venturi decompression on his way in had permanently damaged a lot of his hemoglobin. If that had happened, the world was royally ass-boning him. It wouldn’t matter how much oxygen was in the ocean. Anemia would suffocate him just fine.

  He swam harder. If he was going to die, the world was going to drink his piss before he was done. The joint pain became blinding. He gasped so hard for breath that his vision became blotchy with dark spots.

  He covered the four kilometers and found the narrow channel again and its tease of a gentle current. He set the handfuls of explosive beside the hole. He pulled out a small knife from his pouch and worked at the cable he’d used to carry the bales. It was a fine, flexible steel-reinforced carbon cable threaded through a sonar-absorbing foam. He stripped away about a meter of foam from each end.

  He knew shit about explosives except that the two metal prongs on the detonators made an electrical current between them. And that Marie had said not to make any electricity around her precious putty. That really sounded like all he needed to know, didn’t it?

  He shaped the explosive into a long thick cock shape, wrapped several loops of the naked cable around it and then lowered it into the gentle current, down, down, down, listening at the echoes of turbulence it produced. Sound beat sight at most depths of the ocean. As the channel narrowed and the explosive shuddered in the current, the turbulence became louder and more irritated. He listened for maximum irritation and then edged away from the hole.

  He electrified the carbon nanotubules running from his electroplaques to his fingertips, which held the metal core of the cable. The world exploded.

  Boom. Shockwave. Fracture snapping.

  Daggers of ice blew from the top of the channel like nails shot from a medieval cannon.

  Then gently colliding touches of floating ice bumped their way back down, tinkling like tiny little knife fights. His ears rang. His hands were shaking. Okay. That was some pretty explosive shit for only a few handfuls. He respected Marie a tiny bit more now. A very tiny bit.

  He leaned over the hole. The fragments of ice touched and collided, making easy-to-hear echoes all the way down. The channel was a lot wider, but sharp as knives in some spots. He slipped into the channel and even without flexing, the slow current drew him down. The chips and shards of ice touched like a sharp, gentle rain. He closed his eyes and moved through it.

  Fuck you, world.

  Chapter Fifty

  "SAPRISTI!” MARIE SWORE. “Stills! Where have you been? Napping? We’re within an ace of swimming in bunches of tiny little hotel police officers here.”

  Stills had swum through the broken window.

  “I dropped off the packages,” Stills said in his electronically-rendered voice. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  He swam into the open door of the airlock, and pulled it shut behind him. He sealed it with slow twisting motions.

  “Are you sick, Stills?”

  “What do you care, Phocas?”

  “If you’re sick, I’ll just leave you here. I’m faster without tons of water and a steel chamber.”

  “Mange la marde,” he replied, sealing the door and turning on the oxygen. “Get us moving.”

  “Seriously, are you hurt? I’d totally leave you here. I need to budget my escape time.”

  “Are you really nuts? Move us! I got decompressed while planting your explosives. I need oxygen. Don’t know how much internal damage I got.”

  “That doesn’t sound like it will speed up my getaway,” she said, cycling the airlock.

  “You could have left already then, instead of sitting here, picking your ass and eating canapés in a five-star hotel like an air-sucking Congregate princess.”

  “I wasn’t eating canapés.”

  “I nearly got myself killed.”

  “Oh, shut up, you big baby. You whine more than Saint Matthew.”

  “I am seriously going to kill you, Phocas.”

  The drain cycle finished and Marie spun the lock wheel and heaved the door open. “Just once, I’d like to meet a guy who didn’t want to kill me on the first date.”

  “You spotting a pattern?”

  “Yeah. Câlice, you’re heavy,” she grunted, hauling his chamber out of the airlock. “Thought of a diet?”

  “Just keep pulling, mouth. What the hell is on the couch?”

  She glanced over at the bound puppets, who stared at her wide-eyed as she hauled tons of steel and water across the room with her bare hands. “I got you a six-pack of Puppets.”

  “I’m not into snack food. Who knows what they put in those things anyway?”

  “Get into the elevator,” she said, shoving his chamber in and wiping at her sweaty forehead. “This always happens on an op. My hair gets messed up and I ruin my shoes.”

  “Life is tough all over,” Stills said.

  “Yup.” She waved at the six Puppets on the couch. “Thanks for hosting, guys! You’ve been a blast!”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  ROSALIE JOHNS-10 THE Puppet seminarian pushed open the doorway to the Bishop’s office. The room was richly appointed in episcopal green. Religious paintings of the Cage, the Whip, the Toy Box and the Cream Puff panelled the walls. A large, Numen-sized desk and chair were centered at the opposite side of the room. She curtseyed deeply to the empty desk.

  Bishop Grassie-6 sat at a Puppet-sized secretary’s desk against the right wall, opposite a blond-bearded Puppet. Rosalie approached timidly and curtseyed again at the Bishop’s desk.

  “Join us, novice,” the bishop said.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” she said nervously, sitting.

  “I have some questions. So does Gates-15. He is an ascetic.”

  Rosalie felt her eyebrows creep up. She’d never met an ascetic—one of the church’s elite, capable of living for months or years in the absence of divinity.

  “Have I done something wrong, Your Grace?” she asked quietly.

  “Tell us about your senior thesis at the seminary,” Grassie-6 said.

  The question was so unexpected that she faltered. “I... I chose to study the similarities of religious experience and identity between the Puppets and the Homo quantus,” she said. “Should I not have, Your Grace?”

  “How did you come to have this odd thesis topic, novice?” Grassie-6 asked. He rubbed a hand along his jaw, and the sleeve of his robe fell, revealing one of a pair of chainless shackles on his wrist, something she would wear when she was ordained. If she was ordained.

  “I’d been speaking with a Homo quantus,” she said. “One who lives in Bob Town.”

  “How did you come to meet him?” the ascetic asked. His stare was unnerving. Rosalie tried to imagine surviving for years in the absence, but it was too awful to contemplate.

  “He contacted me, sir. He’d been reading the posts I did for my undergraduate work. He does small-time scams on visiting importers. He sometimes hires me to play a part. We’ve been tithing properly. Did he con someone he shouldn’t have?” she asked.

  “That’s an understatement,” Grassie-6 said.

  “He’s at the center of a plan to invade the Theocracy,” the ascetic said.

  Her mouth dropped open. She couldn’t imagine Belisarius threatening anyone. She’d never even seen him with a weapon.

  “We need to know about him, novice,” Bishop Grassie-6 said. “You’ve spoken to him. What did you discuss?”

  “I... I can’t believe he’d do something like this. He’s charming. Non-violent. He likes to talk about theology.”

  “We found a half-ton of explosives in Blackmore Bay,” the ascetic said. “We know Arjona had his people planting another three packages of explosives, but we’re not ruling out the idea that there are actually more. We’re r
acing to find the other three in time.”

  Rosalie’s arms felt spongy, limp.

  “And there is a very unstable hole at the bottom of the Grand Creston Hotel,” Grassie-6 said. “We’ve evacuated the lowest forty levels in case we can’t fix it in time.”

  Rosalie put her hands to her lips.

  “What else did you discuss, novice?” the ascetic asked.

  “I... I don’t know. Small scams. Money transfers. Real estate schemes. Fixed fights. But he always seemed more interested in the way Puppets experience presence and absence, and what it’s like to manage two selves.”

  “How do you explain that, novice?” the bishop demanded. “On one hand you have a con man ready to coordinate violence upon Port Stubbs, and on the other, a man asking you how you feel about presence and absence.”

  “I don’t know, Your Grace. Scams just seem to be a job to him. Inside, he seems... troubled. He’s torn between three identities: his natural self, what he is within a kind of savantism, and what he is as a being of pure intellect. He doesn’t know what he’s seeking. He knows his life has no meaning.”

  “And what else?” Grassie-6 asked. “What did he get from you?”

  She held up her hands helplessly. “I helped him with some scams. Other than that, nothing, Your Grace. Nothing in the Puppet experience can help the Homo quantus. We’re already connected to divinity. We have meaning, but not the kind that can be shared.”

  The ascetic shook his head. “There’s more to it than that,” he said to the bishop. “Arjona has a face for each person he meets. Johns-10 has seen just one. Arjona is extremely dangerous, but we can use him to deliver the Union fleet straight to us.”

  The room, the whole world, dizzied around Rosalie, as if she’d smoked basuco. She couldn’t reconcile such awful acts with the Belisarius she knew. But she couldn’t ignore that a bishop and an ascetic were involved. She didn’t know Belisarius at all.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  GATES-15 CAME IN from a walk to the Free City that evening. He was animated and flushed, and came confidingly close. “They’re going to move you straight to the Axis!” he whispered. “They’re not taking you to the Forbidden City at all.”

  William grabbed Gates-15 by the upper arms and shook him. “Did you get the virus into any other systems? You need to do your job!”

  “They won’t let me near the Forbidden City,” Gates-15 said apologetically. “I might be able to drop it again into the distal networks around here.”

  “These networks don’t control the defensive systems around the Free City.”

  Gates-15 licked his lips. “They’re bringing me, right? We’re going to be at the Axis port. That’s a lot closer to the Forbidden City than where we are now. I could get away for a bit and maybe upload it into the port network. It’s not the defensive side, but it may cause some confusion.”

  William gripped Gates-15 by the shirt and pulled him close. “We’re all riding on whether you can get close enough to get Saint Matthew’s virus into the right system. You’re the inside man. You can feel what it’s like to be a real, healthy Puppet right now. If the Expeditionary Force doesn’t get through, you go back to being an exile in about six weeks. So find a way.”

  Sweat sheened Gates-15’s face. He was here, in front of William, but a veil of dreaminess edged at his eyes. He swallowed.

  “I won’t fail,” he croaked. “I want this.” Gates-15 smacked his lips several times. “I love you.”

  William shoved the Puppet away. Gates-15 stumbled back onto the floor in awe.

  The door opened and the tiny, mitred bishop entered. Two priests accompanied him, followed by Doctor Teller-5. The bishop smiled, in an affectation of kindness. There was no way to hide the argument between William and Gates-15.

  “You didn’t injure yourself again?” Grassie-6 asked.

  “No, I pushed him,” William said.

  “Good,” Grassie-6 said, rubbing his hands briskly. “You’ve heard the good news?”

  William nodded guardedly. “When can we go?”

  “We’re going right now.”

  “Wonderful,” William said. He didn’t trust Grassie-6’s smile. “I’ll wash and then we can go?”

  “No need to wash.”

  “Are we in a rush?”

  “No, but washing would be counter-productive. Take off your clothes, please.”

  “Am I putting my pressure suit back on?”

  Grassie-6 sighed gently. “The Numen travel unclothed. This way all Puppets know that a Numen passes among them, and they may worship.”

  “I’m not going to walk around naked,” William said.

  “I’m not making a request.”

  “Neither am I.”

  Teller-5 sucked in her breath. Gates-15 sighed dreamily, open-mouthed.

  “Are we at an impasse?” William asked.

  “Not at all,” the bishop said kindly. “You’ll do as you’re told, or we will make you.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. For my last days, am I going to be in protective custody like the other Numen, or do I give orders? What do you want?”

  The tiny bishop held a shocker in his hand. “Clothes off, please.”

  The shocker was unwavering in the graceful hand. Slowly, William unlaced his shirt and pulled it over his head. Then, his pants and underwear. He stood before them, defiant, sweaty and flabby. He coughed painfully.

  Except for the bishop, they stared in awe.

  The bishop waved his hand at those behind him, a bit giddily. One ran out the open door. Grunting and heaving sounded in the hallway. Eight puppets in priestly tunics of forest green with silver-threaded seams came into sight, struggling under the weight of two long poles supporting a small cage.

  On their wrists and ankles and around their necks, they wore heavy shackles of steel unattached to chains, the symbols of their station. They bumped into the doorway. One barked the skin of her knuckles. They panted as they stopped, and in a disorganized wobble, set down the cage. They stayed kneeling, staring up at William’s nakedness. The bishop had a look of anticipation on his face. He beamed at William and opened the side of the cage.

  William made no move.

  “Get in,” Grassie-6 urged him.

  “Why would I get into a cage?” demanded William.

  “The Cage has deep religious meaning to the Puppets. It’s sacred, as much as the Toy Box, or the Cream Puff.”

  “I’m not getting into a cage.”

  One of the little Puppet priests shivered.

  Grassie-6 waved his shocker.

  “Fuck off,” William said.

  Then, he was in electrical seizure on the floor, screaming in agony, vision blotchy-black. Puppet hands lifted him, soft fingers against fired nerves. They accidentally knocked his head against the frame of the doorway to the cage as they pushed and twisted his neck. They pulled him back and pushed again and hit his shoulder against the metal. He cried out and kicked back at one of the Puppets.

  “I don’t fit, you idiots! It’s too small!”

  “You’ll fit if you put your head between your knees!” Grassie-6’s voice called over the confusion. “Hunch your back.”

  The floor of the cage wasn’t flat. Narrow bars of metal dug into his shins as he pulled his legs in. It was so small that even kneeling, he had to bend his head, nearly between his knees. He tried angling corner to corner, but his shoulders wouldn’t fit. Two Puppets in their eagerness slammed the door of the cage on his hand and he cried out. The bars beneath dug into his feet and shins. The cage door shoved closed.

  “Perfect!” Grassie-6 declared.

  Little hands squeezed between the bars for quick feels and touches. His legs. His privates. His arms. William yanked one of the little bastards into the bars hard and all of a sudden, he was in electrical agony again, spasming so much that he pissed on his legs and the floor.

  His nerves burned, but this time he wasn’t alone. Five or six of the Puppets with their hands in the cage shrie
ked with him and fell to the floor. William wept in pain. He opened his eyes to the sight of Grassie-6 berating the priests. All eight knelt, dipping their fingers into William’s piss and the dashing drops onto their faces in a kind of ecstasy. The bishop kicked them in the ribs until they stood and regained their composure.

  “You little fuckers,” William said. “Let me out.”

  The little priests sucked in their breaths.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  The heavy shackles on Grassie-6’s ankles rattled as he stepped into the puddle beside William.

  “You sound like the first Fallen Numen,” Grassie-6 said softly.

  “Is this how you protect me? You shock me? You hit me? It’s too small in here. It hurts! Let me out!” William tried to shake the cage.

  “Like the first Fallen Numen,” breathed Grassie-6 in wonder.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  THE SOUND OF ecstatic shrieking rose and died in waves. The eight Puppet bearers carried his cage like a palanquin on a raised walkway about three meters above street level. The crowds of Puppets dozens of meters ahead screamed, completely beside themselves. The priests, whom William had thought largely bereft of self-control, were sedate in comparison, carrying him forward in clumsy stateliness beneath a line of infrared heaters that stretched as far as he could twist his neck to see.

  His shins and feet and knees pressed painfully against the bars beneath him. The muscles in his back had gone numb and his head still ached from when Grassie-6 had shocked him. William dripped sweat under the heat lamps. Fans above him blew hot air and his scent onto the hysterical crowd below. As they smelled him, their screams choked off and they slipped into a hazy ecstasy. It was like someone was dragging a blanket of sober, mouth-breathing silence over the screaming streets of the Free City. The clumsy Puppet feet plodded onward, thrusting him over and over into the howl of the crowds, and he wept.