The Quantum Magician (The Quantum Evolution, #1)

by Derek Künsken

What kind of people jumped between ships? He didn’t know of any service that required this maneuver. He doubted they were out to impress him. They didn’t respect him enough for that.

“The flash will take money,” he said. “I need to buy ships and real estate. I’m going to need to bribe officials, and I’m going to have to advance some hefty retainers to some of the best people in the business. We’re going to need an inside man, a demolitions expert, a navigator, an unparalleled electronics wizard, a geneticist, probably an exotic deep diver, and an experienced con man.”

Visitors could buy different levels of access to the prison via a transparent list of escalating fees, which in the Congregate would have been called bribes. Some nations just did prisons better than others.

One could not buy a way into being pur laine or de souche, those descriptors reserved for the oldest of Venusian bloodlines. Yet money never hurt. Winning and losing money was a sport, and the Lanoix was a good arena.

“Play along,” he whispered. “This is going to be delicate.” “I’m always delicate,” she said, kicking a piece of flaming drone down the hallway.

“Happy for help,” Marie said, looking at them, wriggling her fingers. “This’ll be a three- or four-finger job.” Gates-15 frowned at her. “What’s a three-finger job?” “It’s how many fingers get blown off before I get it right. It’s way easier if we spread that around. Many hands make light the work,” she said cheerily.

“I still don’t get why a Homo quantus would be doing this,” Gates-15 said. “You don’t care about money or politics.” “You’ve been misinformed,” Bel said. “I love money.”

Against a wall was a bloated, disfigured hyperbaric chamber that had been new yesterday. “How many of those are you going to go through?” Belisarius asked. “One?” she said hopefully, kneading a piece of putty, testing its consistency. Her comment sounded a bit insincere. Nearby lay two other hyperbaric chambers with exploded sides. They had been new two days ago. That had apparently been a productive day.

“Things seem to be going well here,” Belisarius said. “Yes. The batches of autonomous robots are at generation six, and are evolving quite nicely.” “You didn’t want to design them directly? This is going to take longer.” “I’m a craftsman, Mister Arjona, not a hack. Iterative design by the mutation of replicating units is better. Emerging complexity and self-assembly are too useful not to exploit. And it’s the only way to see if I could evolve robotic species with souls.” “What?” “I admit, it’s a long shot, but while I’m evolving autonomous robots for one reason, why not test whether I can give them souls too?”

“Vincent,” Belisarius said, “Marie just admitted that even she wouldn’t carry explosives around like that, and she’s mostly crazy. Can you let go of the rope and swim away?”

Casal tamped down his momentary hesitation in the face of the Scarecrow. Flexible steel cloth formed its lumpy shirt. Shapeless pants were tied at waist and ankle. Carbon fibre gloves and shoes emerged from thickets of raw nanotubule wiring. Its head was a sack of carbon cloth with painted features, tied at the neck. Small whirring sounds, focusing camera lenses, microphones, speakers, or weapons, moved the lumpy suit, like mice in a bag, inviting an observer to worry about what lay beneath in a wholly illogical and visceral way.

“You know what I’m getting tired of?” “Why the fuck would I care what you’re tired of?” “I’m glad you asked.