‘Well, it’s harder to compute, for sure. The real extrapolated volition thing is absurdly difficult, PSPACE-hard or something, so usually we take shortcuts, make approximations. Maybe you don’t want to be here, but a future self of yours does.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Mieli says.
Zinda smiles reassuringly. ‘Look, I’ve been through this many times. It’s completely normal to feel confused at this point. Why don’t you try it out for a while? We are not Sobornost – who you obviously have spent some time with. We don’t take away your freedom. We just give you a quantum self, to make you larger than you are now. I think you will find it very easy.’ She pours herself and Mieli some more tea. ‘I mean, we did study you at some length while you were in the Realm. Your body and mind both have pretty clear signatures of zoku design. A Jovian aegon-family zoku if I had to guess. They used to trade with Oortians – you know, before the Spike. I don’t mean to pry, but is it really such a surprise for you?’
Mieli sits back down, slowly.
‘Why would they do that?’ she whispers.
‘Many reasons. We do weave everybody into the zoku’s volition. Children always have a purpose. Making them is kind of a game, too. Perhaps your parents wanted to give you a different life, outside their zoku’s volition cone. We could try to find them, if you want. Although if they were based on Jupiter, that could be … difficult.’
Sydän used to joke about it, how Mieli was like the character from a book some ancestor gave her, a queen of presapient monkeys. Mieli only ever knew that she was a tithe child, given to Oortians to raise, a part of a bargain that gave her koto their Little Sun. That’s why she had spent her early years in Grandmother Brihane’s house, until she was big enough to live with the rest of the koto. No one except Sydän ever talked about it, and Karhu could not care less. But it was why she had always tried harder than anybody else. It was why she had practised the väki songs until her voice was hoarse, why she did a Great Work younger than anyone else, why she brought an ancestor spirit back from alinen.
I need to find Perhonen. Mieli shakes her head. She ramps up the readiness level of her combat systems. Her senses become painfully sharp: it is a good distraction from Zinda’s words. It could be a trap. The thief taught her what it is like to be manipulated. Everything this zoku creature is saying could be designed to extract information from her. She remembers the climb with the ronin-Zinda, how easy it was to trust her with her life. Even now, it is hard not to trust her. But of course, that is exactly what they want.
She looks at Zinda. ‘I have killed your kind, you know,’ she says. ‘In the Protocol War. Hundreds, maybe more. I took out Metis with a strangelet bomb. Are you sure you want me here, living among you?’
‘Oh, we are not that easy to kill. I’ve died a few times. It’s a pain: after you respawn, you have to go back to your jewels and artefacts as a ghost. Most people keep some of them in the zoku bank, just in case. You do get to see things you don’t normally see. It’s kind of like a sub-game: the Reaper Zoku want to redesign it, but they are not getting much traction. Personally, I think you could introduce a narrative element to it, played across a space of centuries. Every time you die you advance the storyline a little bit. Would that not be cool? But the aegon and alea family zokus don’t listen to Narrativists like me—’ She shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry, I’m babbling. What I meant to say is that it’s not a big deal, some people might carry a grudge but any zoku you join never will. And if you were such a big fish in the Protocol War, you probably have a fan zoku somewhere, you know!’
Zinda taps at the table. ‘Listen. We need to get you more entangled. You can’t do much here if you don’t even have a Supra City jewel, even before you think about a primary zoku. The Rainbow Table one you have won’t get you very far. Here.’ She holds out a small turquoise jewel in a golden leaflike casing. ‘You’ll find it easier to get around if you have this.’
Mieli accepts the jewel gingerly. It feels warm to the touch, like the other jewel.
Mieli, you fool, the pellegrini’s voice in her mind. What did I tell you?
And then her systems flood her with alerts and infiltration warnings. Her metacortex show her the tendrils that are pushing into her neurons from the jewel, attaching themselves into her decision-making centres, tapping into the roots of her hopes and dreams.
She lets go of the jewel, stands up and starts powering up her weapons.
‘Oh dear,’ Zinda says.
‘This was another game,’ Mieli says. ‘All this. You are from the Great Game. You don’t take care of orphans. You are here to handle an asset. To extract information.’ The q-dot gun embedded in her right hand warms up. ‘Well, here is some information for you. You should have kept me in a more secure environment. You are about to find out if they have improved the ghost game after death.’
‘No, wait! You don’t understand! Why did you have to break the Circle? I mean, all right, I am Great Game, but I’m Manaya, too. Everything I said was true! We belong to many zokus, and we can be in them at the same time, in superpositions. I just want to help you!’
There are tears in Zinda’s eyes.
‘Look, I got activated when you arrived, okay? I’m a bit out of my depth here, to be honest. Could you just sit back down and we’ll talk about it? I’d really rather not fight you, Mieli. I have volition to follow, too. I have a combat monster alter, if you insist, but I hate the way he smells.’
‘I am leaving now. You can either be an asset or a liability. It’s your choice.’ Mieli makes her voice as hard and cold as she can.
Zinda takes a deep breath. ‘Just give me a minute, okay? You have to understand that it’s not just me. We created a little zoku dedicated to analysing you. We know a lot about you. If we wanted to break you, we could!’ She sniffs. ‘I know it doesn’t sound nice, but it’s true! We could design Realms that would make you into our willing slave, give up all your secrets. But we don’t want to break you. We need you.’
‘Need me for what?’
‘Duh huh! There is a war on! The Founders are at each other’s throats! As far as we can tell, the chens are winning. And they are going to be looking at us next. They were always a threat. The Elders had a gambit after the Protocol War to … neutralise them, but—’ She bites her lip. ‘Never mind. But anything you know about what happened on Earth, what you know about the pellegrinis and the chens, all their tech, all that stuff – we can use that. Don’t worry about any booby traps or defence systems – we can deal with those, given your volition and some time.
‘And then – you could be one of us. Do you have any idea how hard it is to join the Great Game? You have to find them. I looked for them for years. I entangled notches and ithaqui and a whole bunch of others so I could analyse hints they had hidden in our narratives! And I’m just a sleeper. But you – you could be a field agent, fight existential threats, the big stuff. You could save the world. Like a James Bond with wings.’
Mieli blinks. ‘Who?’
‘What do you say? Come on. It will be fun.’
Mieli lets a q-dot form at her fingertip. ‘No,’ she says. ‘You have ten seconds to tell me where my ship is, and how I get off this planet.’
‘Ah, about that—’
‘Nine.’
‘Are you sure you want to—’
‘Eight.’