Free The Causal Angel (Jean le Flambeur) by Hannu Rajaniemi Page B

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.