“Hm.” I was struggling, but tried hard not to show it. “You mean like that cat inside a box, who’s both alive and dead at the same time, till they open the lid.”

“Very good, Albert! Yes. As in the life or death of Schrödinger’s cat, every decision state in the universe remains indeterminate till it’s reified through observation by a thinking being. Even if that being stands many light-years away, glancing at the sky and casually noting the existence of a new star. In so doing, he can be said to have helped create the star, collaboratively, with every other observer who noticed it. The subjective and the objective have a complex relationship, all right! More than anyone imagined.”

“I see, Doc. That is, I think I do. And yet … this has to do with the Standing Wave … how?”

Maharal was too excited to get exasperated. “Long ago, a renowned physicist, Roger Penrose, proposed that consciousness arises out of indeterminate quantum phenomena, acting at the level of tiny organelles that reside inside human brain cells. Some believe it’s one reason why no one ever succeeded at the old dream of creating genuine artificial intelligence in a computer. The deterministic logic of the most sophisticated digital system remains fundamentally limited, incapable of simulating, much less replicating, the deeply nested feedback loops and stochastic tonal modes of that hypercomplex system we call a soul-field …”

Oog. Now this was rapidly going way over my head. But I wanted to keep Maharal talking. In part because he might reveal something useful. And to delay things. Whatever he planned on doing to me next, with all of his mad scientist machinery, I knew by now that it was going to hurt.

A lot. Enough to make me lose my temper.

I really hate it when that happens.

“… So, each time a human Standing Wave is copied, there remains a deep level of continuing connection — ‘entanglement,’ to use an old-fashioned term from quantum mechanics — between the copy and its original template. Between a ditto and its organic original. Not at a level that anyone normally notices. No actual information gets exchanged while the golem is running around. Nevertheless, a coupling remains, clinging to the duplicate Standing Wave.”

“Is that what you mean by an anchor?” I prompted, seeing a connection at last.

“Yes. Those organelles Penrose spoke of do exist in brain cells. Only instead of quantum states, they entangle with a similar but entirely separate spectrum of soulistic modes. While dittoing, we amplify these myriad states, pressing the combined waveform into a nearby matrix. But even when that new matrix — a fresh golem — stands and walks away, its status as an observer continues to be entangled with the original’s.”

“Even if the golem never returns to inload?”

“Inloading involves retrieving memories, Morris. Now I’m talking about something deeper than memory. I’m talking about the sense in which each person is a sovereign observer who alters the universe — who makes the universe, by the very act of observing.”

Now I was lost again. “You mean each of us—”

“—some of us more than others, apparently,” Maharal snapped, and I could tell his anger was back. An envious hatred that I was only now starting to fathom. “Your personality appears more willing, at a deep level, to accept the tentative nature of the world — to deputize your subselves with their own, independent observer status—”

“—and therefore with complete standing waves,” I finished for him, struggling to keep a hand in the conversation.

“That’s right. At bottom, it has little to do with egotism, nihilism, detachment … or intelligence, obviously. Perhaps you simply have a greater willingness to trust yourself than most people do.”

He shrugged. “Even so, your talents were hampered. Limited. Severely constrained. Their only evident manifestation was a facility at making good copies, even though you should be capable of much more: When it came to moving beyond, into fresh territory, you remained as anchored as the rest of us.

“Then, less than a week ago, I stumbled onto what must be the answer. A remarkably simple, though brute-force approach to achieving the end I seek. Ironically, it is the same transforming event that our ancestors associated with release of the soul.”

He paused.

And I guessed. It wasn’t hard.

“You’re talking about death.”

Maharal’s smile broadened — eager, patronizing, and more than a little hateful.

“Very good, Albert! Indeed, the ancients were right in their dualist belief that a soul can be unlinked from the natural body after death. Only there is so much more to it than they could imagine—”

At that moment, while Maharal droned smugly on, my proper course of action seemed clear as day. I should hold back. Show only reticence and self-control. Continue drawing him out. There were more questions, things to discover. And yet …

I couldn’t help it. Anger erupted, taking over my small body with surprising force, straining at the shackles.

“You fired that missile! You murdered me, you son of a bitch, for the sake of your goddamned theories! You sick, sadistic monster. When I get loose from here—”

Yosil laughed.

“Ah. So, despite a lucid moment or two, the name-calling commences on schedule. You really are a tediously predictable person, Morris. Predictability that I plan to make good use of.”

And with that, ditMaharal turned back to his preparations — muttering commands into the votroller and flicking switches — while I lay fuming, torn between the gutter satisfaction of hating him and realizing that the reaction was exactly what he wanted.

Of course, below it all lurked curiosity — wondering where he planned to send me next.

We abandoned the Universal Kilns car that Vic Aeneas Kaolin had given us, figuring it must be bugged.

What other arrangements did the tycoon make? That thought kept recurring as I flagged down an open pullcab outside the shuttered Rainbow Lounge. Hopping into the passenger seat, I asked the driver to take us down Fourth Street.

“And step on it!” my little ferretlike companion urged, panting with eagerness to be off. In a little pouch, Palloid carried some of the treasures he recovered while scrounging behind the bar, where the late Queen Irene had stashed some of her secrets. I think he was already scheming how to sell the material back to its “rightful owners,” for a “finder’s fee,” without having to call it blackmail.

Our cabbie shrugged, dislodging glossy shades from their perch on his forehead and dropping them over his eyes. This revealed a nifty set of little devil horns — probably an implanted compass/locator, cheap enough to supply even to disposable dittos.

“Hold on, gents,” he called. Grabbing both arms of the rickshaw yoke, he bore into the pavement with powerful kicks of big-thighed legs, like those of a muscular goat. Only after accelerating beyond thirty klicksper did he touch a switch engaging the little electric cruise motor, lifting his gleaming ceramic hooves off the ground.

“You got a specific destination in mind?” our Pan-like driver asked me over one shoulder. “Or is an eminent gray like you just visiting? Trawling for memories? Maybe you want a quickie view tour of our fair city?”

It took me a moment to recall that I had been retinted at Kaolin’s house, to a high-class “emissary” shade of gray. The driver apparently thought I was from out of town, traveling with a dittopet.

“I know all the historical and secret spots. Market arcades stocked with bootlegs you’ll never see back east. Alleys where the law never ventures and no cameras are allowed. Just pay a small vice tax and sign a waiver. Once you’re inside, anarchism-paradise!”