Gately, the wraith, and the figurants (xi)
Gately lets himself wonder what it would be like, able to quantum off anyplace instantly and stand on ceilings and probably burgle like no burglar’d ever dreamed of, but not able to really affect anything or interface with anybody, having nobody know you’re there, having people’s normal rushed daily lives look like the movements of planets and suns, having to sit patiently very still in one place for a long time even to have some poor addled son of a bitch even be willing to entertain your maybe being there. It’d be real free-seeming, but incredibly lonely, he imagines.
Context
Gately tries the wraith's time-scale on for size, and his burglar's imagination gets it exactly: our rushed lives slowed to planetary motion, and the price of that freedom is that communication now costs months of stillness. Lived time and loneliness bound into one equation — the faster your clock, the more alone you are. "Gately knows a thing or two about loneliness, he feels," the next line adds.