Page 26 of How to Steal a Galaxy

Above, through the glass roof and the huge windows at the end of the corridor, there’s enough lingering sunset through the giant panes of glass curving over the back of the museum to show the outline of the city beyond the carefully manicured lawn, but it’s not yet dark enough for the ambient glow of millions of streetlights coming on to obliterate the pinprick stars peeking through the early night.

I get as close as I can to the black curtain to assess a little of what Phoebe’s dealing with, but not close enough to make any of the waitstaff shoo me away. I get glimpses of the enormous control-panel system with five different people hovering over an array of switches and lit panels. Offline, Phoebe had said. This must control the elaborate hover stage Fetor wanted to use, as well the holographic display that will show people why we should trust a trillionaire to clean up Earth. Now that I know that’s the plan, I can see the break in the black curtains, strategically positioned behind the clear acrylic platform and podium.

This is going to be dramatic. Someone boring will introduce Fetor, and then the curtain will part, and he’ll rise over the crowd like a god, holographic displays illuminating everything.

I should be grateful—that’s what Phoebe would say, and Rian, too. He’s fucking pretentious, but this sort of spectacle will get the public interested. And fucking hell, I have to give Fetor credit, too. He perfectly orchestrated the protestors at the start of the gala to contrast brilliantly with this display—no wonder the holos the protestors used were so weak. This display? Going to blow that one out of the water. All the little technophiles are going to flock to Fetor, as usual, and this time, they’ll support Sol-Earth’s salvation instead of the latest data pad or overlays.

Making Fetor the face of the nanobots is going to sway public opinion for Earth. It’s a good thing if he’s in the spotlight right now, given how popular—for some god-awful reason—he is.

I don’t have to like it, though.

I’ll get my revenge when I replace the nanobot codehewrote,I think. Let him tower above the crowd, the king of rich assholes. He thinks he’s announcinghisnanobots, secretly designed to fail, designed to make him even wealthier.

The higher he rises, the more fun it’ll be to watch him fall.

A burst of light draws my eyes to a new holo illumination. The wordsFETOR TECHin all caps shines over the black curtain.

“Not yet!” a rough voice shouts, loud enough for me to hear all the way from the sidelines, loud enough to make a server nearby jump, plates rattling. The holos cut off, and I blink away the blinding light. One of the techs hit the wrong switch too soon.

This little corner of the museum is backstage enough for me to watch the bland smiles of the servers drip off their faces when they turn away from the crowd. They head toward a door to the left of the colonnades, just past the black curtain and the flurry of activity happening there. I know from studying maps of the museum the door the waitstaff uses leads to an expansive area where all the real work happens—kitchens, conference rooms, offices. As I stand there, more workers emerge, removing the burnt-marshmallow seats and replacing them with rows of clear acrylic chairs.

Soon, everyone in the museum will be summoned here, to the main gallery hall, for the closing ceremony. Auction winners will be heralded. Fetor will announce that he’s invented tech he didn’t invent. Everyone will raise their glasses to him, and he’ll smile and believe their cheers mean he’s brilliant, and then the gala will end and everyone will go off to the real parties afterwards, and in the morning, the feeds will be splashed with vids of the best dressed, and maybe there will be a footnote about a planet that some people wish would just die so they didn’t even have to pretend to care.

All I have to do is wait a little longer, and I can get off this world and back into the sky where at least people are honest when they lie.

And hopefully, I’ll have the asset I was paid to acquire with me. Whether I do or not will dictate which direction I fly. But I’ve done all I can to lay the path.

Nothing to do but wait and see.

• • •

I stay in this spot long enough to track the players. The server with dark skin and long, vivid blue braids clocks me every time he walks by with an empty platter—always an empty platter. The security drone is on a scheduled loop, the lens flicking in my direction every fifteen minutes. A woman in a silver gown with a mirror-like finish has passed me three times on the way to the restroom, which is on the other side of the corridor. A flash of red across the hall—Phoebe’s still keeping an eye on me. Rian’s off with Fetor, but that doesn’t mean I’m not watched.

Maybe I wouldn’t have noticed the kid if I wasn’t so busy noticing everyone else.

But I do see him. Young, maybe twenty if I’m generous, probably on the south side of eighteen or so. Golden eyes—fitted with holo specs. Medium-dark skin, silky black hair that brushes his shoulders. The ends are ragged, as if cut with blunt scissors.

He comes out the servers’ door, slipping in between rows of workers pushing hovers loaded with stacks of straight-backed chairs. He’s got a darty look about him, couldn’t be more suspicious if he tried.

He doesn’t notice me as he walks right past, up the stairs toward the second floor.

The server with blue hair dodges the chairs, his gaze flicking to me for a microsecond before pushing into the workers’ door.

Rian’s got everyone on his team watching me so hard, not a single other person has noticed the kid.

I spot the security drone, glimpse the silver dress.

And then turn on my heel and head up the stairs.

11

The kid is sitting right on the same step where Rian’s hands gripped my hips so hard it would have hurt if it hadn’t felt so good.

Kid’s jumpy. Spots me a mile away, shoves something in his pocket.

Fucking great.

Sometimes, I hate when I’m right.

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