Page 30 of How to Steal a Galaxy

The kid’s definitely working with the Jarra. This plan has got their bloody fingerprints all over it. “If you’re just hacking the show, let me see the transponder,” I say.

His holo specs whirr. By now, I bet they’ve pulled up a file on me, and this kid is hearing about my stunt a few years back, the messed-up ad sys.

Who better to appreciate his stunt than someone who knows code?

He shrugs like he doesn’t care about what’s going to happen next. The kid shoves the black box into my waiting hands. There’s a lift to his chin.

He’s proud of this, of himself. That’s how the Jarra get ones like him. Find the kids who are mad, make them feel important. Promise them recognition only when the job is done. This kid’s desperate for someone—anyone—to see him,reallysee him. He wants to light a spark just so someone will see him in the dark.

But it’s not safe to play with fire, not when you don’t know how deep the burns can go.

“Where you from?” I ask, flipping the box over.

“Austral— Wait, don’t do that!”

I flick open the back with my fingernail and look at the circuitry inside. Kid didn’t make this transponder; it’s too neat. Every part here was bought with purpose, not scrapped together.

I tap my cuff against the receiver, activating the wireless programming I keep ready. This wouldn’t work for anything much more complicated, but scanning code isn’t hard.

“Here, hold this,” I say, tossing the black lid of the transponder to the kid as I reach inside my reticule and pull out my small data pad, linking it through my cuff to the transponder. In moments, info flashes on the screen.

“What are you—” he starts, leaning closer.

It’s just code, and my eyes skim over the illuminated series of commands. For all the advancements in the universe, it’s kind of amazing how simple code can be, how we can cross the galaxy at light speed with binary, using the same string of commands that made that clunky red telephone upstairs.

This is a light show. Linked up to the holos that are going to be on display.

Downstairs, I hear a female voice call for attention over the loudspeakers. She’s thanking the gala attendees and announcing how much has been raised for Sol-Earth. I can almost visualize her on the acrylic stage, gesturing grandly behind the clear podium, the black curtain behind her just waiting to part.

“Give that back,” the kid demands.

“You’re not activating shit until Fetor starts talking,” I say, still reading the code. It’s all linked to the display Fetor’s going to give—holo projections of Earth.

And—

There it is.

Right after the display announces Fetor’s saved Earth with his nanobots, which will be released soon.

“You code this?” I ask the kid.

“Yeah.” He’s all chuffed.

I tilt the screen to him. “You codeallthis?”

His eyes scan the screen. He pauses. I watch his lenses contract to pinpricks. He points to where the code starts to go awry. “What’s—”

“That’s the part where things go boom.”

He snatches the screen on my data pad, scrolling through it. My grip is tight around the transponder, even though he doesn’t reach for it again.

It’s clever coding, I’ll give them that. It starts off with nothing more than a prank—that’s the kid’s writing; I can see the clunky style of it. The holos were going to showcase the nanobots, and the code is linked to make them display a mockery, swarming the holo representations of the bots into an obscene body part pointed at Fetor’s head. I can honestly appreciate that bit.

Seamlessly wrapped around that code, though, is something more insidious.

Every single element of tonight’s event has had to go past security, through scanners, and beyond the careful eye of Rian and his people. Any physical bomb would have been caught.

With all the live feeds that will surely be pointed at the “glitching” holos, that’s going to be a lot of eyes when the hover stage Strom Fetor is on explodes.

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