Page 31 of How to Steal a Galaxy

“That was a smart touch,” I say. Credit where it’s due.

“What?” The kid’s voice is all hollow. He’s starting to realize how deep he’s in the shit.

“There’s no bomb, no explosives. You just programmed the hover to overload and ignore the failsafes.” Nothing to smuggle in except a transponder—that’s how they got past all the security. The transponder’s innocuous on its own; if anyone did bother to check the kid’s pockets, it wouldn’t have triggered anything or shown up on any scanner. And there’s nothing to detect on the stage itself. I’m certain Rian had it examined a million times. There was nothing for him to find except some override code in a kid’s pocket.

We had to take Fetor’s tech offline,Phoebe said before. They needed the kid on site to activate with a transponder; the Jarra couldn’t hack into a system not on the network. Slip in the code to make the stage itself fail, and bam. Fireworks. The deaths of Strom Fetor and anyone who happened to be beneath the stage caught on live feed, broadcast to trillions of people across all four worlds.

“I...” The kid’s voice trails off.

And I get it. I do. Fetor blowing up on stage in front of a lot of live feeds is . . .

Kind of appealing; not gonna lie.

But it’ll fuck up all my plans.

The kid’s hacking means the whole stage will overheat to catastrophic levels soon after Fetor starts speaking, and the stage will literally crash and burn—which, again, is a chef’s-kiss level of awesome if only it didn’t mean that (a) some innocents below would get hurt too, and (b) I have bigger metaphorical fish to metaphorically fry than literally frying Strom Fetor.

I sigh. I’m going to have to stop this from happening. “Murdering the richest man in the galaxy on live feeds? You’ll never escape.”

His eyes go wide. “I’ve gotta get out of here now,” he says. “I have a family—my mom...” His voice cracks, and that cracks at my own little shriveled heart. Boys always want their mommas when they realize they fucked up.

I grab the back of the transponder and put it back on the box, careful not to push the big red button that will emit the transmission that will overwrite the failsafes of the hover stage. I keep a tight grip on the box, though; no way am I letting the kid have it back. “It’s fine,” I say, placating him. “Just don’t start the sequence. Go down, steal some good food, go home, and quit working for assholes who think you’re disposable.”

He shakes his head, hair whipping around his face. “You don’t understand,” he says all in a rush, eyes wide. “I already pushed the button. The sequence isalreadytimed and programmed. I heard your shoes on the steps—I pushed the button then, before you got up to me. It’s already overwritten the code in the stage. As soon as Fetor starts speaking, the holos are going to change, and then...”

And then boom.

13

Well, fuck.

The kid’s eyes are wild. He signed up for a prank, not murder.

Gentle waves of clapping from downstairs. Auction winners lauded for spending money. Almost time for the finale.

“I’ve gotta get out of here,” the kid says. All that false bravado has turned into panic. His only chance now is distance. Before I can wrap my head around just how bad this is, he’s bounding down the steps. I could chase him down, or I can figure this out.

Don’t get me wrong; Strom Fetor exploding on stage is absolutely appealing, and I would normally pay cash money for a front-row seat to that. Well, considering how the stage is now programmed to crash directly into the audience, maybe notfront-row.

But Ineedmy dominos to fall just right.

Fuck. Dropping the evidence in my bag, the silk purse now showing sharp corners, I head downstairs in time to see the staff door swinging from where the kid made his escape. My eyes dart across the room. If I can flag down one of the people who was supposed to be watching me, let them know the stage is going to explode before the show’s over . . .

Where the fuck is everyone?

I stick close to the wall, creeping behind the black curtain. The command center for the stage and holo displays and live feeds is along the far wall. There are more workers here, bustling prep for the finale, but there’s no red dress or blue hair to spot me. There’s no Rian.

Only Strom Fetor.

He catches my eye and grins. He’s already on the stage, a narrow platform with a little lip in front.

If I had half an hour and a code splicer, I could work around the kid’s hack.

But I don’t.

If I go over to the impromptu command center they’ve set up and tell them the problem, would they believe me?

Maybe.

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