UNDERCOVER - Dark Fire Data (Book 3)

Part 17 - Isambard

 After breakfast the next day, Licia, Miguel and I walked over to Denny's apartment building to collect Sam. 'I got another e-mail last night,' Licia told us. '"dear empress licia hu help us find our mother."' 

She looked at Miguel suspiciously. Miguel laughed. 'Don't look at me. I didn't send it.'

'Not me, either,' I said. 'Somebody is playing tricks.'

Denny buzzed us through the front door and we took the elevator to his apartment on the top floor. Sam was overjoyed to see us. He was practically hopping up and down with excitement. He was wearing clothes, two sizes too big for him, that Denny must have bought decades ago, including bell bottom jeans. 

 Denny gave us a bunch of bus tickets and handed Licia his debit card and we set off on the great Canadian shopping expedition. It really was an adventure for Sam but it was fun for the rest of us too. I had no idea where anything was in Ottawa, having arrived from Toronto only a few months earlier, and only Licia knew anything about the bus service, O-C Transpo.

We found seats at the front of a double-decker bus. Sam was amazed by the absence of horses, the wide straight roads and the volume and speed of the traffic. We first went to Bayshore shopping centre where the stores were all inside a huge building that Sam said was bigger than a cathedral. It was full of people shopping for stuff at the holidays sales. Sam was enchanted by the three shopping levels with escalators and elevators going in all directions. It was so much fun we almost forgot why we were there but by then we were hungry so we found the food court and ordered ice cream cones. 

 Meanwhile, Licia had been checking some sale flyers and decided we would get better deals at another shopping centre. So we took a bus to College Square where the stores were spread out around a vast parking lot and we had to walk outside to get from store to store. (Sam called them shops). By late afternoon, we had bought Sam a parka and shirts, socks, winter boots and splash pants, two pair of running shoes, a variety of underwear and two pair of cargo pants (Sam thought the extra pockets would be useful for holding his spanners, which we figured meant wrenches). We had to explain that 'pants' were not underwear. 

 He was totally bemused by Velcro and the absence of buttons. We had to stop him from pulling the zipper up and down just to see how it worked. It was late in the evening before we got back to Denny's place. 

 Dr Lee Zhang had just called with the news that he would be back at Silverwood School the next day. Before we left, Denny reminded us not to tell Dr Zhang about Sam.

At Licia' place, we had decided the email was just a hoax but then Licia turned on her computer. The monitor immediately showed a cut away house that looked like an old computer game.  Two girls were doing something in the kitchen.

Licia looked puzzled. 'I've never seen this before.' Then the girls walked toward us and looked straight out of the monitor. One of them had a jet black face surrounded by curly green hair. The other was white with pale blond, waist length hair. They both wore long silvery dresses. A written sentence appeared over their heads, 

most high empress liciahu we seek our mother.

Licia hammered the keyboard with all eight fingers and both thumbs. 'It's not supposed to do that,' she squeaked. 'What's going on?'

'Maybe it's a computer virus,' Miguel suggested.

'It looks like some old computer game,' I said.

 'I'm scared,' Licia said. 'I can't shut the computer down.'

 'I held the computer start button down until the computer shut down. 

 'This is seriously weird,' Miguel said. 'Who can be doing this?'

'I wish I knew,' I sighed. 'Hackers? There seem to be a lot of bad guys these days.'

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