Higgs & Soap: Galaxy Delivery

Chapter 19

*bing dong*

"WELCOME TO VARDA CITY ONE, THE MOST SURVEILLED CITY IN THE GALAXY, FOR YOUR SAFETY AND PUNISHMENT."

Higgs shook the cheery voice out of his head and tried to focus on his HUD as he and Soap wandered through a busy shopping area. The sunlight bouncing down from the collectors above them was bright and warm, and the citizens were all out doing their consumerist duty for the good of the city.

"You found it yet?"

Higgs ignored her and placed a marker on his HUD before striding off across a small bridge and through a park.

"You found it yet?"

"Nope. I told you, the nanotracker is a really old cheap one. It doesn't have much power. The only thing it can do is send a ping back when you look for it. We need to move around the concourse and triangulate it. You know, the old fashioned way, like sea pirates used to do."

Soap's face lit up. "I love sea pirates! I downloaded all the stories about sea pirates I could find on the DataNet when I was a kid. Of course, some of them turned out to be ancient stories about computer software before it all went open source. And some were about pirates that liked to go bare chested all the time and preferred riding ladies to riding the waves. But in any case, I read them over and over."

They left the park and entered an area of restaurants underneath a group of skyscrapers, people sat outside chatting over their drinks.

"I wanted to be a lady pirate, docking into strange ports, spearing blackguards and ramming vessels. And sometimes I wanted to be the lady pirate the bare chested pirates were..."

"Got it! This way!"

Soap followed Higgs and some minutes later they were standing in an open area near some construction hardware shops.

"OK, this is where the data card triangulates to."

Soap looked around. "But there's nothing here?"

"Yeah, because I'm pinging it to be three hundred and ten metres away. Below us."

They both stared down at the ground.

"But Tara said we can't leave the concourse level. If we do, we really will be going to prison. I don't think she can override CLARA for that one."

Higgs rubbed his chin. "Well, the nearest access to the lower levels is just behind us, next to the circular tram stop."

"We can't go down there."

Higgs flicked up the public map of the city on his HUD.

"And directly underneath that is the Honsey Market. Then below that is an emergency refuge area for solar flare radiation bursts..."

"We can't go down there."

"Then we have various engineering, structural, yadda yadda, before we get to the restricted areas above the energy recirculation plant and the giant siphons that drop down into the depths of the tube."

"We can't go down there."

"And from the tracker, it looks as if the data card is somewhere in the engineering section – Structural Support T-04."

"We're going down there, aren't we?"

"Absolutely."

"I just knew it." Soap put her head in her hands. "Look, if you're going to do it, and you totally are, why don't you just hack her or something?"

"Oh no, no, no." Higgs waved a finger at her. "You don't hack an AI. An AI hacks you!"

Soap put her face in his and stared him down. "You what?"