Higgs & Soap: Galaxy Delivery – read Chapter 1 now!

It’s to be released next month, but you can read the entirety of the first chapter of Higgs & Soap: Galaxy Delivery right now!

Pre-order now on Smashwords, with Amazon pre-orders to open soon.

Enjoy 😀

 ***

The first and second attempts on our lives happened on the maglev train to the Spaceport. The first attempt was the buffet car sandwiches.
“This tastes like clothing.”
“I told you to wait until we got to departures.”
The second attempt was when they threw me off the top of the train.
I should explain. Soap is my pilot, chief engineer, business partner and in the two cycles we’ve worked together, I’d like to think we’ve become firm friends.
“It’s your fault for wanting to go straight to the Records Department without lunch, you tont!”
She’s also trans-species. Currently 6% feline with further DNA replacement treatments to come. So far she has had replacements to allow her to digest bone, allow muscle fibre changes, and grow fur. Ginger tabby, if you must know. Surgery has also given her articulated ears, retractable claws, new teeth, nose and slit irises.
I’d had a standard gene mod to reduce bodily energy consumption, meaning I only needed to intake 1000 calories per day. Ideal for those in the intergalactic delivery service. Soap hadn’t. She stared wide-eyed at the second half of the sandwich as if being forced to eat her own tail.
Actually, she doesn’t have a tail. At least, not yet.
Finally she stuffed the sandwich in her mouth and her ears dropped. She chewed it with the expression of a horrified toddler.

*ding*

“Next stop, Beijing Quarter.”

“We had to go straight there because the cheap return is only valid during off-peak hours. It was always going to be a quick turnaround. Plus we want to avoid any overstay fees on the short stay landing pad.”
“Which only gives us four hours to do everything…”
“You know me, I’m always thinking money!”
Soap sighed, giving a little burp at the end. I looked past her and out the window over Captain Williams City, the largest city on any of the colonies. The first city settled by the wormhole explorers. The capital city of planet Clarissa. My home planet. My house was way over the other side of the city from here. But in any case, we were here on business, no time for family visits or sightseeing, sadly. The original landing crafts and prefab huts are part of a museum-cum-theme park. I went once with a school trip. It’s not bad, but expensive at fifty dollars just to get in. And that doesn’t even include the musical Augmented Reality ride.
I pulled out the data card from my flight suit breast pocket and synced it to my implants. A blue folder icon appeared floating in the air in front of my eyes. Of course it didn’t exist in the real world, but was an augmented reality projection courtesy of the implants in my visual cortex. My own personal heads-up-display. With a single thought: “open”, it did, spilling out a jumble of documents, emails mostly, some scans of physical drawings and a single photo.
“Can’t believe that this all we’re here for. You could cough loudly and have more data reach the other side of the galaxy!”
“Hmm?”
For a moment I forgot that only you can see what your implants are displaying, unless you share your connection with someone else. I waggled the data card at her.
“Wanna Pinktongue?”
She shook her head, rubbing her stomach.
“Nah. Business stuff is your stuff. I’ve learned it’s best not to know what you’ve got us carrying. And I really shouldn’t have eaten that.”
We pulled into the station. People hurried on and off our carriage. This was when I saw the three guys with charcoal grey skin mods get on. One sat diagonally across from us, wearing silver mirror implanted Augmented Reality glasses. Totally unnecessary really, but they still looked cool. Another sat across the aisle on my right and laid his bionic hand on the table. The third one, who had a colour changing digital tattoo across one half of his face, sat behind us.
In hindsight I should have realised something was up.
I shrugged and closed the folder view, slipping the data card back into my pocket.
“Don’t worry about this Soap, we’ll get this super-confidential information to Varda City One on Scylla in no time.”
I looked across to see the glasses grey gentlemen staring at me. I smiled. His expression didn’t change.
“Hey, Soap? Wanna play the Dead Animal game?”
Her ears immediately perked up. “Oh yeah! I love this one. You go first.”
“OK, OK… Cow.”
She thought for a second. “Moo?”
“That’s it!”
She pumped her fists in the air. “Yess! My turn, my turn…Sheep!”
“I remember that from the song… Baa!”
“Damn, you’re too good at this.”
“Right, me again. Duck.”
Her ears tilted forward and her eyes narrowed.
“Iiiiiiiits…” She put a finger to her lips.
“You don’t know do you?”
She flapped her hands around, “Nono, don’t say it… I got it… in a minute…”
“Hey, while you think, keep my seat, I gotta go pee.”
“K.”
I stood up, turned round and walked to the back of the carriage. All three of the grey gentlemen stood up and followed me.
In hindsight I should have realised something was up.

*ding*

“Next stop, Slattery Hatchet.”

I had locked the toilet door behind me and was tugging on the WeeRecycler(TM) nozzle when I heard a sharp slicing of metal. An almost invisibly thin blade was cutting around the door lock. Moments later, a circle of metal dropped to the floor.
“Hey! I don’t care if you’re desperate, you’ll just have to wait your turn like everybody else.”
The door folded open to reveal the three grey gentlemen staring at me.
“Er… a little privacy please?”
The one nearest me, the glasses guy, grabbed my top and pulled me towards him. With his other hand he took the data card from my pocket and looked at it. A few seconds of staring later he looked back at me, before saying in a heavy Old Chinese accent: “Decryption code.”
That’s when things clicked into place.
“Oh, wait. I see… You’re after the data on there are you? Well no-can-do I’m afraid. It’s hard locked to my implants. Unless I choose to share it, the only person who can see it is myself.”
Even though I couldn’t see behind the silver sheen of his glasses, I knew he was giving me a nasty look. He held the data card up over his shoulder and the bionic hand guy grabbed it.
“Then we take you.”
He spun on the spot, flinging me into the waiting grasp of the other two men. Within seconds he had cut a person sized rectangle in the side of the train and kicked it out. The noise of the wind almost deafened me as he climbed out the hole, pulling himself up onto the roof. Then the other two started herding me towards the opening.
“Er, guys? Seriously! Can I at least have a pee before you SOAP! HELP! AAHH!”
In hindsight I should have realised something was up.
They threw me out the opening. A hand grabbed me from above and swung me up onto the roof of the train. I immediately went flat and grabbed onto something as the rushing air tried to get under my eyelids to scoop my eyeballs out. The other two gentlemen joined us on the roof and stood upright, completely unaffected by the wind.
I winced as I realised how high up we were at this point of the route. This was the 100m high track that headed up over the mountains before descending into the crater the Spaceport sat in.
The glasses gentlemen picked me up and pushed me along towards the back of the train, maintaining his grip on my top. He also blocked the wind from buffeting me about. At least that was thoughtful of him.
“YOU KNOW, THIS TRAIN DOES HAVE AN INSIDE TOO?” I yelled.
There was no reply.
“I’M ONLY SAYING BECAUSE IT’S A LITTLE LESS WINDY.”
I yelped as a series of lights on posts whipped past. We were three carriages from the back and, while it hadn’t been pleasant up to this point, I could imagine it getting much worse quite soon.
As we stepped over a gap between the carriages a voice was carried to us by the wind.
“HEY GUYS! YOU FORGOT SOMETHING…”
We turned round to see Soap standing on the carriage behind us.
“…YOUR ASS-KICKING FROM ME!”
The gentleman holding me nodded, and his friends walked towards her.
“YOU GUYS LEAVE HER ALONE. SHE’S JUST HAD A REALLY UPSETTING SANDWICH.”
The fingers of the gentleman’s bionic hand folded back on themselves and a large blade unfurled and started glowing. He lunged the Electriblade at her. She doubled up, stepping backwards, and grabbed his arm. A kick to his leading foot and he lost his balance. She stepped forward, spinning him round away from her, and thrust his own blade into the chest of the tattooed gentleman who was behind him. There were sparks and smoke as all his implants overloaded. She must have hit his biobattery. Thin lines of flames appeared around his head and neck and he went limp. His body was caught by the wind and bounced off the carriage roof next to us, disappearing out of sight.
“GO GET HIM SOAP!”
The glasses gentleman holding my top turned to look at me.
“AND… GOOD LUCK TO THE OTHER GUY! ALWAYS GOT TO BE FAIR AND BALANCED ABOUT THESE THINGS, YEAH?”
The “other guy”, meanwhile, had managed to regain his balance. Soap was still firmly holding his arm, so he dislocated his shoulder and punched her in the side of the stomach. She let go of him and rolled up the carriage into a crouch. Bionic hand man clicked his shoulder back into place, then went low and ran at her. She sidestepped him at the last minute, grabbed his coat and flung him up the carriage away from her. The air caught him and, as he flew back down towards her, she delivered a kick to his back that dropped him instantly to the roof.
She hopped backwards, towards us, letting the wind carry her safely away from him as he slowly staggered to his feet. He looked angry now. Which is great. You should never internalise your emotions. Bad for your heart.
They faced each other as we turned a bend in the track, whizzing between high-rise flats, the mountain peaks in the distance.
“WANNA PLAY A GAME?” she asked him.
He looked at her, puzzled.
“DEAD ANIMAL! DUCK!”
The grey gentleman screwed up his face in concentration. “QUACK?”
Soap frowned, “CHUD! HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT?”, then she actually ducked as a large metal sign slammed into the back of him, and carried him away.
Pulling out my data card, that she had pick-pocketed when she grappled bionic hand guy, she turned around and pumped the air in triumph. I was still peeling myself off the roof, having only just spotted the metal sign in time, but I managed to give her a thumbs up. The glasses gentleman was already back on his feet.
“I DON’T SUPPOSE YOU COULD LET ME GO NOW?” I said to him.
“YOU JUST DID,” he replied.
“DID WHAT?”
“SUPPOSED.”
“OK, NO, LOOK, WHAT I MEANT WAS…”
He stared at me, at Soap, the card in her hand, then grabbed me round the waist like a rolled up duvet and jumped off the train, falling into the dark mess of buildings below the elevated tracks.
“HIGGS!”
Oh and by the way, my name’s Higgs. Together we’re “Higgs & Soap: Galaxy Delivery”. And right now, we’re pretty munted.
In hindsight I should have realised something was up.

***

Higgs & Soap: Galaxy Delivery – Pre-order now!