Chapter 7 Chapter VII

The car belonged to Dave Larson, but Dave owed him a favor anyway.Hamid woke up his neighbor and told him that the croak was ill and he had to take it to Margate.Fifteen minutes later, Hamid and Quack were driving through Ann Arbor.It was Saturday, and with the light of day, there was no one on the road.He had expected the police and the army to flock to it.If only Ravna & Claws had known how easy it was to scare Joe Ortega...if the government had figured out what was going on, they would have given them Croaks right away.But the government is obviously confused, and now they just want to find a place to hide, and hope that the big brothers in the sky will not notice themselves when they are arguing.The explosion at the farm is no longer in the headlines.The government did not make a big noise, so this kind of clueless panic has so far been confined to the top of the government.

Croak babbled in the passenger seat all the time.It lay on the dashboard for a while, and sniffed the pocket where Hamid kept the toys for it.It's still a little jittery, but the allure of a personal coupe is simply too great.Electronic equipment is cheap, but mechanical consumer goods are still expensive.And without a massive network of highways, there would never be as many annoying cars as there are on Earth.As for freight, it basically relies on railways.But now the tour group is here: they're bringing a hundred thousand anti-gravity pads, enough to change the entire transportation system.China and the United States will soon enter the "age of air vehicles" - that is, for the first time beyond the home of the earth.Anyway, that's what Joe Ortega said.

After the university is an open land.Beyond the range of the headlights, Hamid could catch glimpses of flat land and the reflection of frost on it.He was so nervous that he looked up every few seconds.Selene and Diana hang obliquely in the western sky, dimly lit.Against the first rays of the morning sun, the tourist barges looked like blurred gray patches, with here and there white clouds drifting here and there.No intruders were found, but three barges were missing, presumably moved into space orbit.Roslyn Marr's barge is parked on the east side of Margate, just above the warehouse area.It appears that the bug has fulfilled his promise.

Hamid drove into the center of Margate.The city's two-hundred-story tower floats a dozen bright signs advertising products—some of which actually exist.The lights of dance halls and shopping malls spilled onto the highway.This is an eight-lane highway with a fairly wide surface.But since it was a Saturday morning, the place was pretty empty.Most of the business district is like this - all recreated after Margate on Earth in the mid-21st century.Old Margate sits on the shore of Lake Superior, which is a very large lake.In that century, when heavy cargo from space landed in Superior, Margate became a great port, the gateway to the solar system.Visitors say it plays the role of mother in the legends of a thousand worlds.

Hamid drove off the road and onto an underground ramp.The Margate in Central America is just a show, only about one percent of the original size, and the population is even less than one percent of the original.But if you look at it from the air, the lively atmosphere created by the lights is very real, and the place looks good.When it comes to major festivals, everyone on the planet who can afford it will come here-probably as many as a million people.In fact, this place is not a trick.Tourists know it's nothing more than a replica of Margate back on Earth, but what matters is that it's an exact replica, at a level that can only be achieved by someone who's just a stone's throw from the original - that's the official word for it .In fact, people in China and the United States have made great sacrifices: for nearly two decades, the manpower and material resources of the entire planet have been spent on it, just to build it before this tour group arrives.

The rental car office is located at the bottom of a fifteen-story building, and below that is the starting point of the train.Trains are real things, except the next one won't arrive until half an hour later.As soon as Hamid stepped out of the car, he smelled a cold musty smell, which is always the smell of the stone underground building; he walked forward, and his footsteps echoed.Now, there were millions of tons of pottery and stone between him and the sky, so many obstacles that even people from above couldn't see him...at least he hoped so.A sleepy-eyed guard watched him fill out forms.Hamed stares at the screen, sweating despite the cool weather: the guy behind him in line won't see anything wrong, will he?He almost laughed out loud at the thought.It was the first time in his life that he had broken the law, but now was not the time to be nervous about such things.If Ravna & Claws hacked the network, they could actually see him underground.In that case, Larry's only protection was the fake account number he filled out.

They left there in a Millennium Commander, one of the cars that tourists used to drive around on Earth.Hamid drove north, then east; and when they finally came out of the tunnel, they were heading south toward the warehouse district... directly above the warehouse district was the worm's green barge.The sky was getting brighter, and Hamid could clearly distinguish the hemispherical hull and rounded dome of the barge.The barge is quite large, so it seems to be close at hand.But Hamid knew that it was actually five kilometers above the ground. A helicopter might be able to take the person to the top of the barge, or park directly on a platform on the barge.Of course, with so many protrusions in the way, it will be more troublesome to land.But Hamid couldn't fly a helicopter, and besides, he didn't know where to rent such a thing this early in the morning.No, he and Quack were going to use a much more direct method than this; they had been getting on the barge every other week since the tourists got here.

It is getting closer and closer to the entrance, and the people of the federal government and tourists usually settle their fees at this place.Going further, there are cameras installed on the roof.He tinted the windows, leaving only the driver's window untouched.Then, with one free hand, he pressed Guagua's shoulder and said, "Come play peek-a-boo for a while." "Ok." Three hundred meters away is the first gate.As usual, three policemen stood outside the door, and one remained in a bulletproof cubicle next to the door.If Ortega had sensed the seriousness of the matter, their journey would have come to an end.

The police looked tense, but they were mostly staring up at the sky.They know something is wrong, but feel that there is nothing they can do about it.These people just glanced at the Millennium Commander and waved it away.The inner door was just as easy, but there he had to enter his guide number... Hamid and Croak wouldn't have much time if Ravna & Claws were monitoring the network. He pulled the car into the empty parking lot in front of the main warehouse and found a suitable spot so that the right side of the car was facing the guardhouse. "Wait quietly, quack," he said, jumping out of the car and walking across the gravel yard.Maybe he should walk faster and look panicked?Oh no, the guards have seen him.Well, calm down.He waved his hand and walked on.In the morning light, the searchlights in the yard no longer looked so bright.The stars had all disappeared, leaving only the barge and a few white clouds in the sky.

I really don't know why they put the goods brought from Feiyue world in such a ghost place.The warehouse is indeed not small, about two hundred meters on a side, but otherwise it is useless; thin plastic and some rotten wood, this place has long since worn out. Before Hamid reached out his hand, the door lock of the guard room opened with a "buzz".He opened the door and went in. "Hi, Phil." What luck!The other guards weren't there, so they must be on patrol.Phil Lucas was kind, but not very clever, and he didn't know croaks very well.Lucas sat in the middle of the guard room, where a liftable iron plate separated the guards from the visitors.There is also a door on the left that leads to the warehouse. "Hi, Ham." Phil looked at him nervously, "You're so early today."

"Yeah, something went wrong. There's a tourist in the car," he said, waving at the bulletproof glass behind him, "and he's passed out. I've got to get him up there, and Best not to be seen." Phil licked his lips. "Jesus, everything's crowded together, listen, Ham, I'm sorry, but the FSB has orders: no one comes down, no one goes up. Those people There's something going on between them. If they start throwing rocks at each other, let them fight in the hood, and don't come at us anyway." "That's right. We suspect the guy in the car had something to do with the trouble. Things might calm down if we could get him back. You must have heard of him: Antis ben Lipte." "Oh, him." Ben Lipte was the most annoying of all the visitors.This guy has done a lot of things in just six months; if he was just an average Chinese American, he must have been in prison for a whole century.Luckily he hasn't killed anyone yet, so the authorities try to turn a blind eye to the clown.Lucas tapped on the modem. "I don't have anything here." "Damn it, everything is blocked. We have to get this guy up quickly, otherwise it will continue to be blocked like this." Hamid pretended to be thoughtful, as if he was thinking about this issue carefully, "Well, I Go back to the car and make a phone call to see if you can find someone to confirm what I said." Lucas hesitated. "Okay, Hamm. But you've got to find someone who can decide." "certainly." The door buzzed open, and Hamid walked briskly across the parking lot.Things seem to be going well.Thank God he's always been on good terms with the policemen who guard here.From the cops' point of view, most tour guides were college-educated jerks—and for good reason.Unlike Hamid, he has had coffee with these people several times.He knows their system...he even knows the phone number through security confirmation. In the middle of the parking lot, Hamid suddenly found himself shaking.The whole plan, as well as the on-the-spot adaptation, everything seemed very natural.He never thought he could do this.Maybe it was out of desperation... For some reason, he even found it amusing.