Errand Run

The coilgun only took him another few hours, and after he was done, he admired his handiwork.

He looked at the heavy hunk of copper coils and magnets, "That'll do the job." he said to himself with a satisfied grin, before sending off another note to Mac with the design and a price.

The next day, he decided to run some errands, it had been a while since he got new materials for his shop, or restocked his fridge for that matter. He went to outdoor market first, picking up some enough food to last him a while, stopping only to feed the strays along the street. He then made his way to the closest thing that passed for a hardware store in Sector 76. He browsed the aisles for a while, picking up this and that, before making his way to the counter to check out.

As he was waiting in line, he noticed a commotion at the front of the store. He saw a man in a hurry, shoving items into his bag and running out the door. The store employees were shouting after him, but he was long gone.

"Another street rat, stealing what we rightfully pay for." Hugo heard the person in line behind him say, another nodded in agreement.

"I know, I saw him too. He just came in and started grabbing stuff off the shelves."

"Did you see what he took?"

He looked at the people behind him with a chastising face: they were all poor too, surely they'd have some appreciation for this man's struggles - after all, you don't steal parts from a hardware store unless you were really truly desperate.

"I didn't see, but I'm sure the store will have a list of what's missing. They'll probably file it with the Poli-bot system later."

The line moved forward and Hugo finally made it to the front, where he placed his items on the counter. The store employee, a tired-looking woman, scanned his items and told him the total. He handed her the credits and she bagged his items.

On his walk home, he gazed at the artificial ceiling of Sector 76, thinking all the while of how it got there. He thought back to the Great Expansion, to when humans first created the Structure, and of the mysterious mechanisms that enable it's expansion and upkeep. After all there were millions, maybe billions of sectors within the Structure, each with enough life to populate a planet.

He shook his head, as if to clear it of thoughts, and made his way back to his shop. It was getting late, and he still had some work to do.