The Elgin Deceptions (Sunken City Capers Book 2)

by Jeffrey A. Ballard

  Damn it—zero body count.

  “But stunning him shouldn’t kill him,” Puo says, too familiar with my thinking patterns.

  “They need to evacuate him,” I say. “Toady, keep a squiddie-eye on them. I want to know what they’re doing.”

  Anxiousness piles up within my chest, great weights resting on my sternum. Winn’s necklace is pressed awkwardly against my skin, pinching the edge of my left breast.

  Zero. Fucking. Body count.

  I breathe in deeply, pushing those weights off, and say, “We have a bigger problem. We can’t blow the candle with them in the building.”

  Puo’s quiet on the other end of line. He knows this. It’s too risky—it could inadvertently kill them. But it’s the blow-off; it’s how we’re getting outta here.

  Puo says, “So what do you want to do? Sneak away?”

  “No,” I say. They could follow us, or at least find our escape route too soon before we’ve had sufficient time to clean shop. “We need to lure them out of the building.”

  The squiddie pulls Liáng and me into a departure lounge and kills the squiddie’s lights. “What’s the bait?” Puo asks in a tone that suggests he knows the answer.

  “Seeing as you’re already trolling with two pieces of juicy bait—” I start to say.

  “No way,” Puo says, breathing through his nose. “Know when to cut losses and run. It’s time to run. They have guns, Queen Bee, and they’re firing them.”

  Liáng says, “I agree, with Mr. Toad. If we can slink away, let’s do so. There’s plenty of cover with the other squiddies, and you can still activate your distractions.”

  “Seconded,” Puo immediately jumps in to agree.

  “This is not a democracy,” I say.

  “Queen Bee,” Puo pleads, “for the love of Neptune. We talked about this. We don’t need supergirl here—the moment’s passed. The Muppies are playing a good game. We just need a win. Not a shutout.”

  The soft piano notes have a meandering tempo. The two balloon bags tugging at my waist lessen as the squiddie slows down. Winn isn’t affecting me—he’s not. We need to give ourselves the proper amount of time to escape.

  The sounds of the squiddies upstairs continue to dominate the aural landscape. “How many of the squiddies have you converted?” I ask. “And what’s with the sports metaphor?”

  “Zero,” Puo answers seriously. “They must have figured out what was going on and shut off that feature.”

  Damn.

  “Queen Bee,” Puo starts again. “Restoring the frogman’s power back in the stairwell was questionable—”

  “What about the surface craft, Toady?” I cut him off.

  “What about forcing me to drag you into the middle of a gun fight with no weapon!”

  “What was I supposed to do—?” I start to ask exasperated.

  “Nothing, Queen Bee! Nothing. I could’ve sent squiddies in without humans attached to them.”

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  “Because God only knows what stupid thing you would do if you didn’t get your way and I left you behind.” When I don’t answer right away, Puo plows on, “It’s time to cut our losses and go home—”

  “Fine!” I say to shut him up. “Fine.” I don’t want to hear it, and I can’t think of a great reason not to slink away. But fuck. If we were going to do that, we should’ve done that ages ago.

  And Winn is not affecting me.

  * * *

  We waste more precious time waiting for two new converted squiddies to show up and escort us off. The squiddie we’ve been clinging to has an empty balloon bag attached to it for a decoy.

  Now that we’ve decided to wave the white flag of lameness and slink away, waiting around for extra seconds is like hearing nails on a chalkboard.

  “They almost here yet?” I ask Puo. One of the two of my balloon bags drifts forward from the inaction and bumps me in the back.

  “Almost,” Puo says, “I’m bringing a whole group of them by as a screen.”

  “Sure you can handle two of us on separate squiddies?” I dig at him. “As much as I appreciated being laid out front and center for the frogman back there to get shot, I’d rather not do that again.”

  “There was a lot going on!” Puo defends himself. “And I think I’m doing pretty darn good for only just learning these things a month ago.”

  Yeah, he is. “There’s still a lot going on,” I say, but without any real snap to it.

  Puo harrumphs.

  A group of converted squiddies pass by outside the departure lounge, two of which break off and make their way in, turning on their helmet lights as they approach. The squiddie that had escorted us swims off to join the pack that had passed.

  “Plump Panda,” I ask, “where are your balloon bags?”

  Liáng answers, “I left them back in the security office.”

  “You left them back in the security office?” Puo clarifies. Good—I was hoping he caught that.

  “Yeah,” Liáng answers. “They seemed like they’d be a distraction trying to rescue Queen Bee.”

  “Assist me,” I correct him. I grab onto the squiddie’s outstretched appendage that stops near me. “I am not some helpless damsel in distress in need of rescuing.”

  “Looked like you needed rescuing to me,” Liáng says.

  “Then you need to get your eyes checked,” I say. “I almost had them where I wanted them.” I freaking hate the whole man-needs-to-save-helpless-woman bullshit. If the woman really was that helpless, then she had already outlived her life expectancy having survived that long as freaking helpless. “If anything, you nearly screwed everything up.”

  “I’ll remember that next time,” Liáng says dryly.

  “Children,” Puo says, “I hate to interrupt, but are you two ready to go?”

  Liáng and I both say, “Yes,” like two perfectly reasonable adults and not at all like petulant children.

  The squiddies kill their helmet lights, plunging us back into darkness. Their active sonar should be enough to guide their way.

  Puo says, “The frogmen are on the move. Two of them are forming a sling between them to move the motionless one. It looks like they’re going to head to the nearest exit.”

  My squiddie starts to move forward; the metal appendage is cold again through my hands as I tighten my grip. “Where’s the fourth?”

  “Uh …” Puo mumbles.

  “Toady!” I snap.

  “I don’t know!” Puo says, and then preemptively cuts me off. “A lot’s going on! All right?”

  “No!” I say. “It’s not all right.”

  “Then be quiet and let me concentrate,” Puo snipes.

  I raise my eyebrows at his tone, but don’t prolong the argument. Hopefully, the frogman can’t aim an underwater gun based on his handheld sonar alone.

  We glide out into the main arcade and turn left, away from the security office and where the Muppies are evacuating their comrade. My two balloon bags strum out behind me.

  Puo whispers, “I intend to bring you to the stairs near the south entrance, and sneak you up through the upper level to the stairs near the far platforms on the east side. That will dump us down right near the security office.”

  “What about the squiddie battle up there?” Liáng asks.

  The sounds of which are getting louder as we turn the corner and see a set of stairs in the middle of the arcade leading up.

  “About that—” Puo starts.

  Oh, great—I know that tone.

  “—I’m going to turn off the active sonar, and identification pinger. They’re pretty busy to do a visual sweep. We’ll sneak right through.”

  “So, we’re flying blind?” I ask just to make sure I understand.

  “Not blind,” Puo says. “I have situational awareness from the other squiddies.”

  “Like you did when you deposited me in front of the frogman to get shot?” I ask. And the missing cruisers? And the missing fourth frogman?


  “You’re never going to let that go, are you?” Puo says. “You’re fine now. No one shot you. And it’ll be fine—”

  “Activate the distractions,” Liáng suggests.

  Damn it. That’s a good idea to activate the riders on the rails, and I was right about to say it. Instead I say, “Use the converted squiddies to escort the riders, protecting the cargo.”

  “There’s a bit much going on for me to direct them as escorts,” Puo complains. “I don’t actually have six hands.”

  “Then use one of the hands you do have,” I tell him. Then more helpfully I say, “We’ll wait.”

  “Roger, that,” Puo says. “Standby.”

  The squiddies dragging Liáng and I slow down to a stop near the stairs leading up. My balloon bags drift upward, bumping into the back of my helmet.

  “What are we waiting for?” Liáng asks.

  “Toady to grow six hands,” I say.

  “For me to get everything in place,” Puo answers.

  “How are the Muppies looking?” I ask. The two balloon bags tug at my waist.

  It’s dark in the hallway except for the flashes of light and the sounds of the squiddie battle traveling down through the stairwell. If a frogman were five feet away, I wouldn’t know it.

  “Good,” Puo answers absent-mindedly. “The two of them are still transporting the third one out.”

  “But where’s the fourth?” Liáng asks. “I can’t see a damn thing.”

  “Neither can I,” I say. “Toady, can these things detect the active pulse from the frogman’s handheld sonar?” I had to abandon the one I had upstairs when the squiddie army with the HiDAR arrived. The HiDAR!

  “Toady, what about the HiDAR?” I ask.

  “It’s destroyed,” Puo says matter-of-factly. “And yes on the active pulse. Nothing in the arcade.”

  “When did the HiDAR—?” I start to ask.

  “Earlier,” Puo says shortly. “A lot’s been happening.”

  I imagine I can hear Puo typing frantically over the classical music through the comm-link as we float there in the dark. The building piano notes are woven in with a woeful cello accompaniment.

  “Okay,” Puo says. “Here we go. Hold on.”

  “Holding on,” Liáng and I repeat back to him.

  My squiddie first articulates its appendages upward with small, crinkly sounds and then moves slowly around the other side of the stairwell; one of the appendages bumps one of my balloon bags, causing it to pull sharply on my waist. Liáng’s squiddie is right behind me. The light from the squiddies fighting and chasing each other up above illuminates the stairs in blue pixelated detail.

  “Activating distractions,” Puo says.

  The zipping sound of the rapid acceleration of the riders undercuts the squiddies’ clanking and whooshing around.

  Almost immediately there’s a subtle shift in the squiddies’ sounds as they give chase.

  My squiddie eases me to the upper level and immediately skirts to the right, staying low, heading for the distant small sliver of a walkway between the farthest train track and east wall.

  The squiddies in the distance to my left look like an old nighttime World War Two aerial battle. Flashes of light, like heat lightning on a summer day, dipping and weaving around each other in the expanse under the glass and iron roof. They look completely focused on themselves, oblivious to anything on the ground, fighting in a world all their own.

  I can see a few of the balloon bags, highlighted in blue pixels, zooming down the tracks with squiddies following overhead illuminating them. The tangled mass of other fighting squiddies move in that general direction.

  Sweat drips down the sides of my neck as I tightly clench the squiddie’s appendage. I swivel my neck around, feeling the sweat grind in, and search for any sign of the missing fourth frogman.

  The narrow walkway opens up to another set of platforms on the right and a set of stairs leading down to the lower level, which should be right across the hallway the security office is down—convenient, that.

  “The Muppies cleared out?” I ask Puo.

  “Yeah,” Puo says. “Heading down now.”

  This is the last bit. Once we’re in the security office, we’ll use their private entrance into the underground tunnels to make our getaway. I can’t help but shake my head though. We had the perfect setup. Now lost.

  The security office is a steel cage, a bomb shelter designed to protect against enemy planes, bombs, and terrorists blasts. Once we lured all the Muppies’ mechanical toys into the station and we were in the security office—ka-blooey! We were going to bring the whole thing down on top of them.

  The Muppies would lose all their assets, and they’d probably think we were dead. By the time they dug everything out and figured out where we were and how we got away, we’d be long gone.

  It was perfect.

  Now all they need to do is complete a sweep of the building. That’ll take some time, but not nearly as long as digging through a pile of rubble.

  My squiddie swims down the stairs into a curved narrow hallway with a low ceiling—well, low compared to everywhere else in this place. The small arcade the ruckus was in is behind us, and still a big silt mess. I can’t see very far at all with the nightvision in that direction, only a cloud of blue pixels without any structure to it behind Liáng clinging to his squiddie.

  “You sure the Muppies are gone?” I ask Puo again.

  “Yes,” Puo says, but doesn’t elaborate.

  The small arcade feels quiet from the ruckus before. There are no flashes of lights. No panicked banging or dark shapes looming in the silt.

  “Where are the other squiddies?” I ask.

  “I moved them away so as not to draw attention to us,” Puo answers.

  Our squiddies swim down the center of the hallway as it slowly curves to the left. There’s a slight kick up of silt lingering in the hallway, but it’s nowhere near as bad as where the ruckus was.

  We pass ghostly storefronts, abandoned and broken. An eatery takes up the back corner of the circle the curved hallway makes. Several tables and chairs once set up in the hallway are knocked over and pushed up against the half-wall of the eatery, covered in draping silt.

  “Why’s the silt kicked up?” Liáng asks.

  “Because you were in the security office already,” Puo says in a perfectly plausible voice.

  Liáng doesn’t respond to that as we travel down a hallway that splits off the curved loop to head straight back.

  We pass by more broken glass from a large store on the right, while security gates lowered down onto countertops on the left give an basement-bowel kind of feel to this part of the building.

  The security office is a nondescript door up ahead to the left. In fact, it stands out as not standing out. No sign on the door or near it. Whereas everything else in this station has multiple signs making their messages clear.

  My squiddie swims right up to the door and an appendage curls out to push the handle down and pull it open.

  “Nice trick—” I say.

  Pop! Zoof!

  Clank! My squiddie reels backward from the super-cavitating fléchette puncturing it through its tear-dropped body.

  The fourth frogman is floating just on the other side of the door, helmet lights blaring and handgun pointed straight at us.

  “Let go!” Puo screams.

  Liáng obeys and his squiddie launches into the open door, it’s appendages whipping out at the frogman.

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Clank! Clank! Liáng’s squiddie is hit.

  Liáng and I are pushing our way through the door toward the frogman. In a situation like this, you need to close the gap as quickly as possible to try and nullify the handgun.

  Liáng’s squiddie continues to thrash in front of the frogman providing cover for us as we slip in.

  I push around to the right side, skirting around the flailing squiddie, while Liáng goes left. I bat my annoying-as-shit balloon bags away from my li
ne of sight.

  The frogman tracks me with his helmet, two beams of light swiveling onto me, while he struggles with the squiddie in front of him. Pop! Pop! Pop!

  The squiddie jerks at the impacts. Its appendages go limp.

  The frogman starts to turn the gun toward me.

  I burst over to him as quickly as I can.

  I brush up against him and bring my knee hard into his abdomen.

  Pain explodes against my knee—it’s like kneeing hard plastic.

  Liáng comes up behind him—stunner in hand.

  Shit! I push myself away from the frogman. Two balloon bags bouncing off the back of my head and shoulders.

  Liáng stuns him from behind.

  The frogman goes instantly limp, no jerking, no twitching. Alive and trying to kill me one second, completely still like a dead mule the next.

  “Toady,” I say, breathing heavily, “Get three squiddies here stat. Panda, good work. Grab your balloon bags and get ready to roll.”

  “Three? You can’t be serious,” Puo says.

  “Yes, three,” I say. “We have an extra guest for the party. And since the other guests have now left, we’re going to light candles after all.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  PUO COULD only scrounge up one converted squiddie on short notice like that—the one that was dedicated to making sure the other three frogmen were outside the building.

  We’ve just squeezed down the narrow stairs from the security office to the private underground entrance. Liáng and I had to carry the frogman between us in the tight space after zip-tying his hands and feet (Puo retrieved Liáng’s DPV). Puo also made sure the stunner scrambled the frogman’s communications. But the asshat frogman still struggled to make things difficult. I still maintain zero body count, but that doesn’t mean I’m a pacifist. And the quickest way to get your point across with a man is to kick him in the scrotum. This asshat took three to get the point across. Masochist.

  Fortunately though, we tied all four of our balloon bags to the squiddie ahead of us so they wouldn’t annoy the shit out of me anymore.

  “Queen Bee—” Puo starts.