The Solid-State Shuffle (Sunken City Capers Book 1)

by Jeffrey A. Ballard

  "At least," Winn says weakly, "it's not a porn name."

  I crack a weak smile.

  "All right," Puo says in a huff, "new rule. Code names worked out before every mission. And—and a set of fake names to be used by everyone, in advance—"

  "Toad!" I whisper, "Shut up and listen."

  Puo harumphs, but shuts up.

  "I have the Cleaner's squeegee," I say. "Going to plug back in but stick with plan A."

  Plan A called for us to use the Cleaners' code to stroll right out of the marina like we belonged here. And given how these goons strolled right in, it should be possible.

  "Ribbit." Puo mimics the sound of frog.

  "That's a frog, not a toad," I say. "Toads say croak."

  "Ya know," Puo says, "I feel sorry for Falcon."

  "What?" I ask. I look back at Winn. He's pushed himself up onto one elbow.

  Puo continues, "There's just no pleasing you."

  Winn exhales, gathering his strength and says, "Sure there is, just do what she says."

  Puo snorts. "Acknowledged on the plan. Let me know when you're plugged in."

  I stand up and look around the top corners of the room for a camera or broadcast hub, something I can hook into it.

  It's been more than a minute. "Falcon," I ask, "How are you doing?"

  He thinks before answering me. "Not good," he finally settles on. "It feels like I've been beaten with socks full of quarters."

  There's a broadcast hub in the upper right corner across from where I'm standing.

  "Are you going to be able to move soon?" I ask as I cross over to the hub.

  Winn says, "No," at the same time I properly see what flew out of the woman's hand on the floor when I had first kicked her. It's not just a taser—it's a squeegee with a taser in it.

  She's a Cleaner too.

  "Oh, shit," I say.

  There's only one reason two Cleaners would ever be here in the marina on the same job. They're not just some random thug team with a Cleaner. They are a team of Cleaners.

  They were sent by the Cleaners Guild itself.

  * * *

  Contracting a Cleaner is expensive. I can think of a few scenarios where more than one may be necessary. But this marina is not one of those scenarios. The payoff would have to be huge to justify the expense.

  "She's a Cleaner too," I tell Puo.

  He puts it together and mimics my reaction. "What are they doing there?"

  "I don't know." But it's a damn good question. This thing is getting more and more twisted. Are they here for us? Coincidence? What are they after? If they are after us, how'd they get here so fast?

  I grab the woman's squeegee and stick it in with the other one I picked up.

  We need to get out of here, and I don't know if there are any more of them.

  With a team of Cleaners on site, we can't plug back in and hope to walk out of here. It's way too risky to walk out; they may come in behind us and put us right back on the map. We'll have to go with the backup plan, put the underwater sensors on a timer to shut down and swim out of here, with the added subterfuge of trying to fool any Cleaner that may plug in after us.

  I tell Puo what I'm up to, and use my foot to nudge the Cleaner woman. Still out.

  "Isa," Winn says, "I can't—I won't be able to exit that way."

  Damn.

  "Sorry," Winn says.

  I hadn't realized I swore out loud. "It's okay, can you walk?" The man was a surgeon in his former life. If he says he can't swim, I believe him.

  "With help," he says, sucking in his breath as he tries to sit up.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Instinct kicks in, and I rush over to the female Cleaner and take her thin belt off from around her waist. I truss her wrists behind her back. Then I use her shoelaces to tie together her ankles in as tight a knot as I can manage and secure it to her wrists behind her back.

  I swing back by the male Cleaner and do something similar.

  "Toad," I say, "it'd be really helpful if you could tell me how many of them there are."

  "Agreed," Puo says. "But I got nothing. Whatever code they're using covered their tracks from the video feeds and the nearby aerial cams."

  "What if I remove their code?" I ask. I need to plug in anyway to disable the underwater sensors to make our getaway.

  "I don't know," Puo says. "I think it's better just to get the heck outta there, rather than linger on a science experiment."

  That, more than anything, tells me how scared Puo is. He loves experiments, pushing the boundaries of tech, exploring the limits.

  I feel a rising tightness in my chest, a sense of the air becoming oppressive.

  Something's coming.

  I can feel it breathing down my neck. Decades of instincts scream at me to flee.

  "Toad," I whisper as I secure my bulging fanny pack to my waist with the squeegees and then rush over to Winn. "We're leaving. Now."

  "You plug in?" Puo asks.

  "No."

  "You walking out the front?"

  "No," I whisper.

  There's a creak outside the office, in the front of the marina. I can see the door from here: locked.

  I slip Winn's arm around my shoulders and help him into a crouching position. I also grab his helmet and fins for him to hold onto.

  The woman's legs on the ground rustle as she moves them back and forth—she's starting to come out of it.

  We hobble out of the back door, stopping briefly to look around. Nothing.

  The woman starts to moan.

  The warehouse marina is so quiet that she sounds like a banshee in my ears as I strain to hear any sign of pursuit or of someone closing in on us.

  The water is still, the waves from Carpe Diem long past.

  I pick up my helmet and fins, both are now awkward to carry with Winn draped over my shoulder. My right trapeze muscle is straining to hold Winn, stretching, beginning to ache.

  The woman's moans turn into indistinct words. She's calling out for help—using at least two different names.

  Winn's doing his best, but it's not fast enough. His shuffle step is too damn loud.

  We're not going to make it like this.

  I motion for Winn to put his helmet back on. I put mine back on.

  We're near the end of the building, back out on the docks.

  The helmet cuts off my peripheral vision. And I can't hear a damn thing anymore. But far more importantly, cameras can't see our faces.

  As for getting out of here: there's a red shiny fire alarm on the back of the building.

  I yank the lever.

  * * *

  The results are instantaneous. The staccato rinnng-ring-ring rinng-ring-ring pierces the silence. Quick, seizure inducing bright flashes lance out into the dark night.

  Puo rushes to ask, "What's going on?"

  "We're getting out of here," I say. Wearing the helmet is freaking me out. I can't see anything except what's in front of me, and with bearing Winn's weight, all I can see is the dock at my feet in front of me.

  "How?" Puo asks.

  "The same way we came in, except topside," I answer.

  With a fire in the marina, those liveaboards and any late night partiers will be getting out of Dodge quickly. If Winn could swim, we'd try to attach to one of them. But he can't.

  "Topside?" Puo asks.

  I've managed to get Winn halfway down the dock when Puo puts it together. "You going to steal Valle's boat?" Puo asks, not quite aghast, but not calm, either.

  "Do you have any other option?" I ask with a clenched jaw. Boats leaving in a marina fire are not immediately remarked upon. We can get out without really being seen and ditch the boat somewhere.

  Already I can see some boat lights, fortunately distant, on the dock that are turning on. People are stirring.

  I tell Puo, "Work out where to dump the boat and pick us up."

  "Roger," Puo says.

  "And," I continue, "bring two EM vacuum bags for the squeegees I p
icked up." I don't want to take any chances.

  "Got it," Puo answers.

  We come around to the side of Valle's yacht. Other motors in the marina are beginning to fire up. I practically toss/shove Winn onto the boat and then rush around untying the docking ropes.

  I leap onto the boat, and tell Winn to just stay low for now. He hobbles over to the group seating and tries to blend in.

  I don't bother pulling in the ropes that are now dangling in the water from boat cleats on the hull. I skip up to the upper deck and hook my squeegee in. I turn on the lights in the cabin and fire up the engines and ease her back.

  Valle's yacht glides smoothly out of the slip. At least two other boats—one is Carpe Diem—are backing out as well.

  I shift the boat to forward, and guide it toward the exit. I keep looking back, but I don't see anything that makes me think we're being followed.

  "We're going to have to come back," I say. "To make sure they didn't get an image of us."

  "They didn't," Winn says. His voice still sound weak, but getting stronger. "They never plugged in. The first one caught me unplugging after I put our code in place and pulled their records. We fought. I won. Then the second one attacked. Queen Bee took her out. Neither had time to plug in."

  "So our protocols are still in place?" Puo asks.

  "Yeah," Winn says.

  "But only," I say, "if there were two of them. I heard someone else outside the marina. She was calling to them. And how come Toad didn't see them?"

  "But," Puo says, "if there is a third Cleaner they'd have plugged in after. That's why. The code works like filtering blood through the kidneys—they may be able to tell something was removed, but not exactly who."

  "And," I say, thinking out loud, "We wore our helmets on the way out." So if they did plug in and remove our filter for their own, they wouldn't get our faces.

  We exit out of the marina. We made it. Now we just need to dump the boat and get picked up.

  "I still don't like it," I say. It leaves too much to chance and hoping your farts don't stink. "We have to be sure."

  Puo sighs. "Great. What'd you have in mind?"

  I feel the weight of the fanny pack around my waist holding the three squeegees.

  "Queen Bee?" Puo asks, becoming more agitated. "Queen Bee, no."

  "No, what?" I innocently ask him.

  "You want to run a game on the Cleaners," Puo exclaims, "now of all times?"

  "Why not?" I think we may have just found the perfect fall guys.

  "I'll tell you why not—" Puo starts.

  "Toad," I cut him off. "We're free, tell me where the pickup is."

  Puo grudgingly obliges then continues to berate me for twenty minutes, telling in the minutest of detail why running a game on the Cleaners would be a stupid idea.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  PUO AND I SIT alone in our Queen Anne home in the parlor room off the entrance hallway. It's late at night, and the sounds of the night fill the small room. Crickets mostly. Some other bug sounds I don't know. Not quite what I'm used to.

  The neighborhood goes to sleep shortly after dark on most nights. Turns quiet. Except for that odd, anti-social trio that just moved in at the end of the street with a bunch of old rummaged furniture.

  Winn is upstairs sleeping, while Puo and I regroup in the parlor.

  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the parlor space when we bought it. Parlors always struck me as silly, a room just to sit in? Aren't all rooms like that? But the space has grown on me.

  It has green paisley wallpaper that looks soft and textured. There's a stone fireplace in the corner (complete with ash) that's framed by a shiny wooden mantle that matches the trim along the slatted wooden floors. An ornate six-lamp chandelier hangs down in the middle of the room from a plain ceiling with crown molding. Plain ceiling—well, that's boring. Going to have to fix that.

  The effect is to put me in a Sherlock Holmes kind of mood, calm and contemplative. All I need is a pipe, and, ya know, some proper furniture. The blue felt couch that sags in the middle when Puo isn't sitting in it isn't cutting it. Nor is the black foldout chair I'm currently occupying.

  "What'd we learn at the marina?" Puo asks.

  If you didn't know Puo, that'd sound like a reasonable question. But it's really a passive-aggressive way of asking what the hell am I up to, and why did I take (what he thinks is) such a stupid risk.

  I lean back in the chair, cross my arms, and pretend to hold a pipe. "Colvin borrowed Valle's boat. And he goes out alone to the bank."

  "That's it?" Puo asks dryly. "No foreplay?"

  Puo's the one who combed through the maintenance records that Winn pulled. Colvin's boat started having troubles the month we showed up. That's why we thought it was Valle going out there. And it turns out the official maintenance record lists the problem with Colvin's boat as a broken driving belt—not the broken link in the shifter that Mr. Scruffy-Beard-Maintenance-Man had said the problem was. Colvin using Valle's boat also explains why it was on the lowest security setting—Colvin wouldn't want it logging him.

  "Isa," Puo says, as serious as I've ever seen him. "We're being set up." He lifts up his left hand and starts ticking off his reasons. "The gate was already open in the underwater tunnel. Colvin knew the drive was gone way too quick. The Cleaners showing up tonight. The discrepancy between Colvin's yacht maintenance records and the actual problem, making us think it was Valle."

  "Yeah," I say. I rub my temples and think. There's a slight chill in the air that makes goosebumps bloom on my arms. The smell of ash in the fireplace makes me wish for the heat and crackle of a fire.

  The real question is, being set up by whom? Colvin? As plausible deniability to avoid a war for rubbing us out? Hayes? What job did he have in mind? Was it a trap? Some unknown third party? Valle? Chavez? This is why you don't rush a job.

  "What have you learned about Hayes?" I ask, rubbing my temples.

  "Nothing," Puo answers.

  "Nothing?"

  "We've been a little busy," Puo says defensively. He waits for the fight that I'm not going to start and then he says, "Now is not the time to run a game on the Cleaners."

  "We have to do something," I say. "If the Cleaners made our faces, we're dead. And we took two of their squeegees. They're going to come after us if they know who we are."

  "Tell Colvin we were there. Investigating on his behalf. He'll provide cover. And confirm he took Valle's boat out while you're at it."

  The Cleaners Guild is loosely below and organized under the Boss. But they're more like independent contractors that don't necessarily have to follow company policies, or requests. There's always a tension there between the Boss and the Cleaners.

  I stop to think about it. Colvin already knows we were there in the afternoon. I used his name with Rodrigo, and Rodrigo followed up in front of me to make sure I wasn't a suicidal airhead—

  Son of a bitch. Rodrigo. That's why the Cleaners were there to get rid of stuff. Rodrigo tipped the Cleaners off. I have no proof other than the discrepancy in the records, but it feels right. How is he involved in this?

  "It might work," I concede. "I'm not taking a game completely off the table, but we can try it your way. I think Rodrigo tipped the Cleaners off."

  "Mmm ..." is all Puo says to this.

  We need to try and figure out who's behind all this. The crickets fill in the silence for a bit, before I decide, "We need to engage with Hayes."

  Puo slowly nods his head. "Agreed."

  Hayes is a rude prick. His showing up when he did is starting to look extremely suspicious. He may very well be behind all of it, in which case interacting with him may shake something loose—so long as we're careful. He's also well connected, which may shake something loose if he's not involved.

  "We also," I say, "need to find out what's on that drive."

  "Do we?" Puo asks.

  He doesn't want to go out into the field alone.

  "Yes," I say. "I'll run backup fo
r you."

  "Not in the dead room you won't."

  "I'll be there," I assure him. "We'll cut the power as a sign to get out of there if you need to. But you're pretending to be a student. Shouldn't be that hard."

  Puo's silent for a few seconds, and avoids looking at me. Eventually he asks, "How's Winn?"

  "Better. He says he should just be sore tomorrow with a good night's sleep." When Puo doesn't answer right away I say, "You know he wants us to meet our neighbors. Go to a neighborhood party."

  Puo stares at the floor in front of him.

  "Ugh," I say. "You want to go too?"

  Puo shrugs. "We need to fit in more here. We stand out. That's not good. We don't want to arouse suspicion by lack of information—letting them write their own narrative of us."

  "I'm going to bed," I say dismissively. I hate it when Puo's right.

  * * *

  Seven thirty the next morning comes way too early. Puo and Winn gather in the front foyer, ready to head out to the dead room at Seattle University.

  I walk out to meet them from the kitchen, still in my cotton charcoal pajama pants and pink tank top, a cup of regular coffee in my hand (still haven't fixed the espresso machine).

  "My boys," I say, my chest swelling with pride, or maybe that's just me puffing up the girls for Winn. "Now I want you to look out for each other—" I say in a southern accent and set my coffee down and start fiddling with Puo's plain, deep-blue buttoned shirt. "—and listen to your teachers—"

  "Isa," Puo complains and swats away my hand.

  "—and don't pick fights. But don't let no one bully you either."

  "Isa!" Puo says, "stop."

  I step next to Winn and push the girls on him. "And you, my sweet boy—" I can just see the top of his caduceus pendant underneath his shirt. "—Stay away from the girls. They're nothing but trouble. Only mama here knows how to take care of you."

  Winn's eyes satisfyingly dilate and linger. Maybe getting zapped last night burned all that existentialist crap out of him.

  I step back and throw my hand up over my forehead and look away. "Now go! Go, I say. Before mama cannot bear it any longer and pulls you both close to her bosom to never let go!"