The Solid-State Shuffle (Sunken City Capers Book 1)
Page 20
"My father," Colvin says, "was a mathematician, a Ph.D., the full nine. And always discontented with our lot in life—mom was long since in the grave. He used to complain about how everyone told him how smart he was, but then if he was so smart, why weren't we richer, he'd ask? Why were we barely scraping by?"
Colvin leans back on the bench lost in his own memories. "At any rate, he got mixed up with Marjorie Guerrero—" He glances over at me to see if I know the name. I shake my head that I don't. "—She was a midlevel boss here in Seattle trying to improve her own situation. Life improved for us for a bit. But then a war broke out between Marjorie and Valencia—"
I almost don't need to hear the rest.
"—Marjorie lost. My father, caught in the middle—I still don't know what his exact role was in the conflict—was executed. And if you know Isadora—"
"She didn't like to leave loose ends," I finish for him.
"No, she didn't," Colvin says quietly. "I had little choice. I was nineteen at the time and at University when Dad called me at one in the morning in a blind panic to grab my sisters and flee. It was either grab my sisters and flee, always looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives, or fight back."
The latte in my hands is cooling off. A light breeze swirls some leaves down from a nearby dogwood tree.
"I chose to fight back," Colvin says. "I picked up the pieces of Marjorie's territories. Step one was faking my sisters' deaths. My new crew held our own against Isadora for some time, with considerably less resources I might add. It's actually where all this started."
"Where all what started?" I ask.
"The attempted coup—"
Hunh. With all the stuff with Winn, and trying not to get killed, I never thought about the why much. There's always someone gunning for the Boss's position. It's a position built on strength; whoever's strongest wins. Challengers are inevitable.
Colvin continues. "—Valle had a step-daughter from a previous marriage that he was fond of. Apparently, she was a casualty in the war."
"That's a long time to wait."
"Indeed. From what I can tell it took him time to track down what happened, and then he was convinced my sisters were still alive and was looking for them. He even roped in Hayes to infiltrate Pacific View Bank, but Hayes was unsuccessful—"
Ha! That makes me feel better—manboy couldn't pull the job that Puo and I ended up rushing. Then I remember manboy is now dead, and the woman he loved was killed right in front of him beforehand. I hate death—robs all the joy out of the triumphant moments.
Colvin continues. "—They had to wait to frame more competent thieves."
"And Christina?" I ask, letting the compliment slide by.
"Opportunist," Colvin answers. "My relationship with the Cleaners has always been strained. I've been thinking ... well, never mind." Colvin's silent for a few seconds before picking up the story again. "Eventually, Forest Parker's death in Albany created a power vacuum, and Isadora left to fill it. And now here I am."
There's a few more steps between running a small territory under siege for years to becoming an area Boss, but I let it go.
"So," I say, "you're telling me, except for an enterprising father, you would've been a laci?"
"Through and through."
"What were you studying?" I can't help myself from asking.
"Theology and philosophy."
I snort a soft laugh. But it does seem to fit him in a strange way.
We fall into another silence. I don't get the sense that we're through here. I take a sip of my latte. It's losing its heat and tastes mostly like milk with a hint of coffee.
"Forgive me," Colvin says switching tacks, "but are you going to stay in Seattle?"
"Why?" I ask. A part of me realizes that he has shrewdly asked this after getting me to agree to take care of his sisters in an emergency. Although, there's no technical reason we have to be local once we set things up.
"My people report that Dr. Braddock has split town."
Braddock is Winn's fake last name tied to his CitID on the modified citizen chip—we kept him a doctor for convenience. I look away quickly. Of course Colvin would keep close tabs on us following what happened.
Here we were having a nice old time talking about wars and dead people and he's got to go and bring up ... him.
When I don't say anything at first he says, "Would you like to know where he went?"
I just manage to shake my head no. I take a deep breath, keeping most of the shudders out. It was only just this morning.
Only just this morning.
Colvin gracefully studies the direction opposite from me.
I collect myself quickly and ask, "So, why are you asking?"
Colvin looks back over at me. "I have a job opening."
"I don't do security," I say.
"You could," he says. "You know people. You know the angles."
Maybe so. But getting tangled up with Bosses is a bad idea—well getting more tangled up than I already have. "No thanks," I say.
Colvin nods. "I thought you'd say that. But I would've really liked you to say yes." When I don’t respond, Colvin stands up. "Well. Wether you stay or not. Thank you. We part with no animosity. But, uh, please do more research in the future. You could just ask me since you know I get a cut anyway."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Colvin walks away, his hands in his Oxxford navy-colored pants, his footsteps crunching against the dirt path.
After he disappears from view Puo says into the comm-link in my ear, startling me, "So, are we going to stay?"
"Damn, Toad—"
"Hey!"
"—How long have you been there?"
"Long enough," he answers. "But the question remains. Are we staying?"
I don't answer him right away. There's work to be done to set up Colvin's sisters. But we don't actually have to be local once it's done.
The sky is cloudy. There's a chill in the air. Yesterday I was sweaty, now I'm cold. And it's only August. The weather is quite awful here, to be honest.
"Yeah," I say. "We're going to stay."
"Well all right then," Puo says.
"But can you please fix the espresso machine?"
"Oh no, my dear," the smug Samoan man huffs. "But, I will tell you a story ..."
The End
The fun continues in The Elgin Deceptions: Sunken City Capers Book 2 set to be released on November 1, 2016. Get it here for the special preorder price of $0.99! Turn the page to read an excerpt of The Elgin Deceptions.
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Turn the page to read chapter 1 of The Elgin Deceptions: Sunken City Capers Book 2.
THE ELGIN DECEPTIONS:
SUNKEN CITY CAPERS BOOK 2
Coming November 1, 2016!
After the wake of dead bodies left in the Seattle Isles, Isa and Puo retreat to Europe to gain some distance while things settle down. But even on another continent, the Ghost of Winn haunts Isa everywhere she goes. And to make matters worse, Puo won’t shut up about it.
Determined to prove nothing’s wrong, Isa accepts their biggest job yet from a mysterious employer with deep pockets. The employer’s only condition: the inclusion of Liáng, an attractive, well-muscled operative to be embedded with their team.
As the gravity of what Isa took on we
ighs on them, they learn more about this mysterious employer and that failure isn’t an option—not with the kind of bill they’re racking up. Meanwhile, the authorities are closing in as Isa’s crew isn’t getting any closer to pulling off their job.
With options dwindling, it’s time to try something reckless—the Ghost of Winn be damned.
CHAPTER ONE
"LET'S GET THIS shit started," I say with a spike of adrenaline.
I love this part. I bounce a little on the balls of my feet as I walk over in the black, skin-tight anti-gravity suit to the bottom-loading doors in the back of our rental air-delivery vehicle.
"Approaching drop zone," Puo says in his deep Samoan voice. "I would like to just once again, lodge my official opposition to this immense stupidity."
"Opposition noted," I say with a grin. I can't help it. Damn, it's been too long since I've been in my anti-gravity suit. "It wouldn't be any fun if you weren't bitching about something."
Puo harrumphs, and hits the button to open the loading doors.
We need this job. We weren’t about to make a full payment to the Citizen Maker last month, so now we have a late fee—isn’t that sweet? Just three and a half more payments plus a late fee and we’ll have these indispensable, insanely-expensive modified citizen chips with hacked CitIDs paid off.
Cold air roars up into the cabin enveloping me. The helmet of the closed-system anti-gravity suit cuts off any scents, but I imagine I can smell the salt of the North Sea ten thousand feet below me. I cherish the feel of cold sweat in my gloves and boots.
The North Sea below is dark in the cloudless sky, the surface only visible from the barest hints of silver ripples from the October half-moon hanging over the horizon. Distant green and red lights of merchant vessels speckle the landscape like will-o-wisps in the night.
I shift the straps of my backpack on my shoulders, and mentally check off its contents—none of which is a parachute.
"Pipe it," I order Puo.
Puo doesn't respond.
"Pipe it!"
"You need help, Isa! This has got to stop!"
"Pipe it!"
German techno music erupts in my helmet. Beating. Thumping. Moving. It's so loud there's no room for thought. No room for fear.
It leaves only the raw energy of adrenaline and the beating, thrumming, ministrations of the German Puppet Master and a parachute-less ten-thousand-foot free-fall.
Puo shouts over the music through the comm-link in my ear, "Now!"
I jump out through the loading doors into the void below and scream, "Turn that shit up!"
* * *
I'm laughing, although I can't hear myself. All I can hear is the kick-ass music pumping in through my helmet. The only way I know I'm laughing is a great bellyfull of energy and the tightness on my cheeks from grinning.
The thick, cold nighttime air rushes over my body in great big gobs. I hold my hand out and flutter my fingers slowly, feeling the air rushing up between them.
I tuck my head down and streamline my body into a head-first vertical human bullet.
The black, silver-tipped ocean rushes up to greet me.
I use the retina-tracking controls to turn on the heads-up display in the helmet. Green pixelated information projects downward, snapped to the ocean surface like it were a giant chalkboard with rapidly changing altitude and speed information written on it.
"One hundred and sixty miles per hour!" I shout over the music to Puo.
I can't hear Puo respond.
The drop zone spreads out below me in a green bull's eye.
Agitator lasers, the technology responsible for not turning me into North Sea fish food, are powered up and ready.
"One hundred and seventy-six miles per hour! Terminal velocity!" I shout to Puo. I check the clock spread out on the ocean surface to my lower left. "New record!"
Puo drops the music an octave, enough to shout over. "I can barely hear you! Twenty-one seconds to entry."
"Negative."
"Whadda you mean negative!"
"I made a mod!" I click on my leg thrusters.
The force on my legs push me even faster to my date with the North Sea surface.
One hundred eight-five miles per hour.
Puo swears, "Jesus Christ, Isa! You need—"
"Shut it! And turn that shit back up!"
German techno music wraps around me, invades my consciousness, vibrates my helmet.
"Two hundred and five miles per hour!" I scream, grinning like an idiot. Thirteen seconds.
I ready the agitator lasers.
Here's where it all comes together. Either the lasers mix the right amount of air and water to decelerate me safely as I slide under the ocean. Or they don't.
And honestly, I'm not sure I give a shit at the moment.
Fifty feet to surface.
Two blue agitator lasers shoot ahead. I barely have enough time to see a white, frothy churn before I punch it.
It feels like an airy vice grip, slamming me to a stop, gradually getting more forceful, and finally arresting my motion.
Bubbles swarm upward around me. The music continues to pump into my helmet.
Guess I made it.
I check to make sure I still have my backpack of goodies (I do).
Now, I'm already eighty feet underwater and sinking.
"Turn it off!" I shout at Puo. It's time to get to work.
The music cuts off. "They know I'm here?" I ask Puo.
"Yeah, they know," he says quietly. It's why Puo thinks this is so stupid. It's not possible to drop in on the underwater ruins of Amsterdam without alerting the authorities.
Yeah, they know.
I feel the grin on my face get even larger.
I feel energy gathering in my stomach, quirks growing on my cheeks.
Order the rest of The Elgin Deceptions: Sunken City Capers Book 2 here for the special preorder price of $0.99!
ALSO BY JEFFREY A. BALLARD
Sunken City Capers:
The Solid-State Shuffle, Book 1
The Elgin Deceptions, Book 2 (November 6, 2016)
Leverage, Book 3 (December 6, 2016)
Book to be announced soon!
Underwater Restorations: A Sunken City Novelette
The Skim Job: A Sunken City Capers Short Story (only for newsletter recipients)
The Oracle Algorithm (Short Novel)
The Bear that Painted the Stars (Novella)
The Watchers (Novella)
Vacationing Offworld (Collection)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeffrey A. Ballard is a nomadic Yankee that currently lives in the Texas Hill Country. A long time fascination with the ocean lead him into academia, where he happily spends his days playing scientist and spends his nights and early mornings writing about the science he wished existed. His science fiction has appeared in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show and Fiction River: Time Streams among other places. You can learn more and connect with Jeffrey at www.jaballard.com.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Copyright Information
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Elgin Deceptions Excerpt
Also by Jeffrey A. Ballard