It’s a short drop: only a few thousand feet. We don’t usually drop this short of a distance, and I’m stopping at a high altitude, another new wrinkle.
Puo assures me it should be fine.
“Ready?” Puo unexpectedly asks me.
“Yeah, why?”
“I’ve got a surprise,” he says, I can hear the grin on his face.
German techno music erupts in my helmet.
I burst out laughing as the loud, beating, thrumming music envelopes me. Fuck. Yeah.
Sudden motion to my left alerts me to Winn trying to rip the booming comm-link out of his ear. I’m grinning in delight from Puo’s surprise.
And just like that, all that shit with Winn slides away. As long as I’ve got Puo, I’ll be fine.
It’s time to go to work.
I laugh in excitement and launch myself free of the hovercar.
* * *
The glowing blue bulls-eye is rushing up toward me at eighty miles an hour as I continue to accelerate in head first in free-fall.
But the beating music eggs me on, wraps around me, spreading my grin even wider.
Ninety-five hundred feet up and falling. Another thirty-five hundred feet to go.
The thin cold nighttime air whips by me, rushes over my form as the bulls-eye grows below me.
The clouds are spread out below the peak-to-peak gondola, blanketing the space under it between the two mountains in a dark ethereal shadow.
The lighted skiing trails snake down the mountains like old-time snow-covered streets that dip into a cloudy fog, their flickering yellow bulbs fighting valiantly as they travel downward only to be swallowed up.
I’m at an altitude of eight thousand feet; two thousand feet to go. One hundred and sixty-two miles an hour—not a record though, not by a long shot. I grin even wider at the memory over the North Sea.
The anti-gravity suit starts slowing my descent, starting to reverse gravity so that I’ll touch down on top of the gondola without going splat.
Nix is expecting us at a mid-mountain restaurant on Blackcomb, but the suspended gondola provides way better privacy and insurance from being set up, plus it certainly has the element of surprise going for it.
Altitude: seven thousand feet. The tips of the mountains are now above me. A thousand feet to go.
The anti-gravity suit is actually starting to tug upward on me. It’s a weird sensation, like you’re rope climbing and the belayer is wrongfully pulling you upward.
The sensation grows until my speedometer reads almost zero miles per hour. I kill the German techno music and gracefully touch down on the roof as if I were stepping off the last stair on a grand staircase. Damn that was smooth.
Now, I can only hope no one in the car heard it. I’d rather not get shot through the roof by an overzealous goon.
I crouch and wait a few seconds to see if there is any perceptible change from the occupants in the gondola—nothing. Although I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to tell, anyway. “I’m on the cage,” I whisper to Puo and Winn.
They both acknowledge. Winn is staying in the area for my pickup for when I’m through here.
The other gondolas are probably seventy-five to a hundred feet away, and each of the cabins are internally well-lit—meaning it’ll be difficult to see out into the dark and to make out any dark shapes moving about on the roof—heh.
I creep up to the edge of the gondola and bring up my comm-link with the retina-tracking menus to call Nix. “Making contact,” I say to Puo and Winn.
The comm-link buzzes as it connects followed by Nix answering, “Yes?”
“Hi, Stepmom,” I say enthusiastically.
“What now?” Nix asks impatiently.
“I’m calling just to make sure you don’t shoot me, or give me any poisoned apples.”
“You really need to let that go. As for not shooting you—don’t give me a reason.”
I reply happily, “That’s why I’m calling! Tell your goons not to freak out.”
“About what?”
“About this—” I reach down over the edge of the gondola and knock on the glass window. “—knock, knock.”
There’s a bunch of commotion in the gondola followed by Nix ordering her guards to keep their weapons drawn but not to fire.
“So,” I say, when there’s a pause in the commotion, “can you let me in? Just open the door and then step back.”
Nix does as I ask—the door below me flaps open.
There’s no great handhold around the rounded edges of the gondola, but the top of the flapping door allows me to fumble my way inside.
“Graceful,” Nix observes dryly.
There are three goons in front of her, two men and a woman. All of the goons have both hands on their guns, but they’re pointing them downward.
I unlatch and slide off my helmet. “Admit it,” I say, “you’re impressed.”
Nix doesn’t know about the anti-gravity component, so she’ll think I either had to have been on the roof all along, or dropped by some other means—either way, it’s impressive. I can’t keep the swagger off my face; the memory of the German techno music is still ringing in my head.
Nix comes to stand in front of her goons. “The snot coming out of your nose tends to undercut the effect.”
Damn it! I wipe my nose and try to insufflate the snot. “Yeah, well,” I say, while half turned away, dealing with a running nose—it’s cold out there! “I have something for you. So please don’t shoot me, goons.”
I have a tight backpack that I slip off. I dig out another disposable pocket tablet with some preloaded data, hand it to her and step back to the entrance with the flapping door.
“What’s this?” Nix asks, her eye narrowing as she takes it from me.
I glance at her goons around her, wondering how straightforward I should be. Puo loaded the disposable tablet with proof that we have the Mounties’ files on Nix, as well as—
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Nix swears as she sees what’s on it. Her angry eyes flick up to me. “You were supposed to destroy ... it.”
I shrug. “We did, for the most part. But as I told you before, my friends and I are rather fond of our lives—” Nix makes to cut me off, but I plow on more loudly. “And we want to avoid a war.” Translation: We destroyed the Mounties’ files, but hung on to a copy as insurance against our lives. And it’ll only be used as insurance, nothing will happen so long as we remain alive.
“We held up our end,” I continue. “Are you going to back off?”
“Who’s the mole?” Nix asks.
“I don’t know. Why are the Cleaners trying to kill us?” I shoot back. I still haven’t told Puo and Winn that we can’t go home yet until we understand what’s going on.
“I don’t know,” Nix answers right back.
We both stare at each other for several heartbeats until Nix’s eyes narrow in a sort of sadistic pleasure, “Who’s Ham?”
Ham the Cleaner. A pang that I work hard to keep off my face rips through my gut. “I don’t know,” I say in the same tone as before.
Ham the Cleaner is the repellent shit-stain we stole our copy of the Cleaner code from. He unexpectedly ran into me in England giving vague warnings and letting slip that he was in hiding.
Nix studies me intently.
Does she know who Ham is? It feels like there’s something more going on here. Is she just messing with us for not delivering the mole?
“We held up our end. Are you going to back off?” I ask again to change the subject.
Nix eyes me suspiciously, but then nods once and glances back down at the tablet. “If this is legit. And thanks for outing me to the Mounties, by the way, to gain your access into the building.”
I shrug again.
Nix taps more on the screen. “And what the hell is this?”
She must have brought up the second thing preloaded onto it. “Ah, well,” I say, “your initial welcome was bit ungracious toward us, and downright rude to t
he eighteen other people. Their families deserve recompense.”
“Are you extorting me?” she asks dangerously.
“No, never,” I say lightly and shake my head no. Yes. Yes, we are. “We trust you to do the right thing.”
“And if I refuse?”
All my playfulness evaporates. “Those were families,” I say coldly. “On holiday. They had nothing to do with anything. Recompense is the least that can be done.”
Nix stares at me with angry wide hazel eyes. Her shoulders are hunched forward, shifting up and down as she breathes heavily. “And if I refuse?” she asks again more heatedly.
The goons pick up on her tone and half raise their guns.
I can’t believe her. Why is she digging in? “We are not interested in a war, Nix. But there’s a reason those two pieces of information were put together on that tablet. It’s basic human dignity. We trust you to do the right thing.” I back up to the edge of the open door.
“Are you threatening me?” she asks, not letting up.
“With that leverage,” I snap, “fuck, yeah, I am. So what do you want to do next?” What does she think? That she can just blindly kill eighteen people without any consequence? Maybe she should be deposed.
All three goons raise their guns fully and point them at me. I stand on the precipice of the gondola, my helmet in my hands ready to shove onto my head.
“I don’t want a war, Nix,” I say again. The cold wind bellows in from behind me. “But it’s basic human dignity.” I fall backward into the clouded chasm below me, slipping on my helmet and latching it shut as the gondola shrinks to a dot above me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE NEXT MORNING my bedroom is quiet. The sounds of the bay filter in under the silence cast in the room by the midmorning sun. The room feels empty, like a breath of air waiting to be exhaled.
I know this feeling. I’ve felt it before. Except this time, it feels like it’s my fault, my choices that cast this pall, which, perhaps, may be right.
Last night, after Winn picked me up and we were driving back in the hovercar, exhaustion overtook me. It came crashing in all at once and I was asleep in minutes, curled up in the front passenger seat.
There was no celebratory drink or piece of pie. No toasting our own genius and daring. Just sleep. It was like it was the first time I felt safe in days, and my body just shut down. And as the exhaustion pulled me under I sleepily wondered, in that moment before you’re asleep and the mind is no longer encumbered by constraints, if it was the removal of Nix’s immediate death warrant for us, or the fact that I was with Winn that had me suddenly feeling so safe. Maybe both.
And now that feeling of an empty bedroom is back.
I slip out of bed and drift through my morning routine. I should be packing. We should be going home today. But we can’t. We have to figure out the why.
Sigh.
I have a slight tremor of breath as I come across Winn’s caduceus necklace while looking for a pair of fluffy socks, realizing that I need to make a decision on Winn sticking around.
Winn and Puo are both already downstairs when I come down to make my latte.
“Sleep good?” Puo asks, walking into kitchen. “You’ve been out for nearly twelve hours.”
I nod my head yes as I set to making delicious espresso. I do feel exceptionally well rested. If it weren’t for the empty feeling when I woke and the lingering threat of the Cleaners coming after us, I would be having one of the best mornings in a long time.
I scrape out day-old espresso grounds from the portafilter.
Puo sits at the glass countertop bar, while Winn trickles in behind him and says. “They announced a generous charity fund for the victims’ families, already fully funded by an anonymous donor.”
Fancy that. There’s no satisfaction there though. In a just world, Nix would be violently deposed and her deeds made public. In a just world, it never should have happened in the first place.
“For all twenty victims,” Puo emphasizes. “Think we can make a claim?” Puo waggles his eyebrows at me.
“No,” I say in disgust. I don’t want to touch that blood money, as much as we may need it.
“It was just a joke,” Puo defends himself quietly.
“I know,” I say, packing the portafilter with ground espresso. The rich, smooth scent of the grounds whets my palate. “But we do need cash. Have you totaled up the damage yet?” And I still need to break the news to them that we can’t go home yet, but choose to let it go for the moment. I just want to enjoy my coffee in peace before Puo starts bitching incessantly at me.
“No,” Puo answers back in his normal voice. “But it’s not going to be pretty.”
Yeah, I was afraid of that. We did just burn through a lot of capital. We should have enough to cover the next couple of payments to the Citizen Maker, but now we’re going to need new CitIDs on top of the original payments. Damn.
I glance quickly at Winn. He’s leaning up against the refrigerator, his arms crossed in front of him, his blue eyes watching me silently. There’s a peace to his ruffled look, his trimmed stubble.
Better make that three CitIDs.
I fumble the portafilter and make a grab for it when I consciously realize that thought. Winn’s necklace in my pocket jams up between my hip and the glass countertop. When did that get in there?
We’re going to need a job on top of figuring out why the Cleaners are trying to kill us.
My tablet buzzes in my other pocket with an incoming call. “It’s Colvin,” I tell Winn and Puo. Remembering how Colvin likes to answer the phone without any pleasantries, I slip the comm-link in my ear and answer with “What? We’ve been keeping you apprised.” And we have—for the most part.
“Are you safe?” Colvin asks in a heavy rush.
“Yes—”
“Is this line secure?” he rushes over me.
I look wildly at Puo and Winn, my stomach dropping. “Are we secure?”
Puo’s mouth drops. Nothing good can follow such a question, and definitely not when the Cleaners are after you. Puo rushes upstairs and I follow him.
“Checking ....” I tell Colvin.
Puo sits at his computer and smacks around on his keyboard and then turns back to me and gives me a nod.
Winn comes to stand next to me, close enough I can feel his body’s warmth, smell his familiar cologne. I step closer to him.
“We’re secure,” I say.
“The Cleaners have declared open war.”
Holy shit. “Where?”
“Everywhere.”
I can’t catch my breath. Dark spots push down on the edges of my vision. “How ... ?” I manage to ask breathlessly. How does he know? What’s happening out there? Did Nix—?
“They moved last night against all the Bosses,” Colvin rushes to explain. “I survived. About half survived. But they took your father—” Colvin says.
“Isa—!” Winn catches me from falling.
The tablet clatters out of my hand to the floor.
Puo rushes over and picks up the tablet, while Winn continues to hold me.
“Is he alive?” I ask, terrified of the answer.
Puo’s chest rises and falls. His round Samoan face is ashen. He hands me the tablet.
I take the tablet, my hand shaking. “Is he alive?” I ask more calmly, feeling detached from my body.
Colvin answers, “We don’t know.”
My heart beats against my chest, pushes against the silence in my ears. I feel as if I can’t catch my breath. The room around me is still, frozen against the unthinkable.
And then Colvin continues, snapping the spell with: “We need you to find out.”
The End
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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.
ALSO BY JEFFREY A. BALLARD
Sunken City Capers:
The Solid-State Shuffle, Book 1
The Elgin Deceptions, Book 2
Leverage, Book 3
Book 4 will 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)
Leverage (Sunken City Capers Book 3) Page 20
