The Elgin Deceptions (Sunken City Capers Book 2) Read online

  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

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Leverage Excerpt

  Also by Jeffrey A. Ballard

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2016 by Jeffrey A. Ballard

  All rights reserved.

  Cover designed by Ravven (www.ravven.com/)

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author, except for brief quotations in a book review.

  If you want to be notified when Jeffrey A. Ballard’s next novel is released, and receive free short stories and occasional other perks, please sign up for his newsletter here. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe any time.

  www.jaballard.com

  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 able 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 is dark under the cloudless sky, the surface visible only from the barest hints of silver ripples reflecting 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 parachuteless 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 at Puo, “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 bellyful of energy and the tightness on my cheeks from smiling.

  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.

  Then I tuck my head down and streamline my body into a headfirst 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’s surface as if 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 pushes me even faster to my date with the North Sea surface.

  One hundred eighty-five miles per hour.

  Puo swears, “Neptune’s balls, 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 the surface.

  Two blue agitator lasers shoot ahead. I barely have enough time to see a frothy white churn before I punch it.

  It feels like an airy vice grip, 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.

  CHAPTER TWO

  TWO HUNDRED FEET below the surface of the North Sea is what’s left of Amsterdam—I’m currently eighty feet down and sinking.
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  Amsterdam was one of the first cities lost when the mega-quake hit eighty-six odd years ago, when the new volcanic range at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean reshaped, and continues to reshape, the earth’s coastlines.

  And since it was one of the first cities that was hit before the world fully understood what was going on, there’s all kinds of good stuff down here for underwater reclamation specialists like myself to reclaim. Except, of course, for those pesky authorities tasked with protecting the “cultural heritage” of the sunken cities.

  Which is really total bullshit, if you ask me. The mega-quake completely wiped out the Netherlands. Doesn’t exist anymore, except under a thick blanket of the North Sea. Who are they preserving it for? School kids on field trips?

  I’m one hundred feet underwater.

  It’s nearly pitch black under the ocean; barely any moonlight filters down this deep. I can’t see anything of the city below me—the heads-up digital projected readouts have no surfaces to snap to, so they float out ahead of me. I feel weightless, devoid of senses.

  It’s a pretty trippy feeling. I delay turning on the nighttime overlays to enjoy it more. Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about nitrogen narcosis—the anti-gravity suit is a closed system that protects me from having to equalize my ears and dealing with dissolved nitrogen in my blood—very, very handy for quick getaways.

  And the single best invention in the dry scuba suits? Internal heaters. So. Awesome.

  “ETA on any company?” I ask Puo for when the squiddies might arrive—they’re the fast, gangly sentinels guarding the sunken cities. That would ruin the trippy feeling pretty quickly.

  “Looks like they’re only sending one to investigate your entry. Thirty-five seconds.” Puo’s continuing to drive around the skylanes in the area to monitor the situation and be close by for my exit.

  “Roger, that,” I say. “I’m a hundred and ten feet down. Will be at the bottom in twenty seconds.”

  Puo denies me the pleasure of his surprise at being that deep that quick after entry.

  “Oh, c’mon, Puo,” I say. “Admit it, you’re impressed—”

  “You got a death wish, Isa,” Puo snaps. “I am not impressed. Those thrusters were a reckless idea. We have no idea what the maximum speed of entry is with the agitator lasers.”

  “Those thrusters,” I snipe right back, “got me down far enough under the water to get to the bottom before the initial squiddie shows up—”

  “And how did you make the mod?”

  “I replaced the flow jets.”

  “You did what!”

  “I don’t need them on this job—”

  “You don’t know that! They’re there to outrun the squiddies. What are you going to do if they start chasing you? Rocket away?”

  Sometimes there’s just no talking to Puo, so I ignore him.

  I turn on the nighttime overlay in my helmet with a flick of my eyes. Light doesn’t travel very far in the ocean so it’s not a great improvement over the previous situation. Only blue light travels down this deep, and what little light does penetrate at night has to be magnified so many times that any flare of real light this deep has the potential to appear like a sustained flash bomb and blind me.

  One hundred and forty feet underwater.

  I’m falling feet first, ready to stand and move as soon as I touch down. The suit allows me to move on the bottom of the ocean almost as if I were in air—it’s a huge advantage not to have to deal with floating all over the damn place and dealing with buoyancy changes and trying to get the right leverage.

  The tops of the nearest buildings below me start to get outlined in a blue haze. Most of the roofs are square, flat structures of right angles. There are a few peaked roofs with what look like patches of roof tile between the ocean crud growing on it. All of the buildings are in various states of decay. Some are mere rubble, while most have a series of cracks and holes in the roof—convenient for entry.

  “What direction is the squiddie coming in from?” I ask Puo.

  “South by southeast,” Puo answers shortly.

  I check the compass floating off to my right and mentally orient myself in the setting. I’ve got a runner in my backpack, but I don’t bring it out; I should be safely inside when the squiddie swims through.

  The runner is an overt misdirection. It’s a piece of equipment that shoots through the water column emitting noise and a sonar cross-section similar to that of a human getting pulled by a diver propulsion vehicle (DPV) for the squiddies to chase. The problem is, once the squiddies capture it, they know it’s a decoy and that something far more nefarious is in the water somewhere—which then brings more squiddies, authorities, and a whole bunch of other hot mess—you can’t outrun the squiddies’ ability to call ahead to other squiddies.

  Best to just get inside and hide covertly.

  “Isa,” Puo says, sounding like he’s gathering up for something, “this has got to stop. You’re becoming increasingly reckless.”

  “I’m kinda busy, Puo,” I say, trying to concentrate on subtly maneuvering myself toward my destination—the Pianola Museum.

  “You won’t talk to me any other time. Listen—”

  “I talk to you all the time! But now is not the time for a counseling session, Puo.”

  “Ha! So you admit you need one.”

  “I admit you need to shut up. I’m about to enter the museum.”

  Two coasts, twelve dead bodies, and one broken heart. Yeah, it’s been a rough couple months.

  “Where’s the squiddie?” I can see the blue pixelated outline of what’s left of the street below me.

  “Twenty seconds out,” Puo says. “You launch the runner? I’m not reading it.”

  “Negative on the runner. I’m going to get inside and hide before the squiddie arrives.”

  “You have fifteen seconds, that’s not enough time,” Puo shouts at me. “Launch the runner now! It’s useless if you wait too long and the squiddie makes you.”

  “The runner is overt,” I explain, as I touch down to stand on the street in front of the brick Pianola Museum—damn I’m good. “No one’s ever done a smooth lift before in Amsterdam. It’ll be fine. I’ve got plenty of time.”

  Heists are rare in majorly protected sunken cities—there’re just too many assets in place for the authorities, too much of a home field advantage. The crews that do attempt a major lift focus on misleading the authorities long enough to pull the job and get away. They don’t actually try and hide their presence completely.

  “And you want to be the first,” Puo says rhetorically. “If you get arrested, I’m not coming for you.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  Puo’s silent, likely pouting on the other end.

  “Yeah, you are,” I say again.

  “Oh, shut up,” he finally says.

  The nightvision is barely picking anything up down here. The blue pixelated surface of the three-story building is scarce on details. My heads-up readouts continue to float toward the bottom of my vision, not snapping to any of the ill-defined surfaces.

  I can make out the door; it appears solid and intact. The windows on the first story are large enough to climb through, but also appear either intact or boarded up.

  I can start to feel my chest beat inside the anti-gravity suit. I need to get inside; that squiddie should be here any second. I want to turn on my flashlights to get a better view, but that would be like shooting off a road flare for the squiddie.

  I test the round door handle—it twists. I open the door several inches before it shunts to a stop.

  “Squiddie’s in the area,” Puo whispers. “About a hundred and twenty feet above you—”

  A bright-red digital arrow blips on in front of me pointing upward and to the left, announcing a squiddie-ping—an active sonar pulse the squiddie uses to map the area. The color of the arrow fades to a semi-transparent maroon.

  “—He’s going active,” Puo so helpfully tells me.

  The cr
ack in the door isn’t big enough for me to squeeze through yet. I apply the slightest amount of pressure to the door, and it starts to give with a slight scraping noise.

  Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. I continue pushing.

  There. Just enough room. I start to squeeze through.

  “He’s moving down in the water,” Puo whispers in a rush.

  Bright-red arrows start firing regularly in the lower right of my helmet, flashing over the semi-transparent maroon.

  “It’s coming fast,” Puo whispers.

  I slide the last bit of myself into the museum, and quietly but quickly shut the door shut behind me—an overturned bookcase at the entrance was blocking the door.

  It’s brighter in the museum than I expected. The nightvision is picking up all kinds of detail in the entrance of the two-story hallway. The heads-up readouts start snapping to the well-defined wall surfaces.

  Then I realize the source.

  The squiddie must have its search lights on looking through holes and windows. Shit!

  If the squiddie has its search lights on, it’s found something suspicious. And if I can see that light, it must be close—really, really close.

  As gently as I dare, I slide the bookcase back to where it was blocking the door. The door, wall, and bookcase make a hollow triangle that I immediately climb into and crouch down in.

  I make myself as small and silent as I can, curling up my knees to my chest and making sure the top of my helmet is below the edge of the bookcase.

  Puo barely whispers, “It’s right on top of you.”

  His voice through the comm-link in my ear sounds like a klaxon. There’s no way a squiddie should hear him but still I whisper back, “Shut. Up.”

  Puo blessedly doesn’t respond.

  I turn off all the heads-up overlays in the helmet and the nightvision. Darkness envelops me.

  Little rays of white light pop in and swirl through the building as the squiddie descends. Newly formed shadows dance in tandem.

  Sweat drips off the end of my nose. I try to slow my breathing. My infrared signature should be masked by the anti-gravity suit, but safely masked at several hundred feet away doesn’t necessarily translate to safely masked at five feet.