The Elgin Deceptions (Sunken City Capers Book 2)

by Jeffrey A. Ballard

  I am not wearing one of those stupid shrouds. “Uh, excuse me,” I speak up. “I think my friend here is right. I— Maybe another night.”

  “Another time then,” our tour guide says, surprisingly graceful. “Happens all the time.”

  I back up, pulling Liáng with me, toward The Bridge Between and bump into the goth chick with the skeleton purse. “Sorry,” I mumble apologetically and make a beeline out of there.

  The group silently turns back to donning their funeral shrouds.

  Liáng pulls himself even with me. When we’re far enough away he asks, “What was that about? Were you actually frightened?”

  “Good Lord, no.” I snort. “I didn’t want to actually go on the tour.”

  “Then—?”

  I hold up skeleton-purse-girl’s brown-leather wallet. “We needed to pay for our drinks. It’s tradition to never use your own cash to pay for your beverages.” I grin at him.

  Liáng actually smiles back. I decide it’s a nice smile. “Sounds like a fun and potentially dangerous tradition.” He closes his free hand over my arm in his.

  “Yeah.” The cold air causes me to blush. But that’s not all that’s put me in a sudden good mood. “I also think I know what to do about the ploppers.”

  I hold onto his arm and huddle close all the way back to The Bridge Between.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “YOU WANT to do what?” Puo asks me incredulously.

  Puo and I are alone in the common bathroom upstairs back in the house the following morning. Liáng is already downstairs going through his morning calisthenics. I’m perched on the edge of the white porcelain tub in my pajamas and a zipped-up forest-green cashmere hoody, while Puo’s in the process of brushing his teeth after a hot shower.

  “Put funeral shrouds on the ploppers,” I say again like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. I’m still pissed with him, but we need to get moving on this.

  Puo spits out the frothy white spearmint toothpaste into the sink and looks at me through the fogged mirror. “I—I don’t know what that means.”

  “The Cleaners’ software, Puo.” I leave off the duh and manage not to roll my eyes. Well … not roll them completely.

  Cleaners’ software is the tech that allows one to break into, and more importantly escape from, a smart home without the system ever knowing you’re there—like you’re a ghost.

  Puo pulls his head back in surprise. He lowers his voice, “Even if we could. Do you want to clue Liáng into the fact that we have a copy?”

  The tech is so valuable that it’s controlled by the Cleaners Guild, who by definition happen to be a bunch of pricks. Which is why it was so damn satisfying to skim off their code three months ago without them knowing.

  “He doesn’t need to know that it’s Cleaners’ software,” I say and unzip my hoody—it’s too warm in here. The sweater is part of my standard morning complement along with charcoal pajama pants, a random T-shirt, and thick, fluffy rainbow socks. “You can take full credit for writing your own code, customized to the ploppers.”

  Puo looks like he likes the idea of that. He always loves to look smart. But his pleased look falls off suddenly. “It’s not that simple, though. We have to install it at the central hub point and we don’t know where that is.”

  “Well,” I say thinking. “How do we find the hub?”

  Puo rolls his eyes.

  “C’mon, Puo,” I say getting miffed, my frustration from the night before bleeding over, “I can’t think of everything.” Although sometimes it certainly feels like I do.

  I get up to flee Puo’s presence and head downstairs for my delicious, absolutely required morning cup of coffee. I only forwent it this morning out of extreme discipline and a need to catch Puo alone without Liáng knowing, to discuss the Cleaners’ code.

  Before I get to the bathroom door, Puo says, “Listen, about last night. I was out of line.”

  I stop in my tracks, my stomach dropping out from under me and my hand still on the door handle. “Yeah, you were,” I say guardedly.

  Puo pauses, searching for his words before continuing. “I’m sorry. It’s just …. I feel like one minute you’re fine, and we’re back to our old selves, and the next minute you’re acting like supergirl to prove nothing’s wrong, and the minute after that you’re extra-sensitive to any reactions to the previous two. I misjudged last night.”

  “Puo,” I say quietly looking back at him. “I’m all three, all the time. Except I’m not sure things will ever go back to the way they were.”

  Puo takes this in silence, his face somber.

  “I don’t mean,” I say, to correct what I said, “that we won’t get back to normal. It’ll just be a new normal.”

  “I know what you meant,” he says. “Does this mean you’re finally ready to admit things have changed?”

  I cock an eyebrow at him.

  He stares right back at me.

  I say, “That’s the best you’re going to get out of me.” His apology has me feeling better, like a weight I didn’t know was there is gone.

  “I suppose I’ll have to take it,” he says with some of the swagger we use with each other entering his voice.

  And then, because I want to, I skip over the bathroom tile to hug Puo. We’ve been through everything together since kids. We may fight—a lot—at times. But he’s always there. I know he didn’t mean it last night and feels awful. Puo’s a big softie.

  He hugs me back, lifting me a few inches off the tile, and sets me back down.

  “And I haven’t gone supergirl in a while have I?” I ask.

  “No,” he says. “Not since the squiddie.”

  “But you’re still worried about it?”

  “Yeah.” Puo pulls back from the hug and asks me, “Anything happen with Liáng last night? You two seemed awful cozy.”

  “No.” I don’t need to add to Puo’s corner-store psychology. Flirting all night and almost kissing a little doesn’t count. But it did feel good to feel normal for a bit.

  * * *

  I pass by the empty sitting room as I come down the stairs on a mission to find my blessed coffee in the kitchen. Liáng is in the sitting room on a yoga mat, a small fire kindled in the room where we waltzed several weeks ago. It appears he’s wrapping up his morning workout routine—some kind of yoga/tai chi thing.

  He’s in gray, almost white, loose cotton pants and a black wife-beater. His green tattoos flow down his arms. Sweat gleans on his body, but his movements are slow and deliberate, winding down.

  I head into the kitchen and am greeted by a blast of cold air. I zip up my sweater and pull the hood up as I make my way to the espresso machine.

  I grind the beans, once again vowing to do this in advance as it’s a horrible sound first thing in the morning, like sandpaper on the ears. I pack the portafilter, attach it, and hit the button.

  The machine chugs once and then beeps at me. I check things over.

  Son of a bitch. It should be illegal, punishable by twenty public lashes, to use the last of the water in an espresso machine and not refill it.

  I get a water glass to fill it up.

  Liáng walks in, and then pauses awkwardly upon seeing me, unsure of where to look. He then mumbles, “Good morning—”

  “Refill the water when you’re done using the espresso machine,” I say with a little bit of heat caused by delayed coffee consumption.

  “Uh,” Liáng says, “I don’t drink coffee.” His voice settles into a more normal tone, although he’s still acting like he doesn’t know where to look.

  Damn it. Puo doesn’t drink coffee either. It should still be illegal though, with grandfathered exceptions for people named Isa Schmidt.

  And then, as if to underscore the point, Liáng retrieves a mug and starts to make himself a cup of pu-erh tea.

  I scowl at Liáng. I pour the water into the espresso machine and hit the button. The hot, light-brown creamy liquid streams out the two sides of the portafilter. The color d
arkens into a dark-brown, almost black, liquid pool of deliciousness.

  I microwave, rather than steam, a cup of skim milk to make a latte—there’s no time to waste. I’m already behind on my caffeination schedule.

  “What were you and Puo talking about in the bathroom?” Liáng asks.

  “Nothing,” I say. “I wasn’t in the bathroom. Why?” Lying is a requisite skill of criminals of our type. The trick is all in the tone.

  Ding! The microwave announces it’s done. I mix in the espresso and then blow on the top to take a sip, the edges of the mug burning my left hand as I cup it.

  “I heard voices,” Liáng says. It’s clear he’s not sure if I’m telling the truth or not.

  “Oh,” I say. “That was Puo. He does that.”

  “Talks to himself?” Liáng asks.

  “His poop specifically,” I say in all seriousness—it’s all in the tone. Tone informs body language, which in this case, is the body language of a girl in need of her coffee.

  “What?” Liáng asks bewildered. All the awkwardness from before evaporates at the weird turn of conversation.

  I shrug. “He says it helps get things moving. Me—” I hold up my latte. “—I need a cup of coffee. You?”

  Liáng shakes his head.

  “Oh, sure,” I say, having fun with Liáng and purposefully misinterpreting his reaction. “Coffee snobs everywhere hate it when I use the terms coffee, latte, and espresso interchangeably, but I don’t care—” About the terminology. They are all different, but pissing snobs off is sort of a bonus. “It does the job though.”

  “You can be so strange sometimes,” Liáng says while taking out his tea bag and throwing it in the trash.

  “No, the strange part is that Puo’s poop talks back. And the voices tend to have a French accent for some reason. So what about you?” I ask, not letting up.

  “We are not having this conversation,” Liáng says in disbelief.

  “Hmm,” I say thinking, “I’d guess calisthenics and a cup of tea, based on how religiously you follow that morning routine.”

  Liáng blushes, but then raises his mug and says dryly, “Cheers.” He then turns around to leave when Puo walks into the kitchen.

  “You talk to your poop?” Liáng asks like he can’t help himself.

  Puo without missing a beat, in dead seriousness says, “Everybody needs encouragement from time to time. I’m trying to get back to a morning schedule. Haven’t you heard of positive reinforcement? You should try it some time.”

  Fortunately, Liáng is facing away from me as I have to bite my lips to keep from laughing. Yeah, Puo and I are going to be just fine.

  Liáng says, “You two are really like teenagers.” He starts to leave again.

  “Nonsense,” Puo says, his head buried in the refrigerator retrieving some apple juice, “no teenagers talk about their pooping schedules. What kind of teenager were you? This is an entirely adult conversation.”

  “All right,” Liáng says, “that’s it for me. See you two in a bit.” Liáng tries to leave the kitchen for a third time.

  “Wait,” I say calling him back.

  But he ignores me and pushes his way out of the kitchen.

  Puo says in a horrible French accent, “Some people, eh?” Puo pours himself a glass of apple juice.

  I burst out laughing.

  Puo grins at me. “What?”

  I tell him what I told Liáng, which causes him to burst out laughing as well. I clink my coffee mug to his glass. “Sometimes, I think we know each other too well.”

  “Indeed.” Puo stops and looks like he’s thinking of things to say and throwing them away. Perhaps it’s growth from our mending in the bathroom.

  Eventually Puo says, “We do work well together don’t we?”

  I raise my mug at him.

  “I think,” Puo says, “that I thought of a way to find the central hub.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Puo says uncertainly. “But I’m not sure if I should tell you.”

  “You don’t think I’m going to like it?”

  “No, quite the opposite. I think we just need to be absolutely sure and think through all the implications before moving forward.”

  Yeah, whatever has Puo this reticent sounds right up my alley.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “I KNEW I should’ve kept the idea to myself and thought of something else,” Puo says.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  It’s the following evening, and Liáng and I are in our hovercar flying in the uppermost skylane over the northern shore preparing for our plan to find the central hub while Puo’s back in the basement on his computers.

  The plan is actually pretty simple, but brilliant. Purposefully trigger the alarm system in the museum while hacking into the power company to monitor the power consumption in the surrounding area and see which handy-dandy plain-looking building has a power spike at a time of day when it shouldn’t.

  “I knew you took to it too fast,” Puo says. “We need to trigger things, but this is crazy.”

  “What are you talking about, Puo?” I ask, mildly frustrated. “I’m not in the water. No supergirl antics. Nice and safe.”

  Puo starts to sputter.

  I shush him while sitting in the back of the hovercar in the open-spaced trunk with the drone and its cargo. “Preparing to launch the drone. How’s it look out there,” I ask Liáng who’s up front driving.

  “We’re as alone as we’re going to get,” he says.

  “Roger, that,” I say. It’s nine in the evening. There’s some traffic, enough to provide cover but not enough that we’re likely to be spotted and reported.

  I open the trunk. Cold wind roars into the cabin. Damn, that’s cold! The cold stings my nose. I can’t smell anything except the sharp cold of nothing.

  The drone is an octopus-looking thing that’s roughly the size of me. But the big-ass stone it’s latched onto is what makes it really difficult to move.

  If we need to alert the authorities, then there’s no reason to be subtle about it. A big-ass stone crashing through the glass roof of the British Museum’s Great Court should get their attention.

  The real trick is making sure the stone can’t be traced back to us, which is why we’re using a co-opted delivery drone and keeping our hovercar over land. For added security, after dropping the stone, the drone is instructed to pivot and drive over the Atlantic until its battery fails somewhere in the middle of the ocean.

  I put one foot in the center of the drone and my other foot on the stone itself. Then I brace myself and push against the back row of seats. The stone moves several inches. I repeat this process until enough of it is over the edge to fall out on its own.

  The hovercar immediately jerks upward from the sudden loss of weight. I squirm over to the edge of the trunk and look for the drone in the darkness.

  “It’s out,” I say, “but I can’t see it.”

  “I got its vitals,” Puo answers. “Everything’s working. It’s en route.”

  Sweet. I push the button to close the trunk and climb up front. My part’s over. Done. Now we just go back and let Puo do his thing.

  It’s kinda nice to be done so early in a job. Is this what it feels like to be Puo?

  Easy peasy.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “WE’RE SCREWED,” Puo says.

  Liáng and I are back at the house after releasing the drone and in the basement where Puo has all his computers set up. We never moved them after the squiddie museum excursion—it’s become Puo’s de facto spot.

  The special-delivery stone has long since made its splash. Ka-boom!

  I kinda wish I was there to see it, but we didn’t want to risk our rogue squiddie getting hijacked again.

  “Why are we screwed?” I ask. Puo’s an alarmist. According to him, we’re always screwed. And honestly, if that’s true, we’d be in no different a situation than we were in before.

  “Did you find th
e building?” Liáng asks.

  “Yes,” Puo says. He taps on his keyboard and brings up a map of St. Albans, a city about ten miles north of here.

  Shit. Puo hasn’t pointed it out yet. But the map of the area and his tone of voice makes it clear.

  Puo zooms in and then reaches out and points to the building I was thinking of. The “V” shaped building of the Muppies—the Ministry of Undersea Protection.

  Not a huge surprise. But shit.

  Liáng nods his head with a tight look in his eyes—he’s familiar with the building as well.

  “So,” Puo says, “back to screwed?”

  Yeah, back to screwed.

  “Infiltrating isn’t an option?” Liáng asks.

  “Do you want to wait a year?” I ask. “We’d have to case the place, find the patterns just to gain an entry point. There might have to be personnel ops to ghost a badge, and to find the right people who would know where the central hub is located and how to get to it. Then of course we’d have to get out. And do everything while making sure they don’t record us.”

  “Which ain’t trivial,” Puo chimes in. “These secret government types have digi-scrambler detectors. So that stunt we played at the post office ain’t gonna fly.”

  “Nothing’s impossible in the limit of time and money,” I say. “But how much of either do you want to spend?”

  “Unless,” Puo suggests, “you can help with some of that.”

  Liáng clarifies, “You need to find this central hub to install code that will mask our arrival into the museum?”

  “Yes,” Puo and I both say. He’s not actually thinking—

  “Is the central hub known by any other name?” Liáng asks. “It’s not your vernacular is it?”

  “I don’t think so,” Puo says. “But I can do some research to be sure.”

  “You think your organization can help?” I ask.

  “I have no personal knowledge,” Liáng says, “on this particular matter. But that doesn’t mean someone else doesn’t.”

  I ask, “You couldn’t tell us what defenses were in the British Museum, but you can help with this?”