Puo exhales and shakes his head. He picks himself up and comes to sit down next to me, wrapping me up in a warm embrace. “No way, kid. I ain’t ever gonna leave you. But that’s what’s scaring the bejeezus out of me so much. That you’re going to be the one that leaves me—in a body bag or handcuffs. You’ve got to find a healthy way to deal with this.”
I lean into Puo’s warm body, and mull over what Puo said. A healthy way to deal with this. There’s only one way I can think to do that.
“Don’t unpack when we get home,” I tell Puo, making a decision.
“Yeah?” Puo asks. “Where we headed to next?”
We still have to figure out what my run-in with Ham the Cleaner was all about, but first: “Vancouver.”
“Yes!” Puo suddenly shouts and fist pumps. “I love Canadians, eh! Score!”
I can’t help but smile.
Puo continues his antics to make me laugh, but he knows full well that there’s only one thing in Vancouver that remotely interests me: Winn.
The End
The fun continues in Leverage: Sunken City Capers Book 3 set to be released on December 6, 2016. Turn the page to read an excerpt of Leverage and sign up for my newsletter here to be the first to learn when it becomes available.
Interested in a free short story that tells the tale of how Isa and her crew stole their copy of the Cleaners’ code? All you need to do is to sign up for my newsletter here. In addition to receiving the free short story, The Skim Job, you’ll also be the first to be notified when Jeffrey A. Ballard’s next novel is set to be released and occasional other perks. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe any time.
Word-of-mouth and reviews are vital for any author to succeed. If you enjoyed reading this story, please consider leaving a review (you can kindly leave a review here). Taking a moment to leave a few lines sharing your thoughts would be helpful for other readers and very much appreciated. Thank you for reading!
Turn the page to read chapter 1 of Leverage: Sunken City Capers Book 3.
LEVERAGE:
SUNKEN CITY CAPERS BOOK 3
Coming December 1, 2016!
Explosions are a nasty way to greet someone …
Isa and Puo are enjoying a quiet, uneventful, completely lawful time in Vancouver, Canada, that is, until someone tries to blow them up. But before they even have time to recover at the hospital, they’re forced on the run for their lives.
Baffled, and trapped in Vancouver by the authorities having their CitIDs, they must rush to learn who is trying to kill them, and more importantly why.
And if that weren’t enough, Winn, the only man Isa’s ever loved, comes sauntering back into her life at a most inopportune time. Isa can’t decide between ignoring or pummeling him—depends on the minute.
Annoyed. Frustrated. Isa doesn’t know which is worse, an unknown and desperate killer after them, or having Winn back again in such close quarters.
CHAPTER ONE
EXPLOSIONS ARE quick dirty things, over before you realize they’re even happening.
I’m mid-air about to hit the frigid, churning water of the English Bay below me when I realize it was an explosion that threw me off the upper-deck of the sight-seeing boat Puo and I were on.
All I can think is: it’s December. In Vancouver.
I hit the water and all I know is pain. Icy coldness stabs me, scorches my upper-right back.
Burning flecks of saltwater bite my throat. I can’t stop gasping.
Saltwater attacks and stings my eyes as I flail around.
My soaked, heavy winter clothes pull me down. My heart thuds in my chest.
Puo! Where’s Puo? I look around for his honey-colored down jacket on the waves. I can’t see him. The sightseeing boat behind me is already half-way under, flames ripple out from the top. Thick, black smoke surges into the overcast afternoon sky.
A multitude of partially-submerged buildings rise up out of the English Bay around me, like a petrified forest of steel and concrete. I force my shaking limbs to start swimming toward the nearest one, fifty or so feet away.
I’m shivering uncontrollably. My fingertips ache. I don’t know how long I have before hypothermia sets in. My feet already feel like leaden boots, like dead weight I’m forced to carry around with me.
Puo and I were on a scouting trip on the Underwater Vancouver City Tour. We were the only two goobs stupid enough to be standing outside on the upper deck in the near-freezing cold. Everyone else on the tour, all eighteen other souls, were down below in the heated underwater observation deck watching the ghostly visage of old Vancouver glide by below them.
Mostly families. Now they’re probably all dead.
The sheer, steel wall of the nearest building rises up to tower over me. Several of the windows are thankfully broken at the sea surface level—I can get into the building and climb up to get out of the water
I glance back looking for Puo, the boat is three-quarters of the way under.
I finally gather enough breath, “Puo!” I have to pace myself before managing another, “Puo!”
He grunts somewhere to my left. It’s not a healthy sound.
I work up to being able to shout, “Make for—” I have to catch my breath. “—building. Through the broken window!”
He weakly grunts back.
I can’t feel my hands anymore. But my arms and legs continue to obey the will to survive and drunkenly paddle me through the nearest broken window. I barely register that I should be careful of broken glass, but it’s all I can do to get through the window.
It’s an office of some kind, with an open door. The desk and chairs are pushed up against the far wall. White ceiling tiles are missing. A fluorescent light box hangs down by its wires.
I’m able to stand, but the water comes up to my chest. I can’t stop shaking. My back burns, stings to the point of tears in my eyes.
I turn around and see the honey-colored coat of Puo making its way toward me. He’s pushing a piece of flaming wreckage in front of him. Thank God! At least one of us has their wits about them.
“Puo!” I call out, “through here!” I wave my hand out of the window and grimace at the pain it creates.
Puo’s black Samoan eyes lock onto me through the waves. His face is grim.
Something’s wrong. I can see it in his eyes. More wrong than just being blown up and thrown into near freezing water.
I wade over to the office door and pull it open. My right leg doesn’t feel quite right, but it’s hard to tell through the growing numbness. There’s got to be stairs here somewhere that lead up and out of this water. It’s dark in the wide office space populated by cubicles. I can only make out the details of the cubicle walls near where other office doors are open.
Hallways. The stairs have got to be near the end of the hallways.
“Isa,” Puo says weakly from behind me in the office.
I turn around and rush in to help him.
Puo’s pulling himself through the window. Puo’s a three hundred pound, six-foot Samoan man, pulling himself safely through the window is way more of an issue than me at a lithe five foot nine inches.
I pass by the piece of flaming wreckage floating in the middle of the room, its heat alluring me to stop and try to warm up, but I press on.
I get to Puo and help him through, making sure there’s no broken glass. As he stands up, I say, “C’mon, we need to get upstairs and start a fire.”
Puo’s unsteady on his feet, but slowly moving forward. “Go ahead,” he says. “I’ll catch up.”
“What?” What a dumbass thing to say. “No, let’s go together.” I push the flaming wreckage toward the door. Fire—heat and light, what a wonderful invention.
Puo gulps. His face is snow-white, which is quite a trick for his complexion. “Just go, Isa.”
“What—?” I stop near the door.
“GO!” Puo manages to roar.
“What the fuck is going on, Puo!” I shout back. “We’re
wasting time!”
“There’s nothing you can do. Just go.”
“Puo! I swear to God—!”
Puo stares at me; his mouth is open, hot white breaths escape out into the room. “Heart attack,” he says softly.
Oh, no.
“I’m having— I’m having a heart attack.”
“Okay,” I say way more calmly than I feel. I wade back over to him and slide his heavy, sopping arm over my shoulder, supporting him the best I can. Cold water dumps down my neck stinging my back; I resist the urge to scream. “Let’s go.”
Our teeth chatter in concert together, and we exit out of the office. I push the flaming wreckage in front us.
“I never could get you to listen to reason,” Puo says between shudders.
“If it’s reason to leave you behind,” I say through chattering teeth, “then why don’t you let go?”
“I think I would, if I could feel my arms.”
I laugh at the absurdness of it, the absurdness of our situation. What the hell happened? It’s not a question my brain lets me dwell on as we both continue to shake.
At the end of the hallway is salvation: stairs. We push into the stairwell and climb our soaking bodies out of the water, shedding our wet, heavy outerwear. I think the air is colder than the water, but convection is a worse heat transfer method than conduction.
I lay Puo down on the closest stairwell landing and place the flaming wreckage near him before scrambling up the stairs like a numb, drunken, injured person to find a better area for us to set up a fire near a window to signal the first responders.
“Aspirin,” Puo calls out after me.
I stop and stick my head out over the railing. “What?”
“Aspirin,” Puo says, “I need aspirin.” He has his pocket tablet out and unfolded, searching the internet.
“Your tablet works!” I shout in surprise. “Call for help!”
“So does yours,” he says weakly. “And, I am.”
“How does your tablet work?” I can’t stop myself from asking, while shivering uncontrollably.
“Go,” Puo says, his face gaunt. “Just go, I’ll explain later.”
This time, I decide to listen.
Sign up for the newsletter to be the first to know when Leverage: Sunken City Capers Book 3 becomes available!
ALSO BY JEFFREY A. BALLARD
Sunken City Capers:
The Solid-State Shuffle, Book 1
The Elgin Deceptions, Book 2
Leverage, Book 3 (December 6, 2016)
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.
The Elgin Deceptions (Sunken City Capers Book 2) Page 25