Project Enterprise (11 page)

He could admit he'd felt a bit of doubt when Ani had begun her response to Smith's “proposal.” How could he expect her to choose him over a hanging? But she did. Made a man feel proud, made him feel like he could do what was needed. Had felt something odd happen around his heart, or maybe when she put that noose over her neck. Didn't need to tell Smith that she'd rather be dead than married to him. It was implied. Best implication he'd heard in a long while. It changed him from the inside out. If Ani didn't doubt, then he couldn't.

He used a long rifle to shoot the rope, didn't feel it was an exaggeration to call it the most important shot of his life. Now he faced the second most important shot.

He had a feeling Smith was the best gun around.

Didn't matter.

Looked into Smith's eyes. Saw his confidence, his evil.

That didn't matter either.

He felt…bulletproof.

Chance relaxed his shoulders, loosened his stance, wriggled his fingers a bit, though it was mostly for show. He'd been ready for this for what felt like forever.

Smith swept his coat back behind his guns, his hands out, stance alert, ready.

Chance watched his eyes. Eyes were where a draw started.

Dead silence in every direction except for faint creaking from one of the windmills. Then the small sound of a child quickly hushed. Felt the support from everyone around him. Didn't need it. He planned to walk away with his woman.

Chance didn't blink, didn't look away from that cold, dead gaze. Just waited.

Saw it.

The slight shift to the right.

Gun was in his hand, trigger pulled before the thought traveled to his brain.

Smith had his gun out, too. Shots must have been close cause they sounded like one and an echo.

Something plucked at his arm. Started to sting. Ignored it. Waited.

Smith started to smile, maybe some relief in it, then the smile faltered. He swayed for two long seconds, then fell forward onto his face. Dirt puffed into the air around him as if it wanted distance from him, too.

He did a sweep for further threats. Didn't see any. Smith had had no friends here. He holstered his .45 and went to get his woman, who had climbed back on the damn gallows.

She went down a step, then another. Hit the ground and sped up a bit.

People fell back for him, started to smile, though also a good bit of puzzled in there. Then Miss Everly and Roberto popped out from under the gallows, confusing things further. Chance didn't mind the confusion. Just minded not having his woman in his arms.

Ani started to run, jumped when she reached him, her arms and her legs coming around him. Good reason to keep her pants, he thought, though a bit hazily as her mouth found his. For a girl who'd been kissed once, she showed a remarkable aptitude. He spun them because he could, because he had to, because he'd defeated the bad guy and got the girl. When they both needed air, he lifted his head.

“You got grazed,” she said, examining the slight wound.

“I'm fine.” He looked around. “Who does the marrying around here?”

A
ni didn't come
face to face with herself again until after her wedding. And
her
wedding. It was a bit confusing, but at least the guys they married were different. Analisse seemed a bit fazed by it all, but then she hadn't been in the wash and got switched out of her place. Of course, she hadn't almost gotten hung either.

Ani might have been intimidated by the gentry talk and pretty dress, might have wondered if Chance speculated a bit about Analisse, except for the kiss. He'd shown a proper enthusiasm for it and for the wedding to a bride with a dusty face and dressed like a boy.

“I feel like I should thank you, but I don't know what for,” Analisse said, maybe making an effort to sound friendly. Her Roberto showed a bit more enthusiasm and gratitude, but he had been on the gallows with her. It did focus the mind to almost swing.

“You going to stay in Marfa?” Ani asked, looking from one to the other. It was bold of her to marry a Mexican, but he was a fine looking boy. She glanced up at Chance, her Chance. He made Roberto seem small and young, though they were of a height. Still got a thrill remembering how coolly he'd faced down the Bad Egg, though she did intend to speak to him about putting their wedding in jeopardy twice in one day. Didn't want him to make a habit of it.

“We will see how it goes,” Analisse said, after exchanging a look with her husband. Angelica hovered close, glowing with relief and joy.

Ani had to resist the urge to try to chat to her. She wasn't this Angelica's friend.

As if Chance heard or felt her uncertainty, he said, “We should go.”

“You could stay,” Analisse said, though with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. Both them looked relieved when Chance shook his head.

“We could use a ride back to where you found me,” Chance said.

Ani loved the airship ride and she and Analisse compared family notes, more relaxed now that they knew they weren't going to be living side by side. Didn't meet that Pa, tied up in the engine room. Didn't want to. Bit of a shock to find out Pa had lied, that it was Ma that was gentry and Pa a gentlemen's gentleman. Though not a total shock. He'd always had an uneasy relationship with the truth.

They reached the wash at dusk, helped along by the never-ending wind. Bit of a surprise to find Chance's mount still there, more of shock to find Delphine there, too. Seems she'd formed a bit of a bond with her husband's stallion.

Her husband.

She was married. Thankfully neither Analisse nor Roberto seemed inclined to draw out the leave taking. It was their wedding night, too. Ani did pause to wonder if Analisse knew what that meant, be nice to know, though Chance would most likely explain. They finally chugged away, the sound fading into the soft moan of the wind and the snuffle and stamp of the horses. Ani looked around the darkening wash, maybe felt a bit of unease, considering what happened the last time they were here.

Chance took her hand, led her to a rock big enough for them to sit side by side. A seat was nice, but she'd been hoping for a kiss. Didn't quite know how to ask for it, though.

“We could try to stay here in this reality, but most likely it won't work, because there's already a version of you here. Time has a way of setting things right, so thought we'd sit a spell and see if the lights come back tonight, see if they'll shift us back to your time. Or,” he hesitated, “a different time than this. I can't promise we'd get home. No way to know for sure where we'd go. In my experience, it's pretty random.”

In his experience.

“You've done it before.”

He nodded. “I'm not from this time, or your time, so it's you that time will shift, taking me along for the ride.”

“Where are you from?”

He hesitated. “From the future. From another planet. In another galaxy.”

Ani blinked. It was preposterous, but she'd seen automatons and airship trains, had almost swung today. If he'd told her that before, she'd thought he was plumb crazy. Now…

“Oh.”

“It's a long story, one I'd like to forget, leave in the past.” He clasped her hands, half turned her to face him. “I came here to forget, to die, and found a reason to live when I met you. When you faced Smith like that—I thought I was too damaged to love anyone, too dead inside. I was wrong. I know it's soon, too soon for you to feel it, too, but I love you. If you'll let me, I'd like to prove it to you.”

Ani's mouth curved up at the edges, taking it slow, as she felt her woman power surge again. “You're a fine man, Chance, a good man. When I faced the Bad Egg, when I climbed that gallows, I knew it, too. I knew I loved you and always would. That I'd have died for you on the gallows.”

His smile had been fine before, but this one lit him up like the sun coming out as he pulled her close and finally kissed her. She thought she'd been kissed before. Well, that was nothing on this one. It was like flying in the airship and galloping and the best day she ever had, all rolled into one.

“Then we'll need to stay real close until it happens.”

“Close sounds fine to me.” She hadn't a clue what happened next, but she was powerful curious to find out.

I
hope
you enjoyed these short stories. If you missed the rest of the series, start with
The Key,
then move on to:
Girl Gone Nova, Tangled in Time, Steamrolled,
and
Kicking Ashe.
You can find out more about these, and my other books, on my website at
www.paulinebjones.com

To find out about my releases, be sure to sign up for my
New Release eZine
and get a free eBook!

Or hop over to my website and check out my series:

Project Enterprise
The Big Uneasy
Lonesome Lawmen

Browse my complete backlist by
visiting my website
. :-) I have some stand alone novels, too.

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S
pinning
off
The Big Uneasy Series
and with a guest appearance from
Project Enterprise…

Welcome to…An Uneasy Future 1.0:

Welcome to the future. Much has changed in future New Orleans, but some things never will. The food. The music. The crime rate...

Core Punch

A Baker & Ban!drn Adventure

A kiss may be all they have life expectancy for.

When an intergalactic cop exchange program serves up an alien partner for NONPD Detective Violet Baker, she can't help wishing the handsome alien would be a little less Joe Friday about keeping the pleasure out of their business. Yeah, he's kind of purple and she can't pronounce his name to save her life, but he's almost the only guy in the New Orleans New police department that she's not related to.

Dzholh “Joe” Ban!drn has come a long way hunting the evil that has infiltrated Vi's floating city. When he meets his charming partner, he discovers another reason to stamp out evil. If only he wasn't keeping so many secrets from her…

When an epic hurricane heads their way, they are sent dirt side to New Orleans Old (NOO) on a rescue mission. But murder and sabotage strand them in the heart of the raging storm.

As they fight for their lives, Joe realizes that the evil he's hunting is actually hunting them….

A
nd now the excerpt
:

His partner liked to call it the Big
Un
easy and Dzholh—Joe—Ban!drn decided Violet Baker had a point. New Orleans was more often uneasy than it was easy. Joe studied said city while his partner, at the controls of the police skimmer, adjusted their course so they'd skim beneath, and avoid tangling with, the water umbilical. In his travels, he had seen floating cities on other planets. Cities that spun, orbited, and hid when threatened. Prettier cities. Why did this one feel special in its unease?

That they'd managed to raise so much of the old city, grafting on much that was new without a loss of its larger-than-life personality, was a feat he'd have deemed not worth the effort if he hadn't seen it, if he had not lived in it these past six months. Was it familiarity that made the old city seem valuable or was it the incoming hurricane?

Wu Tamika Felipe was—according to the news vids—the biggest storm to close in on the city since Chen, the storm that had almost wiped the original city off the map some fifty Earth years ago. Chen had been the catalyst to save what was left by raising it. Officially, dirt side was called New Orleans Old or NOO and the new city was New Orleans New or NON. To the locals, it was still the Big Easy or Nawlins.

Joe could understand why any city that endured severe flooding had been lifted up and out of the danger zones once the technology became available from his people. Most Garradians preferred a dirt side landfall, particularly after a prolonged time in space, so he found it puzzling that most of the major US cities and many European ones had followed suit. Even some of the smaller concentrations of population had opted for raising or had moved up into the lifted cities in the years that followed.

I believe it was a combination of something called the Green Movement and a fear of overcrowding and overwhelming the food sources,
his nanite, Lurch, commented inside his head.

You believe?
It was unlike the venerable nanite to be less than certain.

There is a lack of factual data. A problem that occurs when scientists consider their science settled.

Lurch had existed long enough to observe much science come unsettled. It was possible that this storm might unsettle the notion that floating cities were preferable to dirt side living. WTF would be the first trial-by-hurricane for the technology and, most particularly, for the ancient parts of the floating city. Not that the dirt side remains of the old city would fare well during the incoming storm. The storm surge would be, according to the experts, unprecedented.

Lurch snorted, the action registering as mild gastric distress for Joe. He could not blame the nanite for the snort.
Unprecedented
had experienced much usage in the news vids since the storm hit category five status. One might conclude that there had never been a category five storm, i.e., without precedent. Only most broadcasts had been detailing with considerable relish all the previous category five storms. Including the destructive force of Cat 5 Chen.

Apparently there are those who do not know the meaning of unprecedented.

It was a valid conclusion based on available evidence. Though the lack of understanding was not endemic. Those who did understand the meaning of unprecedented had made efforts to educate vidcasters through all means available to them. The public mockery had not changed anything that he had observed. Perhaps it was like trying to turn a meteor? Velocity, once achieved, being hard to redirect?

Perhaps you can create an equation for it after the storm?

The mental nudge was deserved, Joe acknowledged, though he doubted the storm's passing would provide much quiet reflection, if the pre-storm briefings taking place around the city were any indication. Those in charge of managing the city were optimistic in their public statements. But private briefings showed awareness of the incoming ass kicking—Baker's succinct summing up following several hours of briefings. His partner-in-crime-solving had no difficulty being direct.

Detective Baker has expanded your vocabulary.

Joe felt the nanite's approval of said expansion. Joe did not point out that his vocabulary was more than adequate or that it had already been expanded to include millions of alien languages when the nanite moved into his head. One did not tell a nanite what it already knew.

But you weren't using any of my additions.

At least Lurch did not call them upgrades.

Joe had learned much from the homicide detective in the past six months, an education that extended beyond expletives, he would have noted if it did not already know this, too. Baker was an excellent law enforcer and a good detective. And unlike many of the Earthlings he encountered, she also smelled quite good. This was desirable since he often shared the confines of a skimmer with her. And bad since he often shared the confines of a skimmer with her. Her pleasing scent could be a bit distracting. Also in the distracting column was her habit of tonal humming and rhythmic shifting, something she called “seat dancing” to music only she could hear, which she'd been doing while Joe reflected.

“I hope this doesn't take too long,” the detective in question, or rather in reflection, muttered, breaking off her humming and dancing. She handled the aging skimmer confidently as they curved into the shadow cast by the hovering city.

Joe murmured agreement even though agreement was contextually obvious. Of course they needed to expedite their transit. They'd dropped down from NON in the relative calm between two feeder bands. Neither of them had any desire to be dirt side when the next feeder band arrived, or if the stalled hurricane decided to start moving again. He had learned during his six months in this place that Baker's people mistook silent agreement for inattention. Hence the silence-filling murmur.

Despite the imperatives of time and storm, he looked forward to dirt beneath his feet again, though
green side
might be a more appropriate description. Other than the ribbon of the river cutting through, there was only green to be seen in every direction. If green had been the goal of the Green Movement, they could legitimately claim success. Almost one could believe the area looked like it had when the first explorers arrived. Except amidst the green—and coated in it—were the remnants of the long abandoned city. The occasional chunk of moss and vine covered formerly hi-rising overpasses popping up here, and over there one could pick out an irregular course of abandoned streetlights wrapped in the green vines that had moved in when men went up. Between the old lights, grasses pushed against chunks of broken asphalt. Lines of trees wound through the landscape, possibly marking old transit lanes and remnants of parks, because naturally the trees couldn't be raised. In the “preserved” section, there were a few actual buildings visible, though preservation didn't include de-vining them, Joe noted. The only places where efforts had been made to contain out-of-control nature were the ancient cemeteries, which was somewhat ironic, now that he considered it. They were small, isolated squares and irregular rectangles dotting the tangle that was NOO.

Little cities of the dead
,
the locals call them
.

The crypts did have the look of buildings, the impression increasing as the skimmer dropped down just shy of the tops of the trees edging what had once been St. Charles. Did he see the glint of the tracks from the streetcar line? Or did his mind conjure it because he knew they must be there? Did the shadow of the floating city trace patterns onto the ground, or highlight things already there? It still perplexed him that the raised city had been patterned as much as possible on the original. The upper city even followed the curves of the river below, though there was no visible purpose in preserving the old boundary. Now there were more transit bridges crossing the “river” than had been present back then, because one did not have to build or pay for them, but not nearly as much as there legitimately could have been over the essentially empty space. To the north of the city, a faux Lake Pontchartrain remained a recreational zone for pleasure skimmers and gliders. Like the river, transit bridges were limited and controlled. “River traffic” was also restricted to approved vessels, such as those transporting goods and materials and passenger ferries.

They did not wish their city to change.

Joe could understand the resistance to change. The desire to keep things as they were. The willingness to do what one must to save that which mattered the most. But this desire to preserve might be coming back to haunt them now with the storm coming. The newer buildings should weather the storm adequately, or so the city leaders hoped, but there was undercurrent of concern about Cat 5 wind impact on the old structures. Much was made in the news vids about the longevity of these structures, but lifting had subjected them to a stresses unforeseen by the people who constructed them.

“Okay, let's fire up the sensors and make sure our dirt-siders are where they were. And pray the idiot thing works today.”

Joe attempted activation—though minus the prayer. The habit of praying over technology puzzled him. His people had their gods, but they were, as far as he knew, indifferent to technology working or not working. He did as requested, his gaze glancing off Vi—Baker. Joe had permission to call her Vi both inside and outside his head—the NONPD was as informal and random as the city they protected—and he did so when formality would draw more attention than it deflected. But inside his own head he tried to keep it impersonal and professional. With less than stellar results. Even a glimpse of her profile ignited a duality of responses. A queer delight at the sight of her and surprise at that delight. Perhaps it was her lack of perfection that intrigued? His people had engineered pretty faces into near ordinariness. Vi's—the name slipped through his guard—people had begun genetic engineering some time back, but he did not think her parents had availed themselves of the service. Her imperfections were a delight in a sea of the bland perfect. Her height fell some below the standard considered optimal and the variations of her female form fell into the slight range. That she was not “well endowed” seemed to cause her annoyance on occasion, but Joe found her shape pleasing. Her voice was clear and agreeable, with just a touch of a husky undertone when she hummed or sang or was tired. The nose tipped up a bit and one side of her upper lip was a tiny bit crooked. He decided it added to the dangerous charm of her smile.

Her most unusual feature was her eyes. They were violet, like her name, and intense, intelligent. They were also uncomfortably piercing. He'd seen hardened criminals shift in discomfort from the full force of her gaze. At times such as this—he tried to of think of proper description—but it was difficult. She was as unique as her city. If one looked in her eyes in an attempt to parse, one lost the, um, plot. Her gaze was a weapon of mass distraction.

He'd seen even hardened criminals become dazed, confess to crimes, or propose marriage. This amused him less than it did Vi—Baker. One criminal, a member of an organized crime family, had had the effrontery to ask her out to dinner during an interrogation session last month.

She'd looked amused. “Brave of you, Afoniki.”

She did have many relatives within the ranks of the NONPD.

“Is that a yes?” Afoniki had persisted.

Vi had laughed. “You have a death wish, bubba.”

Vi called everyone bubba.

Except you.

Lurch was correct. Sometimes he wondered why. At their first meeting, he'd introduced himself and held out his hand in the approved Earth manner, well in control of faculties and body temperature until he caught the full force of her gaze. Vi—Baker he reminded himself firmly—had blinked. Twice. His heart had stuttered once, then again when her hand slid into his like it belonged there. It seemed like her lips tried to form his name. And then…