Core Punch Read online

  Core Punch

  An Uneasy Future

  Pauline Baird Jones

  Introduction

  Spinning off The Big Uneasy Series and with a guest appearance from Project Enterprise….

  Welcome to…An Uneasy Future 1.0:

  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….

  * * *

  What others have to say about the Project Enterprise series:

  “Action is the name of the game as a feisty and hard-hitting heroine rises to the challenge in this rousing space adventure.” RT Book Reviews about The Key

  “Time paradoxes run amok in this extraordinarily complex tale. Amongst the densely packed and mind-bending action, there’s also some welcome humor. A spectacular ride!” RT Book Reviews about Girl Gone Nova

  What other have to say about the Big Uneasy series:

  “Grinning and loving it, Relatively Risky by creative talent Pauline Baird Jones is a hoot!” Single Titles

  “With just the right amount of detail, Jones hits it out of the park and leaves readers wanting more…” A Girl and Her Kindle about Relatively Risky

  A Caution

  (Don’t try this at home. Or in a storm. In your fiction, however…)

  Core punching means entering the heart of a storm. This puts you at high risk from hail and tornadoes.

  You might skid, crash, or be gravely injured.

  You might die.

  1

  His partner liked to call it the Big Uneasy 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 hadn’t 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 an
y 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 high-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 an 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 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 him? 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 somewhat 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 think of a 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…

  “Nice to meet you, Joe,” she’d said instead, with a cheeky grin that disrupted his heart rhythm once more.

  The name Joe had stuck like glue. So had the heart arrhythmia. But only when he was around Vi—Baker.

  Vi—Baker gave the sensor what she liked to call a love tap—it was not a tap he’d have linked to love, though he would not have been averse—he clamped down on the thought. The screen flickered once, then again, and finally began to boot up. There were better, more reliable systems widely available, thanks to their trade agreements with Joe’s people, but the NONPD seemed to live in a permanent state of financial crisis.

  “Why are there—” a slight pause while he edited out Earthlings and replaced it with, “—citizens lingering on the surface when they must have been made aware of the danger some days ago?” He’d seen vids of transports evacuating humans from the surface over the last several days, when WTF’s storm track had indicated an intention to not only place the city on the wet side, but perhaps send the eye in for a visit.

  “There are a lot of reasons why people cling to dirt,” she said, giving the sensor another love tap, one that made the screen flicker again, but it did begin scanning the surface. “According to my Paw Paw, it goes back to the Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau. She’s supposed to protect the city. The fact that she hasn’t always come through…well, we can forgive and forget. And we believe it won’t happen until it does because we are the city that care forgot.”

  She flashed him a quick grin. Joe fought his way through the force of her smile. Finally managed to produce a question. “And the other reasons?”

  “There are fears that if they leave they won’t be allowed back.”

  Joe frowned. “But there are many dirt side industries.”

  “Oh, the farmers and fishermen aren’t worried about getting back, but th
e Corps quit doing much maintenance on the old levees, maybe thirty years ago? So the river is creeping in, changing course, taking back land.” She frowned, the expression as intriguing as her grin. “The thing is, some people don’t actually work down there. They live there because it’s who they are, that’s how it’s always been and always will be.”

  “It will not always be if they die down there,” Joe pointed out, though it felt both obvious and unnecessary. And how did they live if they didn’t work?

  They live off the land.

  “Logic doesn’t always trump emotion. Or tradition.” Her lips pursed a bit wryly.

  He wondered why the wry.

  She’s a Baker, Lurch pointed out, with its own version of wry. It felt much like an internal itch between his shoulders.

  Joe considered this, adding up the many—make that very many—Bakers who served in the NONPD, including their Captain.

  Do you think she did not wish to be a police officer?

  The idea interested him. He had not planned on this law enforcement side trip. But he could not be sorry. His gaze drifted toward her once more. Her shoulders began to twitch. Not quite seat dancing, but heading that way. Since they were in the skimmer, he knew she was listening to music through her gear. Though that was officially discouraged, it wasn’t outright banned because this was NON. One might as well ban crawfish or beignets.

  Or letting the good times roll…

  Her dance stopped when the scan finished. “Looks like we got four dirt-siders to collect—wait—what the—”

  “It is a cold spot.” Joe mentally echoed her surprise.

  “Cold spot?” She gave a tiny shake. “Not possible. The heat’s been building in for days ahead of the storm. It’s so freaking humid, I almost bought diving gear on my way to work today.”

  Vi—Baker had made this threat many times since summer arrived. She also claimed he’d grow gills if he stayed long enough. Almost he believed her.