Here’s the third chapter in my new novel, Trans-Continental: Cannon Belle Run! This is the third book in the Trans-Continental series, which can be read independently of Girl in the Gears and Mississippi Queen if you’re curious.

This book is being written as a serial, published and collected on this site and on Royal Road, if you want to read ahead.

Note: Reality Check, Trans-Continental, and The Multiverse Blues all occur in the same multiverse, in that chronological order.

Chapter Two – Night Cruise

Chapter Three – The Visitor

“It’s a good thing I packed spare clothes,” I said as I beat road dust off of my skirts. “That tree tore my good travel dress! And despite having all day, we’re running late for dusk!”

Duffy smirked at me, her face cast in the ruddy light of the sinking sun. “Been a while since we’ve been out on a mission outdoors, hey?”

I tried not to smile, but failed. “Well, I didn’t think about climbing trees or hiding airships, did you?”

Duffy shrugged and stared at the bridge up ahead as we approached. “Never know what you’re gonna get into on one of these trips, love. It’s good practice!”

I laughed. “Practice? For what?”

She took off her bowler hat to make a grand gesture, arms wide. “Why, it’s practice for the next adventure! There’s always another one for folks like us, Ida!”

“What sort of folks are we, then?”

She grinned and replaced her hat. “Rapscallions, I’d say!”

I shook my head. “I wasn’t brought up to be a rapscallion, Duffy.”

She looked me up and down. “You weren’t raised to be a lot of things, my dear, but look at how you’ve turned out!”

My heart skipped a beat, thinking of my past, and how I’d failed to be the soldier my father had expected.

Duffy stopped walking and touched my arm to stop me as well. “What’s with that face? I wouldn’t have you any other way! A grand actress, one with fighting skills as well as loads of charm!”

I couldn’t meet her eyes for a moment. “Duffy—”

She touched my chin and tilted my face up to look at hers. “Ida, you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone so sure of who she was. I know hearing from Mags has you thinkin’ about yer dad, but that life’s behind you, like you told June. Right to her face! Didn’t ya?”

I sighed and let my shoulders sag. “Well, yes, I did. But while that life is behind me, it’s still part of who I am.”

Duffy’s eyes twinkled. “And ya know what? That soldierin’ and actin’ makes you a fantastic rapscallion!”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Of course it is! For one thing, rapscallions like us make great spies, which is how we’ve fallen in as Queen Melony’s go-to gals!”

I pulled her to me and hugged her tight. “What would I ever do without you, Duffy?”

She kissed my cheek and broke the embrace, resuming an enthusiastic trot towards the Levee. “I shudder to think!”

“Duffy!”

She turned her head to favor me with a wink. “Without me to hold ya back, you’d probably be on time for things! Maybe even rule half of North America by now!”

I was about to give her a tart reply, when a flash of light caught my eye up ahead. “Did you see that?”

Duffy answered by grabbing my hand as she ran in that direction.

A second flash came from around the bend, as though from localized lightning, revealing a figure in silhouette nearby.

A figure that waved its arms wildly. The voice that reached us as we ran headlong toward it couldn’t belong to anyone else.

“Ida! Duffy! Come quickly!” cried my big sister Maggie. She wore a sharp gray dress with shiny brass buttons, the uniform of a U.S.D. army officer. A second lieutenant, according to her insignia.

We reached her, out of breath, and though I hesitated because of her attire, the army officer embraced me as my sister. She murmured in my ear, “We have precious little time, my dear. Father shall be along at any moment, and you should be gone by then.”

I pulled back and stared at her, still gasping to catch my breath. “He’s here? Why did you—”

Another flicker of intense light cut me off, this time only ten feet away, in the middle of the road. An afterimage swam in my vision. Was that an oval? Was there a person in the oval?

“Be ready!” cried Maggie. “She’s coming!”

Duffy panted, “Who’s coming, Mags?”

Maggie regarded her with a wild look in her eyes. “A visitor! A traveler from beyond our world!”

Duffy stared at the empty air in front of us. “What kind of visitor?” Her eyes trailed to an open steel case, which held an incomprehensible device with flashing lights and metal webbing that swiveled from side to side, as though a mad metal spider intended to capture mechanical flies by scooping them from the air.

Maggie shook her head and redirected our attention to the empty space where the flash had been. “Just watch, and get ready to grab her and run!”

“Run?” I asked, as the air began to crackle with unseen energy. “To where?”

Maggie grabbed my shoulder with a surprising grip. “Take her where she needs to go! Far from here, as far from Dixie as you can! You heah?”

“Yes, I hear you, but—”

“No time! Here she comes!”

This time the flash crackled outward to form an oval portal of some sort, ringed in purple lightning. A fierce wind sprang up out of nowhere and I watched as autumn leaves blew into the oval.

The oval was full of night, full of stars. The ground on the other side was a gray wasteland, pockmarked with craters, boulders, harsh sunlight, and deep shadows. But mostly, it was filled with a strange puffy figure, dressed entirely in an orange diving suit. The leaves glanced off the suit’s curved mirrored faceplate and the figure reached out a gloved hand towards us. Its other hand held a case similar to Maggie’s, this one made of a matte gray metal I couldn’t immediately identify. On its side was painted the word “NASA” in strange red lettering.

The growing pressure of the wind at my back pulled me toward the portal and I struggled to keep my footing. I found myself reaching out toward the gloved hand, which grasped mine in a tight grip. I feared the figure might pull me into the barren landscape beyond the portal. Maggie grabbed my other hand to hold me back, and we both dug in our feet to pull the suited figure against the howling gale.

As soon as the visitor had stepped past the electrical threshold onto the road, the portal shrank to a ball of lightning, which evaporated before our eyes with a bang. The tornadic wind ceased as the portal slammed shut, leaving smoldering leaves to fall in its wake.

The figure let go of my hand, then stumbled and fell, sitting down hard on the gravel roadway. Duffy, Maggie, and I all exchanged glances, then watched as the figure put its hands to its helmet, fumbling with latches and clasps to release the half globe with a hiss of escaping air pressure.

Inside was a woman of similar age to Duffy and myself. That is to say, just on the far side of thirty. Strands of her honey-blonde hair stuck to her face with sweat, while the rest was drawn into an efficient bun behind her head. After a moment, her hazel eyes came into focus upon Maggie. She drew a breath and said, “It’s you! It worked!”

Maggie nodded, face as serious as a funeral. “It did. And now you must go. Quickly. With my sister and her companion.”

The visitor’s brow furrowed. “Leave? But I just got here!”

Maggie scanned the road. The low growl of an engine approached. “You don’t understand what a threat you and your technology represent to my world, do you? Miss Sutton, this land is at war, and though that’s terrible enough, you could change the course of our future. You could be used to perpetrate terrible violence and death. Please, stand up, and let Ida and Duffy take you someplace safe!”

Duffy helped Miss Sutton to her feet. “Gonna be hard to hide in that diving suit.”

“Diving suit?” said the perplexed Miss Sutton. “Oh right, it does look like that, doesn’t it? Do you have a car, or a hopper?”

Duffy looked confused. “A hopper?”

Frustrated, the visitor said, “A conveyance, a vehicle. Surely you don’t walk everywhere here? I’m afraid I can’t ride horseback, at least not until I get a chance to get out of this suit!”

The engine growled louder, and a cloud of dust appeared, with a figure on something too small to be a trackless steam engine. A man rode something not even horse-sized, with an engine that sounded like a smaller version of the aeroplane we’d nearly collided with early in the morning.

“Quickly!” hissed Maggie.

Duffy and I exchanged a glance, and each of us grabbed one of Miss Sutton’s arms and marched her towards the nearby bridge. With my free hand, I drew the flare gun and fired it up and over the river. Stealth was no longer on our side. I glanced over my shoulder to say goodbye, but Maggie had already made herself scarce.

The only thing that I could see in the deepening gloom was the mounted rider, bearing down on us with great speed.

“Who are you people?” asked Miss Sutton, struggling to keep up in her clunky boots.

“Just a couple of rapscallions,” I replied, hoping Levi had seen the flare.

Chapter 4 – Albatross Eggs