The Drowned Cities (38 page)

“You know nothing about me.”

Stern wasn’t deterred. “I’ve only seen an augment throw off its conditioning once. It was one of those beasts that the peacekeepers used. A common breed, not like you. It lost its entire platoon, then turned coward and ran from battle. It harried us for a little while, but even that one only survived another year. Suicidal, it seemed. It lost all its tactical sense. It couldn’t die on its own, but it wanted to die, I think.

“It could have escaped us entirely, if it chose, but instead it lingered here, returning again and again to the site of its last battle. We gunned it down in the end. When your kind becomes masterless, you have a difficult time surviving. And yet here you are, years past your expiration date.”

“What do you want?” Tool asked.

“I want to win a war.”

Tool said nothing, waiting. The man wanted to talk. Powerful men enjoyed their power. Tool had known generals
who liked to talk for hours. Colonel Glenn Stern didn’t disappoint.

“I want the 999s shut down.”

Tool bared his fangs. “Send a strike team.”

“Ah. Yes,” Stern said. “Actually, I’ve sent three. The Army of God has been good enough to return my soldiers to me, but without their hands or feet. We know where the guns are, generally. We think there are two. But they’re determined to protect them.”

“You want me to go,” Tool said. It wasn’t a question. It was obvious.

“For starters, yes. Lead a strike team.”

“What makes you think I can succeed where your soldiers have failed?”

“Come, now. We’re both professionals.”

The Colonel came closer to Tool, squatting so they could speak closely. Tool measured the distance between them, but Stern remained just out of reach.

“I do what I can with the clay I have,” the Colonel said. “But this is very rough clay. Children? Farmers from the jungles? We can mold them, but they are weak material. Fired by war, to be sure, and clever enough, but they are small and they have fought on only one battlefield in their entire lives. We both know that nothing in the Drowned Cities compares to you. I am at war, and you are one of the finest war machines that mankind has ever devised.” He leaned forward. “I propose an alliance between us; I want your expertise to bolster my patriotic effort.”

“And for myself?”

“Let’s be honest, half-man. You need a patron. Alone and independent as you are, it’s only a matter of time before a cleanup squad catches wind of you and puts you down for good. You need protection as much as I need a war leader.”

“I’ve had enough of patrons.”

“Don’t misunderstand me. I propose to hire you, proper. You will forge my war effort into something more than this wasteful detente. Something that can cleanse the Drowned Cities. With your help, I smash the Army of God, and Taylor’s Wolves and all the rest of the traitors. I can cleanse this place, and rebuild.”

“And then?”

Glenn Stern smiled. “And then, we march. We reunite this country. Make it stand tall once again. We march from sea to shining sea.”

“The savior and his war beast,” Tool said. “The obedient pet.”

“My strong right fist,” Stern replied. “My brother in arms.”

“Let the girl go.”

The Colonel glanced over at Mahlia. “Why would you want her to leave? This friend of yours? This girl who you feel some loyalty to? I think it better if we keep her as an honored guest.”

“A hostage.”

“I am not a fool, augment. As soon as you are released,
you are dangerous. I do not pretend to know why you work on this girl’s behalf, but I am more than happy to have leverage in our bargaining. Her life is, without question, the cost of your good behavior.”

The building shook with another explosion. Dust rained down.

The Colonel looked up at the ceiling with a grimace. “General Sachs seems to have decided that he’d rather see me dead than preserve the capitol building.”

He looked at Tool. “You see the sorts of barbarians I fight? They care nothing for this place or what it once was. They care nothing for its history. I seek to rebuild, and all they seek to do is to tear down and scavenge.”

“I’ve spent time in your arenas,” Tool said dryly. “Your patriotic talk rings hollow.”

Stern grinned, unapologetic. “I didn’t know you had value then. By the time I discovered what you truly were, you were effecting a rather daring escape. Now I know. And now I offer you a bargain.”

Tool looked over at Mahlia. She lay bloodied and bruised, almost lifeless. Stern waited. Tool could feel his eagerness. All Tool’s life, men like Stern had found a use for him. The half-man was, as his name implied, useful. Something men sought to wield, again and again.

Another explosion echoed down from above. Stern didn’t move, waiting.

“Don’t bother,” Mahlia croaked suddenly, breaking Tool’s thoughts. “He’ll just kill us later.”

Stern frowned. “Be quiet, castoff. This is a discussion for adults.”

“He’ll just kill me when you’re dead,” she said. “He’ll use us up, just like they use everyone up.”

“Not so different from any other leader,” Tool said. “Generals are in the habit of using up all the people around them. It’s their job. It’s what they do best.”

Stern nodded seriously. “We’ve both walked those paths.”

“I never turned children to war,” Tool said.

“Only because you fought on the side of wealth,” Stern retorted. “You think I
want
to fight with children? This was not my preference. The Army of God started the practice. Or else it was the Revolution Riders, or perhaps it was the Blackwater Alliance. It’s hard to remember where these things began, but I assure you, it was not my choice. But I’ll be damned if I’ll let our effort die because I failed to use every tool at my disposal. And any general worth his rank would do the same. If all you are given is a rock, you still must strike with it.”

“I thought you were a colonel.”

“Don’t split hairs with me. If you don’t like the ugly cast of this war, then help me end it. With your help, the war ends, and the children go back to innocence and toys. What say you? I offer you an honorable fight, and a rank that befits your considerable skill, and your friend lives in safety. With me, you are no longer a fugitive, but the commander of an army. What say you to that?”

Tool studied the man, considering his options, but again Mahlia’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Ask him if he wants to give me back my fingers, too,” she slurred. “As long as he’s making promises, ask him if he’s got my fingers.”

M
AHLIA HAD BEEN
watching the conversation for some time. Through the haze of opiates and her own pain, she watched them, faced off against each other. Two monsters. Two killing creatures, bargaining and testing each other.

As the two of them bargained, Mahlia felt an increasing anger. They weren’t talking about saving Tool and Mahlia—not really. They were talking about more war and more killing. Changing the tide of blood so that it would swamp the Army of God, instead of the UPF. And if she and Tool wanted to survive, they had to help. Tool would slaughter and leave bodies in his wake, just as he was designed to do.

She remembered how Tool moved through jungles and
tore apart coywolv. A monster. A killing creature. A slaughter demon. She remembered Doctor Mahfouz, what seemed like a million years before, urging her to let Tool die.

If you heal this thing, you bring war into your house.

At the time, she’d thought Mahfouz only meant that the soldiers would come looking for her, that she was putting herself in danger.

But now, as she watched the half-man and the leader of the UPF barter, she thought she saw what Mahfouz had been trying to tell her. She wasn’t just bringing war into her house—her house was becoming a house of war. Mouse was recruited, full-bar-branded, a soldier boy now, no different from any other UPF killer, and if she and Tool wanted to survive, they would join as well.

If men like Glenn Stern and the rest of the grown-ups in this room had a use for you, you could live a little while. But you were just a pawn. Her. Mouse. All those soldier boys who’d been hand-raised to shoot and knife and bleed out there in the Drowned Cities.

Mahlia leaned against the pillar, watching the Colonel and his advisers, and finally, she thought she understood Doctor Mahfouz and his blind rush into the village.

He wasn’t trying to change them. He wasn’t trying to save anyone. He was just trying to not be part of the sickness. Mahlia had thought he was stupid for walking straight into death, but now, as she lay against the pillar, she saw it differently.

She thought that she’d been surviving. She thought that
she’d been fighting for herself. But all she’d done was create more killing, and in the end it had all led to this moment, where they bargained with a demon of the Drowned Cities, not for their lives, but for their souls.

“Fight the patriotic fight,” Stern said. “Smash the Army of God.”

But what he meant was keep on killing. If you wanted to stay alive, you had to keep on killing.

Mahlia was done with it. Done with being shoved around and threatened. Done with the bargaining that always said that if she wanted to live, someone else had to die. Done with armies like UPF and Army of God and Freedom Militia, who all claimed that they’d do right, just as soon as they were done doing wrong.

“Ask him if he’ll give me my fingers back,” Mahlia croaked. Her throat felt dry from the drugs and it was almost too much effort to speak, but she managed.

“Long as he’s making pretty promises, ask him if he’s got my pinky somewhere. He gonna sew me back together? He gonna get my hand back from the Army of God? Gonna make it all right?”

One of the Eagle Guards strode toward Mahlia, but Stern waved him back.

“Did you say something, young one?”

Through the muffled distance of opium, Mahlia watched the man crouch over her. He wasn’t as big as his pictures. Not that imposing at all. But then he leaned close, and Mahlia imagined that she could smell death rising from him.

“Did you say something to me?” he whispered.

Mahlia wondered if she would have been frightened of him if she weren’t so drugged, but as she looked up at him, she felt very little at all. He was a monster. A man made powerful because he strung words together in pretty ways. A man who could get his face painted three stories tall, and get a bunch of war maggots to worship it.

Mahlia cleared her throat. “If you got my hand somewhere, then we can do business.”

The Colonel laughed. “You think you dictate for your friend?”

“Nah.” Mahlia let her head lean back against the column. “He’ll do what he does. I can’t control him.” She looked dully up at the Colonel. “But that don’t mean I got to agree, and it don’t mean I got to go along.”

“Even if it meant you could go free? Run on to some distant place? Run to Seascape Boston? Manhattan Orleans? Maybe Beijing and your father’s people there?”

“You ain’t going to let us go.”

“After your friend wins the war for us, I will.”

Mahlia thought about that for a little while, finding her way around the edges of the man’s words.

Finally she said, “No one ever wins, here. Bunch of dogs fighting over scraps of something… you don’t even know what it is.”

For the first time, Stern looked irritated. “I fight to cleanse this place, and revive a country. You have no right to question the sacrifices we make.”

“I bet the guys who started this war said stuff like that, too. Bet they sounded real nice.” She let her voice fall to a whisper. “You know something, though?” She let her voice fall lower. “You know what I realized?”

Glenn Stern leaned close, intent. Mahlia gathered her strength, and spat full in the man’s face.

“I still want my fingers back!” she shouted.

The Colonel reared back, yelling and wiping spittle from his eyes. He glared at her. “You—”

Quick as a cobra he slapped her. Once, twice, thrice. Mahlia’s head rocked back, her face flaming. Stern struck again. Pain exploded between Mahlia’s eyes as he pounded her already broken nose. A spike of obliterating pain. Blood gushed down her face.

Mahlia cried out, despite the painkillers. She was almost blind with hurt, but still she forced herself to meet the man’s gaze. “That what you got?” Her voice cracked. “That all?”

“You’d like more?” Glenn Stern raised his hand again.

A low growl filled the marbled room, heavy with threat. They both turned at the sound. The half-man was watching them both.

“I do not accept your offer,” Tool said. “I will not war on your behalf.”

Glenn Stern looked from Mahlia to Tool, and back again. Mahlia smiled.

Stern said, “You’re playing a dangerous game, girl.”

“ ’Cause you’ll hurt me some more?” Mahlia let her head
roll back against the column. “That was always the way it was going to be. You got your war and I’m just meat in the gears. So hurry up, old man. Grind me up.”

Suddenly, Lieutenant Sayle appeared. “I have a solution, I think.”