The Drowned Cities sb-2

by Paolo Bacigalupi

  Ocho finally reached the top, gasping and sweating.

  Sayle looked up from his maps. Ocho forced himself to stand at attention. Sayle evaluated him across the short distance. “How are your wounds, Sergeant?”

  Ocho stared straight ahead. “Fine, sir.”

  “And your back?”

  “Hurts, sir.”

  “I went easy on you.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “Do you remember how we met, Sergeant?”

  Ocho swallowed, forcing down memories. “You saved me.”

  “That’s right. I saw something special in you, and I saved you. I could have chosen anyone, but I saved you. I gave you the gift of life.” Sayle’s cold eyes narrowed. “And now you give me this…” He trailed off, looking disgusted. “Colonel Stern would never tolerate a failure like that. He’d have your head on a stick. If I were Stern, you would already be a lesson in loyalty.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Far off in the distance, the 999s of the Army of God boomed.

  Lieutenant Sayle said, “I made you my second because you have never failed me. You’re a good soldier. We all know you were wounded, and drugged by that castoff. It’s the only reason you’re still standing here. But don’t disappoint me again, Sergeant. There won’t be any second chances. Not even for you.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good.” The LT waved him over. “Now come here. It’s time we made plans. We have decisions to make.”

  Ocho hesitated, trying to tell if he was really off the hook, but Sayle looked up at him, impatient. “I don’t have all day, soldier. It’s time to work.”

  Ocho came over and squatted down. “I heard Colonel Stern wants us back at the front.”

  “That’s right. The Colonel is finding himself hard-pressed by our enemy’s new artillery.”

  “When do we march?”

  Sayle’s cold eyes were like pinpricks. He smiled slightly. “We’re not going back.”

  “Sir?”

  “We’re not going back. We’re staying right here.” He looked out at the jungle. “That doctor and his girl haven’t come back, and I won’t leave until I see them again.”

  “They rabbited. No way they’ll come back while we’re around. Might not even come back at all. Jungle’s got them now.”

  “We’ll have to give them a reason, then.”

  “You want them executed?”

  Sayle shook his head. “No, I want to know why they left with all their medical supplies. Most of these civvies, they run with food, or a weapon. But these people took their meds.”

  “Meds are valuable. He’s a doctor. The girl’s practically a barefoot doctor herself, even with that stump. I’d take meds, too.”

  The lieutenant nodded slowly, but then he said, “You noticed that when the girl arrived, she was running? Out of breath. Panicked?”

  “Everyone’s panicked when they run into us.”

  “But she was running before she saw us. We surprised her.”

  Ocho suddenly got it. “You think she was running from something?”

  The lieutenant nodded. “It would have to be something big, don’t you think? To scare a war maggot like her? Castoff that’s already seen plenty of blood. Plenty of pain.” He gazed out at the greenery below. “I think she saw something very frightening out there.”

  “You think that dog-face got its teeth in her somehow?” Ocho couldn’t hide the doubt. “That seems pretty far-fetched.”

  “How long have we been together, Sergeant?”

  “Years.” Lifetimes.

  “Have I ever led you astray? Wasted work on an operation that wasn’t worthwhile? That didn’t take the fight to the enemy, and come back with trophies for the cause?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I think there are still a few questions worth asking, here in this little town.”

  “But the Colonel wants us to head back. He won’t go easy on us if we don’t jump.”

  Sayle didn’t say anything.

  Ocho tried again. “You really think that dog-face is still alive?”

  “I want to see its body.”

  “What difference does it make? Colonel doesn’t care.”

  “He does, actually. That dog-face survived in the pits for months.”

  “Yeah. Epic ring. But we’re dead if we don’t head back to the front. Stern will execute all of us.”

  “Stern executes soldiers who fail. It’s one thing to loaf out here when the fighting is there, but this is a different case, and demands different thinking.” The lieutenant shook his head. “And the Colonel rewards results. The UPF won’t be able to hold now that AOG has those 999s. Those cross-kissers will cut more artillery deals, and more scavenge contracts, and the tide will move against us. We’ll lose our access to ammunition and weapons, and we will be forced to retreat. The 999s are changing everything. In another year, we could be as lost as Tulane Company.”

  “What’s that got to do with the dog-face?”

  “How much do you know about augments… half-men? How much do you know?”

  Ocho rubbed his ribs, thinking about how the dog-face had come after him. “All I need to know is that I don’t want to fight one again.”

  Sayle laughed at that. “Have you ever wondered why dog-faces haven’t taken over the world? They’re better than us. Faster. Stronger. Many of them are smarter. Perfect tacticians. Built for war, from day one.”

  “Oh, you mean they’re war maggots,” Ocho joked.

  Sayle smiled. “There are similarities. Trial by fire hardens us all. But I’ll tell you, that half-man should already be dead.”

  “I never thought it would beat those panthers.”

  “No.” Sayle shook his head impatiently. “Not like that. Most half-men, when they’re trapped, forced to fight for nothing other than survival, they don’t last. They pine for their masters, and they die. It’s a fail-safe. So they can’t be turned. So they can’t go rogue against their wealthy masters. So they can’t raise a flag for themselves.

  “The worst nightmare of any general would be an army of augments gone rogue. They are faster, stronger, and smarter than the average human being. If they were independent as well?” He shook his head. “It would be disastrous. And so when they are cut off from their own, or lose their masters, they die.”

  Ocho puzzled on that for a little while. “But that one didn’t die.”

  “That’s right, soldier. That one didn’t die. It bided its time. It survived for months, and then it escaped, and it tore a hole in us and ours. It’s all alone, but it’s still alive and running.”

  “So what do you think you can do with it? It’ll rip our throats out if we find it. Practically did, already.”

  The lieutenant shrugged. “Let’s just say that it might have a use.”

  “If it’s still alive.”

  “It’s out there.” Sayle stared out at the jungle. “It’s out there, and that castoff knows where it is. If we find the girl, we find the half-man.” He looked over at Ocho. “I have a job for you, Sergeant. It’s time for you to redeem yourself.”

  16

  THE PRICK OF a needle. A surprise.

  Small pain.

  Which meant large pain was receding.

  Tool held still as the needle found its way into muscle tissue. Monitored the liquid as it spread warmth into his muscle. A deep injection. 1 cc… 3 cc… 5 cc… 10 cc… 20 cc. A great deal of it. An antibiotic, from the way his body drank it in, instead of rejecting it as it rejected toxins.

  The needle withdrew.

  “That’s right. Now check the bandages.”

  A man’s voice. Full-grown. Unusual in the Drowned Cities, where war ate its young long before they reached maturity. And a doctor from the sound of it. Two oddities. Tool couldn’t remember the last time he’d encountered a genuinely trained medic.

  “Are these clean enough?”

  A girl’s voice, and with it, the whiff of blood and fertility. Postadolescent, hu
man, female.

  The man’s voice responded, irritated. “It’s why we boil them.”

  Delicate hands picked at Tool’s chest. Peeled away stinking bandages with a wet tearing. The smell of infection and iron. Blood and stink.

  Again the man’s voice, flat. Instructive to a fault, but laden with disapproval. Disgust, almost. “That’s right. Pluck out the maggots. You don’t want them turning to flies.”

  Tool let them work and listened. No other exhalations nearby, no scuffles or footfalls. Two only, then. And close enough to snap in half. Tool relaxed; he had the tactical advantage. These frail and stupid human beings had no idea that they were being stalked. He was upwind of them.

  “If it’s healing,” the girl asked, “why don’t it wake up?”

  “It may never wake up, Mahlia. I know you hoped to turn this monster to your purpose, but it’s fantasy. Given the wounds it has sustained, you should be amazed that the medicines worked at all. It has taken grievous injuries.”

  Injuries. Indeed. The catalog of insults he had received was almost infinite. But now he was healing, and soon he would be fully himself. Soon he would hunt as he was meant to.

  The hands reset a bandage around his ribs, then moved to the bandages of his torn shoulder. Delicate fingers prodded at the place where the alligator had buried its teeth.

  “It’s closed up,” the girl said, surprised.

  The man leaned close, tobacco sweet on his breath. “Don’t think of a half-man as human. It is a demon, designed for war. Its blood is full of super-clotting agents and its cells are designed to replicate as quickly as a kudzu grows.

  “If you cut a creature like this with a knife, the wound closes itself within minutes. Deep punctures heal in only a few days. Flesh torn down to the bone. Ligaments ripped apart. Bones snapped. None of it matters to a creature like this.” The man rocked back. “All the wonders of our medical knowledge, and we use it to create monsters.”

  Tool could practically hear the man shaking his head.

  “Why do you care?” the girl asked.

  “Because I’m an old fool who imagines our sciences turned to healing, instead of war. To saving your hand for instance, instead of designing a more resilient killer. Imagine that. Imagine every person in the Drowned Cities with hands and feet, and nothing to fear from soldiers with machetes. Now that would be a true medical advancement.”

  The girl was quiet. Tool couldn’t ascertain from her breathing if it was embarrassment or agreement or thought. Finally she asked, “Will it wake up, or not?”

  “It’s alive and healing,” the man snapped. “It will wake, or it won’t. You should be glad it heals more quickly than any human being on the face of this earth.”

  Quicker than you know, man.

  Indeed, even as the man and girl spoke, more of Tool’s faculties were returning, the world opening around him like a flower, petals splayed wide: scent, touch, taste, hearing. The world began to illustrate itself in his mind.

  Salt scents and rippling water. The ocean whispering, pushing brackish fingers into swamplands. Water skippers skating over glasslike swamp ponds. Sun dappling over his skin. Rustling kudzu. Birch leaves shivering in the wind. Bird calls: crows and magpies, jays and cockatoos. In the far distance, the yip of coywolv and the squeal of a pig.

  More and more information poured in. Twenty meters away, a python swished through reeds, a baby practically, no more than two meters long. Overhead, a squirrel’s claws scrabbled up a tree trunk—a banyan, judging from the scent and the rustling curtains of foliage and roots that draped all around.

  The theater of operation built itself in Tool’s mind. From the gaps in rustling leaves, he sensed trails running through the jungle. From the lap of waters, he knew the shapes of stagnant pools. He could guess where gaps in the kudzu led, thanks to the lingering scents of coywolv and deer. Access and egress routes. The most likely paths of enemy attack if he were besieged. The best lines of escape if he was forced to retreat. A battle map, constructed entirely in his head.

  He could fight blind, if need be.

  A breeze rustled the banyan tree’s dangling tendrils, and with it, a whiff of wood smoke carried. Tool’s nose twitched. Meat cooking. Snake. Rat. Goat. More than one cookfire, then, and with that information, the knowledge that a village lay not far away, with many families living there.

  The man and the girl lifted another bandage. The scent of Tool’s own rotting flesh was strong, demanding that he lick the wounds and coat them in the healing enzymes of his saliva. Urging him to seek his packmates. To let their tongues bathe the bloody rents in his frame.

  Leaves crushing. Someone coming through the forest.

  Tool listened to the approach, accumulating friend/foe data. The dull flip of sandals, stealthy. Another jungle dweller, smaller than the girl. Closer. Closer. Stalking. No scent of metal or gunpowder or gun oil or acid. Not stalking, then—just careful.

  “We got soldiers all over,” the new arrival said as he came close and squatted. “I covered the trails with all kinds of kudzu and thorns, so it looks like nothing comes this way, but eventually, those soldier boys are going to zero in on this patch, and when they do, we’re sitting ducks. You got any idea how much longer we got to stick here?”

  A boy. Something familiar about the voice and the scent. Tool tried to recall, but his memories were blotted with fever dreams and nightmare. What was it that he remembered about this boy? About this scent?

  “How many soldiers?” the girl’s voice asked.

  “Forty? Fifty? More?” The boy paused. “They call it a platoon, but there’s more soldiers around than Army of God uses for its platoons.”

  The girl snorted. “Yeah. My old man used to say they didn’t know squat about organizing armies around here. You catch sight of that lieutenant?”

  “Yeah. And those soldier boys you sicced the coywolv on are pissed. They had Tua up against a wall when I was there, and just kept asking him questions. Even Auntie Selima was up on me, asking about where you’d gone, and what I knew. Thought she was going to turn me over to them.”

  “Figures.”

  “Stop it, Mahlia,” the doctor said. “Your actions are costing others. Right now, innocent people are paying a price for your rashness. You’re the one who stirred that hornet’s nest, and now everyone but you is getting stung.”

  “You mean because I saved you?” the girl answered testily.

  The man didn’t answer, but Tool could smell the tension between the two. The boy broke the impasse.

  “I told people I hadn’t seen you, or the doctor. Said you must have bailed, ’cause you’re castoff and got no loyalty, but they barely let me off even so. You made a big stir with that coywolv stunt.” A pause. “The soldiers are looking for the dog-face, too. They don’t say it outright, but they’re asking if people have seen any big kills out in the jungle. Pigs. Panthers. Coywolv. Bet they’d be real interested if I said I’d found a huge dead gator out here.”

  Of course.

  It was all coming back now. Tool knew this boy’s scent, and the girl’s as well. Pieces were clicking together in his mind. The castoff girl, the boy called Mouse, and a doctor with medicines.

  The young ones hadn’t been liars after all. They really did have medicines and a trained physician. And now, close by, the reek of rotting lizard made sense as well. Another piece fitting into place. Tool’s last opponent. That massive reptile, now dead and bloating, six days gone judging by the stench and frenetic buzzing of flies around it. It was dead, and Tool was still alive.

  Astonishing.

  “So? How much longer we got to stick?” Mouse asked.

  An uncertain pause followed.

  “Don’t look to me, Mahlia,” the man said. “You chose this path. Don’t look to others to save you from your rashness.”

  “Maybe a couple more days,” Mahlia said finally.

  The boy let out a slow hiss of breath. “Dunno if we can keep hidden that long.”

 
“We just need a little longer,” Mahlia said. “It should wake up soon.”

  The doctor broke in, exasperated. “You can’t be certain it will ever wake up, Mahlia. At least be decent enough to Mouse to speak honestly to him.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to say what you thought.”

  “Be realistic. Even monsters like this one die. They are powerful, but not immortal. Even if its flesh heals, perhaps its mind was burned in fever. You don’t know all the injuries it has sustained, and it’s disingenuous to involve Mouse in your plans. Perhaps it’s time for you to pursue another path, one that doesn’t involve fantasies of war and killing.”

  “No,” Mahlia insisted. “I already got a plan. If we’re going to rabbit, we’re getting all the way out. All the way to Seascape Boston.”

  “You speak with certainty about things you don’t understand,” the doctor said. “Even if the half-man returns to fighting strength, you will have to cover hundreds of miles infested with warlords and their armies. And after that? You still have to get past the border. No one in Manhattan Orleans or Seascape Boston wants this war flooding north. They protect their borders with more than a single half-man. If you think the UPF or the Army of God is dangerous, then you have no idea what a real army, well-equipped, can do.”

  “So we’re supposed to just keep running around like chickens while the soldier boys try to chop off our heads? Pray to the Fates and God while they pick us off?” The girl’s voice was angry. “If anything can get us out, it’s a half-man. I don’t know about you, but as soon as it heals up, I’m going. I’m done with running and hiding. This monster is my ticket out of here.”

  Tool stifled a growl as he finally understood the terrain around him. He knew his physical surroundings by scent and touch and hearing, and now he understood the human landscape as well.

  The girl sought to chain him to her. To make him into her loyal fighting dog.