The Drowned Cities sb-2
Page 30
Mahlia stared up at Tool. For the first time she thought she saw him true: not a mix of creatures, but a singular whole, built entirely for war. Entirely at home.
Gunfire echoed down the canals. A few shots, then more. A cacophony of weaponry that broke her thoughts and sent the warboys all scrambling into the zodiacs.
“Go!” Tool said. “Quickly! Before you lose your last opportunity! Go!”
“Come on!” Ocho said frantically. “Come on!”
When she hesitated still, Tool simply lifted her into the zodiac and set her amongst the troops. The soldier named Stork gunned their engine, and then they were speeding away from the half-man.
Mahlia looked back. Tool held up a hand in farewell, and then he turned and plunged into the canal, disappearing entirely. Mahlia stared after his disappeared form, wishing him well.
46
THE ZODIACS RIPPED down the canal, leaving frothing wake behind. Ahead, gunfire echoed.
“Here it comes,” Ocho muttered.
“We going to make it?” Mahlia asked.
“It’ll be close.” The zodiac’s engine whined higher as Stork ran the thing full out. Ocho pushed Mahlia down, covering her with his body. Bullets zipped and whined overhead. The UPF boys were all flopping down, lying low, returning fire. Shell casings rained down on Mahlia as guns chattered.
They shot across the leading edge of the AOG, running a gauntlet of bullets, firing all the while, and then they were past, and Ocho was shouting for his soldiers to report.
Mahlia straightened, trying to get her bearings. A soldier boy with missing ears was frantically patching holes in the side of the zodiac, blocking the air loss. Mahlia leaned over to the kid. “How can I help?”
“Put your hand over this,” the boy said, showing her a hole. “Cover this one, too. I got tape somewhere.”
Mahlia awkwardly pressed her stump and her bandaged left hand over the tiny hissing holes while he rummaged through their treasures. He came up with a bag, stripped it open, and found tape.
“Last time we used this, I think it was on you,” he said, grinning. Mahlia stared at him, trying to figure out if he was a threat, but the kid was like a puppy that couldn’t control itself. He was practically bouncing up and down.
“I’m Van,” he said as he slapped tape over the holes. Bullets started wailing overhead again, but Van didn’t stop smiling. Just kept doing his job like it was the best thing in the world to be ripping down a canal with enemies closing in on them.
He was crazy, she decided.
But then, as she looked around at the other soldier boys, she realized they were all like Van. It was like they were alive with energy. Everything they did felt eager.
They were getting out. All of them. They were leaning into the wind, eyes brighter and more alive than anything she had ever seen. A whole pack of soldier boys, all pursuing a future that they thought they’d never be allowed to have.
Ahead, UPF sentries saw them coming. They lifted their rifles, but Ocho threw up UPF colors. The sentries lowered their weapons and waved them on. Mahlia and the soldier boys shot past, three boats in a row.
Mahlia watched the checkpoint sentries, thinking how odd it was to simply whip past them like this. She wondered if any of them caught sight of her, and if they wondered what a castoff was doing, running with the UPF. And then they were past the final checkpoints, and they hit Potomac Harbor, and Mahlia stopped caring forever about what the UPF or any of the warlords thought.
Open water stretched before them, blue and wide, sunlight glittering on the waves. All across the harbor, clipper ships were readying their sails, preparing to flee. Some were already moving, their white sails billowing, filling with wind. She watched as one of ships rose on its hydrofoils and cut across the waters for the high seas.
It was beautiful, like a gull breaking into flight.
“Now what?” Ocho asked.
Mahlia scanned her choices. Pointed. “That one.”
It was rich. Sleek and fast. A shining white hull and sails that were only now unfurling. A wealthy blood buyer, glutted on scavenge and now escaping as the violence once again overcame the city.
“You sure?” Ocho asked.
“They’re just like the people my mom used to trade with.”
Ocho gave the order, and their raft angled across the waves, chasing for Mahlia’s chosen destination. She stared up at the gleaming ship as they approached, remembering how she’d stood on the Potomac docks years before, begging and desperate for the peacekeeper ships to return.
You’re not begging this time, she thought. You’re buying.
“Is this going to work?” Ocho whispered as they closed on the clipper ship.
“Yeah, it’ll work. Put up that old flag. The one with the stars in a circle, and the red and white stripes.”
“That old burned thing?”
“Yeah. That’ll get their attention. They’ll want it, for sure.”
Their zodiac hurtled across the waves, flying its ragged banner. Sure enough, the clipper ship’s sails that had been unfurling halted, and started rolling themselves back up.
Mahlia could see people on deck, looking down on them with binoculars. Watching them. They’d want what she had to sell. Her heart beat faster. It was going to work. It was really going to work.
“Keep your guns down, boys,” Ocho said. “Try to smile and look friendly.”
Mahlia almost laughed at that. Ocho seemed to catch her humor, but his smile faded, almost as soon as it showed.
“You think they’ll take us? Really?”
“They already are.”
“No. I mean…” He touched his cheek and his brand. “They’ll know what we did, right? They’ll know what we are.”
Mahlia looked at him, and once again, saw that other part of him. The part that was other than a soldier. Some part of whatever the sergeant had been, before the Drowned Cities had swallowed him up. The scared kid who’d been beaten and whipped and shoved around so long he’d almost lost every bit of his humanity. He was right there. A whole other person, trying to believe.
She started to answer, to try to tell him that everything would be okay. They could buy respect. They could go someplace where no one had even heard of the UPF or the Drowned Cities or the Army of God. Where none of it even existed. Beijing, maybe. Or Seascape Boston. Or farther even. They could disappear from everything that they’d been.
Somewhere they’d find a place, she wanted to say.
But then she looked down at her own hands, her missing right and the bandage on her left, and she wondered the same thing herself. What good was anyone going to find in a doctor girl who had only four fingers?
Finally she said, “One step at a time, soldier boy. We’ll take it one step at a time, and we’ll figure it out.”
They swept up beside the clipper ship and it loomed over them. Someone threw a rope ladder down, and then soldier boys were scrambling up the ladder and climbing aboard. They went up one by one, and then the ladder was in front of Mahlia.
She took a deep breath, then reached up and hooked her arms through the rungs. The soldier boys helped her, shoving her higher, and then she was lifting free of the zodiac, climbing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MICHELLE NIJHUIS FOR TELLING me about the coyote-wolf hybrids that became the basis for coywolv. Ruhan Zhao for some desperately needed language expertise when my rusty Chinese skills failed me. Rob Ziegler for talking me off the ledge and keeping me from throwing the book away, yet again. All the folks at Blue Heaven who read this book, when it wasn’t this book at all. My editors: Jennifer Hunt, who supported me and was willing to wait so that I could write the best book I could; and Andrea Spooner, for guiding me through the final miles to make it even better. My wife for having faith when it all took longer than it should have, and Arjun, because he makes this matter. Any errors or omissions are mine alone.
About the Author
Paolo Bacigalupi is the author of Ship Breaker, a M
ichael L. Printz Award winner and National Book Award finalist. He is also the author of The Windup Girl and Pump Six and Other Stories, and is a Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook, John W. Campbell Memorial, and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award winner. He lives in western Colorado with his wife and son.
Review
“Suzanne Collins may have put dystopian literature on the YA map with ‘The Hunger Games’… but Bacigalupi is one of the genre's masters, employing inventively terrifying details in equally imaginative story lines.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Beautifully written, filled with high-octane action, and featuring badly damaged but fascinating and endearing characters, this fine novel tops its predecessor and can only increase the author’s already strong reputation.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“The novel’s greatest success lies in the creation of a world that is so real, the grit and decay of war and ruin will lay thick on the minds of readers long after the final page. The narrative, however, is equally well crafted…. Breathtaking.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Bacigalupi writes with a furious energy that makes this brilliant depiction of an all-too-believable future impossible to forget. A story that will resonate beyond its final page.”
—Booklist, starred review
“Bacigalupi’s intense, action-filled novel is a heartbreaking and powerfully moving portrait of individual resiliency amidst extreme circumstances that rivals, if not surpasses, the excellence of its predecessor.”
—The Horn Book, starred review
“Bacigalupi brings to life a post-apocalyptic America that thrills the mind.”
—VOYA, starred review
“A compelling read, this engaging book does not glorify war and violence, but shows its true nature.”
—School Library Journal
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Paolo Bacigalupi
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
www.hachettebookgroup.com
First e-book edition: May 2012
Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
ISBN 978-0-316-20261-9
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