“What do I do if someone comes at me?”
“We need a skiff and we need a person who knows how to move into the Drowned Cities. Without an alliance, we have nothing.”
“We don’t got anything to pay them.”
“Bring them to me.” Tool bared his teeth. “I will arrange the payment.”
Mahlia shook her head. “I don’t think this is going to work.”
“Be strong, wargirl. It will only get worse.”
Mahlia stared out at the town, hating what she had to do. “In the morning,” she decided. “I’ll go when they’re all hungover and sleepy and stupid. Not while they’re all sliding and crazy and looking for someone to hurt.”
Tool smiled. “A decision worthy of Sun Tzu.”
30
THE PROBLEM DIDN’T develop right away.
Mouse’s squad was deep inside UPF territory, so they should have been safe. The only things to keep an eye on were chain gangs and farmers. Mouse and all the other soldiers were standing around joking and watching as big old barges eased through K Canal, and they had no idea what was coming.
The barges were massive things, ironclad and rusty. A whole long line of them clogged the canal, with a webwork of ropes leading to the boardwalks on the sides, where people were harnessed to the ropes in long lines, leaning forward, dragging.
A few people had mules that they urged forward, but mostly, it was stringy people with dirty matted hair and torn skin, white and brown and black and tan and all of it whipped and torn by labor.
The braying and complaining of the mules and the groaning of the prisoners filled the canal and echoed off the buildings. The stink of them as they passed was almost overwhelming. Mouse stepped back as the haulers leaned against the weight of the filled barges.
The first barge just had a bunch of green logos and a Lawson & Carlson stamp. The second one, though…
“Is that Chinese?” Mouse asked.
The side of the barge had a big old logo with writing on the side, just like on the packs of medicines that Doctor Mahfouz used to dole out.
Gutty looked over. “Sure.”
The warboy went back to shaking a bottle of his acid. He squirted a little out and it smoked and hissed as it hit the boardwalk. “Bunch of the blood buyers come from over there. We got ’em all.”
He pointed at the succession of barges and logos. “Lawson & Carlson, they’re out of the Seascape. GE… dunno where. Stone-Ailixin, I think that’s from over in Europe. Patel Global, they’re Seascape Boston, too.”
“I thought the warlords—” Mouse paused, adjusting his words. “I mean, I thought we kicked the Chinese out.”
“Just the peacekeepers. If buyers got cash for bullets, we let ’em have scrap, just like everyone else. Long as they don’t try no more invading or telling us how to run a democracy or whatever, they can have as much marble and steel and copper as they want.”
Mouse frowned, thinking. Remembering Mahlia, and how everyone treated her as a castoff. And here everyone was happy to take bullets from the same kinds of people as who’d left her behind. All that patriotic talk about kicking China out of the country, and taking the country back, but they were happy to trade with Chinese companies. They’d kill castoff peacekeeper kids, but were willing to take China’s bullets?
The air whistled.
Mouse looked about, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from.
Beside him, a barge exploded. Debris screamed past.
The blast threw Mouse and Gutty into a wall. A chunk of granite rained off the building above them and shattered on the barge iron. More stone showered Mouse, cutting flesh. A granite slab slammed down beside him, shattering the boardwalk and leaving a hole down to the canal waters. He stared dumbly at the hole.
Where was Gutty?
Another whistling sound. Another barge exploded. The thing started to keel over, dragging mules and workers into the water. Screams echoed as the sinking barge dragged people under.
Chaos was erupting all around. People running, diving into the water, or crawling out of it. Everyone trying to escape the kill zone. Workers thrashed in water, tangled in their harnesses. Mouse’s ears rang with the explosions. The screams seemed distant. He’d lost his hearing, he realized. Another explosion dropped into the canal, sending up a spray of water.
The 999, he realized. It had to be. The Army of God had a 999, and they were dropping shells right onto him. He stared around himself, shell-shocked. Watching all the people thrashing and frothing and drowning.
A bunch of his squad were waving him at him from a window alcove.
Cover.
He dove for them as another shell hit. Somewhere behind, rifle fire opened up. Bright red blood stained the boardwalk before him. He started to panic, checking his body, but he had all his arms and legs. Where was the blood coming from?
Another shell whistled overhead. Everyone curled into balls as it hit the half-sunk barge. It was like the sky was raining fire and there was nothing they could do.
Mouse started to panic, but Van grabbed him. “Don’t you run, Ghost! You stick with your squad, boy!”
Mouse nodded dumbly as another shell hit the building beside them. Rubble poured down.
Ocho was staring up at the buildings around them. “How’d they get our position?”
Bullets ripped down the canal. Ocho ducked behind a fallen chunk of granite. Screams of animals and prisoners filled the air. Mouse’s ears were ringing. The bullets kept coming, bouncing off the walls like the Army of God had enough ammo to last them all the way to eternity.
All he had was a machete and an acid bottle. Mouse curled lower as more weapons fire ripped around them, showering them with shrapnel. Something slashed past his ear. He felt blood running down his face.
And he was one of the lucky ones. Gutty was gone. When the granite slab came crashing down, one second Gutty had been there, and then he’d been disappeared. Smashed and drowned, Mouse guessed. Gone. Just gone.
The 999 boomed again. Mouse tried to ball himself up even tighter.
They couldn’t run or swim back the way they’d come, because the godboys had gotten a pin on them from behind as well, and so now they were sitting ducks amongst the towers, waiting for the 999 to drop a whole building down on their heads.
Ocho stood and sprayed bullets down the length of the canal with his rifle. The boy must have been protected by his Fates Eye, because he didn’t take a bullet in reply, and then he was down beside Mouse again, back pressed against the granite.
“They got a spotter,” he gasped. “We find him and shut him down, we can get some breathing room.”
He nodded toward a building across the way. “They ain’t shelling that one.”
Pook scanned the building Ocho indicated. “You think that’s where they are?”
“It’s the only building they ain’t blowing up.”
The 999 went off again, and they all flattened themselves, but the round went somewhere else. Didn’t even explode. They all laughed.
A dud.
“How we doing, warboy?” Ocho slapped Mouse’s knee. “Ready to hurt these bastards?”
Mouse couldn’t form the words. He was shaking. His face was bleeding from some bit of shrapnel that had hit him and he didn’t know where it had come from.
He realized Ocho was looking at him. He tried to speak but couldn’t say anything at all. He was surprised to see that Ocho was smiling.
The sergeant leaned close. “I got news for you, half-bar. None of us is getting out of here alive. You get it? We’re just walking dead. So don’t worry so much about surviving, right?” He slapped Mouse’s leg, grinning. “Don’t take it so serious. We’re just meat in the mill.”
Mouse closed his eyes and wanted to cry, but Pook grabbed him. “Come on, half-bar. Time to earn your verticals.”
Ocho pointed at the building across the canal. “You get your ass in there and find that spotter. Get the 999 off us, and maybe we get out of here
alive. Fight another day, right? Only way out is if we shut down that 999. Otherwise we’re kill food.” He slapped Mouse on the back.
“Go on, half-bar! Hunt!”
And then he shoved Mouse into the canal, right into a hail of bullets. Mouse went down, came up sputtering. Wondering what he was going to do.
He thought about trying to swim away, to flee, but then Pook splashed into the drink with him.
“Come on, half-bar. Let’s get your prick red.” And then he was swimming for the far side.
All of Mouse’s senses were alive. It felt like he was looking in twenty directions at once. Army of God boys down the canal, shooting at them. Rubble raining down from above. Mules in the water, swimming around, braying and thrashing and climbing up on one another, and being dragged down and tangled by their harnesses.
They hadn’t seen it coming. None of them had. One second they’d been patrolling, working muscle while a bunch of civvy slave labor moved scavenge down the canal—just making sure the scavenged wire and marble and pipes and I beams all went out and bought them more bullets—and the next they were in a firefight for their lives.
Mouse made it to the far side of the canal.
Pook had an AK that he held above his head as he swam, and it slowed him, but then he made it, too. They climbed into the building through a shattered window, swimming through the interior of a swamped floor plan, hunting for a stairwell that would lead them up out of the water. Slime and heat hung heavy and the roof was only a few feet above their heads, but it was enough.
“Here!” Pook whispered. They squelched up a stairway, dripping and trying to be silent as they stepped around garbage and dead animals from who knew how long ago.
Raccoons dashed away from them, running up the stairs. Pook pulled Mouse close as they reached the first dry story of the building.
“They got to be on the south side of the building,” he said. “Looking down on us. Thought I saw some reflections, up five more stories. Stay stealthy, right?”
Mouse nodded, gripping his bottle of acid in his left hand and his machete in his right.
They stole up the stairs. Outside, another shell whistled down. Mouse was briefly glad that he was inside and not out in that nightmare, but then they hit the floor they’d been looking for and all hell broke loose.
They would have surprised the godboys completely, except that he and Pook had scared up that pack of raccoons. The animals dashed out of the stairwell, scattering like cockroaches, and the Army of God were right there in front of them—three of the bastards, leaning out the window and laying down artillery.
Another shell came booming down and the godboys all whooped when it hit, and then the raccoons came piling through.
The boys turned and grabbed their rifles. Pook dashed forward, screaming and firing. He hit one of the boys. Mouse glimpsed surprised brown eyes wide, long hair spraying, as the boy’s head whipped back, and then he went right out the window.
Another godboy took a bullet in the leg but was swinging his rifle around. Mouse ran toward him with his bottle and sprayed him like he’d been trained, right in the face, follow the stream up and down and all over, and suddenly steam was rising and burning and bubbling, the kid’s face burning off. But the boy was still shooting.
Mouse dropped to the ground as bullets flew wild. Pook slammed down beside him, blood and shattered face and surprised eyes.
Mouse tried to get his bearings. The godboy with the acid face was on the floor, flopping around and screaming, the other one was dead and gone, out the window like he’d learned to fly. Pook lay beside him with his jawbone blown off.
And then there was the radio boy. Just standing there. Staring.
Mouse and the radio boy both looked at each other, and then the godboy was scrambling for his gun, and Mouse grabbed for Pook’s rifle. He couldn’t get it off Pook’s shoulder. Bullets rained down, chipping concrete as the other boy opened fire. Mouse got Pook’s rifle up and took aim as the other gun blazed away. He pulled the trigger once.
A red stain opened on the boy’s chest. Blood spattered the wall behind him. The kid just sat down, looking surprised, and suddenly everything was quiet, except for the squawk of the radio asking for bearings.
For a long time, Mouse stared at the boy he’d shot. Blood ran from him. His eyes were staring at Mouse, but Mouse couldn’t tell if he was dead or not. He was breathing, Mouse thought, and then he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. He didn’t think he could shoot the boy again.
Mouse started to shake. He was alive. Pook was dead. The other three were dead. And he was alive. Fates. He was alive. He stood up, trembling. Amped with adrenaline. He ran his hands over himself, amazed, trying to find a bullet anywhere on him.
It was just like the Army of God boys said. They were immune to bullets. Blessed. Bullets were supposed to just bounce off them, because their general blessed them. They had amulets to keep them safe. Mouse could see the ones these boys wore, little aluminum disks marked by their priests to ward off bullets. But they were all dead and he was alive.
Mouse went over to the window. From high up, the fighting down below looked like little ants, dancing around without any purpose.
The radio squawked. “Where you want the next one?”
Mouse looked down on the fighting in the streets. He should run. This was his chance. He could run.
But he was deep inside the Drowned Cities—war lines on top of war lines, in every direction. And he was already branded UPF. If he tried to run, UPF would grab him; if he went into Army of God territory, or ran up against Freedom Militia, they’d shoot him on sight. He wasn’t just another war maggot, now. He was a soldier boy. Branded, named, and reborn.
“Where you want the next one?” the radio asked again.
He stared down at the fighting. Ocho was down there.
You want to know a secret? You’re already dead. Stop worrying about it.
Ghost picked up the radio and clicked it on. “Move it back a hundred yards.”
“What?”
“Go back a hundred yards. You’re way off.”
The 999 boomed.
Army of God soldiers started running like ants as a shell dropped behind their lines.
Ghost watched the war maggots run and scatter, and felt a rush of excitement as he walked the 999 down the street, chasing them.
It didn’t last long, but it was enough. Pretty soon, Ghost saw the godboys coming back and he knew it was time to go. It was like pranking his brother, back when he was still around. You could poke at him for a little while, but then he’d get pissed and it was time to get out of the way. When a squad of AOG started swimming the canal, it was time to go.
Ghost scanned the room. They’d been set up for a while. Must have been planning the ambush for days and days. He grabbed his dead opponent’s gun. Ammo…
He couldn’t carry it all. He fumbled through the ammo, trying to match the guns to the ammo. Whole hodgepodge. He pulled a belt of bullets off one boy, and a couple of cartridges off another, scooped them into his shirt. Time to go.
The temptation to stay there, to try to get the rest… In a sudden inspiration, Ghost grabbed the rest of the rifles and flung them out the window, then the ammo he couldn’t carry, and the radio, too, all of it sailing out the window and down, tumbling, into the canal below.
Only then did he run. He went down two flights and this time the raccoons saved him, because they came up ahead with the godboys behind, and Ghost had enough time to slide out of sight. He stealthed down refuse-strewn hallways with mice and rats and raccoons, slipping through the building, keeping the map of the place in his mind, moving and dropping down another stairwell, and then down and down and down again, until he was in the water and swimming back to Dog Squad.
The old boy, Mouse, he would have just swum right out, but Ghost stopped short of the canal, peered out at the water and the canal and the shattered boardwalks.
Boys with guns were all around, but he had a
gun, too, now, and the hunt was different. He’d hunted frogs and snakes and crawdads, and if the godboys weren’t snakes, he didn’t know what was, and so he scanned the canal and the buildings up above, peeking out, looking for glints of snipers, for signs of movement, and then he saw Dog Squad running, leapfrogging as they backed themselves out of the skirmish zone, and Van caught sight of him and then Ghost was out in the water, swimming, knowing his warboys had his back and that he had covering fire.
He came out of the water, dripping, trophy rifle held high, his pockets full of bullets and who the hell knew whether they’d shoot, but one thing for sure was that Army of God didn’t have those bullets.
The 999 opened up again, but Dog Squad was out of the kill zone.
Ocho looked at him. “Where’s Pook?”
Ghost pointed up at the building.
“Dead?”
“Yeah. Got it in the face.”
“You’re with TamTam and Stork, then.” Ocho waved to the other warboys. “Hey, Stork! Pook’s gone. You got Ghost.”
Two boys he hadn’t worked with. One of them a little licebiter with castoff eyes and a smashed-up nose: TamTam. The other, black-skinned, tall, and gawky, and older. Ghost liked that. If Stork was older, he might not be stupid. Might not get him killed.
Stork eyed him. “Nice job with the 999.” He paused, looking at the rifle Ghost had brought back with predatory interest. “Nice gun.”
Ghost gripped it warily, knowing what was coming.
“TamTam don’t have a gun,” Stork said.
“So?”
“He outranks you.”
Ghost just stared him down. He didn’t let himself blink or show fear. He just looked back at Stork. “If he wants one, I guess he better find one,” he said.
Stork almost looked like he was going to be pissed, but then he just smiled and shook his head.
“Yeah. Guess he better.”
31
DAWN BROKE STILL and hot and wet on Moss Landing. Rain came down and soaked everything, turning everything to mud.
The place looked almost as bad as Banyan Town had looked after the UPF burned it. If the people hadn’t been puking and lying facedown but breathing, they could have been dead. Some of them were so exhausted from debauchery that they weren’t even conscious.