Tool of War

  I am awake. I remember everything.

  He remembered the First Claw of Kolkata, clasping his hand in bargain. My brother.

  Across the great divide of genetics and language and design and culture, they had been brothers. Across the chasm of military stalemate, monomolecular razor wire, and muddy defensive trenches, they had reached an agreement. Beneath the shining arcs of mortars launched against each other, they had been…

  Kin.

  Tool felt new blood surging through the fibers of his muscles, filling him with strength. But still it was walled off from him, as if thick sea ice covered the ocean of his capabilities, and he was left peering through to it, knowing the power that lurked beneath the surface, but unable to chip through to its depths. Something held him back from using his true strength.

  Tool growled, frustrated. This was a human trick. Something his creators had done to him, to ensure control. He had been lashed down, pinned to the earth just as the human Gulliver had been pinned by tiny Lilliputians. Humanity had shackled him with chains of pain and fear and shame. They had tied him down, seeking to chain him to their will, making him believe he was weak. Tool could see this clearly now.

  But how to break through the ice to that ocean of strength?

  Mahlia found Tool squatting in the corner, growling to himself, the crumpled IV bags scattered carelessly around him.

  “I am awake,” Tool said.

  Mahlia smiled. “I can see that.”

  “You must leave,” he said. “Now. Soon. Before they come for me.”

  Mahlia was taken aback. “We don’t think they tracked us. But as soon as you can move, we’ll shift again to be sure.”

  “No.” Tool shook his head, emphatic. “They will not give up. You must separate yourself from me.” He tried to stand, but sank down with a gust of breath.

  “Tool! Slow down! You aren’t healed.”

  “There is no time.” He tried to rise once more but again his legs gave out. The floorboards creaked alarmingly under his weight.

  “Stay!” Mahlia ordered.

  Tool’s head whipped around. “I am no dog!”

  “I didn’t call you a dog. I said you need to—”

  “Stay,” Tool growled. His teeth showed.

  “I didn’t mean it that way.” Tool was still trying to get up, almost manic in his efforts to make his clumsy limbs work. “Stop it! You’re going to hurt yourself!”

  “I walked to this place,” Tool muttered. “I am healed. I have strength. I can feel it…”

  She started to reach for him, seeking to soothe him, but then held back. Something about him felt wild. As if Tool were not her friend anymore, but more like a wild coywolv, liable to snap at anything that came close.

  For the first time in years, she felt uncomfortably aware of how massive he was. Sitting on the couch made for humans, squashing it nearly flat, he emanated threat. A monster that could snap her in half, at any moment. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so overawed by his ferocious, monstrous presence.

  Ocho came into the room with Stick shadowing, both of them carrying their AKs.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Tool’s awake,” she said sourly. “He’s being… stubborn.”

  Tool scowled.

  “Can I at least check your bandages?” she asked.

  For a moment, she had the foreboding impression of a tiger gathering itself to pounce, but then the moment passed, and it was only Tool, powerful and beastly and terrifying, but familiar.

  “Do your work,” he said with a sigh.

  When she peeled away bandages, the wounds looked better than she’d expected. “Well, you’re healing.”

  “I already know this,” Tool said. “I am healed, and yet I cannot…” He growled, frustrated. “My muscles do not function. No. It’s as if… my body… it is not mine.”

  “You probably just need more time.” She set about re-applying his bandages. “We’ll figure out a way to get you more meds, and you’ll be fine.”

  “No.” Tool stayed her hand. “Your work is done. Your debt to me is finished. You must leave me.”

  “We already went over that,” she reminded him as she pried free.

  “You do not understand. My enemies are more determined than I realized. I am… anathema to them. This hunt will never end. I cannot protect you from their wrath. Your Captain Almadi was correct. You must separate yourself from me.”

  “A long time ago, you said we were pack,” Mahlia reminded him. “I wouldn’t even be alive if it wasn’t for you.”

  “What about the rest of your pack?” Tool asked. “Do they, too, wish to die for me? For the sake of a wounded dog-face?”

  “That’s not what they call you. And this isn’t a vote.”

  Tool bared his teeth. “They are your slaves, then?”

  “They’re soldiers!” Mahlia snapped. “They follow orders.” But even as she said it, she was painfully aware of the soldier boys standing behind her. Ocho. Stork and Stick. Van. “Don’t you dare undermine me,” she whispered fiercely.

  Instead, Tool raised his voice, and spoke directly to them. “You’ve all seen the fire come from the sky. You,” he said to Van, “have seen their soldiers, the weapons they wield. Do you think they can be beaten?”

  Van looked uncomfortable.

  “Tool—” Mahlia warned, but Tool’s head jerked up.

  His nose quivered, nostrils flaring. His ears pricked high, twitching left and right. Alert. An animal, sensing, quivering with anticipation, all his senses straining.

  “Tool?” Mahlia pressed. “What is it?”

  “Open the window,” Tool said to Stork. “Quickly. A crack.”

  Stork looked to her and Ocho for confirmation.

  “Quickly!” Tool said. “And do not be seen.”

  Ocho gave Stork the nod. Standing beside the window, Stork reached over and slid it open a sliver. Tool strained forward, ears pricked, nose twitching and trembling.

  He tried to rise, but once again sank to the ground.

  “Too late,” he said. “They are here.”

  22

  THE SOUND WAS familiar. The click of metal, one piece snapping together with the next. Tool knew the sound as well as he knew Mahlia’s scent. A rifle, being assembled.

  Van and Ocho were ghosting to the windows, peering carefully outside, communicating by old UPF finger signals. Tool didn’t need to move at all, though. He knew the enemy. With the window open, the click of metal was clearer. Mercier was here.

  Mahlia crouched beside him. “What is it?” she whispered.

  “A sniper,” Tool said.

  Ocho and Van exchanged glances and flattened themselves against the walls. Stork and Stick faded deeper into the shadows, keeping low. Tool tried to move again, but still his muscles resisted him. He could see and hear and smell and feel the executioners coming, but his own body fought him when he tried to ready himself.

  Why was he shackled so? Was it old conditioning? Did his own body betray him, because it knew that he had once betrayed his owners? Did it seek to immobilize him, knowing that Mercier was coming?

  Of a certainty, some part of him was howling inside at the thought of Mercier being here, his instincts demanding that he roll over and show his belly. To bare his throat to his…

  Masters.

  “We need to run.” Mahlia started unhooking IV tubes, pulling needles free of his flesh.

  “Too late,” Tool said.

  It was as if his arms were filled with lead and his legs had turned to water. A memory flooded Tool’s mind, unbidden—General Caroa’s head between his jaws…

  And Tool, completely unable to crush the man’s skull.

  I conquered him, and could not kill him.

  Tool’s heart began pounding. He couldn’t fight them. His body simply refused.

  Outside, the sniper was attaching his bipod, setting the rifle, scoping their rooms from the roof across the street. Tool could hear the low conversa
tion between him and his spotter, both of them checking wind speed, even though the shots would be absurdly easy for anyone skilled with the work.

  Tool listened to the street noises below. Stealthy movements. Holes of stillness. Tight breathing. “There are more,” he said. “Not just a sniper. Many of them.”

  Too many, he didn’t say aloud.

  Mahlia and her crew were already preparing themselves, doing the things that long years of civil war had trained them to. They were survivors, were they not? Scarred veterans of knife and gun battles, ambushes and massacres.

  This is not a war you can win, Tool thought sadly.

  Van was switching off his hearing aids, the blue lights winking out. He belly-crawled under the window, slithering for the bedroom, where the rest of their guns were stored. Stork was slipping out through the kitchen, headed for the stairs in back, while Ocho went to the window and peered outside, a bare slice of his face, peeking, disappearing just as fast. Dropping, to peek again.

  “How many?” Mahlia asked, crouched beside him.

  Tool listened to the faint crunch of military boots, the grinding grit of cobblestone mortar down on the street, a kill squad tucked into the doorway.

  “Four on the ground, at the front. A sniper and spotter across the street.”

  Stork slipped back into the room, his fingers flashing signs. Two out back.

  Tool shook his head, impatient. Mercier would never only send two to hold the rear. That would be their kill zone. Loud blunt force from the front, to drive them to the rear of the squat, down the stairs, and into a kill zone.

  He made his own signal. Four.

  It would be four. They would have another sniper pair in the rear, crouched on another rooftop, waiting for the quarry to try to dash out the back, into their ambush. Two sniper pairs, two kill squads, front and back.

  Outside, an electric vehicle hissed to a stop. Tool picked up the quiet click of a vehicle door being opened, but not slid wide. Another kill squad.

  “There are more in the vehicle,” he said. “They will have gas or grenades that they launch.”

  They would launch the gas or explosives, leaving the sniper position clear for killing shots. They would soon cut the electricity. Then they would fill the area with smoke, and use night vision.

  And then they would come and put Tool down, for good.

  Tool was seized with a powerful urge to surrender. An urge so deep and surprising that he suddenly saw himself as a dog, whining and wagging his tail, begging for mercy from his master… He could actually feel his muscles fighting to make him surrender, as if someone else moved his limbs, as a marionette. As if he were possessed by the will of his masters.

  Roll over. Bare your belly. Cower. Surrender.

  Tool shook his head, fighting against the urge.

  Mahlia was staring at him. “Tool? Are you okay?”

  He shook his head again, trying to clear away the compulsions. A new wave swept over him and he clenched his fists, fighting the self-destructive urges.

  Van returned with weapons. Slid an AK across the floor to Ocho. Another to Mahlia. Reliable weapons—useless against Mercier, though. They might as well have been wielding swords and clubs for all the challenge they would present to the kill squads.

  Tool could hear the breathing of the S&D troops down on the street, warm, wet exhalations. The rustling of their body armor. Of course all the kill squads were armored. And here beside him were the former soldiers of the UPF, protected by nothing more than shorts and tank tops, preparing to war against them. Mahlia, clutching her rifle alongside Ocho and Van and Stick. Stork with a sawed-off shotgun. The wars they had fought had been poor ones, fought by the poorest people.

  The enemy might as well have been another species entirely.

  Outside, in the darkness, the sniper was fitting a bullet into his rifle’s chamber. Tool heard the chamber pop open, perfectly oiled, nearly surgical. He could hear the slow, calm beat of the sniper’s heart. A professional, accustomed to killing from afar. The bullet slid home. A single round meant for him, designed to kill one such as he. The chamber snicked shut. The weapon would be a Locus Mark IV, with a long barrel, as perfect in its way as Tool was.

  They had planned their attack well.

  He beckoned Mahlia. “I know where they are,” he whispered. “I know how they will attack.” Even speaking against his former masters was difficult.

  “What do we do?”

  Tool fought against his conditioning and whispered their intentions. How they might, possibly, with luck, be countered. If he had been strong, fighting these Mercier soldiers would have been so easy. Instead, he was left with the thinnest of plans.

  Outside, the kill squads began to move.

  23

  “EAGLE EYE, ANY movement?”

  “Negative. All quiet. All squads ready?”

  “Affirmative, Eagle Eye. You’ve got the count.”

  “Eagle Eye has the count. Gas on two. Strike on one.”

  Taj didn’t like the setup. It didn’t feel good creeping into a confined space like this. Too much like the jungles of Indonesia when they’d had the Kalimantan Army moving in on their mining claims. The kind of fighting space that was built for surprises. And it didn’t help to have the high brass looking over their shoulder from the far side of the continent, backseat driving the whole damn thing. Pissed-off brass, watching their every move, just because they’d screwed up the last stitch and ditch.

  How was I supposed to know it was the wrong augment?

  So now he was stuck in a narrow corridor, creeping up on an unknown enemy. It felt like a punishment mission.

  Ahead of him, Max and Joli were easing up the stairs, all of them listening for the hit. Taj blinked behind his goggles, unconsciously holding his breath against the gas that would be incoming. Nasty stuff, that. But it worked.

  “This is Eagle Eye with the count. Squads, sound off. Ready?”

  “Squad Three Ready. Grab your Fates Eyes, boys and girls.”

  “Cut the clever. Squad Two?”

  “Squad Two, ready in the rear. Can we shoot something, already?”

  This time Eagle Eye didn’t take the bait.

  Squad Two was lucky. They weren’t the ones sneaking up the claustrophobic staircase. Ahead, someone opened a door, saw the S&D team, and slammed it shut.

  Taj grimaced. Too many civvies around. Another variable that could take everything sidewise. Taj signaled Joli to seal the door. The last thing they needed was to be surprised from behind.

  Joli slipped forward, pulled an adhesives spray, and coated all of the door’s edges, permanently sticking it closed.

  The longer they were in here, the more it reminded him of Indonesia, where an augment would come bursting out of the jungle greenery and swallow someone up, then disappear before anyone had a chance to stitch him.

  “Squad One?”

  “We’re in,” Taj sub-vocalized. “One floor down. Heading up.”

  “Snipers?”

  “Front, under glass.”

  “Back, under glass.”

  “Quick and clean, boys and girls. Gas on two. Entry on one. ”

  “Roger that. Gas on two, entry on one.”

  “This is Eagle Eye. Count is four…

  “Three…”

  “Two…”

  The cargo hauler across the street would be sliding its door open.

  Taj felt the series of mortars shiver his feet as they came thumping out, hissing. He could imagine them flying, trailing white smoke, glass shattering as ordnance blasted into the building.

  “One.”

  Glass shattered and smoke filled the room. Van clenched his eyes shut and held his breath, lying prone on the floor, just the way Tool had told him.

  Hold your breath. Keep your eyes shut. Don’t take even a small breath. Count to sixty, slow. You can hold your breath that long.

  Tool would handle the poison smoke.

  There was a rattle of AK fire, Stork taking
out the rest of the windows, letting the gas billow out, just like they’d planned. Mahlia and Ocho would hold the rear. Stick would clear the rooftops. He and Stork and Tool would hold the front. He could hear Tool grunting, crawling slowly through the haze. Something was terribly wrong with him. Van remembered when the half-man had been nearly unstoppable. Now Tool could barely crawl.

  A rifle cracked from outside. The sniper. He heard someone grunt. Stork? He didn’t dare open his eyes even though his whole body was itching with the feeling of having a sniper’s crosshairs on him.

  He felt Tool inch up beside him. If things were going well, the half-man was collecting the gas canisters and flinging them back out the window, down into the van that held the kill squad, giving them a little surprise of their own.

  Shouts from outside made him think Tool was still able to do some things, at least.

  Tool could hear the kill squad soldiers charging up the stairs. They were good. Fearless.

  He could barely crawl, and now he heard a dog’s begging whimper issuing from his own throat. With the Mercier soldiers upon him, he felt a desperate urge to obey and submit to them.

  Mercier were his people.

  Not these Drowned Cities soldier boys.

  Roar for Mercier. Fight for Mercier. Bow to Mercier.

  Why was he fighting at all? He was a bad dog. It was disgusting that he had so thoroughly disobeyed his masters.

  Feritas. Fidelitas.

  A sniper bullet struck him. A just punishment.

  Hot blood spattered Van’s face. It had to be Tool who was hit, but Tool didn’t make a noise. Van kept his eyes closed, kept counting. His lungs felt like they wanted to pound out of his chest.

  Tool collapsed beside Van with a grunt. The floorboards sank with his weight. The sniper rifle went off again. Van tried to press deeper into the floor. Stick was supposed to be up on the roof, taking care of the snipers. Van wished he’d hurry up.

  “Breathe,” Tool croaked, beside him. “Fire, left of the door. Low, for the legs.”