Tool of War

  Be!

  He came in fast. Mahlia stepped into the attack, knowing it would be close, but he’d miss her guts, and now he’d have to deal with her own blade. The pitching of the deck worked in her favor as she brought her left hand around, slicing the air, forcing him to scramble toward the safety of her right side. They banged against each other, a messy brawl. He grabbed for her wrist, ready to grapple—

  Snick.

  The knife hidden in her prosthetic hand shot out and she rammed it up under his jaw. Ocho froze. Her blade pressed deep against his neck, tenting the flesh. A thin line of blood trickled where the razor edge nicked skin.

  Ocho’s hands went up in surrender. He broke into a grin. “That’s how you do it, war maggot! Just like that!”

  Mahlia clenched her muscles and the concealed blade in her prosthetic hand disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

  Snick.

  They both relaxed and drew apart, Ocho nodding satisfaction. “Yeah, it’s good,” he said. “You’re getting good with it. Practically ambidextrous. I like that. Two-handed terror.”

  Mahlia wiped the sweat off her brow. “My lucky left,” she said.

  “And now with that new hand, you got a tricky-sticky right. With a little more training, we could almost put you in the ring fights up in Salt Dock. Put some money on you. Stork would second you. First blood would be easy.”

  Mahlia shook her head and sank to the deck, still panting. “I’ll settle for winning outside the ring.”

  Ocho plopped down beside her. His muscular brown shoulders gleamed with sweat and his tank was soaked. He drank from a bottle of desalinated seawater and passed it to her. “Good work. Seriously.”

  Mahlia took the bottle with her prosthetic hand and drank, then passed it back. Ocho was right. She was getting better with the hand—and with the knife. When Ocho had suggested that she get a weapon installed in the hand, she’d thought it was stupid. Some kind of weird affectation, like she was supposed to be some warrior princess out of the burning lands of Rajasthan, like the Bollywood shows that they pulled in over the satellite.

  “It will look crazy,” she’d protested at the time.

  “Nobody will be able to see it,” Ocho had said. “And for sure, no one will laugh after you stick them.”

  “Doctor Mahfouz used to say that if you had a weapon, it just meant you’d use it, instead of finding a better way.”

  “Look where he ended up.”

  That had decided her. Mahfouz had ended up dead. He’d lived in a fantasy world where people were all supposed to see the humanity in each other. And so he’d died. In Mahlia’s experience, people were more like animals. Sometimes you could tame one. Even a vicious one. But sometimes, you just needed to put a body down.

  She flexed her prosthetic again. The blade snicked out and popped back in. She moved all the fingers, making a fist. It was almost as good as a real hand. Almost as if the Army of God had never cut it off in the first place. She briefly wished that she’d been able to afford one that had feeling, too.

  “Big difference a few days make,” Ocho said, interrupting her thoughts.

  Mahlia followed his gaze to the ocean beyond, a vista of benevolence completely at odds with the hurricane they’d survived.

  “Kind of nice not having a storm trying to kill us,” she agreed.

  Off the port side of the Raker, skim fish were jumping, flying high. Probably feeding on a jellyfish swarm. In the far distance, a pod of whales breached. She’d seen them earlier in the day as well, pacing the Raker. All the life of the ocean seemed to be rejoicing after the storm.

  A shout from the forward decks echoed up. Mahlia turned, shading her eyes. Some of Ocho’s soldier boys were working on the ropes and winches, bantering back and forth with Captain Almadi’s sailors. Their voices sparkled, as bright as the sunshine on the rippling ocean. Mahlia spied Van, small and kinetic. Stork, too, tall and black, solemn and intense. Muscular Ramos, alongside pale and ever-sunburned Severn, of Almadi’s crew. All four of them working under Captain Almadi’s supervision.

  “Almost looks like they’re a crew,” Ocho said, mirroring Mahlia’s own thoughts. “Another year or two, and old Almadi will have our boys housebroken.”

  Captain Almadi had been determinedly teaching the former militia fighters the sailor’s trade, and now, with the high spirits that survival on the ocean had brought out, Ocho’s boys were doing their work with surprising obedience.

  “It almost looks like…” She trailed off.

  “They’re kids,” Ocho said. “Take the scars away, scrape off their UPF brands, and you’d think they’d never killed anyone.”

  “Yeah.”

  They’d all been part of the United Patriot Front at one point. They’d hunted her. They’d killed people she’d cared about. They’d been just as barbaric as the Army of God, who had hacked off her right hand. Just as vicious. Just as cruel.

  And now here they were, laughing. Van had just dumped a bucket of water over Severn’s head, and was bolting away. A kid, who’d also used to poke a gun in people’s faces.

  Her gaze traced across the deck to the huge lump of burned and bloody flesh that was Tool. Thanks to him, she was alive. If, long ago, some fortune-teller had waved her Fates Eye over Mahlia’s head and told her that this was her future, she would have told the woman she was sliding high. There was no way a castoff of the Chinese peacekeepers could rise to lead these animals. Time was, these feral boys would have eaten her alive, and now, instead, they wagged their tails when they saw her. She should have been dead, and instead she had a clipper ship of her own, and a crew of half-tamed killers, and it was all because of Tool.

  Ocho was watching her, solemn. “Thinking about our big not-meat friend?”

  Mahlia laughed uncomfortably. “You reading my mind?”

  “Just been around you awhile, I guess.”

  However much he dismissed his powers of observation, Ocho’s gold-flecked green eyes were watchful in ways that the other soldier boys’ weren’t. At first, she’d thought he was just smarter than most people, but later, as she spent more time with him, she’d realized that it wasn’t just his intelligence that had kept him and his followers alive—it was those eyes, careful and attentive, seeing things that were right in front of everyone else’s face, too. Most people saw things. Ocho actually looked.

  “I wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t for Tool,” Mahlia said.

  “None of us, probably.” Ocho shrugged. “Before he showed up, UPF were losing bad. Colonel Stern kept saying we could beat the Army of God, but we didn’t stand a chance. We were getting exterminated.”

  “And then Tool showed up.”

  “You and Tool.” Ocho nodded solemnly. “Changed the game, top to bottom.”

  “Tool was winning, wasn’t he? In the Drowned Cities, there at the end. He was winning.”

  “No, he won.” Ocho’s gaze went to the slumped half-man. “No doubt on that. He won.”

  Mahlia tried to read Ocho’s expression, the way he seemed to read everyone else, but there was little to glean from his external features. He was good at locking whatever he was thinking deep inside. All you got was the outside. Those sharp glitter-green eyes and that lean brown face with its triple-hash burn scar.

  He would have been handsome without the UPF scar, she thought. She’d seen people in Seascape Boston with not a scar on them. Perfect faces, unmarred by fear or pain. Unconsciously, she reached up to touch her own brand. She’d had Tool burn it onto her cheek, and she still winced at the memory of the pain that she’d endured so she could sneak into UPF territory.

  “It was quiet,” Ocho said. “You notice how quiet it got?”

  “What? The Drowned Cities?”

  “Right at the end. No fighting at all. Not a single gunshot. Never realized how used to it I was, until it was gone.” He nodded down at Tool’s hulking slumped form. “If he’d showed up sooner, I might have never had to soldier at all. Might have still been fish
ing with my uncles. Might have never been grabbed up by UPF at all.”

  “At least we got out.”

  “Thanks to our big not-meat friend.” Ocho was quiet for a minute. “Almadi’s pissed about him.”

  Mahlia turned her gaze to the captain, who was busy supervising her sailors and Ocho’s soldier boys. “She’s always unhappy about something.”

  “I dunno…” Ocho chewed his lip. “I think she’d push old Tool overboard, if she could.”

  “Seriously?”

  “It’s what I’d do. He’s weak now. Best time to do it. Hit him fast, make it happen. ‘Oh well, what can we do? He’s in the drink.’” Ocho nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. That’s how I’d do it.”

  “Almadi knows where her money comes from.” Mahlia squeezed the muscles of her right arm. The six-inch blade shot out of her prosthetic, appearing as if by magic, black murder glinting in sunshine. “If she doesn’t see it our way, we’ll make her see it our way.”

  “Can’t keep watch on her all the time. Not her, and all her crew. We lost a lot more than she did in the storm. You notice we’re outnumbered now?”

  “We just need a little time. Until Tool wakes up.”

  “That’s a big if—” Ocho’s words were broken off by a shout from below. Sailors and soldier boys were gathering around Tool, who seemed to be moving.

  Mahlia punched his shoulder triumphantly. “You should trust me more.”

  “I always trust you.”

  The way Ocho said it made Mahlia pause. She wanted to ask him what he meant, but more people were clustering around Tool, and Ocho was nodding toward the gathering.

  “Better get there before Almadi.”

  By the time Mahlia made it down to the main deck, Tool was standing. Leaning heavily against the mainmast, looking surprisingly weak, but still, standing. He gazed upward, seemingly mesmerized by the sunshine. Van was already there, circling like a yappy, overexcited puppy trying to provoke a much bigger, meaner creature. Others stood at a more respectful—or at least safer—distance, staring in awe at Tool’s wrecked mass.

  “How’d you heal so fast?” Van was asking. He prodded at Tool’s flesh, fearless. “You don’t even smell cooked now.”

  Typical Van, playing it up in front of Almadi’s sailors and the other soldier boys. Mahlia half expected Tool to smash the earless boy flat, but for the moment the augment was ignoring him.

  “Check it out!” Van said as Mahlia arrived. “You gotta see this!”

  He ran his hands over the ruined musculature of the half-man. “He’s, like, practically healed already!” His fingers dug into blackened skin. A great sheet of Tool’s back flesh peeled off like sticky, charred leather, revealing raw, bloody, gleaming red muscles.

  Everyone winced and stepped back, expecting an explosion from the half-man.

  “Well, he’s mostly healed.” Van made a face and dropped the fatty char to the deck, then caught everyone else’s appalled expressions. “What?” he protested. “Sometimes when you peel it off, you find new skin.” He patted one of Tool’s massive biceps. “Anyway, he doesn’t care. He doesn’t feel any of it. Do you, big guy?”

  He started picking at Tool’s flesh again. True to Van’s words, Tool didn’t seem to notice the picking and peeling, but continued to stare up at the sun.

  Mahlia pushed between the soldier boys and touched Tool gently on the arm. “You shouldn’t be up.”

  “I am healed enough,” Tool rumbled, but his words were almost immediately belied as he sagged against the mainmast.

  “Help me!” Mahlia tried to catch him. Soldier boys and sailors rushed in to join her, but he slumped to the deck without grace, too heavy for them to hold upright. Tool’s breath wheezed out as he collapsed, but even as he thudded down to the deck, he remained fixated on the sky above.

  “What is it?” Mahlia asked, shading her eyes against the glare. “What do you see up there?”

  “I seek my gods,” Tool said.

  “Your gods?” Van squinted up at the sky. “There ain’t no gods up there.”

  “You can’t find your gods in the heavens?” Tool asked.

  “Ain’t religious, actually,” Van said. “My people were Buddhists. Bunch of crap about compassion.” He shrugged. “Didn’t work out too good for them.”

  Tool didn’t reply. Mahlia noticed that a grayish membrane had slid over his one good eye, apparently blocking the glare of the sun.

  Van went back to picking at Tool’s charred skin. “Anyway, there’s no gods living up in the sky,” he said. “Not even Deepwater Christians think that anymore.”

  “And yet my gods live in the sky, of a certainty,” Tool said, “and they rain fire down upon me when I displease them.”

  A ripple of exclamation ran through the gathered sailors and soldier boys, and everyone looked skyward. Ocho caught Mahlia’s eye and gave a subtle jerk of the head, indicating Almadi. The captain’s expression of alarm was rapidly turning to fury.

  Mahlia crouched down beside Tool and lowered her voice. “Are you saying whoever torched the Drowned Cities could hit us here?”

  “A single ship in open waters? Clear skies?” Tool nodded. “We present an easy target.” He seemed unconcerned that his words sent more angry mutters running through the crew.

  Van was less subtle. “Oh, hell no!” he said, shaking his head. “I knew we shoulda dumped you overboard.”

  “Shut up, Van.” Mahlia raised her voice and glared at the rest of the muttering crew. “No one’s dumping anyone overboard.”

  “But we’re sitting ducks!” Van said. “You heard him.”

  The crew was alternating between fearful glances up at the sky and glares at Tool. Mahlia couldn’t help scanning the sky herself. The wide blue expanse, previously bright and optimistic, suddenly felt deadly.

  “Well,” Captain Almadi said dourly. “I never thought I’d hate a clear day so much.”

  Tool laughed. “Clear or cloudy makes no difference, Captain. If my gods wish to slay me, fire will rain down regardless.”

  The murmurs of discontent increased. Soldiers and sailors united, for once:

  “How the hell do we fight missiles?”

  “We seriously keeping that thing on board?”

  “We don’t even get a vote?”

  Ocho was looking at Mahlia significantly. Almadi was boiling. And Tool was surveying the crew with a sardonic expression, as if he’d baited everyone on purpose.

  He’s testing us, Mahlia realized. Trying to see who is a threat.

  He was barely conscious and functioning, and yet still he was evaluating his tactical situation, identifying his enemies. Mahlia glared at Tool, trying to make him read her warning. The last thing she needed was more unrest in the crew. Tool gazed back, blandly unapologetic.

  It was his nature.

  He saved you, she reminded herself. He helped you, when no one else would or could.

  “They can’t—” Mahlia cleared her throat. “Those people can’t think you’re still alive, though. I mean, we all saw the strikes. The palace melted. We all thought you were dead, too. They can’t still be looking for you.”

  “Who knows what gods think?”

  But he must have empathized somehow with her worried expression, for his ears twitched and then he smiled slightly, showing rows of sharp teeth. “No, Mahlia. I do not think they will attack again. They rained their fire, and will now feel satisfied. Strike officers will report to operations officers, and thence to generals, and reports will find their way up to their Executive Committee, and they will congratulate themselves on a job well done. I am not a danger to you. Not now.” He stared up at the sky. “But it is certain that my gods still hate me.”

  “Gods didn’t attack you,” Captain Almadi said. “Those missiles were high-tech military. That was people.”

  “People.” Tool growled, disgusted. He began lapping at the wounds on his shoulder, his long animal tongue rasping across burned flesh.

  “Don’t do that!”
Mahlia said. “You’ll rip the scabs off.”

  Tool bared his teeth and growled. “You have your ways. I have mine.”

  Mahlia backed off. In his damaged state, Tool looked both more human, and also less. All the frustrations and vulnerabilities of a sick patient, but with the behaviors of his other genetics leaking through. This manlike creature that hungered for battle and always survived, and yet that now lapped at his wounds like a beaten dog.

  Mahlia sat down beside the monster. “Clear everyone out,” she said to Almadi.

  For a moment, she thought the captain would rebel, but then the woman clapped her hands with crisp authority. “You heard her! Break’s over, sailors! You’ve all had your excitement. Back to work.”

  When the crew had dispersed to their tasks, the captain rejoined Mahlia and Ocho. “So,” she asked. “Who was it?” She squatted down in front of Tool, her expression hard. “Who wants you dead?”

  Tool gave her a sardonic glance. “Who does not?”

  “I’m serious, half-man. If my crew is threatened, I need to know what I’m up against.”

  Tool went back to licking his wounds. “My old gods worry that I am now more godlike than they.”

  Almadi laughed sharply. “Still with the gods?”

  “You doubt?” Tool’s ears quirked. “So. Call them not gods, but humans. People, as you say. Small, weak, jealous, insecure, fearful people. People who thought themselves clever. People who toyed with strands of DNA, and did their work too well.” Tool bared his fangs. “Humans dislike weapons that think for themselves. It unnerves them.”

  “But why go to so much effort to kill you?” Mahlia asked.

  “I believe I ate my general.”

  There was a stunned silence all around.

  “Ate him?” Van popped up behind Almadi. “Like, chewed him up? Like, for lunch?”

  Almadi startled. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be helping Ramos clean up the clinic.” She gave him a pointed look. “The clinic you tore apart looking for meds for this”—she scowled at Tool—“patient.”