The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker #2)(2)

A shadow exploded into motion. The guard slammed into the wall and crumpled to the floor like a sack of mud.

“Close the gate!”

The monster roared and the bars clanged shut. The keymaster frantically tried to relock the cell, then leaped back as the monster hurled itself against the cage, snarling, tiger teeth bared.

Iron bars bent. The guards yanked electrical prods from their belts. Blue sparks showered as they beat at the creature and the bars, trying to keep it away while the keymaster fought to close the reinforced second gate. They fumbled for pistols, hardened killers reduced to gibbering terror by the monster’s snarl. The creature slammed against the bars again. Rusted iron cracked and bent.

“It won’t hold! Run!”

But the keymaster held steady, reworking the locks of the more powerful cage. “I almost got it!”

The monster ripped a rusty bar free of its mooring and lashed through the gap. Iron smashed into the keymaster’s skull. The man collapsed. The other guards fled, plunging down the corridor, screaming for help.

The monster tore more bars free, working methodically. The rest of the prisoners were all screaming now, shouting for help and mercy. Their cries echoed in the prison like trapped birds.

The first layer of bars gave way, allowing the monster access to the second cage. It tested the gate. Locked. Growling, the creature crouched and slid one huge fist through the bars, reaching, stretching for the keymaster’s foot. It dragged the man close.

In another moment, the monster had the key in its hand and the key in the lock. With a click it opened. The gate screeched aside.

Carrying the iron bar of his prison, the creature called Tool limped down the cellblock to the stairs, and climbed into the light.

2

TOOL COVERED MILES. He was built to do so, and even wounded, he moved with a speed that would have exhausted a human being within minutes. He forded algae-thick canals and limped through bean fields and soaked rice paddies. He passed farmers with wide broad hats who stared up from their sweating work and fled in fear. He circled and doubled back through bomb-shattered buildings, confusing trail and scent. Always, he moved farther from the Drowned Cities, and always the soldiers pursued.

At first, he had hoped his pursuers would give up. Colonel Glenn Stern and his patriotic army had more than enough enemies to keep them occupied; the Drowned Cities were full of fighting factions, perpetually tearing at one another’s throats. A single escaped augment might not be worth the Colonel’s attention. But then the panthers had caught up with Tool, and he’d known that the Colonel would not let his prized fighting monster slip free so easily.

Pain lanced through Tool’s body as he limped onward, but he ignored it. So what if he’d torn his shoulder from its socket in his mad attack on the bars? So what if the hunting panthers had laid long, deep gashes down his back? So what if his one eye was blind? He was moving and free, and he was trained to ignore pain.

Pain held no terror for him. Pain was, if not friend, then family, something he had grown up with in his crèche, learning to respect but never yield to. Pain was simply a message, telling him which limbs he could still use to slaughter his enemies, how far he could still run, and what his chances were in the next battle.

Behind him, the hounds began to bay, picking up his scent.

Tool growled in irritation, unconsciously baring teeth as cousin creatures called for his blood.

The hounds were perfect killers, just as he. They would throw themselves mindlessly into the fight again and again until they were torn to pieces, and they would die content, knowing that they had done their duty for their masters. Tool’s dog nature—spliced into his genes by scientific design—knew their mastiff urges. They would never stop until they were dead, or he was.

Tool didn’t blame them. He, too, had been loyal and obedient once.

Tool reached a new thicket of jungle and plunged into its shadows, tearing through tangling vines. He moved like an elephant through the vegetation, crashing and crackling. He knew he was leaving a trail that even a stupid human being could follow, but it was all he could do to keep moving.

Well-fed, with all his limbs working, he could have run these sad dogs and soldiers for days, doubling back and destroying them one by one in the jungle, whittling dogs and humans down to a huddled fearful tribe around a solitary campfire. Now he doubted he could kill more than a few. Worse, after the last ambush he had set, they had become clever to his ways. They understood—now—how easily their bones snapped.

Tool stopped, panting, his tongue lolling from his mouth, chest heaving. He sniffed the humid air.

Salt breezes.

The sea.

Somewhere north there was an inlet. If he could make the sea, he might escape them still, might dive into the ocean and become one with the marine world. He could swim. It would hurt, but he could do it.

He turned north and east, pushing on by force of will. Behind him, the dogs followed.

Tool almost wanted to laugh. They were such good dogs, and because of it, many of them would die. Tool, on the other hand, was a very bad dog. His masters had told him so many times as they beat him and trained him and molded his will to match their own. They had forged him into a killer and then fit him into the killing machine that had been his pack. A platoon of slaughter. For a little while, he had been a good dog, and obedient.

Platoon. Pack. Company. Battalion. Tool remembered the Red Standard of General Caroa, waving in the breezes above his encampment in the Kolkata Delta when the Tiger Guard came down on them.