The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker #2)(88)

Ocho was surprised at how small he felt standing in front of them. Of course, he’d seen them in the past from a distance. They traveled with the Colonel when he toured the war lines, but here they were, and they were huge in front of him. Muscled and well-fed, with their black uniforms and their hard eyes.

At the sight of the half-man, though, their demeanors changed. One of them whistled in surprise. Another, the oldest of the group, a man with small crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes, ran his hand over the inert monster.

“Haven’t seen one of these since we fought up north,” he said. “Nice work.”

Ocho and the rest of the boys straightened at the compliment. The older man motioned to his Eagles.

“We’ll take it from here.”

They gathered up the ropes to haul the drugged half-man away. Lieutenant Sayle waved to Ocho. “Get the girl. We’re done here for now.”

But the Eagle held up a hand. “The girl came with the half-man?” he asked. “They slipped in together?”

Sayle nodded unwillingly.

“We’ll take her, too. The Colonel will want her.”

Ocho could tell that the lieutenant wanted to argue, but he bit it down, and then Ocho caught sight of something more worrying. Ghost was staring at the girl. Ocho could practically see the gears turning in the soldier boy’s head.

He went over and grabbed the boy. “Outside, soldier,” he said. “We’re all going outside.”

Ghost resisted. Ocho gave him a shove. One of the Eagles grabbed the castoff girl and hefted her over his shoulder. She flopped limply, drugged and stupid with the opium that Ocho had given her. He couldn’t even tell if she was really there anymore.

Ocho wondered what would happen to her. Maybe she’d be better off in the Colonel’s hands. At least she was out of the LT’s control. That had to be something, he told himself. As she was carried away, limp like a sack of potatoes, Ocho tried hard to believe it, and then he tried to figure out why he cared.

41

A NEEDLE SLID into Tool’s shoulder, flooding him with endorphins and amphetamines. He came alive. Awake and alive. Ready for war.

Men all around. Many of them. Deep voices, echoing dully against hard marble walls and tile floors. Men. Adults. Not just child soldiers from the swamps. Steel and iron and gunpowder. Tobacco smoke. The smells and sounds of a war machine’s beating heart.

Tool remembered the darts hitting, thinking for a moment that they were bullets and that it would be difficult to survive so much lead, and then he’d been surprised at how little each bullet hurt… Just before the tranquilizers washed over him like a tidal wave.

Captured then. But still alive. He listened to their words:

“K Canal… Angel Company… Lost fifteen at Constitution.”

The sounds of an army besieged. It had been a long time since Tool stood in the heart of a command center, but all of it was so familiar that it might as well have been yesterday. Their words and movements told him everything he needed to know about their present circumstance.

“Artillery support… sorties into North Potomac 6.”

Tension in the adviser’s voices. Worried mutters as they relayed reports from various fronts. Fear. It was rank in the room. They were all going to die, and they knew it. The United Patriot Front found itself hard-pressed. Its Colonel was outmatched, and his soldier boys were inadequate.

Tool waited until he sensed one of military men coming close, smelled his sweat and fear, and then he opened his eyes and lunged.

He slammed up against iron shackles.

The man scuttled back, swearing. “It’s awake!”

Metal bit into Tool’s arms and ankles. He was still groggy from whatever tranquilizer they’d used on him. He hadn’t even realized he was bound.

Tool roared and lunged again, testing the chains, tearing at them. Military men flattened themselves against marbled columns and frescoed walls, eyes wide with fear. Tool strained to reach them and they shrank away, but the bonds held.

Tool lifted his hands to study the inch-thick iron that bound his wrists. More shackles clamped his ankles. All the chains were sunk deep into the floor.

The floor around him was covered with intricate colored tiles as ancient as the building that housed them, but here at his feet, there was new gray concrete. And his iron shackles were embedded in it.

Tool could sit or squat, but he could not rise to stand fully erect. He tested the chains again.

“You cannot escape.”

Tool recognized the speaker instantly. The man’s face looked down on the canals all across the UPF’s territory. Tool had been forced to salute that face each time he entered the ring fights. How long ago was that? It seemed as if it had been years, and yet it was only weeks since he had fought against men and coywolv and panthers at the behest of the Colonel. Only weeks since he had fought free. And now, he found himself the Colonel’s prisoner once again.

Tool growled. “You think these small chains will hold me, Colonel?” He set his feet and leaned against his bonds. His muscles bulged.

The concrete began to crack around his feet. Everyone stepped back, horrified. A few of the soldiers pulled out pistols and pointed them, but Glenn Stern just smiled and waved them off.

Tool bared his teeth and pulled harder, every tendon straining, muscles tearing. Concrete popped and cracked and turned to dust around the chains. Tool’s skin began to shred, but the manacles neither broke nor slipped.