More than anything, Tool smelled humans. Men and women and children from around the world. Irish and Indian, Kenyan and Swede, Japanese, Finn and Brazilian. Races and cultures, identifiable by the sweat of their diets. It permeated T-shirts and turbans, wove through salwar-kameez and utility jumpsuits. It lurked in dreadlocks and beards, and oozed from the pores of smooth-shaven skin. Vat-grown steak and NoFlood Rice. Moong dal, and baijiu, turnips, and coconut milk. Sardines and jellyfish. All of them mingled together in Tool’s nose, all one thing—the reek of his creators.
It had been a long time since he had been surrounded by so many humans. Their scents brought back memories: cities he had sacked, terrified humans running before him, screaming. Halcyon days. Fond moments.
Tool almost smiled.
The scent of augments was another matter. They, too, crowded the boardwalks of Salt Dock. His brothers and sisters, if not in design, at least in form—all the various snips and scissorings and fusings of engineered DNA.
Canines and Hominids, Piscians and Felines. They were everywhere: helping ships off-load freight, hauling strongboxes of cash for merchant transfers, muscling clear paths for corporate princesses. The augments stood sentry outside the embassies of the trading companies, and knelt in temples alongside humans, making their own offerings to the Scavenge God, the Fates, and Kali-Mary Mercy.
Here, augments mingled easily with humanity and Tool could smell them everywhere. Their sweat, their panting breath, their wet fur, all of them signaling to one another, broadcasting strength and identity, camaraderie and competition, territory and warfare.
I drove my fist through the rib cage of the First Claw of Lagos. I ripped his heart from his body. Hot blood poured down my arm as I held it high, and my pack roared in triumph, and then I ate it.
Tool stopped short at the sudden recollection.
“Tool?” Mahlia tugged at his arm.
Memories, fast and jumbled, triggered by the scents of augments all around him: the air on fire; rice paddy water boiling; green rice shoots burning black; his brothers and sisters igniting, living torches before his eyes; Tiger Guards burning, too; all of them burning together.
Tool staggered. But in Kolkata, I did not eat the heart of the First Claw of the Tiger Guard. He crashed through a cluster of shore-leave sailors, and clutched against a doorway to a bar, assaulted by images. He saw the First Claw of Kolkata’s Tiger Guard reaching out to him in farewell, that great augment, taller even than Tool, staring at him with sharp cat’s eyes. Catching fire.
Burning.
The First Claw had been his sworn enemy, and yet now a surge of grief washed over Tool. Grief so raw and shocking that Tool found himself gasping for breath. He stared down at his own black and bloody fire-scarred hands.
“Tool?” Mahlia touched his arm. “Are you okay?”
“I’ve been burned before,” Tool said.
She exchanged uncertain glances with Ocho, clearly worried that Tool was going mad, but it demanded too much effort to explain the rush of memories that now assaulted him. Old memories, startled from hiding by the scents of the many augments, and now galloping about inside his head.
“I need… a moment,” Tool rasped.
Van returned. “What’s the holdup?”
“Just taking a break,” Mahlia said.
“Out here?”
“We should get going,” Stork said, nodding toward a pair of augment bouncers who were coming toward them. “We’re drawing attention.”
Tool followed the direction of Stork’s gaze. The augments were constructed from a different genetic platform than he, just as Ocho was mixed differently than Stork, different from Mahlia, or Van. These augments were specific: gorilla-dominant, judging from the length of their arms and brutal upper-body physique. Muscles like boulders. Mobile, highly expressive, highly humanoid faces. They were not of Mercier, and they were nothing connected to his genetic line of combat augments, and yet still Tool felt a vibration of connection with them. Tool found himself leaning forward, filled with an almost desperate desire for them to see him as a brother.
Are we not all molded from the same clay? All knitted together from the same strands of science?
He tore away his heavy cowl, showing his burned face.
“Whoa, big guy!” Ocho said. “What’re you doing?”
Tool ignored the humans as the bouncers met his gaze. Do you not see that we are one? We are brothers!
Their eyes narrowed and their lips pulled back, showing sharp canines.
Ah. Not brothers after all.
Enemies.
Tool felt a sudden rush of comfort as his world returned to its familiar pattern. These were simply inferior gene-ripped slaves, bred for the simple task of smashing sailors’ heads in bars. Obedient and limited. Not even natural predators. Not military. Half-men, truly.
“You have something to say?” one of the bouncers growled. They were separating, preparing to come at him from two sides.
You are garbage. I will slay you.
Tool’s adrenaline began surging, his body marshaling resources, his mind calculating combat. His claws extended. He was weak, but he could take them. You do not know true war. He growled contentedly. Just a little closer, half-men.
“Whoa!” Mahlia plowed between them, waving her arms. “Slow down, Tool!” The rest of her soldier boys were also intervening, all of them trying to block the inevitable killing.
“There a problem, dog-face?” one of the bouncers asked.
Tool smiled wide, showing his fangs. “Come a little closer, and see, ape-shape.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hey there!” Van was jumping up and down. “Don’t mind our big buddy here! He’s on fifty different painkillers!”
Tool snarled irritation and tried to seize the boy, but Van dodged, still waving his little sticklike arms. “Look at him! He’s bacon!”
“Who owns you?” the bouncer asked, eyes narrowed.
“You think me a slave?” Tool snarled.
“Tool!” Mahlia grabbed his arm. “Stop it! Come on!” She held on tenaciously as he tried to shake free, and then suddenly, to his surprise, he was staggering, his adrenaline leaking out and his strength with it. He sank to his knees.
Weak.
“See!” Van was crowing triumphantly, still blocking the bouncers from getting to Tool. “Sad bastard can’t even walk! No trouble here! Like I said! Painkillers up to his eyeballs. High as a parasail!”
The gorilla augments watched, suspicious, but their physical attitude shifted, becoming relaxed. He could smell satisfaction oozing from their pores, their sense of dominance over their territory affirmed.
“Get him back to his owner, before he makes more trouble,” one of them advised.
OWNER? Tool’s hackles rose. I have no—
Mahlia pinched his ear.
Tool nearly bit her, but the reminder was enough. He forced his rictus fangs to relax.
He was not in danger. He had no quarrel. And yet he had nearly triggered a battle without cause. He struggled to rise, but found he had no strength.
“We’re sorry about the trouble,” Ocho said as Mahlia and the rest of the soldier boys clustered around Tool, helping him upright. “We had a bad fire on our ship. He saved us all. We owe him a lot. But the meds…” Tool glimpsed him offering Chinese yuan, a cash bribe to forget them, and now the augments were showing almost solicitous concern.
“Are you okay?” Mahlia whispered. “Can you make it?”
“I…” Tool fought to stay standing. The challenge of the augments had exhausted him completely. “I can make it.” The soldier boys were clustering around, supporting him. He felt a surprising rush of camaraderie for these humans who dedicated themselves to his survival.
Pack.
Despite the fact that they shared only the most tenuous connections of DNA, they worked to save him. Extraordinary. And puzzling. They were loyal despite the fact that there was no advantage for them, and no obedience conditioning to force them
to it—just as he had shared loyalty with the Tiger Guard.
He remembered roaring victory from atop the ancient rooftops of Kolkata. Holding machetes and machine guns high. Mercier Fast Attack, side by side with Kolkata Tiger Guard, all of them together.
Victory. Ended by a rain of fire.
Tool felt nauseated at the memory.
Mahlia and her soldier boys were still leading him, guiding him, thinking themselves his saviors, when in fact he was their doom. None of them would survive being near him, he realized. They were too soft, and too frail. Too human.
He stopped short. “You must leave me,” he said. “It’s too dangerous to be near me.”
“We already went over that,” Mahlia said.
“No.” He seized her shoulder, forcing her to look at him. “You must go far from me. You. Must. Go. As far as possible, as soon as possible. I am a danger to you.”
But Mahlia wasn’t listening to him. Instead she was turning to Ocho.
“He’s going delirious again. We need to get him out of sight.”
“Still got a quarter mile till we’re off the boardwalks,” Ocho said.
“Get an electro-rickshaw to meet us. He’s losing it again.” To Tool, she said, “It’s not much farther.” She pointed ahead to a shop sign.
SALT DOCK VETERINARY CLINIC
SPECIALIZING IN MAMMALS & AUGMENTS
She repeated herself, soothing. “It’s not much farther. We’ll go just a little farther, and then you can rest.”
Tool considered protesting again, but knew it would only attract more attention to Mahlia and her crew. He would accept her help for just a little longer, but then he would send her away. Far away. Someplace safe. Someplace very far away from him. It would have to be very far away.
He stumbled on, supported by humans.
Black crows of memory swirled around him, pecking and plaguing. Images from his past, of war, of survival, of creation, all sweeping past in a whirl. But one memory sank its talons into him and settled heavy upon his shoulders, refusing to be dislodged: the First Claw of Kolkata—leader of the Tiger Guard—reaching out to him in farewell, and then igniting.
A pillar of fire.
16
“GENERAL, WE HAVE a hit!”
“Where?”
“Seascape. A bar-and-brothel area called Salt Dock. You were right, sir. It’s a veterinary clinic. It wouldn’t have flagged, but the purchase is unusually large. Cell knitters. Burn salves. All kinds of nutrient reuptake supplies. It’s a perfect match. The target’s buying out the shop’s whole supply.”
“Can the strike teams make it in time?”
“Deploying, sir.”
17
TAJ GRUMMON HAD been running Stitch & Ditch operations for three years. Recruited at sixteen, he’d been promoted within a year, then promoted again, and now ran his own squad.
Simmons and Nachez were also in place, with their own squads.
It was crazy how much firepower they were bringing to this, Taj thought. Your average dog-face, sure, it was tough. And they were damn fast, so for Fates’ sake, don’t get into a quick-draw competition with one, but still, at the end of the day, dog-faces were just meat.
Biggest problem was getting a jump on the bastards. Out in a wild combat zone, that was sticky. The monsters had better sight and smell than people, even if the bosses had you equipped with the latest EyePulse goggles. Sure, you could magnify fifty times, go infrared, slave your bullets to the sights, and blast away—but if a dog-face came at you out of the trees, watch out.
But still, augments weren’t made of magic. They weren’t bulletproof. He’d stitched up plenty of Tiger Guards and hyena men in his time. Hit the bastards with enough explosive rounds out of a .50-cal Mez Corporation Fast Attack Cannon, and they blew apart, just like regular folk.
Seema came online, her voice crackling in his earbud. “We’re in position.”
Four squads, just to stitch one damn augment.
“What do you think this sucker did to piss off the bosses?” Hertzl asked as he lined up behind Taj, readying himself.
“Maybe he’s with Lawson & Carlson.”
Hertzl snickered. “Well, he sure got under someone’s skin.”
It was true. Mercier didn’t normally go in for urban warfare, and definitely not in civilized places like the Seascape. Blowing up Paris was one thing, but the Seascape? His team’s extraction was going to be the hardest part of this op, trying to evade the city-state’s police after the hit.
He and the rest of the squad were all wearing Seascape Shore Patrol uniforms, to keep attention off them while they staked out the clinic. He tried to look casual, on patrol, and briefly he envied Seema, positioned up on a roof, instead of being down here, holding his cannon at his side, like there wasn’t an emergency about to light up.
On the plus side, the urban environment also meant he and his team definitely had the drop on the half-man. In the jungles and actual war zones, where everyone was a potential enemy, the superior senses of the augments meant superior opportunities. If the dog-faces sniffed you a couple hundred yards out, because the wind shifted and was suddenly at your back, then you were in the shit, for real. Down in the Indonesian rain forests near the Puncak Jaya copper mines, that had been some serious fighting—
Seema came online.
“Target’s exiting. Strike in five, four…”
Taj lifted his Mez Cannon, preparing himself.
Seema miked in. “Hold count! Not the target. Some little kid.”
“You serious?”
“Let’s keep it clean, boys and girls. The bosses don’t want extra bodies to explain.”
“Affirmative. Keeping it clean. Target’s still bottled.”
Taj sighed and settled back, exchanging annoyed glances with his squadmates. Joli shrugged. Max and Hertzl rolled their eyes. This definitely wouldn’t play in the hot zones. Standing around with thumbs up their butts, waiting for one damn augment to exit. Wouldn’t work.
“I don’t like it,” Taj muttered.
“Stitch & Ditch don’t gotta like it,” Joli murmured. “Just gotta get it done.”
Taj liked that about Joli. Girl always got the job done. She wasn’t going back to no lithium mine in Peru, just like he wasn’t going back to scrap recycling in the Jersey Orleans.
“At least we’re urban,” Max said, mirroring Taj’s thoughts. “Be worried about our friend sniffing us out.”
“Wind’s still good,” Joli said.
“You know what I mean.”
Taj motioned them both to shut up.
You want our friend to hear us?
Everyone settled back, trying to look casual. Taj wished they could just blow the whole vet’s office to smithereens. Pick through the rubble after. But the bosses wanted a surgical strike, what with the Seascape being civilized territory and all—
“Civvy kid is clear.”
“Well, ain’t that nice.”
“Quiet on the channel, Hollis.”
“Target’s exiting. Five… four… three…”
Taj closed his eyes, imagining the street. Held up his hand, motioned to his squad.
“One!”
He stepped around the corner, gun raised. The half-man was right in front of him, holding his packages.
Taj keyed the Mez Cannon to auto. Explosive rounds stitched up the half-man’s chest. Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk. Small red blossoms of blood for the entry wounds, and not just from Taj. Bullets were hitting the half-man from the ambush point above, as well as kitty-corner from Taj, where a small delivery carrier holding Hollis’s squad also opened up.
The augment dropped its packages and tried to run. Too late, too slow. Way too much ordnance. The bullets detonated and the explosives took the augment apart, blew it all to hell.
What was left of the creature toppled, a smoking corpse before it hit the ground.
Taj signaled to stop firing.
The street was de
ad silent as the gun smoke cleared. Civvies were lying on the ground, looking stunned. Mayhem like this didn’t happen in the Seascape. Sorry for the disturbance, folks.
“Clear?” Seema asked.
“Clear!” Taj confirmed.
“Clear!” Hollis agreed.
“Squads, set for extract!”
There was one last thing Taj had to do before he left. Glad of the Seascape Shore Patrol uniform he wore, he dashed toward the fallen half-man, waving at the civvies to clear out.
The dog-face had been hit with so many rounds it was basically just shredded meat, so the last part of the mission was easy to take care of.
Taj crouched beside the exploded corpse while Joli and Max covered him. He pulled out a shatterproof carbon vial, unlocked its vacuum seal, and dipped the tube into the blood. The bosses said they wanted the blood for some kind of analysis. Like it was tainted or something.
Blood. Plain old red blood. Just like a person’s, really.
Taj wrinkled his nose, holding his breath unconsciously. The last thing he needed was to pick up some kind of virus, end up coughing out his lungs.
“Shore Patrol’s on the move!” Hollis radioed.
Taj filled the vial and sealed it.
“Got the sample!” he radioed.
“Seema’s holding your boat. Better hurry.”
They checked for pursuers and headed for the docks. As he ran, Taj glanced back at the mountain of shredded flesh they’d left behind. At the end of the day, even augments were flesh and blood, just like people.
Blew apart just the same, too.
Stitch and ditch, baby, Taj thought. Stitch and ditch.
18
GUN SMOKE SLOWLY cleared from the street. Seascapers crawled out from under cover and stared around themselves, dazed.
Van crouched in a doorway, clutching the meds he’d been sent to collect, wide-eyed and surprised.
It started to drizzle.
Medics arrived, blue and red lights flashing. Swank medical people piling out of their sleek electric ambulances, who then stood gazing down at the corpse, awed and stymied by the size of the body they had to haul away. Shore Patrol showed up, and started stretching green Day-Glo tape around the body, creating a barrier around the rapidly spreading pool of blood that continued to trickle out of the exploded half-man.