“My mom kept saying there were supposed to be boats for us, too. For dependents. Just kept saying it. Saying that there were supposed to be enough boats for everyone.” Mahlia made a face. “Anyway. She was stupid. She didn’t think strategic, either. And now there’s no way out of here.”

“You ever think about just trying to go north? Sneak across the border?”

Mahlia glanced at Mouse. “Coywolv, panthers, warlords, and then all those half-men up there to hold the line? They’d be picking our bones before we even got close to the Jersey Orleans. We’re stuck; that’s the fact. Like a bunch of crabs boiling in a pot.”

“That’s Mahfouz talking.”

“ ‘Crabs in a pot, pulling each other down while we all boil alive.’ ”

Mouse laughed. “You got to say it like he does, though. All disappointed.”

“You should have seen how he looked after I pushed up on Amaya. Talk about disappointed.” Mahlia waved the stump of her hand with irritation. “Like if I was nice and polite, they’d think I was some kind of gift from the Scavenge God.” She snorted.

Mouse laughed. “You going to sit there feeling sorry for yourself, or you going to tell me something I don’t know?”

“Is there something to say? Some fish jump out of a basement and I miss it?” Mahlia poked Mouse. “What’s the news, maggot? Why don’t you tell me something I don’t know?”

Mouse looked sly; then he nodded toward the Drowned Cities. “They’re fighting again.”

Mahlia burst out laughing. “That’s like saying the cities are drowning.”

“I’m serious! They’re shooting something different. Something big. I was wondering if you knew it. It’s a big old gun.”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Well, maybe you should listen, right? Show some patience. They been blowing it off all morning. It’ll come again.”

Mahlia turned her attention to the horizon, studying the wreckage of the Drowned Cities where it poked up above the jungle. Distant iron spires, stabbing the sky. In some of them, beacon fires burned. A haze of smoke hung over the city center, brown and heavy. She listened.

A far-off rat-a-tat of gunfire, but nothing interesting. Couple of AKs. Maybe a heavy hunting rifle. Background noise, that. Skirmishers in the jungle or maybe target practices. Nothing—

The explosion rocked outward. The iron girder of Mahlia and Mouse’s perch shivered with its force.

Mahlia gaped. “Damn, maggot! That’s a gun.”

“I told you!” Mouse was grinning. “At first, I thought they were just dynamiting, right? But they keep going. Hammering away. Some kind of big old army shells or something.”

As if to underline his words, the explosion came again, and this time there was a flare and a rising cloud in the far distance. Lot of smoke and explosion for such a distance. They were looking out fifteen miles, maybe more, and there it was.