Tool stared up at the sun, thinking of cities burned and hearts of enemies he had eaten. Remembering how he and his pack had run streets under fire, blades and machine guns held high. Remembering refugees running before him like a river in flood, tumbling and crashing over one another in their desperation to escape. He and his pack had laughed at their frothing terror, and when Kolkata fell, they roared triumph from the rooftops.

They had done impossible things. They had dropped from great balloon airships, arrowing down from thirty thousand feet to land behind enemy lines and secure the coast of Niger. He had slaughtered the hyena men of Lagos in all their numbers, and had personally eaten the heart of the First Claw.

When the hydrofoil clipper ships of General Caroa arrived to belch forth armies on the beach sands, Tool had been there to greet them, standing knee-deep and laughing in the bloody froth. Wherever he went, he conquered, and the general had rewarded him and his pack.

He had done impossible things, surviving impossible odds. And yet here he lay, just like all his brothers and sisters before him, dying in the mud with flies buzzing around his wounds and not enough interest or energy to swat them away. Apparently it didn’t matter what path an augment chose, it always led to this.

“Please.”

Tool turned his gaze on the boy. He could barely open his eyes through the blur of fever.

“You’re hurting me.”

Tool’s eye followed the length of his arm, to his fist. Puzzled at what he saw.

The little mouse was pinned by the tail.

“Let me go,” the boy whispered. “I can still get you the medicine.”

Medicine. Ah yes. That was it. The mouse was nothing. Medicine. That was the thing. But it was too late for medicine. The girl had taken too long. There was only a final bit of payment left. A final promise to keep.

Tool slowly turned his head, his whole body stiff with infection, neck muscles congealed like taffy. Flies rose off his body in a cloud as he dipped his face to muddy water. He lapped, then lay back again, panting, his tongue thick in his mouth. The heat of the jungle felt like a great hand pressed upon him.

“Your sister has left you,” he croaked.

“She’ll come,” the boy insisted. “Just wait a little longer.”

Tool almost laughed at that. He wondered how humans could go on trusting one another. Such a fickle species. They always said one thing and did another. It was why his kind had been created. Augments always followed through on their promises.

“It’s time,” he said. Slowly Tool dragged the boy off the bank and into the swamp. He took the boy’s head in his huge hand.

“Just a little longer!”