The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi

to believe this country was ever strong,” her father had said, more than once, as he gazed out at the place he had been posted.
    The difference was obvious to Mahlia when she sailed through the canals of the Drowned Cities. All the Drowned Cities people were poor and raggedy, while the peacekeepers were tall and healthy. The pictures of Island Shanghai that were printed on the Chinese paper money showed a similar difference: Island Shanghai, tall and gleaming, surrounded by blue ocean, in comparison to the Drowned Cities, where muddy, brackish water swamped every street and ate away at the foundations of buildings.
    Mahlia had been glad she was Chinese then, all the way up until her father took a toy wooden horse away from her and she bit him for it. He slapped her then, and said she had too much Drowned Cities in her.
    “No respect,” he said. “Drowned Cities, through and through. Just like your mother. Animals.”
    Mahlia’s mother fought with him over that, and then he called them both Drowned Cities, and suddenly Mahlia was afraid. Her father hated the Drowned Cities more than anything. And now she discovered she was the same as the people he fought every day.
    Mahlia hid under her bed and bit herself for her stupidity. “
Mei wenhua
,” she said. “No culture.” She bit herself again and again, driving the lesson home. But when she showed her father her bleeding hand, proving that she’d punished herself, he’d only looked at her with more disappointment.
    Now, as Mahlia and Mouse padded through the swamps, Mahlia wondered what her father would think of her. A girl with one hand? A muddy war maggot who stole eggs from bird nests to survive? What would he think of her now? She already knew the answer. She might have been half Chinese, but she was pure Drowned Cities. Just another one of the animals he’d found ungovernable.
    Mahlia smiled bitterly at that. He could go grind. Her father had run away with his tail between his legs because he’d been too damn civilized for the Drowned Cities. He might have called the warlords paper tigers, but in the end, he’d been the one made of paper. Sure, the Chinese peacekeepers had looked dangerous with their guns and their skin armor, but in the end, they’d blown away like leaves.
    If Mahlia had been as civilized as the peacekeepers, she would have been dead ten times over, just getting out of the Drowned Cities. As it was, it had only been luck that had saved her, the Fates putting their touch on her, in the form of a crazy redheaded war maggot who had intruded at the right time and made a distraction.
    “Hey, Mouse?”
    “Hm?” Mouse was taking his turn with the machete, chopping aside new vines that had filled the trail, not really paying attention.
    “How come you saved me?” Mahlia asked. “When the Army of God…” She hesitated, remembering her hand lying on the ground, blood muddy. She swallowed. “When the soldier boys… cut me… how come you made a noise?”
    Mouse straightened from his chopping and glanced back, pale brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
    “You didn’t have to. It would have been safer for you to just steer clear.”
    “Just stupid, I guess.” He mopped at the sweat coursing down his freckled neck and face and turned back to the vines. “I don’t remember this trail having so much tangle on it,” he said.
    “Here. I got it.” Mahlia took the machete and started chopping. Tough weedy vines parted under the sharp blade. When she’d first fled to the jungle from the Drowned Cities, she’d been soft. Now, she swung the machete with expert strength. City girl learning country living.
    “So?” she pressed. “How come?”
    Mouse grimaced. “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe I was crazy. I still get nightmares about that. I’m running through the jungle, but the soldier boys turn out to be better shots, and they light me up.” He paused. “I don’t think it even was me. Didn’t feel like me when I stood up. I just did