The Drowned Cities

This novel is the second book in the Ship Breaker trilogy. The series takes place in a dystopian America destroyed by climate disaster. The title, The Drowned Cities, refers to the ruins of coastal cities destroyed by rising sea levels. Each novel follows a different character as they struggle to survive after the collapse of civilization. The protagonist of book two is Mahlia.

It begins in a sweltering prison in the war-torn Drowned Cities, where a bio-engineered soldier named Tool, known as a “dog-face,” feigns death. When guards enter his cell, he springs to life. He kills one guard, incapacitates another, and breaks free from his two-layered cage, escaping into the light.

Wounded and pursued by soldiers and hounds under the command of Colonel Glenn Stern, Tool evades capture by submerging himself in a deep swamp pool. While he is underwater, the soldiers fire at a massive alligator that attacks their hounds, and a stray bullet hits Tool. The alligator then attacks him. In a brutal underwater battle, Tool kills the reptile by ramming a piece of mangrove root through its mouth and into its brain before blacking out.

In the nearby village of Banyan Town, Mahlia, a teenage refugee with a missing right hand, assists the local physician, Doctor Mahfouz, with a difficult birth. The mother, Tani, dies from a hemorrhage, and her grieving father blames Mahlia, calling her a “castoff,” a derogatory term for those of mixed heritage left behind by Chinese peacekeepers. Doctor Mahfouz sends Mahlia to find a nursing mother for the baby. The woman, Amaya, insults Mahlia for her Chinese ancestry, and Mahlia threatens her, prompting the doctor to intervene.

Back at the ruin they call home, Mahlia finds her friend Mouse, a red-haired boy. They hear distant artillery, which Mahlia identifies as a 999, a powerful weapon used by her peacekeeper father. Tasked with finding food, they set out to hunt.

In the jungle, Mahlia and Mouse discover what they believe is a dead alligator floating in a swamp. They realize it is two creatures, the alligator and Tool, locked together. Believing Tool is dead, Mouse tries to pry out his teeth to sell as lucky charms. Tool awakens and violently captures both teenagers. Weak from his wounds, he makes a bargain with Mahlia: He will spare Mouse if she brings back medicine to save his life.

Mahlia agrees and runs for help, but as she nears Banyan Town, she is ambushed by a squad of United Patriot Front (UPF) soldiers led by Lieutenant Sayle. Doctor Mahfouz intervenes, forcing the soldiers to allow Mahlia to help treat their wounded sergeant, Ocho. Mahlia recognizes the massive claw marks on Ocho’s chest as Tool’s work and realizes the soldiers are his pursuers. Sayle confiscates the doctor’s antibiotics and announces his platoon is setting up a base in the town, trapping Mahlia. In the swamp, held captive by the delirious Tool, Mouse is convinced Mahlia abandoned him.

Back in Banyan Town, a soldier named Soa torments Mahlia, but Sergeant Ocho tells him to back off. Realizing the soldiers fear the creature they are hunting, Mahlia devises a plan using a potent coywolv scent she had secretly saved (the story’s bio-engineered coywolv are based on the real-world coywolf, a coyote-wolf-dog hybrid). She douses Soa with the scent, and a large pack of coywolv attacks the camp, creating chaos. In the confusion, Doctor Mahfouz escapes, and Mahlia helps the wounded Ocho climb a tree to safety before she flees.

Believing he has been betrayed, Tool prepares to drown Mouse but lets him go just before collapsing. Mahlia and the doctor find Mouse alive. Doctor Mahfouz determines Tool is in a coma. Mahlia insists they save the half-man, believing he is their only chance of escaping the Drowned Cities. When the doctor tries to stop her, she threatens him with a knife, shattering their trust. Defeated, he tells her how to administer the medicine.

Under Mahlia’s care, Tool slowly heals. He awakens and confronts Mahlia, declaring that he is not her pet dog. He asserts his dominance by feeding on the heart of the dead alligator. His heightened senses detect that the UPF is burning Banyan Town. Doctor Mahfouz insists on returning to help, but Tool refuses to join a suicide mission. When a villager, Amaya, discovers their location and runs to inform the soldiers, the doctor prevents Mahlia from stopping her.

Mouse, loyal to the doctor, slips away to return to the town. Consumed by guilt, Mahlia convinces a reluctant Tool to help her rescue Mouse, whom she calls her “pack.” They head back, avoiding patrols, and witness the massacre of fleeing villagers. From the jungle’s edge, they see Doctor Mahfouz shot and killed as he approaches town. They then watch as soldiers capture Mouse. Lieutenant Sayle interrogates the boy before Sergeant Ocho forcibly recruits him into the UPF, branding his cheek and giving him the new name Ghost. Devastated, Mahlia returns to the ruins of Banyan Town to bury the doctor. Tool joins her, revealing his desire for revenge against Colonel Stern. He agrees to help her rescue Mouse.

While tracking the soldiers, Mahlia is attacked by coywolv. Tool slaughters the pack and offers her a coywolv’s heart, which she eats, cementing their alliance. Meanwhile, Mouse, now called Ghost, is brutally integrated into the UPF under Sergeant Ocho’s mentorship. During a devastating ambush by the rival Army of God (AOG), his platoon is pinned down by 999 artillery. In a desperate move, Ghost single-handedly eliminates the enemy’s forward observer, seizes their radio, and uses it to turn the AOG’s own artillery against them. This act of bravery saves his platoon and earns him the status of a war hero, completing his transformation into a loyal UPF soldier.

Mahlia and Tool reach the smuggler town of Moss Landing, now AOG territory. Mahlia forces a boatman to take them downriver by capturing his guards. They travel into the Drowned Cities, with Tool swimming beneath the boat to remain hidden. They take refuge in Mahlia’s abandoned family apartment, where she reveals her mother’s secret warehouse filled with priceless antiques. By chance, Sergeant Ocho spots them from a distant lookout. Lieutenant Sayle sets a trap, using Ghost’s patrol as bait. When Mahlia makes contact with Ghost, UPF soldiers ambush them. Tool is incapacitated with tranquilizer darts, and both are captured. Sayle begins torturing Mahlia by cutting off one of her fingers.

They are taken to the UPF headquarters, a grand marble building called “the palace,” which is under heavy artillery fire from the AOG. In a command center in the crypt, Tool awakens in chains. Colonel Stern offers him a deal: become his commander and win the war in exchange for Mahlia’s life. Mahlia defies Stern, who then has Ghost brought before her and cuts off two of the boy’s fingers to force Tool’s compliance. Horrified, Sergeant Ocho stabs Colonel Stern. Ghost then seizes a knife and also stabs the colonel repeatedly before being killed in a hail of gunfire from the elite Eagle Guards. In the chaos, Ocho throws Tool the key to his shackles. The half-man breaks free and slaughters the guards. Mahlia cradles the dying Mouse, who makes her promise to survive.

As the AOG shelling intensifies, Mahlia proposes a new plan: use the antiques to buy passage out of the Drowned Cities for herself, Ocho, and his surviving soldiers. Ocho rallies his squad, and they seize motorized rafts from blood buyers at the palace docks, loading them with treasures from the warehouse. Tool announces he is staying behind. He plans to unite the leaderless UPF soldiers and forge his own army, making the Drowned Cities his personal territory. Mahlia, Ocho, and the remaining soldiers escape across the harbor, running a gauntlet of AOG fire. They use an antique flag to attract the attention of a wealthy clipper ship, and the surviving soldiers help Mahlia climb aboard, finally leaving the Drowned Cities behind.