The Water Knife

by Paolo Bacigalupi

  “Would’ve could’ve should’ve,” Maria said.

  Toomie grinned. “You’re cynical today.”

  She shrugged, swinging her legs, staring down at her flip-flops. “Just can’t figure out how rich people always come out good, and poor people always get nothing.”

  “You think it’s that way?” Toomie laughed. “Little Queen, I was rich. I pulled mid-six figures, easy. I was doing good. I had houses building, I had a plan.” He shrugged. “I just bet wrong, that’s all. I thought we could keep going like we were.”

  Maria sat with that, considering its implications. Toomie had fooled himself the way her father had. Somehow they hadn’t been able to see something that was plain as day, coming straight at them.

  Someone had blown up the CAP, and it had destroyed Toomie. But the Chinese had been prepared. They’d been planning. Looking ahead to what could go wrong. The whole Taiyang was planned for disaster.

  While everyone else was running around like chickens with their heads cut off, the Taiyang had just turned up its recycling and kept trucking along.

  Some people did okay in this world. Some people knew where to place their bets.

  So how do you bet right?

  Toomie surprised her by saying, “Hell if I know. I don’t think you can.”

  “Didn’t know I said anything out loud.”

  “Maybe I can hear you thinking.”

  Maria grinned. “Taiyang is doing okay, though. They saw things coming. Vegas, too. They’ve got arcologies.”

  “Sin City?” Toomie said, grinning. “When they heard we were headed for Hell, those people threw a party. They were ready for Hell, because they come out of Hell. This is all a homecoming for Catherine Case’s people.”

  Maria looked up at the Taiyang. “Wish it was for me.”

  “Me too, girl. Me too.”

  They sat in silence for a while, watching workers on the arcology, clusters of them riding the open lifts up into the sky, yellow hard hats gleaming, disappearing into the high smoke overhead.

  “There’s a den of coyotes, moved in a couple houses down from me,” Toomie said, changing the subject.

  Maria perked up. “They taking people across the border?”

  “No.” Toomie laughed. “Not that kind of coyotes. I mean the animal, girl. You know, with the teeth and the tails? The ones that look like dogs?”

  Maria tried to hide her disappointment. “Oh.”

  “It’s a new den.”

  “How do you know they’re new?”

  “Know the neighborhood, I guess. You get to know who’s who. Coyotes are a lot like Merry Perrys. At first, all the Texans look the same.” He chucked her on the shoulder. “But then you start to pick out the individuals. This one’s got gray tips on its ears. That one’s tail is more bushy. You get to know them.”

  “Where do you think they get their water?”

  “Dunno. Maybe they get it from blood. Maybe someone’s pipes leak.”

  Maria snorted.

  “They’d smell it, anyway. Animals are better at this stuff than we are. Human beings, we’re stupid in comparison to a coyote.”

  They were quiet for a while, resting, waiting for the next shift of workers to come down. The area around the construction site had its own rhythms, and Maria felt comfortable with them, reminded of when her father had worked the high beams.

  Chinese bosses called out to their crews in the polyglot of Chinese, Spanish, and English that got things done in Phoenix when you worked the high beams. A couple Zoners in cowboy hats were hauling in scavenged rolls of electrical wire, looking to resell it.

  People were lined up at the public latrines that Taiyang had set up around the edges of the arcology to improve public health. Toomie had told her that later the Taiyang would pump the raw sewage into the building, where they’d put it into big methane composting systems. They were smart. Never wasted anything. They baked out the gases and distilled out the water and turned the rest into nutrients for the weird plants that grew inside the building and turned into trees.

  It was just like the Jonnytrucks they had driving around the city. They were smart. They were always taking things into the arcology. They never let anything out. They were experts at taking in the nutrients they needed.

  The sun blazed down. The second lunch shift started. Maria started selling water again.

  Cup or pour? Cup or pour? Cup or pour?

  Money in every drop.

  A big truck rolled up, burning gas. Fancy black Ford hybrid monster, jacked up with knobbed tires almost as tall as Maria. As soon as the men climbed out, she recognized them. The Vet’s enforcers, Cato and Esteban, grinning as they crossed the street to her and Toomie. Toomie had his cash ready before they arrived, handed it over even as he flipped a pupusa. Esteban took the money and thumbed it with practiced speed. His gaze settled on Maria’s wagon.

  Her stomach tightened as she realized how stupid she’d been. She’d left too many bottles in the wagon. Half of them already sold, half of them already emptied into cups for the workers. And her, standing there like an idiot. She’d been stupid not to think about how her wealth would attract attention.

  Esteban nodded at Toomie. “Gimme three, with pork and cheese in ’em.”

  Cato wanted bean and cheese. Toomie started frying. Cato looked over at Maria, nudged Esteban. “Water girl’s doing good.”

  “Making bank,” Esteban agreed.

  “You want water?” Maria asked, trying to pretend like she didn’t know what they were thinking. Trying not to think about the money in her bra, willing the cholobis to leave her alone, to just treat it like any other day. To let her fade into nothingness. Just another irrelevant piece of Texas topsoil that had accidentally blown into the city.

  “Looks like you got some tax to pay,” Cato said to Maria.

  She swallowed. “I already paid him tax,” she said, jerking her head at Esteban, “before I came over here.”

  “I dunno. Looks to me like you’re starting up some kind of water bank here. Got your own little liquid empire, like. Buying, selling, trading. Looks pretty icy, girl.”

  “It’s not that much.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, Texas. Looks like you’re doing real good.”

  “I paid tax already.”

  Cato glanced at Esteban, grinning. “Yeah, well…I bet Esteban didn’t sell you no tax to run a big business. When you came by, he thought maybe you’d do small business, like our good man Toomie here. Man of the people, doing people’s work, right?”

  He started counting the bottles. “But you look like you’re doing something real different. So, since I’m your friend, and I’m Esteban’s friend, and I like to see people getting along, I’m gonna be real nice, and give you a chance to make things right. I’m gonna let you think about how much you probably owe us. Give you a chance to get right with the man who lets you sell on land that ain’t yours.”

  Toomie was conspicuously silent in the exchange. The big man stared down at his pupusas as they fried on his griddle. Grease spattered. The swish of electric vehicles was soft behind them.

  Maria was aware of the other customers, waiting silent in line behind the cholobis. A bunch of beaten-down Texas people and suburban Zoners, all of them watching without words. A couple Chinese crew leads stood back from the line, observing thoughtfully, commenting to one another in their own language. Staying out of the foreign conflict.

  “So what’s it going to be, Texas?”

  Maria stifled an intense urge to throw her water in Cato’s face. Instead, she reached into her bra and pulled out the wad of sweaty bills. Started to peel off singles in green and yuan in red. Cato held out his hand, expectant. As she tried to count, he reached over and took the whole cash wad. He jerked his head toward the line of customers. “You’ll make more.”

  “But I already paid tax,” Maria whispered.

  Cato took his pupusas wrapped in the blood rags and grabbed half a bottle of water for himself.

/>   “You’ve paid, now.”

  Esteban just shrugged and tipped his hat. As they walked back to the truck, Cato handed across the wad that he’d just harvested, both of them laughing as they climbed in. Maria could see Cato taking a swig of her water. He toasted her with the bottle as they pulled away.

  “You trying to get me killed?” Toomie whispered fiercely.

  “That was my rent they just took! I still got to kick up to Damien for rent.”

  She surveyed her water, trying to do the new math in her head. Figuring how much she owed Sarah, how much she owed for rent. She wanted to cry. All that planning, getting the intelligence on the vertical farms—it all came to nothing. Maybe even less than nothing, if Sarah wouldn’t split the loss with her.

  Toomie shook his head. “You got balls, girl. I’ll give you that. Lawyering killers like that. You’re going to be food for the Vet’s hyenas if you keep this up, and you’re going to drag me in, too.”

  “I paid tax.”

  “Shit. You paid tax.” Toomie squatted down and pulled her around to look him in the eye. “Let me explain something to you. Esteban, he works for the Vet, does what he says. As long as the Vet’s happy with him, Esteban does what he wants. Vet don’t interfere. Long as Esteban kills who the Vet wants killed, long as Esteban don’t hurt the Vet’s money, boss man don’t care.”

  “I make money for them, too.”

  “You make money.” Toomie snorted. “So maybe the Vet fines Esteban. Says, ‘Hey, that girl who dragged water around in her little red wagon, what happened to her?’ And Esteban says, ‘Who? Oh that skinny tejana bitch? I fucked her, and then I gave her to my buddies for a party favor, and they fucked her till her arms and legs popped off, and then we shot her in the head and left her for a swimmer. Why you ask?’ And the Vet, he snaps his fingers at that because you were his little water baby, kicking up, paying your tax like a good little piece of Texas.

  “And you know what? Maybe Esteban gets fined two hundred, because really that’s all you’re worth to the Vet. Maybe. If he really values you. If he has any idea you exist at all.”

  Toomie shook his head. “Shit. Your girlfriend who runs around in the bars, she’s just as disposable, but at least she’d cost something to kill off. Vet keeps count on her, for sure. Her ass at least earns. Shit. More I think about it, Vet probably won’t even fine Esteban for putting you down.”

  Toomie gripped Maria’s arm, eyes serious. “You got to understand, Maria. You keep worrying about right and wrong, you’ll end up just as dead as your daddy. He liked to lawyer things, too. Kept talking about how the Supreme Court was going to open up interstate travel again.

  “You get worked up about what’s right and wrong, but that shit’s only in your head. Rules are what the big dogs say they are. The reason you pay tax is so they forget to kill you today. That’s what you buy with tax. You got it?”

  His hand was so tight on her arm that Maria thought it might bruise.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  Toomie dropped his grip, but his fierce expression didn’t ease.

  “You’re a tiny little mouse, in a big old desert,” he said. “I would’ve thought you understood that by now. There’s hawks and owls and coyotes and snakes, and all they want to do is eat you up. So do me a favor when you run into boys like Cato and Esteban. You remember that you’re the mouse. You hunker down, and you stay out of sight. You forget that for even a second, and they’ll eat you from the tip of your nose down to the tip of your tail, won’t even notice that they swallowed you. Won’t even burp. Won’t cause a bit of indigestion. You’re just a snack on the way to whatever their real dinner is. You got it?”

  He waited until Maria nodded, and then, finally, his face softened.

  “Good.” He chucked her gently on the chin, straightened up. “Come on, now. Let’s see if we can sell some more before lunch ends. We still got customers.”

  He turned to the next person in line, looking as if the entire conversation hadn’t happened, and he hadn’t just been pissed as hell at her.

  “I got pork, I got beans, I got cheese. What you want in yours?” And then right after, “You want water with that?” glancing significantly at Maria.

  Maria went back to pouring water into cups and offered canteens.

  She knew Toomie was right. She knew she shouldn’t have fought. Esteban and Cato weren’t any more leashed than the Vet’s hyenas. Given a chance, they’d eat her up. So why hadn’t she had enough sense to just shut the fuck up?

  “There you go,” Toomie said, smiling at her. “You still got some to sell. Water girl’s just like a mini–Catherine Case.”

  Maria scowled at him. “If I was that lady, I wouldn’t let assholes steal my water. I’d cut their throats and squeeze their blood through Clearsacs, and I’d sell that water, too.’ ”

  Toomie lost his smile.

  Maria went back to pouring for customers, adding up the money in her head, and trying to figure out how she’d explain to Sarah that she’d lost their rent and Sarah’s investment.

  She’d had a map in her head of how the world was supposed to work, and she’d been wrong—as wrong as Papa thinking states wouldn’t set up border blockades and people like Toomie imagining that they could build forever.

  Esteban and Cato were blazing neon signs telling her just how little she understood about the workings of her world.

  Maria kept pouring water, but no matter how she added up her income, it wasn’t going to be enough.

  CHAPTER 9

  Campfires blazed in the darkness outside Angel’s car windows, Phoenix’s first telltales. Refugees and recycling operations dotting the city’s dark zone. The city consuming itself, whittling away the fat of more prosperous times.

  Ahead: taillight glows of thickening traffic, cheap electric scooters weaving between the black shapes of Flex-fuel pickups and Tesla Machete SUVs. Shadow shapes in the boiling dust of the interstate.

  Ghost images: a woman clutching the back of a scooter, whipped by wind, arms around her man’s waist, her eyes and mouth pursed tight against the dust. Another scooter, hauling a five-gallon water cube strapped down by bungee cords, the driver hunched over his handlebars, a bright blue Sparkle Pony filter mask hiding his features.

  More traffic. More life. Heads and faces shrouded by scarves and masks against the dust. Headlight beams, tunnels of light in the haze. People all along the roadsides, shoveling out from another storm, sweeping off cars. Shadow ants, working furiously.

  The pavement turned bumpy. Angel slowed, easing the low-slung car over washboard. Dustfall layers, one upon the next upon the next. Inside the Tesla cool A/C pumped in a steady hiss through HEPA filters. Angel felt cocooned from the world outside. Blue and red glows of instruments. Soft chatter on the radio.

  “KFYI call in.”

  “You know what this is really like? Pompeii. By the time it’s over, we’re going to be covered in dust fifty feet thick.”

  “Riiight. Next caller—”

  Angel’s headlights illuminated a figure standing between the highway margins, head encased in goggles and filter mask, eyes flashing like an insect’s as high beams swept over. A mute monster, inexplicable, then lost in the darkness.

  “I say we send our troops up to Colorado. I mean, that’s our water they’re holding. We should go up there and open the dams and get our damn water down here.”

  The dark zone ended. One minute Phoenix was dead and black, the next, the city was alive and blazing with neon and activity. As if someone had gone around the edges of the city, burning and blackening its rim with blowtorches, leaving nothing but the neon smoldering core, a living city, thrusting upward from the ashes of suburbs.

  “If we weren’t wasting so much water on farming, we’d all be fine. Cut the rest of the farms off. I don’t care how senior their rights are. They’re the ones wasting it.”

  “About what that last idiot said. If you cut off farms, you got dust storms. Simple as that. Where the
hell does he think all this dust is coming from—”

  Zoners pointing fingers at one another, none of them pointing back at themselves. Case said it was how you could tell someone was from Arizona. They never owned their problems. She liked that about them. It made them easy to gut.

  “The Hohokam are right underneath us. We’re walking on their graves. They ran out of water, too! Look at them now. Gone. You know what Hohokam means? ‘All used up.’ In another hundred years people won’t even remember us. Won’t even remember what Phoenix was.”

  More lights. Traffic jams. Bars and gun stores. Party girls on street corners, Texas refugees looking for someone to take them in. Street-sweeping machines, sucking up the dust, carrying it off to God knew where. Private security in black riot gear standing outside a club. Car dealerships and mini-malls. City-sponsored Jonnytrucks ferrying piss and shit into remaining water-treatment plants, trying to keep disease down with functioning sewer lines gone.

  Above it all, a billboard blazed with the Phoenix Development Board’s latest PR campaign: a picture of a fiery bird spreading its wings behind a collage of laughing children, solar fields, and the Taiyang Arcology.

  PHOENIX. RISING.

  Below the billboard a security squad escorted men in coats and ties and women in strappy dresses into a low-slung black Suburban. CK Ballistic jackets, Lily Lei dust masks, and M-16s. Phoenix chic.

  Another billboard slid by, its face tattered: CA$H FOR YOUR HOME! Stacks of red hundred-yuan notes cascaded off the billboard’s margin. At some point the billboard had been lit, but it looked like thieves had stripped the neon tubes that would have illuminated the cash.

  It was followed by another billboard.

  IBIS INTERNATIONAL. HYDROLOGY. DRILLING. EXPLORATION—SECURING OUR FUTURE, TODAY.