The Water Knife

by Paolo Bacigalupi

  They were relentless.

  Part of her wished she could die of dehydration, be sucked dry and turned into a mummified corpse. Then at least the Vet and Esteban and Cato would all be disappointed. She wouldn’t be their entertainment then. They wouldn’t get to see her screaming and running from the hyenas. She considered ways she might hang herself, or cut her wrists and bleed out, but no tools were available.

  “Here. You should drink.”

  Damien, standing beside her cage, holding a bottle of water and a dish of food. This was the first time she’d seen him. Before, it had always been others.

  “I don’t want it.”

  He sighed and squatted down. Started pushing the food through.

  “I don’t want it!” she shouted at him.

  The Vet’s soldiers looked over. Esteban got up and ambled over, smiling.

  Damien glared at Maria. “See what you done?”

  Maria laughed. “You think I’m scared of him now? What’s he going to do—feed me to the hyenas?”

  “The Vet only wants you running,” Esteban said. “Long as you don’t bleed out, I can do plenty to you.”

  “Just leave her alone,” Damien said. “You already did enough.”

  “I don’t like how she’s looking at me.”

  “Let it go.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do, pendejo. I’ll dump you in there with her.”

  Damien backed off.

  Esteban took the rice and beans and slid them through. “Go ahead, putita. Eat up. Can’t run if you don’t got your strength.” He waved at the hyenas in the pens. “You know how it works, right? We start you at one side of the pens, and if you make it all the way across before the hyenas get you, Vet lets you out. If you’re fast enough, and lucky enough, you got a chance. But you got to get your strength up.”

  Maria glared at him, imagining him being run down by hyenas.

  “Come on, sweetie. You got food right there. Why don’t you get your face down in it? Eat it like a little bitch.”

  She imagined blood, spurting from his neck.

  Esteban scowled, and walked away.

  Damien came back with another bottle of water. “Seriously, just drink.”

  “Why do you care?”

  Damien at least had the grace to look embarrassed. “I—I didn’t think it would go like this.”

  “How long until you feed me to…them?”

  “Next time Vet feels like it.” He glanced over to where Esteban had rejoined some of the Vet’s other soldiers under an awning, playing cards. “He likes people to see you. Lets other people know what’s coming.”

  He shoved the bottle through the slot in the fence. “It might not be for a long time. You might as well eat and drink.”

  She considered rebuffing him, but some part of her refused to give up entirely, and her hunger and thirst won out. She drank greedily and ate the food with her one good hand, ravenous, unable to deny herself sustenance.

  Esteban came back over to watch. “How come you eat for him and not for me? You still mad about your fingers?”

  Maria paused to glare up at him.

  All she could think was how badly she wanted to see him dying. Screaming and dying. To make him pay. To get hold of his throat. She wondered if there was some way she could bait him into the cage with her. Some way.

  “Get out of here, Esteban,” Damien said. “You had your fun.”

  “I don’t think so. Fun’s just getting started,” Esteban said. He looked as if he were about to do something more, but then Cato called to him.

  “Esteban! We’re gonna be late!”

  “I’ll see you later, girl. When I get back, we’ll talk.”

  He ambled off to join Cato in their big black truck. They drove out of the compound, leaving dust clouds in their wake.

  Damien squatted down again beside her. A few feet away, the hyenas regarded her with interested yellow eyes. Hungry and intrigued. Unblinking. Maria wondered if Esteban had told her the truth—that she was allowed to at least try to escape. That there was even the barest chance…

  “What the fuck were you thinking?” Damien asked.

  Maria gave him a disgusted look. “I was thinking I needed to get the fuck out of here.”

  “I thought you were a smart one.”

  “Fuck you, Damien.”

  “Hey. Sorry. Just didn’t figure you’d end up there. Thought you knew how to play the game a little better. Your girl Sarah—she knew the score. You should have stuck with her.”

  “She’s dead,” Maria said.

  Damien looked surprised.

  “What?” she goaded. “You didn’t know that? She played the game just like you wanted her to. We went out to earn just like you told us to, and she got killed. We did it like you wanted. Both of us. And now she’s dead.” She glared at him. “And you set us up for that. So yeah, I decided I’d run instead.”

  Damien sucked his lip, his tanned and burned face looking ugly. Maria wiped the sweat from her eyes. Her black hair felt hot and heavy with the sun. She was cooking out here. One hundred twenty degrees, and her out in the sun, roasting to death. Damien looked guilty.

  “Help me,” Maria whispered to him.

  “How’s that?”

  “Let me out.”

  Damien laughed uncertainly.

  “They got the keys right over there,” Maria urged. “I’ve seen them. Tonight. You could let me out. No one would even know. And you know you owe me for getting me into this mess.”

  Damien glanced to where she indicated. The Vet’s shooters, all playing cards, not giving a shit about anything except drinking tequila, laughing as they lost money to one another.

  He was looking at them, and she could almost feel him weakening. “You don’t like them any more than I do,” she said.

  And it was true. She could see it in him. He was at the bottom of their hierarchy. Skinny and tough but not one of them, truly. Just the boy who ran the whores for the Vet. “We could both leave. We could both go north.”

  The connection evaporated.

  “I can’t,” Damien said, shaking his head. “I try that, I’m in there with you, and we’re both running from the hyenas.”

  “They wouldn’t even know. You could do it tonight.”

  But the connection was lost, and she knew it. Now she was just going through the motions. Whatever small hold she’d had on him was lost. “You owe me,” she said. “I’m here because of you.”

  Damien wouldn’t meet her eyes. “You want, I can get you some bubble,” he said. “Get you good and high. You dose enough, you won’t feel much when they…” He trailed off, glancing at the hyenas.

  “When they rip me to pieces?” Maria prodded. “That what you wanting to say? You want to get me high before I get eaten alive? You think that helps?”

  Damien looked embarrassed. “You want the bubble or not?”

  She just glared at him.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. He started to turn away.

  “Damien?”

  He turned back. “Yeah?”

  “Fuck you.”

  CHAPTER 36

  “Why are we stopping here?” Angel asked as Lucy turned the Metrocar into a beat-up gas station and LocoMart.

  “I need some cigarettes,” she muttered.

  “Didn’t know you smoked.”

  “If I survive the next couple weeks, I’ll quit. Again.”

  Angel got out of the car, too, causing her to look back at him, puzzled.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Thought I’d look for some candy.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Sure. I’m hungry.”

  Angel wandered the candy aisles, while Lucy bantered back and forth with the clerk about the various packs. No gummy bears. He picked up a roll of Spree and came back to the counter. Lucy finally chose Mist and a pack of Marlboro Bubblegum charges for it.

  “Figured you’d roll your own. Old school.” He laid his roll of candy on the
counter. “I got this,” he said as Lucy reached for her wallet. Lucy nodded but didn’t answer. She was looking outside, keeping watch on the Metrocar as if she expected it to be stolen.

  Angel swiped his cash card and got a beep of denial. “What the hell?” He swiped the card again.

  “Do you have another card, sir?”

  Angel looked at the clerk, thinking, I got about fifty cards, pendejo. But the fact that this card didn’t work bothered him.

  He swiped again and got the same rejection from the machine.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Lucy said. “Can you keep an eye on the car? I left the keys with it.” She pulled out a small wad of cash. “I got your candy.”

  Angel grabbed the Spree and walked back to the Metrocar, trying to figure out why his card was suddenly dead. The thing should have had tens of thousands of dollars on it.

  He thought back, trying to remember when he’d last used it. Two days ago? Before the Taiyang, for sure. Dinner at the Hilton? Drinking with Julio?

  Back in the car he popped a Spree and sucked idly on the candy. Through the sun and glare reflections on the LocoMart’s windows, he could just make out Lucy at the counter. He liked her. Liked how she moved. How she held herself.

  Across the street the Merry Perrys had put a big old revival tent in the parking lot of a broken-down Fry’s supermarket. People were holding signs in English and Spanish, promising bottles of water to anyone who came to a service and testified. They struggled to hold on to their signs as hot desert winds whipped around them.

  A guy off to the side of the parking lot was pissing into a Clearsac. He finished and held it up over his mouth, sucking as he squeezed, looking like the happiest man alive. People started out squeamish about Clearsacs, but eventually even the fussiest were grateful for them.

  Angel went through his identities in his head. If Mateo Bolívar wasn’t working, he’d need to test his other cards. That, and get back in touch with SNWA, to figure out what the problem was. Julio couldn’t have known all his identities, so there wasn’t any reason to kill the IDs and associated cash cards. Had to be a glitch back at SNWA.

  Fucking bureaucracy.

  Even from across the street, Angel could hear people in the Merry Perry tent, crying out their sins to God, making their offerings. Cheers and applause rose and fell.

  A couple people came out of the tents, clutching necklace tokens proving that they’d been on their knees, as if their bloody backs weren’t enough proof that they’d been cleansed.

  Some people could never do enough to shake off their sins. They probably wouldn’t be satisfied until they’d died of whippings.

  Dead.

  Why would his cash card be dead? Something about it felt wrong. It should have worked. His IDs always worked.

  Lucy was still inside the LocoMart. She was looking out through the glass. Looking at him…

  “Oh shit.”

  Angel turned just in time to see a big black pickup truck pull up, gas engine rumbling. Another one roared up behind. “God da—”

  Bullets blasted in. Glass shattered. Sledgehammer hits threw him against his seat belt. Pain. More bullets hit home.

  Angel tried to pull his ballistic jacket over his head as he lunged for the gearshift. He jammed the car into drive and threw himself to the floor, slamming his hand on the accelerator.

  The Metrocar whirred. His blood was all over his arms. All over the pedals. More bullets pummeled him. More body slams. Glass spiderwebbed and shattered, raining down on him. The car slammed to a halt. Airbags exploded in his face, stunning him.

  I’m getting blood on the airbag, Angel thought inanely, and then he was fumbling for the door, pushing it open, fighting past the airbag, getting the seat belt off, flopping out. It was pointless, he knew. They’d be coming to finish him, but still he couldn’t help fighting. He rolled over, blinded by pain, tried to get a fix on his attackers. The Metrocar had spun when he wrecked it. He couldn’t orient. He squinted against bright blurry sunlight.

  Where is everyone?

  He yanked out his SIG, but his hand came up empty. He stared at his empty bloody palm. The gun had popped right out of his grip. Slippery.

  He fumbled again for the SIG, remembering the sicario so long ago, gunning down his target. He remembered it like it was yesterday. Remembered how the assassin had stood over his victim and pumped the man full of lead. Remembered how the body had bucked with bullet impacts.

  Angel finally dragged his gun out. He tried to get his arm to lift, trying to aim and be ready. The sun was right in his eyes. They were coming. He knew they were coming, just the same way the sicario had come. The sicario had stood right over the man and put a final bullet in his head. They’d come for him, to make sure.

  Angel tried to listen for their footsteps over the ragged sobs of his own breathing. He remembered how the sicario had aimed his gun right at Angel. The finger of God, pointing, deciding if he’d live or die. Smiling and pretending to shoot. Playing God.

  Gunfire cracked on the far side of the car. Many guns going off. He lay against the Metrocar’s wheel, trying to guess which side they’d come from. Fucking hell, it hurt. He wrapped both hands around the SIG and tried to breathe slowly. Every breath hurt.

  Come on! Vengan, motherfuckers. Come and get me before I bleed out.

  He hated the thought that he’d already be dead by the time they found him. He wouldn’t even get a chance to shoot back.

  But maybe that was just the way shit turned out. You didn’t get to decide how you died. Someone else decided. Someone else always decided.

  Someone was screaming over by the pumps. Some poor bastard who’d been caught in the cross fire. More gunfire cracked and chattered, accompanied by shattering glass.

  His hands were shaking, and he couldn’t make them stop. He was dying. In a way, it was almost a relief. Ever since the sicario stuck his pistol in Angel’s face, Angel had known he was marked. Death had picked off his family one by one, and now finally it had come for him—there.

  The shadow of death. A man with a gun and tattoos all across his face. Angel squeezed the trigger.

  The shadow fell away and the sun blazed upon Angel once again.

  Angel rolled, groaning, expecting another assassin to come from the other side. More gunfire ratcheted beyond the Metrocar, but nothing near him.

  He pulled himself up against the car’s tire, hissing in pain. He stared up into the white-hot ball of the sun, breathing hard. Sweating.

  He was supposed to be dead by now.

  So get the fuck out of here, pendejo.

  He rolled over and started to crawl, dragging himself across blazing concrete and broken glass.

  His guts felt like they were falling out of his body. His ribs were cracked and shattered, knives ripping his chest.

  He hauled himself over a curb. Kept going. Just another stubborn motherfucker, too dumb to just let go. Too stupid to lie down and die like he should. Stubborn.

  He’d always been stubborn. He’d been a stubborn boy in school, in front of his teachers. In the ICE prisons of El Paso. Stubborn in the juvie jails of Houston. He’d been stubborn. Stubborn enough to survive until Hurricane Xavier shattered the prison and let him and every other deportee walk out into the street, in the middle of rain and flying trees. Stubborn enough to drag his ass all the way to Vegas.

  That’s why I let you live, the sicario whispered.

  “Fuck you.”

  Angel kept crawling.

  Watch your back, pendejo.

  Angel rolled over, and sure enough, death was stalking him.

  He shot his killer in the face. Rolled over and kept crawling.

  The sicario laughed. ¡Qué malo! I knew you had it in you, cabrón. Even when you were pissing your pants, with that little tiny dick, I could tell that one day you were gonna have some big fucking balls. Could see it. Güevos the size of balones.

  The sicario continued to harass him, but over his gibes and jokes, Angel could hea
r whispered prayers. It took a while to realize that the ragged Ave Marias were his own, and even when he tried to shut up, they kept on, a liturgy to God, to La Santa Muerte, to the Virgin Mary, even to the goddamn sicario, who seemed bent on playing patron to him.

  Angel dragged himself into a tumbleweed-choked alley. His hands were muddy with blood and dirt. His shirt was soaking, and now he looked back and saw the long trail of blood that he’d left behind him.

  The gun felt slippery in his hand. He let it go, shedding weight, shedding life and death, crawling still.

  More gunfire cracked in the distance, but it didn’t have anything to do with him. Not anymore.

  Angel found a shattered cinder-block wall and hauled himself through the gap, grunting and panting.

  Why do I even bother? he wondered. Just give up and die.

  His guts were on fire. It would be so much easier to just lie down and die. At least it wouldn’t keep hurting.

  Whimpering, he kept on.

  I always was a stubborn little fuck.

  They’d gotten him in the belly, he thought, somewhere in the side, and it had ripped right through the ballistic cloth. Some kind of armor-piercing round maybe. God, it was hot. He was sweating. The sun felt like a physical weight, pressing down on him.

  God, pressing him, down.

  Get up, man.

  The sicario just wouldn’t let up.

  Angel found that he was lying in red ornamental gravel in the backyard of some house. His face felt numb. He touched his jaw, and his fingers found bone. He remembered Julio spitting teeth and wondered how much of a face he had left. Another round of gunfire got him going again, groaning and panting. Slower, though. Slower.

  The sun’s heat sat heavy on him. He hauled himself forward. The sun blazed hard, heavy as lead, pressing him to the dirt.

  Through a veil of sweat and blood, Angel saw the abandoned house. Just get to the shade. Just get away from this weight. Once the sun stopped standing on his damn back, he could rest.

  With a final heave of will, he crawled forward. He found a handhold and pulled himself up, and pitched into open air.