The Water Wars

by Cameron Stracher

  The men broke into groups and fanned out downriver. Nasri turned his attention to me. “Into the carrier,” he ordered.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “You may still be valuable. Do you have all your teeth?” He fingered my mouth. I winced and pulled away.

  “The army knows we’re here.”

  “In Minnesota?”

  “We’re from Minnesota.”

  Nasri smiled. His teeth were small and flat, worn down like a desert rat’s. “Not likely,” he said. “Now get into the truck.”

  He shoved me roughly toward the hover-carrier. Another man grabbed my arm and yanked so hard that I practically fell into the back of the cargo hold. I stumbled, then regained my balance, but the man had already slammed the door shut behind me. I grabbed the handle. It would not open, and the glass was thick and obviously bulletproof. I pounded at it with my palms, but it barely made a sound. My nails hurt just trying to scratch it.

  I turned, and my eyes adjusted to the dark. I picked out boxes, weapons, and electronic equipment lining the shelves in the narrow hold. Many things were still wrapped, untouched, as if they had been newly purchased. There seemed to be no order, just rows of expensive items—loot from PELA operations. On the far wall I noticed a small machine with the name Bluewater stamped on it, which I assumed was the owner or manufacturer of the machine.

  Then I noticed something else as well—a body lying prone on the ground. A boy’s body. He was bloody and covered with mud. He didn’t move.

  “Will!” I cried.

  CHAPTER 10

  The hover-carriers glided silently over the ravaged land. Where rivers once flowed, there were now only huge gashes like scars on the earth. Lake beds had dried up, forming dust bowls that swirled with toxic chemicals and heavy metals. The ice and permafrost that covered the northern reaches had disappeared or been melted for water. The sea levels had risen, and salt water poisoned any underground aquifers that were not depleted from years of overuse. Rain fell, but in such torrents and violent storms that most of it washed into the ocean. The weather was unpredictable, and humans stole the clouds, sucking moisture from the sky and using it for their own purposes. Drought and death darkened the continents, and even the fittest could barely survive.

  Nasri told me these things while my brother lay cradled in my lap. Will’s face was hot with fever and damp with perspiration, but at least he was alive. I brushed the hair from his eyes and kissed him lightly on the forehead. He stirred but did not speak. Nasri had given him some medicine, but it didn’t seem to be working. His leg was infected and raw, and it would take more than pills to cure it.

  “We have to get him to a doctor,” I said.

  “He’ll live,” said Nasri.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I have seen men with legs seeping maggots survive in the desert. Their legs were simply amputated, and they moved on.”

  “You can’t amputate his leg!”

  Nasri shrugged. “We do what we have to. This is war.”

  “We’re not fighting your war.”

  “Of course you are. We’re all fighting the war.”

  “What war are you fighting?” I demanded.

  “We’re fighting on the side of the land.”

  “The land? By blowing up dams and sabotaging water supplies? By killing anyone who crosses your path? You talk about saving the land, but you’re poisoning it.”

  Nasri blinked rapidly. He looked like he wanted to hop again, but there was no room to hop in the small cargo hold.

  “We’re poisoning the land to save it,” he spat. “When the great dams and reservoirs are destroyed, the water will return to the land, and people will remember its precious gift.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  Nasri raised his hand, and I flinched, but he merely scratched his stubbly head. “Look after your brother,” he said. Then he opened the hatch to the carrier’s main compartment and disappeared into the front of the truck.

  I sat in the darkness and listened to Will breathe. I would not let him lose his leg. I would find him a doctor—a real doctor—who would give him proper medicine and stitch it up. And what of Kai? Was he already dead? The seriousness of our predicament was not lost on me. We were now in Canada, a country with which we were at war. We had no travel papers and were dependent on the kindness of environmental mercenaries—lowlife thugs who couldn’t be trusted. There was something suspicious about PELA’s avowed alliance with the Canadians—the very people who had dammed Earth’s water and melted the giant icebergs. I lay down next to Will, gripping his hand with my fingers. I could feel the pulse in his wrist, strong and steady. Will was a fighter. As long as his heart kept beating, he would not give up. I remembered how he pumped for both of us on the pedi-cycle, pushing past the point of exhaustion. It seemed like another lifetime ago. The dusty road where I had witnessed a boy spilling water from a cup was as far away as the girl I had once been—a girl who had never heard gunfire or seen a man swollen and dead.

  I fell into a restless sleep. In my dreams, my parents and Will were gliding down a giant river on a floating device that looked like a pedicycle with its wheels turned sideways. I tried to warn them they were not safe. Water was leaking in through the wheels and swamping their seats. They were pedaling while slowly sinking. But they just waved happily back at me, oblivious to the danger. The river moved swiftly and silently, torrents of water rushing to the ocean. Dark and violent, it swirled around them like a gathering storm. I watched helplessly from the muddy shoreline as my family was swept away into the unforgiving sea.

  I awoke to find Will still lying next to me. It took a moment to realize that he had one eye open and was staring at me, just as he used to do back home when we pulled our mattresses together in my room.

  “Vera,” he whispered.

  “Will!”

  “Where are we?”

  I explained we were in the back of a hover-carrier, traveling with PELA along the Canadian border.

  “PELA?” he croaked.

  “They blew up the dam,” I said. “It wiped out everything. Ulysses and the pirates are dead.”

  Will shut his one open eye as if trying to block the loss, but when he opened both eyes, all he said was, “My leg hurts.” He reached down to pull up his trouser leg. His skin was red and raw, and blood and yellow fluid oozed down his calf. But a scab had begun to form around the edges, and purplish bruising mottled his shin.

  “They gave you some medicine,” I said.

  “Why would they do that?”

  “They want to sell us.”

  Healthy children of working age were needed at the drilling sites, Nasri had said. They were small enough to scramble down the narrow shafts but took in one-tenth the pay of adults. Plenty of orphans were apprenticed to the mines, their lives as miserable as the nineteenth-century urchins we’d learned about in school. As far as PELA was concerned, we were orphans they had found on the road.

  “But we have parents!” protested Will.

  “They don’t care. They just want money.”

  “Maybe PELA kidnapped Kai.”

  I had considered this. Several years ago three brothers were kidnapped from a Skate ’n’ Sand arena. They never returned, although rumors circulated that they were working for a drilling company on the Great Coast. This was why our father insisted that we shouldn’t talk to strangers and that we wi-text him when we were leaving school. But I didn’t think PELA had taken Kai. The environmentalists couldn’t have come into town without drawing notice, and it was too far south for them to venture anyway. PELA operated on the borders, near reservoirs and dams, where they could strike quickly then retreat.

  “Wherever he is,” I said, “we’ve got to find him.”

  “We’ve got to get out of here is what we’ve got to do.”

  “Not without Kai.”

  Will sat up on one elbow and drew his good leg beneath him. “Listen, Vera. We don’t know where he is, or who took him
, or even if he’s gone. It was stupid to go chasing after him in the first place. Now if we don’t get out of here, the environmentalists are going to sell us—or worse.”

  I blushed, feeling chastened by my brother’s words. But I refused to be cowed into agreement. “The pirates know where he is.”

  “They’re dead. You said so yourself.”

  “We don’t know for sure. Some are dead, but some may have survived.”

  Will was a fighter. He would never give up—not when there was still a chance. He would lead his troops into battle and fight to his last breath. That’s why I couldn’t believe it when he said, “It’s hopeless.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re in Canada, Vera. We’re prisoners in the country of our enemies. Even if we could find Kai, we can’t save him. How could we? Be realistic. We’re just two kids without any weapons, and we’ll be lucky to get out of here with our own lives.”

  “No, Will. Don’t say that!”

  “It’s true. Look at me. My leg is infected. I need a doctor. Our parents probably think we’re dead. We have to forget about Kai and the river. We have to get home!”

  When other kids couldn’t raise another bucket, Will kept lifting. When they thought the condensers were emptied, Will found the last drop. He was always the first to volunteer and the last to leave. Yes, he was injured, and our situation was desperate, but we were not so far gone that all hope was lost.

  “Kai is our friend,” I said. “You can try to get home—if you want—but I’m going to stay here until I find him.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re locked in the back of a truck.”

  “I don’t care! I’m going to get out.” I walked to the rear doors of the carrier and banged on the handles as hard as I could. They wouldn’t budge. Even if I could force the doors open, the carrier was traveling at hundreds of kilometers an hour, and the fall to the ground would surely kill me. But the only thing that mattered right then was getting out. I tried prying at the bars that covered two small windows on each side of the truck, but the metal was cold and unyielding. I stamped my feet on the floor as hard as I could.

  “Open the doors!” I shouted. It made me angry that people could simply kill other people, take what they wanted, and ignore the cries of the sick and hungry. The world wasn’t like that—or it shouldn’t be like that—even though I hadn’t seen enough of the world to know what it was really like. I pounded at the fortified steel until my wrists felt like breaking. “Open the doors!” I shouted again. “This is wrong! You are wrong! Open the doors!”

  Suddenly Will was beside me, leaning on my shoulder for support. “Stop, Vera. Stop. I’ll help you.”

  I looked at my brother, and I could see how much it pained him to stand. But he stood; and though his face was pale, his grip was strong. “I’ll help you,” he said again.

  “You’re hurt.”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “Do you really think we can get out of here?”

  “I do.”

  If we were going to escape, however, we would have to wait until the environmentalists stopped to refuel or sleep. Anything else would mean certain death. So while the carrier raced eastward, we searched the cargo hold. Shiny electronics, unwrapped and gleaming, lined the shelves. Dried food in airtight boxes and water in sealed containers were crammed in next to them. Although there were dozens of weapons, we couldn’t find any ammunition or fuses for the grenades. I didn’t see any of the explosives used to blow up the dam, but I figured they had either been detonated or stored in another carrier. Nasri was smart enough to keep them out of our hands. Finally we came upon the Bluewater machine.

  “Where do you think they got this?” asked Will.

  “Probably stole it, like everything else.”

  “It’s worth a lot of money. Not too many of these around.”

  “What is it?”

  “A portable desalinator.”

  Desalinization was an expensive and complicated process in which salt and minerals were removed from water to make it drinkable. Most desalinization plants were on the ocean, where they spit their waste back into the sea, killing fish and marine life but producing plenty of water. A portable desalinator, however, would let its owner travel almost anywhere and not worry about dying of thirst. The dirtiest, saltiest puddle could be made to produce clean, drinkable water. “Help me lift it,” said Will.

  “There’s plenty of water,” I said and pointed to the sealed crates.

  “I don’t want to make more water.”

  “What do you want to do, then?”

  “Just help me.”

  The desalinator was heavier than it looked. We tried to lift it, but Will could barely hold on. Every time we got it more than a few centimeters off the ground, Will’s leg hurt too much to hold it. Finally we half-dragged, half-carried it over to the rear doors. Will was grimacing in pain by the time we finished.

  “Your leg,” I said.

  We both looked down at Will’s calf. It had begun to bleed again, a bright red color that was different from the oozing yellow pus.

  “It’s fine,” said Will, although it wasn’t. He sat on the floor and began to tinker with the machine. First he lifted the cover and peered inside. Then he pulled out one wire, and a second. Soon he had half the top open.

  “This thing kicks off a ton of heat,” said Will. “It’s how they desalinate water. Flash boiling, and then condensation.”

  “We don’t need to condense water.”

  “But we might want to boil it.”

  I could almost see the plan forming in Will’s brain. He had the same look as when he was about to pounce with a pillow. Equal parts mischief and determination. I knew not to ask questions.

  Will handed me a hose he had yanked from the inside of the machine. “Hold this,” he said.

  I followed his instructions while he sorted, crimped, and twisted. More than once Will had repaired the school’s condensers before the maintenance crews could arrive. Now he worked like a boy possessed, removing tubes and hoses and reattaching them in different places. His face was feverish, but his hands were steady, and if his leg hurt, he didn’t show it. He chewed on his lip, squinted liberally, and, when he was momentarily stuck, rubbed his forehead like a lamp for good luck. Finally he stepped back to admire his invention.

  “Now we need some ammunition,” he said.

  By now I had a pretty good idea of Will’s intentions. I handed him a canister of pure water from one of the shelves, and he poured it into the machine. We would be ready when the environmentalists stopped—if they stopped.

  “Where do you think they’re going?” I asked.

  Will shrugged. Like the pirates, PELA operated freely among the republics and Canada. They were outlaws too, but with better public relations and more powerful friends.

  “Why do you think they came to Minnesota in the first place?” he asked.

  “To blow the dam.”

  Will shook his head. “Too small. And there’s another dam downstream. It’ll catch all the water.”

  I had stopped asking how Will knew all these things; he just knew facts most kids did not. As large as the dam looked, Will was correct it was smaller than average. Yet there were a million reasons PELA might have blown it—most of them unknowable except to the guerillas themselves. Will, however, already had some ideas.

  “Let’s say they were at the dam for another reason.”

  “Such as?”

  We sat next to each other with a box of semiautomatic pistols as our backrest. Will lifted his leg and rested it on my shin to keep it elevated, and the warmth and weight of it calmed me. It was almost like being at home, talking late past our bedtimes until our father caught us and pretended to be angry.

  “Maybe there was a person both the pirates and PELA wanted to visit,” Will said.

  “Dr. Tinker?”

  Will nodded slowly. “Environmentalists don’t care much for water explorers.”

 
; “But why would they blow the dam?”

  Will wrinkled his nose, but before he could respond, the hover-carrier slowed, then came to a gentle rest on something firm. I could hear the crunch of earth and rock. I looked at Will, and he signaled for me to be quiet. He stood, and with my help he inched the desalinator closer to the door. His leg was bleeding again, but he didn’t notice. Instead he flipped a switch on the machine and took a hose in his hand. The machine started humming quietly and gave off a smell like two rocks cracked together. Will and I crouched in the darkness, silent except for the sound of our breathing. We stood for what seemed like an hour. I thought my legs would give out. My toes ached, and the scratches in my hands were inflamed. I couldn’t imagine what Will must be feeling. The pain was nearly unearthly.

  Then outside we heard men talking.

  “They don’t care about the doctor,” said a man’s voice.

  “And the children?”

  “It’s good money for the mines.”

  “Shame.”

  “Not our problem.”

  Someone fiddled with the locks, and then the door creaked open. Sunlight streamed into the cargo hold like a bouquet of sharp needles. A man stepped into the doorway, blocking the sun. It took him a moment to adjust to the darkness, and in that space, quick as a sand fly, Will sprang.

  The man screamed and fell backward into the dirt.

  CHAPTER 11

  Run, Will, run!” I screamed.

  Will stood in the open doorway of the cargo hold, shooting hot steam over the prone bodies of two guards. It was as if he were frozen, unable to move. Then he snapped out of it and let me help him out of the truck.

  “Quick, they’ll be here in a second,” I said.

  “I can’t run.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  Will shook his head. “The carrier. We can drive it.”

  “I don’t know how to drive.”

  “I do,” he insisted.

  Even if Will could drive with his injured leg, there was a big difference between steering a rundown electric car and a hydrogen-fueled hovercraft capable of going several hundred kilometers an hour. On the other hand, I knew it was our only real chance. If we evaded the environmentalists, we still wouldn’t get far on the sand. The carrier gave us a fighting chance of escape. As for the border, we would just have to deal with it when we reached it. If we reached it.