The Water Thief

by Nicholas Lamar Soutter

  The phantoms are real.

  There it was. Blind optimism, false hope. I was tired of it. I had been right, Sarah Aisling did spread hope like a disease, and I was now a plague-ravished corpse. So many people had spent so much time trying to straighten me out. Linus, Corbett, even Bernard. They had faith in me as a colleague, and I had thought I knew better.

  Hope is the enemy of life.

  The phantoms are there. Look for them, they’re there!

  Hope is the antithesis of reality. If they had been there, Linus would have found them. He had spent his life in arbitrage, first as a trader, then as a manager with nearly a dozen traders under him. Nobody knew the system better.

  Nobody knows the system better…

  I looked one last time at the pulpy mess—no longer legible to anyone.

  Corporatism breeds paranoia.

  All at once I knew the truth. The pages were real. Kate was real. The crash was real and so was the Republic.

  Coming to Linus had been a bigger mistake than I could have possibly imagined. He had every reason to cover it up any fraud. No one was better at this kind of thing than Linus, the man who never told the same lie twice.

  And that would be the police at the door.

  I jumped onto the bed and scrambled to the window. I opened it and a wild wind blew through the room. I could hear a clamor at the stairs as I climbed onto the roof, steadying myself against the wet shingles. I became aware of my injuries, my ankle and my knee giving in to utter exhaustion. I had nothing left, no tension in the muscles. But I couldn’t quit. Not until I knew for sure.

  The branches of a giant oak tree were swaying violently alongside the house. One branch was close enough for me to reach. It wouldn’t support my full weight, but it steadied me enough that I could reach the edge of the roof, where I might be able to jump onto a major limb.

  I couldn’t make out any of the shouting behind me, but I didn’t dare look back. I took a deep breath and jumped. I only half landed on the branch, my arms barely over it. I slipped on the wet, naked skin of the oak, clawing to get up. When that didn’t work, I tried just to keep from falling. But my strength failed, and I tumbled down onto the soft earth below.

  I wanted to lie there. I wasn’t a death-sport athlete, I had no training for this kind of physical exertion, and my body rebelled against the latest blow. All of the air had left my lungs, and my muscles fought against any attempt to use them.

  I rolled over and then climbed onto my hands and knees. Parked behind Linus’ car was a police cruiser, the headlights still shining onto his front door.

  They had left the engine running.

  I stumbled to my feet and hobbled to the car. I heard the crackle of electricity as an ionized taser bolt fell from the attic window. Two more crashed around me, but I was able to reach the car. As I did, Linus and another officer came out the front door. The officer pulled out his tasegun. I opened the driver door and ducked down. Bolts flew over my head. I jumped inside as more blasts ricocheted harmlessly off the windshield.

  I threw the car into reverse and slammed the pedal to the floor. A horrendous squeal came from the tires as they spun in place, screaming over the wet pavement. The officer made a dash for the car. I tried again, slower this time, and the wheels found traction. The cruiser began pulling out into the street, but the cop caught up. He jumped onto the hood of the car and pulled out his baton. I hit the gas, driving backward down the street. He grabbed the rim of the hood and held on as I tried to shake him. Crashing through a fence and over several bushes, I finally found an open space.

  I turned the wheel as far as I could. The car spun a donut, and the officer was flung off. I threw the car into drive and crashed back into the street, where Linus and the other officer were running toward me. I turned the other way, accelerating off into the darkness—farther into the storm.

  Chapter 18

  My hands were shaking so violently that I struggled to keep the wheel straight. I punched on the siren so I could skirt whatever little traffic was on the streets.

  Heading toward the city wall, I could already see neighborhoods without power. I would have to flee the city fast and then find shelter somewhere.

  No doubt Linus had already been pushing the officers to call their precinct and report the vehicle stolen. But the cruiser was an expensive car, and they wouldn’t call it in before they cobbled together an excuse (something in which they resisted valiantly as I, the great gun-wielding, martial arts grandmaster Charles Thatcher, sneak-attacked them under cover of night, robbing them of their keys and car).

  I drove as fast as I could for the city gates. They saw the police lights well before I arrived, and opened up an emergency lane for me. I chuckled as I imagined the list of fines racking up against me: impersonating a cop, obstruction of traffic, theft of corporate property, assault, identity theft. And that was all since this morning. Was there an upper limit—a record for the most number of infractions incurred in one day? I wondered if I should total the car, just for sport.

  Once I passed into LowSec, it was nearly impossible to see. I used the cruiser’s radar and infrared, but there was no power anywhere. The streetlights, the homes, they were all dark. I traveled no more than a few miles before the remote kill switch kicked in. The car choked, sputtered out, and rolled to a stop.

  I sat there, my hands on the wheel, the roar of a hurricane now at full strength just outside the four doors of the disabled vehicle. I wanted to stay inside it, ride out the storm. But even in LowSec, in the middle of a hurricane, they’d find a stolen cruiser.

  As I opened the door, I was overwhelmed by an intense desire to commit one last protest, to do them one final outrage.

  The car was locked up—I couldn’t roll it into a ditch, and it was too heavy for me to flip over. I opened the trunk, but I couldn’t find any kerosene or the like with which to burn or blow it up. I found a shotgun, which might have done the trick, but it was locked up.

  I went back to the driver’s side and wrenched the sun visor from the roof. I threw it to the ground and repeatedly stomped on it. Then I ran triumphantly into the night.

  I should have stayed as far away from Kate’s apartment as I could. But I had, thus far, done a fabulous job of avoiding the smart thing to do, and had no intention of blemishing that record. Besides, I had no money, no contract, no friends, and what was no doubt a substantial price on my head. Without help I’d be lucky to last more than a day or two in LowSec, and starving to death in the gutter wasn’t any better than rotting in jail or facing the noose.

  Darting back and forth between the buildings, in and out of shuttered warehouses and broken-down apartments, I felt my strength coming back to me. Maybe I was excited about the possibly finding an answer, or just being outside of Capital City, but what was a four-hour hike through the back streets of LowCon felt like a few minutes.

  With luck I’d find an empty apartment, and Kate would already be in the bunker. I could then, at the very least, say that someone had survived this devilry.

  Her neighborhood was dark. The power was out, and only a few apartments were using candles or kerosene lamps. The warehouse was in rough shape. It was abandoned, one corner of the aluminum roof completely torn off. Someone had gone through a good deal of trouble to lock all of the doors, so I went in through one of the windows.

  Water was pouring in from every crevice—down all the pipes and cement pillars. The drums, bookshelves and bedsprings all remained, but the fires had long gone out and anything of value had been taken. I knelt down, and with each lightning strike I looked for evidence of a fight: blood, bullet holes or shell casings.

  A small stream of water was flowing down the back steps, as if someone had left all the faucets on. I ran up three flights to the roof. It was cracked and rusted out, with large gashes and missing aluminum plates. I worked my way slowly to the southwest corner, sometimes getting on my hands and knees to crawl over particularly slippery or damaged spots.

  From
the corner I was able to get a good look at Kate’s apartment building. The hallways were lit only by emergency lighting, and I was surprised even by that. One or two of the apartments were lit by kerosene, but other than that there was no sign of life. I looked at the other buildings, marking their location and then scanning quickly with each strike of lightning. But I spied no snipers, no police cruisers, no evidence at all that Ackerman was there.

  I waited an hour, both out of an abundance of caution and the growing realization that I’d have to find my way back down. What had seemed like a good idea under the threat of an Ackerman ambush now struck me as a terrible mistake. My adrenaline spent, I wondered how I had even managed to get across. A single slip or weakness in the roof, and I’d fall three stories onto a concrete floor. I wondered if I could fashion a rope out of my clothing and climb down, but the idea was ludicrous. I was terrified to go back the way I came, but, wet and shivering, I couldn’t survive huddled in the corner much longer.

  After a few minutes I remembered the fire escape on the southern wall. It was rusted out and didn’t reach the roof, so I had forgotten all about it. But maybe I could jump down to it.

  I discovered a twelve-foot drop onto the top platform. I held my breath and leapt. As I landed, it wrenched itself from the wall. It spun around and, by some miracle, dumped me onto the level below before landing on top of me in a heap.

  I felt along the wet bars of my prison, trying to get a sense of its geometry. A railing lay on top of me, and the platform had split, caging me in. But I came upon a gap in the entanglement, and slowly I worked my way through. I found the steps and climbed down to the final landing. I lowered the emergency ladder and took it down to the street.

  The roar of the storm had gotten so loud that I wouldn’t have been able to hear myself scream. I crossed the street to her building as stealthily as I could. The front door was locked. I worked my way into the back alley, over the mounds of trash, and to a hallway window. I smashed it and climbed in.

  The emergency lights had grown dim, and were beginning to flicker. A crying baby reassured me that there was at least some life in this building.

  When I reached her apartment I found the front door slightly ajar. I examined the frame and the lock, but I didn’t spot any sign that the door had been forced. I put my back to the wall, opened the door, and then looked around the corner.

  Lightning lit up the room. In that brief moment it looked completely empty, the couch, the pots and pans, the chairs—all gone.

  I took several deep breaths and slid into the apartment. The kitchen counter seemed bare. I ran my hands over it; the can of tallow, herbs and infuser were all gone. I opened a drawer and ran my hand inside, but it was empty.

  Then I noticed a large, dark object on the far end of the living room. Hard to make out, it loomed by the far wall near the bathroom. Whatever it was, it didn’t belong.

  I took a step toward it. My heart quickened. I was sure now; there was something in the room with me.

  I saw the glow of a cigar and could almost hear the deep inhalation. In the brief blue light of another flash of lightning, I saw a large, overstuffed red leather chair, and a man in a dark suit sitting in it.

  “Hello, Mr. Thatcher,” he said. I hadn’t heard a human voice in six hours; it cut through the air louder than any thunder.

  I couldn’t breathe, or run, or move. For a moment, like a child, I had the silly notion that he hadn’t actually seen me, that he just guessed that I was there and if I didn’t move he’d dismiss me. But in the next flash I could tell—he was looking straight at me.

  “Who are you?” I whispered.

  “You know who I am,” he said.

  It had been a mistake to come. My mind rushed through escape routes, trying to think of a way to undo this catastrophic mistake. But all I could do was hope that I would wake up from this nightmare. Instead, I found relief in the form of a sudden blow to the back of my head.

  Chapter 19

  I woke up to find myself in the most comfortable bed I had ever slept in. I thought that I must have died, and through some miracle of nature (or an accounting debacle at the pearly gates) found myself in heaven. Then I realized I was in prison.

  The bedroom itself was only a touch smaller than my entire apartment. Everything was white—the walls, the bed, and the carpeting. The room looked brand-new, as if I was the first person to occupy it. The mattress was soft; the duvet seemed to be genuine goose down—more expensive per ounce than gold. I ran my hand down the length of the sheets until I found the label—cotton, twelve-hundred thread count. My pajamas were silk, and fit like they were custom tailored for me.

  It was the closest you could actually get to returning to the womb. Even Linus didn’t sleep this well.

  Yep, this was prison.

  HighCons got all the bad prison cells—rats, concrete beds and iron bars—in a room made of cinder blocks with four other people and a single toilet. It was a preview of what life would be like if you didn’t cooperate. LowCons were treated the exact opposite, given a private suite to rival the most luxurious hotels, so that you could understand the true benevolence of your Corporation, and to stoke your desire for the finer things. Prison gave the higher grades something to fear, and the lower grades something to envy. This wasn’t a cell, it was psychological warfare.

  One entire wall was glass. I opened the curtains and looked out onto a triangular atrium some twenty-three floors below me. I knew immediately where I was—the Retention Division Prison Complex, the Citadel, a three-sided building in Ackerman’s northernmost territory.

  Hundreds of cells filled the two walls opposite mine, going up at least another twenty floors to a huge skylight above. The sun was out, and it looked as if the sky here never darkened. Far below me was a park, though whether it was for inmates or staff I couldn’t tell. The distance across the atrium was too far for me to make out faces in the cells across from me, but I noticed other people looking out into the courtyard, all wearing the same white pajamas.

  I ignored my slippers, walking barefoot into the living room. It had a sunken, hardwood floor, with a large sofa, a beautiful comfort chair, and a forty-two-inch television. There was a bar, a kitchen, and a coffee table with fresh fruit on it.

  I wonder if this is the room they put Malcolm Evans in.

  On the far side of the room was a sliding door. I walked over to it, and much to my surprise it whooshed open. Two men in butler’s uniforms stood in a hallway on the other side, one with a fine white cloth draped over his arm.

  “Oh,” I stammered, disappointed that they had so easily caught me testing the bounds of my cell.

  “Mr. Thatcher,” said the shorter one, “you’re up. How did you sleep?”

  “Fine.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it. Your injuries have been tended. How do you feel?”

  “Good,” I said. “I feel good.”

  “I can get the doctor for you. Would you like a follow-up examination?”

  “No, really, I’m fine.”

  “That’s wonderful news. You were out quite a long time, you must be hungry. Can I get you something?”

  “Oh. No, thank you.”

  “Honestly sir,” said the man, a broad smile across his face, “it would be my pleasure to get you something you’d enjoy. What would you like? Please?”

  I shook my head.

  “You know, Mr. Thatcher, some guests do have trouble adjusting—it’s completely normal. But I assure you, everything here is for your benefit. It’s all free.”

  “Are you joking?” I croaked.

  “No, of course not sir. With our compliments. Don’t worry about money at all during your stay with us, you won’t be charged a thing. Now about that meal?”

  “Oh, I have some fruit and I’ll bet the fridge is stocked,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Don’t be silly, Mr. Thatcher. I believe the kitchen may have closed, but tell me what you’d like, and I’ll see if I can get them
to whip it up for you.”

  It was a trap, it had to be. The psychological warfare had begun. I was curious to see what they would do if I actually ordered something.

  “What is on the menu?”

  “It would be far easier for you to ask for something. If we can’t make it, I’ll let you know, but I think you’ll be surprised. We have an extensive kitchen. Please, I challenge you to come up with something we can’t do,” he said.

  “I… well, are you sure?”

  “The challenge stands, sir. What’s your pleasure?”

  I did need to eat. I tried to think of an esoteric meal, something with real meat, something my captors couldn’t possibly have.

  “There is one thing, an old fashioned kind of sandwich, I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard of it. A Reuben? Can you make one of those?”

  “Of course, sir, excellent choice! Rye bread, I assume? I don’t take you for one of those who would sully such a sandwich on white?”

  “No. No. Rye, I guess. Of course.”

  “Very good, Mr. Thatcher.”

  “Please, call me Charles,” I said, now uncomfortable.

  “Of course, sir,” he replied.

  “You don’t need to say ‘sir.’ You can just say Charles.”

  “Of course, Mr. Thatcher.”

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “You are not going to call me Charles, are you?”

  “I’m afraid not, sir. We are prohibited.”

  “Couldn’t you have just said so?”

  “Oh, my goodness no, sir. It would be terribly rude to contradict you.” The man bowed again and went on his task, leaving the other man behind.

  I continued exploring my cell. I found a small private gym with a slender pool, a jet contrived such that you could swim endlessly against the current. A treadmill, a host of free weights, and an exercise bike were all waiting to be used. I even uncovered a small library, about the size of a walk-in closet.