I should’ve kept my discovery to myself because, when I brought it up to others, I was branded a troublemaker. Clearview considered itself lucky to be a supplier of water. Water was a precious commodity. Why ask questions about it?
And late at night, when I was lying in bed, I’d stare up at the ceiling and wonder if everyone else was right and I was wrong. Was I psychologically damaged? Was I obsessed with water because of my father? He’d said that water was important and now I’d found out that there was something weird going on with it. A secret? Or was I just trying to keep him alive? I wanted him alive. I missed him.
Chapter Five
I hadn’t passed any trucks. The road had been empty the entire way. The only sign of life had been the white seagulls skimming the gray blue ocean.
I entered the Swan Peninsula and focused more closely on my surroundings. The pumping station would be somewhere just up ahead. My simple map didn’t show the exact location, but it’d be easy to find. Here, the aqueduct channel ran inland parallel to the road and about a quarter mile to the east of it. And I knew that pumping stations were installed where water had to run uphill. Otherwise, gravity did the job of pulling water through the aqueducts.
So I started to look for a rise in the terrain. The pumping station would be where that rise began.
Corolaqua’s water distribution system wasn’t complicated. The plant delivered its water through open channel aqueducts, covered aqueducts, and pipes directly to reservoirs up and down the coast. Towns used the water from those reservoirs for themselves or they shipped it in tank trucks to towns not served by the reservoirs.
Once in a while, the flow of water would stop. A pipe would break or a tree branch would crash into an open channel or, as now, a pumping station would fail. Whatever the problem was, Corolaqua would have to send a worker out to fix it.
Ten minutes into the Swan Peninsula, I saw the treetops rising, which meant that just to my east, I’d find the pumping station. So I swung across the road and pulled over onto the shoulder. The shoulder was covered in vegetation which had grown out from the woods. I looked into the dense forest and every shade of green stared back at me.
I didn’t unload any tools. I’d check the pumping station first, find out what the problem was, then return with the right tools. For now, a gas lantern to light up the inside of the pumping station would be enough. I also didn’t take any protective gear. Over the decades, such gear had proved useless against the Virus. Even the few Remnant biohazard suits that had been salvaged over the years didn’t do any good. That fact alone should’ve clued people in that something didn’t make scientific sense about the Virus, but, again, no one knew enough to get that.
I hiked through the thick woods, leaving the warmth and light of the road behind. The Western Hemlocks’ thick canopy blocked out so much sunlight that it left the underbrush starved and thin. I was surrounded by a cold, damp darkness and that meant marauders, so I tuned in to the sounds around me. I heard birds chirping, small animals skittering, and branches rustling. Sounds I’d heard before. They weren’t ominous sounds, but without human sounds to engulf them, they were harshly exaggerated. (The Virus had killed humans but spared animals and no one knew why. But at least, this made scientific sense. There had been other viruses with that characteristic.)
After fifteen minutes or so, I heard the soft rush of water and saw sunlight up ahead. Twenty-five yards later, I stepped into an open swath of land that cut a path right through the woods. A concrete channel, carrying water, ran down the center of the path, and there was enough sunlight here to spur the undergrowth to life. The vegetation was so vibrant that it used the metal mesh that covered the channel as a trellis and crept all the way across the aqueduct.
I looked to my south and, two hundred yards down, I saw the pumping station. It was a concrete and wood enclosure about the size of a small room. The channel fed into it and I could see that the water was backed up.
As I approached the pumping station, I heard the spasmodic rhythm of the pumps inside. That ragged tempo meant that there was probably something wrong with the pumps, rather than the machinery that drove them. The machinery was trying to do its job, but something was stopping one or more of the pumps from following through.
I opened the door to the pumping station, stepped inside, lit the gas lantern, and immediately saw that someone had smashed one of the four pumps. The plastic cylinder which housed the pump had been cracked wide open and, inside, the pump was bent, but still moving, sporadically. Luckily, each pump was controlled by its own machinery, so the other three were fine.
My immediate thought was marauders. But my next thought was why? Why would they sabotage the distribution of water? Stealing water made sense, but why sabotage the flow? To punish a town downstream? But if they wanted to do that, they would’ve smashed all the pumps. Maybe it wasn’t marauders.
I spend the next couple hours checking the machinery for each pump. It all worked. Then I headed back toward the van, keeping an eye out for marauders the entire way.
I picked up the supplies I’d need for the repairs and returned. Then I made another trip for tools. I still hadn’t seen any marauders, but on that third trip back, I felt like I was being watched. I caught glimpses of squirrels, raccoons, and a large deer so I told myself that they were the ones watching me.
I worked late into the evening and then called it a day. It was going to take me another twelve hours to finish, so I’d get up early tomorrow and start again then.
I set up a small tent nearby, built a small fire and ate a light meal. Even though I’d worked hard, I wasn’t that hungry because I was anxious. I still felt like I was being watched. After eating, I pulled out the book I’d brought, Ender’s Game, and read by the fire.
I first read Ender’s Game when I was six. My dad had said that I’d love it, but I didn’t. He liked science fiction and rated Ender’s Game one of his top five sci-fi books. At the time, I thought, what’s the big deal? A kid saves the world. I’d already read books with that plot and I didn’t find the specifics anything special. Ender’s world was boring. It was a hyped-up version of school.
A few years later, after my dad was gone, I read it again and this time I loved it. I understood it. The book wasn’t about Ender’s world. It was about Ender. His classmates hated him, picked on him, and beat the crap out of him, all because he was different. Like I was. I wasn’t brilliant like Ender, not even close, and I never rose to the top either, but my classmates did hate me and kick the crap out of me. And like Ender, I fought back even when I was outnumbered. Back then, I’d wondered if my dad wanted me to read this book because he knew that some day I’d identify with Ender, a boy who had few friends.
I still wonder about that.
I read until the fire died, the entire time planning to open that bottle of Curado. I wasn’t a drinker, but a drink would’ve been a good defense against the dark. I never opened the bottle.
Before heading into my tent, I looked up at the sky and saw a thin crescent moon between the branches of the hemlocks. It offered almost no light. I maneuvered so I could get a better look at the sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of a shooting star. My dad had paid close attention to shooting stars. He’d said that, before the Virus, people couldn’t see many stars. The ambient light created by thousands of cities had made star gazing almost impossible. But now the stars shone bright, millions of gold specks lighting up the night sky, a consolation prize courtesy of the Virus. And the shooting stars were the brightest of all.
I knew they weren’t really stars, but meteors entering the earth’s atmosphere and burning up. But on that cold dark night, I had no idea that they were also part of a bigger connection between my life and Ender’s life.
I couldn’t get a clear angle on the sky, so I crawled into my tent, slid into my sleeping bag, and tried to fall asleep.
Chapter Six
The night sounds were louder than I’d expected. Louder than the water rushing through the ch
annel and louder than the rhythmic beating of the three working pumps. The night was dominated by the hoots of owls, the symphony of chirping crickets, and the scurrying of mice and raccoons and every so often, the deer added their human-like snorts to the blanket of sounds.
I don’t know how long it took me to fall asleep, but I do know that I awoke abruptly. Someone was out there. I don’t know how I knew, it could’ve been the subtle change in the sea of night sounds, but I knew. And I was guessing it was a marauder.
I reached over and grabbed the bowie knife I’d brought with me and I suddenly wished I’d made the effort to acquire a gun. Guns were illegal Remnants, and expensive, and only Fibs were allowed to own them.
I slid out of my sleeping bag, crouched low in my tent, and tried to pick out more hints of the marauder. The cadence of scurrying mice and raccoons had changed and so had the pitch of the owls’ hoots.
Then I heard silence take over the space behind my tent and I pictured the marauder standing there, ready to attack.
I crouched, motionless, and realized that my heart was pumping wildly.
I had a couple of choices. I could race out of my tent, across the top of the channel, hopefully light-stepping it enough so I wouldn’t fall through the metal mesh, and disappear into the woods on the other side. Or I could charge the marauder with my bowie knife. But if he were armed, he’d shoot me. Of course, he could do that even if I high-tailed it across the channel. So I stayed stock-still and tried to come up with another plan.
The silence behind my tent started to fill back up with night sounds. The marauder must’ve been circling around to the front, but I couldn’t hear his footsteps.
I made a decision right then.
I scooped up the keys to my van, stuffed it in my pocket, unzipped the tent flap as fast as I could and sprang out of the tent. I raced back around, into the woods, gaining speed with every step, running as fast as I could toward the road. I didn’t look back for the marauder.
I ran, stumbled and regained my balance, and repeated that over and over again, lurching forward in the dark, adrenaline and fear propelling me. I avoided tree trunks as best I could and ignored the scrapes and cuts accumulating on my bare feet and arms. I lost my bowie knife somewhere along the way.
I finally saw the road up ahead and scanned the shoulder for my van. Only then did I consider that another marauder might be stationed out here. I buried that thought and exploded out of the woods, pulling the keys from my pocket. I spotted my van, and it was clear of marauders.
I ran to it, unlocked the door, jumped in, jammed the keys into the ignition and as the engine roared to life, one word crossed my mind.
Coward.
I was a coward, running from the marauders. The marauders who murdered my father and destroyed my life.
I turned on the headlights, put the van in gear, and was just about to hit the gas, when I saw him. He was standing in front of the van and, if I pressed the gas, I’d barrel right into him, killing him.
I hesitated.
The man wasn’t holding a weapon and his arms were down by his sides. His eyes were fixed on me but I knew that he couldn’t really see me in the glare of the headlights. So I took a second to look him over.
He was a big man, tall and unyielding. And he looked old, but rugged, like old age had made him stronger, not weaker. The skin on his face was weathered like dark armor, proud and invincible.
But why was he standing in front of my van, in the dead of night, with no weapon?
I didn’t put my foot on the gas.
He approached the van.
I didn’t move. Was it possible that he wasn’t a marauder?
I watched him walk up to my door. He stopped a couple of yards away and didn’t make another move. I waited a few seconds, then stepped outside.
He glanced at my hands and saw that I wasn’t holding a weapon.
“You’re right about the water,” he said. His voice was calm and as still as the night.
My mind reeled. How did he know about my discovery? Did he know who I was?
“I can’t answer all your questions,” he said. “Right now, it’s too dangerous to talk. My name is Jim Crater—”
Suddenly, to my right, I saw a shooting star streak across the vast black sky. He looked over and saw it, too, its gold tail shimmering.
“That’s not a star,” he said and then looked back at me. “Don’t stop here. Keep moving south.”
And then he walked away, down the road.
I watched him until he disappeared into the dark and then realized, I hadn’t said a word.
Chapter Seven
Back in my tent, I analyzed what Jim Crater had said.
He could’ve learned from anyone in Clearview that I was the nut with the crazy theory about the water. Or from a trucker passing through. But he’d said you’re right about the water and that was jarring. He was saying that excess water was being shipped throughout the Territory. Or, at the very least, it meant that he believed that. So why did he believe that?
And why did he say that the shooting star hadn’t been a star? Did he know it was a meteor entering the earth’s atmosphere? Did he know science? And I couldn’t figure out why he’d tracked me down to say so little. Why didn’t he just tell me exactly why he’d cornered me?
And finally, why did he want me to keep moving south?
I thought all these questions through and I probably wouldn’t have been able to stop thinking them through, which would’ve kept me up all night, if the long day’s work hadn’t finally caught up to me. I fell asleep right away with only one issue resolved. I wasn’t going to take Jim Crater’s advice. I wasn’t going to keep moving south. I’d finish my job and head north, back to Clearview.
A few hours later, dawn rose and lit up the forest, and I geared up for the day. I planned to work as hard as I could so I’d be able to head back home tonight. But as soon as I stepped out of my tent, my eyes fell on something that threatened to change that plan.
I saw a sketch in the dirt. It was crude, but I could tell what it was. A reptilian body with four squat legs, a long thick tail, a broad snout, and protruding eyes.
It was a salamander.
And above it, I saw twigs laid out in the form of an arrow. The arrow pointed from the salamander to the charred wood from last night’s fire.
The element was Fire.
The animal was a salamander.
The direction was south.
Fire stole salamanders from Water and headed south. That connection was engrained in me from childhood. Engrained right alongside the memory of my father. It was part of my father.
Maybe the animal wasn’t a salamander. Maybe it was an iguana or a gecko or a chameleon. But it wasn’t. It was a salamander.
Fire stole salamanders from Water and headed south.
Crater had drawn the salamander to reiterate his message from last night. Keep moving south.
But how did he know about the ancient elements? That each had their own animals? That each had their own direction? Had he learned that as a child, like I had? But how did he know that I knew about them? How did he know that for me, drawing a salamander would turn Fire into south? And that question led to the most disturbing question of all.
Did Crater know my father?
I didn’t stop to think more about that question, but went right to work. As I was repairing the pump, all the questions from the prior night ran through my mind. But I couldn’t come up with any answers. I didn’t have enough information.
By late morning, I’d decided that the only question I had to answer was whether to head south or back to Clearview. Even though I’d already dismissed heading south, it now seemed like the only way to get some answers.
The repairs went smoothly and the hours passed quickly. At three, I took a break to eat. I sat by the pumping station, staring south, where the wilderness rose to a peak, and that’s when an answer to one of those earlier questions took shape. I understood why someone had
sabotaged the pumping station. They wanted to draw a Corolaqua worker out here. The next man on the list. The man with the theory about the water.
I was sure that Crater had waited on that peak in the distance, waited until he saw me arrive, then, in the dead of night, he had hiked down to deliver his message. Keep moving south. And he’d added such a compelling illustration to his message, that he knew I’d take it seriously.
Just before evening, I finished. Then I cleaned up the pumping station, checked again to see that everything worked perfectly, and under the setting sun, I hauled everything back to the van.
Then I just sat in the van, on the shoulder of the road, ready to go, but not sure where to. South or north? The engine was idling.
The easiest thing to do was to pull out and go forward. I was facing north, toward Clearview, so I’d be heading home. I looked to the west and saw the setting sun was now turning red. A dark, deep red. Night would soon fall and that triggered a new option. I considered camping for another night. Maybe Crater would come back and answer some of my questions. Maybe those answers would help me make a decision.
But I realized that he’d already come back, last night, when I was sleeping. He’d come back and drawn the salamander in the dirt. The salamander that Fire stole from Water. The salamander that made my dad laugh.
I made a U-turn and headed south.
Chapter Eight
Night fell and the only lights around were the beams from my headlights raking the pockmarked road in front of me. Again, I expected to see trucks, but I didn’t. Over the ocean, I saw millions of stars, a panorama of gold specks which ended at the dark horizon.
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