H2O

by Belateche, Irving

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  We talked in the dark and Lily told me the truth about something else. She said she didn’t really think that the reason she was allowed to roam almost hassle-free throughout the Territory was her mom’s influence as a Councilwoman. She was sure it was because someone with real power approved. Someone who knew she was trying to create a vaccine. Victor Crow.

  I believed that. I knew the Fibs always enforced the law unless it somehow benefited them. And what could benefit them more than a vaccine that would make them immune to the Virus. Crow and the Fibs would have even more control over the Territory than they did now.

  After another couple of hours, we settled in for the night. We emptied Lily’s backpack and used it as a pillow.

  But I didn’t feel tired. I was fueled by the adrenaline of anticipation. I stared into the dark and tried not to dwell on the creepy feeling I had, that I was stuck in a vast crypt, buried in blackness, sealed underground, far from home, forever trapped in the middle of a vast dead land. I felt like I had no past, present, or future. I tried to push these morbid thoughts away, but I couldn’t.

  After about another thirty minutes or so, I heard a hum. “Sounds like the place is opening up again,” I said, and stood up, glad for the change of pace.

  I looked to the ceiling, and the hum got louder but the openings in the ceiling stayed closed. I realized that the floor had started to vibrate.

  “Let’s move,” Lily said.

  She was thinking what I was thinking. A panel right under us was about to open up and we’d tumble down into the huge storage tank below.

  The hum grew louder before we’d even gone ten yards. It sounded like a large piece of machinery was gearing up to do some heavy lifting. Then, past the array of arms, a section of the ceiling started to slide open and I could see that this wasn’t going to be a small opening like the others had been. This was a large section of the ceiling. I watched it open until it was roughly thirty by fifty yards. Through it, the night sky was visible, inky black and sparkling with millions of stars.

  “I don’t see any trucks up there,” Lily said.

  The humming had stopped and we were once again engulfed in silence. We moved forward until we were under the opening. We stared up at the dizzying number of stars above us, captivated by the canopy of yellow diamonds.

  Then I saw a shooting star, its tail brighter than any I’d ever seen before. And it didn’t fade. It grew brighter, turning into an orange fire, then a burning royal blue flame.

  And then it was right there above us.

  A golden spacecraft.

  Massive.

  Lily and I instinctually ducked away from the opening.

  I was stunned and my mind was grasping for explanations. The golden ship hovered over the opening. It was much larger than the opening itself so I couldn’t tell how big it was.

  Lily didn’t say anything. I glanced at her face and saw the same feelings that were coursing through me.

  Awe and terror.

  The spaceship was silent. The engines that had propelled the golden craft down from the sky were as quiet as the Black Rock desert.

  Seven cylinders descended from the ship’s sleek belly. They grew directly from the ship, like metal limbs. Each cylinder was twenty feet in diameter and the color of fiery bronze.

  Lily and I watched, transfixed.

  The cylinders descended through the opening and into the cavern. I expected the floor to open up, but the cylinders touched down on the floor, and then I heard a tremendous rush. The sound of millions of gallons of water getting sucked up through the cylinders and into the ship. The floor must’ve opened up, but the whole process was seamless.

  Lily and I looked at each other, speechless. We listened to the water. It was over in four minutes.

  The cylinders retracted into the ship and, in a fraction of a second, the ship bolted up into the dark night sky. I watched the orange glow turn blue, then disappear into the canopy of stars.

  The humming started up again, and the panel in the ceiling slid shut. We were in the dark again. But not about where the water was going.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  We didn’t even try to come up with an alternative explanation about what we’d just witnessed. I told Lily that Crater must’ve known, too. He’d said, “That’s not a star.” He knew that some shooting stars were spaceships. Space tankers. He knew that aliens were stealing our water. Earth’s water. And if Crater was a marauder, that meant that other marauders also knew.

  We then considered the possibility that others in the Territory might know, too.

  No one had ever spoken about it in Clearview. Not even a rumor. And if Benny had heard even just a scrap of such a rumor on the Line, he would’ve said something. Lily said she’d never heard anyone in Klamath say anything and she’d never encountered anyone on her travels who’d said anything.

  But I did make one connection. From long ago. Something my father had said about water. “That’s what you see when you look down from the stars,” he’d said. Did he know that others were looking down from the stars?

  We had to tell others. But we couldn’t tell just anyone. We had to tell someone in authority. Someone who could do something about getting word out. I’d never be able to convince the Clearview Town Council. Because of my water theory, they already thought I was crazy and this revelation about what was happening to that extra water would definitely convince them that I’d gone off the deep end.

  Lily had a better chance with the Klamath Town Council. Especially with her mother, the longest serving member of the Council. Lily had a strained relationship with her mom, but her mom knew that Lily was grounded in reality. She wouldn’t make up something like this.

  And if we couldn’t convince anyone, we’d come back here and shoot video or take photos, though that’d be tough. We’d have to find a working camera and they were the rarest of Remnants. There weren’t any in Clearview, and Lily knew of only one in Klamath, owned by the lone police officer. He kept it hidden and she wasn’t sure it even worked. Of course, now we understood why cameras were rare. It wasn’t just a coincidence. It was tied in with the water. Everything was tied in with the water. All the missing pieces of the puzzle.

  We laid out our immediate plan. Tomorrow evening, as the number of trucks dwindled, we’d climb up an arm and hide under a departing truck, then ride it back to Yachats. From there, we’d make our way south to Klamath.

  I didn’t say it to Lily, but I’d go anywhere with her. Now that I knew that everything about the Territory was a lie, I’d start my life again. And if I could, I’d start it with her.

  We tried to get some sleep, but ended up cycling through the dozens of questions running through our heads. The first set was about the water mining operation itself. Why were the aliens keeping it a secret? Wasn’t their technology so superior to ours that they could just take the water? Why set up the Territory as a front? That night, we spun some complicated answers to these questions and only later would we learn that the answers were simple and logical and based on straightforward economics.

  We also had questions about the Fibs and the truckers and what they knew about the whole operation. A secret like this would’ve had to seep out into the world, even if it were disguised as a rumor. Somehow the aliens had kept their operation secret from everyone. But how?

  We came up with a few answers and then went on to other questions and other theories until the openings above us slid open and the arms rose into the blinding sunlight. Truckers maneuvered the arms, coupled them to their tanks, and began unloading the water.

  We waited all day. Wave after wave of trucks arrived, unloaded water, and left. Then the daylight dimmed and the last wave of trucks began to leave. Lily and I went from opening to opening until we found the right truck. A truck with rigging and enough supplies to camouflage us. We waited until the trucker stepped away from the truck, then climbed up the arm, and settled into the rigging under the third tank.
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  The truck drove across the dry lakebed, kicking up plumes of dust, but this time we were prepared. We had fashioned filters from the supplies in Lily’s backpack. The truck made it to the road and headed west, back toward the Territory. We had no idea whether it would stop at the diner but, if it did, we’d already decided that we’d keep our promise and take Sarah back with us.

  But the truck rolled past the diner and into the night. I felt bad about leaving Sarah behind, but I was glad that she had her father there. I wondered if she’d ever venture out on her own and leave him behind. And then I wondered what she’d do when (if) word of our discovery spread. Would she still want to leave?

  On the trip east, Lily had been serene, her eyes closed, and her fierceness in check. But on the trip west, she was alert, eyes open, on the lookout for any sign of trouble. That was because we’d come up with an answer to one our questions from last night. How did the aliens keep their secret? They murdered anyone who found out.

  It was night when the trucker pulled into the storage facility in Yachats. He parked the truck near the small building, then climbed out and headed inside. A few seconds later, we scrambled out from the rigging, ready to disappear into the woods behind us, but we never had a chance.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Fibs came at us from both the front and back of the truck. There was no way of escape. Their weapons were drawn and they quickly surrounded us, then herded us over to a brown SUV. They shoved us into the back seat, then two of them climbed into the front. The four other Fibs loaded into a second SUV.

  The SUVs headed out of the storage facility and up into the hills, away from Yachats. Lily and I didn’t say a word and neither did the Fibs. I looked over at Lily and she was staring out the window, not betraying her thoughts. I wondered if we were being held because of Black Rock or desertion or the destruction we’d left in our wake two days ago.

  The SUVs pulled into a familiar parking lot. The lodge. The Fibs led us inside and funneled us through a neglected lobby, then down a gloomy hallway. We entered a den in the back. It was dominated by an oversized stone fireplace and furnished with threadbare couches and lumpy easy chairs. One of the Fibs told us to sit down, then he and three of the others exited. Two Fibs were left guarding the door, their weapons at the ready.

  I weighed whether to talk to Lily in front of the guards. I wanted us to be on the same page before we were interrogated. But I didn’t have to make a decision because Victor Crow entered the room. He looked exactly like he had in Rick’s basement, as if he hadn’t aged a day. And his plain brown uniform still somehow looked more regal than any other Fib uniform. He strode over to us, tall and proud, and once again I noticed the only symbol of his power and rank. That silver belt buckle, a luminous mark of authority.

  “Did I interrupt an important journey?” he said, standing over us, radiating that same menace from our first encounter.

  We didn’t answer him.

  “You want me to talk first?” he said, a hint of a grin appearing on his face, “Okay. Seems fair.”

  Crow eyed me. “Two days ago, you completed repairs at a pumping station in the Swan Peninsula. Then, without a proper visa, you continued south. To Yachats, where you ran wild through the water storage facility, damaging a tank, and then disappeared into the wilderness. Why?”

  I didn’t have a lie ready to go and maybe that was why I went with the truth. Or maybe I went with the truth because somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought that by telling Victor Crow the truth, he might let down his guard for a fraction of a second and I’d be able to tell if he knew the secret of Black Rock.

  “We were following the water,” I said and met his eyes, searching them to see if my answer had triggered any concern. But his dark eyes were inscrutable. Telling him the truth had yielded nothing.

  “And where did it lead you?” he said.

  “We hit a dead end.”

  “You sure did,” he said, then stood up and headed to the door, leaving me confused. Wasn’t he going to interrogate us further? He passed the Fibs standing guard and said, “Take them out and shoot them.”

  “What?!” I said. “We’re deserters, not marauders!”

  But Crow was already out of the room.

  The two Fibs stepped forward and motioned for us to get up. I was stunned at the turn of events. I knew that the Fibs were reckless and aggressive, but I never expected this. Crow had to know what was going on at Black Rock. That had to be the reason he wanted us dead.

  Using their weapons, the two Fibs marched us outside onto the back patio. Six Fibs were already there, waiting for us, firing-squad style. One of them ordered us to stand at the edge of the patio and we did as we were told. Again, there was no way of escape, but this time it was do or die so I checked out everything around us, looking for a miracle.

  Strung across the lawn, I saw the laundry lines, heavy with clothes, and that reminded me that families lived in the lodge. I had a flicker of hope that a mother or a grandmother or a sympathetic soul would see what was happening out here and run out to stop it. But I knew the reality. The odds were that these families, like most families in the Territory, were avoiding the Fibs.

  The Fib in charge told us to turn and face the lodge.

  We did.

  Then he shouted, “Weapons ready,” and the other five lifted their weapons.

  “Aim,” he said.

  The Fibs trained their guns at our heads, and I realized Lily and I had been dead from the second we saw that golden space tanker. I looked over at her. I wanted her to be the last person I’d see before dying. The fierce, lemon-haired beauty whom I’d fallen in love with. Our eyes met and a huge explosion suddenly rocked the lodge. Flames and debris erupted from the second floor windows.

  The Fibs hit the ground like a trained unit, then flipped around, and pointed their weapons at the lodge.

  I grabbed Lily’s hand and pulled her off the patio and we ran across the lawn, ducking under the laundry lines. As we bolted into the forest, I heard the lead Fib barking out chaotic orders, but we kept running, stumbling forward in the dark and picking ourselves up when we fell. I wanted to get as much distance as possible between us and the Fibs and just as I was thinking that I’d have to spend the rest of my life doing that, we ran right into two figures. We scrambled away and I braced for gunshots.

  Instead I heard a voice. “Let’s go.” A calm voice. Crater’s voice.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  We followed Crater and the other man, whom we soon came to know as Tarkin Miloff, deeper into the woods. They knew where they were going, so Lily and I were no longer stumbling. We were moving fast and fifteen minutes later, we arrived at a dirt road and a car. Lily and I climbed into the back, Crater slid into the passenger seat, and Miloff keyed the ignition. We started down the dirt road and seemed to be heading even deeper into the woods.

  “You know about Black Rock,” Crater said.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me about it?” I said. I couldn’t hide my anger. “You sent me right into the hands of the Fibs.”

  “If you didn’t see Black Rock for yourself, you would’ve never believed it,” he said, not reacting to my anger at all. “And as for the Fibs, they weren’t part of the plan. They shouldn’t have been in Yachats. Not yet, anyway.”

  “So that was an accident?”

  “A bad one. Much worse than you know. And we’ll get to that part. But right now, we want your help.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  As Miloff drove further into the hills, Crater filled me in. He and Miloff were marauders, but marauders weren’t marauders. The Fibs had thrown that label on them. Marauders didn’t plunder and loot. They were outsiders who knew the truth, and Crater told us more about that truth.

  The aliens unleashed the Virus because there were just too many of us to control. They needed just enough of us to run the infrastructure for their mining colony, but not too many. Too many would mean the secret would get out and their pe
rfect front would crumble and they’d have to use more of their own resources to mine our water.

  The marauders had concluded that the aliens had perfected this system of mining water over millions of years and across thousands of planets. They knew how to exploit a planet’s indigenous population without that population ever suspecting. On Earth, they used three simple techniques to keep their slave labor force from discovering the truth: Fear over the deadly Virus, absolute control of information through the Line, and the destruction of scientific knowledge.

  And Crater told us that Crow and the Fibs weren’t in on the secret. They, like everyone else in the Territory, were being manipulated. But for years the marauders couldn’t figure how this worked. Why were the Fibs jailing and killing anyone who threatened the mining of water, if they, themselves, didn’t know the secret?

  The marauders got their answer when they came up with a way to tap into the Line. Once they were able to monitor the communications between the towns, and the messages going to and from the Fibs, they noticed something peculiar. Sometimes information appeared on the Line out of thin air, and that information was always false. Different kinds of lies built around one big lie: The Fibs had been led to believe that Black Rock was a reservoir that supplied water to the rest of the world. They believed this water traveled through aqueducts from Black Rock to ports on the coast of what was once Texas. From there, ships carried the water to surviving towns all over the world, and the Fibs and truckers were paid a premium to keep that water flowing and to keep the entire operation secret. They had no idea they were part of an alien mining colony.