The Water Knife

by Paolo Bacigalupi

  She looked over at Angel. “That’s how California plays the game. Catherine Case can have as many secret agents as she wants, but when it comes down to it, California sets the rules. California doesn’t fuck around.”

  “You caved.”

  She gave him a thoughtful look. “You know, at first, when someone tells you how it’s going to be, you’re angry, right? You want to push back. You want to show them you’re not afraid. So you push. You write another article about Ibis Exploratory. Maybe write about how California is muscling to pump more out of Lake Havasu. You connect a line between an Arizona politician and a narco who’s on the Ibis board and who just gave fifty grand to Congressman Dwayne Reyner, who just happens to be lobbying to undo the last Colorado River Compact abridgement and who has a new summer house up in Vancouver. Esoteric stuff. Articles that are drier than desert, when you’re digging through travel schedules and cash transfers.

  “Nobody reads stories about paperwork the way they look at pictures in the blood rags, right? I mean, nobody’s even reading your stories, even if you write them. I was up for a Pulitzer one year for some of that reporting. Probably my least-read article ever. But next thing I know, all my tires are knifed, and I can’t make it to an interview. And that’s when you know that at least one person is reading your stuff. And that one person is the only one who matters.”

  She shrugged. “So you learn. You don’t write about the bodies, because the narcos don’t like that. Well, you don’t tell the stories behind the bodies anyway. And you don’t write about the money, because the politicians hate that. And you definitely don’t write about Calies, because they’ll make sure you stop writing for good.”

  “Lot of don’ts.”

  “I’m tired of them.”

  “So now you’re running it all up the flag.” He nodded to her pistol. “Waiting for people to come gunning for you.”

  She laughed bitterly. “Maybe I’ve got a death wish.”

  “Nobody’s got a death wish,” he said. “They might say they do. But anyone who’s been close to it don’t want it.”

  Her phone rang. She picked up.

  “Lucy Monroe.” She listened. Her eyes went to Angel, then down. “Yeah? Fiver?” She became intent. “Say it again? Okay. I got it. No. Not right now.” Again a glance at Angel. “Yeah. Okay. Good.” She clicked off.

  “You should go,” she said to Angel.

  “You’re not going to tell me what your friend Jamie was into?” Angel asked.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think I need you now, actually.” She tapped her pistol against her thigh. Didn’t quite point it at him. “You need to go.”

  “I thought we were just starting to get along.”

  She gave him a look. “You’re all the same. Nevada, California, whoever—you’re all down here ripping around, looking for another way to keep water in the river for yourself.” She jerked her head toward the window, the dusty skyline of Phoenix beyond. “You say you wouldn’t ever do what they did to Jamie, but you’ve already done worse to all the people out there.”

  “Wasn’t us who built this place so bad. Phoenix did itself.”

  “Then I guess your friend Vosovich did himself, too.”

  She pointed the pistol at him.

  “Whoa.” Angel lifted his hands. “We back to this?”

  “It was always this.” The gun was steady in her hand. “Get out. And if I ever see you again, I will shoot you. And I won’t give you any warning at all.”

  She meant it.

  Before she hadn’t been serious, but now, after the phone call, she was pure death.

  Angel set his glass down carefully and stood up.

  “You’re making a mistake,” he said. “I could be a friend.”

  For a moment, he thought he might have a chance of getting through to her, but then it passed, and she motioned him toward the door with the pistol.

  “I don’t need a friend,” she said. “I’ve got a dog.”

  CHAPTER 17

  “He’s in the Taiyang. Five-eleven-ten. ‘M. Ratan’ is the listing.” Timo was proud of his sleuthing.

  Lucy kept him on the line as she drove her truck through the blistering Phoenix sunshine. She’d checked her mirrors multiple times but didn’t see any sign of the water knife or his bright yellow Tesla.

  Unless he’s got others with him.

  She made a couple slow circles, doubling back and winding through abandoned cul-de-sac subdivisions, making sure he wasn’t on her, then gunned it and headed for the Taiyang while Timo chatted happily in her ear.

  “I’m sure it’s the same guy as the one you’re looking for. He used a Cali driver’s license for proof of ID. He’s a fiver, just like you thought.”

  The problem was that even if M. Ratan was a fiver, Lucy very much wasn’t.

  As soon as she made it into the public atriums of the Taiyang, the guards at the gates to the residence towers put a stop to her. They were damned if they’d let some sweaty Zoner drop in unannounced on Mr. M. Ratan.

  As much as it pissed her off, she couldn’t muster resentment toward the guards. Their jobs depended on keeping out the Phoenix riffraff. Her job was to make them fail, but in her fast exit from her surreal conversation with the Vegas water knife, she’d failed to prepare for her role.

  Lucy wasn’t a fiver. The guards could tell just by looking at her. Nothing about her said expat, or Cali, or even nice illegitimate bubble trafficker. She was a little too dustworn, a little too sun-beaten, a little too rushed and desperate.

  As far as the guards were concerned, Lucy was pure local Zoner.

  Timo thought this was hilarious, considering how often he’d accused her of being wet.

  “Guess you’re one of us after all,” he laughed in her earbug, as she continued to try to cajole her way past security.

  The guard repeated, “If you’re a guest of Mr. Ratan, you can have him call me, and I’ll program the elevator to let you up.”

  She backed off. She’d already made enough of a fuss, trying to get them to call up four times.

  “I’ll try again in a bit,” she said. “We have a meeting. He’s probably just not back, yet.”

  “I’m sure that’s the case.” The guard smiled pleasantly. “If he answers, we can ask.”

  Lucy retreated from the residence access turnstiles to the arcology’s public plaza. She circled the fountains and pools, passing the mist of waterfalls cascading down from the upper floors. She pretended interest in the coffee shops and boutiques that populated the space, but all the while she kept her eye on the residence elevators and their security people, trying to see if there was some other way up.

  51110. Five-eleven-ten.

  Tower five. Floor eleven. Apartment ten.

  She had a name, she had an address, and she couldn’t do anything about it.

  All her digging was being stymied by an overly professional rent-a-cop.

  She sat on the edge of the carp pond and watched the twenty-foot flat-screens that dangled strategically over the public space, displaying news and stock prices in English and Spanish and Chinese, keeping the occupants informed of the time and temperature in Shanghai.

  Executives and secretaries from Taiyang Solar Development were laughing and talking in the atrium, separated by their glass walls from the world outside, where their local contractors went out into the desert to install solar collectors and string new grid across the sandstone and quartz landscapes.

  No one wanted Zoners in their states, but they were willing to take all the sunlight the place had to offer, so Phoenix had brownouts while private companies sent their harvested solar north and east and west across Arizona’s borders and the Zoners stayed put.

  Lucy had done a story about it. She’d gotten miserable page views for her trouble.

  A guard walked past Lucy, then came back for another pass. She grimaced.

  Outside the arcology’s walls, Phoenix was collapsing into whatever hell it was destined for, but the Taiy
ang wasn’t like that. They didn’t like it when scraps of the apocalypse like her squeezed inside.

  Another private security guy ambled past. Normally they spent their time catching kids who tried to sneak in and drink from the water features, so of course they were excited by an intruder like her.

  In its own way, Taiyang controlled its borders as rigorously as Nevada or California. The reward for Taiyang inhabitants was a space that felt as if it were entirely removed from the dust and smoke and collapse of the greater city beyond.

  Inside Taiyang, residents and corporate rentals could live in comfort. And if you were cleaned up enough and looked as if you had business, you could get into the public plazas and have a coffee or arrange a meeting. Or maybe beg for someone to come down and escort you into one of their residence towers.

  5-11-10.

  Fifth residence tower, eleventh floor, apartment ten. Better than a zip code. A five-digit address. A fiver. Five-digit ticket. Permission to enter another world.

  The security guards were definitely watching her now. She’d lingered too long.

  Lucy pulled out her cell phone and pretended to make a call, but she could see she wasn’t selling it to the rent-a-cops. One of them was looking right at her. His hand was up by his ear, touching his earbug, triggering some alert that would put her on facial recognition in the future and get her kicked out in the present.

  “Miss?”

  She startled. A new Taiyang security guard stood over her, a zapstick tapping idly against his leg.

  “Do you have business here?”

  They were good, she had to give them credit for that. She hadn’t even seen this one coming. “I—” She hesitated. “I was just going upstairs.”

  He glanced back to the residency guard, who was watching their interaction. “You’re a resident, then? You have your card? A guest ticket?”

  “I—”

  The cop waited, not letting up. “Is there someone I should call for you?”

  “No. That’s fine. I’m just enjoying the water.”

  “If you’ve lost your ticket, we can look you up.”

  He was too accustomed to pushing people out. Too many people slipped in to get close to this luxury of the water misters and filtered air free of smoke and dust, the cascade of water and the rich smell of living earth and plants.

  He was used to moving people along. Politely. Without making a scene that would disrupt the carefully constructed serenity of the Taiyang Arcology.

  And if she didn’t go easily, well, there was always the zapstick, tapping idly against his thigh. She’d at least be quiet as he and his buddies hauled her unconscious body out of the building and dumped her on the streets.

  “It’s fine,” she said. “I’m going. Just let me put my things away.”

  “Of course, miss.”

  Entirely polite. They were always polite, as long as you moved in the direction they wanted you to move. As long as they didn’t have to goose you, they could even be kind.

  Lucy accepted that she was beaten. She caught a glimpse of rich fivers moving toward the turnstiles, a knot of them in business suits. All talking and animated, masters of the universe. Chinese and Spanish pinballing back and forth between the executives. If she’d just timed it better, she might have tailgated, but with the security man crowding her toward the exit, there wasn’t anything she could do now.

  She’d have to find some other way to reach Michael Ratan.

  CHAPTER 18

  Curtains of flame and roiling black smoke engulfed Maria, consuming her.

  A doglike creature, black and gibbering, swept out of the blaze, yammering to consume her like the Devil’s own pit bull.

  Sarah was with her.

  Maria tried to run from the devil thing, but Sarah was slow. Her hand kept slipping from Maria’s, but Maria wouldn’t let her go. But then her hand slipped away, and Maria couldn’t find it, and her heart broke with the loss.

  Maria woke, gasping, in the man’s apartment, parched and sweaty, her heart hammering in her chest, and all she could think over and over again was thank you thank you thank you.

  It wasn’t real and Sarah wasn’t dead and it had just been a dream.

  Thank you thank you thank you.

  Maria realized that both Sarah and the man had their arms over her. No wonder she was boiling. She wriggled free, trying not to disturb them. Now that she was awake, she felt nauseated and miserable. Her head felt as though someone was driving a screwdriver through her eye.

  She eased over to the bed’s edge and tried to stand. Immediately grabbed a wall for support as the bedroom tilted. She made herself breathe slowly, trying to stay steady in the dimness. The intertwined pair in the bed slumbered on. Sarah and…her man.

  Ratan.

  Maria laughed at herself, not sure if she was disgusted or appalled that she didn’t remember his first name, or if she even cared. He’d told her his name a bunch of times, but she just couldn’t remember it. Sarah had pinned so much hope on him, this man whose first name Maria couldn’t dredge from memory.

  She’d lost her virginity to a stranger. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to care about that, either. Maybe she’d lost it to Sarah, really. She’d been with Sarah. Maria liked that thought better. She’d lost her real virginity to Sarah.

  A bottle of champagne lay on the floor. Maria didn’t remember that, either. Or else she did but had thought it was a dream. The previous night was all so muddy and surreal. She and Sarah trading sips and kissing, letting the icy fizzing wine run down their bodies to the hydrologist’s eager tongue…

  Dream or real? Memory or premonition?

  Well, the bottle was empty. That was real.

  Seeing it gleaming on the floor, she felt the loss of her bubble high. Sober, the luxurious bedroom felt too silent. Almost lonely. The sheets, crumpled and sweaty. The bottle, empty. Sarah’s blond hair tangled across the pillow. Her arm sprawled across the bed to touch the man’s shoulder, a strangely intimate gesture, making them seem closer than paid lovers.

  Seeing the two of them touching brought more jumbled feelings. Snap flash memories. Sarah and her kissing. Maria’s body feeling electric. Ratan wanting to be part of them, and Sarah bringing him in. Sarah, focused on taking care of her man, when all Maria had wanted was for Sarah to kiss her again. Again and again. To feel her skin against her friend’s.

  Maria remembered her hands shaking with excitement. It had felt as if she’d had bombs detonating under her skin, explosions of trembling, starved anticipation. Overwhelming. Shaking. Reaching for Sarah again and again. Tolerating the man.

  She remembered how Sarah had stared at him so hungrily. Her ticket out of Arizona if he liked her well enough, and then the feeling of Ratan’s gaze on Maria’s own body, his hand sliding up her thigh. The three of them chained together, link by link: Maria obsessed with Sarah, Sarah obsessed with the man. And the man obsessed, finally, not with the girl who had brought him Maria as a sacrifice in the hope of going north, but with Maria.

  At the time Maria hadn’t cared. All she had wanted was Sarah. Now she couldn’t help but feel deflated by all their hungers not quite filled.

  She went searching for a bathroom. Found cool marble floors, turquoise-and-silver-rimmed mirrors, and blue-and-white-tiled countertops.

  She stared at herself in the mirror. There was nothing different about her. She was still here. She was still the same. She’d had sex with a boy and a girl, both. She hadn’t cared for one at all, but the other…She kept staring at herself. She was the same. Her father would never have been able to guess what she did last night. Nobody on the street could see where or how or what she had done for money, or what she had enjoyed. Whom she had loved.

  She sat on the toilet, hyperaware of the cool porcelain against her skin as she peed, trying to remember the last time she hadn’t used the squat latrine out behind her and Sarah’s basement hideout, or else a Jonnytruck. The last time she hadn’t had to tear pages from a blood rag to w
ipe. She remembered once sneaking into the Hilton 6, making it all the way into a stall before a woman attendant came to roust her, and then the lady taking pity on her and letting her wash her face and hands in the sink, and drink her fill, before sending her back out into the heat and dust.

  Maria flushed. Water gurgled. Amazing.

  A thrill of transgression swept her as she walked out into the kitchen and went through the man’s cabinets. A thief filling a glass, watching the billing monitor flicker in red beside the faucet as she filled it to the top.

  Maria drank it all.

  She filled another, smiling that she could bill it to this man whose name she had forgotten. She held the cool glass to her cheek. Drank it, too.

  Again water crashed into the glass as she refilled a third time. She couldn’t get enough. She was too bloated to drink it now, but she couldn’t let it go. She carried the glass back into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Gallons and gallons and gallons of water poured over her. More water than all of her score at the Red Cross pump gushed down her body and disappeared down the drain. Memories of Sarah and the man clung to her as she soaped herself. The shaking excitement. The raw pleasure of skin against skin. Bubble. She was afraid she liked the drug too much. Now it seemed as if everything she touched felt a little less bright, a little less real than when she’d been high. She wondered how to buy bubble. How Sarah got hold of it. She felt clean. Dios, she felt clean.

  She scrubbed her underwear, wishing she’d thought somehow to bring other clothes with her. Sarah always planned ahead when she came to the Taiyang.

  The curtain rattled aside, revealing Ratan, naked.

  “Doing laundry?”

  He was gazing at her, an odd smile on his face as Maria stood dripping, with her underwear in her hands. She started to stammer an explanation, but he just said, “It’s fine. My company pays for the apartment and the water. You can do the rest of your clothes before you leave.” And then he climbed in.