by Anna Silver
~
Sun blasted down over them through patchy trees as the reality of being stranded sunk in.
They’d followed the Ten briefly and turned right on a side street in the Houselands, picking their way through crumbling, overgrown neighborhoods, turning at natural impediments like the fallen tree laid out over one road and the drift of hogs moving across another. It was slow progress this way, but the Ten was too obvious. They’d already heard the helicopters circle over them once. The Tycoons were watching. Waiting.
Then the truck sputtered to a stop, the engine died and only hacked like it had a bad cold when Kim tried to restart it.
“Not already,” London moaned.
“I think it needs gas,” Kim said. “Good thing I grabbed those cans.”
“Let’s hope they last a while, you only got two.” London hopped out the back of the truck when Zen opened the doors and pulled a sloshing gas can with her. She met Kim around the side where a little metal door in the façade of the van swung open to reveal a spout with a tightly screwed lid.
“You sure this is where it goes?” London questioned as Kim fingered a bullet hole left by the Tigerians.
“Positive,” he assured her. A few twists and it was open and ready for them to pour the fuel in.
“I don’t think this is going to go very far,” Zen said, squinting. “We’ve seen at least two dozen of those old fueling stations since we left Capital City. They wouldn’t have had so many if they didn’t need to stop and refuel like every five minutes.”
Kim scowled. “Don’t be such a downer. Everyone drove pre-Crisis. Maybe they just needed so many to accommodate that many vehicles.”
“I hope you’re right,” London said, unconvinced. “Here goes.”
She lifted the can to pour it in when Kim grabbed at it, sloshing a big splat of fuel across the top of her boots.
“Damn it, Kim! What the hell?” she cursed.
Tora looked on from the knocked out passenger window.
“I wanted to do it,” he said, both of them still gripping the plastic handle.
“What are we, five now?” London asked, letting go with an irritated roll of her eyes.
Tora giggled under her breath.
“You got it all over my shoes,” London whined as she dipped to wipe it off with the hem of the t-shirt she’d changed into earlier.
Kim smirked as he poured the contents of the can into the tank.
“Wait a minute,” London raised her wet shirt to her nose and sniffed curiously. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Zen asked. “I thought that stuff was supposed to stink worse than the reprocessing plants. Isn’t that what they said tore our ozone apart and poisoned our planet? That’s why the Crisis was a ‘blessing in disguise.’ Because we’re better off without it. Right?”
“That’s the idea,” Tora chimed.
“It’s what they always told us in school,” London added. She jerked the can away from Kim before he could finish pouring the rest in and raised the spout to her nose. Another deep whiff. “Nothing.”
“Kim, are you sure that’s gasoline?” Zen asked, worried.
“It’s says fuel right there on the side in raised letters,” Kim insisted. And so it did.
London held the thick plastic can up with one hand and poured a little into her other palm. It was clear and wet and completely odorless.
She did the same for Zen and Kim and Tora. They all sniffed warily at their palms. London dipped a finger in the liquid and stuck it in her mouth before any of them could stop her. Tora looked absolutely repulsed. “Just as I thought,” London sighed. “Water.”
“Kim, you’re such a dunce!” Zen shouted. “We probably just fucked it up!”
“It said fuel. How was I supposed to know?”
Tora rubbed her palms together and said, “Maybe he wasn’t wrong. Maybe it is fuel.”
“Right,” Zen muttered. “And pigs fly and ghosts are real.”
“And we’re really beings from another world who traveled through our dreams to save this one,” London included. “Tora’s got a point.”
She and Kim ran around to the driver’s side of the truck just as Tora was scooting over. They waited at the open door, Zen trudging up behind them reluctantly, as Tora placed her hand on the key in the ignition.
“Give it a turn,” Kim instructed her. “Easy.”
Tora nodded and London squeezed her hands together in anticipation. Tora’s fingers tightened on the key and she gave a stout twist with her wrist. The truck roared to life.
Kim and Tora let out yelps of laughter and Zen uncrossed his massive arms in surprise. It worked. Water. And it worked. It was the best news they’d had in days. If the damn thing ran on water, they could drive from one coast to another without ever running out of fuel. This was the proof they needed to show that the Tycoons were lying. They could drive this to every walled city and Outroader camp on the continent to get their message out. And they could save Rye. London was sure of it now.
London looked around her at the ruined block where they’d puttered to a stop and wondered how much the Tycoons were powering with water. Was Capital City powered on water? New Eden? The reprocessing plants? The farms? The helicopters? It was a limitless energy source. And it couldn’t have been New. The ruins around her screamed for revenge, the vacant houses, broken windows yawning, the missing families. All of this could have been saved. The Houselands. The Outroads. Everyone could have been spared. It was senseless. Brutal. Wrong.
She looked at her friends, celebrating their discovery. Whooping and grinning from ear to ear. This could be everyone’s moment. Everyone’s discovery. It should be.
“Get in the truck,” she said, her face long and tight with anger. “We’re gonna get those gasholes.”
