Will was waiting for me. We boarded the bus and sat next to each other without speaking. Other kids jostled for Will’s attention, but he ignored them. He gripped the seat in front of him and stared straight ahead. I knew what he was thinking. It was the same thing I had thought when I first saw the spring. A free-flowing source of water could mean more water nearby. More water could mean the aquifers were replenished. Replenished aquifers meant clean water—water that wouldn’t have to be purified, treated with harmful chemicals, poisoned. It was water our mother could drink.
Maybe Kai was wrong about there being very little water. He couldn’t know for certain. Geologists would have to drill and test. Sometimes the water could be a kilometer or more below the surface. A trickle could mean huge reservoirs underneath. These were complicated matters to be divined by scientists and hydrologists.
But when we got off the bus, Kai wasn’t there. At first I assumed he was just late. I realized how much I had counted on him being there every day; not seeing him was jarring, like walking past the same building and suddenly noticing it was gone and there was a huge hole where it once stood. In the last two months, I had almost forgotten the time before he existed, and now his absence felt like a sharp ache. The longer we waited, however, the more we realized Kai wasn’t coming. I wasn’t worried; not yet.
“We could go without him,” I suggested.
“What’s the fun in that?”
“He would be upset,” I agreed.
“Let’s go find him.”
It wasn’t far to the Wellington Pavilion. We got our pedicyles from the locked storage room and cycled down the familiar road. Several cars passed, the drivers steering wide to avoid us. The sun hung low in the sky, a dull orange-brown ball filtered through haze and dust. Finally we saw the triple spires of the Wellington Pavilion over the next hill and picked up our pace. Will raced me to the driveway, then let me win.
The guards stopped us at the gate.
“We’re going to see Kai,” said Will.
“Kai?” asked one of the guards.
“Tall, about my height,” said Will. “Blond. Hangs around outside all day.”
“You know me,” I said to the guard. “I’ve been here before.”
The guard shook his head. “You got a certification?”
Of course we didn’t have our certificates with us. I looked at Will to see what he would do next. I was certain he would find a way to talk himself inside. Instead he shrugged and said, “Oh, well, I guess we’ll see him back at school.” He walked off, pushing his cycle, and I followed.
“Will!” I hissed. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“Can’t talk sense to a guard,” said Will. “Follow me.”
Although the Wellington Pavilion was one of the fanciest housing complexes, it too suffered from a lack of regular maintenance. Without water it was difficult to fix nearly anything. Road crews used dry-crete, a waterless cement, but it crumbled easily in the heat. Asphalt was practically nonexistent, because even petroleum substitutes were impossible to find. As I followed my brother, circling the compound, we soon came to a part of the fence that had rusted out, and the concrete had disintegrated below. We leaned our cycles against a pole, and Will pushed at the fence. It quickly broke away in his hands. “In here,” he said.
The space was just big enough to slip through. Will went first, and I followed. So much for security.
“Three-B,” I said, remembering Kai’s apartment number.
We snuck across the sandy lot, colored green to resemble grass, although it didn’t look anything like it. We didn’t see a soul. This was what it was like to be rich: You didn’t have to leave your apartment, risking the outside air and the lack of water. You lived in a secure compound with guards who stopped visitors at the gate. When people came to visit, they had to be certified and cleared, or else they snuck in beneath the torn and tangled barbed wire.
At the stairwell Will pulled at the door, and it opened easily—either the lock had been removed or it was broken. We climbed three flights, our footsteps echoing eerily in the dim passage. A thin coat of sand made the banister gritty, and several times I had to wipe my hands on my trousers to clean them.
Something was wrong. We could tell as soon as we reached the third floor. A breeze blew down the hallway—not the familiar and comforting air of a venti-unit, but the hot, dry breath from outside. Sure enough, when we reached the end of the hallway, we could see an apartment door swinging open on a single hinge. Will slowed and signaled for quiet, although I wouldn’t have made a sound even if I could. We tiptoed the last several feet to the apartment door, and then Will peered around inside.
The intake of his breath was like a sharp cry.
I eased behind him and looked over his shoulder. The apartment appeared trashed, as if someone had set about to wreck it. Broken lamps on the floor. Shattered windows. An overturned table in the kitchen. Dishes scattered beside it. A rank odor, like spoiled food, filled the air. It was too much to take in at once, and for several seconds I didn’t see what had made Will cry out.
A bloodied body lay face down near the doorway to the bedrooms. I recognized him instantly, and my stomach turned: Martin the bodyguard, the machine pistol still in his hand, his broken sunglasses lying about two meters away. I noticed bullet holes in the walls now, and empty shell casings on the floor.