I had read about the giant buildings, so tall they scraped the clouds. From the ground they appeared delicate and beautiful, their thin forms spiking heavenward like trees seeking light. I was too far away to see the broken windows or collapsed skeletons, the buildings that lay in piles of rubble on the street. In the Panic the skyscrapers were deathtraps; smoke and fires trapped millions inside. But from the horizon, all was picturesque, peaceful, serene.
“There must be someone in the city who can help us,” I said.
“They haven’t had water for years. Even if there’s anyone alive, there are gangs and criminals and psychos. We would never get out.”
He was right. After the Panic, it was said, those who survived in the cities resorted to cannibalism when water wasn’t available. I didn’t necessarily believe all the stories, but if only a quarter of what we’d heard was true, the cities were still deathtraps. Yet we had no other choice.
“If there are people, there have to be boats,” I said, remembering my geography. “Manhattan is an island, and they blew the bridges. We can’t get them out of Bluewater without a boat. Ulysses can’t swim, and Kai and his father might be injured too.”
Will pondered the options. He knew I was right. We couldn’t fly a jet or a helicopter, and without something to get from the sea to the shore, we wouldn’t travel far.
“How do we find a boat?” he asked. “We can’t buy one. If we steal one, we’ll never get back here alive.”
“We bribe them.”
“With what?”
“Water,” I said.
We didn’t actually have water, of course, but we had the promise of water. No thief would kill us if he thought we could lead him to water. But Will wanted to know what we would do when we arrived at Bluewater. Besides, who would be crazy enough to join us? Anyway, it was probably at least a ten-kilometer walk to the city, with barely enough light to make it there before nightfall.
I said we could do it in an hour if we hurried, and the return would be faster with a boat.
We argued until a sound like a broken condenser interrupted us. We looked out, and there was a misshapen egg floating on its side in the water. It appeared squashed at the narrow front end and bulbous and lumpy at the rear. But it moved quickly—faster than seemed possible given its ungainly size. In fact, it wasn’t actually in the water at all but hovering above it, creating a wake that traveled in two parallel trenches as the egg—whatever it was—zipped along the surface.
“Skimmer,” said Will.
I had never heard of such a thing. Will explained they were fast-moving boats that sucked fresh water from the surface of the ocean using a process similar to desalination. Their great speed filtered the salt water through a membrane that yielded fresh, drinkable water.
“They’re not pirates, exactly,” said Will. “But they’re not legal either.”
I waved my one good arm at the skimmer and started shouting. Will grabbed my hand. “What are you doing?”
“They can help us, Will!”
“They’ll want water. They’ll want Kai.”
“So? Isn’t that the point?”
Will closed one eye and squinted into the distance with the other. Of course it was dangerous to volunteer Kai—what if he couldn’t help, or didn’t want to?—but without a boat, we might as well lie down and die on this spit of dirty beach. We were on hostile ground without food, water, or shelter, and night was approaching. Will reluctantly released my hand, and I began waving and shouting again.
The skimmer was doing more than simply sucking the warmest layer of ocean water into its cargo hold. It was circling like a thirsty insect around the pylons that supported Bluewater’s headquarters. In fact, as I waved, jumped, and shouted, I realized that the skimmer was trying to suck up the water that spilled back into the ocean as waste from the pipelines. This explained why no other boats tried to stop it and no jets tried to sink it. It was a parasite, living in symbiosis with its host, drinking up its poisons and selling them to others. Cadmium, mercury, thallium, lead—these metals would slowly kill anyone who drank them. But the skimmer ignored us. I waved until my other shoulder ached, then I sank to the sand next to Will.
“It’s no use,” I said.
Will nodded. His jaw clenched tightly. I could tell that he was in pain. He had been quiet about his leg, but I had seen his grimaces and drawn complexion. The medicine was wearing off. I knew he would not be able to make it all the way to the city.
“Will,” I began.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“We can rest here for the night.”
“We’re not resting anywhere. Look at us: We’re wet, and we stink. We have no food or water. We won’t last a minute out here. You’re right: we have to go to the city.”
Before we could move two steps, however, a high-pitched whining tore the sky. Two men in dark blue wet suits, each atop a machine that looked like a boxy motorcycle, cut through the top of the waves. Their engines screamed and sprayed foam. They had emerged from Bluewater and were heading toward the beach.
Will saw them too. “They’re coming for us,” he said without emotion and stood up next to me.
“Shouldn’t we run?”
“I’m tired of running.”