Upstairs we separate again—Mira goes left and I go right. After searching through two vacant rooms, I find my sister sitting on an old queen mattress that lies forgotten in the middle of the master bedroom. Brow furrowed, she breathes out a long, frustrated sigh.
“What if all the safe houses are empty like this?” she says.
I peer out the window. Looking to the east, I still don’t see the morning light. Storm clouds cover the rising sun, forcing the sky to hold onto the night. I close the blinds before joining my sister on the bed.
“We don’t know it’s empty. Chapman might be out on an errand or gathering food supplies,” I say. Our voices are hushed even though we know we are alone.
“Father might have made this map years ago. We have no idea how accurate the safe houses still are,” Mira says.
“He wouldn’t have given it to us if he didn’t think the route would work.”
“Or Chapman fled,” she counters, rising from the mattress toward the bathroom, where she scavenges the shelves below the sink.
“He probably ran off after he heard the governor’s threats. Who wants to risk their life for wanted criminals?” Mira continues, frustration plain in her voice. She finds a box of tampons and shoves it into her rucksack. All the previous scavengers must have been men.
I move into the small bathroom and sit on the edge of the stained acrylic tub, the corners of the map digging into my hips.
“We need to recharge. We’ll stay here today, try to find supplies, and wait to see if Chapman shows up,” I say.
Mira twists the knobs of the sink faucet but nothing comes out. She sighs and surges to her feet. What was she expecting? Mira forces the blonde hair plastered to her forehead out of her face. I miss the red already.
She looks at me with tired, bloodshot eyes. “If he doesn’t return by sundown, we set off for the next safe house without him.”
Reluctantly, I nod.
But he has to come back, I choose not to voice aloud. I don’t know if we can make it through the Texas desert without him.
MIRA
Ava lowers her binoculars.
“If we keep our distance and make it quick, no one should notice our presence,” she says.
We set out to resupply our water and are planning to make the trek back to the safe house to resume our wait for Arlo Chapman. Ava found an orphaned bicycle in the garage, the bike chain thick with accumulated rust, the brakes dubious and loose, but I had hopes this rickety vehicle could still make time shrink. We made it four miles with me on the handlebars before the front tire blew and the bike skidded, catapulting me and my misguided optimism to the ground.
One vile stray nail and now we must walk back to the house after our supply run, which will more than triple our travel time.
I look down at my wrist. 10:46 a.m. The more hours that go by, the less I believe this name on the map will show up to save us. The more I begin to understand that we must learn to adapt and rely on ourselves.
I raise my binoculars and follow the pitiful stream of brown water winding its way, listless and lethargic, alongside a massive slum a few miles out. Hundreds of poorly constructed shacks line the west bank, and piles of garbage and filth are crammed into narrow paths that snake through the maze with no clear direction. The shantytown stretches as far south as I can see, stopping short just outside the fringe city of Amarillo.
Despite the blatant poverty of the hovels, the soft blue light of hologram projections spills out hand-carved windows. I zoom in and shift my focus to a raucous group of children huddled around a pair of youths immersed inside a virtual game. Surrounded by the trees of a vast rainforest, the players battle masked, badgeless soldiers cloaked in all-black uniforms. I linger as they expertly draw back the advancing enemy, so realistically human, with holographic swords and axes. To the thrill of the unrestrained crowd, the star girl and boy mercilessly gut and behead every soldier that meets their path, their combined kill count 456 . . . 459 . . . 465 . . .
I stuff the binoculars back into my bag, and with my naked eye I mark each person scattered along the remains of the river. To our left small clusters of men and women gather the putrid water into buckets. Once full, they lift and balance what must weigh close to forty pounds on top of their heads and proceed back toward the slums, never once spilling a drop.
Three older women washing rags are the closest to us, about two hundred yards to our right. From where we stand I can hear the chaotic rhythm of their music echo across the bank.
By all rights this water source should be bone dry from the burden of supplying tens of thousands of locals, squatters, drifters. Fugitives.
They must be regulating the river. But regulated by whom? There is no Guard in Amarillo.
I pop the knuckle of my thumb, anxious. “The river could be monitored.”
“We need the water,” Ava counters, steadfast.
And so we take the risk.
We turn our backs on the crude dwellings and create our own pathway inside the narrow tree line following the river. The high grass sets loose a relentless swarm of biting insects, and the dense labyrinth of branches scrapes against my arms and thighs, making my skin itch and sting despite the protection of my clothes. I slap and scratch my way along the trail behind Ava, one eye on the grove, one eye on the riverbank.
We haven’t seen anyone near the water for a good ten minutes. I start to suggest to Ava that we stop here when I see her fling aside a twisted knot of limbs, sneak through the opening, and release the mass behind her without a second thought. The sharp arm of the tree branch swings back and whips me right across my cheek. I suppress a cry and squeeze my palm against my cheek until the pain subsides, cursing under my breath.
“Sorry! Sorry!” Ava shouts, attempting to hurl herself back through the thicket. “Did it get your eye?”
I wave her away. “Just keep moving.” I feel my agitation rising and tell myself to breathe.
She holds back the branch for me, and I walk through the gap, freeing my hand from my face to help push aside the brush.
“It didn’t leave a mark,” she says when I reach her.
Like that matters anymore. Our lives no longer depend on staying identical.
Ava turns toward the vacant riverbank. “This seems as good a spot as any,” she says.
She gets out her water bottle and I get out mine.
“Keep your head down,” Ava tells me.
“You keep yours down,” I retort and move past her toward the river, pulling the hood of my vest low, just above my eyes.
At the edge of the tree line, I look left, right, and left again to make certain no drones or people might be watching. Finding the bank clear on either side, I step out into the dry, exposed land that used to hold the broad waters of the Canadian River. Judging from where I stand to the opposite tree line, this section of the river must have been a quarter-mile wide in the distant past. Now it’s just a long, meandering puddle doomed to shrink and disappear within the next few years.
Water is a fickle bitch. Entire cities—Houston, Miami—flood and sink from too much, while others—Phoenix, Las Vegas—shrivel and diminish from too little. Millions die every year over the world’s most precious resource, from wars waged over lake and river rights, contaminated and depleting aquifers, dwindling crop yields, and the ever-increasing demand of a bloated population that has reached well beyond our planet’s carrying capacity.
Rainfall has doubled as we’ve learned to live in a warmer world—it just falls in the wrong places. Our land and people are thirsty. I am thirsty. And right below me is a filthy river that will give me life and a chance to keep moving. My knees crack as I bend down, unfasten the lid of my bottle, and fill it with the foul-smelling water like I’m scooping for gold.
Beside me Ava fills her own bottle and lifts the contents to her nose for closer inspection. “This water is disgusting,” she says, pinching her nostrils as she crams the lid closed.
“It takes thirty seconds to purify,” I say, holding my bottle up to the sun. Through the translucent plastic the water glows a nauseating brown, and I count three, maybe four, suspicious lumps floating below the filters.