The Water Wars - Cameron Stracher [58]
There was a splash, and Will emerged about ten meters away. Like me he had been forced to the surface by enough salt and pollutants to float a small car. It left a taste like licking a metal fence: saline mixed with tin, iron, and rust. He spat and thrashed but managed to stay afloat. I called out to him, and he clawed his way over to me. His swimming wasn’t elegant, but it moved him through the water. When he reached me, we embraced: wet hair, wet faces, salty tears in the salty water.
But we weren’t out of danger—not yet. Although we were only several hundred meters offshore, we had to fight the currents and several enormous intake drains that sucked water back into Bluewater. We kicked, paddled, and kept our heads above water while the sea eddied around us, churning and swirling and carrying us to land. Finally we collapsed in the black, sulfurous sand, coughing and tearing, our noses running and eyes burning. But alive.
“I don’t like swimming,” I said after I finally caught my breath.
Will hiccupped a small laugh. “It’s not like we’re going to be doing it a lot.”
“I never want to do it again.”
Will didn’t disagree. Instead he asked, “Why do you think they’re here?”
I knew he was talking about the politicians. I propped myself up on my elbows. “A peace conference?”
Will shook his head slowly. The republics had been at war for so long, it was difficult to imagine peace. And why gather here, at the headquarters of the giant desalinator? PELA, Bluewater, the Canadians, the Minnesotans, and our own chief administrator gathered in the same place where Kai and Ulysses were held prisoner…
“It’s Kai,” I said.
Will nodded.
“We have to go back.”
“I know.”
We were both standing now, staring at the spider fortress. We were soaking wet, and our clothes stank. The seawater was contaminated, unfit for any kind of life except the hardiest and the lowest. Neither of us had the energy to venture back the way we had come. Even if we could, then what?
Behind us the black sand gave way to scruffy sparse vegetation, prickly and dry. A broken road that looked as if it hadn’t been used in decades cut through to the beach. Beyond, there were a few small ruined buildings, broken signs, abandoned vehicles, and rusted machinery. In the far distance, we spotted wavering gray towers, like a field of concrete grown wild.
“Where do you think we are?” I asked.
“Somewhere on the Great Coast, near what used to be New York City.”
“How can you tell?”
Will pointed to the gray shapes in the distance. “Skyscrapers,” he said.
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.