We flew fast and silently. With our faces pressed to the window, we could barely feel the vibration from the powerful engines. Thin wisps of clouds spidered below us, delicate and fragile. The glass was cold to our cheeks. Inside the temperature dropped rapidly, but at least we had oxygen and blankets. Sula explained we were traveling at nearly twice the speed of sound, beyond the barrier where words could catch us.
"We're safe-for now," she added.
Kai leaned against me, conscious but unable to speak. His head rested on my shoulder. I glanced at his father, whose left arm hung useless at his side. Sula told us it could be several hours before the effects of the destabilizer completely wore off.
"Sula rescued us from the fortress," I told Kai. "And Ulysses saved us from the mines."
"You escaped from the fortress on your own," said Sula.
"And it was you who saved me from Bluewater," said Ulysses.
"But we never could have rescued them without your help," I said.
I told Kai the entire story then: about finding Martin the bodyguard dead and Kai's insulin abandoned in the bath, about following the clues to the old well, about traveling with the pirates to the dam, being captured by PELA, escaping, and then falling into the hands of Bluewater.
"But now we're safe," I said. "And soon we'll be home."
Kai squeezed my hand.
"They'll come after you," said Driesen-his first words since boarding the jet.
"Ha! I'd like to see Torq show his face in Basin," said Ulysses.
"Bluewater owns Basin," said Driesen.
"A company can't own a city," I said.
Driesen grimaced. "You're just a child. You don't know anything about the world. Bluewater owns the water; it owns the land; it owns the cities and republics."
"It doesn't own Canada," I protested.
"It owns the people who own Canada."
"And what about the war?"
"This war is nothing. An inconvenience."
I assumed Driesen was joking. I had seen the jets screaming across the sky and the tanks lumbering north. I had witnessed the boys who returned from the front lines with limbs missing, minds gone. The war was not an inconvenience. It was a shroud that covered the sun. It darkened our lives like the dust that settled on our hands and lips, making everything we tasted and touched dry, bitter, and fruitless.
"There's a bigger war about to happen," Driesen continued. "A world war. These other wars are skirmishes, police actions. Fights over borders and boundaries. But soon there will only be two sides: people with water, and those without. The next battle-the final battle-will be about who controls the spigot."
"And Bluewater?" I asked.
"It plays both sides. But it needs a sponsor to protect its operations. So it aligns itself with the water-powerful and keeps knowledge of new supplies from the waterless."
No one spoke. What Driesen said made sense. The republics' water started in Canada, and the Canadians' water started in the Arctic, and the Arctic's water started as rain from the clouds. But the Canadians had dammed the rivers, the Europeans had drained the polar cap, and the Chinese had sucked the storm clouds from the sky. To survive it was not enough to hoard water; it had to be stolen from one's enemies. Small wars turned into larger wars, and the large wars would become one war. If the Canadians weren't fighting the Australians yet, it was just a matter of time.
"We have to stop them," I said.
"You can't defeat them," said Driesen. "They have too much money and too many resources."
"But we have Kai!" I said.
"And they won't stop until they have him back."
"How can you say that about your son?"
Driesen grimaced again. "Don't you think I've tried to protect him? I've done everything I could. Hired bodyguards. Disguised our identities. Made secret deals with other republics. But Bluewater is different. What it doesn't own, it buys."
"Kai said there was a river."
Driesen's laugh was like a half-formed cough. "There is no river."
I looked at him but saw nothing funny. Kai raised his head from my shoulder, as if he wanted to say something but he didn't have the strength.
"Kai said he would take me there."
"That was just a story."
"A story?" I managed.
"We told it to keep people away."
"From what?"
The jet banked hard, and my stomach rose into my chest. Kai clenched my arm, and at first I thought he was frightened; then I realized he was holding me because he thought I was.
"Idiots are shooting at us," said Sula.
Hundred of tracer bullets lit the sky around the jet. I peered out the window. We were thousands of meters above a ruined city that was no doubt controlled by vigilantes or mercenaries. A downed jet would be a real prize, its captured crew a treasure in ransom. Sula banked hard again, then climbed swiftly. The tracers disappeared, and my stomach settled. Kai let go of my arm; his fingers left fine red marks on my skin.
Driesen was watching as Kai settled back against my shoulder. Then his expression softened, and he looked merely quizzical. "We were drilling for water in a virgin aquifer," he said.
"The aquifers have all been tapped," said Ulysses gruffly.
"No," said Driesen. "Not all of them. There's confined aquifers sit below a surface aquifer. Men drain the water they see but don't realize there's more water below. It takes real skill to find the water. It takes a gift-like Rikkai's."
"And where is this geological marvel?" Ulysses demanded. He sounded as if he thought Driesen's tale was just driller hocus-pocus. Drillers were notorious for their tall tales and dreams of wealth. Yet most died without a credit chip to their names.
"It can only be reached with special drilling equipment that Tinker and I developed. But there's water, billions of liters, never been touched. More than enough for all of Illinowa."
Could it be? It was as if Driesen had said there were diamonds, free for the taking, polished and cut, gleaming in a pile like tomorrow's promise. Everyone in that plane was silent, imagining the riches.
Kai's lips were chapped and cracked, and his voice was harsh and raspy. He lifted his head and looked at me. "Water," he said. "To start again."
With all the talk about aquifers, we had forgotten that Kai and Driesen might be thirsty. I grabbed Sula's canteen and helped Kai drink a long mouthful. Then I gave the rest to his father. I recalled that Kai had told me the symptoms of his diabetes began with a great thirst, a desire for water he couldn't quench. It was as if his disease became his gift, his illness the cure for all of our sickness.
"We'll need that equipment," said Ulysses.
"It's still at the dam PELA blew, I expect. Bluewater wasn't interested in the water. They just wanted Kai."
"Sula," said Ulysses.
"Give me the coordinates," she responded, and then she punched them into the onboard navigator.
"It's the first place they'll look," said Driesen.
"We'll not stay long enough for them to find us," she said.
"And then what?" Driesen said bitterly. "You'll have the entire Minnesota Water Guard looking for us. To say nothing of Bluewater."
Ulysses sniffed. "Maybe we'll just leave you at the dam."
"Ulysses!" I scolded him.
"Without me, you can't work the equipment," Driesen said. "Without Rikkai, you won't know where to drill."
"We're not leaving you anywhere," I said. "Ulysses is just cranky."
The pirate gritted his teeth. "You'd be cranky too if you had shrapnel in your hip."
"What good will it do?" asked Will. "The dam's in Minnesota. We'll never get the water home."
"The aquifer runs below most of the republic, and Minnesota too. It runs all the way up to Canada," said Driesen. "We were drilling in Minnesota, because that's where Tinker lived, and the barrier was shallow. We could drill right below Basin. But that won't solve your problem."
"Bluewater," I said.
"They won't let anyone drill," agreed Driesen. "We tried, and look what happened. They won't let anyone access free water if it threatens their hold."
"Unless they don't have a choice," I said.
"How so?" asked Ulysses.
"We make them an offer they can't refuse."
"Ha! You sound like a pirate now!"
I felt like a pirate, suddenly enthused by a wily and implausible plan. "Listen," I said.
The others fell silent as the jet flew northwest into the setting sun.
We had only one-third of a tank of fuel, but Sula said it would be enough. The jet could fly on one engine if needed, and the wind would do the rest. Driesen had everything he needed at the drilling site, I explained. We didn't need a lot of water, just enough to fill several cisterns. There were cameras everywhere, and it was only a short flight home. Torq and his men would find us-it was impossible to escape-but by then it would be too late. At least that was the plan.
"It's a good plan," Ulysses acknowledged.
More important, it was our only plan. Bluewater would surely never stop until it recaptured Kai, and the rest of us might be killed if we got in its way. We couldn't keep running. Not when we were so close to home.
"Vera?" Kai managed.
I leaned close to his lips.
He spoke with a deep rasp, but I could understand him. He told me then about the mercs who had come looking for them, the gun battle in which Martin was killed, how they had been forced to disclose Dr. Tinker's location. The mercs flew them to Bluewater, where Torq refused to give Kai insulin until Driesen revealed the site of the aquifer. Kai didn't know PELA had killed Dr. Tinker, and the news came as a blow. He and Driesen had worked together for years, and Kai considered him to be like an uncle.
"He could be crabby," said Kai, "but he was a good man."
I didn't disagree, although my memory of Dr. Tinker was less kind.
All the time in captivity, Kai said, he was thinking how to get a message to me. He said this without blushing, which only made me blush harder-especially because I could feel Will's eyes boring into me. Then Kai added, "The food was terrible. Not like your dad's guacamole."
I had to laugh that he would think about food at a time like this. But remembering my father's cooking made me miss it as well. There was a potato and soy cheese dish where the potato skins were crunchy and the cheese oozed from the top like caramel. There was another dish made of cactus and local grains that he cooked slowly for two days until it turned into a sweet pudding. My mouth watered at the memory of the meals, and I couldn't wait to dig into them again.
"Dad's going to be surprised," said Will. He tried to pretend he was brushing the hair from his eyes, but I could tell he was brushing away a tear.
For once I didn't feel like crying. I was too excited to tell our parents everything. In the safety of our home, our adventures would become like tall tales, hard to believe but fun to recount until truth and fiction became mashed together in one kaleidoscopic whole. I hugged Will and forgot all about the pain in my shoulder. It didn't matter, because soon I would have hours to lie on my bed.
We never saw the rocket. It exploded about five hundred meters in front of the left wing. The explosion shook the jet, sending us spiraling in a dangerous plunge until Sula regained control of the ailerons.
"Bluewater!" she cursed.
"I thought you left them behind."
"I was flying slower to conserve fuel. But looks like I miscalculated."
"Can we outrun them?" Will asked.
Sula shook her head. "No. They've got the same equipment we do. Hold on. It's going to be a dogfight."
The plane went into a steep dive. I screamed, although I didn't mean to. Kai gripped my arm. Will practically tumbled out of his seat. My ears popped and then popped again as I tried to gulp down oxygen. When it felt like the ride couldn't get any sicker, when we had fallen about as far as possible, Sula turned so we were actually upside down, hanging from our seat belts. For an instant we were weightless, floating in an air pocket. Then just as swiftly, gravity slammed us back into our seats. The plane groaned and vibrated madly. Kai moaned and held his stomach. I didn't feel much better.
"There may be worse to come," said Sula. She put the jet into a sharp bank left, then a hard bank right. Now we were behind the attacker. Somehow she had managed to flip on our pursuer by looping behind him. The other jet swirled and dipped, trying to shake us. It shrieked against the sky, then tore for the earth. Smoke spewed from its engines as the turbines worked at their highest thrust. But Sula dogged it like thread on a needle.
"Gotcha!" she whooped. She fired the rockets.
Two white lines burst from beneath the wings and raced across the blue. One exploded harmlessly behind the attacker's tail fin, but the other caught the rear stabilizer, which burst into flames. The jet shuddered and fluttered in the air like a butterfly. Then all at once, it exploded into a ball of fire.
"Heads down!" shouted Sula as we struck debris flying toward the windshield. Several large pieces slammed into the wing but none badly enough to crash us. Sula maintained control until we cleared the damage, then eased the plane to a lower altitude. Smoking bits of plastene and metal tumbled from the sky. But we were not safe-not yet.
"We've got trouble," said Sula when she reviewed the instrument panel. "You want the good news or the bad news?"
"Give us the bad first," said Ulysses.
"Even if we hadn't burned up most of our fuel in that dogfight, it seems we've punched a hole in the auxiliary tank."
"And the good news?"
"There is no good news."
The plane was vibrating severely now. Ominous red lights blinked on the control panel. I reached out for Will. "We'll be okay, right?" I asked.
"Sula can drive anything, remember?"
"Anything with an engine," said Sula. She was toggling the controls furiously, trying to maintain a level flight as the plane rapidly descended.
"There's a workable landing strip near the research lab," said Driesen. "They used it for copters, but it's long enough to land a plane."
She nodded, her eyes slits pinned to the ground below. "I can see it."
From the air the broken dam looked like a row of cracked teeth with the two largest ones missing. Water still spilled through the gap even though the Minnesotans had made an effort-with rubble and dirt-to close it. A flowing river was a strange sight, and it gave me a vision of the world in which my parents were born. It twisted and coursed, foaming white and brown, a thing alive and vibrant as it rushed uncontrolled toward the sea. Green vegetation had sprouted along its banks, like a holo of an ancient world.
"Hold on!" said Sula.
I tried to steady myself, but my breath came in quick short bursts and would not slow down. My nails dug into my palms, but I could barely feel the pain. I looked to Will. His face was as pale as I had ever seen it. Kai laid his hand on my forearm, but his fingertips trembled and moisture pearled his brow. There was nothing to do except put our faith in Sula and hang on.
The jet began to plummet. One moment I could see the low tops of buildings, the next moment we hit the ground hard enough to blow two tires. We screeched and veered off the runway, then careened through dirt and scrub at three hundred kilometers an hour, spinning crazily in a dust vortex. A window popped, and the door burst open. Sand, soot, and black smoke swirled into the plane. Someone was coughing, and someone else was yelling instructions. But somehow we slowed and came to a rest. "Everyone okay?" asked Sula.
We were, miraculously. No one was hurt, although my bad shoulder ached painfully where it had been restrained by the safety belt. Kai looked as if he might be sick, and Will's face had shaded from pale to green. Our stomachs settled as the air cleared.
Ulysses wasted no time in securing our position. He grabbed the laser-taser and his knife and pushed through the mangled door.
"Wait!" Sula shouted after him. "Men on the ground!"
It was too late. We heard the yelling. The roar of an engine. A sound like a dog barking. Ulysses bellowed as if in great pain, and then his voice was buried. We braced for the onslaught.
I was outside before anyone could stop me. My feet touched ground, and my hands went up defensively, but I was knocked backward by something large and heavy. It sat on my chest and its hot breath washed over me.
I waited, eyes shut, for the jaws to clamp on my throat.
Cheetah barked, then licked my face again and again.