The pirate was called Ulysses. He said he was named after an ancient warrior, but I had never heard that tale. I thought of him instead as the king of the pirates. Like a king he rode tall and proud at the wheel in the first truck. He insisted the pirates had no king; they didn't even have a leader. They were wanderers who went wherever the winds and water took them.
"Why do they follow you, then?" I asked.
"They're free not to. They follow me because they want to."
"That still makes you the leader."
"Are we free not to follow you?" asked Will. He sat pressed up against the door. Ulysses was driving, and I was in the middle. The two dogs-Cheetah and Pooch-sat in a small compartment behind us. Cheetah (or maybe it was Pooch) kept poking her head over the divider and sniffing my face. Although the dogs had frightened me when they first tracked us, up close they seemed like large furry dolls that would rather sleep, lick, and sniff than bite. In fact, I knew, dogs had been pets until feeding them made their masters hungry.
"You're children. Children don't have choices."
"That's just what shakers always say."
"They say it because it's true."
I had no idea where we were, except I knew we were traveling north again. The pirates seemed to know what they were doing, because their caravan moved fast-as fast as the broken roads allowed. I counted ten vehicles: three pickups, two jeeps, four tanker cars, and a converted fire truck the pirates used for pumping water. Somewhere overhead, the helicopter followed.
"Do you have children?" I asked.
The pirate was silent for a moment. "No," he said finally.
"Are you married?" asked Will.
"Yes," said Ulysses.
"Where's your wife, then?" I asked.
"You ask a lot of questions," said Ulysses.
I waited for him to say something else, but he did not, so I decided to stay silent as well. I peered out the window over Will's shoulder. Minnesota did not look any different than home. The landscape was brown and dry, and there were broken buildings and cracked roads everywhere. No people; no signs of life. If there was more water here, you certainly couldn't see it from the ground. Minnesota kept its riches well-hidden.
The trucks rumbled northward. I nudged Will, but he ignored me. I occupied myself instead by scanning the horizon for clouds. The sky, however, was perfectly blue, and every time I thought I saw a wisp of moisture, it turned out to be a trick of the eye, sunlight glancing off dust.
I wondered what our father was doing right now. Had he gone to the army to report our disappearance? Had he told our mother? In her fragile state, the news could make her worse. But surely she would notice our absence. The more I thought about it, the more I became sick with anxiety-not for myself, but for my parents. In the front of the truck, I felt strangely secure with Ulysses driving, although I knew I should be frightened. But when I thought of my parents-alone and worried-I was seized with panic. I reached for Will's hand, and though he was pretending to be asleep against the door, he twined his fingers with mine and held tight.
We spent the night in the truck with the dogs. Ulysses said it was too dangerous to sleep in the tents. I didn't think pirates were afraid of anything, but he explained that Minnesota was one of the few places where wild animals still roamed freely. They were aggressive and hungry and would think nothing of eating a couple of children if they could. Although it was cold in the truck and grew colder as the night deepened, Ulysses had plenty of blankets. In the darkest part of the night, he started the engine and warmed the truck with the heater. The rumble of the engine and the warm circulating air soon made me drowsy, and I fell back asleep.
In the morning I awoke with my head against Ulysses's shoulder. For a moment, before I was fully awake, I could swear he was watching me. But when I opened my eyes, he was looking straight ahead.
"Where are we going?" I asked, rubbing my forehead with the palm of one hand. I was embarrassed to have fallen asleep on him and didn't want him to think I had noticed.
"You'll know when we get there," said the pirate.
"How do you know where you're going?" I asked.
"A pirate's intuition," said Ulysses. When he smiled the creases around his mouth looked like deep crags. He shook off his blankets and opened the door of the truck. "You stay here," he commanded.
I watched him walk to the closest truck, his broad shoulders swaying as if he were carrying a weight, one leg dragging slightly, the dogs at his side. He had told us pirates didn't fight except when forced to; they preferred to use stealth and cunning. But most of the pirates I had seen were crossed with scars, missing fingers, and crooked or bent limbs. For men who didn't like to fight, they were well-bruised and battle-worn.
"They're taking us farther north," I said.
"I know," said Will.
"Why are they following Kai?"
"We don't know it's Kai. It could be any boy and his father."
"If they're following him, it means he's still alive."
Will nodded.
"But if he's alive and they learn that we know him, then we're in danger," I whispered.
"We're already in danger."
"Why can't the army rescue us?" By now the RGs had surely reviewed the security logs and would be looking for us. I would gladly take being arrested over being killed.
Will shook his head. "They won't cross the border. You know that."
The lower republics would not risk war with Minnesota over two missing children-not when they were already at war with the Empire of Canada and the Arctic Archipelago. Although Minnesota was technically neutral, the republics depended on it for fresh water. They would do nothing to upset that delicate balance. By crossing the border, we had lost all hope of rescue.
We stared out the front window, watching the pirates gathering inside the circle of trucks. Someone had made a fire, and breakfast was cooking. The salty, smoky smell of something frying in a pan drifted into the front cab. My stomach grumbled. I realized I had not eaten since breakfast the day before. I was famished. Will, too, sniffed eagerly.
Ulysses gestured for us to get out of the truck. I hesitated until he made an eating motion: cupping one hand and putting it to his mouth. Then I scrambled from the seat and jumped to the ground. Will followed.
"Hungry?" Ulysses asked when I reached him.
I didn't wait for a second question. I took the first plate offered.
The food was delicious. Ulysses said it was real bacon, grown on a real farm. I had never eaten real bacon before and licked my plate clean. Growing animals was expensive and dangerous, and it was only permitted by government license. It was a waste of resources, the government said, water that could be put to better use. Yet somehow WABs managed to provide meat at their own tables.
I noticed the bald pirate who had first spoken to us in the truck. His name was Ali, and he called out to me as I passed with a plate of seconds. He wore a kev-jacket and a long scarf loosely wrapped around his neck. When I approached he smiled widely. "Not so frightened anymore, are we, missy?" he asked.
It was true that I found him friendly and even humorous, but I couldn't help thinking the pirates were taking us away from our parents to a place from which we might not return. The pirates were nice to us now, but Will and I were still prisoners, not free to leave or go our own way. I waved to him and moved on.
The pirates spent the rest of the morning preparing the trucks, unloading and reloading materials. They were skilled mechanics; small clusters of men worked under the chassis or on the engines. Gasoline-powered vehicles were rare and temperamental, although they could out-haul anything electric. In a pinch, they could be rigged to burn siphoned bio-gas from a generator while the electrical grid was unreliable and often unavailable. This was why our father had bought our pedicycles which, I remembered sadly, were now abandoned hundreds of kilometers behind us on the road.
The way the pirates squeezed their supplies into the trucks was like a feat of magic. Not only were there weapons and explosives, but cans of food, fabric, blankets, clothing, shoes, electrical parts, tools, spare tires, oxygen, medicine, carbon blocks, nails, salt, chlorine, and iodine. There were even boxes of real beer which Ulysses would not let us near because, he claimed, it was worth more than everything else combined. In short they had all they needed for a prolonged journey or extended siege. "Be prepared," said Ulysses. "That's our motto."
It seemed to be a silly motto, but Ulysses looked deadly serious as he hauled boxes into the back of the truck. The sweat shone on his brow despite the morning chill, and muscles flexed beneath his shirt. I tried to lift a box to help, but it was too heavy, so I occupied myself by gathering the small things the pirates had overlooked. Cheetah followed me everywhere I went, and I quickly learned to distinguish her from her sister, because Cheetah's fur had flecks of black mixed in with the gold, she was smaller than Pooch, and her left ear flopped to one side. She even let me pet her and growled contentedly. It was hard to believe this was the same animal that had pursued us on the road, and it made me wonder whether I had been wrong to fear her at all.
Will wandered off to watch two pirates repair an axle, and before long he was scampering beneath the wheels and following their directions.
By noon the trucks were reorganized in an arrangement known only to the pirates. Nothing looked different, yet everything was in a new place. Ulysses gave the signal, and the men climbed into their vehicles. Will joined me in the front seat of the truck. Cheetah and Pooch squeezed into the small compartment behind us.
"The men are getting ready for a battle," said Will.
"How do you know?"
"They told me."
I didn't believe it, although Will seemed sure. When I asked Ulysses, he just grunted. "Pirates are always prepared for battle," he said. He wouldn't say anything more.
"Didn't you notice?" said Will. "Their tankers are empty. They're going to steal what they can't buy."
"Pirates don't steal," said Ulysses. "We make offers people can't refuse."
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"It means they steal," said Will.
Ulysses smiled.
If there was going to be a battle, I didn't want to be in the middle of it. The Minnesotans-or whomever the pirates were meeting-would not give up their water without a fight. Although I didn't understand the politics, I was certain the pirates couldn't just drive into a republic, pay off the border guards, steal water, and drive out again. But that's exactly what it appeared they were doing.
And what did it all have to do with Kai? If they were following him with empty tankers, he must be somewhere near water-maybe even the secret river. But that meant he was in the hands of the Minnesotans, which didn't make much sense. Surely the Minnesotans didn't need another driller; they got enough water from the Canadians and still had access to underground lakes. Crossing the border to kidnap two people was an international violation and an act of war. I couldn't imagine why the Minnesotans would take that risk. Suddenly I was very scared.
I found Will's hand and gripped it tightly. He squeezed back, and for a while that was all I needed.
By late afternoon the landscape had changed. Where there had been dust, dirt, and debris, there were now the faintest signs of civilization: a concrete bunker with smoke rising from a chimney; an electric car that wasn't rusted or broken; roads that were nearly smooth; and the most telling sign of all-patches of green.
"They're growing," said Will, his voice hushed and awestruck.
Except for photos of Basin and the occasional hardy plant or backyard scrub, we rarely saw anything green that wasn't painted on or in a hydro-vault. But here it looked as if people had water to spare. Green things sprouted up in no particular pattern, almost as if no one cared where they grew.
"It's grass," Ulysses explained. "They feed it to the cattle."
"They have cattle?" Will asked in a whisper.
"How do you think they get meat?"
"But…" Will's voice trailed off. Such riches were unimaginable. Flowing water, grass, and cattle-it was as if someone said that gold paved the streets and diamonds were in the hills.
Then in the distance, I saw our destination. It loomed in front of us like a gigantic wall that stretched the length of an entire city. It was perfectly flat, yet seemingly endless, with nothing rising behind it, as if no one dared peer over the top. I had never seen such a thing, but I knew from the wireless that it was a giant dam holding back billions of liters of fresh water-water that might normally have flowed south to the border and maybe even to our home. Minnesota was the land of ten thousand dams, and its government often boasted that it had more dams per person than any other country in the world. I knew that the largest dam in the world was in the Arctic Straits, owned by Canada but claimed by the Arctic Archipelago. Someday, if the war ever ended, whoever controlled it would control ten percent of the world's fresh water.
Gray cliffs rose at either end of the dam-the same color as the concrete that had been used to build it. As Ulysses drove closer, I could see a small army of trucks and equipment parked around the dam's base, painted in the familiar blue-green of the Minnesota flag.
What were the pirates doing? Were they planning to steal water from the reservoir? Such a brazen act would get us all killed. The dam was heavily fortified, with gun batteries spaced regularly along its walls and the Minnesota Water Guard standing watch all across its length. There would be no escape, and stealing water was a capital crime.
I must have been fidgeting on the seat, because Ulysses turned to me and said, "Don't fret, little sister. We're just here for talking. Even pirates know their limits."
"Is this where they've taken the boy?" I asked. "The one you're following?"
Will pinched my thigh, but I ignored him. I gave Ulysses my most innocent look, as if my interest were purely theoretical.
"Taken? What makes you think they've taken him?"
I tried to keep my voice steady. "Isn't that what you said?"
"We don't know he's been taken. But we know they've been here."
"Were they drilling in Minnesota?" I asked.
To drill for another republic was treason, which might explain why Kai and his father disappeared so quickly and why the RGs were looking for them. It still didn't explain the pirates' interest, but if Kai's father had discovered a secret river, the pirates would want the water for themselves. If pirates wanted what the Minnesotans had, there would be a fight. And here we were, traveling with Ulysses right into the heart of it.
"Not drilling," said Ulysses. "Planning." I didn't say anything, but Ulysses kept talking. "There's a hydrologist works out of the research center-Dr. Tinker. Older guy, looks like Albert Einstein. He gives them information, and they do the same."
"But he's a Minnesotan," I said.
"It's people who draw these boundaries," said Ulysses. "The earth and sky don't have borders."
"Maybe. But the Minnesotans think they do."
"As I said, we're just talking. Convincing comes later."
Ulysses might have said more, but the flash came first, followed by the sound. It was as if lightning struck three times in quick succession, except the sky was clear, and thunderstorms were a thing of fiction and holo-casts. Then the concussive booms followed, each one more violent than the last.
What happened next was unlike anything I had ever seen or was likely to see again. The middle section of the great dam began to collapse. It happened in slow motion: the walls trembled and seemed to melt inward, then a fissure opened in the middle into which each end was gradually swallowed.
Water, billions and billions of liters, rushed over the top of the broken wall and into the valley below. It spilled from the great dam, sweeping trucks, concrete, and people before it. It came down from the cliffs and rushed toward us, as fast and furious as a tidal wave or an earthquake-an unleashed, angry river, the power of which was something no person could control.
We didn't even have time to run.