Dry Read online

  It really didn’t take a genius to figure out that we’d run out of water. If you just read the quarterly public water reports, as she had, the numbers were right there. But to successfully ignore those reports and misdirect people into thinking the problem was under control? That required the mastery of a very special skill set. These were the supervillains Camille hoped to bring down someday. Hopefully, sooner than later.

  Weeks before the Tap-Out, Camille led a protest at the county government offices in Santa Ana, backed by a record number of participants—all members of her college’s student body. But she knew it would take more than one protest. If there’s anything her past efforts have taught her, it’s that real change requires prolonged pressure and inspired action.

  Raw. Tangible. Action.

  Today’s action will be inspired by what she sees on the road ahead of her. It begins with shock, followed by rage—because cruising ahead of her is a water supply truck owned by one of the various underperforming water municipalities. The ten-gallon bottles stacked in its bed are clearly visible, and are a let-them-drink-wine sort of slap in the face to an increasingly thirsty population. This truck is delivering water that isn’t supposed to exist to some privileged place. It represents every single lie she’s been fighting so hard to expose.

  So rather than continuing west to the desalination center at the beach, she decides to crank her wheel right and follow the truck.

  SNAPSHOT 2 OF 3: OCWD TRANSPORT

  David Chen has been an employee of the Orange County Water District for nearly a year now—and lately they’ve given him increasingly stressful tasks. Today he’s driving a truck full of drinking water, and riding shotgun is a guy with a shotgun. And a bulletproof vest. In fact, they’ve given David a vest, too. “Just a precaution,” he was told. “Nothing to concern yourself with.” As if he’s stupid.

  The vest is heavy and hot, and no amount of air-conditioning in the truck can cool him down. He’s sweating in more ways than one.

  With all the county’s water mains on emergency shutdown, and endless glitches in the computers trying to redirect what water is left, he’s been transporting water manually to high-priority facilities. Just yesterday he drove one of a dozen tanker trucks delivering the contents of a high school swimming pool to Camp Pendleton Marine Base. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and water managers are scrambling to keep the sky from completely falling.

  It’s late afternoon and David is only on his third delivery of the day. Traffic has been getting increasingly worse, and the GPS apps keep giving everyone the same alternate routes, just compounding the problem. Current protocol is that all water from municipal water districts will go to hospitals and government facilities first. Federal Emergency Management will provide relief for private citizens.

  David already stashed away one of the blue watercooler-size containers for himself and his family. One measly container in the grand scheme of things won’t be missed. He considers it unofficial combat pay.

  It’s reclaimed water. That’s what they’re down to now. All the water that was still in the sewer system when the water was turned off. All the water that was leaving homes ahead of the Tap-Out, and heading back to the Orange County Water District.

  It’s not like they just dump that water into the ocean. It’s purified. Microfiltration, reverse osmosis, ultraviolet radiation, and abracadabra—they turned the county’s last day of raw sewage into nearly fifty thousand gallons of drinkable water. Of course, no one’s supposed to drink it. The policy is that it’s only supposed to be used for public irrigation—because serving a litigious, finicky public reclaimed water, no matter how clean it is, would be a public relations nightmare.

  But now no one cares where it comes from, as long as it comes.

  This afternoon’s delivery is a critical one. He’s bringing water to the workers holed up behind the locked fence of Huntington Beach power plant. From what he understands, the plant, which only has about forty on-site workers at any given time, has become a refuge for Applied Energy Services, and Southern California Edison employees. Now there are more than three hundred people within its gates. A spontaneous refugee camp of sorts. Hence today’s delivery.

  As he pulls off of Pacific Coast Highway, the plant wavers before him like an ugly industrial mirage, asphalt heat making it shimmer before him. But he has to halt short of the security gate, because someone’s standing in his way, preventing him from proceeding. Not an employee, but a girl, no older than twenty. By the way she’s planted her feet, and by the angry, thirsty look in her eye, he gets the feeling she’s not going to let him pass.

  Meanwhile, on the other side of Pacific Coast Highway, on the long strip of Huntington Beach, frustrated crowds waiting for desalination machines have begun to take notice of his truck.

  SNAPSHOT 3 OF 3: PLANT MANAGER

  When Pete Flores was a child, he always wanted to be a magician. As an adult, he found his magic in the manipulation of electrical currents. To him, he couldn’t have landed any closer to his original dream, because now, as a power plant manager, he gets to create electricity out of thin air—literally—using natural gas. His Huntington Beach plant produces 450 megawatts of power, which is enough to power nearly half a million homes. But for the first time in all his years here, the station is facing an unprecedented situation.

  Should he have refused to allow all of his employees safe refuge within the gates of the plant? Should he have refused when other electrical agencies requested sanctuary for their workers? Should he have refused when they asked to bring their families?

  The home office would have refused. Not because they were hardened, but because they were so far removed. They didn’t see the human faces of this crisis. He might be reprimanded for what he did—might even lose his job, but he resolved not to regret it. He’s accepted that the days ahead are going to be increasingly difficult, but the job brings him pride and honor.

  This is nothing, he thinks, reminding himself of the nuclear power plant that melted down in Fukushima, Japan, after an earthquake, and the tsunami that followed. Generators flooded and shut down, and the reactors overheated, resulting in total nuclear meltdown. And what did that plant manager do? Rather than fleeing the scene, he decided to stay with his workers in spite of the danger, cooling the plant using seawater. It exposed them to lethal levels of radiation, but reduced Japan’s nuclear contamination tenfold. That’s how you hold the line when you have the fate of millions of lives in your hands. Sometimes being the hero means going down with the ship.

  As the power plant is considered a critical water priority, Pete’s request for food and water had to be honored. Which is exactly why all the families who are currently under his care came. Now he isn’t just a plant manager, he finds he’s more like a mayor. It’s both terrifying and exhilarating. It makes him wonder if public office might be in his future once he gets fired for helping all these people.

  Today his turbines are working at full capacity, because both the Redondo and Palomar power plants have gone off-line. The unofficial word is that it was the result of employee attrition. Workers just stopped showing up. In a choice between taking care of the plants, or taking care of their families during the Tap-Out, they chose their families. It just reinforces for Pete that welcoming his own workers’ families was the right decision. Still, the two plant shutdowns trouble him. If there are any more, it could cause a cascading failure in the grid—and with so many electrical workers AWOL, there’s no telling when such a thing would be resolved.

  Late in the afternoon, his control room supervisor alerts him that the water truck they’ve been waiting for all day is at the gate.

  “But there’s a problem,” he says.

  Pete is wary. While his job is all about solving problems, the issues he’s been facing lately have been a bit out of his wheelhouse. “What sort of problem?”

  “Maybe you should see for yourself.”

  Most of the security cameras show expected acti
vity on the property. Technicians and machinery in restricted areas, and in the nonrestricted areas, their numerous guests go about their business.

  But the cams at the main gate show something else entirely. Something that hits Pete like a thousand volts.

  There are dozens of people at the gate, all amassed at the entrance. At first he thinks it’s some sort of protest or strange demonstration—there have been plenty of those in this drought climate. But why here? And then he realizes the object of their attention—

  It’s the incoming water truck. And it’s totally encircled.

  This isn’t just a protest, it’s something far more dangerous—more desperate.

  “How many guards do we have on duty?” Pete asks the control room supervisor.

  “Three,” he answers, “including the one at the gate.”

  “Get them all down there!”

  “Should I call this in to the home office?”

  “Are you kidding me? Call 911!”

  And then on the screen, the crowd seems to explode into action. All of them, all at once. They’re ripping bottles off the truck, smashing the windshield. Pulling out the driver. My God! It happened in the blink of an eye!

  From the passenger seat emerges what looks like a security guard.

  “Is that a shotgun?”

  The man raises it, silently fires it into the air, and a second later Pete hears the delayed report of the gunshot, dull and distant. But the man who fired the gun gets off no more than a warning shot, because the mob rips the shotgun from him and pulls him down into a melee of angry hands.

  The supervisor dispatches the other guards, and begins to frantically call 911, but it’s too late—because that mob, in its righteous rage, is crashing through the gate and flooding into Pete’s plant. And it’s more than just dozens of people. It could be hundreds.

  Helpless, plant manager Pete Flores watches the security screen, and realizes that, like electricity itself, this mob is a force as dangerous as that Japanese tsunami . . . and it may be his turn to go down with the ship.

  * * *

  7) Kelton

  As the hours pass, I start to get the feeling that Mom isn’t very happy with the way Dad handled the confrontation with Malecki, because tonight she’s making dinner an hour early—a nervous habit she’s developed when things get tense at our house. Early dinner means she can get to bed early and end an undesirable day. My mom is also a compulsive “freezer”—and because we’re trying to conserve the food we have, we somehow end up with defrosted honey-baked ham from Easter and half a green bean casserole that may have been from last Christmas, but don’t quote me.

  Mom fills all of our glasses with water. It’s more than we’re supposed to have, considering our rations, but it’s not just that—she’s filled our glasses to the brim, so that you can’t lift them without spilling some. Another sign that she’s angry at my father.

  Dad takes his seat at his spot at the head of the table, for the moment oblivious to Mom’s irritated overtures, and begins making incisions in his ham. The sound of scraping cutlery. The ticking clock. No one’s talking, the tension so thick in the air you’d need a machete just to make it to the refrigerator and back. Finally my father notices it. He looks at my mom, looks at me, then continues cutting.

  I try to lighten the mood with something positive. “Is Brady coming?” I ask anyone who’ll answer.

  Dad responds. “We still can’t get ahold of him.”

  So much for lightening things. I realize that Brady’s lack of response is yet another trigger-point of stress. Brady’s never been good with phones. Or e-mails. Or any sort of communication at all. These days he only gets in touch when he feels like it, and only responds when he has to. I thought with the Tap-Out that might change, but apparently not. “We’re going to wait for him, right?” I ask. “I mean, before we leave for the bug-out?”

  Dad chews intensely. “We shouldn’t stay here much longer,” he says. “You can see how things are already breaking down.”

  Mom refills my half-drunk glass back to the absolute brim.

  “Marybeth, this water is supposed to last us,” he finally says, pointing with his fork.

  “Your son is thirsty.”  Though I’m not really.

  “Good. Being a little bit thirsty will remind us why we need to ration,” he rebuts, his anger beginning to fill to the brim.

  “We have plenty,” Mom reminds him. “And if we’re not going to share it, we might as well drink it all ourselves until we burst.” Since I was a child, I always knew when my parents were having crypto-arguments in front of me because they start over-emphasizing words.

  “We’ve shared every day,” my dad says. “I taught the Clarks how to make a portable greenhouse, and even gave them some of the materials. I showed your friends down the block how to set up an outhouse.”

  Mom gets up and throws away her paper dinner plate, even though she’s barely touched her meal. “Well, I don’t see the harm in sharing a few necessities like water if we’re going to be leaving it behind anyway, once we leave for the bug-out.”

  My dad takes a deep breath, which signals a lecture.

  “You know how it works, Marybeth. If we start giving away free water, people are going to start demanding we give more. And when things get violent they’ll just take. And as you can clearly see,” he motions in the direction of the Maleckis’ house, “even sharing information is dangerous past this point.”

  “They’re our neighbors!”

  “When it comes down to survival you don’t have neighbors!”

  “We’re going to have to live with these people when this is all over.”

  “Live is the key word here! If this is as bad as I think it is, not everyone is going to make it—and if we’re going to remain among the living we need to stick with our survival plan, and keep a tight lid on our supplies. You want to give things away? Fine. Leave the door wide open when we leave for the bug-out, and let the marauders strip this place down to the wall studs.”

  Mom breaks. Dad pushed just the right button. The one in between the commands for “yell” and “cry”—the same one he always pushes—the power button. Mom totally shuts down, clamming up and falling silent. Chances are she’ll be like this all night, and maybe even tomorrow.

  I take up her defense, though speaking in a way my father can understand. “As herders we’re supposed to be a source of guidance, but we’re doing nothing to help the sheep,” I say.

  “Before we can help anyone else, we need to make sure we’re secure.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “I’ll tell you.” And with that he folds his napkin, guzzles his water in audible gulps until the glass is empty, then exits the kitchen, leaving me alone with my crashed mom and the bizarro Holiday Dinner from Hell.

  • • •

  Fights like the one my parents had at dinner have been a regular occurrence at my house for as long as I can remember. It’s one of the reasons why Brady left after he graduated from high school. Plus the fact that he got into Stanford and refused to go. That alone set him up as an Enemy of the People in our father’s eyes. For the few months before his graduation, Dad would not leave him alone about it. Do you realize the opportunity you’re getting? my father would say. You’re throwing your life away for some girl! Because that’s why Brady said he wasn’t going. His girlfriend was going to Saddleback—our local community college—and he wanted to be where she was.

  That wasn’t the real reason, though. I know Brady better than my parents do. The real reason he didn’t go to Stanford was because he was scared. I’m not exactly sure what he was scared of. Being on his own? Not measuring up? Living with strangers? Maybe a combination of all those things. Anyway, he moved out, got a job at GameStop, and now he only comes home for holidays. He stopped coming with his girlfriend, which means either she can’t stand our family, or he broke up with her. Brady hasn’t said either way.

  My dad might not see eye to eye with him
, but I know how much he still loves him—because even though we’re constantly rekeying our doors, Dad always leaves a key hidden in the yard for Brady, just in case he comes home. He’s the one person in the universe allowed to bypass all of our security.

  The day of the Tap-Out, I texted Brady and called him, just as my parents had, leaving a message that he needs to come with us to the bug-out, but like I said, he’s not the most responsive person. Our primary form of communication now is online RPG games. He’s a knight, a mercenary, or an assassin, depending on the game. I’m always his sidekick. I’ve been getting online, hoping to catch him playing, but so far nothing.

  Today’s parental dispute has left Mom sitting on the couch, blank-faced, hopped up on Xanax and watching the news while defiantly downing a full gallon of water. My dad has retreated into the garage again, welding and sawing with full-tilt intensity, so I take it that they haven’t quite made up yet.

  “You okay?” I ask Mom.

  “I’m fine, Kelton,” she says. “Just tired.” And I know her definition of “tired” can fill volumes.

  I’m guessing that my father is working on one of the booby traps we planned out a couple of Saturdays back—which I’m sure will turn out awesome. My dad always makes the best weapons when he’s angry. Nevertheless, this is my cue to get out of the house. I decide to go check in on Alyssa.

  I find Alyssa and Garrett on their back patio. It’s toward the end of twilight now, and they’re wrestling with a black plastic trash bag, a bucket, and their barbecue. Seems as if they’re working on a condensation trap to purify some water, and though I’m thoroughly impressed that they even know what a condensation trap is, they’re going about it all wrong.