The Water Knife

by Paolo Bacigalupi

“It’s the first rule of bureaucracy: any message worth sending is worth sending in triplicate.”

“If they can’t police their damn water mains, they can drink dust,” Case had said.

She’d gorged those pork-barrel bastards on hookers and cocaine and vast sloshing oceans of Super PAC cash, so when the Joint Chiefs discovered a desperate need to defend tar sands pipelines way up north, coincidentally, the only folks who could do the job were the desert rats of the Arizona National Guard.

Angel grinned. “Hey, lady, I’m just serving papers.”

relaxation. “People only really live when they’re about to die,” he said. “Before then it’s all a waste. You don’t appreciate how good it is until you’re really in the shit.”

“We knew it was all going to go to hell, and we just stood by and watched it happen anyway. There ought to be a prize for that kind of stupidity.”

Pure data. You don’t believe data—you test data.”

“If I could put my finger on the moment we genuinely fucked ourselves, it was the moment we decided that data was something you could use words like believe or disbelieve around.”

“No.” Case shook her head. “Journos have the attention span of gnats. By tomorrow they’ll be chasing a supertornado in Chicago, or some Miami seawall break.

“That’s our money you’re drinking,” Maria reminded her.

Lots of people were wearing filter masks. Rich people wore Ralph Lauren and YanYan. Poor people wore American Eagle and Walmart.

Vegas, too. They’ve got arcologies.” “Sin City?” Toomie said, grinning. “When they heard we were headed for Hell, those people threw a party. They were ready for Hell, because they come out of Hell.

“You get worked up about what’s right and wrong, but that shit’s only in your head. Rules are what the big dogs say they are. The reason you pay tax is so they forget to kill you today. That’s what you buy with tax.

“You’re a tiny little mouse, in a big old desert,” he said. “I would’ve thought you understood that by now. There’s hawks and owls and coyotes and snakes, and all they want to do is eat you up.

“Journos are easy to find. They like attention.”

Cadillac Desert,

“And here I am, helping you out with that.” He smiled. “You going to get me a Pulitzer for my original reporting?”

“Sometimes you realize that not risking something so you can live is worse than dying.”

Beside it Britney Spears stared out at him from a crinkled poster, Botoxed and toothless, promising Granny Time.

“You’re…” He swallowed again. “You some kind of fucked-up bitch, you know that?”

Lucy still wanted to think the best of people. That was fine. Idealists were nice company. Didn’t eat you alive.