The Water Thief (20 page)

“I’m sorry,
Kate. How can I go back? I am not a colleague anymore. I can’t live that life.”

Her eyes were
sad. “I understand. But you have to anyway. You said that you wanted a way to
redeem yourself—for Sarah.”

I knew what was
coming.

“You have no
idea,” she said, “no idea how hard I’ve worked to convince them to let you keep
coming here. I’ve been cut out of nearly all of the decisions—they won’t talk
to me or come here to meet with me. And that’s okay, but I can’t give you any
more.”

“This is cruel.”

“I know,” she
said. “Let’s go back together. I’ll live at your place. But you can’t stop
going to work or meeting with Linus. If you’ve been looking for a way to prove
yourself, this is it. You have to go back.”

She would go
back with me, too. I knew that. That arrangement would help. But she was the
only beautiful thing in my life.

I would go back
to Ackerman. I would do carry the burden for Sarah Aisling. I had asked for the
chance to be like her, to take risks like her, to stand up for what I believed.
But I had wanted to do so on my terms. Would that life were like that,
challenging us in the time and place of our choosing. No, I had to go back to
Ackerman, precisely because it was the last thing I wanted to do.

“How long until
the crash?” I asked.

“There’s no way
to know. As it gets closer we’ve gotten better at pinning it down. Our best
guess is it’s about four to eight weeks away. But a single bad market
fluctuation could catalyze an entire catastrophe overnight.”

I shifted
uncomfortably.

“We’ll know a day
or two before it gets bad. That’s why I’ve been having you stay here at night.
At the first sign of serious trouble in the market, you should come straight
here. We go to the bunker together. Once they seal it up, Ackerman will never
hurt us again.”

I had survived
two bombings already, and now I saw myself getting entombed in the center of
Capital City while the economy itself detonated.

She put both
hands on my face and looked me in the eyes. “If you don’t get out of the city,
I will go in,” she said. “I will find you. Do you understand me? I will not
leave you out here alone.”

“No,” I said.
“You’d never find me, and I don’t want you to miss the vault. Whatever happens,
I’ll be okay if I know you’re safe.”

“I’m not going
into the vault without you.”

“No, Kate. It’s
a deal-breaker. I won’t go back unless you promise me that you won’t come after
for me.”

“Once they close
those doors, they’re not opening for decades. Promise me you won’t miss it.”

“I won’t.”

I sat at my
desk, massaging my right leg. It ached, and I could tell even before I checked
the weather futures that we were in for a storm. There was a hurricane coming,
and everybody was hustling to finish as much work as they could before
hunkering down for the night. It was hard to fake interest in a single storm,
no matter how big it was. Bernard, Corbett, Leoben, all my colleagues were
huffing around, trying to negotiate supplies to last a couple of days in case
the power went out. In a couple of months they’d all be corpses. They’d have no
food, no water, and no electricity. The building would be a mausoleum.

I logged into my
terminal. I found an escrow credit of 13,861.44 caps, for emergency mitigation
services rendered at the café. I also found a press release, which read that a
Kabul suicide bomber attacked Atlas Square, but was shot and killed before he
could reach his target. A preliminary investigation showed that spies inside
Ackerman had helped him infiltrate the square undetected. Already the CEO was
preparing proposals to ferret these traitors out, and was personally going to
oversee a new economic offensive against Kabul Coffee.

I still hadn’t
received my commission from my Aisling report.

I had only
managed a few reports by lunch. I had always said that nothing was worse than
administrative paperwork. But paperwork under the futility of an impending
Armageddon, that would crush the spirit of even the stoutest of actuaries.

“The storm won’t
be that bad,” scoffed Corbett. “These people. You need battery backups, backup
routers, generators. They call themselves professionals? The whole city could
go dark, and I’d still be working. Nobody here is dedicated, not one iota.”

Bernard hastily
ripped open a bag of candies and sent them flying all over the room. With a
grunt he fell to his hands and knees and began picking them up, popping the
occasional one into his mouth when he thought nobody was looking.

“Bernard, that’s
disgusting!” Corbett said. He turned to me. “I saw you at the café yesterday.
Didn’t want to trouble you. You had one hell of an afternoon. How did you like
our crafting of the incident? I hope it meets with your approval.”

I nodded.

“Oh, they’re
going to add a two and a half percent levy to cover the war,” groaned Bernard.
“How will I ever cope with it? I’ve barely got enough to live on as it is.”

“Cope?” Corbett
said. “You should be counting your blessings, you ungrateful pig! Not many CEOs
could wage an effective war at two and-a-half percent. Christ, Bernard, Charles
was nearly killed. These Kabul
people are maniacs. All this over coffee? Obviously they can’t handle
legitimate competition. We need to kill them all, every one. Hell, we should
have done this last month! How do we expect to stay competitive if we let some
piss-ant company like Kabul walk all over us?”

“Oh, there are
plenty of ways to get ‘em without having to charge
me
a security fee,” grumbled Bernard “I don’t go to places like
Atlas Square precisely for this reason. Let the HighCons deal with HighSec, if
they’re stupid enough to all gather in one spot!”

“They have a
right to have a place of their own, where they can engage in civil discourse
and debate. What are you, a communist? Your lack of sympathy for your own
colleagues is disgusting!” Corbett exclaimed.

“Takashi could
have done better,” Bernard said.

“What?”
stammered Corbett.

“I mean… well,
you know what I mean. If I were advising Takashi, I’d have told him to just let
Kabul in. We
have got bigger fish to fry.”

“You’re a
coward, Bernard!”

“That’s it. You called
me a pig and I let it go because you’re a colleague, but no more. I’m going to
sue you for slander!”

I returned to my
cubicle. I found a memo reminding me that colleagues who left their windows
open during the storm would suffer stiff fines, and that any equipment damaged
as a result of a lightning strike would be the sole responsibility of the
owner. As I tossed it into the trash, Corbett snuck in behind me.

“Charles, old
boy, I have something for you. I was going to give it to you yesterday, but….”

“Not now.”

“Twenty caps.
You can make a mint on this. Come on, you know I’m good.”

I shook my head.

“Okay, ten caps,
but I won’t go that low next time.”

I took the
offer.

“Leoben is
retiring. He’s gone.”

I could make a
few caps off that, for sure. Leoben was a department head. A day or two before
retirement, managers would always fire their staff and auction off the most
valuable equipment, boost short-term profits, goose the stock before they sold
their options. I thanked him, but if Corbett knew, so did everyone else—it
would be too late to get in on it. Besides, what would be the point?

It had only been
five hours and already I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t endure another week, let
alone a month or two.

Maybe there are signs
.
If I can predict more accurately, figure
out exactly when this is going to happen....

I worked inside
the firm, with far more access to information than Kate and her colleagues. I
was sure I’d be able to get better insight on when the collapse would hit.

The futures
market, I figured that was the way to tell. They placed completely unregulated
bets on the future value of commodities. The only people who made any money
were the ones who researched like crazy, cheated better than the next guy, or
had insider information.

I browsed Ackerman’s
stock and futures prices. They were all within the norms, no hint of the coming
crash. Some wackos were making outrageous bets on Ackerman suddenly collapsing
or rising meteorically, but people did that every day. I checked to see if
Linus’ name showed up on any bets anywhere—if anyone would know where Ackerman
was headed, he would. Nothing.

When the crash
hit, it was going to be fast.

I was sick of
not being able to see clearly and turned on the master cubicle light. I
refocused my efforts, checking the futures of oil, water, air, even of CEO
Takahiro Takashi himself. I found nothing unusual.

“What the hell
are you doing?” cried Bernard, bursting into the cubicle. “You’re wasting
light!”

“I’ve paid for
it.”

“It looks bad!”

“Fine, if it
really means that much to you, my wallet is on the desk, take a twenty.”

His eyes lit up.
He looked around suspiciously before snatching a twenty.

I was getting
nowhere. By the time the crash was big enough to be reflected in futures, it
would be too late. The answer was the phantom trades. That would be the
flashpoint where the crash would hit first.

“Is… is that
trading stats?” he asked me.

“Yeah.”

“What are you
doing?”

“Trading.”

“On the Ackerman
floor? Oh my god,” he laughed. “What do you know about Arbitrage? You’re going
to get killed. I swear, I’m going to short your futures. I’ll make a killing!
You’ll owe Ackerman for the rest of your life.”

He walked out
laughing. My futures—in all the excitement I had fallen out of the habit of
checking them.

When I did I
nearly fell out of my chair. Once worth more than forty caps apiece, they were
down to little more than two cents.

Ackerman knew.

If they were
just upset that I had been visiting LowSec, I’d expect a loss of about five or
ten caps. But the whole Arbitrage division—Christ, maybe even all of
Ackerman—had decided that I was a bad bet. It was impossible to know how much
they knew about Kate, or our Republic. But the consensus on the trading floor
was that I had no future.

Retention was
probably already surveilling me. They wouldn’t let my stock fall to nothing
without finding some way of getting their money back. But now that I had
checked, I knew, and whatever value I had to them was over.

They’d be
coming.

If they arrested
me, I was dead—if not on the gallows, then starving in jail after the crash.

I swept my
keyboard and terminal completely off my desk and jumped up on top of it. I
could see over the partitions to the elevators. The doors were opening, and
several men wearing the fine suits reserved for Retention agents walked onto
the floor. They spotted me, and I ducked back down.

I would have to
get out of Capital City. My only immediate advantage was that the maze of
seventh floor cubicles was almost organic. Divisions and partitions were
constantly merging and splitting. Years of dodging Bernard in that labyrinth
had taught me every recess, every nook.

I grabbed my
ledger and burst out of my cubicle. The nearest fire exit was around the corner
and down the hall. I caught a colleague as he was coming from his office,
knocking him back through a partition, tossing papers everywhere. In the chaos
I grabbed another partition and brought it down into the hallway.

I reached the
exit and waved my ledger over the terminal.

“Charles
Thatcher,” chimed a gentle computer voice. “Please remain where you are.
Authorities will be with you shortly.”

Already my
ledger had been disconnected. I wouldn’t be able to open doors, make electronic
business transactions, or even get past the most elementary security.

I saw a mail
clerk. I ran towards him, and, sprinting over his cart, slipped my ledger into
one of the side pockets.

I turned into
another cubicle, and crashed through another partition. It fell in a heap with
two more, and I clambered through them and down the aisle. This mess would slow
Retention down, but nothing would stop them.

I reached the
snack room, where I found a number of colleagues. Bernard was up to his elbows
in freshly purchased chocolate bars.

“Charles? What
do
you
want?” he said, spewing wafer
crusts from his mouth.

I grabbed his
tie and pulled him into a punch. I hit his face—once, twice, then a third time.
He squealed and fell back, blood pouring everywhere.

“You stole my
twenty, you fat bastard!” I cried, reaching into his suit. I pulled out his
wallet and took all the cash in it, but as I did I also snuck his ledger, and
quickly slid it into my own pocket. I tossed the wallet onto him.

“I catch you
near my things again, and you’re dead!” I shouted, giving him a kick before
running out. With any luck, the brutality of my attack would keep him from
noticing his ledger was missing.

As I made my way
toward the elevators, a commotion broke out ahead of me. I ducked into a tiny
corner—an awkward space made from the juxtaposition of two cubicles that
weren’t quite lined up, like a hole in the universe. I heard the pounding of
feet, and watched as two agents ran past me towards the break room.

I dashed to the
elevator. Waving Bernard’s ledger over the terminal, the doors opened, and I
clambered inside. I jabbed the lobby button again and again, suffering
agonizing moments waiting for the doors to close. They did, and I began the
slow ride down all seven flights.

It was stupid to
take the elevator—at any moment security could lock it off. But the stairs were
located on the other side of the building; I’d never have made it. At last the
doors opened at the lobby. I hurried past the guard at Simon’s old desk and ran
out into the courtyard.