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Reaching the beach Albert scanned the work site. It looked like a salvage yard. A five-hundred-gallon oval propane tank lay abandoned on the sand. A scorched hole in one side.
A second, slightly smaller tank should have been resting on steel legs right at the water’s edge. Instead it was tipped over. A copper pipe stuck out of the top. This pipe was crimped tightly over a slightly smaller pipe that bent back toward the ground. A third, still narrower pipe was duct-taped heavily in place and this pipe reached the wet sand.
In theory at least, this crude, jury-rigged contraption was a still. The principle was simple enough: boil salt water, let the steam rise into a pipe, then cool the steam. What dribbled out of the end would be drinkable water.
Easy in theory. Almost impossible to do practically. Especially now that some fool had knocked it over.
Albert’s heart sank. Soon Harley and Janice wouldn’t be the only ones begging for water. The gasoline supply was down to a few hundred gallons at the station. No gas: no water truck. No water truck: no water.
Even worse, the tiny Lake Evian in the hills was drying up. There had been no rain since the coming of the FAYZ. Kids knew there was a plan to relocate everyone to Lake Evian when the last of the gas was gone; what they didn’t realize was that things were far worse than that.
The first tank, the burned one, had been an earlier effort to create a still. Albert had tried to get Sam to boil the water using his powers. Unfortunately Sam couldn’t dial it down enough to heat without destroying.
This new effort would require a fire beneath the tank. Which would mean crews of kids to rip lumber from unused houses. Which might make the whole thing more trouble than it was worth.
The crew was lounging. Tossing pebbles at the surf, trying to get them to skip.
Albert marched over to them, his loafers filling with sand. “Hey,” he snapped. “What happened here?”
The four kids—none older than eleven—looked guilty.
“It was like this when we got here. I think the wind knocked it over.”
“There is no wind in the FAYZ, you . . .” He stopped himself from saying, “moron.” Albert had a certain reputation for being in control of himself. He was the closest thing they had to an adult.
“I hired you to dig a hole, not play around,” Albert said.
“It’s hard,” one said. “It keeps filling up.”
“I know it’s hard. It won’t get any easier. And if you want to eat, you work.”
“We were just taking a break.”
“Break’s over. Get on those shovels.”
Albert turned and walked away with Jamal in his wake.
“Those kids are flipping you off, boss,” Jamal reported.
“Are they digging?”
Jamal glanced back and reported that they were.
“As long as they do their work they can flip me off all they like,” Albert said.
It was then that Roscoe came up to report his haul from Hunter. And to tell Albert a crazy story about Hunter’s shoulder biting him.
“Look,” Roscoe said and held out his hand for Albert’s inspection.
Albert sighed. “Save the crazy stories, Roscoe,” he said.
“It’s like, like, green, kind of,” Roscoe said. “I’m not the Healer or Dahra,” Albert said.
But as he walked away something nagged at the edges of Albert’s thoughts: the wound really had looked a bit green.
Someone else’s problem. He had plenty of his own.
It was then that he spotted someone lying on the sand, just lying there like he might be dead. Far down the be
