“But that doesn’t explain why Veil sent The Scorpion after you,” Will said. “That happened before Rust Town was attacked, and the water shut off.”
“We still don’t know if Veil was the one who sent The Scorpion,” Rhea said. “But if so, you’re right, it doesn’t explain it.”
“Oh well, with luck this Veil will make contact with our friend soon,” Will said.
“Yep, and I guess we’ll see if he’s as good a hacker as he claims to be,” Rhea said. “Assuming he lives up to his end of the bargain.”
“He does seem like a spineless fellow, doesn’t he?” Will said. “Maybe he’ll grow a pair and get this done. Then again, probably not. Oh, by the way, Miles says his team has Operation Fidelity ready.”
That was the codename for their plan to restore Rust Town’s water supply.
“Good news,” Rhea said. “Tell him I’ll be down to see him in about fifteen minutes.”
With that she disconnected and spent several moments trying to calm the sudden trepidation she felt.
Why are you so worried? You don’t even know the full extent of the plan yet!
And yet she knew enough to understand that restoring the water supply definitely wasn’t going to be easy.
Rhea sat in the conference room. One of the larger cargo containers in the stack composing the compound, it contained a mid-sized table surrounded by several chairs. Miles resided at the head of that table. Horatio was on her left, Will her right. Renaldo and most of the remaining Wardenites took up the remaining seats.
“So, tell me how we’re going to restore water to Rust Town,” Rhea said.
Miles cleared his throat. “All right, well, first I want to tell you all the different avenues we explored, so that we don’t get comments from you guys like: why didn’t you do this? Why didn’t you do that? Originally, we wanted to 3D print a bunch of pipes, and use drills to lay them in secret underground, linking up with the main pipeline that feeds Aradne from the ocean. However, the costs proved prohibitive: there wasn’t enough material to build such a pipeline, even if we smelted everyone’s home in Rust Town. Nor were there enough donations on social media to purchase new materials and the drills we’d need, considering the big payment processors banned your account.”
Rhea was still smarting over that. She’d accumulated over a hundred thousand credits in donations from across the world, but before she could withdraw anything, CredPal banned her account for “violating its terms of service” and she never saw a dime of it. In its place, Aradne city council started an “Official Rust Town Rebuilding” online fund. So far it was up to thirty thousand creds, but again Rhea doubted the slums would ever receive any of it.
“And even if we could afford the project,” Miles continued, “if Aradne ever discovered the pipeline, it wouldn’t take much for them to destroy it, even underground. Besides, we’re mostly looking for a short-term solution, something we can put into play while negotiations with Aradne continue. We’re operating under the assumption that eventually they’ll turn on our water supply.”
“A good assumption,” Rhea commented. “Though I’m hoping to avoid the mass deaths in the streets it would probably take.”
“We all are,” Miles agreed. “Though already there have been some deaths live streamed, with people falling dead from lack of water while walking the street. So far, it hasn’t brought much of a response from Aradne city council, despite the outrage from its citizens online.”
“Yes,” Will said. “Online outrage is very easy to ignore. Maybe if its own citizens started rioting, Aradne might start paying attention.”
“We might have to look into staging a riot with the help of our contacts in the city,” Rhea said. “Assuming the security forces don’t simply arrest everyone. Somehow I doubt more demonstrations would help.” She glanced at Miles. “Anyway, go on.”
“Since the project only needed to be short term, we thought about using disposable rubber hoses that could link to the main pipeline, and supply the city for a few weeks,” Miles said. “Something we could lay discreetly, out in the open, in the Outlands. But even that was expensive. Plus, a surface operation left us exposed to attack not just from the city, but from roaming bioweapons and bandits.”
“The satellites in orbit would pick you up on the first day,” Horatio said. “There would be no ‘discreet’ in such a plan.”
“Yes, I know,” Miles said. “Another reason we ruled it out. So, this left us with only one real option. A water run.”
Rhea raised an eyebrow. “A water run?”
“Yes,” Miles said. “We’ve reached out to about a hundred residents who are still homeless and asked them if we could use the materials from their ruined houses to create three supply tanks. They’ve all agreed, and we’re 3D-printing those tanks as we speak, which we plan to connect to three pickup trucks recovered from the debris. Trucks that we’re converting into semis.”
“Wait a second, let’s see if I’m understanding this correctly,” Will said. “You’re building three supply tankers to drive into the Outlands, which you intend to fill with water from the main pipelines, and when that’s done, you plan to return to Rust Town with them.”
“That’s right,” Miles said.
“We’re going to be out in the open the whole time,” Rhea said.
“Yes,” Miles said. “But the city’s security forces won’t attack, not until we load up our tankers. We’re going to disguise them as a car carrier convoy, complete with false heat signatures to fool the satellites. But on the way back, once the city realizes what we’ve done, you’re right, they’ll try to stop us from bringing back the water.”
“We’re going to need an armed escort,” Rhea said.
“We have a few more pickups, and several drones,” Miles said.
“Not sure it’ll be enough,” Will said.
Miles was smiling.
“Those
