The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi

Sarah tried to get men to buy her drinks.
    The star of
Undaunted
had pulled up in front of one of those fancy Vegas arcologies in an icy-looking Tesla. The camera had been following Tau Ox, but Maria had lost interest in the star when she saw the fountain.
    Huge-ass fountain, spraying water straight up into the air. Dancing water spouts. Water like diamonds in the sun. And little kids splashing their faces with it. Just wasting it.
    It was like the fountains she’d spied inside the Taiyang Arcology, but without the security guards to keep you away. And it was
outside
. They were just letting water evaporate. Letting it go.
    When Maria saw that fountain, right out there in the open, she’d finally understood why her father had been trying to get them to Vegas. Why he’d been so sure that city was the place to go.
    But his plan hadn’t worked out. They’d been a little too slow to move out of Texas, and then the State Independence and Sovereignty Act had put up walls they couldn’t cross. Every single state realizing it was in trouble if it kept letting people flood in.
    “It’s just temporary,
mija
,” Papa had said. “It won’t stay this way.”
    But by that time Maria had stopped believing so much in what Papa said. He was an old man, she realized.
Viejo
, right? Living according to an ancient map of the world that no longer existed.
    In Papa’s head, things looked one way, but in Maria’s experience they were nothing the same. He kept saying that this was America and America was all about freedom and doing what you wanted, but the crumbling America that they drove across, where Texans were strung up on New Mexico fence lines as warnings, most definitely wasn’t the America he kept inside his head.
    His eyes were old.
Ojos viejos
. Her father couldn’t see what was right in front of his face. People didn’t get to come back to their houses like he said they would. You didn’t get to stay in your hometown, the way he said you would. You didn’t see your school friends ever again, the way he said you would. Your mother wasn’t there for your
quinceañera
, the way he said she would. None of it worked out the way he said it would.
    At some point Maria realized that her father’s words were dust. She didn’t correct him every time he was wrong, because she could tell he felt bad about being wrong about basically everything.
    Sarah made an impatient noise. “How much longer we got to wait?”
    “You should know,” Maria goaded. “Your fiver is the one who told me about this.”
    But Sarah cared only about keeping the fiver’s hands on her body and making sure his party plans always focused on her.
    Maria, on the other hand, had listened to the man’s words.
    “It’s market price,” the fiver had said. “If it weren’t for that, Phoenix would never permit those Red Cross pumps, and Texans would be sucking dust on the I-10 and dying out in Chandler.”
    The man had been pouring habañero salsa over
cochinita pibil
, a meal he claimed wasn’t Mexican at all but Yucatecan, which to him seemed to justify the fact that he was spending more on the white-tablecloth meal than Maria and Sarah spent on a week’s rent.
    “Market pricing keeps control of everything.”
    He’d gotten onto the topic of Red Cross pumps because they’d been talking about Merry Perrys and all the faith trinkets they sold in their revival tents. And then Maria had said something about how Merry Perrys always set up their prayer tents next to relief pumps, because they could use water as bait to get people to listen to them preach.
    Sarah had given Maria a nasty look for reminding the man that they lived anywhere near relief pumps, but the fiver had perked right up at the mention of water.
    “Those pumps and those prices are probably the only smart thing Phoenix has done for water,” he said. “Too little too late, but you know, better late than never.” He winked at Maria. “And hey, it gives Merry Perrys a new way to