24991124 | 1813

  Safehouse Zero | Wadi Fringe | Eastern Nile Desert

  30°12′06″ N

  31°00′28″ E

  Boa watched the river from atop the balcony.

  From this distance the Nile looked tame.

  Broad, green, patient. It slid past the city without urgency.

  The Free City of Cairo was as ancient as it was modern.

  The glittering spires of its skyscrapers reflected off the placid waters of the ancient river.

  Late light turned the surface to hammered bronze.

  Feluccas moved slowly, unhurried, ornamental.

  The river that nurtured the cradle of humanity.

  The river that eased the thirst of the first settlers of the delta now a city.

  The river that fuelled the city’s growth and progress.

  “Here,” Python said, holding out a mug of caffè.

  She took a drink out of the tin mug.

  “The thing got EVECorp written all over it.” he said, pointing with his mug.

  “Yeah,” Boa said softly.

  The Aquifer Water Treatment and Hydroelectric Plant sat upstream of the Free City.

  It straddled the river’s breadth.

  There were no heroic pylons.

  No skyline-defying towers.

  Just brutal geometry.

  Function without flourish.

  Bare concrete and steel.

  Unornamented.

  A retention wall spanning across the water.

  The river’s surface was artificially elevated by a few careful meters.

  Men arresting nature through sheer will.

  The barrage stretched bank to bank.

  A segmented spine of gates and housings, each identical to the next.

  The might of the Nile shackled.

  Harnessed.

  The ancient river dammed.

  Behind the gates the river pooled, slowed, thickened.

  Not a reservoir in the mountain sense.

  No plunging valley or hundred-foot drop.

  A river forced to wait.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The backed-up water fed laterally into a web of channels and forebays carved into the floodplain.

  Long basins hemmed in by retention walls that ran like levees beside the city’s edge.

  From her vantage point, it resembled circuitry etched into earth and concrete.

  The placid surface belied the undercurrent and the might holding it in check.

  The power complex was embedded directly into the barrage.

  Low-profile turbine halls sat flush with the structure, their intakes below the waterline.

  Nothing spun visibly.

  Nothing leaked.

  Nothing smoked.

  The electricity they produced vanished into buried lines that ran straight into the city’s grid. Water and power, married.

  The city drank and breathed from the same source.

  Python took in the structure.

  “Real piece of work.”

  “Yeah,” Boa said.

  “EVECorp built this?” he continued.

  “Got a hand in it,” she shrugged, “Tier 1 Prime Contract.”

  “Tier 1.” Python whistled, “there were ever only two parties would bid for that.”

  “EVECorp or Muramasa,” Boa continued, “the only ones with the financial muscles.”

  “Figures.” He said, “world’s too small to have a third wheel.”

  Beyond the turbines rose the treatment stacks.

  Wide, squat buildings arranged in disciplined rows.

  Intake towers stood out in the river as monoliths.

  They were drawing water directly from the main channel.

  No canals.

  No delay.

  The Nile went in raw and torrential.

  Filtered. Chlorinated. Tagged. Counted.

  Boa shifted her weight and leaned upon the window ledge.

  Aquifer wasn’t a plant.

  It was a lifeline.

  It tethered the city because the city had outgrown gravity and rain and patience.

  The city’s demand had finally exceeded the river’s willingness to give.

  So they had pinned the Nile in place.

  Told it when to move.

  Took more than its willing to give.

  Tendered it into submission.

  They had raised the water just enough to make it useful.

  They had raised the water just enough to make it dangerous.

  Eight ring-like structures rose to the surface of the river.

  The Hydro Intake Towers and their outer-ring superstructure.

  They drank the bloated river.

  Taking it within their depthless pits.

  A cascading man-made waterfall to power the turbines and sanitize the water.

  Boa traced the line of the retention wall with her eyes.

  She followed it until it disappeared into the sprawl.

  She could visualize the pumps that kept the basins balanced.

  The control logic that synchronized gates and turbines and flow rates down to the second.

  She drew up scenarios if that logic stuttered.

  If the lights went out.

  If the river was unshackled.

  Wild and free once more.

  She took a breath and let it out slowly.

  Too bleak, she thought.

  “I’m surprised they didn’t paint it black.” Boa remarked.

  “Won’t work.” Python replied.

  “Why is that?”

  “Desert’s too hot.” he replied, “heats up the metal, heat expands.”

  “You know, for someone who runs his mouth off, you do have your moments.”

  “Was that a compliment?” he grinned.

  “Shut up.” She smiled.

  She took a sip from her mug.

  They both looked out at the imposing plant.

  “Where’s Chief?” She asked after a moment.

  “Shopping,” Python said, “with Viper.”

  “You think he’s ok?” Boa said.

  “Who? Chief?” he said, “of course he’s ok, the man’s ice cold.”

  “He called you by name.” Her tone crossed.

  “Oh,” finally catching on, “right.”

  “Think he’s spooked?”

  “I’ve seen that man offed two drug lords in front of their kids without blinking.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “Those were innocents.”

  “He’ll be fine.” He said, unsure.

  “Talk to him.” She eyed him.

  “About what?” Python asked.

  “You know,” She whispered, “the jobs.”

  “Oh,” his tone matched hers,” you mean from her.”

  “Yeah, that CIA whack-job did a number on him.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know why the Chief works with her.”

  “You ever seen her, like ever?”

  “No.” he admitted, “never.”

  “Some CIA black site, listening posts.”

  “I thought they levelled those sites decades ago.”

  “Some survived,” Boa said quietly. “They said when EVECorp’s black coats came, some of them uploaded into the InterEx.”

  “Stories,” Python snorted.

  “You don’t believe that?” she looked at him, astonished.

  “Girl, are you daft? Netrunners?” he replied. “They got sloppy. Done in by an Enforcer’s bullet.”

  “You don’t think she is one of them?”

  “That ice-hearted bitch? No way.” Python said, “too cold to be real.”

  “Treats the Chief like a dog on a leash – go here, fetch that.” He spat, “If I ever meet her, I will give her a piece of my mind.”

  Boa looked at the imposing plant in the distance.

  “We’re not gonna make it, are we? Humans, I mean.”

  “It’s in our nature to destroy ourselves, yes.”

  “Here you go again, quoting those old holos,” Boa grumbled.

  “But you get me, right?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she said.

  “Means you like those old holos too,”

  “We were cooped indoors.” She said, exasperated, “what else were we supposed to do?”

  “I supposed you were right.” He scratched his back, “I forgotten how young you were.”

  “Those old junks were good,” Python said softly, “a time where they can tell stories about bleak, fantastical futures just to escape their boring lives.”

  “You ain’t that old, grandpa.”

  “I sure feel that way.” He sighed.

  “Me too,” She said, patting his arm gently, “me too.”

  “Thanks, kiddo.”

  They continued watching the imposing structure that tamed a river.