Read The Water Wars for Free Online

building was slowly falling into a heap. That was what it looked like all across Arch—and across the entire republic, as far as I could tell. People gathered in close proximity to one another, and anything unprotected was left to criminals and the elements.
    Everything fell apart. That was the only constant.
    In nine months I would lose my brother to the army. I couldn’t bear thinking about what would happen once he left home. He promised he would be fine, but I knew boys left all the time and were scarred forever. If anything happened to Will, I didn’t know if I could go on.
    And what of Kai?
    When I thought of him, I felt a sudden flush creep up my neck. I cast a sidelong glance at him, but he didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t look anything like the dark and muscular heroes in the romance screens I sometimes read. Besides, I was too young for a boyfriend—that’s what my parents had said—even though plenty of girls my age were pairing up. There was one boy last year who had followed me around, but he was creepy and left me alone when Will threatened to beat him up. With Kai, however, I grew more flustered as we walked farther and didn’t hear when he asked if he could come over.
    “If you’d like,” I said after he repeated his question. “My father should be home,” I added, in case he got the wrong idea.
    We entered the grounds of our complex, passing the empty guard station and the useless and crumbling concrete barriers. Long ago these buildings had been built for retirees who needed security and extra care. But these days few people lived long enough to retire, and there was no money for their care anyway. The guards disappeared first, followed by the upkeep and maintenance. Now we patched our own walls and prayed that the electric wiring would not fail.
    Kai climbed the steps ahead of me, his calves outlined against the thin fabric of his trousers. He rang the buzzer, and my father welcomed us. He offered us a snack of crackers and soy cheese, which Kai was happy to accept. We ate in the living room and played board games. The wi-screen glowed softly in the background, playing its constant stream of news, entertainment, and information. We ignored it. It was too early for homework, and I never had much anyway. Will returned, and the three of us swapped stories while Will tried to extract more information about the river.
    Soon this became our regular schedule. Our father would leave the door unlocked with a plate of cheese and crackers at the table. Most of the time he would greet us in the kitchen, but sometimes he would let us be. Kai and I grew comfortable with his absence, and I almost forgot the tension of having a boy in my home without a chaperone. At the end of every day, when the black limousine arrived outside our building, Kai seemed reluctant to leave. More than once our father took pity and invited him to dinner. Then we would prolong our game-playing or storytelling until it was finally time for me to do my homework. When Kai was long gone, I’d take a dry shower, set out my clothes for the morning, and read from my mother’s collection of Great Books of the Twentieth Century : a ten-volume set with torn paper pages, cracked bindings, and scribbled pen markings—the only bound paper volume in our home.
    “Poor boy,” our father would say.
    “He’s not poor,” said Will.
    But we knew what he meant. We just had to look into the bedroom to imagine what it must be like to lose your mother at an early age. Kai feigned indifference, but I understood better than he thought I did. When I tried to get him to talk about his mother, he shrugged and said he really didn’t remember her. He wouldn’t say much about his father either except that he traveled a lot. Although he was open about his diabetes and showed me the workings of his insulin pencil, he didn’t talk much about the disease. He only spoke about the mechanics of treating himself.
    Mostly we talked about scavenging, and