Maynard Cole sat on an elevated rock ledge surveilling the remote diversion station with a pair of binoculars. A massive steel pipeline entered the windowless masonry building on one side and exited it on the other. A smaller pipe, about three feet in diameter, left the isolated structure on the north side, perpendicular to the mainline. From there, it began a vertical climb out of the steep-walled canyon.
Cole followed the route of the mainline with his binoculars. From his high roost, he could see where the colossal pipeline passed through the remains of Hoover Dam. It had been demolished with explosives in 2051, a year after Lake Mead reached dead pool. All that remained were enormous chunks of concrete, pulverized by the detonations and strewn across the canyon floor in a chaotic mess. No effort had been made to clean up the debris.
The sun slipped beneath the canyon wall to the west leaving a surreal pink glow on the raw strata. The air temperature cooled quickly, but Cole could still feel the sun’s late May warmth on the smooth surface of the Aztec Sandstone where he sat.
He set his binoculars down and took a small sip from his canteen, then he pulled a folded bandana from the back pocket of his hiking shorts and wiped the perspiration from his face and neck. A spotted whiptail lizard stood nearby, bobbing its head up and down, looking him over. The reptile stayed close because it knew sweaty mammals attracted insects, though Cole himself looked much too big to eat.
As darkness began to envelope the canyon floor, he carefully climbed down the rock face towards the diversion station. He remained alert, scanning the sky for drones. It seemed unlikely the L.A. water authority would use static surveillance cameras. The location was too remote with too much ground to cover. He thought the detection danger was in airborne drones and Jody had concurred.
A full moon was set to rise within an hour, and it would give him limited light for the climb out. He hoped to be done by the time it cleared the horizon. He approached the diversion station’s entry in total darkness and found an electronic passkey with his penlight. Time to activate Jody. He pulled a handheld tablet from his daypack and linked to an encrypted satellite connection. Online now, his AI assistant hacked the password in less than a minute.
Inside the windowless building, he found a switch and activated an array of fluorescent lights. He took a seat in front of an electronic control board. He texted Jody: “Are you detecting any surveillance devices inside the building?”
A reply came almost instantly: “Negative, Maynard. You appear to be in the clear.”
“Let’s get moving then. Can you find a way in?”
Jody went to work looking for a way to enter the system without setting off alarms. Within a few minutes the AI pulled it off. By stealing outdated administrator credentials that still had an active password, Jody spoofed the system’s firewall: “I’m inside as a remote administrator now.”
“Fantastic. See if you can open the Vegas branch valve. Only a small trickle at first. Try a gallon a minute.”
A section of LEDS on the control board that had been red, abruptly turned green, signaling success.
A text from Jody appeared on the screen: “The valve is open and producing H2O.”
“Are you detecting any system alarms?”
“Negative.”
“Increase the flow then. Gradually, up to ten gallons a minute.”
As Jody continued working, Cole went to the door. He opened it, stepped outside and carefully studied the night sky—it was plastered with twinkling stars and distant constellations, but there appeared to be no sign of drones. Looking towards the east, he could see the glow of a full moon on the rise, still concealed behind the towering canyon wall. It was a long and difficult climb out, over a thousand vertical feet, but the moon would give him enough light to make it. He went back inside, gently pulled the door shut and returned to the control board.
A new text from Jody appeared: “Success. The flow has reached ten gallons a minute.”
“All right, increase the flow to twenty gallons a minute and activate the pumping stations.”
Cole took a sip from his canteen and cracked a smile. From all appearances, his plan was working, and the storage tanks would soon begin filling. Slowly, but that was fine. A slow and steady stream seemed least likely to set off any alarms. Jody had put the probability of success at an even 50-50, data that seemed suspicious to Cole because either way the AI could say it had not been wrong.
Another text appeared: “The flow has reached twenty gallons a minute. LVWS pumps are active and drawing water out of the canyon.”
“Move it up to thirty gallons a minute.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Time for me to vacate. Will you still be able to access the system when I’m gone?”
“Of course, Maynard. As you know, I exist on the power station servers, not on that cheap gadget you’re holding in your hand.”
“But you won’t lose the Wi-Fi connection?”
“Negative. I’m not using your tablet to communicate with the LAWS system. The security protocols are too sketchy, and the risk of detection would be too high.”
Cole was astounded and slightly miffed. “So, what you’re saying is you could have opened the valve without me risking my life climbing down here?”
“More than likely, Maynard. 90% probability anyway.”
“Now you tell me!”
“Well, you said you needed to get more exercise.” A smiley face emoji appeared on the screen.
“Damn smart-ass machine,” said Cole as he clicked the tablet off. He pulled on his daypack, left the isolated building, and began the long ascent out of Boulder Canyon. Free climbing in the moonlight it would take a few hours.
***
Cole’s joints felt sore when he climbed out of bed the next morning, but a few stretching exercises loosened them up without much effort. He was still a relatively young man at 32 and worked at staying in shape. He had no choice considering his self-sufficient lifestyle. Cole’s survival depended on maintaining his good health. Because there weren’t many doctors left in 2065 Las Vegas.
He lived at the Warm Springs Geo-Thermal Power Generating Station on the south end of town. Out where the suburban sprawl had run out of level ground in the pre-drought years. The endless blocks of tract homes were empty now, the streets, schoolyards and strip malls overwhelmed with drifts of windblown dust. The houses and stores taken over by assorted native Rodentia—Mohave Ground Squirrels, Panamint Chipmunks and Desert Kangaroo Rats. Mammals well-suited to surviving in the arid wasteland. Scorpions, black widows and rattlesnakes too, and Cole had neither a reason nor a desire to go anywhere near the boundless square miles of abandoned buildings.
An extended Southwestern drought had become much worse in the 2030s and 2040s. Colorado and Utah ski resorts folded after years of dry winters in the Rockies and the Colorado River went from a raging spring torrent to a mild-mannered desert stream.
Cole was 16 years old when the dams had come down. First Hoover and within months, Glen Canyon too. The reservoirs became useless once they had dead-pooled and the hydroelectric turbines stopped turning. At the behest of system engineers, the politicians had decided it would be more efficient to put the river in a pipeline. Not only to cut down on evaporation, but also theft, because the resource had become more valuable than gasoline.
A branch of the brand-new pipeline reached the existing water treatment plant in Las Vegas, but the city’s allotment was a fraction of the water they’d drawn before the extended drought. As a result, the casino fountains and artificial lakes went dry, along with the golf courses and Kentucky Bluegrass lawns. Before long, the tourist-based economy collapsed, and the residents began to leave town. Once Las Vegas had become a ghost town, cutting off their apportionment of the Colorado was easy for the city government in L.A. because there was no one left to fight them.
Though most of Las Vegas’s water had come from Lake Mead, a much smaller portion came from deep wells drilled into aquifers beneath the desert basin. That’s where the geo-thermal power plant’s water came from and one of the reasons why Cole had decided to live there. He’d worked at the plant as a system engineer when the economy collapsed and with the help of Jody, he’d managed to keep it running after his boss and all his co-workers had moved out of town.
Because of his control over what remained of the electricity grid, Cole was a popular man among the handful of people who remained in Las Vegas. He wasn’t sure how many there were, no one really knew. Probably less than a hundred, not counting the drifters who periodically wandered through town.
He sat outside the front entry with his dogs, Juno and Magic, still recuperating from the extreme exercise of the day before. It was mid-morning, and the sun was already blazing hot. A broad canopy roof provided shade and kept Cole’s chair and the concrete walkway relatively cool. No natural vegetation in sight, not even a creosote bush or a cactus, and he used a push broom and scoop shovel to keep the windblown dust from burying the entrance to his makeshift home.
Two ATVs appeared on the access road to the power station. The riders traveled at a moderate pace, dodging the occasional drift of Mohave Desert dust. Juno and Magic were stretched out on the concrete, but both rose to their feet when they heard the approaching four-wheelers.
Myles Deloof and Harmony Biggs parked their ATVs a short distance from the entry, far enough away to keep from suffocating Cole and his canines in a cloud of dust when they came to a stop. They pulled off their helmets as they ambled up to the entry. Both wore coveralls and boots. Juno and Magic ran out to greet them with tails wagging.
“Morning, Myles. Hi, Harmony,” said Cole.
“Hey, Maynard,” said Myles as the pair took seats in the shade. “You said you have some kind of business proposition?”
“That I do…So how’s your trucking business faring?”
“We’re doing fine.”
“Then let me ask you a question. When you transport fuel from Salty to Bakersfield, what kind of profit margin are you looking at?”
Myles glanced at Harmony before replying, then said, “As a percentage of the sale you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“With all our costs paid—drivers, equipment maintenance etc. we’re looking at 10 to 15 percent.”
“10 to 15 percent.”
“That’s right,” said Harmony. “Could be a little more or a little less depending on the circumstances, but our fee is adjusted according to the price of the fuel, so it doesn’t vary by much.”
“What if I could pay you 50% of the sale price straight up, for a commodity that I can sell for double the price of gasoline?”
“I’d say that sounds like an awesome deal,” said Myles. “What’s the commodity?”
“Water.”
“Water?” said Myles. He looked towards the parched landscape surrounding the generating station and held up his hands. “Water from where, Maynard?”
“Water fresh from the Las Vegas Water Supply Treatment Plant.”
“That’s fed by the Colorado River Pipeline,” said Harmony. “The fascists in L.A. shut off our allotment a long time ago.”
“Shut off until last night. Jody hacked the system and turned it back on.”
“Holy shit,” said Myles. “What are you going to do when they find out?”
“They won’t. The upstream flow is rising right now from the spring run-off, and it varies from year to year.”
“What about when the flow goes back down?”
“The system is automated and we’re only taking thirty gallons a minute. Not enough to set off any alarms.”
“How can you be sure they won’t pick it up?”
“Because Jody is inside their system and won’t let it happen. By the time the runoff goes back down, my AI will have their system so thoroughly spoofed, we’ll be able to take more.”
“Until someone notices.”
“Highly unlikely. The flow varies appreciably from year to year. If a human technician notices a slight downturn, it’ll be attributed to the ongoing drought. And Jody says it’s unlikely they have human technicians checking anything.”
“The trillionaire fascists fired them,” said Harmony. “Along with everyone else.”
“Yup,” said Cole, grinning. “The City of Angels is 100% automated, and Jody found their Achilles Heel.”
To be continued…