Pinto Future | Chapter One: The Water-Filled Garden

Pinto Future, story elements, and characters TM and © Jeff Harris

The Story So Far... A land where oil is plentiful but water is a rare commodity. A lone warrior who has travels through a deserted road and finds a lone gas station. While chatting and flirting with the storekeep, he learns of the location of a water manufacturer who has cornered the market in that part of the world, which leads him to the deserts of Manhattan in the heart of the wasteland that is New York City. (Prologue)

The deserts of New York wasn't always so deserted. Long ago, they were filled with tall buildings touching the face of God Himself, scraping the sky, and providing the millions that once resided here with shelter and shade, not to mention entertainment for the masses. Heck, I remember one of those buildings had weirdos mugging behind a huge windows and behind a barricade hoping to get on camera for a morning show. I don't care how much coffee you drink, that's just too early for anybody to be acting like fools.

I do miss the Christmas tree they used to put up every year though. Get all goosepimply about that sort of thing.

Deviating from the story, I know. Just never had a rapt audience to hear what I had to say. I'll continue.

Over time, the people began leaving New York for moister environments. The Hudson River hasn't flowed as strong as it used since the Tear dried up. Not a literal tear, mind you. Lake Tear of the Clouds was once the highest source of the mighty Hudson. After the Great Reaction, the glaciers dissolved into the atmosphere as the Earth began to burn. Haven't been up there in a while, but the flow of the Hudson as well as the East and Harlem Rivers are barely a trickle. The three rivers became the Hudson Gorge, the Manhattan Canyon, and the Harlem Gorge. The earth eroded and boiled, causing the towers to buckle and break. The only rain that came about for a couple of years was falling shards of glass, rusted steel, and stone from the vacant skyscrapers and cathedrals. Now all you see around you in this once-vibrant metropolis are broken towers, cracked asphalt, and porous aquifers all around the city.

Something Melvin Camberlin took quick advantage of.

About 35 years ago, 15 years after the Reaction, Camberlin won the contract to rebuild New York City, which was slowly becoming a dangerous place to live thanks to the falling shards. One suggestion he proposed was to make all buildings under five floors, completely altering the skyline of the city. This was implemented to keep costs low as well as prevent any future calamity which would lead to more tower shards. Blocks are more or less self-contained buildings. Neighborhoods are now largely comprised of large blocks filled with everything you used to find in neighborhoods before the reaction. Except you don't really have to go outside to get from your apartment to, say, a barbershop or a grocery store. It's all in the same complex. The Reaction kind of eliminated the need to go out in the harsh environments. While Camberlin began building those units, he learned that through the cracked asphalt was a strong, yet porous rock that created an almost endless supply of freshwater.

The government didn't know of the existence of a strong aquifer system like the one that encircles the entire island of Manhattan. Camberlin shut down the subway system and transformed many of the stations into processing plants for the water that flowed beneath it and a very precise system he created to control the flow of the water in the former subways. Considering he had rights to control everything in New York, including the massive freshwater reserve unknown to the US Government, Camberlin entered the very lucrative pure water industry, earning billions in revenue by selling it in glass bottles by the ton while refusing to share it freely.

Water should be free. That's the mantra of The Rider, and that's the reason he wanted to find Camberlin's headquarters.

"This place is huge," the Rider said as he looked at the massive building. "It's not really a square though is it? More of an oval, really."

An old woman walked past him and responded.

"It's a square in the sense that people used to gather here in droves long before the Reaction, son," she said in a whisper-soft tone. "They came to see singers perform, warriors fight, knickerbockers play ball, and rangers glide on ice."

That fascinated the Rider.

"What did they do with the ice after it melted?" he asked.

"They swept it away into the sewers, you weirdo. We didn't think about stuff like that back in the day. Shame though. Fresh water would be better than that salty mess we have in the apartments."

The Rider looked in his pack and pulled out the bottle of Camberlin Fresh he bought earlier in the day and handed it to the old lady.

"I, I can't take this, son," she said.

"My treat, ma'am. Hopefully, the waters will flow again in this majestic city once again."

"If you believe that, then it will happen. Take care, bubalah!"

The Rider walked towards the massive Camberlin headquarters, he stepped on this metallic cover.

*clank* *CLANK*

Hollow, he thinks to himself. As he opened the cover, the Rider noticed a vast passageway. As he walks down the halls, he sees various signs of the old world left behind. Street maps covered in cobwebs and dust. Gates are rusted solid. Turnstiles with the catacombs' former name, Penn Station, were faded but still visible. It was dank and smelled of mildew. He was close to the fresh water. The mildew odor was the first sign since it can't grow without moisture.

The Rider calls these missions "wringers." It's always a two-step process with him: find the water source. Release it back to the public. It's actually more complex than he lets on. Then again, restoring water to its pre-Reaction levels isn't an easy task, but somehow, the Rider has done that in his journeys. No one knows how he has done it so far, but his legend has grown over the years.

That's also why there's a bounty on his head by The Freshwater Brotherhood, the three major freshwater owners in North America. They know what he has done. They know what he can do. They know they could take them all out. Why? Once upon a time, they used to be seven of them. The Rider took out four of their major operations mostly on his own. However, they have no idea what he looks like, which is why he has eluded them for years.

The Rider knows what he's doing is not only dangerous but also illegal. But water is life. The world needs free fresh water, and even if he sacrifices is life to do it, he will give is all to make it happen.

By the time he ventured deep enough into the catacombs, he saw liquid life flowing within a large, clear tube. The Rider put his hand against it, feeling the cool aura it gave off. The condensation was strong.

He was ready. Or at least he was.

The Rider had no idea he was surrounded by human-sized androids.

"Organic being in the vicinity! Obliterate at once!"

End of Chapter One