Water by Tim Barker

Water.

Incarceration was a crime in the 22^nd. Century. Crime was punished by privileges reduction. Electronic tagging had proved useless as numerous devices were available on the black market which enabled perpetrators to fool the authorities. The establishment had retaliated by instituting world wide Sense Filters. Crime was punished by effectively making criminals invisible to the general populous. However, the criminal elite had fought back by gathering together and committing nefarious deeds in the name of survival.

The Denizens of Doom were such a gang of malcontents and misfits. They had perfected the art of concealment to such a degree that they lived an acceptable life full of the creature comforts. And then some.

Josh was lying in ‘the tube’ when a call came through. He instructed the water to recede and be replaced with his personal data grid. From the display he could ascertain that the call was coming from the outpost on Mars. There was only one man on Mars that knew how to contact him so he retrieved the encryption key then inserted it into the message.

“Hi Josh, it’s Serenity. By the time you get this message I’ll be through the security and into the main reactor. Consider the fusion chamber yours. I’ll see you in a week.”

The system asked Josh if he wanted to reply but he declined.

Josh knew that the Mars population could live without the reactor for sixteen days which would give him two days to negotiate the deal then put the core in it’s rightful place. That was assuming that the communications protocols could be matched and the bridge built between their two distinct worlds.

The week went by comfortably enough. Josh was still able to live off his last jolly jape, a raid on Silicon Glen in Scotland. The acquired chips had been exchanged for essential supplies with inhabitants of distant parts of the solar system, those who had not yet had the implants. Disappointingly though, once his team had been assuaged there wasn’t a lot left. This latest deal would see them through at least a year. Maybe, if he invested wisely and accepted a more moderate standard of living, he could retire to the frontier.

On the seventh day Josh entered the tube and assembled his fellow Doomers. The reactor had arrived on Earth and its likeness had been constructed in the grid as a working model, complete with simulated functionality and identity marks. Josh hoped that this would be enough to indicate possession as no plans had ever been released.

Armed with the fusion construct and the protocol analyser Josh initiated an anonymous message to the central authorities on Earth.

“This is the Denizens of Doom. We have the Martian fusion reactor. We demand ownership of 50% of the Earth’s water in exchange for the safe return of the reactor. You have 24 hours.”

Josh attached the construct to his message then set the protocol analyser to work. Within an hour he had his reply.

“This is the C.E.A.[1] We are willing to give you a 40% share in our worlds water market on safe return of the reactor to Mars.”

Josh replied, stating that he wanted twenty percent in advance and the remaining twenty upon delivery. However, the Earth authorities declined. Josh would have to wait for a week for the full fifty percent he had originally bargained for. With the solemn word of the C.E.A. and the date stamped water transfer sitting in a Swiss data grid, Josh instructed his Martian agent to put the reactor back in it’s proper place.

That week seemed to go quickly. Josh spent the time planning how to hide his investments, leaving a little for his trip to the edge of the solar system.

It was day sixteen and Josh was lying in the tube awaiting his call from Mars. He was accessing his network of concealed, interconnected accounts when the call came through.

“Josh, this is Mars. The baby’s in the cradle !”

Josh immediately hung up and anonymously contacted the C.E.A.

“This is the Denizens of Doom. The reactor is safely in its proper place. We await your delivery, as promised.”

It tool just twenty minutes for the C.E.A. to reply. At first Josh just thought that it was raining and somehow it had got into the ventilation system. But, without warning, the trickle turned into a deluge and soon enough Josh was treading water near the ceiling and trying, unsuccessfully, to break out of the skylight.

As he held onto his last breath, envisioning his life past, present and future, Josh’s thoughts turned towards the inhabitants of Earth who never even knew he existed.