Free Water

It's been a week now, and life has already returned to normal...well, as normal as can be expected. People go about their lives as if nothing has happened, completely ignoring them. I don't blame them; I want to ignore them too. But I can't.

I, and a few others like me, were selected for certain duties by them. I can't tell you how I know I was selected; I just know. One of them hovers near me constantly, as if watching my every move, studying me. It told me that I was in charge of my community's water supply, and led me to my new home at a dam they heavily modified.

At first I had many questions, but when my silent companion did not respond, I simply saw to my daily duties. At first, it wasn't hard, once I got the hang of things; I just allocated water amounts based on population in a given area, and the new system they had developed did the rest.

When word got out about my new role, there were of course complaints. Those who were wealthy resented the limits I placed on their consumption, and I heard many angry stories about my 'playing God'. I tried to tell them that this was the only way to be fair to everyone, and that there was no point in complaining to me. Of course, it was much easier to blame a fellow human than our common oppressors. On Thursday a bottle was thrown at me, and I stopped going to town after that.

It was on Friday that things started to get bad. They had orchestrated a drought it seems, or else the drought was just a side effect of their presence. Either way it was bad news for me; suddenly there wasn't enough water to meet my daily allocations, and I started having to make some tough choices. Naturally, when I started controlling the amount of water all the local bottled water had been purchased by those who could afford it, which meant that the downtown area slums were most at my mercy. I decided to cut down the amount of water I sent to the suburbs in order to provide enough for the inner city.

I had the radio on all the time, since I was now isolated from my fellow man. Some very disturbing climate reports kept coming in, predicting that the drought would continue to worsen. It was amazing how fast things were falling apart. Naturally, my companion offered no comment, and so as I watched the water reserves rapidly depleting I was left to worry in silence. They didn't care; it was up to me to ensure that the human race would continue, up to me to keep things going for as long as I could.

It was on Saturday that the turning point came. A man had gotten into the complex; I was so engrossed in my work that I didn't see or hear him until he was practically behind me. He was a young man, battered and bruised and covered with blood. He looked at me with a mad glint in his eyes, pointing a revolver.

"You'll pay, you son of a bitch you'll pay!"

I froze. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before, you understand. I could only watch as his finger pressed down on the trigger. And then-

My companion intervened. That super thin metal disk, roughly the size of a frisbee, swooped down and severed the man's head from his body. They had protected me; I was important to them.

Heaven help me, but as I watched the man's blood gush out all over the floor, the only thing I could think of was, "I can't let all that water go to waste."

My companion must have understood, as the disk swooped over the body, and began to drag it through the air in a kind of bubble, preventing any more of the precious fluids from leaking. I followed it into a previously unused room, where a large turbine device suddenly turned itself on. My companion dropped the body into the machine, and with a loud mechanical howl the processing began.

To my great joy, the machine produced drinkable water. I had a glass myself, and it tasted better than any mountain spring water I had ever had.

I knew what I had to do then, and made my decision. I looked over the data for the day, and made my selections. The disks did the rest.

Understand this; I am the only hope for humanity, and I cannot burden myself with petty concerns. I have sacrificed myself a thousand times in the last few days, and I will continue to do so. Could you do better in my place? Please remember, water isn't free. --Written by ScutigeraColeptrata.