Free H2O by Irving Belateche

cleared the building, I hurried
toward my van. My timing had to match Lily’s, so I couldn’t wait for the coast
to be clear and, sure enough, a trucker stepped out of the building.
    I slowed down,
so I wouldn’t look suspicious and he glanced at me. I kept my expression
neutral, climbed into the van, started it up, and pulled out. I checked my
rearview mirror and saw that the trucker was now watching my van. There was
nothing I could do about that.
    I snaked
through the facility along the route we’d mapped out and it was all going
smoothly until I found myself stuck behind a truck. A flagman was directing the
truck, helping it maneuver up to a storage tank. I waited, knowing that I
couldn’t take another route and hoping my luck hadn’t turned. We’d known that
there was the possibility of a flagman being drawn from his post to help a
trucker maneuver. We’d seen that from above, but it didn’t happen a lot. Well,
it was happening now, and then it got worse.
    The flagman
spotted me and started walking toward me. I saw a slim opening in front of me,
so I weighed whether to floor it or not, but quickly decided against it. This
wasn’t a Fib. It was a flagman. So I rolled down my window.
    “Fibs are
looking for you, bud,” he said. “Why don’t you pull over?”
    “What do they
want with me?” I asked.
    He smirked.
“Like they’re gonna tell me.”
    That comment
told me everything I needed to know. Like everyone in the Territory, he wasn’t
fond of the Fibs, so I said, “They probably were looking for an excuse to
search my van and take my Curado.”
    The flagman
smiled and that closed the deal.
    “Tell you
what,” I said. “You take it. Better you than them.” And without waiting for an
answer, I leaned over, quickly pawed through my food supplies, pulled out the
bottle of Curado and handed it to him.
    He checked it
out, grinning and appreciating his good luck. “I’ve never tried it,” he said.
    Of course not,
I thought. It’d probably cost him two years pay. “Enjoy,” I said, and pulled
away, right through that slim opening.
    I checked the
rearview mirror to see what he’d do next. He was walking back toward the front
of the truck, taking his time and keeping the bottle low to his side, hidden. I
was sure he was trying to figure out where to stash his prize. Somewhere out of
sight of any Fib. He’d never dreamt he’d come across a bottle of the fabled
liquor and he wasn’t going to lose it now.
     
     
    I swung around two more storage
tanks and found myself behind a slow-moving truck. It was slow because it was a
triple tank truck. I pulled to its left, checked for approaching trucks, and
didn’t see any. So I started to pass it and as I did, I noticed rigging
underneath the tanks. The rigging was crammed with sacks. (Lily had told me the
truckers added this rigging to haul extra goods that they’d sell on the side.)
The whole set-up looked rough and uncomfortable. No wonder she didn’t like
traveling that way.
    I passed the
tank truck and I knew that the next left would be the moment of truth. It led
to the intersection with the Fib. Hopefully, Lily had cleared him out. In terms
of the timing, I was on schedule, so I felt fairly confident that my bad luck
was behind me. Especially because I’d managed to talk my way out of getting
pulled over.
    I took the
left and looked down the lane. No Fib. Great. I couldn’t help speeding up a
little to make sure I’d get through the intersection before he returned. I made
it through and didn’t see any sign of the Fib. Lily had done her job. I
continued toward the exit, glancing up and down the remaining lanes, which were
clear of Fibs. Still, I began to feel a little uneasy, like something was
wrong. But I shrugged it off and thought about meeting Lily at the rendezvous
spot, an empty campground, tucked in the hills, about a mile away.
    I turned and
started down the lane that would take me to the main road and I spotted Lily.
This wasn’t