Unlike most pages in this story, this one has the working title "Death Valley" and the date of composition (November 3, 2009) which is over a year prior to its publication in March 2011.
Page 120 (TV reporter) “These images are from morning news, recorded less than half an hour ago. Ordinary people have organized a sit-in protest at the New Alamo city hall, because the water supply in the city has decreased to an unacceptable level.”
(Branko discusses the newscast with Nathan) “Look there. The mayor is trying to explain the situation to the citizens and the press.”
Page 121 “I'll spare you the recording. As expected, he blamed the terrorists who sabotaged the pipelines. According to him, the latest attack had caused more damage than expected.”
“A plausible argument, enough to keep people at bay, right? Now, either the mayor was deceived like everyone else and therefore is not aware of the real situation, namely that the drop in flow is due to problems with the dam's water supply…”
“…or the mayor is lying to his constituents, which seems much more plausible to me. I looked at Sigmund's reports tonight, and I think Bacon is hiding the truth from everyone else, but certainly not from the mayor.”
“You seem very confident about this. Why?”
“I've been checking out the electoral history of the mayor of New Alamo. He's a clever businessman, and so are his campaign supporters.”
Page 122 “Powerful industrialists who built New Alamo based on Bacon's water guarantees. I bet they know the real reason the water flow is declining. At this point, I even have doubts about who really blew up the water mains.”
“I see that we're all thinking the same way. And since the same ideas lead in the same direction, Bacon deserves a visit from us.”
“Janine told me you asked her to check if Bacon is in town today, so you can go see him.”
“In fact, if it's convenient for you, pretend nothing happened, like my mission to the dam. Anyway, I assure you we'll go easy on him. Do you have any news on Powell's other data? How's the password decryption going?”
“It'll take some time. It's a nasty beast, really well thought out. I apologize…”
After reading this story, I began to become aware of how common water shortages have become around the world. As of this writing, Utah's Great Salt Lake still exists, but it has lost 73 of its water due to over-farming, and total disappearance in the near future is a certainty without major governmental action.
