The Water Knife Summary and Analysis Part 1

The Water Knife Summary and Analysis Overview Paolo Bacigalupi’s near-future thriller, The Water Knife, tells the story of Angel Velasquez, a “water knife” working for the state of Nevada trying to infiltrate and destroy Arizona’s water supply and investigate rumors of senior legal rights to water from the Colorado River. The novel cycles between three points of view: Angel; Maria Villarosa, a Texas refugee; and Lucy Monroe, an award-winning journalist. Water is becoming increasingly scarce, and now individual states in the United States fight each other for access to it. Dust storms threaten to engulf the US Southwest. States like Texas and Arizona have all but collapsed, forcing those citizens to become refugees. Other states like Nevada and California battle for a greater share of the Colorado River. State militias murder those refugees who attempt to illegally cross the Colorado. Meanwhile, the wealthy can buy themselves housing in new luxury arcologies, which recycle water and are furnished with lush vegetation, keeping out the harsh desert. As a water knife, Angel’s job is to strategically cut the water from rival towns and cities for his boss, Catherine Case, the “Queen of the Colorado.” In Phoenix, Angel meets up with Julio Gúzman, another one of Case’s agents. Together they investigate the murder of James Sanderson, a legal associate with Phoenix Water. Jamie also happens to be a friend of Lucy, and the three encounter each other while viewing Jamie’s mutilated remains. Meanwhile, Maria and her friend Sarah are desperate to make enough money to pay rent to the Vet and his gang of thugs that own the surrounding neighborhoods. Sarah convinces Maria to sleep with Michael Ratan, a wealthy man involved in water excavation. Sarah assures Maria that Ratan will pay them the money they need to escape Phoenix. The morning after Sarah and Maria sleep with Ratan, Ratan gives Maria a copy of Cadillac Desert. Maria doesn’t know it at the time, but the senior water rights that Angel is looking for are tucked inside the pages of the book. Sarah and Ratan are later murdered in the apartment while Maria hides under the bed from the killers. Maria doesn’t see the killers’ faces, but she notices a tattoo on one of the hands that reaches under the bed to search the room. Angel, following up on a lead, enters the apartment after the killers have left and finds Maria there. The two escape the arcology together after Angel notices that “Calies,” agents from California, are following them. Later, Maria tells Angel about the man’s tattoo. Angel understands that the tattoo Maria is describing belongs to his partner, Julio. Angel finds Julio at a safe house as he is torturing Lucy, trying to get information out of her as to the location of the senior water rights. Julio has been double-crossing Case and looking to sell the senior water rights on his own to the highest bidder. Angel is forced to kill Julio in a _ _ _4 shootout, but not before Angel is shot and injured. Lucy and Angel attempt to open Ratan’s encrypted laptop, believing the senior water rights to be on his computer. Lucy gives the laptop to her photographer friend, Timo, who knows some people who might be able to crack the encryption on the laptop. However, David Kota, a man working for California, gets to Timo first and flips him. Kota arranges a meeting with Lucy and makes a deal with her: deliver Angel in exchange for the safety of her family. Lucy agrees to deliver Angel to the Calies. At a gas station, Angel discovers that his cash card has been deactivated. Case now suspects Angel of double-crossing her. In the parking lot of the gas station, the Calies’ assassination attempt on Angel starts a firefight that engulfs most of the surrounding area. Angel is critically wounded after the encounter, and even though Lucy set Angel up to be assassinated, she still cares for him and decides to save his life. Meanwhile, the Vet is torturing Maria for failing to pay rent on time. He feeds her hand to his hyenas, and she remains caged inside of his compound. The Vet and his men notice the smoke rising from the fire started at the gas station and leave the compound in a hurry to join the fray. Toomie, Maria’s friend who tried to protect her from the Vet, discovers her at the compound and frees her. Maria decides to attempt to cross the Colorado River on her own. Angel and Lucy make it to another Las Vegas safe house. Angel places a call to Las Vegas pretending to be helpless and in need of extraction. Angel and Lucy relocate to another building and watch as a helicopter blows up the safe house with two missile strikes. After the smoke clears, Angel and Lucy ambush the men searching for Angel’s body in the rubble. Angel discovers that Case is working with California to secure the water rights from Angel, whom she believes is withholding them from her. Angel attempts to convince Case that he never double-crossed her and that he will bring her the water rights. Angel and Lucy track down Toomie and ask him about Maria. Toomie leads Angel and Lucy to the spot where Maria attempted to cross the Colorado River. Angel finds the water rights with Maria and promises that he can get all of them into the arcology in Las Vegas when he presents the documents to Case. Lucy, however, believes the rights belong to Phoenix and attempts to leave with the rights at gunpoint. Angel decides to let Lucy go, but as Lucy tries to leave with the rights, Maria shoots her. Angel speculates that Lucy may survive once they bring her back to Las Vegas. Helicopters are sent to extract the group and bring the water rights to Las Vegas. _ _ _5 Chapter Summaries & Analyses Chapters 1-5 Chapter 1 Summary Angel is a water knife who lives in the Cypress 1 arcology of Las Vegas, Nevada. Angel waits for Charles Braxton, a lawyer for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, to deliver him the paperwork stating that a place called Carver City lost an appeal to maintain legal rights to the water it currently uses. Braxton tells Angel that Carver City will be scrambling to file a new appeal, but that Angel has until the courts open tomorrow to “enforce our legal rights” (5). During their conversation in the arcology, Angel details how he doesn’t much care for Braxton because he’s a soft bureaucrat. Angel only puts up with him because he works for Case, Angel’s boss. Case is known to many in the area as the “Queen of the Colorado” (6). She deploys water knives like Angel to cut off the water supply of other cities so that Las Vegas can maintain its stranglehold on the Colorado River. Angel leaves the Cypress 1 arcology with Case’s orders to cut Carver City’s water. Angel arrives at the Mulroy Airbase where he presents the paperwork with the court decision to the Nevada National Guard. People who live in the area sometimes refer to The Nevada National Guard as “Camel Corps” or “those fucking Vegas guardies” (8). Angel and his team mobilize a fleet of Apache helicopters and travel to Carver City to enforce the will of Case. The helicopters come down on the water-treatment facility at Carver City, and Angel rushes out to find a man named Simon Yu so that he can deliver the court’s injunctions. The Nevada National Guard clears out all the other terrified workers. When Angel tells the water-treatment facility supervisor, Yu, that the plant is being shut down, Yu is incredulous. He tells Angel, “We’re supplying a hundred thousand people! You can’t just turn off their water” (16). Yu and Angel continue to argue about the court’s rulings on the senior water rights. When it becomes clear that the Nevada National Guard isn’t going to relent, Yu tells Angel that he’s not leaving the facility and that they can kill him if they want. Instead, Angel zip-cuffs Yu and takes him into the helicopter. As the choppers lift off, the gunners destroy the facility, illuminating the night in mushroom clouds of fire. Chapter 2 Summary Lucy lies in bed for a while, listening to the dust storm blowing outside. Her dog, Sunny, is huddled beneath the bed, refusing to come out. Lucy begins to feel anxious and paranoid that _ _ _6 something might be outside in the storm. She gets up and checks the deadbolts on her doors and makes sure her windows are all sealed. She decides that if she can’t go back to sleep, she might as well work. Lucy, a journalist, covers the decay of Phoenix. She opens her laptop and browses a story she had previously posted, what Lucy refers to as “collapse pornography” (24). Lucy then sees that another story is developing: the destruction of the water-treatment facility in Carver City. She opens a video of a man (presumably Yu) ranting that the attack was the work of Las Vegas and Case and that he had been abducted and dumped in the desert to hike his way back to the destroyed plant. Lucy flags the story for her own followers, but it’s too late for her to take much credit for the story. Lucy wasn’t born in Phoenix, but came to the city to document its collapse. Now, however, she’s gotten close with the people of Phoenix and has set down roots in the city. She feels more like a resident than just a visiting journalist. Lucy notices another developing story outside of the Hilton 6 downtown. Lucy reluctantly heads to the scene to investigate and finds her former friend Jamie, tortured and murdered, his body lying in the street. Lucy recalls a conversation she had with Jamie at the bar of the Hilton 6 not long ago. Jamie was a bureaucrat for Phoenix Water. He told Lucy that he had found a way to break the Colorado River Compact and ensure that water flowed straight to Phoenix—senior water rights that the Supreme Court would enforce. Lucy was suspicious of what Jamie had meant during this conversation. Lucy stands over Jamie’s body. His eyes have been dug out of his skull. Lucy leaves, worried that the killer might be watching her at the crime scene. Chapter 3 Summary Maria waits at the Red Cross/China Friendship water pump, watching for the price of water per liter to drop. Maria is a Texas migrant, trying her best to hustle money and eventually find a way out of Arizona and across the Colorado River. The relief pump provides water to many Texas refugees who have built communities around the pumps. Maria’s father had worked construction on the Taiyang Arcology for the Chinese. Maria refuses to see things in the same idealistic way as her father. Maria’s friend, Sarah, complains about waiting around at the water pump with Maria. Sarah makes money by sleeping with wealthy men who live in the Taiyang Arcology. Sarah is currently seeing a man in the Taiyang regularly and offers to share him with Maria, though Maria isn’t interested. Maria had listened earlier to what Sarah’s regular had been telling them about the market pricing of water. The man had wanted Maria, but Maria was more interested in listening to him talk about hydrology. Sarah’s regular, Ratan, is a senior hydrology specialist for a company called Ibis. The price of water at the relief pump begins to drop. The big vertical farms had stopped _ _ _7 pumping water, preparing for a harvest, and so the price begins to drop. Maria begins filling as many plastic containers as she can once the price hits its lowest point. Maria makes Sarah give her all the money that she has so she can keep buying more water at the low price. Maria’s plan is to take the water to the construction site outside of the Taiyang and sell it to make a profit. Chapter 4 Summary Case and her entourage of Southern Nevada Water Authority security teams meet with Angel in the alley of a burned-out town near the Cypress 3 arcology. Angel recalls how Case had chosen him as a water knife and rescued him from a life in prison. She had told him: You fit a profile I can use. You’re aggressive, but you have sufficient impulse control. You’re intelligent. You’re flexible to changing circumstances. You’re tenacious […] It doesn’t hurt that you’re a ghost as well […] I have uses for ghosts (54). Inside Angel’s Tesla, Case and Angel discuss Carver City’s news coverage. When Angel asks Case if she wants him to make the story go away, Case tells him, “We’ll lie still, and everyone will forget this ever happened.” Case then proceeds to tell Angel that Carver City had people who were connected to an eco-development project that Braxton’s research didn’t turn up; some of them were Nevada state reps. This makes Case suspicious; she doesn’t know who she can trust anymore. Case decides to send Angel to Phoenix to “sniff around for [her]” (60). She doesn’t know what it is for sure, but there is something wrong going on in Phoenix. Case tells Angel that he’ll be meeting up with one of her agents, Julio, who has been begging to be extracted from Phoenix. Chapter 5 Summary Lucy sees a truck idling outside of her house, but she can’t see who’s inside. Meanwhile, Lucy is video chatting with her sister, Anna, who asks Lucy why she doesn’t leave Phoenix. Lucy has New England identification and is one of the few people in Phoenix who could leave at any time. Seeing Anna’s children playing in the background of the video screen reminds Lucy of the first dead body she covered as a journalist in Phoenix. Ray Torres, a “good ol’ boy cop in a good ol’ boy cowboy hat and tight faded Levi’s” (64) had warned Lucy about writing about dead bodies in Phoenix. Torres tells Lucy that writing about bodies has “a way of making more trouble than they’re worth” (65). Lucy remembers that this was back when she was naïve about how things worked in Phoenix. Anna tells Lucy to come live with her and her husband in Vancouver. Anna worries about Lucy _ _ _8 living in Phoenix and thinks she’s going to get herself killed. After Lucy closes the connection with Anna, she grabs a pistol and goes outside to confront the truck that is still idling out front. The truck eventually speeds off. Lucy isn’t sure if she’s being stalked. As Lucy begins clearing dust from her house, she thinks back to Jamie, who had told her that the deal he was about to make was going to be big. He had said, “How much would you pay to keep a city alive? […] What would you pay to keep the Imperial Valley’s agriculture from turning into a dust bowl?” (70). The same truck as before slowly begins cruising past Lucy’s house. The truck keeps going, and Lucy wonders whether she should have taken a shot at the truck with her pistol. Lucy decides that she isn’t going to be paralyzed any longer. She opens her laptop and begins writing about the bodies that Torres told her not to write about. She writes about Jamie. After she is finished, Lucy grabs a beer and toasts Jamie’s memory. She keeps drinking on her front porch as the sun goes down. Chapters 1-5 Analysis Chapters 1-5 establish a third-person limited point of view that jumps between three main characters: Angel, Lucy, or Maria. This technique helps to ramp up the tension between chapters, as these three characters’ lives become intertwined during the events of the novel, racing to unravel the mystery of the senior water rights somewhere in Phoenix. Angel is the archetypal anti-hero: He’s a spy and a killer who works for Case, a woman who has no problem cutting off the water supply to a city of hundreds of thousands of people. However, because the reader is given access to Angel’s thoughts and feelings, he begins to transform into a sympathetic character, offering glimpses into his past as a refugee from Mexico and his motivations to protect his place in the Cypress 1 development. Lucy is a journalist who feels like an outsider in a city she’s lived in for years. On the one hand, Lucy tries to maintain a professional distance from her work to avoid getting completely sucked under as Phoenix collapses. On the other hand, Lucy is also driven by her impulse to get as close to the story as possible, meaning she must become part of Phoenix, something she knows might end up killing her. Maria is a young woman who has lost her family, and she takes on a sister role with her friend Sarah. Maria attempts to look out for the both of them while trying not to fall into the traps of naiveté and idealism that her father was fond of. Maria is scrappy, resourceful, and mentally tough in these first few chapters. Chapters 6-11 Chapter 6 Summary _ _ _9 Maria and Sarah attempt to meet with their friend Toomie near the Taiyang Arcology to sell the water they’ve gathered cheaply at the relief pump. Damien, a thug for the Vet, asks Maria if she has the rent money. The Vet is the leader of a group of thugs who charge people in the area rent to live on the land. Maria tells Damien that her rent is in water until she can sell it that evening. Damian warns Maria that if she’s going to peddle water at the Taiyang, she needs to pay off Esteban, another of the Vet’s thugs. Esteban owns the turf around the Taiyang. Maria begins to protest, but Sarah urges Maria to see that this is the way things are. Chapter 7 Summary Angel travels to the border at Lake Mead. Angel drops his Tesla off with a South Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) employee before crossing the bridge that spans the canyon. Arizona Border Patrol searches Angel and looks over his fake credentials. Once legally on Arizona soil, Angel locates another Tesla left for him. In the compartment under the seat is a SIG Sauer with three magazines of bullets. The car also contains a couple of different Arizona driver’s licenses with his picture on them and various badges for Phoenix PD, Arizona Criminal Investigations Division, and the FBI. Once Angel has taken possession of the Tesla and is headed toward Phoenix, Case calls him to ask about a man named Ellis, someone who helped set up several Nevada militias. Case wants to know if Ellis might take a payoff to go dark. Ellis was supposed to check in with Case, but she hasn’t heard from him. As Angel and Case talk, a dust storm interrupts their connection. Angel pulls into a truck stop to wait out the storm. Many of the people in the truck stop are people trying to escape Phoenix. Chapter 8 Summary Maria sells her water outside the construction area of the Taiyang: “Two bucks a pour, one yuan a cup” (87). Toomie has a stand set up where he sells pupusas. Maria adds up the money she’s making in her head as customers line up for her water. Maria came to know Toomie after her father died; he had given her a pupusa for free when she was desperate. Sarah had urged Maria to try to kiss Toomie once, saying that Maria should show she was grateful for Toomie’s help. Ultimately, though, Toomie had refused Maria’s advances, saying, “This isn’t how it should be for you” (90). Sarah tells Maria that if all Toomie wants to do is look at her, then Maria has it easy. Sarah says, “Give him all the looks he wants. You got that man loyal for life” (91). Toomie used to build homes before the construction business dried up. Toomie had tried to be a part of the Taiyang Arcology project, but he claims that the work was too complicated. As the second lunch shift begins, a black truck pulls up with the Vet’s enforcers. Cato and _ _ _ 10 Esteban walk over to Toomie, who immediately pays his tax. Cato begins shaking Maria down for tax money, saying she’s running her own little water business. Maria argues that she’s already paid Esteban her tax. Cato ends up taking all the money that Maria has made, telling her that she’ll make more. Toomie is silent during the entire exchange and avoids looking at Cato and Esteban. Maria doesn’t have enough water left for rent. Toomie chides Maria for arguing with Esteban and Cato, saying she doesn’t understand how things are. Toomie says, “You get worked up about what’s right and wrong, but that shit’s only in your head. Rules are what the big dogs say they are” (97). Chapter 9 Summary Angel passes through the dark zones on the outer edges of Phoenix, looking out at all the refugees and campfires. As he nears the center of the city, Angel notes the nightlife. In his hotel room, Angel surveys the disaster of the city. He notes that everything looks more dilapidated than the last time he was in Phoenix. A news report on TV shows a bunch of Colorado farmers on top of the Blue Mesa Dam “threatening to do whatever the hell Colorado farmers threatened to do when they were shit out of luck” (103). Another news story indicates that over 200 bodies were found out in the desert. Julio meets Angel in his hotel room. Julio tells Angel about Alexander Vosovich, a “Zoner” Julio had recruited who worked as a hydrologic engineer inside the Salt River Project. Julio tells Angel that a water lawyer inside Phoenix Water was feeling out Vos, telling him that he had something Vos might want to buy. Julio believes that he’s probably been compromised after Vos’ torture and murder, because they had been working together for almost 10 years. Julio wants to be pulled out of Phoenix because “the cops ID’d my man by his fillings” (106). Angel tells Julio that they need to see Vos’ body in order to be thorough, despite Julio’s protests. Chapter 10 Summary Lucy arrives at the morgue as bodies are being piled up after being dug up from the ditches in the desert. Lucy meets her friend, Timo, who works as a photographer. Timo was one of the first Phoenix locals to work with Lucy and eventually their working relationship strengthened into a friendship. Timo busies himself taking pictures of all the bodies and the sobbing victims’ families. Lucy doesn’t know what’s going on, and Timo tells her, “They found half of Texas buried out there in the desert!” (109). These people had hired “coyotes” to help guide them illegally across the Colorado River. Instead of helping them, though, the coyotes took their money and buried them in the desert. _ _ _ 11 Lucy meets with the medical examiner, Christine Ma. She tells Christine that she wants to see Jamie. Christine warns Lucy about seeing Jamie’s body, because he’s been tortured. Christine tells Lucy that Jamie was probably killed several times and then revived. Jamie had adrenaline injected into his body. Lucy notes that Jamie had bitten off his own tongue. Lucy asks Christine for Jamie’s things. When Lucy goes through Jamie’s wallet, she finds a chip and-pin anoncard, “gold laminated, with a bloody slash logo: Apocalypse Now!” (115). Lucy thinks that the card doesn’t fit with Jamie, that it wasn’t his style to carry a card like that. As Lucy is considering the card, two men posing as plainclothes detectives interrupt her. She notices “one guy was short, with a bit of a gut, a trim goatee, and knowing smirk. The other one was tall. Serious, angular, and weathered” (115). The two men question Christine and Lucy about Jamie and Vos. Christine shows them Vos’ body, which is tortured in a similar way to Jamie’s body. Lucy tells the two men that she doesn’t know anything about Vos. After their interrogation, Lucy begins to realize that the two men aren’t police—they are Angel and Julio, unbeknownst to Lucy at this point. Angel tells Julio that Lucy is a “blood rag journo” and tells her to leave. Lucy is surprised by this and leaves. Chapter 11 Summary Angel watches Lucy go, almost instantly regretting his decision. Angel believes he’s getting soft, but he was also worried about Julio being a part of their conversation. Julio alerts Angel to a couple of men making their way through the crowd flashing badges. Angel identifies them as a couple of “Calies,” agents who work for the state of California. Julio decides to leave immediately, not wanting the Calies to identify him. Angel decides to hang around for a minute to watch them. While he waits, Angel talks with Timo as Timo keeps photographing the dead bodies in the morgue. Timo tells Angel about Lucy: “She’s not blood rag. Woman’s got Pulitzers” (123). Angel watches the Calies talk to the medical examiner, who then points out Angel to them. Angel makes a run for it. As the Calies pursue Angel, one of them gets tangled up in the crowd of families and mourners. Angel catches the other Cali as he comes around a corner, putting him in a headlock and dragging him down a hallway. Angel makes his way back to Julio in the parking lot. As the two pull out of the parking lot, Angel tells Julio he wants to talk to Lucy. Chapters 6-11 Analysis These chapters reveal Maria’s vulnerable side. She sells her water alongside Toomie, a “big strong guy who could protect his business, a tower of strength that also shaded Maria as she poured water” (87). Maria trusts Toomie, and he gives her a semblance of safety. Maria _ _ _ 12 attempts to attach herself to Toomie to reclaim some of the stability she lost with the demise of her father. It becomes clear in these chapters that Maria’s main character drive is to find something stable and real, not just the illusion of safety or happiness. Angel continues to play the role of hardened spy, especially when he meets up with his old partner, Julio. Julio becomes a foil to Angel. Julio is paranoid, afraid, and doesn’t care about fulfilling a mission for Case. He wants to save his own skin. Angel, at this point, still seems calm and confident in his grasp of the situation. He has everything under control. That is, until he meets Lucy at the morgue. This is where Angel begins to doubt himself and question whether he’s becoming soft. He lets Lucy go at the morgue, not wanting Julio to question her, knowing how Julio can be with people. We begin to see more development in Angel’s human side at this point and see him less as just a water knife. Chapters 12-17 Chapter 12 Summary Maria visits the Vet’s gated compound to talk to the Vet personally about the money that was taken from her. The Vet has “claimed an entire neighborhood, turning it into his own gated community” (127). Maria can hear the laughs of the hyenas that the Vet keeps as she approaches the compound. Maria hadn’t made enough money selling water after Cato took most of her money. She had thought briefly about running, but decided against it. Sarah refuses to go back to the compound after a traumatic experience at a previous all-night party there: The Vet had released the hyenas from their cages, and the animals hunted down a couple in front of Sarah. Maria can see the Vet feeding the hyenas raw meat in their pens. Maria complains to Damien that Esteban had taken her money and that she was short for rent because of him. Damien isn’t surprised to hear this, and Maria realizes that Damien and Esteban had worked together to set her up to be short on rent. Maria decides to get the Vet personally involved. Maria tells the Vet that she had money for rent but that Damien had Esteban take it from her. As she talks to the Vet, Maria realizes that he “wasn’t a person at all. He was something else. A demon, climbed up out of the earth” (130). The Vet asks Maria why she doesn’t work for him, selling her body on street corners. Maria tells him she just wants to sell her water. As they talk, the Vet alludes to his hyenas and what they could do if he were to set them free. Afterward, the Vet gives Maria an extra day to make the money she owes Damien.