South Bank's wash tap gave Sori Dekk three brown drops and stopped. The nurse beneath it had an abdominal wound open, so she put the empty basin down, covered the wound with damp gauze, and reached for one of the two bowls saved from the last clean pour.
Sori tied a strip of red cloth around the dead tap before anyone tried it again. She called Lenn Ova and Ruti Avel before she called the reservoir.
Their damaged tank room sat above the abandoned pump chamber on a cracked foundation. Half a tank remained behind two manual valves. Lenn's hose could reach the clinic, and Ruti's could reach one burn branch. The split road that had killed the six-armed body no longer connected either hose to both places.
"Clinic first," Lenn said from his shoulder sling.
Ruti kept her valve shut. "Measure the foundation before you pull against it."
