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    “Carlos, slow down, slow down!” Neal barked.
    Carlos did exactly as he asked and more as he brought the car to a gentle roll before stopping in the middle of the road.
    “There, up there, you see it?” Neal asked, pointing to a glimmer in the middle of the road just on the horizon.
    Carlos leaned over the steering wheel and squinted. “Where?”
    “The glimmering straight ahead.”
    “I don’t see anything.”
    “Are you serious?”
    Carlos leaned further as if the extra inch would bring what he couldn’t see into focus.
    Neal looked at him and asked, “Are you fucking blind?”
    “I, um, well, my long distance vision isn’t the best,” Carlos admitted.
    “Christ, man, there’s a roadblock up ahead, I bet my life on it.”
    Carlos reached in the backseat and picked up a small set of binoculars. “When in doubt, zoom in,” he joked, placing the optics to his eyes. “Damn, you’ve got eagle eyes, bro.”
    “Here, let me see,” Neal said, taking the binoculars from him and looking. “I knew it. I thought I saw something besides an abandoned car sitting up there.”
    Carlos didn’t hesitate to act. He turned the car around and headed south.
    “Where to?”
    Carlos didn’t reply but instead asked, “Did you see that county road? I can’t remember what it’s called, but I swear we just passed it.”
    “Yeah, um, Keystone.”
    “We’ll box around and see if the roads on the west are also blocked,” Carlos said.
    “Why wouldn’t they be?” Neal questioned.
    “There it is,” Carlos said, turning the car hard right and accelerating.
    They drove a mile and were fast approaching another major intersection.
    “Looks clear,” Neal said.
    The flat and even desert terrain made visibility good, but if they could see, so could anyone else.
    Without notice Carlos slammed on the brakes. The huge Lincoln came to a screeching halt just at the intersection.
    “You see something?” Neal asked.
    “Yeah, I do,” Carlos replied, his head facing left.
    “What?” Neal asked as his head and eyes scanned for the possible threat.
    Carlos turned the wheel hard left and slammed his foot down on the accelerator. The car lunged left and spun around until it was in the eastbound lane.
    “Where are you going?” Neal exclaimed.
    “I’ve got an idea,” Carlos answered as he turned right and stopped just outside a chain-link gate.
    Neal looked up and said, “Spreckels Sugar?”
    “You see that?” Carlos excitedly said.
    “So what?”
    “You don’t see what I see?” Carlos asked.
    “I see a sugar high in my future, but I’m sure someone has raided this place already.”
    “You’re right, I’m sure it has been.”
    “What’s going through your mind, Carlos?” Neal asked.
    “There’s a very special ingredient you need in order to make sugar from beets,” Carlos said, driving through the open gate.
    “Ahh, I got it, water,” Neal said, his eyebrows raised.
    “Yep, potable water, and there’s a good chance others may not have thought about it. I bet they kept water in holding tanks, big ones. While we’ve been driving around looking for bottled water, we completely overlooked finding it in places like this,” Carlos said as he drove towards the rear of the property, passing the equipment that once hummed with life. The place was a relic of a time gone by, a testament to man’s ingenuity and scalable manufacturing.
    While Carlos’ focus was on finding the tanks, Neal’s attention was on ensuring he returned home safe and alive, but mainly alive.
    “Right there, I bet you that’s a holding tank,” Carlos said with glee. He pulled the car alongside a massive tank, the first in a row of three. The tanks were huge, standing thirty-five feet tall with a diameter of at least a hundred and twenty feet.
    Not concerned with his own safety, Carlos jumped out of the car and began to race around the tank, looking for anything that would identify it as potable water.
    Neal got out, but he scanned the