Ilse Langstrom was in the lab working late again. She enjoyed the quiet. Everyone else was gone, and she was alone. She liked being alone.

Do I really? Like being alone?

Well, she had her experiments and chemicals to keep her company. She thought of them as soldiers marching into a battle to purify water. The world was dying of thirst. She needed to find a way to quench it. After five years of research and double that in dedication, she was on the verge of a breakthrough.

Always on the verge.

Frustrated, she looked up from her microscope and caught sight of her reflection in the large windows. Unconsciously, she reached up to adjust her long, silky dark hair piled high to keep it out of the way. Her gaze lingered on the image before her. The small details of her face were obscure, but her large, almond-shaped eyes above high cheekbones and smooth skin regarded her thoughtfully. She didn't like the attention her looks got.

"It is so annoying," she said to her reflection.

That day, at lunch, she and her best friend and co-worker noticed a creepy guy staring at them.

"Do you see that man across the street under the traffic light?" Natalie Roche asked, moving her expressive blue eyes toward the intersection.

"I do," answered Ilse. "He's not that creepy At least he's not old. I just don't get your paranoia."

"I don't get your naivete. I hope you never do understand," Natalie said with a sigh. A heartbeat later, Natalie decided. "It's time to go. The creep hasn't moved and keeps staring. I'm going back."

Ilse agreed, Natalie's mood infecting her. The young women returned to the lab.

* * *

Her eyes refocused past her likeness to trees blowing in the wind.

A storm was coming.

She shook her head and returned to work. As she adjusted her microscope, the small white circle came into focus, revealing the remaining impurities that stubbornly resisted her protein soldiers—the failed results of her latest experiment.

"How do I get you out of there?" she said aloud, seemingly challenging the impurities themselves.

A sharp snap down the hall startled her. She glanced toward the lab's open door just as a gust of wind sent the branch of a small tree tapping against a window. She didn't think it was the same sound.

"Let's just go and check this out, shall we?" she said aloud to her reflection, sighing at the interruption. Pushing her lab chair back from the bench, she went to the door and peered down the hall for several long seconds.

"As I suspected, just the wind," she continued the conversation with herself but was not convinced.

She liked speaking aloud to herself when alone at night in the lab. It helped clarify her thoughts. As a child, she picked up the habit of watching her father, Bjorn, working in his lab.

"Speaking things aloud helps me think them through," he would say with a smile and a wink. She was very proud of him. He was a world-renowned chemist and professor. Her mentor. Her idol.

She peered down the hall for a few seconds more, but seeing and hearing nothing, it was time to return to work. Her work. It was what got her up each morning. She loved it.

Because of her father.

* * *

"What do you say we go on an adventure into the Sahara Dessert?" Bjorn Langstrom asked his wife and daughter with a big smile as they lounged poolside at the Tunis resort. He clearly loved the idea. He sat at the foot of his wife Ann's lounge chair and gazed at the Mediterranean Sea just a short distance across the sandy beach. "It would be a nice break from all this hard work," he joked.

"What kind of adventure, Father?" thirteen-year-old Ilse asked.

"I'm thinking we do an overnight excursion to Nefta, an ancient oasis at the northern edge of the desert," he answered. "There is a large salt lake and ancient ruins from the Carthaginian Period. Very interesting."

Ann Langstrom rolled her eyes. "Interesting to whom, Bjorn? We are quite comfortable here at the resort." Ann was enjoying their peaceful seaside holiday away from her university responsibilities.

Ilse saw the disappointment in her father's eyes and knew immediately how to make him feel better. She liked pleasing him.

"Father, I'll go. It sounds like a wonderful place." Ilse piped up with a bright smile, trying to sound excited.

Bjorn looked at his luminous young daughter, already striking at a young age. A younger version of her mother. He felt grateful that she indulged him.

"Enough, you two," said Ann, seeing the educational opportunity for her daughter. "I'll go too. But Ilse, you need to be prepared for this trip. We may see some ugly things there.

Nefta used to be an oasis, but this part of Africa has depleted nearly all its freshwater resources. This year, there have been demonstrations protesting the cost of water and riots all around the world, including here in Tunisia. I don't know what we'll find at Nefta."

"And that is exactly why it will be an adventure," Bjorn happily concluded, his big smile returning. "I'll go make the arrangements."

* * *

"We're here, Ilse," Bjorn bent past Ile to look out the window. "Not a bad ride, huh?

The Mercedes electric tour bus arrived at midday on the outskirts of Nefta.

"I did enjoy most of it. The Tunisian countryside was amazing. Kind of empty but mostly beautiful," Ilse piped up.

"Nice try, Ilse," Ann said. "Don't think I didn't see you playing the games on the seatback console."

"I know, Mom. But it was boring at times."

The bus made its way deeper into Nefta. Ilse saw burned-out cars along the road and several destroyed buildings. Cave-like empty spaces where shops should be. So many people just sitting or lying on the ground. Seemingly asleep. Hardly moving. Their world crumbled.

"What's going on here, Father?" Ilse asked, her face mirroring her father's pragmatic frown. "Why are these buildings empty or destroyed? What's wrong?"

"It's worse than I thought," Bjorn spoke to himself more than to his young daughter. As if remembering her questions, he looked at his bright-eyed child. He asked, "You know how daddy has to pay the water company every month so we have water at home?"

Ilse nodded.

"Well, here it seems they've just about run out of water. These people on the street are having a hard time getting water to drink. Imagine living with little or no water all the time."

"But there's a huge lake right there, Father," Ilse pointed across at the large salt lake filling the windows on the other side of the bus.

The Chott el Djerid Dad had called it.

"Yes, dear. But that is a salt lake, so no one can drink its water. We're still trying to find an easy way to purify water from places like Chott el Dierid or the ocean. The problem is Getting all the harmful things out quickly and cheaply. A problem still not solved."

"I don't understand, Father," Ilse looked confused. "It's a simple chemical formula. H2O. Why is it so difficult to change salt water so people can drink it?"

Bjorn looked again at Ilse, then at Ann, who gave him that "I told you so" look.

"Do you remember your school lessons about how water can dissolve anything over time?" he asked. She already showed great promise in all her math and science classes, especially chemistry.

"Yes, Father," she said with a bit of exasperation. "Of course! But it seems such a simple problem. There must be a simple solution."

"Well, Ilse, it's much harder to take things out of water once they have dissolved," Bjorn explained. "All of this water is mixed with so many different things, both large and small, that scientists haven't been able to get the bad things out so people can drink it unless they use a lot of energy and special technology that is very expensive and takes a long time. Here, where people don't have much money, they just can't afford it."

"That's not fair, Father," Ilse felt angry, a feeling she did not experience frequently. "Why do we get fresh water when these people don't?"

His face became somber, and he said, "I don't know, Honey. The world can be a very unfair place. I wish it were different. It just isn't."

* * *

The obvious injustice of Nefta never left her. The solution should be simple.

How hard could it be to purify water?

On that bus in Tunisia, she decided then and there to find a new way to purify water.

How hard, indeed.

She was glad to be through the grind of getting her doctorate. She'd done it by the time she was twenty-two. For the past year, she pursued her quest by the graces of the Greater European Water Company. She recently got promoted to running one of their many research labs in Stockholm. The breakthrough always seemed just out of reach. But she was determined to find it.

That thought brought her back to her work, and she was lost deep within it in a few seconds. She did not hear the door softly open and close down the hall, nor the stealthy footsteps. Her whole attention was on updating her lab book. She felt a small air draft and looked up just in time to see his reflection as he grabbed her from behind.