The Mocking Program

  The short commuter jump to Ciudad Neily, the nearest town with an airport to the greater Amistad Reserva, was accomplished in quick time and with only a few bumps through the tropical air. Beyond securing the best available vehicle for entering the mountains— a quad fuel cell-powered 4X4 with sleeping and cooking facilities for two—the amiable if dubious Lieutenant Corazon was unable to help them. They were, after all, traveling semi-officially. This meant that while the local police would not interfere with their activities, neither could they step in to render official assistance. This did not bother the two federales. They had come in search of acquiescence rather than help.

  The road out of Neily was excellent, but beyond the mountain town of San Vito it changed character rapidly. Past Sabalito it quickly degenerated into a mountain track. At over a million hectares, the expanded Reserva de Biosfera La Amistad was the largest intact expanse of undisturbed rainforest north of South America. Clearly, those responsible for its integrity intended to keep it that way.

  Banging eastward, steadily gaining altitude, they found themselves surrounded by green-clad mountains on all sides. To the north, Fabrega, at 3336 meters, overtopped the entire region. Though they could not see it, they did not feel cheated. The terrain that closed in around them did not lack for unsettlingly steep slopes or dramatic cloud-piercing peaks.

  They topped off the heavy-duty 4X4's cells at Progresso, the last town before entering the wilderness of the Las Tablas Zone. The Reserva continued over into nearby Panama, but the border was not marked. Despite the altitude, both men were sweating liters. They were used to the dry heat of the Strip, not the sweltering humidity of the jungle.

  "Going to see the Simianos?" the attendant at the one-stop inquired in his halting English.

  "If we want to enter the Las Tablas Zone, we don't have any choice." Hyaki had marked well the words of the helpful Lieutenant Corazon.

  The old man nodded as he shut off the hygen filler and resealed the vehicle's tank. "Loco folk, those Simianos. Keep to themselves. Don't see them much outside the Reserva. Things are better that way, si?"

  Cardenas smiled tolerantly. The old man was not afraid of the Simianos; his indifference glowed like a dim bulb. "What do we owe V your "Namericanos!" The attendant muttered to himself as he processed the Inspector's card. "Always testing limits. Always pushing their luck."

  He wished them good fortune anyway. After all, they were tourists, and as such, their presence in his small community was to be appreciated. The Ticos had learned the lessons of the late twentieth century well.

  Outside Progresso, the road soon degenerated into a damp, gooey mush in which gravel occasionally put in an appearance like candy chips in a pudding. Repeated tropical downpours had sawn gullies in the track like parallel slices in a cake. Behind the wheel of the rented vehicle, Hyaki suffered more than his companion from the continual jolts and bumps, since his fuzz-covered skull barely cleared the roof. As if the way was not difficult enough, it began to rain.

  As the road grew steadily more slippery, they soon found themselves measuring progress in terms of one meter slid sideways for every two gained forward. The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun, giving way to feathery gray-white clouds that swept down from the emerald mountaintops like gathering ghosts. Once, an enormous bird, all white and black feathers, talons and beak, soared directly past the front of the car, screeling sharply as it wheeled out of the oncoming 4X4's path. Even a brief glimpse was enough to show that its wingspan was greater than two meters. A startled Hyaki slammed on the brakes, forcing Cardenas to grab the dash with both hands to keep from being thrown forward. Fortunately, none of the six protective foambags surrounding him inflated.

  "Sorry," the sergeant apologized. "It surprised me. I was watching the road and didn't see it coming. What the hell was it, anyway? The damn thing looked like a hang glider."

  "Harpy eagle." An attentive Cardenas heard the high-pitched screel again. It was far away now, and fading. "You're not supposed to see it coming."

  His partner eyed him uncertainly. "How do you know that's what it was?"

  "I watch a lot of nature vits." He nodded at the tattered track that continued to unspool in front of them. "Take it low and slow when it shifts back in gear. We don't want to put too much pressure on the sensors, and we definitely don't want to get stuck here. It's a long, wet walk back to Progresso."

  "I know that." Grumbling, Hyaki reached for the shifter to put the vehicle back in drive. There was only one forward gear, of course. The car's onboard box would sense whenever anything lower was required, and allocate power accordingly.

  A figure materialized from among the trees off to their left, stumbling downslope. He wore a simple plastic rainshawl striped in local colors. Except for the rainshawl and the hitech walking stick he carried, he might have stepped straight out of a Mayan stela. He was followed by a young woman carrying a babe in arms and two more men who were visibly younger than their predecessor. While these three waited by the side of the road, which under the effects of the intermittent pounding rain had become virtually indistinguishable from its center, the patriarch of the group hobbled toward the idling 4X4, using his walking stick for support. Hyaki lowered his window.

  "Your pardon, senores," he said in passable English, "but my family and I were caught out in the weather today." Turning slightly, he gestured up the graded quagmire of a thoroughfare. "Our truck, full of produce from our farm, broke down on the way back from the Reserva. We are very tired, and my daughter-in-law's child is cold and hungry. Could you perhaps give us a ride into the Ciudad? From there we can arrange for the parts necessary to fix our truck."

  Cardenas scrutinized the speaker and the waiting supplicants. "Sure, we'll be happy to help." He reached into an inside pocket. "Here's a little something for the nino"

  As he drew his gun and pointed it directly at the petitioner's face, Hyaki pressed himself backward as far as the driver's seat would allow and used his left hand to recline it even farther. The eyes of the rain-shawl-bedecked local widened as he stared down the barrel of the tiny but lethal pistol.

  "Step back." Most of the time, Cardenas's voice was calm, even soothing. But when he wanted to, he could chill it deep enough to neutralize habanero sauce. "Keep your hands out and up where I can see them. No sudden moves. Fredoso, get us moving."

  "Oh yeah," murmured the sergeant tensely. Staying back, he maneuvered his bulk until he could reach the shift controller. The 4X4 started forward, sensors in the wheels and the undercarriage combining their readings to determine that full low gear was in order. The transmission responded accordingly.

  As they inched forward and began to roll past the tiny family group, the young woman brought both arms up and to one side and threw the cloth-swaddled babe she was holding straight at the windshield. With a shout, Cardenas shoved open the door on his side and threw himself out. Hyaki did the same on the driver's side, landing hard in the gravel-flecked mud. Detecting the absence of an operating driver, the vehicle immediately shut down its engine and started to slide into park. It never made it.

  The bundle that struck the windshield bounced once off the non-conductive transparency before landing on the hood. Containing nothing organic, it promptly delivered itself of a violent electric discharge. The smell of ozone flashed through the damp air as sparks erupted from the hood, roof, sides, back, and underbody of the 4X4. Designed to instantly electrocute any occupants of the car, the packet ended up frying only the electrical system of the vehicle, which promptly caught on fire.

  Rolling madly, the Inspector brought his weapon up and around as something hot and superfast sliced a groove in the ground precisely where he had been lying a moment earlier. The young woman who had hurled the packet had flung her rainshawl aside and was in the process of aiming the multibarreled burster in Hyaki's direction just as Cardenas's second shot tore through her right shoulder. Her face contorting, she dropped the burster and grabbed at her upper arm. On the other side of the r
oad, Hyaki had rolled into a ditch and was now firing steadily.

  While the senior member of the phony farming quartet provided very unpeasantlike covering fire, the two younger men grabbed their wounded associate and half dragged, half carried her off down the road. One of the sergeant's shots caught the retreating elder in the ribs and forcefully evacuated his chest cavity. As he slammed facedown into the mud, his three retreating colleagues increased their pace. In less than a minute, they had disappeared around the first bend in the road.

  A heavy mist began to fall as the two federales warily approached the unmoving body of the man who had asked them for a lift. There was no sign of his three companions. Blood and drizzle swirled together and collected in puddles, to be soaked up by the ever-porous tropical soil.

  Hyaki holstered his weapon as he peered back the way they had come. "I don't think the others will be back. What was that all about?"

  Kneeling beside the dead man, Cardenas pushed back a sleeve to expose a tattoo lavish with coiling serpents, feathers, and Mayan glyphs. "Sensemaya. Primarily a CAF gang, but they've been known to reconnoiter as far north as Four Corners."

  The sergeant ran a big hand from his forehead across his reviving scalp and down the back of his neck. "I've read about them. How'd you know, Angel?"

  "That they were Sensemaya?" He straightened, brushing clinging mud from his pants. "I didn't, until just now. What I did know was that they weren't simple farmers, and that they wanted more than a ride." Hyaki nodded perceptively. Better than anyone else, he knew his partner's capabilities.

  Cardenas considered the body. "Their postures were all wrong. Stiff instead of submissive. Taut instead of tired from walking. The woman held her 'baby' the wrong way. The two agros with her were tense and apprehensive instead of hopeful." Bending, he picked up the fallen walking stick and turned it over in his hands, studying it with interest.

  "Grandpa here had the best teeth and the smoothest hands of any farmer I've ever seen. As for his cane, it's a fine piece of facading, but the dissimulation isn't quite perfect."

  Turning, he pointed the upper segment of the walking stick toward the rainforest and ran a finger along a depression embedded in one side. There was a flash of flame, and a good-sized tree, blown in half, toppled noisily into the surrounding jungle. Hyaki contemplated the weapon respectfully.

  "What do you think, Angel? Mataros sent out by The Mock to intercept us? Maybe people working with the Inzini, or some other faction?"

  Cardenas sounded dubious. "They may not be farmers, but they looked and acted local. According to what I read before we got here, this is still pretty wild country. All kinds of banditos and scaves hide in the mountains and pop out to ambush unwary travelers." He indicated their vehicle, from which smoke continued to pour. The flames had already been dampened by the vehicle's integrated fire-suppressant system. "Probably thought we were tourists, or maybe researchers bound for the Ciudad. Easy marks, little likelihood of any resistance, much less a fight, and loaded down with credit and valuable gear." He shook his head regretfully. "Didn't even have time to flash an ident at them. Not that it would necessarily have changed their minds."

  They discussed the veiled features of the lethal walking stick as they cautiously approached their 4X4. Its internal systems had finally succeeded in putting out the fire. In lieu of the preceding flames, black smoke now rose from beneath the vehicle's hood as well as from the interior dash. The bundle that had been thrown by the young woman lay melted and motionless on the hood. Fully discharged, it was now perfectly harmless.

  They didn't have to open the hood to surmise what they would encounter beneath, but they did anyway. The scorched wires, slagged chips, and smoldering components that greeted their gaze confirmed what the rising smoke had already told them: that this vehicle would never travel under its own power again. Letting the hood slam shut on its ruined lifters, they moved to inspect the interior. From the fire-blackened center storage console and still-hot glove compartment they extracted respectively, among other items of newly-made rubbish, two lumps of blackened and seared equipment: their respective police spinners. As Cardenas let the now useless lumps fall to the wet ground, Hyaki leaned one massive hand on the composite frame of the ruined vehicle and gazed glumly at the surrounding greenery.

  "Now what?"

  Slogging around to the back of the 4X4, Cardenas manually dropped the tailgate. "Can't talk, so we walk. We're a lot closer to the entrance to the Reserva and the Ciudad Simiano than we are to Progresso. Besides, I didn't come all this way to go back."

  "I didn't come all this way to get filthy dirty and soaked to my new skin, either, but at least it's not cold." Bending over alongside his friend, Hyaki began gathering those meager supplies that had survived the vehicle's brief but intense internal conflagration. Their luggage, containing most of their clothing, gear, and their reserve spinners, resided unharmed back in the room they had rented at the Posada Progresso.

  Making a face, Cardenas contemplated the cloud-filled sky. "Wait until tonight. At this altitude, even the jungle gets cold."

  "Thanks for apprising me of that fact," Hyaki responded mordantly. "Frankly, I would have been happier dwelling in ignorance."

  TEN

  THEY HAD MANAGED TO COVER LESS THAN A couple of kims when the rain resumed. Munching on the whole grain and fruit snack bar that constituted half his surviving rations, Hyaki glumly planted one foot in front of the other, his bare arms crossed over his chest. A small bottle of water bobbed in one pants pocket. Anticipating an afternoon arrival at the Reserva, they had brought little with them in the way of provisions.

  At least they did not have to worry about conserving water. Though it added notably to their discomfort, the cool rain sufficed to slake their thirst. Save for their cupped palms, they had nothing to collect it in except their clothing, which was soon soaked through. Like almost everything else they had brought with them, their rain-repelling slickers had perished in the blaze that had consumed the doomed 4X4. In this dejected fashion they plodded grimly forward, wet and unhappy, waiting to hitch a ride that never materialized.

  "Not many tourists up this way." Cardenas tried to identify a small, bright red bird that was pecking at some fruit on the lower branches of a nearby tree. "La Amistad isn't Monteverde or Corcovado."

  "It isn't Nogales, either." The shoes Hyaki had chosen were comfortable for walking—when they were dry. He glanced back the way they had come. "Surely a supply truck or ranger cruiser has to make regular runs along here?"

  "I'm sure they do." The Inspector leaped carefully over a deep, water-filled pothole. "Those feleons would avoid them. I guess we don't look like rangers." He looked over at his partner. "Some good comes out of everything. Maybe next time the survivors will think twice before trying to jump the first 4X4 that comes along."

  "I wish they'd thought about it this time." The big man grimaced. "I need a steak."

  "Pretend you're a twentieth-century urban beat cop." Bending, Cardenas scooped up an arm-long length of fallen wood and tossed it toward his friend. "Here, have a nightstick."

  Hyaki swatted it aside, sending bark and droplets flying. "I'd rather have a beefstick. On a couple of fresh tortillas." He glanced up at the lowering sky. "It's getting dark."

  Cardenas squinted skyward. "Maybe the rain will go down with the sun."

  "You really think that?" So hopeful was the sergeant's tone that Cardenas did not have the heart to tell him otherwise.

  Surprisingly, the rain did let up as the light faded from the world. It did not come to an end completely, but instead was transformed into a clinging, all-pervasive mist. At the same time, the temperature actually rose as night descended. The result was an increase in cloying humidity that canceled out any benefit they might have enjoyed from the cessation of the rain.

  Enough light lingered to show the track ahead of them branching off in three directions. Installed at the tripartite junction was a first-rate weatherproofed road sign, newly stam
ped and finished, that had been knocked sufficiently askew to render the directions imprinted thereon as useless as tits on a boar hog. Tired and discouraged, both men looked for a place to camp.

  "Can't go on in the dark," Hyaki pointed out unnecessarily. The past couple of hours of heavy slogging had convinced him that the mud beneath their feet was imbued with a life of its own, and was deliberately crawling over his ankles and up his legs. "Wish I smoked."

  "Why is that?" Cardenas was hunting for a tree with enough of a leafy overhang to provide some added protection from the weather.

  "Because then I'd have a lighter, and we could make a fire."

  "Don't be too hard on yourself. Look around." The Inspector indicated the sodden rainforest. "Where would you find anything to burn?"

  The big man considered their rapidly darkening surroundings. "This isn't my style, Angel. I'm used to chasing nins and baggerags through the back streets of Agua Pri and Sonoyta. Wilderness survival is way down on my resume."

  "Mine also," confessed Cardenas as he began to gather fallen leaves to construct a makeshift mattress. "Maybe like you said, somebody will come by. If not, we'll resume hiking tomorrow."

  Pulling his second and last snack bar from a pocket, Hyaki flashed it at his friend and made a face. "At least there's no need to worry about breakfast. It's already cooked. Not that I wouldn't prefer a couple of breakfast burritos, with cheese and chorizo and sour cream and maybe a side of—"

  "Shut up," Cardenas snapped at him. "I don't have to intuit the rest."

  Thankfully, the rain did not resume as they sat down next to one another beneath the ample bole of a big cecropia to wait for morning. With exhaustion compensating for the lack of a bed, they slept surprisingly well in spite of their saturated clothing.

  Nor did they have to worry about oversleeping.

  Cardenas awoke to a crawling sensation the likes of which he had experienced only once before, twenty years earlier while engaged in a stakeout in a rattrap of a motel in the worst part of Tucson. Those legs had been larger, but the sensation was the same.