The Lord of Opium

  “Mil gracias, señor,” said Cienfuegos. “We didn’t know there was a danger.” He quickly fastened a mask over Listen’s nose, and Matt did the same for Mirasol. “This is a most unusual place, sir. I would be most honored if you would tell me about it.”

  The white-haired man seemed pleased by his interest. “You are obviously a person of intelligence,” he replied. “These young ones”—he waved his hand at the teenagers—“are newly awakened from Dormancy and have the brains of rabbits. Not,” he hastened to say, “that I have anything against rabbits. All Gaia’s creatures are blessed.”

  He proceeded to list the name of each fungus and what its specialty was. “These,” he said, “are Shaggy Manes.” Matt looked out over a sea of white humps covered with tattered fringes. “They’re experts at killing E. coli, which gives you the runs, and Staph aureus, which makes you grow pimples. They munch them up like candy. Wonderful plants!” The man’s enthusiasm was contagious, and Matt couldn’t help smiling at him. “You look as though you could use a little of their help,” the man said, smiling back.

  Matt self-consciously ran his hand over the remnants of the acne he’d acquired at the plankton factory.

  “Never mind. The pimples go away when you get older,” the old man said kindly. “Shaggy Manes eat chemicals, too. Once upon a time farmers put so much fertilizer and pesticides on their crops that the ground became polluted. Nowadays we aren’t so foolish, but if we were, the Shaggy Manes would come to our rescue.” He smiled proudly at his mushrooms as though they were a herd of prize cattle.

  “You mean . . . you mean these little things can pull poison out of the soil?” asked Cienfuegos.

  “They not only pull it out, they digest it so that it’s harmless. It’s like a snack to them. Mmm! Yummy pesticides!”

  The jefe looked stunned. “All those years of failed crops and sickened farmers . . . It could have been avoided so easily.”

  “Not so easily,” cautioned the white-haired man. “You have to learn how it’s done—which mushrooms to grow, how to grow them, and what to do with them. The ones that eat mercury, for example, must be burned. You can reuse the metal.” The man led them around the fields, pointing out fungi that ate oil or pesticides or bacteria. “This little beauty,” he said, gesturing at a dull purple mushroom glistening with slime, “likes radioactivity. Positively wolfs it down. It’s called a Gomphidius.” He patted it fondly.

  “Surely you don’t have radioactivity here,” said Cienfuegos.

  “Never,” the old man said, “but if we did, we’d be ready.”

  “This is what I’ve been looking for all my life,” murmured the jefe. “May I ask your name, sir?”

  “I’m the Mushroom Master,” the man said.

  “I would give anything to learn your skill. I could take one day off every week and come here. Please, sir, would you teach me?”

  “Of course,” said the Mushroom Master, looking somewhat startled by Cienfuegos’s fervent plea.

  The jefe turned to Matt. “You’d order me to come, wouldn’t you, mi patrón?”

  “Of course,” said Matt, understanding that Cienfuegos couldn’t leave his work unless directly ordered.

  “Then it’s all right.” The jefe closed his eyes briefly.

  They toured the rest of the building, for only part of it was kept for renewing the soil. The rest grew edible mushrooms. By now Listen was complaining loudly that she was crotting tired, that she’d had it up to here with weird people, and that she was going to eat a Gomphidius, slime and all, if they didn’t get going.

  “Patience,” said Cienfuegos. He picked her up and thanked the Mushroom Master at great length. They headed for the area labeled KITCHEN.

  26

  THE BRAT ENCLOSURE

  In the kitchen, cooks were busily processing food—mostly vegetables—and servers were laying out banana leaves for plates. Groups of men and women drifted in, seated themselves, and were given rice and stew.

  “I think we should wait until we get back to the hovercraft to eat,” said Cienfuegos, putting Listen onto the ground. “Everything is balanced in this place. I don’t know if they have enough food for visitors.”

  “I wouldn’t touch that crap, anyway,” said Listen.

  The stew consisted of grasshoppers and caterpillars in a thick gluey sauce with chopped-up carrots and onions. The diners ate with gusto, using their fingers. They could have as many helpings as they liked by raising a hand. A server would hurry over and refill the banana leaf.

  Matt watched them. “Excuse me,” he began, uncertain how to open a conversation. The diners ignored him. “Excuse me,” he repeated. “Where are the children?” It bothered him that the only child he’d seen was Listen.

  A woman looked up. “You must be newly emerged from Dormancy. Everyone knows they’re in the Brat Enclosure.” She gestured at a door.

  “Those Dormancy graduates,” a man said, shaking his head. “Their brains don’t wake up for weeks.”

  “Do children ever leave the Brat Enclosure?” asked Matt.

  “Not if I can help it.” The woman laughed. The others seemed to enjoy the joke too.

  “We take turns watching them,” the man explained. “It’s tiring to chase after prehumans, and we prefer to keep them corralled.”

  “I’m a visitor from outside and don’t know anything,” said Matt. “Please tell me what you mean by Dormancy.”

  “He’s dreaming. Nobody lives Outside,” someone remarked.

  “Poor bobo. He must be from one of the outer ecosystems, perhaps Tundra,” said the woman. “I’ve heard they’re not too bright.”

  “For shame! They’re all Gaia’s children,” scolded another woman.

  “All Gaia’s children are blessed,” murmured the others, as though this were a ritual response. The men and women went back to feeding.

  “The job of immatures is to play and to learn to love Gaia,” said a man, taking pity on Matt’s ignorance. “They don’t work. But when they reach the age of fourteen, they are put into a dormant phase for a year or so, and knowledge of the tasks they must perform as adults is fed into their brains. It’s very intense, and Dormants take a while to recover from it. You probably went through it recently, and that’s why you can’t think straight. Don’t worry. You’ll get better soon. Everyone does before the first mating season.”

  “I remember those days,” said an older man. He wiped thick, bug-infested gravy off his chin with a finger and licked off the results. “I was allowed to produce three offspring because Gaia took the first one to Herself. I always wondered which ones were mine when I tended the Brat Herd—not that it mattered. All were children of Gaia.”

  “All Gaia’s children are blessed,” murmured the group. They started a discussion of past mating seasons. Matt was aware of Cienfuegos watching him with a wicked smile.

  “I only wanted to find out about the children,” he protested.

  “Me too,” cried Listen, and before anyone could stop her, she ran over and threw open the door. A din of high-pitched voices, shouts, and laughter poured out. Beyond was a vast space filled with gentle hills and reed-shadowed pools. Flowering bushes surrounded perfect lawns, where children of all sizes, from toddlers to the early teens, engaged in every sort of activity. Babies were being rocked in cradles by adult caretakers. Children of Listen’s age were making mud pies. Older ones observed animals and plants under the watchful gaze of teachers. Still others played games or splashed in pools or climbed trees. They shrieked for the pure joy of shrieking.

  Adults in white tunics gravely comforted those who had fallen down or who’d been upset. Some of the smaller children were asleep in beds lined up under trees. Matt felt a lump in his throat. So many! All perfect, with no deadness in their eyes. They were loved. They were wanted. They were happy.

  “Where did you come from?” said a caretaker from the Enclosure, sweeping Listen up in his arms. “You’re too little to be running around by yourself.”

&n
bsp; She screamed, and Cienfuegos reacted instantly, snatching the little girl from the man’s grasp. “She’s a visitor. She’s from Outside. We’re leaving now.” He slammed the door in the face of the startled caretaker and said, “Come along, you little prehumans. We have a hovercraft to catch.”

  * * *

  Leaving was far easier than coming in. A shuttle cart from Exit took them to the room where their clothes were. After changing, a door opened and they found themselves outside, next to the holoport. “¡Vete!” shouted Cienfuegos, scaring off a coyote that was sniffing around the door of the hovercraft. “You’d like some owl tacos, wouldn’t you?” He hurled a stone after the fleeing animal.

  The jefe produced bottles of water and sandwiches for all of them. Listen was so tired, she started crying. Cienfuegos unrolled a foam mattress in front of the owl cages and told her to lie down. “I forgot how short your legs are, chiquita. I’m not used to little kids.”

  “Y-you rescued me.” She sniffled. “That man was going to lock me up in the Brat Enclosure, and I’d never see Mbongeni again.” She broke into loud sobs exactly like her night terrors that had awakened Matt.

  “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry,” he said, his hand trembling over the distraught girl as though she were a flame he dared not touch. “Oh, damn all microchips! Damn everything!” Cienfuegos hurled himself from the hovercraft and disappeared among the mesquite trees. It was so sudden and unexpected that Listen was stopped in mid-howl. She stared at the empty door, still shaking.

  Matt scooted over and held her as he’d seen the adults hold unhappy children in the Brat Enclosure. “It’s all right,” he said, rocking her back and forth. “People like Cienfuegos are warriors, muy feroz. They don’t know how to be gentle. He’s like the coyote, always running, and sometimes he bites. But trust me, he’s not angry at you.” He’s angry at the microchip in his brain, Matt thought. Something about Listen upset him. I wonder what it was.

  The little girl sucked her thumb and watched the door. Eventually she stretched out on the mattress and fell asleep.

  Cienfuegos didn’t return, and Matt worried about what to do. He couldn’t fly such a complicated hovercraft. He checked the water in the owl cages, and they fluffed their feathers at him. He pulled the door closed. Who knew what was lurking outside? When Listen woke up, he told her one of Celia’s stories about how Noah put all the animals in a boat and saved them from a flood.

  “How big was this boat?” Listen asked suspiciously.

  “Very big,” Matt said. “Shut up and pay attention.” He continued with the tale, explaining that only two of each kind could go. All the rest drowned.

  “Is that what happened to the dinosaurs?” said the little girl.

  “Yes. Noah couldn’t fit the dinosaurs in. They swam and swam, but eventually they got tired and sank,” Matt said, improvising. He hadn’t heard the story for years and was surprised at how good it made him feel. He remembered Celia’s serious face in the lamplight next to his bed, where he lay with his stuffed toys. Noah sent out a crow to see if there was any dry land around, said Celia. You know how selfish crows are. They don’t care about anyone but themselves, so this one found a cornfield and stayed there. She didn’t like crows because they raided the garden behind the house.

  “When the crow didn’t return, Noah sent out a dove,” said Matt now.

  “Was it a white-winged dove?” Listen asked, and after a second added, “Zenaida asiatica.”

  He remembered that she’d been stuffed full of facts by Dr. Rivas. “It didn’t have a scientific name,” he said. “It was a lady dove called Blanca Luz, and her husband was called El Guapo. They had a nest with six baby chicks.”

  “I don’t believe that,” the little girl said.

  “How do you know? You weren’t there.” Matt finished the story, and Listen announced that she was hungry. He searched and found two more sandwiches, which he divided between Listen and Mirasol. They had enough water for several days, but no more food. He told Mirasol to curl up on the foam mattress with Listen, and he kept watch from the pilot’s chair. What he would do if a lion got inside he couldn’t imagine.

  As often happened in the desert, the temperature dropped forty degrees after dark. Matt searched farther and found thermal blankets he used to cover the girls and the owls. The birds began a mournful hooting. Their feet scratched the bottom of the cages, while outside an excited bark told Matt that the coyote was back. He could hear the beast scuffling around the edge of the door.

  Tomorrow I’ll have to turn the owls loose, he thought. I’ll take Mirasol and Listen back to the biosphere. Except that he didn’t know the combination for opening the door. Could he bang on the walls? Would the inhabitants even notice?

  He heard a thump and a yelp from outside. “¡Maldito sea! I’ll kick you so hard you’ll spit out shoelaces,” swore Cienfuegos. The man threw open the door. “Why didn’t you turn on the outside light? I couldn’t see anything in the dark.”

  Matt was so relieved he didn’t take offense. “I didn’t know how.”

  “Tomorrow I’ll teach you. You might as well learn to fly, too. ¡Bueno! You looked after the girls and the livestock, and I see you were standing guard like a real man. Move over. I’ll do the driving.”

  Matt happily vacated the seat. You were standing guard like a real man played over and over in his head like a piece of music. He’d done the right thing. He was worthy to be patrón. He smiled into the darkness as the hovercraft took off and didn’t worry that Cienfuegos said not another word until they arrived in Ajo.

  27

  PLANNING A PARTY

  Now came the time Matt had been waiting for. Under his direction, the beam that sterilized trains crossing the border was shut off. Ten doctors and twenty nurses, plus equipment, medicine, and all the other things they would need arrived safely and were loaded into hovercrafts. With them came a dozen hovercraft pilots and a hundred new bodyguards recruited from Scotland and Ireland. This was urged by Daft Donald to shore up security.

  The new people went to Paradise for orientation and training. All of the medical staff stayed there, except for one, who came to the hospital in Ajo. With the money Matt was paying them, he wanted them to concentrate on working with Dr. Rivas. Nurse Fiona was reassigned to washing dishes. She complained so bitterly that Matt gave her the job of watching Listen, although this didn’t stop the complaints. “What do they think I am? A bloody babysitter?” she yowled to Celia. “That little scrap is the devil’s spawn. She’s got a mouth on her that would do a sailor proud.”

  The train returned to Aztlán, bearing Esperanza’s samples and several tons of opium.

  Matt felt guilty about continuing the trade, but it was only a temporary measure. The cookie cans outside the opium factory by now extended half a mile, and the dealers in Africa, Europe, and Asia were getting hysterical. Happy Man Hikwa, Glass Eye Dabengwa’s representative, called again and again. At first Matt ignored him. The last thing he wanted to do was deal with Glass Eye, but Cienfuegos pointed out that this would look like weakness to the sinister drug lord.

  “I’ve seen him at El Patrón’s parties,” the jefe said. “He has an instinct for terrorizing the weakest person in the room. He killed the Old Man of the Mountains, who you may remember was in charge of the Iraqi cartel.”

  Matt remembered. The Old Man of the Mountains had once been a feared and dreaded drug lord. He was one hundred and twenty years old by the time Matt saw him, broken by illness and stoked up to the eyeballs with hashish. Glass Eye had sat next to him at a banquet. The boy couldn’t hear what the African said, but he saw the effect on the Old Man. The Iraqi tried to move away, but Glass Eye detained him with a heavy hand. And then the Old Man slumped facedown into a plate of mashed potatoes.

  I should have changed the seating arrangement, El Patrón had said, in a mellow mood after the banquet. Something about Glass Eye brings on heart problems. Ah, well. There’s a silver lining. The Old Man’s customers are up for gra
bs.

  Matt remembered this now as he accessed the holoport and found Happy Man’s new address. He was no longer in Africa. He had a new address in Marijuana, on the eastern border of Opium, and his light was blinking furiously.

  Happy Man Hikwa was sitting in front of the portal. There was an ashtray full of cigarette butts, a pot of coffee, and a bottle of aguardente, a villainous Mozambican vodka that smelled like crushed beetles. Hikwa looked like he’d been living in front of the portal. His clothes, a plaid suit without a shirt, were dirty, and Matt could smell stale marijuana smoke. He was a drug addict.

  Matt smiled to himself. Drug addicts were the easiest clients to handle. They would agree to anything.

  “You . . . you . . .,” said Happy Man, having difficulty forming the words. “You child! Where is Mr. Alacrán?”

  “I am the new Lord of Opium,” said Matt. “Mr. Alacrán is busy. What do you want?”

  It took a moment for the African dealer to process this information. “You’re a clone,” he finally said. “Clones can’t run businesses.”

  “I am El Patrón,” said Matt, smarting from the insult.

  Happy Man pushed away from the screen. Behind him was a room in chaos full of old food containers and weapons, and beyond was a wide window showing a city. Matt could see skyscrapers chopped in two as though a giant machete had sliced through them. A line of limousines, not unlike Hitler’s old car, was making its way through rubble. “What’s going on?” asked Matt.

  Hikwa looked to where the boy was pointing. “Oh, that. We’re still pacifying the city. A few of the Farm Patrolmen are holding out.” A flash followed by screams showed a building being blown up. Fires raged in the distance.

  “You’re destroying your own city,” said Matt, appalled.

  Happy Man giggled. “We don’t need it. We’ve got more.” He reached for the bottle of aguardente and took a swig. “Anyway, this place was a ruin when we got it. It used to be called Ciudad Juarez, and the crotters who ran this place were trying to rebuild. Fat chance. Glass Eye showed them what’s what. We”—he hiccuped—“put all their women and children into an empty swimming pool and used them for target practice.”