The Lord of Opium(104)

“I know what the people here made of it,” Matt said bitterly. “They said I was a filthy clone, worse than an animal, and unnatural.”

The old man looked kindly at the boy. “You must not be hurt by other people’s ignorance. Where I come from, animals are revered. I would have been honored to have a cow for a mother. The only thing wrong here is that the poor animal has been drugged.”

“She has a microchip in her brain. Clones aren’t considered human or even animal. They’re property.” Matt sat down, driven by a desire to show the Mushroom Master just how terrible his childhood had been. He took off his shoe. “There! It’s somewhat faded, but that’s the mark of a clone.”

The old man took out a magnifying glass he used to examine interesting fungi. “ ‘Property of the Alacrán Estate.’ That certainly says it all. What does the number mean?”

Matt drew his foot back. “Nothing.”

Cienfuegos grabbed Matt’s ankle and the boy kicked him, but the jefe was very strong.

“I order you to let me go!”

Cienfuegos dropped Matt’s foot. “It’s a date, and I’m willing to bet that you think it’s an expiry date.”

“Expiry date?” asked the Mushroom Master.

“They tattoo it onto an eejit’s foot to show how long he’ll live, but it’s very different with a clone. Yours is a ‘best by’ date, Don Sombra. It tells the doctor when transplants have the best chance of succeeding. You’re good for another eighty years.” The jefe laughed.

Matt grabbed his shoe and sock, furious and relieved at the same time. He wanted to push Cienfuegos’s face into the cow patty that had just appeared in the enclosure. He busied himself with the shoe while the Mushroom Master drew the jefe away to explore the other freezers.

They opened one door after another until they found racks of trays labeled BUBONIC PLAGUE MONGOLIA, BUBONIC PLAGUE CAIRO, SMALLPOX TEHERAN, and many, many more. The Mushroom Master retreated quickly. They went outside without saying another word.

“Let’s take one of the stirabouts,” suggested Cienfuegos. “I’m sure you’d like to see the greatest observatory in the world.”

“I’d be delighted,” said the Mushroom Master, but they went into the flatlands instead, where there was nothing except mesquite trees, cactuses, and a few of the old abandoned observatories.

The jefe settled the stirabout down onto a patch of sand. “We should walk some distance away for security reasons. I hope your moccasins are up to it, sir.” The Mushroom Master put his umbrella up, for here were no trees. The sun blazed out of an empty blue sky. They walked along a trail until they got to a collection of boulders. Cienfuegos poked around them with a stick to check for snakes before they sat down.

“Is this place really that riddled with listening devices?” asked the Mushroom Master, wiping sweat from his face with a sleeve.

“El Patrón had them everywhere. He had bodyguards whose only job was to listen, and he liked to eavesdrop himself.”

“What a dreadful man,” said the Mushroom Master. “And now Dr. Rivas is doing it.”

“Probably.” Cienfuegos took out a bottle of water and passed it around.

“Whose clone is Dr. Rivas growing in that cow?” asked Matt, unable to hold back the question any longer.

“I think it’s his son,” said Cienfuegos.

“The one who’s an eejit?”

“Yes. Eduardo.”

Matt remembered the young man who had been picking leaves out of a pool, one by one. “Is—” The boy stopped to gather his thoughts. “Is the doctor going to do a brain transplant?”

“It’s been tried, but transplanting a brain is far different from doing a kidney or a liver,” said the jefe. “I remember that from lectures at Chapultepec University. The brain is shaped by the experiences of the body, and the body is shaped by the brain. When you learn to walk or swim or fly a hovercraft, both are involved. Changing one part results in lethal confusion for the other. I think Eduardo has been dead for a while, and Dr. Rivas is growing a replacement.”

“What terrible things have happened since the biosphere was enclosed,” said the Mushroom Master.

They sat, each with his own thoughts, gazing out at the low landscape of mesquite trees. The air shimmered over dull green leaves, and in the distance the domes of deserted observatories poked up in the heat haze like Shaggy Mane mushrooms. To the right, completely dwarfing all other structures, was the Alacrán observatory, whose great glass eye was trained on the Scorpion Star. Matt couldn’t see it now, but it was there. Always.