“I think we should call him El Relámpago, the Lightning Bolt,” Cienfuegos said. “He let Esperanza have it right between the eyes—Pum!—‘Do what I say or I’ll fry the whole country.’ Brilliant!”
“That’s a terrible thing to threaten,” said Celia.
The jefe shrugged. “Fear is the beginning of wisdom, mi caramelito.”
“Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom,” corrected Celia. “And I’m not your sweetie pie.”
Cienfuegos reached for a tortilla and expertly loaded it with lettuce, beans, and salsa. “What do you say, El Relámpago? Shall we open the border today?”
“Stop giving me nicknames,” Matt said. “How fast can we get supplies in? I don’t want us vulnerable for more than a few minutes.”
“No problemo. The train has been sitting in San Luis for weeks,” said Cienfuegos.
After lunch they returned to the control room, and Matt found he could pause the lockdown in as large or small an area as he liked, while keeping the rest of the border secure. Cienfuegos focused a screen to show him the border post. Following the jefe’s instructions, Matt pressed a button. He heard an alarm ring in the distance and saw a mob of workmen running from a warehouse.
“See? They’ve been waiting for your signal,” said the jefe. “It won’t take them long to unload the train.”
Matt saw a train consisting of at least two hundred cars waiting in Aztlán. As he watched, it slowly gathered speed and rolled across the border into Opium. The workmen were lined up about a hundred yards away from the tracks.
The crossing took less than fifteen minutes, for which Matt was grateful. He could see a mass of soldiers in green uniforms watching the procedure from Aztlán. Among them were UN peacekeepers in black. They were all heavily armed, and behind the men were ominous vehicles and hovercrafts.
“A whole maldito army!” swore Cienfuegos. “Crot Esperanza!” Matt flinched at the filthy word. “Close the border now, mi patrón. I don’t trust them to keep their distance.”
Matt did so. He had learned from the jefe that anyone could activate the lockdown in case of an emergency, but only El Patrón’s hand could remove it. It was another example of the extreme control the old man kept over everything. Opening and closing a small portion of the border should have been a simple task, but when Matt was finished, he was utterly exhausted.
“Takes it out of you, doesn’t it?” said Cienfuegos. “I’ve watched the old man fine-tune the border, and he always had to lie down afterward. It has something to do with the scanner.”
“It felt like ants were swarming over my skin,” said Matt.
“You’re lucky that’s all that happened. I was worried the first time you used the holoscope. If the machine doesn’t recognize you—well, it isn’t good.”
“How did you find out?” said Matt, remembering how nervous the jefe had been when he contacted Esperanza.
“I tried to use an eejit to access the controls,” said Cienfuegos. “Don’t worry. He was close to his expiry date, so no great loss.”
“You sacrificed a human being?”
“An eejit, mi patrón. No one knew you were coming back, and our goose was rapidly being cooked.”
It made sense, Matt realized. One of the Five Principles of Good Citizenship they had to parrot at the plankton factory was that an individual had no value apart from the group. It was the duty of a citizen to sacrifice himself for the good of all. And yet . . .
“What happened to him?” asked Matt.
“The scanner makes you fall apart,” the jefe said reluctantly. “I don’t quite understand how it works, but it removes the glue that holds your cells together. You melt.”
Matt felt sick, imagining what it looked like.
“If it’s any help, I don’t think the eejit minded,” said Cienfuegos. “He looked a little surprised, and then he was only a puddle on the floor. It was a mess to clean up.”
“I think I want to be alone for a while,” said Matt.
“There’s one more thing you should see,” said the jefe. He refocused the screen on the train, which was now halted on the tracks. Another alarm sounded, and the workmen moved even farther away. Presently, a sheet of light passed over the cars. Even in the fierce desert sunlight it burned bright enough to hurt your eyes. When it was done, it vanished and the alarm rang again. The men swarmed aboard and began unloading crates.
“You see, you can’t allow just anything to cross the border,” Cienfuegos explained. “You might have weevils or grain beetles on board. The beam kills them.”