The Lord of Opium(68)

Matt finished his meal with dulce de leche ice cream covered in marshmallow sauce. How Fidelito would like that when he arrived! The thought cheered Matt up, and he made plans to find more things to delight the little boy.

“By the way, you don’t have to keep paying the doctors and nurses those outrageous salaries,” said Celia, removing his dishes to the sink. “They’ve been microchipped too. You can’t have people who hold the power of life and death out of control either.”

* * *

Matt eagerly watched the train cross the border on the holoport screen. Workers unloaded suitcases and carried them to waiting hovercrafts. Wonderful, magical passengers disembarked and stretched their legs in the shimmering desert heat. First a group of musicians, five men and one woman, got out, carrying their instruments. They removed their coats and looked around to see what must have been a land of fables to them, a zombie kingdom ruled by an ancient vampire. They wouldn’t realize that the workers around them were zombies.

Next came a group of cowboys for the rodeo—short, raw-boned men who seemed made of gristle and steel. Their leather jackets were scuffed from being thrown from horses. After the rodeo, Matt planned to stage a pachanga, a kind of bullfight where no animal got killed.

The soccer players from Brazil and Argentina were taller than the cowboys and moved with easy grace like thoroughbred horses. Matt had never seen a soccer match, because El Patrón didn’t like sports. He said that only games with real risks were suitable for men.

The sport he approved of was called pok-a-tok and had been played by the ancient Maya. It was somewhat similar to soccer. The players used a hard rubber ball, which they weren’t allowed to touch with their hands, and scored points by knocking it through a stone ring. It was more like a religious ceremony than a game, El Patrón said, a symbolic battle between life and death. The winning team represented life, and the losers, who represented death, got their heads cut off.

A troupe of tightrope walkers and trapeze artists hauled equipment out of the train. Long ago circuses had contained lions and tigers, but now those animals were extinct. Except here, Matt thought happily. Wrestlers followed, walking with a rolling gait as though they were already in the arena. They were dressed in Levi’s and T-shirts, but inside their suitcases were costumes that would transform them into creatures of fantasy.

Matt watched anxiously as the performers were flown off to Ajo. He wasn’t going to let them anywhere near Dr. Rivas, and anyhow they were short-time visitors. Now the door of the last car opened and out tumbled Fidelito, pursued by Ton-Ton and Chacho. Matt could almost hear Ton-Ton shout, C-come back or I’ll beat the stuffing out of you! But he knew the big boy would never do it, and so did Fidelito. The little boy danced around, kicking up sprays of sand. Then a fourth person stepped out of the train.

Sor Artemesia.

Matt’s heart leapt to his throat. María was on the train! She had to be. Esperanza had relented at the last moment and decided that he was good enough for her daughter. Matt watched in a fever as the nun stepped down carefully and grimaced when her feet touched the hot sand. She gave a command, and Fidelito immediately stopped prancing and took her hand. Together they walked to the last remaining hovercraft.

Workers swarmed over the train to remove cartons of supplies. María never appeared.





28





SOR ARTEMESIA




Matt and Listen waited at the Ajo holoport to greet his friends. He saw the black craft grow from a distant speck to a sleek ship with a bulging, transparent top. As it settled down, he saw that the pilot was not one of the new pilots he’d hired, but Cienfuegos. Fidelito was bouncing up and down, trying to touch the ceiling, and the jefe pushed him into a seat.

“Are those crots?” asked Listen.

“They’re Real Children. Don’t use that word,” Matt said. “It’s extremely insulting.”

“If they’re crots, they won’t be smart enough to care,” the little girl said reasonably.

“Just stop swearing. It’s a bad habit.”

The hovercraft set down, and the antigravity recharger snaked up and fastened onto the nose cone. The door opened. Fidelito attempted to jump out and was yanked back inside. “You turkey,” said Ton-Ton. “L-ladies go first.”

Cienfuegos helped Sor Artemesia step down, and she looked around until she found Matt. “Please forgive me, mi patrón. Doña Esperanza sent me away because she says I’m a bad influence on María. I didn’t know where else to go.”

“You are most welcome here,” said the boy, and he meant it. The more he saw of the nun, the better he liked her. “María must be unhappy, though.”