The Lord of Opium (15 page)

This girl was no eejit. She had to be someone’s daughter, and if so, the person should have protected her from animals. A dull rage kindled in Matt’s head. How dare someone neglect such a frail child? Matt would find out who it was and punish him.

For now, though, he was lost. He had chased the girl through
gardens and between buildings until he’d lost his sense of direction. It didn’t matter. It was pleasant to be left alone in such a beautiful place. A fountain cast up a spray of water that flashed in the sun before raining back on the upturned faces of statues of children. They held out their hands like real children, and the sculptor had given them expressions of joy so lifelike that Matt smiled in sympathy. What a wonderful work of art!

And how strange. Opium was no place for children. Matt wandered on, and presently he came to a sliding door. Inside he found a room full of large glass enclosures with no clear purpose. It might have been a zoo, except that the animals were missing. Long tables were covered with gleaming, stainless-steel pans and microscopes, and along one wall were giant freezers. Idly, he opened a heavy iron door, and a dense cloud of fog swirled out. He saw racks of bottles with tiny writing:
MACGREGOR #1
to
MACGREGOR #13
in one rack,
DABENGWA #1
to
DABENGWA #19
in another. The bottles were dated. In a third rack he found
MATTEO ALACRÁN
with one of the bottles—
#27
—dated more than fourteen years before.

Matt slammed the door.

He fled to one of the enclosures and pressed his face against the glass to calm his nerves. Those bottles were tissue samples. This was where he had been created. That date, fourteen and a half years earlier, was his birthday, the day he was harvested from a cow.

After a while Matt’s heartbeat slowed to normal, and he forced himself to look inside. Mechanical arms reached across the enclosure, the floor of which was a treadmill. Wisps of hay were trapped between the joints. Once, a cow had stood here and her legs had been flexed by the mechanical arms while the treadmill slowly ground forward. Someone had placed hay
in her mouth, which she chewed mindlessly, dreaming of flowery meadows.

“I was going to give you a tour, but I see you’ve already found the lab,” said Dr. Rivas. He was standing in the open doorway, and behind him was the fountain of children. “You really should rest for a while,
mi patrón
. You aren’t well yet.”

“I want all the tissue samples destroyed,” said Matt.

“That would destroy a hundred years of work. To a scientist, that is a mortal sin.”

“I don’t understand about sin, but I know evil when I see it,” the boy said passionately.

“Cloning isn’t the only thing that goes on here.” The doctor pulled out a chair and sat down. “The scientists made many discoveries about congenital diseases. Do you know about sickle-cell anemia? They learned to grow healthy bone marrow in this lab to replace the diseased marrow of a victim.”

“By using clones, I suppose,” Matt said.

“At first. But by sacrificing a few, they saved thousands. They regenerated spinal tissue to heal paralysis. You see, this was the premier research lab in the world, because we could experiment on humans. Well,
almost
humans.”

Matt struggled with the idea. The longer he was in Opium, the more the line between good and evil blurred. Of course it was good to save people who, through no fault of their own, were suffering. You cut corners, made compromises, and soon you were in the same position as El Patrón, shooting down a passenger plane to avert a war.

“Where are those scientists now?”

Dr. Rivas smiled sadly. “With El Patrón.”

“That’s what I would call a mortal sin,” said Matt. He looked at the freezers lining the wall. They extended from floor
to ceiling, with a ladder on wheels to allow access to the top levels.
There must be thousands of bottles in there,
he thought. “What if we only destroyed the drug lord samples?”

“Surely you want El Patrón’s,” said Dr. Rivas. “What if you should fall ill and need a transplant? You’re the first clone who has lived beyond his thirteenth year, and we don’t know whether there are hidden weaknesses in you. Forgive me for using that word,
mi patrón
. I’m a scientist, not a diplomat. But please consider: When you were young, we tried to protect you against everything, and yet you still developed asthma and caught scarlet fever.”

“I’ll take my chances. There will be no more clones.”

“Mi patrón—”

“No more clones!” shouted Matt. He almost walked out before realizing that he didn’t know where he was. “Which way is my room? I’d like to lie down.”

“Of course! You can rest in the nursery. It’s much closer.”

The doctor led Matt back along the path by the fountain, and the boy paused to let a breeze blow a fine spray over his face. “This is so beautiful,” he said. “Why is it here?”

“El Patrón wanted statues of his brothers and sisters who had died, but of course there were no pictures of them. He selected Illegals for models from what he could remember.”

“He used real children?”
Matt stepped out of the spray.

The seven statues faced the center of the fountain. The girls were so small, they could not look over a windowsill, not even if they stood on tiptoe. The five boys were larger, and two of them, the ones who had been beaten to death by the police, were almost adults. They were filled with joy by the water that pattered over their faces. Their hands were outstretched to hold this miracle that fell all year long, not just for two months in dry, dusty Durango.

And the models? What had happened to them?

18

THE AFRICAN CHILD

T
he nursery, fortunately, had normal-size beds. Matt didn’t think he could stand a row of empty cribs. It was a brightly lit room with pictures of baby animals on the walls. Stuffed dolls, building blocks, and simple puzzles were strewn over the floor. Matt lay down. He really was tired, and depressed for so many reasons that he had trouble sorting them all out: the fight with María, Esperanza’s scorn, the child who had fled from him in the garden, the clone lab, and last of all, the fountain full of El Patrón’s embalmed memories.

He fell into a deep sleep and only stirred when he heard a strange noise:
Bub-bub-bub-bub-bub.
A sharp voice said, “You take that out of your mouth, Mbongeni.” Matt heard a scuffle and an outraged squawk. He was so tired he didn’t want to open his eyes, but the thought occurred to him that the room was littered with toys. Recently used toys.

He opened his eyes. Someone had raised bars around one of
the beds, creating a cage. Inside sat a chubby black boy in diapers. He was too old for diapers, being at least six, and he was rocking back and forth.
Bub-bub-bub-bub-bub,
he said, blowing air through his lips. Outside the bars sat the little girl Matt had seen in the garden. The place where the bite had been was covered by a bandage.

“Do you want a bottle, Mbongeni?” asked the girl. “Nice, warm milk? Nummy-nummy-nums?”

Mbongeni smiled, and a line of drool fell from his lips. The girl got up and went to a small fridge. She removed a bottle and put it into a microwave for a few seconds. She was so tiny and businesslike that Matt was charmed. She had clearly not seen him yet.

The microwave chimed, and the girl expertly tested the temperature of the milk on her skinny wrist before handing it to the boy. “Muh! Muh!” he cried, cramming the nipple into his mouth and sucking lustily.

“That’s very good,” said Dr. Rivas. He was sitting on the far side of the bed, and the little girl watched him intently. “If you were bigger, I’d let you take Mbongeni for a crawl. I’m afraid you wouldn’t be able to stop him if he got into trouble.”

“I wish he could talk,” said the girl.

“He’ll always be a baby, but he doesn’t seem to mind.” The doctor looked up and saw Matt. “There’s someone I want you to meet—
no seas timida
. Don’t be shy, little one.”

“No,” moaned the girl, but Dr. Rivas picked her up and carried her to Matt’s bed.

“
Mi patrón
, this is Listen, a very bright girl.”

“I saw her in the garden,” said Matt. “She was crying because something had bitten her.” He held out his hand, but the girl flinched away.

The doctor grimaced. “That, I’m afraid, is an ongoing problem.”

“Someone should protect her.”

At this, Listen looked up and met Matt’s eyes for the first time.

“I want to be your friend,” the boy said, extending his hand again. She touched it briefly and retreated. “What kind of name is Listen?” he asked Dr. Rivas.

“African. It may sound odd, but all names have meanings in their original languages. Matteo means ‘gift of God,’ and Mirasol means ‘look at the sun.’ ”

“ ‘Look at the sun.’ Yes, that suits her,” said Matt, thinking of Waitress’s habit of following him around like a small planet. “Do you listen a lot?” he asked the little girl. She hung her head.

“She does. That’s why I’m glad we didn’t have to blunt her intelligence when she was harvested,” the doctor said.

Harvested,
thought Matt. Listen had been grown inside a cow just as he had, and that meant she was a clone. Then the rest of Dr. Rivas’s statement sank in. “What do you mean,
blunt
?”

“All such infants are injected with a drug that destroys part of the frontal lobes—all, that is, except El Patrón’s clones. He wanted them to experience the kind of childhood he never had.”

“So that’s what’s wrong with Mbongeni,” said Matt, looking with horror and pity at the little boy who had finished the milk and was banging his head rhythmically with the bottle. He realized that the bite on Listen’s arm came from this poor, damaged child.

“Take his bottle, Listen,” said the doctor. The girl fled from Matt and leaned over Mbongeni’s cage. She yanked the bottle away from the boy and, before he could complain, popped a pacifier into his mouth.

“Isn’t it better that he live as a happy infant, unaware of the hatred people have for clones? When you speak of destroying tissue samples, by the way, he’s one of them,” said Dr. Rivas.

“He’s a child,” Matt said.

“Not according to the law. He exists for one purpose only, to prolong the life of his original.”

“I make the laws here,” said Matt, “and I say Mbongeni is a child.”

Dr. Rivas sighed and ran his fingers through thinning hair. “Would you like lunch in the garden,
mi patrón
? The eejits can set out a table under the grape arbor.”

“I want Listen and Mbongeni to come.”

“I’m afraid the boy would be frightened. Clones like that get very attached to routine and start screaming if anything is changed.” The doctor pressed a buzzer, and a pair of eejit women came into the nursery. One of them upended Mbongeni and changed his diaper. The boy howled with rage, but when he was laid back down, fresh and sweet-smelling, the other eejit began to play peek-a-boo with him. Mbongeni gurgled with delight, not tiring of the game. Eejits, of course, never tired of anything.

“They’ll do that until he falls asleep,” said Dr. Rivas.

*  *  *

Listen wasn’t eager to go with Matt, but Dr. Rivas explained that it was her duty. Matt was the new
patrón
, and they had to obey him. She seemed to accept this, although she folded her arms to keep from taking his hand. The doctor must have relayed a message, because the eejits had already put up a table under the arbor by the time they arrived. A fine spray of water cooled the air, and birds flew back and forth through the mist. A mockingbird sat at the top of the arbor and sang.

Lunch was a large pizza and a salad. Listen wriggled in anticipation as the doctor served Matt first, then himself, and
last of all her. She inhaled the odor of hot cheese and pepperoni, but she didn’t eat until Dr. Rivas had given her permission.

“What do you like to do?” Matt asked her.

“Don’t know,” said Listen. She ate with surprising delicacy, or perhaps Matt was only used to Mirasol’s wholehearted gobbling.

“Do you like dolls or coloring books?” Matt tried to remember what he did at her age. “Do you watch TV?”

“Don’t know.”

“That’s very rude, Listen,” said Dr. Rivas. “Answer the
patrón
.”

“I like all of them,” the girl said sullenly.

“Did you ever see
El Látigo Negro
?” Matt said, naming his favorite show.

“I might have,” Listen said.

“I liked the battles El Látigo had with the Queen of Skulls. She was always playing dirty tricks on him.”

“She turned into a snake once and he picked it up, thinking it was his whip,” said Listen.

“I remember that! It bit him and he almost died.” Little by little Matt drew her out until she was almost relaxed, but she kept her distance.

For dessert they had watermelon. It was brought to them by Mirasol, who was followed by a chef in a long white apron. “I had to let her come,” he said apologetically. “She kept jittering, and I didn’t know what to do.”

“That’s all right,” said Dr. Rivas. Mirasol took up her post by Matt’s chair. She was in her waitress uniform again. “Listen, you may take slices of watermelon for yourself and Mbongeni, but pick out the seeds before you give him any.” The girl slid out of her chair and made a speedy exit.

The doctor turned toward Matt. “Aren’t you going to ask me who Mbongeni’s original is?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to allow the boy to be operated on,” Matt said.

“He’s Glass Eye Dabengwa’s clone.”

A vague feeling of dread came over Matt. He found it difficult to connect the happy child with the sinister adult, but someday—if Mbongeni survived—he would turn into an elephant-gray monster with yellow eyes. “Why is he here?”

“This hospital was the finest of its kind in the world. It was a safe place for the drug lords to raise their clones, and in those days El Patrón was Glass Eye’s ally. That was when he was still president of Nigeria. Now he’s retired. El Patrón’s great-great-grandson Benito married Dabengwa’s daughter.”