The Lord of Opium

17

THE FOUNTAIN OF CHILDREN

Matt avoided Dr. Rivas and Cienfuegos and went into the garden to think. He didn’t even want to see Mirasol. The rage that had threatened to overwhelm him faded, but it still frightened him. Why can’t I control myself? he thought. Why can’t I be good by merely saying, “Be good”? But it didn’t work that way.

Maybe he should make a list of rules on a card to refer to: Rule 1: Don’t lose your temper. Rule 2: Be courageous. Rule 3: Send Mirasol away.

She would be miserable if he sent her away. It wasn’t her fault that she was programmed to serve him. Besides, he really wanted to help her, only not when María was around. Rule 4: Don’t tell lies. That was a toughie. Drug lords prospered by telling lies. Even Esperanza thought it was okay.

Matt wandered deeper into the garden. A path led beneath a series of arbors, each one different and each one with its own hummingbird feeder. Vines were hung with clusters of purple and green grapes. A giant squash dangled yellow fruit, and a third arbor was dotted with red roses. Then—most wonderful of all—Matt saw a mass of deep-blue morning glories. Nothing at the Ajo hacienda equaled this waterfall of flowers.

There was a sound coming from the far end of the arbor, a bird or a kitten. Matt listened more closely. Could it be the child he’d seen? It couldn’t be an eejit. They were unable to cry. He edged forward, not wanting to startle whoever it was. He saw the vines tremble. The person was inside the leaves, hiding in a burrow like a rabbit.

Matt quietly approached and pulled back the vines.

It was a little girl, an African girl. She was about Fidelito’s age, but much thinner. Her arms were like matchsticks clasped around her skinny chest, and just above one elbow was a vicious-looking wound as though she’d been bitten by a dog.

“Don’t be afraid,” Matt said. The girl looked up and screamed. She bounded out of the leaves and zigzagged through the garden. “Stop! Stop! I won’t hurt you!” shouted Matt. He tried to catch up, but she knew the garden and he didn’t. He followed what he thought was her trail and ended up in front of a wall.

By now he was exhausted, what with the aftereffects of scarlet fever and opening the holoport. He leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. Few children came across the border and none, as far as he could remember, had been black.

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?