The Lord of Opium

51

UNCOUPLING

Listen was lying where he’d left her on Cienfuegos’s body. Matt touched her, and she shook her head violently. “Not moving,” she said.

“You have to,” Matt said gently. “Cienfuegos is no longer there. I don’t understand much about death, but María says the soul lives on. So does Sor Artemesia. When I go to the oasis, I feel that Tam Lin is still there, sitting by my fire and listening to me. People can return to those they cared about.”

Listen shrugged off his hand. “Cienfuegos is alive.”

Matt sighed. He was trying very hard to stay in control. He felt just as devastated as she did, but he knew the jefe was dead. He knew how many times the man had been shot. “Come with me, chiquita. I’ll call down the elevator.”

“I’m not leaving,” the little girl said. “I left Mbongeni for just ten minutes, and look what happened to him. I’m staying put.”

Matt saw the elevator descending and a group of unusually active eejits inside. They were talking excitedly, and one of them called to someone on the ground. He looked at the eejits who had come with him and saw that they, too, were animated.

Had he actually disrupted the signal from the Scorpion Star? For the first time Matt thought clearly about what might happen when the eejits were freed. He’d imagined them waking up like people who have had a very long sleep. But the shock might send them into convulsions, like Eusebio. Or they might all go rogue.

“Hey, you guys!” shouted Listen. “We got a sick man here, and he needs to go to the hospital.”

“Don’t attract them,” said Matt, warily eyeing the eejits as they got out of the elevator.

“You don’t understand,” Listen said fiercely. “All this talk about Cienfuegos coming back for chats by the fire is crap. He isn’t dead.”

“You poor child, he has to be.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing here? I’ve been listening to his heart. It’s beating, and you can’t say that about a dee-diddly-dead rabbit. Hold that crotting elevator, you guys!”

The eejits were awake, no question about it, but they were bewildered. They seemed to have no memory of how they had arrived in this hot, dark pit, and they willingly followed Listen’s orders. They chattered to one another as the elevator slowly began to ascend, asking about relatives and towns they had left behind.

Cienfuegos stirred and gasped. The harshness of his breathing frightened Matt. He might yet die—and to think that he’d almost been abandoned! Thank God for Listen’s persistence!

“What can you remember?” Matt asked one of the eejits.

“I crossed the border. I was with my wife. Then the Farm Patrol came and there was pain. Pain.” The man’s voice trailed off. Matt wondered what his reaction would be if he learned that the man they were trying to save was the head of the Farm Patrol.

The scene outside was chaos. Eejits wandered about, calling the names of friends and family members. The technicians, who were far less affected by the microchips, had some memories, but they also seemed bewildered by what had happened. “I was twenty when I came to work here,” one of them said. “It was like yesterday, but now I look fifty.”

Matt put the technicians in charge of the eejits. “I’ll send people who can explain later,” he said. “There’s been a national disaster. Get these people food and send them to their shelters to rest.”

“Are we at war? Look! There’s a rocket!” cried one of the eejits. A fireball streaked across the sky. Then another and another.

“It’s a meteor shower,” said a technician. “A nice one too.”

The stirabouts at the observatory hadn’t been drained of their power, and Cienfuegos was loaded into one of them. He groaned and spat blood. Matt flew the craft, and Listen curled up by the jefe.

“Dr. Angel,” the little girl said suddenly. “I bet she’s trying to blast her way through that secret door.”

“She doesn’t have to. I opened it for her.” Matt swooped up as gently as possible to avoid jarring Cienfuegos.

“You did? Were there jewels and gold inside?”

“There was enough gold to satisfy a hundred Dr. Angels. There was a room made out of amber and a diamond throne that once belonged to the shah of Iran.”

“Wow! I bet that made her happy.”

“Very happy. She and Dr. Marcos and all the soldiers ran inside. The soldiers filled their pockets with gold coins.” Matt could see the lights of the hospital ahead and a crowd of eejits milling around. He landed outside the emergency room. He got out and ordered them to carry Cienfuegos inside. Listen ran in front to find a doctor.

Fortunately, like the technicians, the doctors had noticed little difference when their microchips were deactivated. And since they had been recently hired, they weren’t disturbed by the passage of time. They hurried the jefe to the operating room and began working on him at once. “¡Por Dios! Do you see what he’s wearing under that jumpsuit?” one of them cried.

“We’ll have to cut it off,” another said.

“You’d need bolt cutters,” said the first doctor, and in the end they had to ease it over Cienfuegos’s head. It was a silky vest, now bloodstained, and when it was removed a clatter of bullets fell to the floor. “That’s what saved him,” the doctor said.

They sent Matt and Listen to another room to wait. Matt knew he should go outside and try to restore order, but he was too worried. They sat in the room where he’d seen the dead soldier and where Dabengwa’s men had ambushed him. “Is Glass Eye dead?” Listen asked.

“Yes,” said Matt.

“Good. I didn’t like him.” She thought for a moment. “What about Happy Man?”

“He’s dead too.”

“So the only ones we have to worry about are Dr. Angel and Dr. Marcos.”

“I think they’ll be happy with the contents of the secret room,” said Matt. By now they would have discovered that the door was closed. The soldiers would fire their weapons at the wall—much good it would do them—and then their flashlights would fail. They would be alone in the dark with the pok-a-tok players.

“You can see him briefly, mi patrón,” said a doctor at the door of the operating room. “He’s heavily sedated, but he seems to have an amazing resistance to drugs.”

“He would have,” said Matt.

He and Listen stood by Cienfuegos’s bed and saw, from his eyes, that he recognized them. “He thought you were dead, but I knew you weren’t,” said Listen.

The jefe smiled.

“That’s the most amazing bulletproof vest,” said a nurse who was sitting by the bed. “I’ve heard of them, but this is the first one I’ve seen.” She pointed at the garment soaking in a bucket. “It’s pure spider silk, stronger than steel. They say it’s harvested from giant African spiders and that little girls are trained to reel it out as it’s produced.” The nurse shuddered. “The jobs some people have!”

They left, to allow Cienfuegos to recover, and the doctor explained his injuries outside. “Mostly broken ribs. The bullets didn’t get through, but the force of the blows must have been terrific. There’s some damage to the liver, and a broken rib pierced a lung. Fortunately, his heart is unharmed. He’ll be laid up for a long time.”

The gardens were filled with eejits—or ex-eejits, Matt reminded himself. Paisanos, he would call them. Fellow countrymen. He supposed he should address them, but he was too exhausted. Instead, he gave orders to the nurses and lab technicians to see to their needs. He would tackle the problem in the morning.

“I’m really tired,” said Listen, trotting by his side.

“Me too, but there’s something we have to do before we can rest,” Matt said. For once she didn’t complain about the long walk. They were both too anxious to see their friends. Matt lit the path by the stream with Tam Lin’s flashlight, and they saw the gleam of rabbits’ eyes as the creatures hopped out of their way.

The chapel was visible long before they arrived. Dozens of candles had been lit and fastened to rocks. The inside of the building as well was illuminated by flickering light. All around the outside were newly freed eejits, Farm Patrolmen, and bodyguards, among them Daft Donald. Sor Artemesia stood in the doorway with María, Fidelito, and the Bug. The Bug was on a leash.

“You did it!” shrieked Fidelito when he caught sight of Listen. He ran through the crowd and hugged her. “You can slap me all you like for touching you. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“It isn’t worth it,” she said, hugging him back. “You’ll only do it again.”

Matt and María held each other’s hands. They were more restrained, being older, and somewhat embarrassed by the large audience. “Well, then,” said Matt.

“Well, then,” replied María.

“I guess things have worked out.” He wished they could be alone.

“God has answered your prayers,” said Sor Artemesia in a ringing voice. “He has sent his messenger.”

“What in hell are you up to?” asked Matt. He saw the gathered men kneel. Some were weeping openly.

“You know who you resemble,” said the nun. “These men are frightened, and they need sympathy. Try to look saintly.”

First Cienfuegos tells everyone that I’m El Patrón, and now I’m supposed to be Jesús Malverde, thought Matt. When will I ever be myself?

Matt spoke what he hoped were consoling words and sent everyone away to their hostels and bunkhouses. Then he went inside with María, and they embraced behind the statue of Malverde, where the Bug couldn’t spy on them.

“I’ve got so much to tell you,” he said.

“Me too,” said María. “I was outside when the first meteor fell. It was the brightest I’ve ever seen, and then I saw another one. Not long after, the men began to show up. They were so lost, mi vida. They didn’t know what had happened, and they were calling for their families. Sor Artemesia said that Malverde was the only shred of religion they’d had and that we must honor it.”

“I’m really interested,” said Matt, yawning broadly, “but I’ve been through so much I can’t even think straight.”

“That’s all right,” she said in the understanding way he loved. “We have the rest of our lives to talk.”

He kissed her sleepily, staggered to the front of the chapel, and passed out on one of the pews. In the middle of the night he awoke when a bright light passed over the forest. It was the last of the meteors, perhaps Tundra.

The Scorpion Star had uncoupled, each building separating from the others, and the carefully maintained orbit had failed. One by one they had fallen. Matt tried not to think of the terrified people inside. He’d been no better than El Patrón shooting down a passenger plane.