The Lord of Opium Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cast of Characters

  Maps

  The Dope Confederacy

  The Land of Opium

  Chronology

  1. The Oasis

  2. The New Lord of Opium

  3. El Patrón’s Private Wing

  4. Cienfuegos

  5. The Dope Confederacy

  6. Mirasol

  7. Major Beltrán

  8. The Holoport

  9. The Guitar Factory

  10. Nurse Fiona

  11. Feeding a Pet Waitress

  12. The Long-Distance Picnic

  13. The Opium Factory

  14. Madness

  15. Dr. Rivas

  16. Dancing the Huka Huka in Nueva York

  17. The Fountain of Children

  18. The African Child

  19. Dr. Rivas’s Secret

  20. The Bug

  21. The Scorpion Star

  22. The Altar Cloth

  23. The Ruins of Tucson

  24. The Biosphere

  25. The Mushroom Master

  26. The Brat Enclosure

  27. Planning a Party

  28. Sor Artemesia

  29. Night Terrors

  30. A Visit to the Ajo Hills

  31. The Party

  32. Dr. Kim’s Experiment

  33. Mirasol Dances

  34. The Greenhouses

  35. The Expiry Date

  36. Going Rogue

  37. The Funeral

  38. The Mushroom Master vs. the Sky

  39. María Learns the Truth

  40. The Cloning Lab

  41. The Solar Telescope

  42. The Suicide Bomber

  43. The Chapel of Jesús Malverde

  44. El Bicho

  45. Prisoners

  46. Glass Eye Dabengwa

  47. Happy Man Goes Hunting

  48. El Patrón’s Advice

  49. The Abandoned Observatory

  50. The Secret Room

  51. Uncoupling

  52. The Ghost Army

  Appendix

  Jesús Malverde

  The Biosphere

  The Healing Power of Music

  The Mushroom Master

  José Clemente Orozco

  The Ghost Army

  Paradise

  About Nancy Farmer

  For Harold, mi vida, and for Richard Jackson, with deepest gratitude

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  AJO, OPIUM

  Matteo Alacrán (Matt): Once a clone of El Patrón, now the new Lord of Opium; age fourteen

  El Patrón (deceased): The old Lord of Opium

  Celia, cook and curandera (healer): Matt’s foster mother

  Tam Lin (deceased): Matt’s bodyguard and foster father

  Mirasol, also known as Waitress: An eejit; age fifteen

  Eligio Cienfuegos: The head of the Farm Patrol

  Daft Donald: Bodyguard and best friend of Tam Lin

  Mr. Ortega: Matt’s music teacher and friend of Eusebio

  Eusebio Orozco: The guitar maker; an eejit

  Major Beltrán: Pilot working for Esperanza Mendoza

  Fiona: Nurse at the Ajo hospital

  Dr. Kim: Doctor at the Ajo hospital

  Senator Mendoza and Emilia (deceased): Father and sister of María Mendoza

  SAN LUIS, AZTLÁN

  María Mendoza: Daughter of Esperanza; age fourteen

  Esperanza Mendoza: UN representative and foe of the drug trade

  Sor Artemesia: Nun at the Convent of Santa Clara; María’s foster mother

  THE LOST BOYS, PLANKTON FACTORY, AZTLÁN

  Chacho: Recovering from being trapped in the boneyard; age fourteen

  Ton-Ton: Leader of the boys; age sixteen

  Fidelito: Age eight

  PARADISE

  Listen: Age seven

  The Bug, also known as El Bicho: Age seven

  Mbongeni: Age six

  Dr. Rivas: In charge of the hospital in Paradise

  Dr. Angel and Dr. Marcos: Daughter and son of Dr. Rivas; astronomers

  Eduardo: Oldest son of Dr. Rivas; an eejit

  THE BIOSPHERE, OPIUM

  The Mushroom Master: Leading scientist

  AFRICA

  Glass Eye Dabengwa: A drug lord; ninety-nine years old

  Happy Man Hikwa: Drug dealer working for Glass Eye

  Samson and Boris: Glass Eye’s Russian bodyguards

  CHRONOLOGY

  Birth of El Patrón: 1990

  Drug Wars: 2025–2030

  Matt harvested: 2122

  Death of El Patrón: 2136

  Time period for The Lord of Opium: 2137–2138

  1

  THE OASIS

  Matt woke in darkness to the sound of something moving past him. The air stirred slightly with the smell of warm, musky fur. The boy jumped to his feet, but the sleeping bag entangled him and he fell. His hands collided with sharp thorns. He flailed around for a rock, a knife, any sort of weapon.

  Something huffed. The musky odor became stronger. Matt’s hand felt a metal bar, and for an instant he didn’t know what it was. Then he realized it was a flashlight and turned it on.

  The beam illuminated a large, doglike face at the other end of the sleeping bag. The boy’s heart almost stopped. He remembered, long ago, a note Tam Lin had written him about the hazards of this place: Ratlesnakes heer. Saw bare under tree.

  This was definitely a bare. Matt had only seen them on TV, where they did amusing tricks and begged for treats. The bear’s eyes glinted as it contemplated the treat holding the flashlight. Matt tried to remember what to do. Look bigger? Play dead? Run?

  The flashlight! It was a special one used by the Farm Patrol. One button was for ordinary use, the other shone with ten times the brightness of the sun. Flashed into the eyes of an Illegal, it would blind the person for at least half an hour. Matt jammed his thumb on the second button, and the bear’s face turned perfectly white. The animal screamed. It hurled itself away, falling over bushes, moaning with terror, breaking branches as it fled.

  Matt struggled to his feet. Where was he? Why was he alone? After a minute he remembered to switch the beam off to save the battery. Darkness enveloped him, and for a few minutes he was as blind as the bear. He sat down again, shivering. Gradually, the night settled back into a normal pattern, and he realized that he was at the oasis. He cradled the flashlight. Tam Lin had given it to him, to protect him from animals when he was camping. You don’t need a gun, lad, the bodyguard had said. You don’t want to kill a poor beastie that’s only walking through its backyard. You’re the one who’s trespassing. Matt could hear Tam Lin’s warm Scottish voice in his mind. The man loved animals and knew a lot about them, even though he’d been poorly educated.

  Matt found the campfire he’d banked the night before and blew the coals into life. The flaring light made him feel better. In all the years of camping here, he’d never seen a bear, though there had been many raccoons, chipmunks, and coyotes. A skunk had once burrowed into Matt’s sleeping bag in the middle of the night to steal a candy bar. Tam Lin had burned the sleeping bag and scolded the boy for foolishness. Leave food about and you might as well put a sign on yourself saying “Eat me.” Matt had been scrubbed head to toe with tomato juice when they got back to the hacienda.

  Matt heaped the fire with dry wood from the supply Tam Lin had always maintained. He could see the familiar outlines of an old cabin and a collapsed grapevine.

  Tam Lin wasn’t with him. He would never come here again. He was lying in a tomb beneath the mountain with El Patrón and all of El Patrón’s family and friends, if you could say the old drug lord had friends. The funeral, three months before, had been attended by fifty bodyguards dressed in black suits, w
ith guns hidden under their arms and strapped to their legs. The floor of the tomb had been covered with drifts of gold coins. The bodyguards had filled their pockets with gold, probably thinking their fortunes were made, but that was before they drank the poisoned wine. Now they would lie at their master’s feet for all eternity, to guard him at whatever fiestas were conducted by the dead. Matt drew the sleeping bag around himself, trembling with grief and nerves.

  He would not sleep again. To distract himself, he looked for the constellations Tam Lin had shown him. It was early spring, and Orion the Hunter was still in the sky. Heed the stars of his belt, said Tam Lin. Where they set is true west. Remember that, lad. You never know when you’ll need it. They had been roasting hot dogs over a fire and drinking cider from a bottle Tam Lin had cooled by submerging it in the lake.

  What a grand existence it must be, mused the bodyguard, turning his battered face to the sky, to roam the heavens like Orion with his faithful dogs at heel. The dogs, Sirius and Procyon, were two of the brightest stars in the summer sky. Pinning Orion’s tunic to his shoulder was ruby-red Betelgeuse. As fine a jewel as you’ll find anywhere, Tam Lin had declared.

  Matt hoped Tam Lin was roaming now in whatever afterlife he inhabited. The dead in Aztlán came home once a year to celebrate the Day of the Dead with their relatives. They must be somewhere the rest of the time, Matt reasoned. Why shouldn’t they do what made them happiest on earth, and why shouldn’t Tam Lin?

  Matt found Polaris, around which the other stars circled, and the Scorpion Star (but that was so easy even an eejit could do it). The Scorpion Star was always in the south and, like Polaris, never moved. Its real name was Alacrán. Matt was proud of this, for it was his name too. The Alacráns were so important, they could lay claim to an actual star.

  Matt didn’t think he could fall asleep again, and so he was surprised when he woke up in the sleeping bag just before dawn. A breeze was stirring, and a pale rosy border outlined the eastern mountains. Gray-green juniper trees darkened valleys high up in the rocks, and the oasis was dull silver under a gray sky. A crow called, making Matt jump at the sudden noise.

  After breakfast and a short, sharp swim in the lake, Matt hiked along the trail to the boulder that blocked the entrance to the valley. In this rock, if you looked at just the right angle, was a shadow that turned out to be a smooth, round opening like the hole in a donut. Beyond was a steep path covered with dry pebbles that slid beneath your feet. The air changed from the fresh breeze of the mountain to something slightly sweet, with a hint of corruption. The scent of opium poppies.

  2

  THE NEW LORD OF OPIUM

  Matt had left the Safe Horse under a cliff the night before. It was still waiting, as it had been commanded, but its head was down and its legs trembled. “Oh no! How could I have been so stupid?” cried Matt, rushing to the trough. It was half full of water, but the horse had not been given permission to drink, and now Matt remembered that he hadn’t watered it the night before. It would stand there, mere inches away from relief, until it died. “Drink!” Matt ordered.

  The horse stepped forward and began sucking up great drafts of liquid. Matt hauled on the pump handle, and soon fresh water was pouring over the horse’s head and into the trough. It drank and drank and drank until Matt remembered that Safe Horses couldn’t stop, either, without a command. “Stop!” he said.

  The animal stepped back with its mane dripping. Had it had enough? Too much? Matt didn’t know. The natural instincts of the horse were suppressed by a microchip in its brain. Matt waited a few minutes and then ordered it to drink again for a short while.

  He climbed onto a rock to reach the saddle. Matt had never ridden anything but a Safe Horse and wasn’t skilled enough to vault into a saddle. He’d been considered too valuable to risk on a Real Horse. “Home,” ordered the boy, and the animal obediently plodded along the trail.

  As soon as the sun rose, the air heated up, and Matt took off the jacket he’d been wearing. They moved slowly, but he was in no hurry to return. There was too much to think about and too much to decide. A few months ago Matt had been a clone. Make that filthy clone, he amended, because the word wasn’t used without some insult. Clones were lower than beasts. They existed to provide body parts, much as a cow existed to provide steaks, but cows were natural. They were respected, even loved.

  Clones were more like cockroaches you might find in an unguarded bowl of soup. Roaches made you feel like throwing up. Yet even they were part of God’s plan. They didn’t cause the deep, unreasoning hatred that a human copy did. A few months ago Matt had been such a being and then—and then—

  El Patrón died.

  The original Matteo Alacrán was lying in a tomb under the mountain with all his descendants. Esperanza Mendoza, the representative of the United Nations, had explained it to Matt. In international law you couldn’t have two versions of the same person at the same time. One of them had to be declared an unperson, but when the original died, the clone no longer existed.

  I don’t understand, Matt had said to Esperanza.

  It means that you are reclassified as human. You are El Patrón. You have his body and his identity, his DNA. You own everything he owned and rule everything he ruled. It means that you are the new Lord of Opium.

  “I’m human,” Matt told the Safe Horse as it plodded along, neither hearing nor caring. Now they came to the beginning of the opium fields. The crops were planted year round, and all stages of growth, from the first misting of green to brilliant white flowers to swollen seedpods, were visible. Lines of eejit workers, dressed in tan uniforms with floppy hats, tended the older plants. They moved in unison, bending to slash the ripe pods with razors to release sap or, if they were part of a harvesting crew, to scrape the dried resin into metal pots.

  Here and there a member of the Farm Patrol watched from the back of a Real Horse. He would tell them when to rest, when to drink water, and when to start work again. For the eejits were just as mindless as Safe Horses. They, too, had microchips in their brains that made them content to do such grueling work. At evening the Farm Patrol would herd them to long buildings with small, dark windows. The ceilings were so low a person couldn’t stand upright, but this scarcely mattered. The eejits had no social life.

  They were given food pellets from a large bin, and when they had finished eating, the Farm Patrolmen ordered them into the buildings to sleep. Matt didn’t know whether they slept on straw or merely stretched out in the dirt. He had never been inside an eejit pen.

  In the fields of half-grown opium Matt saw lines of children removing weeds and bugs. Their small hands were much better at tending the delicate plants than adult hands were. These workers ranged in age from six to about ten, although some were so malnourished they might have been older.

  Matt was horrified. Before he had seen anything of the outside world, child eejits raised no more pity in him than adults. But now that he’d met normal youngsters, it was unendurable to see them so brutalized. He pictured Fidelito—bright, cheerful, mischievous Fidelito—in a tan uniform with a little floppy hat on his head.

  “Stop,” Matt told the Safe Horse. He watched the small workers, trying to figure out how to help them. He could take them to the hacienda, feed them well, and give them proper beds. But what then? Could you say “play” and expect them to obey? Could you order them to laugh? The problem was in their brains, and Matt had no idea how to fix that.

  He told the Safe Horse to go on. When they arrived at the stables, a young man came out to take the reins. He had dark brown eyes and black hair like most of the Illegals the Farm Patrol caught. Matt had never seen him before. “Where’s Rosa?” he asked.

  Rosa had been Matt’s keeper when he was small. She had been bitter and cruel, tormenting the boy because he was a clone. When El Patrón discovered what she was doing, he turned her into an eejit and made her work in the stables. Dull-eyed and slow-moving, she brought out Safe Horses whenever Matt asked for them.

 
At first he was pleased with the punishment, but gradually he became uncomfortable. She had been terrible, but it was far worse to see her reduced to a soulless shadow. He spoke to her often, hoping to awaken something buried inside, but she never answered. “Where’s Rosa?” he repeated.

  “Do you wish another horse, Master?” the new stable keeper said.

  “No. Where is the woman who used to be here?”

  “Do you wish another horse, Master?” the man replied. He was only an eejit and unable to say anything else. Matt turned away and headed for the hacienda.

  * * *

  El Patrón’s hacienda spread out like a green jewel in the desert. It was surrounded by vast gardens and fountains that sparkled in the sun. Peacocks strayed across its walkways, and wide marble steps led up to a veranda framed by orange trees. A few of the gardeners were Real People, and they bowed respectfully to Matt. Under their supervision a line of silent eejits clipped the lawns with scissors.

  Matt was startled. Never before had the gardeners bowed to him. They obeyed him, of course, out of fear of El Patrón, but he knew they secretly despised him. What had changed? He hadn’t told anyone about his new status, not even Celia, who loved him and didn’t care a bent centavo whether he was human or not.

  He walked along echoing halls on floors polished so brilliantly it was like walking on water. But he didn’t go to the magnificent apartments reserved for the Alacrán family. He had never belonged there and had only bitter memories of the people. Instead he turned toward the servants’ quarters and the huge kitchen where Celia ruled.

  She was sitting at a scuffed wooden table along with Mr. Ortega, the music teacher; Daft Donald, the only surviving bodyguard; and the pilot who had flown Matt back to Opium. What was his name? Major Beltrán. They were drinking coffee, and Celia had put out a platter of corn chips and guacamole dip. When she saw Matt, she stood up so abruptly her cup tipped over.

  “Oh, my. Oh, my,” she said, automatically wiping up the spill with her apron. “Just look at you, mi vida. Only I can’t call you that anymore. Oh, my.” The others had stood up as well.

  “You can call me anything you like,” said Matt.