The Lord of Opium

Matt turned to see her fingers fluttering on the sheet. “María, it’s me. I’m here. You made it. You’re safe.” The girl tossed her head from side to side. Her dark hair whipped across the pillow. “What’s wrong?” the boy cried.

“She’s trying to wake up. This will pass,” said Dr. Rivas. And indeed, after a moment María calmed down and breathed easily again. Her lips opened slightly as though she wanted to speak. Matt watched, fascinated, willing her to come to life.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you, Dr. Rivas,” said Matt, holding her hands and feeling warmth return to them. He turned, but the room was empty.

43

THE CHAPEL OF JESÚS MALVERDE

He rang for a nurse. No one came. He rang again and went out into the hall. The nurse’s station was deserted. There were no voices, no whirr of machines, only the sound of eejits going about their tasks. He went back to the room. María seemed to be all right. Her blood pressure and heartbeat, as far as he could tell, hadn’t changed.

He was afraid to leave her. He sat there, watching for any change in her condition. He realized that he shouldn’t have struck out at Dr. Rivas. The man was understandably upset about his son’s death. Matt should have been more patient.

“Don Sombra,” came a soft voice from the door. Matt looked up to see Sor Artemesia. “You must come, Don Sombra. I think Dr. Rivas has gone mad. He’s been fighting with the other doctors and destroying equipment.”

Matt felt heavy with lack of sleep and food. His mind wasn’t functioning clearly. “I’ll deal with it later,” he said.

“You must come now,” urged Sor Artemesia. “There was trouble at one of the labs. Something about a dead cow. Dr. Rivas killed an eejit.”

Everyone kills eejits, Matt thought wearily. Dr. Kim, Esperanza, even Cienfuegos on occasion. Nothing abnormal about that. “I need coffee,” he said. The nun hurriedly fetched him a cup from the nurse’s station. Matt waited for the bitter brew to work its way into his consciousness. “I can’t leave María now. Especially if Dr. Rivas is going rogue. Where’s Cienfuegos?”

“He flew the Mushroom Master back to the biosphere. When he returned and found the doctor growing more erratic, he radioed to Ajo for Daft Donald and the bodyguards. Oh! María’s eyes are open!”

The girl was blinking, as though she didn’t know where she was. Matt immediately went to her side. “You’re safe, mi vida.”

Suddenly she was wide awake. “Matt?”

“I’m here. You should have asked me to come to you. I would have done it no matter how angry Esperanza was.”

“But you have come,” she insisted. “I had such a fight with Mother! You wouldn’t believe how inflexible she can be when she wants something. She kept pushing me to get engaged to that creepy friend of hers. Honestly! He reminded me of a plucked turkey.”

The excited flow of words told Matt that María had come back in full force. He was so grateful that he promised himself to apologize to Dr. Rivas as soon as possible. But then . . . perhaps recovery hadn’t been the doctor’s real intention. Matt remembered him tapping the syringe and claiming it was a stimulant. Why wait so long to give her a stimulant? Why wait until María was almost well?

He remembered Nurse Fiona’s words: They put a drip into the patient’s arm and then they inject the chips with the liquid. The chips are smaller than blood cells and go right through the heart. The process takes less than fifteen minutes.

“I’ll kill him,” he said.

“Don’t bother,” María said brightly. “I put him in his place. He tried to kiss me, and I gave him a slap he won’t soon forget. Sor Artemesia, how wonderful to see you! Did Mother let you come back?” She sat up, and the intravenous needle popped out of her arm. “Ow! What’s going on here?”

“It’s all right, mija. You’re in the hospital.” The nun gently forced her to lie back down. She swabbed the blood from María’s arm with a cotton ball.

“Hospital? I’m not sick. It’s probably one of Mother’s schemes to keep me under lock and key.” She had no memory of going through the portal, and when she learned that she was actually in Opium, she was all for getting up to explore. “I’ve only been to Paradise as a small child. I remember wonderful gardens and deer that would eat out of my hand. The hummingbirds were everywhere.”

“You haven’t eaten real food for a week. You must take things slowly,” said Sor Artemesia. She and Matt jumped when they heard the rattle of a machine gun.