The Lord of Opium

Matt flinched. The yellow eyes swiveled toward him, their lids shrunken and dry from lack of use. He swallowed. His throat closed up. “No,” he managed to croak.

“YOU DO NOT SAY NO TO ME!” roared the drug lord.

Matt swallowed. He heard the click, whirr of Dabengwa’s eyes, the creak of his neck, the tiny groans of various parts of the man’s anatomy as he moved. Dear God, was any part of him still human?

“You leave my friend alone!” came a sharp little voice directly under Glass Eye’s nose. “If you’re not careful, I’ll put you into my freezer.”

Dabengwa looked down as though he could scarcely believe what he was seeing.

“If you don’t know what that means, I’ll tell you,” said Listen. “I won’t see you and I won’t hear you. You’ll be a big old lump of ice to me.”

“Listen, please come away,” begged Matt.

She looked directly into the drug lord’s yellow eyes and tapped her foot impatiently. It was like watching a bantam rooster challenge a rottweiler. Utterly courageous and crazy. The rottweiler always won.

“Let me tell you about your original,” rumbled Glass Eye, momentarily distracted. “She was a girl from a small village. I sent for her and she defied me, so I killed her brothers and sisters. She ran away, and I killed her parents. Then she came, hanging her head and apologizing, but she was never obedient. Always she ran, and I had a tracking device injected under her skin. The last time, I broke her neck.”

Listen wavered a little, but she stood her ground. “That was dee-diddly-dumb. You remind me of the Bug. He’s always breaking things, and then he doesn’t have them anymore.”

“The Bug?” said Dabengwa.

“Another clone of El Patrón,” Dr. Rivas explained quickly. “She used to play with him.”

“Dead, I suppose,” said the drug lord.

The doctor nodded, but Listen said, “He’s not dead. He’s running around, opening doors and all sorts of secret places.”

“That’s a lie!” the doctor cried.

“Nope. Dr. Rivas had him open the holoport. Then he took him to other places full of jewels and gold and everything. Ask him to show you.”

“She’s raving, mi patrón. She makes up stories.”

Glass Eye signaled, and a couple of the soldiers restrained the doctor. “This is very interesting, child. Tell me more.”

The little girl took a deep breath. “See, the big people don’t pay attention to me. They don’t think I can understand, but I’m not called Listen for nothing. I heard Dr. Rivas and his son and daughter talk about a room at the bottom of the solar telescope. It’s where El Patrón kept his money. Boy, did they get excited! Dr. Angel and Dr. Marcos loaded a hovercraft and took off for the Scorpion Star, but they didn’t get more than a tiny bit of the stuff.” She smiled winningly, an adorable child trying to please.

Dr. Rivas struggled with the soldiers, but they only tightened their grip. “You can’t believe a seven-year-old! Children that age have no understanding of reality. And you need me, Glass Eye. You aren’t out of the woods yet. You need a heart monitor and another clone—”

Glass Eye swung at the doctor and struck him such a blow that Matt heard the man’s neck crack. Dr. Rivas slid to the floor with a look of immense surprise. He lay there, his eyes open, his body trembling for a moment before it became still.

That’s why I always got the better of Dabengwa, commented El Patrón. Poor impulse control.

Matt was too frozen to respond. It had been so quick! The doctor, who had maintained El Patrón’s zombie army for twenty years, who had created his clones, who had created Matt himself, was dead!

Happy Man Hikwa came to the door, supported by a shambling field eejit in a jumpsuit and floppy hat. His black general’s uniform was torn and smeared with blood. “Oh no.” He moaned. “You shouldn’t have done that, Glass Eye. Oh, no, no, no.”

Dabengwa looked like a man waking up from a trance. He seemed to have trouble focusing. “Where’ve you been?” he asked.

“A few of us went to that abandoned church in the forest,” said Happy Man. “But the damn stirabout ran out of energy. We stalled. And this—this monster came out of the church—seven feet tall, I swear! His neck was covered in scars.”

Daft Donald, thought Matt.

“Where are my men?” thundered the drug lord.

“Please don’t blame me, Glass Eye! There were enemies everywhere. We didn’t stand a chance. I was the only one who got away. I ran until I fell over a tree root and sprained my ankle. I saw this eejit and ordered him to help me.” Happy Man slumped and the eejit slumped too. Like most zombies, he tended to copy his master.