The Lord of Opium

Mbongeni smiled, and a line of drool fell from his lips. The girl got up and went to a small fridge. She removed a bottle and put it into a microwave for a few seconds. She was so tiny and businesslike that Matt was charmed. She had clearly not seen him yet.

The microwave chimed, and the girl expertly tested the temperature of the milk on her skinny wrist before handing it to the boy. “Muh! Muh!” he cried, cramming the nipple into his mouth and sucking lustily.

“That’s very good,” said Dr. Rivas. He was sitting on the far side of the bed, and the little girl watched him intently. “If you were bigger, I’d let you take Mbongeni for a crawl. I’m afraid you wouldn’t be able to stop him if he got into trouble.”

“I wish he could talk,” said the girl.

“He’ll always be a baby, but he doesn’t seem to mind.” The doctor looked up and saw Matt. “There’s someone I want you to meet—no seas timida. Don’t be shy, little one.”

“No,” moaned the girl, but Dr. Rivas picked her up and carried her to Matt’s bed.

“Mi patrón, this is Listen, a very bright girl.”

“I saw her in the garden,” said Matt. “She was crying because something had bitten her.” He held out his hand, but the girl flinched away.

The doctor grimaced. “That, I’m afraid, is an ongoing problem.”

“Someone should protect her.”

At this, Listen looked up and met Matt’s eyes for the first time.

“I want to be your friend,” the boy said, extending his hand again. She touched it briefly and retreated. “What kind of name is Listen?” he asked Dr. Rivas.

“African. It may sound odd, but all names have meanings in their original languages. Matteo means ‘gift of God,’ and Mirasol means ‘look at the sun.’ ”

“ ‘Look at the sun.’ Yes, that suits her,” said Matt, thinking of Waitress’s habit of following him around like a small planet. “Do you listen a lot?” he asked the little girl. She hung her head.

“She does. That’s why I’m glad we didn’t have to blunt her intelligence when she was harvested,” the doctor said.

Harvested, thought Matt. Listen had been grown inside a cow just as he had, and that meant she was a clone. Then the rest of Dr. Rivas’s statement sank in. “What do you mean, blunt?”

“All such infants are injected with a drug that destroys part of the frontal lobes—all, that is, except El Patrón’s clones. He wanted them to experience the kind of childhood he never had.”

“So that’s what’s wrong with Mbongeni,” said Matt, looking with horror and pity at the little boy who had finished the milk and was banging his head rhythmically with the bottle. He realized that the bite on Listen’s arm came from this poor, damaged child.

“Take his bottle, Listen,” said the doctor. The girl fled from Matt and leaned over Mbongeni’s cage. She yanked the bottle away from the boy and, before he could complain, popped a pacifier into his mouth.

“Isn’t it better that he live as a happy infant, unaware of the hatred people have for clones? When you speak of destroying tissue samples, by the way, he’s one of them,” said Dr. Rivas.

“He’s a child,” Matt said.

“Not according to the law. He exists for one purpose only, to prolong the life of his original.”

“I make the laws here,” said Matt, “and I say Mbongeni is a child.”

Dr. Rivas sighed and ran his fingers through thinning hair. “Would you like lunch in the garden, mi patrón? The eejits can set out a table under the grape arbor.”

“I want Listen and Mbongeni to come.”

“I’m afraid the boy would be frightened. Clones like that get very attached to routine and start screaming if anything is changed.” The doctor pressed a buzzer, and a pair of eejit women came into the nursery. One of them upended Mbongeni and changed his diaper. The boy howled with rage, but when he was laid back down, fresh and sweet-smelling, the other eejit began to play peek-a-boo with him. Mbongeni gurgled with delight, not tiring of the game. Eejits, of course, never tired of anything.

“They’ll do that until he falls asleep,” said Dr. Rivas.

*  *  *

Listen wasn’t eager to go with Matt, but Dr. Rivas explained that it was her duty. Matt was the new patrón, and they had to obey him. She seemed to accept this, although she folded her arms to keep from taking his hand. The doctor must have relayed a message, because the eejits had already put up a table under the arbor by the time they arrived. A fine spray of water cooled the air, and birds flew back and forth through the mist. A mockingbird sat at the top of the arbor and sang.