The Lord of Opium

Matt had been so traumatized then that he couldn’t speak, but he had instinctively liked the old man. Everything was right about him, the color of his eyes, the shape of his hands, his voice. Matt went up to the drug lord without the slightest hesitation, and El Patrón had asked him gravely if he liked cookies.

“Do you like cookies?” Matt said now to the scowling, simmering boy.

“Crot you!” said the Bug.

“Dr. Rivas says you’re intelligent. You don’t act like it.” Matt edged the plate of snacks closer.

“I’m smarter than you are, roach face. I’m the boss of this place.”

“Doesn’t look like it,” said Matt, pointing at the eejits holding leashes. “Let’s start over. If you’re as bright as Dr. Rivas says, you’ll want to get along with me.”

“When you die, I’m going to take your place,” boasted the Bug.

“That’s a really stupid thing to say. Only an idiot threatens a man holding a gun.”

El Bicho sat very still. After a moment an amazing transformation came over him. His body relaxed, and he grinned like a normal kid who only wanted to make friends. “I guess I acted like a real turkey,” he apologized. “You’re right. Let’s start over.”

“Okay,” Matt said warily. The shift of personality had caught him off guard. “Do you like cookies?”

“You bet,” said the Bug. “I like milk, too. And strawberries and cheese. It was nice of you to invite me to lunch.”

“Help yourself,” said Matt, and was surprised by the boy’s elegant table manners. He’d expected Mbongeni’s type of chaos, but of course the Bug had normal intelligence. Better than normal. “What do you do all day?” he asked.

“What do I do?” El Bicho’s gaze was far away as he tried to remember. “Sometimes Dr. Rivas teaches me things, and sometimes we go for walks. I watch TV a lot.”

“Where do you walk?”

“Here and there,” the boy said vaguely. “I like going to the observatory. Dr. Rivas’s children are astronomers—well, two of them are. The oldest son is a crot—sorry—an eejit. Sometimes they let me look through the telescope.”

It sounded like a normal outing except for the leashes and hobbles. Did the boy wear them most of the time? “Do you like Dr. Rivas?”

“Of course. He’s like a father. Or what I think a father is. Like you, I don’t know much about families.”

For some reason Matt felt like there was a pane of glass between himself and the Bug. What the boy said was reasonable, but it was just words, with no connection to the person behind them. The Bug was saying what he thought Matt wanted to hear.

“El Patrón’s father lived a hundred fifty years ago,” said Matt. “In a way he was our father too. We had a family back then, but they died long before we existed. It’s so strange. Sometimes I feel like an old photograph hidden away at the back of a drawer. Did you ever meet El Patrón?”

El Bicho shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

“I knew him well. He talked a lot about his brothers and sisters, and it bothered him that they’d never had a chance. That fountain outside the lab is supposed to be statues of them.”

“Are they our brothers and sisters?” said the Bug.

Matt shied away from the idea. “Not really. The statues were copied from Illegal children. There weren’t any pictures of the originals. People like us have to make our families.”

“So that means you’re my brother,” said El Bicho.

“I suppose,” Matt said unwillingly. He considered for a moment. “I think that people have an instinct for a family. You look until you find a mother, a father, a sister, a brother. They don’t have to be blood relatives. They just have to love you. And when you find them, you don’t have to look anymore.”

They ate in silence for a while. Matt had no appetite and passed much of his food on to Mirasol. He thought about Celia and Tam Lin, and about Fidelito, who had called him brother. Was María his sister? No, she was something more. He kept looking at the Bug’s hobbles and wondering whether he dared to remove them. “If I took off your leg restraints,” Matt said carefully, “do you promise not to throw a fit?”

“Sure,” said El Bicho.

“We could go for a walk.”

“I can show you the way to the observatory,” said the boy, showing genuine interest for the first time. “It’s great! There’re all kinds of machines and computers. The smaller telescope looks at the sun, and the big one looks at the rest of the sky.”

The Bug’s enthusiasm transformed his face, and Matt thought, What kind of childhood has he had, shut up in a nursery with eejits for company? No wonder he isn’t normal. But that could be changed. He ordered the eejits to unlock the hobbles.