Kzine Issue 10

by Graeme Hurry et al.

  The guard led him to the towering wall that separated the Dump Lord’s estate from the fifty square miles that provided his livelihood. Deke never failed to admire the genius of the landscape architect’s design, how the wall’s dense covering of vines and well-placed olive trees beautifully concealed any view of the dump beyond. No matter where you stood on the hundred-acre estate you’d never guess how close you were to it. They’d even installed some kind of ventilation system along the dumpside of the wall that managed to keep the stink out.

  And it was the stink that hit him like a slap in the face as the guard jostled him through the gate to the other side.

  Deke meandered toward home through the dump’s lonely maze of narrow paths. Walls of compressed fetid garbage, a century’s worth, towered over him five meters high. He took the long way, putting off the moment when he’d have to explain his latest failure to Timo and watch the boy’s eager face fade into disappointment yet again.

  A shoebox-sized bot whizzed past his feet and beeped rapidly as it scanned through the dense layers of trash, tirelessly searching for scrap aluminum, pockets of biogas, even vintage fashions— anything the Dump Lord could sell in the markets for hard currency. He watched the tenacious little machine stop and go, scan and re-scan.

  His pulse quickened as a new plan hit him in a flash. And this plan was a good one, not like the last one or even the two or three before that. Yes, this was a plan that could actually work. He quickened his pace, and when he arrived at the trailer he threw open the door, breathless with excitement.

  “Timo? You here? Timo?” The trailer was empty except for the usual scattering of dirty clothes, discarded food boxes, and dozens of Mexican ceramic figurines that dumpside’s only other resident, Deke’s helper Timo, had just taught the bots how to find. He found the boy down one of the less traveled paths, methodically picking through a rotten animal’s carcass with his bare fingers.

  The stench overwhelmed the dump’s normal smells and Deke threw his hand over his nose. “Jesus, why don’t you have the bots incinerate that thing? It’s disgusting.” He loathed the boy’s interest in dump rat dissection, but tolerated the odd habit as a small price to pay for the perfect helper— the boy never asked for much, did what he was told, and was a quick study with the bots.

  Timo didn’t look up as he poked through the entrails. “Yes, Mister Deke, it don’t smell like roses, but take a look here.” He smiled and held up something small and shiny and covered in slime. “There you go, ruby ring, pretty as you like. These here dump rats love anything small and shiny, and sometimes when they swallow stuff they shouldn’t it gets stuck in their gut. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred they just got cockroaches in there, but every once in a while you win the lotto.”

  Deke winced at the sight of the boy’s hands shiny with rat goo. “Leave that thing alone, I’ve got news.”

  They returned to the trailer and Deke could hardly sit still as he went over the new plan. They both wore the same dirty gray coveralls, although Timo’s hung loose and baggy over his scrawny frame while Deke’s stretched tight around a considerable potbelly. The boy sat and listened, the worry on his face growing by the minute. When Deke finished Timo said, “Making the dump bots screw up on purpose? I don’t know, Mister Deke. Big shots like Chang and his boss, about the worst thing you can do is mess with their money.”

  “That’s the point. This way I’ll get their attention for sure. You know what they say— go big or go home.”

  “But if you get nabbed— ”

  “Relax. I won’t get nabbed.”

  “But if Chang finds out— ”

  “He won’t.”

  Deke knelt over a pair of little yellow bots and tapped in the last of their new instructions. He snapped the lids closed and watched as they skittered away beeping and squealing. He smiled and said, “Fly, my pretties.”

  “You actually talk to them? Why am I not surprised?” Deke nearly fell over as he whirled around toward the sound of the voice.

  Chang. Deke blinked and stared with his mouth open, almost not believing it. He’d never known Chang to take a single step beyond the estate’s wall, but now here he stood, ten miles dumpside. It could only mean the plan was already working, he thought excitedly.

  A surgical mask covered most of Chang’s face, everything but his angry eyes. “What the hell’s wrong with your phone? Been trying to reach you for two days.”

  “I needed the battery for a bot. What are you doing here?”

  “Is there someplace around here that doesn’t stink so bad?”

  Deke led him through a dimly lit path that sloped upward. He tried not to chuckle as the Dump Lord’s right hand lagged behind, gingerly avoiding contact with anything and wincing at the sight of dump rats. He knew that here he had the upper hand, not like on the other side of the wall where Chang always played the big shot, deciding who could see the Dump Lord and who couldn’t. This was dumpside, and dumpside was Deke’s side. A minute later they emerged from the pathway and into the warm sunlight at the top of a mound. A light breeze lessened the stink.

  “Jesus, that’s better,” Chang said. His eyes widened as he took in the view around him. “My God, I never realized how big it is.”

  Deke nodded. “This is one of the taller mounds. You can see just about all of it from here.”

  The dump stretched almost to the horizon in every direction, gently rolling hills of compacted garbage crisscrossed by the ever-deepening network of paths carved by the bots’ never-ending hunt. Deke remembered when he could step into a bot path like stepping off a curb; now they were five, even ten meters deep in some places, growing deeper every day like the creases of middle age around his eyes and mouth. An endless supply of paper constantly blew everywhere, animating the dump’s surface with swirling eddies and ever-changing forms shaped by the wind like sand plumes in a desert.

  “The daily take is down,” Chang said. “What the hell’s going on out here?”

  Deke feigned indifference and shrugged. “The dailies go up and down all the time. You came all the way out here just to tell me that?”

  “I’m not talking about normal ups and downs. The take is way, way down in the past few days, lowest I’ve ever seen.”

  “Lowest you’ve ever seen?” Deke echoed, biting the inside of his mouth to keep from smiling. “Really, you don’t say?”

  Chang’s face turned sour as he noticed windblown bits of old newspaper stuck to his jacket; he anxiously brushed his sleeves and lapels. “What the hell are you doing out here, sleeping all day?”

  Deke paused before answering, savoring each moment of Chang’s discomfort. “Hmm, let me think,” he said slowly, rubbing his chin. He took out his slate and tapped it to life. “Let’s see, those spare parts I needed were only for about five bots, so that can’t be the issue.” He casually swiped his finger across the slate a few times; he could feel Chang’s frustration growing by the second. “And the last full-blown diagnostics were done four months ago. Everything looked fine back then.” He looked up from the slate at Chang and lifted his eyebrows. “I can run some new ones if you want. You can stick around, it’ll only take a few hours.”

  Chang fumed. Deke could see— even through the mask— the thought of spending a single minute longer dumpside was intolerable. “I don’t have time for that,” Chang snapped.

  “But I have to do the diagnostics so I can see— ”

  “Enough!” Chang’s eyes went wild and he stepped toward Deke. “Let me keep it simple for you, bot man. I’m paid to keep my employer’s businesses running smoothly. And if I can’t do that I’m no better than any of those millions of penniless sons of bitches down there in Tijuana, am I? So if a lady in one of his whorehouses won’t put out, I have her beaten until she does. And if a crank peddler skims profits, I have his hand taken off. Now listen to me close, you fat fuck— you’re no different and no less replaceable than any random whore or crank pusher. And if I have to come back out here it won’t be for
a chat, you get me?”

  Chang turned and disappeared into the shadows down the bot path. It was several minutes before Deke stopped shaking.

  Nighttime was always quiet dumpside. Bots slept in low power mode until morning and the only sound was the occasional soft brush of windblown papers finding their way through the rolling mounds and bot paths. The light coming from Deke’s tiny trailer was the only dumpside illumination for miles in every direction, a lonely beacon in a sea of darkness.

  “I don’t see no good coming of this, Mister Deke.” Timo furrowed his brow as he placed their dinner plates on the trailer’s small folding table. “Why don’t you just go down to the city and get a whore? Tijuana’s full of whores.”

  Deke exhaled and rolled his eyes. In the two days since Chang showed up dumpside Timo had been a tiresome basket case. “I told you, I don’t want a whore. Anybody can get a whore. And it’s not just about the women anyway. It’s about something more, it’s about— ”

  “Finding a ruby ring?”

  Deke glared at Timo. It wasn’t like the boy to be sarcastic. “All right, that’s enough. ’Respect’ was the word I had in mind.”

  Timo sat and wrung his hands. “Sorry, Mister Deke, you just got me worried. That Chang’s a monster. Not the kind of fella you want pissed off at you.”

  Deke took a bite of stew and spoke while he chewed. “It wasn’t pleasant, I’ll give you that, but I can tell it’s working. You should have seen his face— total desperation. He won’t be able to hold out for much longer. And the worse things get, the happier the Dump Lord will be when I save the day, right?”

  Deke could feel the odds turning in his favor. The daily take was down to a trickle of normal levels, and that had Chang worried as hell, which Deke would turn to his advantage. He’d insist on a meeting with the Dump Lord and this time Chang would have no choice but to give in. Sure he’d bluster and make threats, but eventually he’d cave, desperate to save both his and his benefactor’s income. And when Deke found himself face to face with the Dump Lord he’d be cool and confident. He could even hear the sound of his own voice, steady and certain, as he described the situation.

  The dumpside resources are getting tougher to find, sir. Seems we’ve harvested all the low-hanging fruit, so to speak. I need to re-configure the bot chassis and completely re-write their search logic, otherwise the daily take will keep going down, who knows how low. It’s a solvable problem, but it’s going to take a while, lots of long hours re-tooling and writing new code.

  He could almost see the Dump Lord’s reaction, nodding gravely as he began to understand the seriousness of the problem. And then when Deke had his full attention he’d ask, no, he’d tell the man what he wanted.

  Now if I had some, shall we say, company to help me relax from time to time, I’m sure I could get everything done faster and we’d be back to normal levels in no time.

  He pictured how the Dump Lord’s face would change as he realized the man who stood before him was someone more, much more, than the robot repairman he’d taken for granted all these years. Deke was obviously a businessman not unlike himself, the kind of man who could get things done, the kind who wasn’t afraid to ask for what he wanted. “Forget about Chang’s silly ban on women,” the man would say with a wink. “Whatever you need to work your magic is fine by me.” And after Deke had the Dump Lord’s respect, everyone else would fall in line and everything would change. They’d all treat him differently: the guards, Chang, even the women— especially the women. And who knows, he might even manage to leave the estate with one of the beauties on his arm, maybe even the blonde he’d seen tiptoeing across the marble floor.

  Timo served coffee after dinner and Deke noticed the boy’s face was still twisted with worry. “I just don’t get why you need to do this,” the boy said.

  Poor kid, Deke thought. Of course he didn’t understand, how could he? He remembered when he’d first seen the boy panhandling on a Tijuana street corner, emaciated and corpse-pale; it had been almost a year since he’d taken him in out of pity. For such a frail boy the squalor of life outside the Dump Lord’s razorwired perimeter— where jobs were scarce and meals even scarcer— must have been especially brutal. For Timo the dump was a safe, secure refuge, an oasis in the desert.

  Deke recalled how he’d felt the same way years ago, when he’d first come to work for Chang and the Dump Lord. So happy to have a job, any job, that kept food on the table. Even Chang’s ‘no women dumpside’ rule seemed a small price to pay for regular work. But as time passed things changed. After a while the dumpside stink seemed to have seeped into his skin and become a part of him, and when he ran errands down in Tijuana the locals could smell it on him. Even the cheapest whores in in filthy, teeming Tijuana would wrinkle their noses and turn away. But the worst were the times when Chang summoned him to the estate, where the guests, security guards, even the gardeners looked down their noses at him and snickered behind his back, the fat man who lived in the garbage among the dump rats.

  “I know you don’t understand,” Deke said. “Someday you might.”

  That night Deke lay awake for hours, going over in his mind what he’d say again and again like an actor practicing lines. When he finally drifted off to sleep he dreamed of the blonde-haired woman.

  The next morning Deke stood before the ornate oak doors at the north entrance of the Dump Lord’s estate. He took a deep breath and raised a trembling hand to knock on the door, which suddenly flew open before he’d even struck it. Chang looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

  Chang eyed him warily. “What are you doing here?”

  Deke stepped into the foyer; Chang looked him up and down. “And what the hell are you wearing? Slacks and a dress shirt? Is there some special occasion I should be aware of?”

  “I need to speak with the Dump Lord.”

  A hint of a smile curled up one side of Chang’s mouth. “Let me guess, something urgent?”

  “Yes. In fact, yes.”

  The Dump Lord’s right hand rubbed his eyes. “Look, I’m in no mood for your bullshit today. If you had any sense you’d get your ass back dumpside and not show your face until you get the take back to normal.”

  Deke cleared his throat. “Actually, that’s exactly what I need to discuss with him.”

  Chang’s fatigued look changed in an instant to hungry curiosity. “What are you talking about? What do you know?”

  “No, I’ll only talk to the Dump Lord.”

  Chang’s cheeks flushed with anger. “Careful, robot man,” he sneered. “Dangerous game you’re playing, holding out on me.”

  Deke’s stomach fluttered; he returned Chang’s stare and tried not to blink. “Like I said, I’ll only talk to the Dump Lord.”

  “Forget it. You tell me what’s going on, and you tell me right now.”

  “Have you checked the take this morning?” Deke asked. “The first feeds came in about five minutes ago. You might want to take a look.”

  Chang regarded him skeptically and pulled out his slate. After a few finger swipes he went pale. “This can’t be right.”

  “It’s right,” Deke said. “Zero. Nothing. Not even an old Coke can’s worth of aluminum. And it’s going to stay at zero if you don’t let me see him, and I mean right fucking now.”

  Panic filled Chang’s face. “Money? You want more money, is that it? You could have just asked, you know. Jesus, Deke, you’re going to get us both booted out of here.”

  Deke stepped forward. “Take me to him, now!”

  Chang stared blankly at Deke; he seemed to be frozen in place.

  “I’ll find him myself, then,” Deke insisted. Chang made no effort to stop him as he stormed past.

  Giddy with confidence, he realized this was the first time he’d been more than two steps inside the estate. He left Chang behind and strode through the reception area with its high frescoed ceiling and immense crystal chandelier; he looked left and right, then turned down a corridor that led to a small study.
He knew this was his moment, perfectly planned, perfectly timed. He threw open the door, knowing he’d find the Dump Lord on the other side.

  He stopped cold when he saw Timo sitting on a plastic tarp among stacks of dump bots and a scattering of parts and tools. The boy snapped together the top and bottom sections of a chassis, added them to a stack beside him, then looked up at Deke, his face expressionless.

  “Timo,” Deke said, “what are you doing here?”

  The boy said nothing for a moment, then looked to the floor. “Dump rats.”

  Deke blinked, confused. “What?”

  “Those dump rats that swallow shiny rings and jewels,” the boy said, picking up two more chassis sections. “They hafta know they shouldn’t eat them, they don’t smell like food at all, but they just gobble them up anyway. Can’t control themselves, I suppose. But I ain’t like that, Mister Deke. I don’t need no ruby ring.” He snapped two more chassis sections together.

  Deke stared at the boy, trying to make sense out of what he was hearing.

  The boy sighed. “I’m sorry. I tried to warn you. Why didn’t you listen to me?”

  Deke’s stomach turned. “Jesus, what have you done?”

  “What do you think he’s done?” Chang boomed. Deke turned to see the Dump Lord’s right hand strolling up with a wide grin. “He sold you out, of course. Boy’s no dummy.” Chang pulled out his slate and showed Deke the screen. “I must have read this wrong earlier, the daily take seems to be just fine. Looks like it’s almost back to normal, imagine that.”

  Deke’s heart sank as he looked at the figures. Chang nodded and said, “The boy’s a whiz with bots, you taught him well. Maybe a bit too well, you think?” He’d never seen Chang’s face so smugly satisfied.

  “He’s just a kid,” Deke said. “What’d you do? Offer him money? Or did you just beat it out of him?”

  Chang’s smile widened. “That’s the beauty of it, robot man. I didn’t do a thing. The boy came to me.”

  Until that moment Deke didn’t think he could sink lower. He turned back to Timo, but the boy wouldn’t return his gaze.