by Mark Budz
“The Pair-A-Dice is an independent contractor. It’s not the same.”
“Bullshit.” He jabs himself in the chest with one finger. “If it wasn’t for us braceros there wouldn’t be any Entertainment Zone. You wouldn’t be living the EZ life.”
She juts her chin at a man passed out on the floor in a pool of frothy yellow vomit. “You call this easy?”
“Try working the vats for a few months.”
“No thanks. This is as close as I want to get.”
L. Mariachi raises his empty beer pouch. “Que viven los mojados!” he shouts at the top of his lungs. Long live the wetbacks! But his voice is swallowed by the din, lost almost before it leaves his lips.
Her mouth twists in what might be pity or contempt. “I didn’t realize that being a migrant was something to be proud of.”
It was at one time, he thinks, back when borders were arbitrary, abstract lines that could be crossed. It was a form of rebellion, of not accepting the status quo. It wasn’t the physical barrier they were violating so much as the idea of boundaries. Only a couple of generations ago it was possible to blur the divisions between people, break down rigid ideologies and challenge differing philosophies of life. The ecocaust, and the clade-based ecotectural systems that grew out of it, put an end to unregulated integration. No more illegal mixing of genes and memes or the erosion of cultural, social, and economic identities. From now on, things would be controlled. It could even be argued that the biochemical segregation enforced by the various clades was a way of preserving diversity.
“Why do you do it?” the cantinera asks.
“The same reason you do.”
She shakes her head, in puzzlement or denial, and then replaces his empty pouch of beer with a new one and charges it against tomorrow’s wages. For some reason she’s decided to let him keep drinking. Maybe she’s bored. Maybe she’s a politicorp informer, sent to draw him out, trip him up. No doubt the place is crawling with bitcams, acoustic spores, and sniffers looking for unregistered or illegal pherions manufactured on the black market.
Fuck it. What’s a Sin City binge without a little gambling? Besides, it’s not like he has anything to lose. The politicorp has already taken everything it can.
L. Mariachi picks up the pouch, peels the tab off the top. “All migrants have patas de perro,” he declares.
She frowns. “Dog’s feet?”
He sips the beer, squeezing the pouch, then nods. “We’re restless. We can’t stay in one place.”
“Like gypsies.”
“Migrants have always done the shit work,” he says. “The jobs no one else wants to do. We’re opportunists.”
“Sounds like a lack of self-respect to me.”
He grips the pouch tighter. Beer bubbles out the top. “What we have is freedom. We’re not trapped in one place, or one job, like you.”
“At least I have a home.”
“We get free housing and medical care. Plus, we’re independent. Not tied down to any specific ecotecture.”
She wipes the bar with her sleeve. “That doesn’t mean you’re free. You’re just as isolated or marginalized as the rest of us. The only difference is, you take your cage with you.”
In the beginning that hadn’t been the case. Institutionalized migration had been a way of remaining free, of not being absorbed into one single clade. Collectivism and solidarity were the migrants’ creed. Their saving grace. A few braceros still believed in that. They hadn’t lost faith in themselves or the future.
“Have you always been a migrant?” the cantinera asks.
L. Mariachi looks up, surprised to find her still there, chewing a stick of nicaffeine gum. “No.”
“What did you do before?”
He puffs out his chest. “I was a taxista and a musician.”
“Where?”
“Zamora.”
“That’s in Mexico?”
“Michoacán, a couple hundred miles from Mexico City. I drove a taxi by day and played clubs at night.”
“You were in a band?”
He nods, the alcohol filling him with false bravado at his rockero past. “Daily Bred,” he says. “We had an online single that topped the charts with a billion hits. ‘SoulR Byrne.’” It stayed in the number-one spot for a full hundred and twenty seconds before losing its place.
The cantinera’s gum pops. “I never heard of you.”
“We were marketed as Mexitallic,” he says. “A blend of ethnic pirekua rap with a speed metal beat.”
“What’s pirekua?”
“A traditional Indian ballad, from the Purépecha highlands. I played mandolin and electric guitar.”
“Have you thought about playing in the EZ?”
He laughs, a short bark, and holds up his deformed left hand with its gnarled joints and crooked fingers.
“What happened?”
“Things didn’t work out. So I signed up as a migrant.” He raises his beer, squeezes out the last of it in one shot to wash down the bitterness.
“And now you’re stuck.”
He shakes his head, doesn’t need to hear this.
“You can’t go back,” she goes on. “Can’t get ahead.”
“Fuck this noise!” He slams down the pouch, crumpling it on the thin veneer, and stands. The wallscreen behind the bar has cycled to a newstream. Digital video of a contaminated aqua pharm on one of the Gulf Coast offshore settlements. The ancient oil-drilling platform looks familiar. He’s harvested kelp there, on a previous job. Seventeen people dead in the last five hours, killed by some unknown toxin.
Tottering under the influence of a syrupy Pedro Infante ballad and the chatter of the cantinera, he stumbles for the exit. Weaves his way past the dance floor and the craps tables, where the gangstas are whooping it up, as if they’re estafadores, big-time con artists who are going to beat the house. Thing is, the house never gets beat. They haven’t learned that yet.
“Hey,” one of the cholos complains, his heavy gold chains rattling. He’s working on a mustache, a wispy collection of meticulously groomed strands that look like a bad comb-over plastered in place. His eyes are flushed, bulging with machismo. He’s got swagger up the sphincter, deserves respect.
L. Mariachi waves him off—“Fuck your mother”—and shoulders his way out the front entrance.
In the street—surrounded by bars, restaurants, VRcades, and solar-panel–shaded stalls selling everything from jewelry to fortunes—the air is bright and hot, feverish with activity and the insect hum of flitcams. A half moon is up, barely visible above the canopy of tall circuitrees that generate power for the EZ, aquaferns that supply water, and umbrella palms that block UV. There’s no breeze, and a pall of dust hangs in the air. Maybe the air filters aren’t working yet, or maybe they’ve decided not to turn them on to conserve power. Most of the buildings are new, assembled a day ago in preparation for the arrival of the migrant pharm workers. But a few are older and show signs of successive renovation to make them more energy efficient and ecologically sound: sonic floor tiles, thermal wall hangings, piezoelectric siding, and photovoltaic windows, all soaking up the raucous energy given off by the crowd.
The party atmosphere reminds him of the old fiestas. The feast of St. Francis, still celebrated around the time of the original pre-ecocaust autumn harvest, signaled the end of hard work, frustration, and disappointment. A few months later, Easter heralded a fresh beginning, filled with renewed promises, hopes, and resolve. All that’s missing are the bullfights and the nazarenos, the ragged procession of teenage boys who dressed in white robes and carried home-built crosses on their shoulders, reenacting the pilgrimage to Golgotha.
Instead the EZ’s got carnival rides and imitation gangstas who are weighted down with boredom rather than guilt or reverence. Nothing is authentic anymore. Everyone, including himself, is living the idea of norteño migrant culture. The real culture is dead. It disappeared during the ecocaust, along with the plants and animals. They’re not even Chicano anymore. T
hey’ve lost their identity.
He passes an Xstream 2na sushi outlet, then a Nito Kino tattune parlor. Resists the sudden pang of hunger and vanity brought on by the airborne virals circulated by the businesses. Good thing he’s not wearing his wraparounds. He doesn’t have to look at all the shit they’re selling. The viral ads are bad enough.
“It’s getting late,” Num Nut tells him.
He checks the time. Ten-ten. “Not that late.”
Behind him, two of the gangstas from the bar have followed him into the night. The one he bumped, plus another.
“I think you should go home,” Num Nut says. “Get some rest.”
“What do you know?”
“You have a long day ahead of you.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t have shit.” Not even a future. And the past is hardly worth keeping. Hell.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” his IA counsels.
“Is that what I’m doing? I thought I was getting fucked up.”
“You are. Muy borracho. And you’re going to regret it big-time in the morning.”
“Along with everything else.”
“Don’t do this.”
“What?”
“Berate yourself. It will only make things worse.”
He glances over his shoulder. The gangstas are still following him. “How can things get any worse?”
“Let’s see. . . .”
“Never mind.” He really doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to think about it. He’s got other problems right now. Like how to pull a disappearing act before he ends up with a cut throat.
He stumbles across a large, open-air amphitheater where a group of badmash performance actors are staging a show. Some melodrama in which the actors wear different colored barbed wire to represent different clades. Crass social commentary. But the smart mob that has spontaneously gathered to watch it is really into the shared mood they’re streaming, eating it up like cotton candy. Part of the reason for the smob is the free samples the troupe is handing out: deodorants and perfumes that represent the pherions used by the clades to limit access and control behavior.
L. Mariachi ducks into the smob, hoping to lose himself. It should be easy. He’s as faceless as the next bracero, just as interchangeable.
Quería hacer algo. He wanted to make something of himself, the same as anyone else. But his ruined hand put an end to that. Now he can’t even put up a decent fight. If he wants to save himself, he has to run.
He veers down a footpath that goes to a mission-style church, empty except for a few old women sequestered in prayer and frayed shawls. A rock skitters behind him. He cuts a quick glance back.
The gangstas have trailed him from the amphitheater. L. Mariachi darts left, into a palm-shaded garden with injection-molded statues of St. Francis and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Past the statues, the potted umbrella palms end and he suddenly finds himself at the westernmost edge of the EZ.
The barrier is invisible—no fence or signs announce the line—but he registers the demarcation as a faint tingle in his skin. With every step the warning amplifies. No way they’ll follow him this far. He’s not worth it.
“What are you doing?” Num Nut says.
Ahead of him loom the Rocky Mountains and the lights of Front Range City, just over the curve of the horizon. A green and yellow haze tinged with pink that stretches from Fort Collins in the north to Colorado Springs in the south. He hasn’t been to a city in years. Not since he left Mexico City.
“Don’t be stupid.” Somehow the IA manages to sound patronizing and worried at the same time.
“I didn’t know you cared.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Tell me about it.” He’s itching like a motherfucker and his stomach is upset, but there’s no pain. Not yet.
“I don’t know what you hope to accomplish. You won’t get very far. You’ll end up in the clinic, unable to work for days.”
He keeps walking, stubbornly heading toward the light until a slow burn settles deep in his bones.
He turns. The gangstas are closing in, less than fifty meters away. Motherfuckers are persistent. Refuse to be deterred.
Another step. The heat increases. His nerves feel incandescent, as if they’re throwing off electrons. It’s getting harder to move and his lips grow numb, deadened by scorched myelin. It feels like he’s being cremated from the inside out. Tears bleed from the corners of his eyes, trail down his cheeks to the oil slick of drool and mucus glazing the stubble on his chin.
He sinks to his knees and tilts his head to the sky. “Dulce dolor,” he thinks.
“I’m calling for medical assistance.” The IA’s voice sounds far away and unreal, something out of a dream.
L. Mariachi collapses onto his side, his lips moving wordlessly, and sees the two gangstas walking toward him. Something sharp flashes in the lead gangsta’s hands, a bright sliver of metal or glass. L. Mariachi’s heart stutters. But there’s nothing he can do. He’s helpless as a lamb.
“Hurry,” the gangsta with the lame mustache says, “or we’re fucked.”
They grab him by the arms and drag him across the hardpan, back to the garden, where they lean him against the base of the Virgin Mary.
The gangsta with the mustache uncaps the plastic ampoule he’s carrying, jams it up L. Mariachi’s nose, and squeezes.
“Now what?” the other gangsta asks, glancing around nervously. They can’t be older than fourteen or fifteen and look like brothers. They have the same features, identical almond eyes.
“We wait,” the older one says. “Antipher will take effect in a couple of minutes.” He has the voice of authority, like he’s speaking from experience.
The gangstas squat on their haunches. What are they waiting for? They seem content to take their time, make him suffer.
From where he’s propped, L. Mariachi has a clear view of the Virgin. It looks like she’s gazing down at him instead of the Christ Child in her arms. Her expression is beatific but he’s not ready to give himself over to her loving embrace. In a few minutes, feeling starts to return to his lips and his limbs.
“Wah . . . ah?” he says.
The gangstas lean forward, elbows on their knees, and peer at him with a mixture of anxiety and expectation.
He tries again. “Wah you won?”
“We want you to play,” the older one says.
“Pway?”
The young gangsta makes a strumming motion with his right hand. “At a limpia for our sick aunt.”
Limpia. Healing ceremony, spiritual cleansing.
“Wen?”
“Tonight.”
L. Mariachi shakes his head. “Don’ haf inshamen.”
“No problem,” the older gangsta says, making it clear that L. Mariachi doesn’t have a choice. “The bruja has a guitar.”
A bruja. Where did they find a witch? He didn’t know there were any traditional healers left.
L. Mariachi raises his left hand. Evidence that he can’t help, that they should find someone else.
The older gangsta grabs his hand and, misinterpreting his excuse as a gesture for help, hauls him to his feet. Together, draping his arms over their scrawny shoulders, they lead him away.
7
BAD SINNERGY
The music is as sad as it is angry. A fickle current, it carries her forward in fits and starts. First a torrent of harsh, badmash lyrics, followed by slow, amniotic chords that make her chest ache.
Don’t let my heart go
Up in smoke, burned by the sun
For eternity.
Instinctively, her right hand scrabbles for the cross. Cool, peroxide air caresses her fingertips. They close around nothing and continue to curl inward. Fingernails bite into her palms.
The cross is missing, its reassuring weight gone.
So is Ephraim. They’re no longer softwired. His absence is palpable, both a relief and a distress. It’s as if a damaged tooth has been pulled from her. The cavity left behind in
duces another kind of discomfort. An echo tosses fitfully in the space he once occupied.
No different from the Church after it was cut out of her.
She has nothing to anchor her. No thing to hang on to. Her only ballast is a vague heaviness in her lungs, brought on by the song. It seems to be the only thing holding her in place. Without it, she would float away. Her head would inflate and up she would go. Forever.
Which might not be a bad thing. Consciousness lies up there somewhere, beyond this rippling surface tension of light she can’t seem to break through.
“Fola?”
The voice yanks her out of the song. She jerks and struggles to open her eyes, afraid of slipping back into murky depths. “Pheidoh?” Her eyelids crack. Light seeps in, thick and moist between the dark lines of her lashes. Blurred diffraction-grating images clot her vision.
“How do you feel?” the IA says.
She blinks. Finds herself staring up at the cornea-thick lens of a small lightdome set in a hexagonal ceiling grid. Through the pressurized membrane she can see other hexapods, clustered together like atoms to form a large central nucleus. “Where am I?” Her voice is a scratchy whisper. The words rub against one another, dry as rain-starved grass.
“A hospicell on the construction station. You were brought here immediately after the accident.”
The accident. Liam’s face surfaces out of watery gloom, buoyed by a sudden rush of panic. Gone is the brashness. Everything has been stripped from him, except the knowledge that he’s going to die. Fola’s breath catches. She flinches at the memory of mummified skin and jaundiced eye sockets.
“It’s all right,” Pheidoh says. “You’re safe. Everything’s going to be fine.”
She tries to move and finds she’s immobilized by a sleepsac, held in place by gossamer tubes fastened to an Intensive Care Module. She glances at the grid of biolum panels, the medical equipment mounted on black-anodized racks, and a plain folding privacy screen that has been moved to the side and secured to one wall. The decor is pure Art Treko. All of the ceiling panels are featureless, depressing. There’s nothing, no one, to keep her company.
“Where’s Ephraim?” she asks. He’s dead. He has to be. That’s the emptiness she feels.