House Of The Scorpion

by Nancy Farmer

  Matt slept well, and he felt strong and confident in the morning. Opium was covered by a ground fog, as it often was in the fall. He couldn’t see anything but a white haze stretching from horizon to horizon.

  With a last look at the map, Matt started along the trail. It dipped up and down, gradually leading up to a pass between two hills. He heard a noise from one of the high meadows, like someone hitting a baseball. It happened again and again. It couldn’t really be people playing baseball up there, he knew, with only the hawks and turkey buzzards to watch.

  As he got closer, the sound became more like someone smacking a pair of ripe watermelons together. Matt cautiously peered around a bush and saw two bighorn sheep thunder at each other like a pair of farm trucks. They crashed head-on, reeled away, and trotted off. After a few moments they repeated the performance. A group of ewes grazed among the rocks as though they couldn’t be bothered to watch. Matt was so delighted, he laughed out loud. Then, of course, the sheep skittered to safety, making huge leaps as they bounded from rock to rock.

  As Matt approached the cleft at the top of the mountains, he began to hear another puzzling noise. It was like the roar of fire in Celia’s stove. It got louder and louder, and now Matt could pick out individual sounds: the grinding of machinery, the blast of horns, even—incredibly—music.

  He stepped through the pass into another world. The same quiet hills lay below him, with hawks patrolling wooded valleys between shoulders of rock. But beyond them lay a seething mass of factories and skyscrapers. He saw roadways not only on the ground, but also going up in wide spirals among the buildings. A sea of hovercrafts restlessly prowled the air. The buildings stretched on as far as Matt could see, which wasn’t far because a smudgy brown haze covered everything. It was from here that the booming, clanking, thundering noises came, and it surprised Matt so much, he sat down on the trail to think.

  The sun was directly overhead. Matt fished out the hat Tam Lin had provided. So this was Aztlán. In all Matt’s imaginings it had been nothing like this. He had taken Celia’s tales about the maquiladoras and El Patrón’s stories about Durango and mixed them with episodes of El Látigo Negro. What came out was a hodgepodge of factories, primitive huts, and fabulous ranches owned by evil tycoons who had pretty daughters.

  How could people live in all that noise? he thought. How could they breathe the air? There wasn’t a fence for as far as he could see, but there was a line of poles that could have supported a fence. The land on the Opium side of the border was deserted. It was as though someone had put up a big sign saying DANGER! RADIOACTIVE!

  Matt went back over the mountain pass to the meadow where the bighorn sheep had tried to brain each other. He ate a small lunch of beef jerky and dry cheese. He couldn’t stay here. The rainy season in the Ajo Mountains was brief, and Matt had a very clear idea of how soon the little frog ponds and hidden grottoes would dry out.

  Equally, he couldn’t return to the mansion. The only way out was the border of Aztlán. You can do it, he imagined Tam Lin saying. I guess I have to, thought Matt, turning to look one last time at the quiet meadow, the white plumes of bear grass, and the black-throated sparrows flitting through the trees.

  He slid down parts of the hill where the ground was steep and sandy. He arrived at the bottom, hot and dusty and itching from dozens of spines he had collected from a cholla cactus on the way down. He crouched in the shade of a rock to drink the last of his water.

  Matt found the spines impossible to remove. They seemed to burrow deeper into his skin when he tried to pinch them out. And somewhere along the way he’d torn his pants and one of the straps on the backpack.

  Matt observed the border through binoculars. What he saw was every bit as ugly as it sounded. A row of factories chugged smoke into the air. Behind them, on the border itself, was a tangle of cast-off machinery and tanks that seeped a black liquid onto the ground. Pools of the stuff dotted the narrow space between the buildings and the line of poles. Then something much closer moved across Matt’s field of view.

  He adjusted the lenses. It was a man on a horse. It was a member of the Farm Patrol! Moving the glasses around, he saw more of them.

  Matt shrank back into the rocks. The Farm Patrol must have gone back to work after the wake. Had they seen him come slipping and sliding down the mountain? He was afraid to move. He was afraid not to. Fortunately, the hollow where Matt was hiding was deep. After a tense half hour or so he guessed the Farm Patrol had seen nothing. Or perhaps they were merely waiting for him to get thirsty and come out. Matt did get thirsty, horribly so, as the hours went by.

  He counted six men. They rode slowly back and forth. At no time was the border deserted, and at no time was it possible for Matt to run the remaining few hundred yards to freedom. The sun dipped to the west. Shadows lengthened. Matt sucked on a stone to keep from feeling thirsty.

  The sun set. The shadow of night rose, dividing the eastern sky into pale blue above and gray below, with a rosy border where the sunlight still shone on a haze of dust in the air. Suddenly a commotion broke out. A group of men burst from one of the junkyards and ran across the border. The instant they passed the line of poles, sirens went off. The Farm Patrol galloped to intercept them.

  At once Matt was off in the other direction. It hadn’t taken him a second to react. This was his chance. He raced across the ground. To his left he heard shouts and a loud crack accompanied by a flash of light. Matt had seen this weapon at El Patrón’s birthday party. It was a super stun gun that fried the hair on an Illegal’s head and stopped his heart cold. Most of the time the Illegal’s heart started again, so he could be turned into an eejit.

  Matt heard horse’s hooves pounding. He didn’t try to see how many men had turned to follow him. His only chance was to reach the border, and he bounded with an agility that would have impressed a bighorn sheep. He saw the body of a horse approaching. Matt swung the binoculars at the animal’s head and sent it veering to one side. The rider pulled it up and forced it to turn.

  The poles were close. Matt saw the ground ahead change from dirt to cement. He put on an extra burst of speed, but the Farm Patroller grabbed Matt’s backpack and reined in his horse. Matt undid the snap holding the waistband and slid out of the straps. The change in speed sent him stumbling across the border into one of the oily black pools, where he fell on his stomach and skidded out the other side in a plume of goo.

  Matt sat up, frantically wiping his eyes. He saw the Farm Patroller ride away and looked down to see he would have no trouble convincing the Aztlános he was a refugee. He had no backpack, no money, and he was covered from head to toe in black slime.

  26

  THE LOST BOYS

  ¡Qué coraje! What spirit that kid has!” a man said. Matt wiped away the goo dripping off his hair. He saw a pair of uniformed men approaching from amid ruined machinery and tanks.

  “Hey, kid! ¿Como te llamas? What’s your name?” asked one of them.

  Matt was stumped for a moment. He certainly couldn’t tell the truth. “M-Matt Ortega,” he said, swiping the music teacher’s name.

  “You’re a real fighter!” said the border guard. “I thought he had you when he grabbed the backpack. Did your family go over tonight?”

  “N-No. My f-family—” Now that the excitement was over, Matt felt the reaction set in. He hugged himself and his teeth chattered.

  “Hey,” the guard said kindly. “You don’t need to explain now. You just had the beans scared out of you. ¡Caray! I got scared watching you. Come inside where you can have a bath and something to eat.”

  Matt followed carefully so he wouldn’t slip on the cement. His body was covered in sludge, and his stomach was in knots over the narrow escape.

  The guards led him to a large cement bathroom with showers along the walls. They gave him a brush and a chunk of green soap. “Take one of the clean bodysuits from the bin,” one of them instructed him.

  This is like a dream, Matt thought as he scrubbed and resc
rubbed himself in the steamy shower. He’d been afraid of his welcome in Aztlán, but these men treated him like a guest. They didn’t seem a bit surprised to see him.

  Matt found an olive drab jumpsuit that didn’t look too bad. The cloth was as rough as a floor brush, but it would help him fit in with the others. He could pass as human.

  When he emerged, he was seated at a table and given a plate of tortillas and beans by a man in a black uniform with the emblem of a beehive on one sleeve. “Thank you. This is very nice,” Matt said.

  “Oho! We have an aristocrat here,” said one of the border guards. “When was the last time someone said thank you to a Keeper, Raúl?”

  “About the time America discovered Columbus,” said Raúl. He pulled up a chair. “Okay, kid. What were you doing on the frontera?”

  Matt, between mouthfuls of beans, gave him the story Tam Lin had prepared. His parents had been taken by the Farm Patrol. He got scared and ran back across the border. He wanted to go to San Luis.

  “That’s really tough, losing your parents like that. Do you come from San Luis?” said Raúl.

  “I have—a friend there,” said Matt, stumbling over how exactly to describe María.

  The man shrugged. “What kind of work can you do?”

  Work? Matt was confused. He knew how to run an opium empire, but he didn’t think that was what the man wanted to hear. “I can play the piano,” he said at last. Raúl laughed out loud.

  “Now I know he’s an aristocrat,” said the other border guard.

  “Don’t get us wrong,” said Raúl, noticing Matt’s unhappy expression. “We like art and music, but in the new Aztlán we don’t have time for hobbies. We have to contribute to the general good of the people.”

  “It’s hard but it’s fair,” the other man said.

  “So if you have a special skill, like balancing magnetic coils or running a positronic purifier, please tell us.”

  Positronic purifier, thought Matt. I don’t even know what it is. He racked his brain. “I studied water purification,” he said at last. It wasn’t quite true. Matt had toured the water purification plant, but he thought he remembered enough to be useful.

  “Those plants are automated,” said the border guard.

  “Wait. I’m getting an idea,” said Raúl.

  “Stomp on it before it gets away,” the guard said.

  “No, really. The plankton factory in San Luis can always use new workers. That’s something like water purification. And it’s where the kid wants to go.”

  The men seemed to think this was a brilliant plan, and Matt, who had no idea what they were talking about, said the plankton factory sounded fine. It was in San Luis, after all. He could leave right away and find his way to the Convent of Santa Clara.

  Matt spent the night in the guardhouse, and in the morning Raúl took him to a large, gray building with high windows covered with iron bars. “You’re in luck, chico,” he said. “We’ve got a hovercraft going to San Luis tomorrow.” He unlocked a metal door that led into a dimly lit hallway. A pair of border guards lounged at a table in front of another door made of reinforced glass. They were playing a game Matt had never seen.

  Tiny men seemed to hang in midair over the table, along with trees, buildings, and a pot bubbling on a fire. It was the pot and fire that enchanted Matt. They were so realistic, he could even hear water splattering onto the flames. About half of the tiny men were dressed in animal skins and carried spears. The other half were clad in monk’s robes. The border guards wore silver gloves and moved the game pieces by waving their fingers.

  “Another one for San Luis,” said Raúl. The men grudgingly turned off the game.

  “Where did the picture go?” said Matt.

  “Haven’t you ever seen a holo-game, kid?”

  “Of course I have,” Matt lied. He didn’t want to arouse suspicion.

  “Oh, I get it,” a border guard said. “You haven’t seen this game before. That’s because it’s so old. It’s all the crotting government sends us.”

  “Don’t use language like that in front of a kid,” said Raúl.

  “Sorry,” said the guard. He turned on the game, and the tiny men appeared again. “See, those are the cannibals and these are the missionaries. The aim is for the cannibals to push the missionaries into the cooking pot.”

  “And the missionaries?” Matt asked.

  “They have to push the cannibals into the church, but first they have to baptize them.”

  Matt watched, fascinated, as a tiny missionary held down a yelling cannibal and sprinkled water on his head. So that’s what baptism was. “It looks like fun,” he said.

  “Sure, if you haven’t played it a couple thousand times.” The man turned the game off and unlocked the glass door for Raúl and Matt to pass through.

  “Why are all the doors locked?” Matt asked.

  “The orderly production of resources is vital to the general good of the people,” said Raúl.

  That’s a very weird thing to say, Matt thought. However, his attention was riveted on a room full of boys working at tables. They all stopped what they were doing and turned to look at Matt.

  He had never played with children. He’d never been to school or played sports, and he’d never had a friend his own age, except María. The reaction of most people to him had been hatred. Thus, the experience of suddenly being thrust into a crowd of boys was like being dumped into a pool of piranhas. Matt assumed they were going to hurt him. He froze into a karate stance Tam Lin had shown him.

  The boys surged forward, all talking at once. “What’s your name? Where are they sending you? Got any money?” Raúl, perhaps noticing Matt’s odd position, crowded them back.

  “Orale, morros. Okay, kids. His name’s Matt, and he needs to be left alone for a while. He just lost his parents in Dreamland.” The boys went back to the tables, but they eyed Matt curiously, and one or two of them smiled and tried to entice him over.

  Matt stood next to the door while Raúl walked around the room, commenting on the boys’ work. Some were fitting small bits of machinery together, others wove strips of plastic into sandals. Still others measured powder into capsules and counted the finished pills into bottles.

  Raúl stopped by a large boy who was sanding a curved piece of wood. “We don’t have time for hobbies, Chacho. The orderly production of resources is vital to the general good of the people.”

  “Crot the good of the people,” muttered Chacho, still sanding the wood.

  If Raúl was angered by this curse—and Matt had no doubt it was a curse, although he didn’t know what it meant—the man didn’t show it. He took the wood from Chacho’s hands. “Attention to the welfare of the nation is the highest virtue to which a citizen can aspire.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Chacho.

  “Work is freedom. Freedom is work. It’s hard but it’s fair.”

  “It’s hard but it’s fair,” chanted the rest of the boys. “It’s hard but it’s fair.” They banged out the rhythm on the tables, getting louder and rowdier until Raúl stilled them by raising his hands.

  “I’m glad to see you in high spirits,” he said, smiling. “You may think I’m a boring old Keeper, but someday you’ll understand the importance of these lessons.” He led Matt to the middle of the room. “This boy is going to San Luis. I want you to make him welcome, but don’t push him if he wants to be alone. He’s just been through a terrible loss.”

  Rauúl’s exit was done smoothly, with the door closed and locked almost before Matt was aware of it. Why did they have to be locked in? And what was a Keeper? It was the second time Matt had heard the word.

  He glared at the boys, whose work slowed now that they weren’t being watched. El Patrón always said it was important to establish your authority before anyone had a chance to question it. Matt walked toward the tables as though he owned the place.

  “Want to join us?” said a skinny little kid who was making up pills. Matt looked grandly around the room. He
nodded curtly. “You can help if you want,” the kid offered.

  “My advice is to sit on your butt while you have the chance,” said Chacho from across the room. The big boy was twisting plastic strips into sandals. Matt walked slowly to the sandal-making table. El Patrón said you should never look anxious or needy. People always took advantage of those who were anxious or needy.

  “Why is that?” inquired Matt, looking down at the tangle of plastic strips.

  “ ’Cause the Keepers are gonna work your butt off tomorrow,” said Chacho. He was a large, rough-looking boy with big hands and black hair slicked back like the feathers on a duck.

  “I thought I was going to San Luis.”

  “Oh, you are. So am I and Fidelito.” Chacho pointed at the skinny kid, who looked only about eight years old. “But you can bet we’re going to work before we get on the hovercraft, while we’re on the hovercraft, and after we get off the crotting hovercraft. You’ll see.”

  So Matt wandered around and watched the various chores the boys were doing. He settled by Fidelito, who was ecstatic to gain the approval of the newcomer. After a while Matt could see why. Fidelito was the neediest kid in the room, and so of course everyone pushed him around.

  “What kind of pills are those?” Matt asked.

  “Vitamin B,” said Fidelito. “They’re supposed to be good for you, but if you eat ten or twelve of them, you get sick.”

  “What a dope!” Chacho said. “Why would anybody eat a dozen vitamin pills?”

  “I was hungry,” Fidelito said.

  Matt was startled. “You mean, they don’t feed you here?”

  “Sure they do, if you produce enough work. I’m just not very fast.”

  “You’re not very big,” Matt said, feeling sorry for the earnest little boy.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Fidelito explained. “Everyone’s supposed to have the same output. As long as we’re here, we’re equal.”