House Of The Scorpion

by Nancy Farmer

  “Good heavens, María,” said Esperanza. “We’ll never get the smell of shrimp out of that dress if you don’t show a little restraint.”

  37

  HOMECOMING

  Matt reveled in the clean white sheets, the soft pillows, the flower-scented air drifting in from the garden. Sister Inéz had ordered him to bed after looking at the sores on his body. Fidelito and Ton-Ton were housed at a boarding school run by the convent, but they visited Matt and Chacho every day.

  Poor Chacho, thought Matt. He barely noticed when anyone visited him. He drifted in and out of dreams, sometimes calling for his father and sometimes raving about bats. Sister Inéz said his mind needed time to recover from his terrible ordeal. He had breathed far less than was good for him under the heavy whale bones. His body had been starved of oxygen, and the pressure had cracked several of his ribs.

  The best part of the day for Matt was when María visited. He was content to listen, while she never ran out of things to say. She talked about stray cats she had rescued or how she had made a mistake and put salt into a cake batter instead of sugar. María’s life was full of drama. A flower opening in the garden and a butterfly lighting on a window were causes for excitement. Through her eyes, Matt saw the world as an infinitely hopeful place.

  Now Matt watched the door eagerly because he heard María’s voice in the hall, but he was disappointed to see both her and her mother. Esperanza was dressed in steel gray. She reminded Matt of one of the guided missiles El Patrón used to get for his birthday.

  “I brought you some guavas,” said María, placing a basket on the bedside table. “Sister Inéz says they’re full of vitamin C. She says you need them to clear up your skin condition.”

  Matt winced. He knew his acne was horrible. Sister Inéz said it was caused by pollution in the water the Keepers used to grow plankton.

  “You look healthy,” said Esperanza.

  “Thank you,” Matt said. He didn’t trust her.

  “Healthy enough to get up.”

  “Oh, Mother! He needs at least another week in bed,” said María.

  “You will not turn this young man into one of your invalids,” Esperanza told her daughter. “I’ve had quite enough of three-legged cats and fish that float upside down. Matt is young and resilient. And he has a very important job to do.”

  Uh oh, Matt thought. What was Esperanza up to now?

  “We are terribly worried,” María admitted.

  “We’re more than worried,” Esperanza said in her relentless way. “Something has gone wrong in Opium—not that anything was ever right in that godforsaken wasteland. But El Patrón at least had ties with the outside world. No one has heard a word from there since the day he died.”

  “Emilia is still in Opium,” María explained, “and so is Dada. I’m still angry at them for how they treated you, but I don’t want anything—anything bad to happen to them.” Her eyes filled with tears.

  Esperanza made an exasperated sound. “It wouldn’t bother me a bit if something happened to your dada. Oh, do stop brimming over like a fountain, María. It’s a silly habit and it clouds your wits. Your father is an evil man.”

  “I can’t help it.” María sniffled. Matt handed her one of his tissues. He privately agreed with Esperanza, but his heart was on María’s side.

  “Opium is in a state of lockdown,” said Esperanza. “I can think of only three times that’s happened in the past one hundred years. It means that nothing is allowed to enter or leave the country.”

  “Can’t we just wait until they decide to contact us?” said Matt.

  “The other lockdowns lasted a few hours. This one’s gone on for three months.”

  Matt realized what this meant. Shipments of opium had to go out every day to keep money moving around the empire. Dealers in Africa, Asia, and Europe must be clamoring for their supplies. MacGregor and the other Farmers couldn’t cover the shortfall. They had put most of their land to crops that produced cocaine and hashish.

  “What am I supposed to do about it?” Matt said. Esperanza smiled and he knew he’d walked into a trap.

  “All incoming hovercrafts have to be cleared by the security system,” she said. “The pilot places his hand on an identity plate in the cockpit. His fingerprints and DNA signature are beamed to the ground. If these are cleared, the ship is allowed to land. If not—”

  “It’s blown out of the sky,” said María. “Mother, this plan is awful.”

  “During a lockdown,” Esperanza went on, ignoring her daughter, “no ships are cleared—with one exception: El Patrón’s signature overrides everything.”

  Matt understood at once: His fingerprints and DNA were the same as El Patrón’s. “How do you know the system hasn’t been changed?”

  “I don’t,” said Esperanza. “I’m counting on the Alacráns to have forgotten about the override. They must be in some kind of trouble, or they wouldn’t have sealed themselves off.”

  What kind of trouble? Matt thought. Could the eejits have revolted, or could the Farm Patrol have taken over? Perhaps Mr. Alacrán was locked in a power struggle with Steven and Benito. “The way I see it,” he said, “I’ll get blown out of the sky. If I do manage to survive, the Alacráns will have me put to sleep like an old dog. I’m a clone, in case you’ve forgotten. I’m livestock.”

  María flinched. Matt didn’t care. Let her understand what they were asking of him. He didn’t care whether Emilia and her dada were safe. But then he heard María choke back a sob.

  “Oh, very well!” he said angrily. “I’m no good for spare parts anymore. You might as well throw me away on this.”

  “I don’t want to throw you away,” María said, weeping.

  “Let’s all take a deep breath and start over,” said Esperanza. “First of all, Matt, you aren’t a clone.”

  Matt was so startled, he sat straight up in bed.

  “Oh, you were a clone. There’s no mistake about that. But we’re talking about international law now.” Esperanza started pacing around the room as though she were lecturing a class. “International law is my specialty. In the first place, clones shouldn’t exist.”

  “Fat lot of good that does me,” said Matt.

  “But if they do exist, they’re livestock, as you say. That makes it possible for them to be slaughtered like chickens or cattle.”

  María moaned and put her head down on the bed.

  “You can’t have two versions of the same person at the same time,” Esperanza went on. “One of them—the copy—has to be declared an unperson. But when the original dies, the copy takes his place.”

  “What … does that mean?” Matt said.

  “It means you really are El Patrón. You have his body and his identity. You own everything he owned and rule everything he ruled. It means you’re the new Master of Opium.”

  María raised her head. “Matt’s human?”

  “He always was,” her mother replied. “The law is a wicked fiction to make it possible to use clones for transplants. But bad law or not, we’re going to use it now. If you survive the landing, Matt, I’ll do everything in my power to make you the new reigning drug lord. I have the backing of the Aztlán and U.S. governments on this. Only you must promise me that once you’re in control, you’ll destroy the opium empire and tear down the barrier that has kept Aztlán and the United States apart for so long.”

  Matt stared at the small, fierce woman as he tried to understand the sudden shift in his fortunes. He guessed that Esperanza cared less about her daughters than her desire to destroy Opium. She’d gone off without a backward glance when María was only five. In all the years since, she’d never contacted her. It was only when María made the first move that Esperanza returned and proceeded to order everyone around.

  Matt thought she would easily sacrifice him to realize her goal. But how could he refuse after the terrible suffering El Patrón had caused? He understood the full extent of it now. It wasn’t only the drug addicts throughout the world or
the Illegals doomed to slavery. It was their orphaned children as well. You could even say the old man was responsible for the Keepers. If Matt had become El Patrón, then he’d gotten the whole package: wealth, power … and the evil that created it.

  “I promise,” he said.

  The hovercraft trembled as it was scanned by beacons from the ground. Matt glanced at the pilot. The man’s face was grim. “When the red light goes on, press your right hand on the identity plate,” he said. WARNING! GROUND ARTILLERY DEPLOYED, flashed a panel over the controls.

  They’ll shoot first and ask questions later, thought Matt. He carried messages from the Aztlán and U.S. presidents, but they wouldn’t do much good if he got blown out of the sky.

  “There’s the signal!” cried the pilot.

  The identity plate lit up. Matt slammed his hand down. He felt the tingling he’d noticed when he’d pressed the glowing scorpion outside the secret passage in the mansion. The red light faded, and the panel turned a welcoming green.

  “You did it, sir! Well done!” The pilot began to bleed off antigravity in preparation for landing. Matt felt a glow of happiness. The man had called him “sir”!

  Matt watched anxiously through the window. He saw the estancia as he’d never seen it before. The water purification plant lay far to the east, and the little church Celia visited—could she still visit as an eejit?—was to the west. In between were storehouses, drug purification labs, and a factory where food pellets for the eejits were made. Slightly to the north was the gray, featureless hospital. Even from here, it looked sinister. Next to it was the mausoleum where the Alacráns slept in their marble drawers.

  The swimming pool flashed with sunlight as they passed over. Matt searched the grounds for people. He saw eejits crouching by a lawn. He saw maids hanging out wash, and someone seemed to be repairing a roof. No one looked up. No one showed the slightest interest in the hovercraft that was now descending to the ground.

  “Where’s the welcoming committee?” he murmured. A platoon of bodyguards always ran out to greet visitors.

  The ship bumped gently to a landing. “Do you need a weapon, sir?” asked the pilot, handing him a gun. Matt looked at it with dismay. Such guns had been used by the Farm Patrol to stun—and kill—the parents of Chacho, Flaco, Ton-Ton, and the other orphans.

  “It’s probably better to appear friendly,” he said, handing the weapon back.

  “I’ll remain here in liftoff mode, in case you want to leave quickly,” the pilot said.

  Matt opened the door and climbed down. The landing field was empty. The only sounds were of birds, fountains, and—briefly—the hammer of the man fixing the roof.

  Matt followed a winding path through the gardens. His job was to confront the Alacráns and end the lockdown. He could disable the lockdown system himself—when he found it. Tam Lin or Daft Donald would know its location. Then Esperanza and top officials from both countries on the border would descend on Opium and try to install Matt as leader.

  I had better odds for survival in the boneyard, he thought. He saw a peacock strut across a lawn. A mob of red-winged blackbirds shrieked at one another from a crowded tree. A winged baby watched him from atop a fountain.

  Matt’s nerves were raw. Any minute now Mr. Alacrán would stride out of the house and shout, Take this creature away! Dispose of it at once! Memories threatened to overwhelm him. He didn’t know what he’d do if he saw Celia.

  Matt went up the broad steps leading to the salon. It was there that El Patrón had introduced him to the family so long ago. It was there that El Viejo had lain like a starved bird in his coffin and Emilia, surrounded by eejit flower girls, had married Steven. It was as though the great hall thronged with ghosts. They hovered behind the white, marble pillars. They breathed over the dark pond covered with water lilies. Matt saw an ancient fish rise from the depths to look at him with a round, yellow eye.

  Matt froze. Someone was playing a piano. The person was certainly skilled, but he—or she—was attacking the music with such ferocity that it bordered on madness. Matt raced toward the sound. The noise rolled like a tidal wave out of the music room, and he had to cover his ears.

  “Stop!” he yelled. But the person didn’t react. Matt crossed the room and grabbed the man’s arm.

  Mr. Ortega spun around. He took one look and fled. Matt heard his footsteps disappear down the hall. “I wasn’t that bad a student,” Matt murmured. But of course Mr. Ortega had thought he was dead. He was probably crying alarm from one end of the house to the other. Now it was only a matter of time before someone showed up.

  Matt sat down. His hands were callused from the work he’d done at the salt factory, and he was afraid the hard labor had made his fingers clumsy. But as he began the Adagio from Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, the awkwardness fell away. The music swelled through his body, transporting him from the horrors of the past few months. He felt as light as a hawk coasting the upper air over the oasis. He played until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  Matt turned, still in a daze of music, and saw Celia dressed in the flowered dress he remembered so well. “Mi hijo!” she cried, gathering him into a ferocious bear hug. “Oh, my darling, you’re so thin! What happened to you in all this time? How did you get back? What’s wrong with your face? It’s so thin and—and—”

  “Covered with zits,” said Matt, struggling to catch his breath.

  “Ah, well, it’s part of growing up,” declared Celia. “They’ll go away with the right food.” She held him at arm’s length to look at him. “I’m sure you’re taller.”

  “Are you okay?” said Matt. Her sudden appearance shocked him. He was afraid of bursting into tears.

  “Of course. But you took about five years off Mr. Ortega’s life.”

  “How did you—I mean, Tam Lin said you had to hide …”

  Matt couldn’t trust his voice enough to say any more.

  “Tam Lin. Oh, my.” Celia suddenly looked very tired. “We’ve been in lockdown for months and couldn’t send out a message.”

  “Why didn’t Mr. Alacrán or Steven do something?” said Matt.

  “You’d better come with me.” Celia led Matt through the halls, and once again he was struck by how silent everything was.

  They came to the kitchen, and at last Matt saw something reassuringly normal. Two undercooks were kneading bread, and a maid was slicing vegetables. Strings of garlic and chiles hung from the ceiling. The odor of roast chicken wafted over him from the big, wood-fired oven.

  Mr. Ortega and Daft Donald were sitting at a table with cups of coffee and two laptop computers. “See? I wasn’t making it up,” said Mr. Ortega. Daft Donald typed something onto his computer. “I was not running around like Chicken Little,” said Mr. Ortega, reading his screen. “You’d be upset too if a ghost grabbed your shoulder.”

  Daft Donald smiled.

  Matt stared at them. He’d never thought of the two men outside their duties as music teacher and bodyguard. He’d never tried to communicate with them, and besides, he’d always assumed Daft Donald wasn’t bright.

  “I’d better begin,” sighed Celia. She settled Matt between the two men and fetched him a mug of hot cocoa. The odor brought back memories so profound, the room wavered before his eyes. For an instant Matt was in the little house in the poppy fields. A storm raged outside, but in the house it was warm and safe. Then the scene faded, and he was back in the kitchen.

  “You remember what I said about El Patrón never letting anything go?” Celia began. Matt nodded. “Tam Lin used to say that things—and people—became part of El Patrón’s dragon hoard.”

  Used to say, Matt thought with a chill. What did that mean?

  “That’s why he wouldn’t let Felicia run away and why he kept Tom close to him, although he hated the boy. We all belonged to him—the Alacràns, the bodyguards, the doctors, me, Tam Lin, and you. Most of all, you.”

  38

  THE HOUSE OF ETERNITY

  Matt saw that last ev
ening in his mind’s eye as Celia and the others told the story. When she faltered, Daft Donald would take up the narrative on his computer. Sometimes Mr. Ortega would burst in with an opinion.

  While he, Matt, was lying under the stars at the oasis, Tam Lin and everyone else had been called to the wake. Celia was missing because she was supposed to be an eejit. Mr. Ortega was missing because he hadn’t heard about it. Besides, he’d lived such a quiet existence for so many years that everyone had forgotten about him.

  The Farm Patrol stood at attention in the gathering dusk. Six bodyguards, including Tam Lin and Daft Donald, carried the coffin from the hospital to the desert beyond the mausoleum. One man alone could have carried El Patrón, but the coffin was so encrusted with gold that six could barely lift it.

  They walked slowly as a choir of eejit children sang the “Humming Chorus” from the opera Madama Butterfly. It was one of El Patrón’s favorite pieces, and the eejits’ voices were high and sweet.

  “I heard it from the stables,” said Celia, wiping her eyes. “He was an evil man, but the music would have broken your heart.”

  A door had been opened in the ground. A ramp led deep down into a vast underground chamber lit by candles. It was only the first of many chambers leading off under the earth. Daft Donald said he didn’t know how many there were.

  The coffin was a wonder, Daft Donald wrote on his computer. It had an image of El Patrón on the lid, like the portrait of an Egyptian pharaoh. El Patrón looked about twenty-five. You couldn’t recognize him, except—and here Daft Donald glanced up—that he looked a great deal like Matt.

  Matt felt cold.

  Everyone went down into the chamber, the bodyguard continued typing, which was filled with drifts of gold coins. You had to wade through them like sand on a beach. Daft Donald saw some of the bodyguards scoop some up and hide them in their pockets. The priest performed the funeral rites. Then the eejits and Farm Patrol were sent away. It was time for the wake.

  “Which is just another name for a party,” interrupted Mr. Ortega. “You celebrate the dead man’s life—or in this case, his eight lives. You were supposed to be the ninth, Matt.”