The two handlers squatted on their haunches, each holding a small controller box as they gazed at the clock that hung on the far wall. At the agreed-upon time the controllers were activated. A shudder seemed to pass through each bird. They straightened abruptly, assuming unnaturally erect postures without sacrificing any of their natal alertness.
The yellow-brown bird suddenly leaped, twisting its body to the left and kicking out with its right leg. The opposing handler’s fingers moved on his control sticks and his own bird ducked, blocking upward with a wing to effectively turn the blow aside. The crowd roared.
The green-black rooster threw a right jab, then a left as its opponent backpedaled. Spurs flashed, but both blows missed. The two roosters, their movements regulated by the karateka chips embedded in their necks and the controllers of their handlers, continued to throw kicks and punches and blocks as efficiently as any highly trained humans facing each other across a dojo mat.
The yellow-brown was smaller but slightly quicker. A jumping-spinning back kick finally caught the larger bird a bit slow to react and an ankle spur sliced through its chest, sending feathers and fluid flying. The crowd roared: first blood. Stunned, the green-black retreated, defending itself as its handler tried to assess the extent of the damage.
The green-black was very close to him when it suddenly whirled, jumped, and kicked out smartly with both legs.
A different sort of scream rose from the crowd as the handler fell backward, clutching at his ruined eyes. An instant later the other handler, trying to run to his opponent’s aid, was brought down by his own bird, which struck with both a leg and wingtip at the man’s ankle, severing the Achilles’ tendon and sending him screeching into the sawdust.
The noise volume in the arena previously was nothing compared to the panicky tumult that now shook the walls as the crowd surged wildly toward the single exit. They jammed up against the narrow portal, men and women alike finding themselves crushed against the walls or trampled underfoot by fellow frenzied aficionados, those in back moaning or shrieking as they tried to protect themselves from the fluttering, fast-moving cocks who utilized the hysteria as a stage, slicing randomly at flailing hands, arms, and exposed backs.
High up, a frowning, disturbed Banquero rose and started for his office, wondering at the cause of the chaos. The woman who had been attending to him clung to his arm, seeking protection. Banquero grunted once and his hulking shadow ripped the girl free, tossing her over the rail with casual indifference. She stopped screaming when she hit the ground, bounced once, and lay still.
Banquero had his hand on the office door when something snicked across the back of his wrist, causing him to jerk it back. The four-centimeter-long gash oozed blood as he grabbed at it. Cursing, he gazed in furious bemusement at the yellow and brown rooster that perched on the railing, staring back at him.
His bodyguard drew a large-caliber gun from a shirt holster and was aiming it at the bird when a fluttering mass of feathers landed on his head. Spurs dug in. Howling, he reached up with both hands to dislodge the green-black. Avoiding the powerful, clutching fingers the fighting cock struck out as it dropped, kicking hard enough for the surgical steel on its ankles to shatter the dark lenses and drive fragments of sharp carbonite into the hulk’s eyes. He screamed and stumbled backward. The railing was insufficient to support his great weight and he fell, still clawing at his face, to land not far from the motionless whore who by dint of his callousness had preceded him floorward.
Banquero reached for the door again and again the yellow-brown struck at his hand, this time gouging deep enough to lay open the tendons on the back of the man’s wrist. Hissing with pain and fury he fumbled inside his shirt for the tiny but lethal pistol that reposed there.
Having finished with the bodyguard, the green-black flew straight at Banquero and began kicking. The arena master screamed like a woman, dropping to his knees while flailing feebly at the attacking bird. The other rooster left its perch to join in, the two birds digging and clawing and scratching until there was simply nothing left of Banquero’s face, nothing at all. Then they fluttered over the broken railing, trailing blood from their feet and wingtips.
They landed on the narrow shoulders of a young woman clad in a gray jumpsuit. As the rest of the crowd fought to escape the arena, she hurried toward a hole that had been cut in the base of the far wall. Exhausted but otherwise unhurt, the two rumpled birds obediently hopped off her shoulders to precede her through the gap.
V
As Cardenas questioned selected representatives of the various ninloco gangs that drifted in and out of the Yumarado district he found himself watering a ripe field of negatives. No one knew anything. Nil, nix, nada; nothing. The interests of the gang members he talked to were wholly orthodox, which was to say they were obsessed with sex, drugs, and music to the exclusion of everything else. Causes moral or otherwise concerned them not at all. What interest they did express in magimals extended only to those that could be stolen and resold.
There was some talk of rare species being smuggled northward for sale from the CenAm states and the Yucatán, but to the best of the gangs’ knowledge this was traditional animal smuggling, nothing to do with magifying.
He spent a week questioning, interviewing, following tips, learning nothing. The heat was horrible and he tried to confine as much of his traveling as possible to late night.
The first morning of his second week in Yumarado found a message waiting on his desk when he came to work. Though elegantly phrased it was more in the nature of a command than a request. Something about the signature at the bottom seemed vaguely familiar. He ran it through research and was not surprised when a response was rapidly forthcoming.
His Yumaradoan colleagues were suitably impressed by the summons, which did not extend to the suppression of various risqué comments. Apparently his summoner had something of a reputation.
“I won’t have any problems,” he told his colleagues. “I’m an old man.”
“That’s all right,” a local sergeant guffawed. “From what I hear she’s kind of yesterday’s wine herself.”
They went so far as to give him a new cruiser to drive. After all, when he returned to Nogales they would have to remain, perhaps to deal with her again, and they wanted him to make a good impression on the department’s behalf. So he convoyed in comfort.
He’d been in the governor’s mansion in Phoenix once, for an official function. Compared to the house he now found himself approaching, that official residence was little more than a shack. His destination occupied several acres on a bend in the river; the real river, the old Colorado, not the nearby arrow-straight ship canal. The banks of the private peninsula on which the house was sited had been reinforced with flexible cladding to protect it from the rare possibility of flood or, more likely, dam failure on the upper river.
It was contemporary Southwest in design; two stories, artificial red tile roof, inward-slanting walls of faux copper engraved with murals executed by an artist of obvious talent and probable fame. Lush tropical landscaping surrounded the house and covered the grounds, signifying the presence of someone sufficiently wealthy to afford enough expensive desalinated water to maintain the luxuriant trees and shrubs.
He paused at an outer gate, flimsy in appearance but adequately electrified to fry any vehicle that might try to crash through, along with its occupants. The towering wall of ingrown mutated jumping cactus that enclosed the grounds was as green as it was deadly, a bioengineered barrier more effective than any that could be fashioned of concrete or metal. In effect, the house was guarded by a million toxic, attire-piercing needles.
Passing beyond this topiary terror Cardenas found himself greeted at the entrance to the house by an elderly Hispanic of superb bearing and posture. The man looked like a refugee from an old movie, the sort of somber countenance off which Cantinflas used to bounce hilarious bon mots. Overhead misting units lowered the outside temperature from the unbearable to the merely hellac
ious. He was glad to be inside.
The servant led him across an entryway tiled in black pyrite. One entire wall dripped water over hammered leaves of gold and copper, into a pool filled with glittering cichlids. The man left him in a room that boasted more floor space than Cardenas’s entire abode. A floor-to-ceiling arc of polarized glass looked out over the rush-lined sweep of ancient river. As he entered, both of the room’s occupants rose to greet him.
Cardenas figured the man for his late twenties. He was tall, athletic, his features perfectly handsome according to current styles, so much so that they verged dangerously on the effeminate. But his handshake was firm and his tone at once reverberant and accommodating. Smile and kind words notwithstanding, there was in his voice an undertone of something Cardenas found disconcerting. No one but another Intuit would have picked up on it.
Despite his presence and good looks it was his companion who immediately drew Cardenas’s attention, and not just because a woman’s signature had been appended to his summons. She was slightly taller than he but in no way statuesque, voluptuous without being overpowering. Her visage was dominated by a sharp-bridged, angular nose that might have been lifted from a classic Greek amphora. Dark hair tumbled around her in tight ringlets, framing her beautiful face. Cosmetic artisans had been at work there, but only to enhance what nature had given, not to replace or rebuild. She held a tall frosted glass in both hands and wore a rather severe V-necked dress of floating niobium lamé. She was perhaps twenty years older than her male companion and didn’t look half it.
“I appreciate your coming to see me, Sergeant.” Her voice was like the river beyond the glass, he thought. Steady, eternal, commanding, deceptively gentle at the edges. “Would you like something to drink?”
“No thanks,” he told her. “You said you might have some information for me, Ms. Okolona?”
She seemed to hesitate, a gesture as much studied as genuine, as she glanced briefly over at her companion, who had taken a seat on a sand-colored couch large enough to hold seven people.
“Ramón convinced me I should talk to somebody.”
Cardenas regarded the man, then the woman, and wondered why she should find the subterfuge necessary. From everything he had been told and had observed thus far, Sisu Sana Okolona was one of those entirely confident individuals who did not require approval of their actions from other human beings. He said nothing.
She began to pace. More for effect, he suspected, than from nervous need. “First it was that pet store owner. Of course, what he was doing was illegal, but he didn’t deserve to be murdered for it. Now that other man, Banquero, that was different.” Her expression twisted. “By all accounts he was a subhuman parasite, living off people as much as animals. But two other people got killed besides him, and a lot of others hurt.” She halted, regarding him with violet eyes the color of fine amethyst. “I don’t want anyone else hurt and blaming me for it.”
Cardenas’s brows rose. “You?”
“Didn’t they tell you about me at your station?”
“I know that you’re the president of Neurologic. I recognized the name Okolona.”
She smiled thinly. “My late husband and I. We founded the company when no one believed in it. Throwing our lives and abilities away on obsolete technology, everyone told us. We built Neurologic up from nothing, Sergeant, with our hands and brains and little else. No technology is obsolete. Only applications. Well, we discovered and developed some new applications. One of which was the magifying controller and concomitant software.”
“Ah,” said Cardenas, understanding now.
“Of course when Norris and I were working on the process the magimal concept wasn’t even a glimmer in our imagination. The neuromuscular stimulation technology that we were interested in was originally developed to enable paralyzed individuals to move their limbs by sending stimulating electrical impulses directly to the requisite muscles by means of ultrathin wires. Originally these were taped to the epidermis. Later they were inserted beneath the skin, for cosmetic purposes.
“But when we started working with the technology the biosurges were just learning how to regenerate damaged nerve tissue. That rendered electrical stimulation technology unnecessary and extraneous. Nevertheless my husband and I continued to work with it. We found other uses for the technology, not only in medical rehabilitation but in research. The magimal concept came about, as so many great commercial developments often do, by accident.
“We oppose the magifying of any exotic animals or dan-specs. The idea originally was and still is to provide children with better pets. Puppies that can talk. Birds that can help out around the house. Pit bulls into which fail-safes can be installed. Steeplechasing horses that no longer have to be destroyed because their riders can better help them avoid obstacles. Guard dogs that cannot only run down criminals but read them their rights and frisk them at no risk to the arresting officer. The magimal concept has been a great success.”
“So in addition to regretting the fact that magified animals were involved in the deaths of these people you’re also concerned about the possibility of adverse publicity,” Cardenas observed succinctly.
She responded with a radiant smile, but it was a cold, controlled radiance of the sort to be found in fireflies and certain effulgent denizens of the deep ocean. “I know that you would not have been sent all the way from Nogales if you were not an unusually perceptive and sensitive practitioner of your profession, Sergeant. I see that additional explication would in your case be superficial.”
“My concern is for the dead and injured,” he told her, pointedly omitting any reference to a desire to spare the Neurologic corporation bad publicity, “and in keeping this from happening again. That’s why I’m here. You said you might have some information that would be of use to me. I won’t deny that I could use some help.
“We think that some ninlocos may be involved, though for the life of me I don’t know why. There’s no motive for them. But an eyewitness put three at the scene of the first incident, and several survivors of the abortive pelea de gallos gave descriptions of a girl similar to the one seen at the first murder site.”
Sisu Okolona paused again, and this time her hesitation struck Cardenas as genuine. She glanced at her companion, who smiled and shrugged. Then she turned back to her patient visitor.
“Neurologic tries to track sales of our equipment, to prevent just the sort of illegal activities that the unfortunate pet shop owner was engaged in. We’re not in the investigative business and we’re not perfect. We’re just concerned about quality and, I admit it, publicity. Components are marked, but as I’m sure you know better than I there’s a vast underground market for all sorts of componentry.” She walked to a table and opened a drawer, extracting a piece of paper.
“A young woman of interest to us is suspected of frequenting this address. Not being the police, we’ve had no reason to interfere with her movements or activities. But she is one of a number of suspicious people we do try to monitor. You see, Sergeant, we try to stay one step ahead of the kind of people who have recently been killed. Obviously we are not always successful. You might pay this young person a visit and ask some of your questions. You might get an answer or two.”
Cardenas took the paper, glanced at the address. “This would be here in Yumarado.”
Okolona nodded once. “In the deep industrial district, I believe. Where once at high summer midday the temperature was reported to have hit fifty-six Celsius. Not a pleasant place. I would not like to go there.”
“I don’t mind the heat,” Cardenas told her. “Although as I get older I seem to have less tolerance. For it, and for other things.”
A real smile this time. “You’re not at all that old, Sergeant.” It vanished quickly. “Be careful if you follow up on this. My people tell me that even though these individuals are little more than children, they can still be dangerous.”
Cardenas put the paper in his shirt pocket. “I’ve taken down important
criminals and real locos, Ms. Okolona, but the boy who blew my face away years ago was just nineteen. It doesn’t take experience or strength to pull the trigger of a spitter.”
“Are you sure you won’t have that drink?”
“Gracias, but no. I guess I’m a glutton for work.”
“Now that,” she volunteered in kindly fashion, “will kill you far quicker than the heat.”
VI
The address consisted more of directions than numbers, and he had to abandon the police cruiser outside the first alley. The narrow gap that separated two maquiladora plants was frantic with people, lower-grade assemblers and toters rushing to beat deadlines and the heat. He’d waited until evening, not only because it was cooler but because he sensed he’d have a better chance of making the acquaintance of the contact at night. Ninlocos tended to sleep as much as possible during the hot day and emerge in the comparative cool of darkness, like any other sensible troglodytes.
Many of the maquiladora factories operated twin ten-hour shifts with four off in-between for maintenance and cleaning. With a surplus of labor drawn from CenAm, S.A., and the Mexican states they could set their own hours and standards and many did. Labor inspectors sometimes got paid to wink at substandard practices, but most of the big companies had to toe the line lest they risk a shutdown because of violations. They maintained government standards, not out of altruism but because it was cheaper than having their lines halted even temporarily. But the smaller plants, the independent operations… Cardenas had over the years observed conditions in some of them that bordered on the inhuman. They were able to stay in business because there was always a surplus of labor, millions begging for the low-paying, dangerous work. Anything was better than trying to eke out a living tilling a few acres of corn with a mule, or potatoes in the Andes.
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