AZTECHS

by Lucius Shepard

  Ramiro held up his index finger to Felix’s face and said, “Cuidado, chico! Cuidado!” Felix made a frustrated noise and perched sideways on the edge of the table. Ramiro looked thoughtfully at Zee. “How will all this benefit AZTECHS?”

  “Stability,” said Zee. “An alliance with a nation state will further guarantee our security.”

  Ramiro leaned back, worrying his teeth with his tongue. “I assume you are speaking about the security of that thing in the desert?”

  “The area we’re concerned about is noted in the file we sent you.”

  Ramiro signaled one of his advisors. “Dame el filo.”

  The advisor reached down to a briefcase on the floor next to his chair and withdrew a folder thick with papers. He slid it along the table to Ramiro, who began poring over it. Ruy leaned in close to have a look. Felix turned his back on the table, walked a few paces closer to the altar and stood staring into the shimmering red light of El Rayo. Lupe asked me questions with her eyes. I shook my head the slightest bit, telling her not to worry. None of my people appeared to have moved. All four men were focused on the Carbonells.

  “Tell me about this,” said Ramiro, and read from the file: “‘With the guidance of AZTECHS, the Carbonell Family will train affiliates to oversee the education of future leaders.’”

  Zee began to explain the necessity of purging the Carbonell ranks of the irresponsible and the unstable by filtering them through the process of a sophisticated education designed to equip them to make their way through the straits of international diplomacy. My feeling was that he had Ramiro on the hook—the old guy clearly was entranced by the idea of becoming a world leader. Ruy, I thought, was on the fence. But Felix…Felix was not a guy with whom you wanted to push the notion of purging unstable elements. He put out a vibe like an old fluorescent tube on the fritz.

  “What do you think, boys?” Ramiro glanced at Felix, then Ruy. “You want to be a country?” He threw back his head and laughed. “I wonder what we should call it?”

  “Let’s honor our grandfathers,” said Ruy sullenly. “Let’s call it Cocaine.”

  “Whatever you call it,” Zee said, “it will be a most remarkable country. It will offer its citizens something no other country can, and this will enable to you hire top people in every field with the mere promise of citizenship. You’ll be in a position to achieve economic dominance.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Ramiro.

  “Your country,” said Zee, “will be able to offer its citizens the guarantee of an afterlife.”

  The three Carbonells met this statement with expressions of incredulity. Finally Ruy said, “You talkin’ ’bout that software shit, man?”

  “Not at all.” Zee seemed to feel a great deal more confident than I did. “It has nothing to do with uploading the personality. I’m speaking of an actual physical place. A Valhalla for the Mexican people. A brave eternity.”

  Felix made an explosive sound and wheeled up from the table. He mounted the steps of the altar, seized a gold candelabra and hurled it into the fire of El Rayo. There was a faint crackling, a white flash.

  “Come back and sit down!” Ramiro told him.

  “No mas, hombre!” Felix descended the stairs. “I ain’t listenin’ to this shit.” He slapped his chest twice above his heart. “I’m not no damn businessman! I’m a fuckin’ bandido, man! Yo soy un criminal! This is not what the Carbonells do…this pussy bullshit!” He pointed at Zee and walked closer. “This little girl is jerkin’ us off with one hand and tryin’ to slice off our balls with the other! That what you wan’, Papa? You wanna get fucked up the ass by a fuckin’ machine? You wanna wear a suit and pretend you fuckin’ Napoleon?”

  Tears began coursing down Felix’s face. The crazy fucker truly loved his family traditions. He was probably seeing himself in the AZTECHS-controlled future, a patriarch reminiscing about the good old days when he used to snuff ten, fifteen people before breakfast. What wasn’t so amusing was Ramiro-and-Ruy’s reaction. Instead of treating him like a mad dog, they were gazing at him warmly, pridefully, as if his nutzoid act brought back comforting memories of Carbonell atrocities.

  “Do it, Papa,” said Felix.

  He and Ramiro exchanged a meaningful look.

  “Do what?” I said, bracing myself on the arms on my chair, ready to jump. “I don’t know what you people got in mind, but I recommend caution.”

  “Felix is right, Papa,” said Ruy. “We don’t need this.”

  “I don’t know what the problem is,” Zee said. “But if you have any doubts, any questions, that’s why I’m here.”

  “What’s goin’ on?” Lupe came to her feet. “Eddie?”

  I hauled Zee out of his chair. “Gentlemen,” I said to Ramiro and his brood. “We’re leavin’.”

  Zee shook me off—he was stronger than he looked. “We should all take a moment to reflect,” he said, addressing Ramiro. “There is a great deal…” He broke it off and stared at the shimmering surface of El Rayo as if noticing it for the first time. “Run!” he said.

  I heard a rumbling, felt the floor shake. Just like in Cruzados, the wall of red fire behind the altar flickered and shut down. I’m not sure how many gunmen were standing on the other side. Enough to make a soccer team. They opened up as I shoved Zee and Lupe toward the door. On my left, Fetisov went down without a cry, and I couldn’t understand why we weren’t all dead. Then I realized the gunmen must be targeting Sammy, saving the rest of us for hostages, for ransom. They moved into the church, firing century-old handguns unaffected by the suppressor field. The gunfire reverberated, building to a roar, and I lost track of things, focused on getting Lupe and Zee clear. As we passed through the door, Zee took a hit in the back. He stumbled, but kept going. A red splotch like one of those fancy badges attached to Second Prize ribbons bloomed beneath his right shoulder blade. Childers stood on the steps firing from his hip, spraying the area with micro-grenades from his AR-20, then turning to fire into the church. The courtyard was littered with bodies, flames licking up from their clothing. Dennard threw open the rear door of the personnel carrier, urged us inside. Lupe scrambled into the carrier. Dennard dragged Zee in after her. I opened the passenger-side door, intending to slide behind the wheel, but Childers climbed in the driver’s side and kicked over the engine. Bullets plinked off the armored skin. Then we lurched forward, speeding toward the gate. Through the slit windows front and side, I saw Carbonell soldiers scattering. There was a screech of bursting metal as we blew out the gate and barreled off into the wasteland of hovels that separated Barrio Ningun from the cathedral.

  Childers made a beeline for the desert, not trying to avoid the flimsy habitations in our path, but cutting a swath through them instead. It was like being inside a whirlwind. Shards of plywood, pots and pans, small appliances, toys, clothing, flapping sheets of cardboard, a woman with a terrified face, all these things and more were flipped up into the air by the passage of the carrier—a surreal form of weather sleeting past the windows, flaring in the headlights. Other lives went down beneath us, discernable as bumps. I tried to yank Childers’ arm from the wheel, but he backhanded me. My head cracked against the door. As I struggled to clear my head, I had a glimpse of an intense white flash. A shockwave sent the carrier swerving, veering almost sideways, and I heard a terrible sound. Like something bigger than the world had taken a swallow down into its void of a belly. Then I was slammed forward into the dash. I righted myself and Childers winked at me. “I left Ramiro a little present in the courtyard,” he said.

  Still dazed, I was unable to speak.

  “Just a pocket nuke.” Childers spun the wheel and something bulky flattened beneath our tires. “Clean and mean. Two hundred yard radius on the kill zone. We’re fine.”

  I managed to sit upright. “You know how many people you just killed?”

  “Thousand…fifteen hundred tops. I thought it might be a good idea to deal with your Carbonell problem. You’ve got nothing to worry about on
that account now.”

  I peered through the front slit, freckled with the blood of someone we had slaughtered. We had cleared the edge of the barrio and were gliding across the hardpan, heading for deep desert.

  “You look like someone stole your bunny rabbit,” Childers said.

  I made another try for the wheel. Childers pushed me away.

  “Take a breath,” he said. “They were the bad guys. We should have done it years ago. What’s more, you’re a hero now. Los de Abajo and the Guzmans, they’ll bless your name.”

  “‘We’?” I said. “Who’s ‘we’?”

  Childers hesitated. “Us,” he said finally, and then he spelled it: “Yoo. Ess.”

  It was obvious that Childers considered himself a humorist. I wasn’t certain if he was fucking with me. He was beginning to seem very un-Sammylike. It wasn’t so much the comedy as the fact he was acting from forethought—not one of Sammy’s strengths.

  “Pull over,” I said.

  Childers gave no sign of compliance.

  I drew my gun. “I said pull over, man.”

  “Sure,” said Childers. “Whatever you say, boss.”

  Before I could react, he snatched the gun from my hand, reversed it and fitted the muzzle to my forehead. The circle of skin it covered went numb.

  “Any other orders?” Childers asked. “No? Okay. Then why don’t you check on the client?” He nudged me with the gun.

  I lifted the intercom speaker from a clip under the dash, thumbed the talk button. “What’s happenin’ back there?”

  Dennard answered, his voice crackling. I thought I heard Lupe in the background. It sounded as if she was doing commentary. “Man’s alive, but he’s shaky,” Dennard said. “He wants to go into the desert.”

  “Ask him about Morely.” Childers pocketed the gun.

  I thumbed the button again. “Is Morely with you?”

  “He sings in my anger,” Dennard said.

  “Say again.”

  Dennard did not reply.

  “Guess I’ll take that as a negative.” I switched off the intercom and sat staring glumly at the pale fissured ground flowing beneath our lights.

  “I understand why you’re depressed,” said Childers blithely. “I mean you really let the team down, Eddie. You should have known Ramiro would have a hole card. Figuring the angles was your job. You were lucky to have me along.”

  I ignored this, even though it was the truth. “Where’d you get the nuke?”

  “Family heirloom.”

  “Cut the stand-up,” I said. “What the fuck is goin’ on?”

  He spared me a quick look. “You mean ultimately? Or this now?”

  “Ultimately will do,” I said.

  That tickled Childers. He laughed, spanked the steering wheel. “I love a scapegoat with a sense of humor.”

  “Scapegoat?”

  “You’re the one in charge. You’re responsible for whatever goes down. Only reason you’re still alive is so you can take the hit. If you get out of line, I have no compunction against killing your girlfriend. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But I can see you’re dying to know,” Childers said. “So I’ll tell you what’s up. I’m going after Montezuma.”

  “The AI?”

  “I know.” Childers waggled a hand as if to deflect my smile. “You’re thinking what chance does one man have against an AI? No chance at all, right? But you see, Eddie, I am not a natural man.” He peeled off his neck patch, tossed it. “The patch is just a boost. I’ve got more technology in me than all the monkeys in the tree. Montezuma is going to look straight through me. I’m not going to ring one of his bells.” His eyes found me again. “What do you care? It’s not business, right?”

  I shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “Exactly!” said Childers. “Excellent attitude, Eddie. It’ll take you far. Maybe even as far as the good ol’ U.S. of A. Would you like that? Would you like it if you and your Pops regained your citizenship? It can be arranged. Just be a helpful lad and do what I tell you.”

  If Childers thought he could define me as a scapegoat one minute and the next have me buy into a promise of rewards, his technology needed an adjustment. That kind of arrogance was very Sammylike. I decided he must be some sort of mutant Sammy with some new wrinkles designed for this particular operation. And if that’s all he was, he had his weak spots.

  “Un-unh!” said Childers in a cautionary tone. “Don’t you start thinking on me, Eddie. Thinking’s dangerous, and we’ve already seen you’re not very good at it.”

  Week Three

  We drove out beyond the stone head, traveling south and west, following the cuts between low hills. Dawn turned to daylight, and I began to see riders on the hillcrests. Never more than three or four at a time. They kept their distance and I could make out nothing about them. Silhouettes against a high blue sky. Then shortly before ten o’clock the carrier’s engine died and we rolled to a halt in a wide arroyo bordered by banks of yellow rock. There was no gas problem, nothing mechanically wrong. It simply quit. Childers was unconcerned.

  “It was only a matter of time before Montezuma stopped us,” he said. “We’re inside his first line of defense.” He opened his door. “See those patches of glittering sand? There.” He pointed to a shoal-shaped patch curving out from a rock face that broke from a hillside. “That’s all machines. Trillions of ’em. You wouldn’t want to take a walk through it. Likely some of the machines filtered up into the engine and shut us down.”

  “How you know that?” I asked.

  “We know everything.”

  “‘Us,’ you mean.”

  Childers smiled. “Whatever.”

  We sheltered beneath the overhang of the rock face until late afternoon. Dennard spent the entire time sitting cross-legged, tranced out. With the delicate tattoos on his lips and eyelids, cranes and pharaonic men and women with their arms held in positions of dance, he resembled a serene monster in an Egyptian nightmare. Childers, manly Sammy that he was, declined to take advantage of the shade and passed the hours perched on a chunk of dark rock that thrust up from the sand about fifty feet away, staring out at the desert. Now and again his hand would stray to his pack, as if making sure it was still resting beside his knee. I imagined it contained a program that would shut down but not destroy the AI—if “Us” wanted to kill it, they would have simply nuked the area. Lupe cried and complained for the first hour, then fell asleep. Frankie scuttled about shooting this and that. I tried to sleep, but kept recalling our violent ride through the shanties and wondering how my business would be affected by people believing that I’d nuked the Carbonells and wondering also how the hell I was going to get Lupe and me clear of whatever was about to happen.

  Zee lay on a collapsible stretcher that was part of the carrier’s medical supplies, fading in and out of consciousness. At one point he beckoned to me, and I kneeled beside him. His skin was acquiring a pastiness, but despite loss of blood and pain, he maintained his calm.

  “Senor Poe,” he said in a creaky whisper. “Listen to me. This man…” He nodded toward Childers. “You must”—he coughed, closed his eyes—“you must prevent him from accomplishing his mission.”

  I gave this a moment’s consideration. “How you know what’s he up to?”

  Zee blinked up at me, shaping words with his mouth but making no sound.

  “Did Dennard tell you?” I asked. “Is he in on it?”

  Very weakly, he said, “What is known to my father, I also know.”

  “Your father?”

  “Please, Senor Poe. Listen.” Zee caught at my arm. “If you do not stop him, eternity will be lost.”

  “Eternity,” I said. “Oh…yeah. We can’t have that.”

  Then—thinking that if Zee knew what “his father” knew, I might be able get a line on Childers—I said, “He says the AI can’t see him. What’s that all about?”

  “He is not here. He…” He broke off and concentrated on staying al
ive.

  “You’re in contact with the AI, right?” I said. “Can’t you direct it to Childers?”

  “It is…it’s as if my father does not believe he exists.” He faded a little, then after about half a minute he went on: “If you are injured, go to one of the organic distribution points. The gates to eternity are all around you.”

  I’d been feeling scattered before speaking to Zee—this talk of organic distribution points wasn’t helping me hold it together.

  “So these points, they got a little marker says what they are?” I asked. “’Cause I don’t got a clue what the fuck you talkin’ about.”

  Lupe crawled up beside me, leaned in over my shoulder. “Is he okay?” Somewhere along the line she had freshened her make-up and was ready for the camera. The viewing audience would appreciate a nice death scene.

  Zee appeared to make a slight gain; a degree of animation had been restored to his face. “What do you know of God?”

  I wasn’t sure which of us he was addressing, but Lupe jumped right in. “Sundays when I was a little girl,” she said, gazing soulfully at Frankie, who had taken a position facing her on the opposite side of the stretcher, “my mami would set out a white lace dress with the ruffled skirt, and…”

  She began to relate her churchical experiences, how she flirted with the little boys, especially that cute Pedro Garza, and everyone marveled over how beautiful she looked. It was a total fantasy. Lupe had been brought up in Santa Barbara. Her father was a successful lawyer who spent his Sundays on the golf course, and her mother’s hangover rarely permitted her to rise before six in the evening. As far as I knew she had never called her mother “Mami.” Slut, bitch, and “that fuckin’ old hag…” were the pet names she usually applied. I was starting to wonder if shock had knocked her brain off-line, and she had retreated into her on-air personality.

  “Man didn’t ask what you wore to church,” I said. “What you wore to church and who you wanted to screw when you were twelve don’t have a hell of a lot to do with God.”

  Lupe frowned at me, and I figured we were about to have one of our famous, ratings-boosting fights, but Zee, who was clearly tuned to another channel, interrupted by saying, “You once asked me who I was before I came to the desert. I am now who I was then…but made clean. Perfected.”