Juarez Square and Other Stories

by Young, D. L.

  An hour passed as the square slowly came to life. Shopkeepers unlocked their storefront cages, food vendors busily set up their kiosks, pedestrian traffic began to fill the walkways. The bots worked their way through the crowds, ignored and unmolested.

  The narco boss lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes, then pointed beyond the square. “Here they come.”

  Diego’s pulse raced as he searched the streets. Then he saw it: an armored personnel carrier rolling toward the square. Four state police accompanied the vehicle on foot, a pair on each side.

  “Look, there’s another one,” one of the bodyguards said. Everyone on the roof turned to look. Another personnel carrier, flanked by four more cops. The boys skirted the edges of the roof, spotting two more groups.

  They’re hitting the square from all four sides. Diego quickly did the math, counting the cops he saw, guessing the numbers of those riding inside the carriers. Puta madre.

  He hadn’t counted on there being so many.

  The four groups converged, each pausing as they reached the square’s perimeter. Panicked shouts reached the rooftop as the people down below scrambled for the safety of the side streets. Shop owners quickly closed their storefronts. Food vendors wheeled away their kiosks. Within in a minute Juarez Square was empty of people. Only the four narcobots remained, rolling along, seemingly oblivious.

  Diego’s heart dropped into his stomach. They should have done something by now. What was wrong?

  After ten long seconds, the bots froze as they detected the police vehicles. In unison they clamped their dispenser baskets shut and converged in the center of the square, arranging themselves back to back, one facing each direction.

  El Carnicero glared at Diego and pointed down to the square. “Why aren’t they getting away? Why are they just sitting there out in the open?”

  Diego took a shaky breath. “That’s what they’re supposed to do.”

  Police in full riot gear poured from of the personnel carriers and quickly formed a wide ring around the four bots. Diego counted heads, grimacing as he reached forty. Jesus, so many.

  The police raised their riot shields and began to inch forward, tightening the circle, closing in. One of them raised a bot taser and took aim. The bots didn’t move. El Carnicero slammed his fist on the rooftop’s ledge. “What the hell is this?! Are they just going to sit there like statues? Get them the hell out of there!”

  He thrust his face so close to Diego’s their noses nearly touched. “If that hijo de puta gets even one of those bots,” he snarled, “you’re gonna wish I only cut off your finger.”

  Diego froze, the movie of his life rushing through his mind, the things he wanted to tell Lorenzo that would be left unsaid.

  “Hey, look,” cried one of the bodyguards.

  Diego and the narco boss turned and looked downward. The four bots raised the small add-on cylinders.

  El Carnicero squinted. “What are those things?”

  A quick succession of four cracks rang out as the bots fired the grenades. The perimeter of the square began to fill with dark green smoke. Within seconds the police and their vehicles were engulfed in the thick cloud. One of the bodyguards on the rooftop laughed as the sounds of confused shouts and panicky orders filled the square.

  The police were blind.

  The narco boss grunted. “Nice trick, but they’ll be switching to infrared in about two seconds. What then?”

  “No,” Diego said, surprised at the confidence in his voice, “they only pack those at night.”

  Still, the smokescreen was the easy part. The bots were still surrounded with all the exit streets blocked by personnel carriers. The muscles in Diego’s neck and shoulders tightened as the dark cloud blanketing the square began to dissipate; the bots were just becoming visible again. There wasn’t much time.

  Through the thinning smoke Diego watched the bots raise their other add-ons, the larger canisters, then begin to fire. Everyone jumped away from the edge of the roof. Even Diego, who knew what was coming, instinctively dropped to his knees.

  When the shooting stopped, he got up, stepped back to the building’s ledge, and peered down into the square. Where there had been shouts of confusion moments earlier, there were now howls of pain and terror. The narco boss appeared next to him, eyes wide. “Dios mio. Did you kill them?”

  “No, but they’re definitely having a bad day. The ammo was only those small rubber balls, the kind they use on protesters.” The balls knocked you down and hurt like crazy, but couldn’t kill. And most importantly, they bought the bots precious moments to make their escape.

  The center of the square was now almost smoke-free as the bots broke formation and started scanning for an exit.

  Come on, come on, find a way out of there, you little yellow bastards.

  El Carnicero leaned forward. “The bots can see through the smoke.” He turned to Diego, who kept watching the bots. “And the cops can’t,” Diego said, finishing the thought.

  The robots wandered the square in apparent confusion, repeating the same circular search patterns over and over. Diego gasped as one of the police, apparently blinded, staggered within an arm’s length of one of the bots. The smoke thinned further; now more than half the square was visible from the rooftop. The bots would be spotted any second, and with their weapons depleted they’d be easily disabled and taken away.

  The four bots suddenly came to a halt and Diego’s heart stopped.

  After a long moment that seemed to stretch forever, the robots began to move, forming a line and snaking their way around the chaotic debris of bodies and equipment, then disappearing into the smoke at the far side of the square. Diego held his breath until he saw all four appear in a narrow side alley, untouched and unnoticed. He watched them roll their way three blocks south to the arranged pickup spot, where Fernando the mechanic herded them into a cargo van and hauled them away. No police sirens sounded, no cop cars followed.

  Diego collapsed into a folding chair, exhausted. It was over. He’d done it.

  ***

  Two weeks later Diego woke up earlier than usual. He had seven upgrades El Carnicero wanted done by noon. He looked out the window down to the shop floor where his backlog of robots waited for him. After Juarez Square the narco boss had moved Diego into the apartment above the workshop, a well-furnished prison, and gave him a thick roll of cash. More money than Lorenzo earned in a year, though Diego didn’t have the freedom to spend it.

  Word had spread quickly about what went down at Juarez Square. Diego’s street cred had gone through the roof; everyone was talking about the fifteen-year-old robot genius from El Cuatro who’d made a fool of the new police captain.

  Diego poured himself a cup of coffee and pictured Lorenzo having breakfast alone. Surely he’d heard about Juarez Square by now. He cringed at the memory of how he’d left things, at what Lorenzo probably thought of him now. But there was nothing he could do about it. A dozen armed guards kept the shop on lockdown around the clock. He had no phone, no internet, no way to contact his brother and tell him he’d had no choice.

  His only hope was to do what he was told, keep working on the bots, and stay patient. It might take another month or two, maybe even a year, but at some point an opportunity to escape would present itself. Then he’d sneak away, find Lorenzo, and tell him everything. And they could use the money to move somewhere far away, somewhere beyond the narco boss’ reach.

  A rapid knocking on the door startled him. He opened and found a grim-faced Pedro and a couple bodyguards. Diego noticed the re-attached finger, still bandaged and healing. The older boy handed him a pair of binoculars and said, “You gotta come see this.”

  It was the first time Diego had left the warehouse since Juarez Square. For a moment he considered making a run for it, but the bodyguards with their suspicious eyes and sawed-off shotguns made him reconsider. He followed Pedro down Cendejas Avenue at a run, the bodyguards following close behind. A few blocks later the boys entered a ten-stor
y abandoned building and rushed up the stairs.

  “What is it? Tell me,” Diego called out as he rounded another flight.

  Pedro took the steps two at a time and shouted back. “You won’t believe it till you see it. Hurry up.”

  The boys reached the roof. Pedro led him to a far corner, then pointed down to the street.

  It looked like a war zone. The charred remains of six, maybe seven, narcobots were scattered everywhere, some still smoldering. Diego wrinkled his nose at the acrid stench of the bots’ melted plastic shells. He squinted and leaned forward; a strange-looking robot moved through the wreckage. His mouth dropped open as he recognized the state police seal on the bot’s side panel.

  It was something out of a nightmare, this bulky, well-armored machine loaded with weapons. He’d only ever seen the bomb squad use robots, and they were little tiny things, nothing at all like this beast, this killing machine.

  “Puta madre,” Diego said. “Where’d they get that monster?”

  Pedro tapped his shoulder and pointed in another direction. “Over there. Look over there.”

  Diego peered through the binoculars. A block away from the parking lot a dozen police milled about, smiling and laughing and gesturing toward the destruction. In the middle of the crowd stood Lorenzo, accepting handshakes from all sides. Lorenzo dressed in a police uniform.

  The binoculars dropped from Diego’s hand. His brother’s words flashed across his mind. I’ll be damned if I let you use what I taught you to help that animal.

  Diego lowered his head and thought of the moment he opened the apartment door to Pedro. A door that should have stayed closed. A door he’d never walk through again.

  Pedro shook his head, looking down at the destruction. “Man, your brother’s got a lot to answer for.”

  Diego sighed and said to himself, “Not as much as I do.”

  Dumpside

  One of the housemaids crossed the hallway at the far side of the Dump Lord’s marble-floored foyer. Standing outside the front door, Deke only caught a glimpse of her, but time seemed to stop as she moved from one doorway to another. He recognized her. He’d once seen her smile, years ago. Kind face, bright eyes. He stared at the empty hallway after she was gone. He didn’t know her name. He didn’t know any of their names. And of course they didn’t know his.

  Chang, the Dump Lord’s suit-and-tied right hand man, smirked as he noticed where Deke’s gaze had drifted. “Such a shame women aren’t allowed dumpside. But it’s a good rule, I think. Can’t have distractions when you should be taking care of the robots, can you?” Chang’s face glowed like that of a child savoring a piece of candy. There was nothing he seemed to enjoy more than needling Deke. “Must be hard living like a monk for so many years, yes?”

  Deke swallowed his anger, resisting the urge to ball up his fist and smash Chang in the face. He lowered his eyes and gritted his teeth, repeating his request. “I really need to see him. It’s important.”

  On a normal day Chang would drag out the conversation, wallowing in Deke’s frustration like a happy pig in a pool of mud. But today he must have been pressed for time. Chang waved his hand dismissively. “Running low on spare parts is not a crisis. I won’t bother my employer with a small problem like this. And if you don’t want to end up scrounging for a living down in Tijuana, you’ll stop pestering me to see him.” He fished around his pockets, pulled out some bills, and shoved them into Deke’s hand. “Here, this is more than enough for spares. Now go on, we have guests about to arrive. How would it look if they found you here, stinking up the reception area?”

  Deke sighed, his anger fading along with his hope. It was the latest in a long line of failed attempts to gain an audience with the Dump Lord. He tucked the bills into his pocket and took a last look toward the hallway. Chang slammed the heavy door shut, missing Deke’s nose by inches. Deke stood facing the door for a moment, then turned and headed in the direction of the barrier wall.

  Whenever he returned to dumpside from the estate, he always took his time, walking slowly and pausing to admire the ornate fountains and freshly sculpted gardens. When he reached the pool area, he paused. Through a gap in the hedgerow he saw the Dump Lord, smoking a cigar and wearing a white terrycloth robe and sunglasses. He and his entourage laughed and drank and enjoyed the company of impossibly beautiful women. How long had it been since Deke had even spoken to a woman? Three years? Four?

  A stern-faced security guard appeared and slapped a heavy hand on his shoulder. Deke had lingered too long. “Come on, robot man,” the guard said. “Back to your trash.”

  With the guard following close behind, Deke approached the towering wall, the barrier separating the Dump Lord’s estate from the twenty square miles that provided his livelihood. The engineer in Deke never failed to admire the genius of the landscape architect’s design, how the wall’s dense covering of vines and well-placed olive trees cleverly concealed any view of the massive garbage dump that lay beyond. No matter where you stood on the estate’s grounds you’d never guess how close it was. They’d even installed a ventilation system to keep the stink out.

  And it was the stink that hit him like a slap in the face as the guard jostled him through the gate to the other side.

  ***

  Deke meandered through the dump’s lonely maze of narrow paths. Walls of compressed fetid garbage, a century’s worth, towered over him five meters high on each side. Spare parts, he thought, shaking his head. Idiot. Chang was right. Spare parts weren’t a crisis. Deke would have to come up with something better.

  A shoe box-sized dump bot whizzed past his feet. It beeped rapidly as it scanned through the dense layers of trash, searching for scrap aluminum, pockets of biogas, vintage fashions, anything the Dump Lord could sell in the markets for hard currency. He watched the tenacious little machine stop and go, scan and re-scan.

  His pulse suddenly quickened as he stared at the robot, an idea taking shape. A word repeated itself over and over in his head.

  Leverage.

  He walked faster. A minute later he arrived at the trailer and threw open the door, breathless with excitement.

  “Timo?” he called. “You here? Timo?” The trailer was empty except for the usual scattering of clothes and empty food boxes. Deke exited the trailer and found the boy down one of the less traveled paths, methodically picking through a small animal’s carcass with his bare fingers.

  Deke threw his hand over his nose, the rotten stench so strong it overpowered dumpside’s ambient odors. “Jesus, why don’t you have the bots incinerate that thing? It’s disgusting.” He loathed the boy’s interest in dump rat dissection, but tolerated the odd habit as a trade-off, a small price to pay for the perfect helper. The boy never asked for much, did what he was told, and was a quick study with the bots.

  Timo didn’t look up as he poked through the entrails. “I know it don’t smell like roses, Mr. Deke, but take a look here.” He smiled and held up something small and shiny and covered in slime. “There you go, ruby ring, pretty as you like. These here dump rats love anything shiny, and sometimes when they swallow stuff they shouldn’t it gets stuck in their gut. Mostly they just got cockroaches in there, but every once in a while you win the lotto.”

  Deke grimaced at the sight of the boy’s hands, shiny with rat goo. “Leave that thing alone, I’ve got news.”

  ***

  Deke knelt over a pair of dump bots, tapping in the final sequence of their new instructions. He snapped the lids closed, watched them skitter away, and smiled. “Fly, my pretties.”

  A voice behind him said, “You actually talk to them? Why am I not surprised?” Deke nearly fell over as he whirled around.

  Chang. Deke blinked and stared with his mouth open. Chang…here. In his eight years working with the Dump Lord’s robots, he’d never known Chang to take a single step beyond the estate’s barrier wall, but now here he stood, ten miles dumpside.

  It could only mean the plan was working. The Chang who Deke had
known would never have lowered himself to come here and dirty his precious clothes, unless there was something big on his mind.

  A surgical mask covered most of Chang’s face, everything but his glaring eyes. “What the hell’s wrong with your phone? I’ve been trying to reach you for two days.”

  Deke’s stomach fluttered; he resisted the urge to smile. Instead he shrugged and feigned ignorance. “I needed the phone parts for a bot. What are you doing here?”

  “Is there someplace around here we can talk that doesn’t stink so bad?”

  Deke motioned for him to follow and led him through a narrow, upward-sloping path. The Dump Lord’s right hand lagged behind, gingerly avoiding contact with everything around him and wincing at the sight of dump rats. Deke glanced back and stifled a laugh. You’re on my turf now. Back at the estate Chang might be the big shot power-tripper, deciding who got in and who didn’t. But this was dumpside, and dumpside was Deke’s side.

  A minute later they emerged from the path and into the warm sunlight at the top of a mound. A light breeze lessened the stink.

  “Jesus, that’s better,” Chang said. His eyes widened as he took in the view around him. “Christ, I never realized how big it is.”

  Deke nodded. “This is one of the taller mounds. You can see just about all of it from here.”

  Gently rolling hills of compacted garbage stretched for miles in every direction. An endless supply of windblown paper formed itself into swirling eddies, animating the dump’s surface like plumes of sand in a desert. Crisscrossing the dump was an ever-deepening network of paths carved out by the bots over time.

  Deke remembered when he could step into a bot path like stepping off a curb; now they were five, even ten meters deep in places. He reached up and touched his face, running his fingers over the lines around his mouth, the loose skin of his jowls. The telltales of middle age. During his morning routine lately he’d found himself staring into the bathroom mirror, imagining tiny unseen bots scurrying back and forth inside the wrinkles of his face, slowly deepening them like the dump paths. Turning him into an old man, alone and miserable.