Chapter Eight: No Such Thing As Betrayal In The Underworld

The day I learned my father was involved in the drug trade I thought it was like any other day. The mothpokes were out watching the herd while Dad was fixing the rig. I was helping him replace the shot-up parts. Rocket Girl had come over. She had brought over some extra Lehnsherr plates. She had this crazy idea to use them as stabilizers on a rocket so that it would glide along the plains like a torpedo. I wasn’t sure it would work, but this was Rocket Girl. I dropped everything, including the upgrades to Cerbie’s frame, and I helped her with the Lehnsherr plates.

I should explain Lehnsherr plates in case you are too young to understand or your parents don’t let you tear rockets apart (which is bad parenting, if you ask me). Lehnsherr plates are like giant electromagnets. They are used in all hover vehicles to lift them up in the air. Different vehicles have different types of plates, which allow them to skim across the surface of a planet or fly through the air. The ones Rocket Girl brought over (and left, I might add) were thick, heavy plates used for transports. They were wider than the rocket, which is why I thought it wouldn’t work.

While she mounted the rocket onto our table, I was holding the flashlight for Dad. He scowled at me cause I had lowered the light. What can I say? I had a crush.

“Boy, raise the light.”

I came to my senses and shined the light where I thought it should go. Frustrated, Dad reached up with his carbon-covered hands and raised my arm higher. “No, here,” he growled. “If you’re going to do a job, do it right.”

“Hey, Dad. I was wondering something.”

“What’s that?” He was leaning into the rig’s engine. He had one boot braced against the inside frame, and the other flattened on the edge of the rig. I was standing on a step ladder on the opposite side. The rig shook as he tightened the new intake valve back into place.

“Did you take out a loan for these parts, or did you take from savings?” It was an obvious question. We had no bull, no calves to slaughter, and we were paying doctors and wranglers with moth steaks. So where did the money come from to buy the new parts? The answer, of course, was that the Nords bought the parts like Hel told my dad, but I didn’t know any of this, so Dad had to come up with something quick.

“I traded some hides and did a little work at the slaughterhouses in San Malinche. I could have bought better parts if you could stomach the slaughterhouses.” Liar. I would have questioned him more, but I was staring at Rocket Girl. Again, I lowered the light. Dad looked up to me, saw me watching Rocket Girl, and took the light from me.

“You’re just not going to work for me today, are you?”

“What?”

“Give me the flashlight, and go help Rocket Girl build her guided missile.”

“I’m not building a guided missile,” Rocket Girl said from the other side of the garage. I slid off the step ladder, and Dad wedged the flashlight between engine parts so he could see better. It kind of worked.

Cerbie, who had been sitting beside the ladder faithfully, followed me to the assembly table.

I watched Rocket Girl remove the wings from the body of an old assembly. From under her black bandana, her short, strawberry red hair curled around her ears. She had a cute, almost impish face with puffy cheeks and a twisted smile. And if she smiled at you, I mean really smiled at you, you were done. She didn’t know she had one of the prettiest smiles in school, which is probably why she wasn’t one of the most popular kids. That, and she always dressed for the garage with that tool belt wrapped around her waist.

“Stop staring and help me disassemble the motor. I’ve been writing code on the software for days. Evan helped me model it to make sure it doesn’t spin out of control and crash into the ground.”

“Evan, huh?”

“Yes. And drop that tone.”

“What tone?”

“Mateo, I’ve known you for what, seven years? Our families have been friends practically since the day you landed on Mala-Mundial. I know when you have that jealous tone in your voice.”

“I’m not jealous. I just think you should know more about Evan before you start modeling for him.”

She put down the electric screwdriver and smiled at me. That pretty, impish smile that made me turn to ice slush and think of her hands wrapped around my body on the hovercycle.

“So how long have you been modeling for Evan, and when is your first fashion show?” She laughed and threw a bolt at me. I ducked. Cerbie barked at her.

“Good boy,” I said.

Cerbie scooped up the bolt, licked me on the face with the other head, then returned the bolt to Rocket Girl.

“Oh! Betrayal!” Rocket Girl launched the bolt at me again. Cerbie laughed in that way dogs laugh. It wasn’t a bark or a howl. It was a laugh. His mouths spread into grins, and then, tail wagging, he set after the bolt again.

Suddenly he stopped and a siren wailed from the speakers in his body. I popped open the screen cover on his back (we couldn’t afford side screens).

“Somebody is approaching on a hovercar,” I told Dad.

“Okay.” He put away his tools and wiped his hands on an old rag. Rocket Girl did the same. Then she followed Dad to the house. I bet it must have looked weird to see me and Rocket Girl then. She was clearly following my dad, and I was clearly following her. Dad put on his hoary-coated jacket, Rocket Girl put on her hoary-coated jacket (though Mrs. Saldaña stitched extra pockets into Rocket Girl’s jacket). I put on my hoary-coated jacket. Then Cerbie and I followed the rest outside.

Dad had binoculars, but the hover car was coming so fast, I didn’t think we needed them. I recognized the dark hovercar with blue ice-flames painted on the sides. This was the car of the most popular kid in the class and the new proprietor of a San Malinche brothel. This was Hel.

“Is that a Mayhem Supercharger she’s driving?” Rocket Girl asked with awe in her voice. “I heard they have Vortex 8.1 Lehnsherr plates.”

“8.2s,” I corrected.

The hover car pulled to a stop and settled in front of the door. Hel climbed out. She was dressed in all-white. Her clothes were probably walked on the runways two months ago. Her pistol, however, was not.

“Hi, Mateo,” Hel said nervously when she opened the door.

“Can we talk? Inside?” She asked. I was surprised to find that after addressing me, she was now talking to my dad. I assumed she was here because of me.

“Anything for the daughter of the Frost Giant.” This was still weird to hear. I had seen her father executed.

We all started walking inside when Hel added “Alone?”

Dad nodded. “You and Rocket Girl go work on that assembly in the garage. I’ll come get you when we’re done.”

“Okaaay,” I drawled out, confused. Rocket Girl flashed me a look that she was just as confused as me. We walked out of the kitchen and through the rib tunnel to the garage. I made sure to leave Cerbie with them. The two-headed dog crawled to the side of the kitchen to stay out of sight and out of mind.

“Alright,” Dad said after I shut the door to the tunnel. “What do you want to talk about? If this is about...”

“Not yet,” Hel said. Cerbie had not escaped her view. She pointed at my dog.

“Cerbie, get out of here!” Dad scolded the dog, which slunk out of the kitchen and pawed at the door to the tunnel. I opened the door and let Cerbie into the garage.

“Well, that didn’t work,” Rocket Girl said.

“Don’t count me out yet,” I said. I pulled up Cerbie’s screen. I opened the tracking program, then the last recorded audio. I copied Hel’s audio and added it to the tracking program, then repeated the process for Dad’s voice. I reapplied the program, and three seconds later, I was picking up their conversation.

“Okay, I think we are alone now,” Dad said.

“You are a wizard with these robots,” Rocket Girl said. She leaned in close to me to listen to the conversation. You know how everybody has a personal bubble, and some people’s bubbles are bigger than others? There is also this sensation you get when somebody you want to get close to you enters that bubble, like Rocket Girl did then. I couldn’t touch her, but I could feel her, you know? Her skin was inches away from mine.

“I was sent here by the Frost Giant,” Hel said.

“Have you found out who told the Doña Muertes about my crops? They are almost ready to harvest.”

“We don’t have any crops,” I said to Rocket Girl. I didn’t understand.

Avoiding the question, Hel said, “My father wants to ensure your loyalty to the Nords.”

“This must be important to him if he sent his only daughter to talk to me.”

“Loyalty is one of the most powerful tools in my father’s toolbox. Did the parts for the rig fit?”

“They are working very well. Tell your father I am very thankful.”

“I will.” She paused. Something was on her mind, like she was struggling with something. There was something she had to get straight with, and if I had known, I probably would have run screaming from the garage.

“What’s on your mind, Hel?” My dad asked.

“We have a bit of a problem.”

“Oh?”

“We haven’t found a source of the leak, yet.”

“Ah, you are looking everywhere, though, and I’m on that list.”

“Everybody is on the list, Mr. Cavazos.”

“Please, call me John.”

Hel paced in the kitchen. “John, I need some assurance that you have not broken your deal with the Nords.”

In the garage, I was beside myself. Dad was working with the Nords? We had a crop? Que pendejo. I was in the dark on a lot of things, but I was about to be brought completely into the light.

“You have my word.”

“Your word isn’t enough.”

“My word’s always been enough.”

“There’s no such thing as betrayal in the underworld, as the saying goes.”

I couldn’t hear it, but there was a pause. I’m sure my dad sat down at the table.

“What does the Frost Giant want, Hel?”

“You need to give him some kind of assurance that the crop will be harvested on time and delivered to San Malinche. If you cannot think of a suitable sign of assurance, I have been instructed to find one.”

“All I’ve got is my herd and my boy. And without them, I don’t have anything.”

Hel looked pained. She knew what she had to do, but she was fighting it. “Don’t be limiting, John. Surely there is something else. That is the Nord cragweed growing in The Hideout.”

“What?” I said to Rocket Girl back in the garage. “What did she just say?”

Rocket Girl was grim and silent.

In the kitchen, Hel said, “I am taking your son with me back to San Malinche until the cragweed is harvested.”

“No. Not him. You can’t have him. How about his dog? I am sure the Nords can find use for a Cerberus. You can keep the dog until we bring the crop in. That dog is his best friend. Will that be enough?”

Hel nodded. “Yes.”

Dad led her down the ribcage tunnel into the garage.

“Boy!” he shouted. “Mateo, get over here!”

But we were already gone.

I hadn’t stayed to hear my father and Hel barter over my kidnapping. When I learned that my own father was lying to me, the truth of it was setting me on fire. I had to go to the Hideout and I had to see the crop of cragweed for myself.

The old hovercycle flew over the plains, Cerbie tailing about fifty meters behind. As I drove, Rocket Girl behind me, I was angry. I thought of the times my father belittled me for thinking less of him. I thought of how long he had been lying to me about the crops. This must be what he was doing when I thought he was going into town. He was coming out here to work on the crop, or he was going into town to make deals with the Nords. What the hell?

I wiped my tears as we came over the ridge to the Hideout. I knew the place well. I used to come out here as a kid until Dad said it was too dangerous. Scientists from Niflheim had decreed the mountains and cryo-volcanoes in the area too likely to avalanche. On the avalanche danger scale the area was ranked four out of five, meaning that a natural avalanche was likely, but a human-triggered avalanche was very likely, and the area should be avoided. And of course, my old man was raising drug crops there. What could go wrong?

The first thing we saw were the dead bodies of women hanging from the tusks of mammoths. The far side of the crater was ringed with large mammoth skulls, and each skull had a corpse strapped to its tusks. Some of them were eaten away, and on one skull only a hand remained, but most of them still had bodies.

“Mateo, we shouldn’t be here,” Rocket Girl said. “Those bodies are a warning of what will happen to anyone who doesn’t belong in this crater.”

“Well, my dad is raising the crop, so I guess technically I belong here, too.”

Half the crater was covered in black, thorny cragweed. Its purple leaves blossomed and thrived in the low light and cold tundras of Mala-Mundial. As a person living in the Far Colony, I knew the plant’s reputation well. Almost every part of the plant could be used to get someone high. The juice from the vine could be milked and stored in tiny vials for hits. The milk would then be transferred to a syringe and then the milk inserted intravenously. The petals could be crushed up and smoked. The seeds were chewed on and spit out, and even the pollen from the plant had hallucinogenic properties. I’d even hear that some people liked to stick the thorns on their body for a constant high.

This was the second reason the rangers returned to Mala-Mundial. They had to stop the drug trade. They talked to us about in school. There was a hotline we were supposed to call if we saw anything. Nobody ever did. Now I know why. Cragweed is grown in far-off, secluded places like my effing backyard. Hijole!

I thought this was as bad as it could get. But then the gun troll fired on us.

Next Chapter: Chapter Nine: Without Torture, No Progress