Juarez Square and Other Stories (21 page)

“Fresh tuna steaks, get ‘em while they’re, uh, room temperature, I guess.” Dilon’s face clouded over with concern as he noticed Hanif’s welling eyes. “What’s going on, Han?”

They exited the garden and sat on a concrete bench. “You were right,” Hanif said, wiping his eyes with his sleeve.

“About what?”

“The sharks.”

A heavily pregnant woman walked past, holding the hand of a chubby toddler who waddled to keep up. The boy stopped for a moment, locked eyes with Hanif and smiled, his plump cheeks lifting upwards. “I’m going to school,” he announced.

“Come on, Santiago,” his mother urged. “We’re going to be late.”

Hanif watched them as they hurried along. The toddler waved at him just before he disappeared around a corner with his mother.

Hanif’s stare lingered on the empty space left by the boy for a long moment. “Plump babies,” he muttered.

“What?” Dilon asked.

“Plump, healthy babies. That’s all this was ever about.” And wasn’t that enough? Why did politics have to butt in and turn everything upside down?

“I take it your chat with Mister Big Trader wasn’t exactly inspiring?” Dilon asked.

“Understatement of the decade.” Dilon listened intently as Hanif recounted the details of his meetings with Andersen and Wellington.

Dilon shook his head. “Sorry to hear it, Han. I guess being a hotshot scientist ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“You said it,” Hanif agreed. A small part of him wished he’d never managed to perfect the seeds, then the larger part of him felt guilty for having such a thought. There didn’t seem to be any winning in all of this, only degrees of losing.

“Any possibility you can sit this one out? Declare yourself neutral, that kind of thing?”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

Dilon scratched his beard and considered. “Remember when you sneaked those protein rations to me when we were kids?”

Hanif didn’t feel much like reminiscing. “Sure, I guess.”

“What would have happened if you’d been caught?”

Hanif shrugged. “I don’t know. A month of home detention maybe. What’s your point?”

“Well, what makes this so different?”

The way this man’s mind works sometimes, Hanif thought. Only Dilon could make the connection between a pocketful of soy protein and a winner-take-all political war.

When Hanif looked at him crossly, Dilon showed his palms. “Okay, okay,” he said. “Let me put it this way. What do I always say when I have a lose-lose choice to make?”

The question stopped Hanif cold. His eyes widened, his thoughts sent in a new, unexpected direction.

A clever smile spread across Dilon’s face, the naughty grin of the boy Hanif had grown up with.

In unison they said, “Go with the third option.”

* * *

The next morning a luminous red glow gave Torrox’s southern dockyard a dreamlike quality. A perfect, beautiful dawn, Hanif thought, appropriate to the occasion. He stood at the bottom of the jetty steps, listening to the low rumble of the boat motors as the fishermen prepared for their journey. Normally at this hour, the crews hustled back and forth loading gear and food, their faces earnest and concentrated on the task at hand. But this morning the mood was light and relaxed. Smiling faces sipped coffee and chatted. No one rushed about, and the nets and fishing gear had been left untouched in the storage bins.

There would be no fishing today.

Dilon walked up beside him. “All gassed up. You pass out the lists?”

“Just now,” Hanif answered, handing Dilon a long sheaf of paper. “Here’s your copy of the master.”

Dilon whistled. “Got to be over thirty countries on here.” He looked down the list. “And so many people.”

“Fifteen years of research and you collect a lot of names.” His heart still hadn’t slowed down from the last twenty hours of rushed, sleepless preparations, gathering up names and addresses of botanists who worked in governments, private corporations, and charity organizations in dozens of countries.

“It would be so much easier just to email it out,” Hanif said.

“But it wouldn’t be as fun, would it?” Dilon laughed.

Both men knew email wasn’t an option. Even if Wellington weren’t already actively monitoring the lab’s communications, the auto-filters would catch and hold anything with research content directed toward the mainland.

“You sure this is going to work, Dil?” Hanif asked.

Dilon nodded. “It ain’t rocket science. Once we give away enough copies of the research and seed samples, then nobody’ll really own them anymore: not you, not Wellington, not Andersen, not even Torrox. And if nobody owns them, nobody can use them to get rich, win elections, whatever.”

“So they become like a…” Hanif searched for the right word.

“Commodity would be the term you’re looking for. A good or service that’s plentiful, affordable, and easy to obtain.”

Hanif lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “Yeah, I said it,” Dilon snapped with mock-indignation. “Maybe I didn’t study as much as a certain famous botanist, but I managed to retain a respectable portion of my fine Torroxian education.”

Dilon looked out to the sea. “I haven’t been to the mainland in years. Sure you don’t want to come with? Lots to see.”

“Thanks,” Hanif said, “but somebody has to stay behind and take the heat. This is technically a criminal act, you know.”

“Nah, I wouldn’t call it that. The pitiful way you try to use a fishing rod to catch a bluefin, now
that’s
what I call a criminal act.” Dilon scratched his chin. “Way I see it, this is just a different way of serving the greater good.”

The greater good
. The phrase echoed inside Hanif’s head. In the mad scramble of finding names, making copies of his research, and dividing up seeds into packets, he hadn’t had time to reflect on the magnitude of what was about to happen. The plants bearing his son’s name would soon take root on every continent, nourishing millions. A wave of emotion crashed over him as he imagined countless starving babies saved, countless parents spared the agony of losing a child.

Dilon seemed to understand the change in Hanif’s face. He grabbed Hanif by the shoulders and hugged him tightly. “He would have been proud of you, Han,” he said, his voice cracking.

The crews began to settle into their boats and untie the mooring lines. “Looks like it’s time to go,” Dilon said, blinking away tears.

Hanif took a deep breath and steadied himself. “How long will it take?”

“Two, maybe three weeks for every group but mine. We drew the short straw and got Asia and Australia, so you’re not going to see me for a while.” He looked up and moved his eyes around the sky. “Couldn’t ask for better weather. Fair winds and clear sailing on all the forecasts.”

The friends said goodbye, and Dilon hopped onto his vessel. One by one, the boats slowly motored out of their slips. The crews smiled and waved to Hanif. He waved back, amazed and humbled at how quickly the entire fleet had agreed to help. These good fishermen of Torrox.

Hanif stood at the end of the dock, watching the boats as they cut their engines, made sail, and drifted toward the horizon. About a mile out they split up into groups and began their separate journeys, each vessel bearing a gift of fifteen years’ worth of research and a packet of magic seeds.

He’d always loved watching the fishing boats come in, but the sight of them leaving, he decided, was better. Much better.

Last Goodbye

I’m alone in the small, unfurnished room, the heart-sized red light glowing on the wall in front of me. The side walls play your downloaded memories of our times together like random scenes from a movie. And you know what’s weird? The images are exactly the way I remember them, too. None of those dizzying perceptual differences you always see when you look at a shared memory, no “reality delta” in neuro-tech parlance. They say that kind of thing almost never happens.

Makes sense, though. We always laughed at the same jokes, loved the same movies and books. Our connection was there from the start.

Kissing goodbye in the rain.

My God, what were we here, twenty? Look at our bodies, so fresh and new, full of raging hormones. Could this possibly have been two hundred years ago? It’s strange, but whenever I think of you, even after all this time, this is who I always see: Sandra at twenty, tall and radiant, flaxen hair and coffee-colored eyes, that little scar on the bridge of your nose.

Wow, look at us! Our lips pressed together madly, the rain falling in big drops, soaking us. A warm spring rain, joyous and full of hope.

This was our first goodbye, right before you left for Paris. We’d only known each other a few months when you got the offer of a lifetime: free rent for a summer in France.

You were supposed to come back in ten weeks.

But ten weeks turned into six months, then a year. You stayed in Paris, I stayed in Dallas. Our weekly calls became less frequent. Excited chats about our future became awkward conversations about anything else. You were pulling away from me. I heard it in your voice, felt it through the phone line.

That’s always been our story, hasn’t it? I get close, you pull away. Then you show up years later, promising it’ll be different this time, only to find me married. Then when I get divorced, you’ve just moved in with someone.

And so it went for years, decades. A lifetime of near-misses and what-ifs. For years I wrote it off to fate or shitty karma or plain bad luck.

I sigh and finger-swipe the wall, rewinding the memory so I can watch the kiss in the rain again. So lovely, so maddening.

Morning coffee at the cabin on Lake Travis.

Amazing. I can almost smell the freshly ground beans. You were sixty-eight here, and I’d just turned seventy. It was the year they approved rejuvenation treatments. Remember how insanely expensive they were at first? Worth every penny, though, watching our bodies age in reverse, recovering decades in months. What joy, drinking from the fountain of youth.

I know I told you otherwise at the time, but I actually
did
get divorced over your treatment. When Rachel found out I’d paid for it, she flipped out. But I couldn’t just let you die of old age. I wasn’t ready to let you go.

And look at how well our first treatments took. Neither of us looks a day over thirty.

After treatment we rented the cabin on the lake and spoke of the future. New bodies, new lives. Endless possibilities.

But high hopes gave in to practicality, and we went back to our elsewhere lives. Same old story. Maybe next time will be our time. We agreed to stay in touch.

Then you wandered for a while. China, then Africa and India. Never staying in one place for long, always changing jobs, starting and ending relationships. I tried marrying again, but you know how that goes when you can’t give it your whole heart.

Sometimes we’d find each other again. What lovely times. Twenty, thirty years might have gone by, but we’d fall into one another as comfortably and easily as if only a day had passed. As always we’d talk about getting together, but now it was more out of habit than intention.

I’d convinced myself you simply couldn’t handle commitment, couldn’t deal with a connection that’s so powerful it’s frightening, even after two centuries.

But it wasn’t me you couldn’t deal with, was it?

Another goodbye kiss.

This is half an hour ago. You’re lying on the gurney. I lean down and kiss you lightly on the lips. I hold your hand and notice a few liver spots have already emerged. With a steady voice and clear eyes you tell the attendant you’re ready. Then he administers the drug. You smile at me for a few moments, and then your eyes go glassy and you fall asleep.

The image of this last memory fades and the walls are suddenly walls again. The attendant enters the room, pushing the gurney. You look so peaceful lying there breathing deeply, hands folded, eyes shut. Happy, even.

“Would you like me to raise the sheet over her face?” the attendant asks.

“No. Can she hear me at all?”

He shakes his head and speaks softly. “Her conscious mind is no longer with us. But she’s not,” he pauses, “
officially
passed on until cessation of all brain activity.” He motions to the finger-size DNA scanner next to the red light on the wall. Your life-light.

Which for some reason I agreed to put out
. Never could change your mind about anything, could I? Or talk you out of anything, obviously.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when you took the option. You’ve always been running away, it seems. From me, from everything.

Perpetual youth isn’t for everyone,
the psychs said.
Life is more pain than joy for some.
And the lawmakers agreed, coming up with a legal, convenient exit: a drug puts you to sleep; a loved one cuts the cord.

The attendant nods grimly. “I’ll leave you alone.”

I run my hand over your hair and kiss your forehead. No warm spring rain this time. No joy or hope, either.