Free The Lord of Opium by Nancy Farmer Page B

feed myself!” said Matt, shoving her hand away.
    “El Patrón used to like this game,” the nurse said. “I’d say, ‘Here comes the choo-choo train,’ and he’d say, ‘What’s it carrying, Nurse Fiona?’ And I’d reply, ‘All sorts of delicious treats,’ and he’d say—”
    “Shut up!” said Matt. And then was sorry because he knew why Fiona was talking so feverishly. She’d been alone too long. “Look, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. I’m just not interested in games. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
    “All right,” said Fiona.
    So Matt asked about the chipping process, and it turned out that she knew quite a lot, though she wasn’t allowed to do it herself. “They put a drip into the patient’s arm,” she said, “and then they inject the chips with the liquid. The chips are smaller than blood cells and go right through the heart. Sometimes they get filtered out by the liver, but most of them make it. I’ve seen them under the microscope. They look like tiny diamonds. One side has a protein that attaches to a brain cell. The other is a mosaic of different kinds of metal and is slightly magnetic.”
    “Magnetic,” repeated Matt. That was interesting.
    “I’ve been told that they’re tiny batteries. They work together like a second brain, only much simpler than ours. The process takes less than fifteen minutes, and when it’s done the patient—though you could hardly call him a patient, more like a victim I’d say, only don’t quote me—is catatonic.”
    “What’s ‘catatonic’?”
    “It’s like a coma. All the brain functions are on hold, so to speak. The doctor marks the forehead with the number 666 to show the operation’s been done. Then the orderlies take the patient away to be trained.”
    “Who does that?”
    “The Farm Patrol.” For once, Fiona didn’t look chirpy. “I hear it’s brutal and that they enjoy doing it.”
    Brutal! And Matt had sent Waitress to be retrained! He pushed the bed table away.
    “Lie down, young master! You’ll undo my good work if you don’t rest,” protested the nurse.
    “I can’t stay. I’ve got to rescue Waitress.” Matt stood up and steadied himself as a slight dizziness struck him.
    “If she’s an eejit, it won’t matter,” Fiona said. “They don’t feel anything. The doctors say they react to stimuli the same way a dead frog jerks if you give it an electric shock. Mind you, I never liked that part of biology, the poor froggies looking like little old men in green pajamas—”
    “Shut up!” cried Matt again. He went straight to the kitchen, where, as he had expected, Daft Donald was having lunch. “Get the car,” the boy commanded. “Take me to where the eejits get trained.”
    They sped through the opium fields with a long plume of dust rising behind them. Matt wished Daft Donald could talk, because he suspected the man knew a lot about the training. Itwas too late now. The man couldn’t drive and write notes at the same time.
    They arrived at the armory, and a group of men sitting outside jumped to attention. “Where—” Matt began. Daft Donald took his arm and pulled him through the courtyards surrounding the armory and on to another building behind it.
    Matt heard a scream. He shook off Daft Donald and raced ahead. “Step aside!” he shouted at a pair of Farm Patrolmen, and such was the authority in his voice that the men practically fell over getting out of his way. Inside the building, Matt saw a windowless room with a drain in the middle of the floor. At the far end was Waitress, bound to a chair with her hands taped around electrodes, and Cienfuegos in front of a machine. Such was his concentration that he didn’t hear Matt enter.
    “Your name is Mirasol,” the jefe said.
    “No! No! I am Waitress!” sobbed the girl.
    Cienfuegos shook his head and turned a dial. The girl’s body jerked.
    “Take him, Daft Donald,” Matt ordered. The bodyguard lunged past and smashed his head into