Free Juarez Square and Other Stories by D.L. Young Page A

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.