Juarez Square and Other Stories by D.L. Young Page B

find them.”
    Deke returned the remote to his pocket. He clinched his jaw, scowling and defiant, and stared down Chang.
    Chang blinked twice, then lowered his eyes and slumped. “Fine,” he said, the single word of his surrender nearly inaudible.
    It took a moment for Deke to register what had happened. The sight of Chang crumbling, even though Deke had planned on it, seemed unreal. Deke slowly grasped the notion that he’d won. After eight dark and lonely years, he’d finally grabbed the keys to his cage.
    “Wait here for a minute,” Chang said, his voice low and subdued. He disappeared from the foyer and returned a minute later. He motioned for Deke to follow. “This way.”
    As Deke approached Chang gave him a warning. “Screw me over and you’re done.” Deke ignored him. There was no venom in Chang’s words, no threat in his eyes. The man was defeated.
    Chang led him down a long hallway, stopping at the last door on the left. He opened it, looked inside, and said to someone unseen, “He’s here.” Then he motioned for Deke to enter the room.
    Deke took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway.
    Timo .
    The boy sat on a plastic tarp among stacks of dump bots and a scattering of parts and tools. He snapped together the top and bottom sections of a chassis and added them to a pile. He looked up at Deke, his face expressionless.
    Deke stepped forward, his mind racing. “What are you doing here?”
    The boy said nothing for a moment, then shook his head and looked to the floor. “Dump rats,” he said.
    Deke blinked. “What?”
    “Those dump rats that swallow shiny things like rings and jewels,” the boy said, picking up two more chassis sections. “They hafta know they shouldn’t eat them. They don’t smell like food at all, but they gobble them up anyway. Dump rats can’t control themselves. Never satisfied with what they got, always wanting something more.” He snapped the chassis sections together.
    Deke stared, trying to make sense of the boy’s words.
    Timo wouldn’t look up at him. “I’m sorry, Mister Deke. I tried to warn you. Why didn’t you listen to me?”
    Deke’s stomach turned as he noticed a remote control identical to his on the floor next to Timo. “Jesus, what have you done?”
    “What do you think he’s done?” Chang boomed from behind him. The Dump Lord’s right hand entered the room, holding a slate and grinning. “The boy sold you out, of course. He sent out your secret code an hour ago, and now he’s cleaning up the mess you made.” Chang motioned to a box full of acid vials Timo had removed from the bots’ innards. Then he looked down and swiped his finger across the slate. “The kid’s a whiz with search patterns. Daily take’s already ticking back up.”
    Deke’s heart sank.
    Chang rubbed his chin and said, “How long was it going to take to find your replacement? Months, maybe years? Care to revise that estimate, fat man?” Deke had never seen Chang so smugly satisfied.
    Deke watched as Timo continued working. “He’s just a kid,” he said. “What did you do, beat the code out of him?”
    Chang’s smile widened. “That’s the best part. I didn’t have to do a thing. He shows up at the door wanting to make a deal. Hell, I didn’t even know the kid knew the first thing about bots.”
    Showed up to make a deal?
    Deke looked at the boy. “Timo?” The boy kept his head down and didn’t answer.
    “Timo!” The boy refused to respond. Deke felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut.
    A security guard appeared and said, “Come with me.” Deke’s shoulders slumped. Without a word he turned and followed the guard, leaving Chang and Timo behind. He walked with his head down, numbly retracing the path he’d taken only moments before, so sure he was moments away from securing a brighter future. What a fool he’d been.
    The guard escorted him to the estate’s boundary. Deke took a last look around the verdant grounds, its lush trees and shrubs, it