AZTECHS by Lucius Shepard

 

Zounds!

AZTECHS, a one-hundred-page SF novella first published in 2001, counts as one of Lucius Shepard's most imaginative and explosive works.

Set in the near future in and around a sprawling Mexican border town, Eddie Poe, a gringo puro, the tale's protagonist and owner of a security service, leads his client out to a desert stronghold to close a big-time deal with the kingpin of a powerful Mexican drug cartel. Here's a cluster of snapshots for this intense, rapid-fire scorcher -

Electric Wall Stretching from Atlantic to Pacific – Anticipating the current wall separating Mexico from the Land of the Free, in Shepard's tale there's El Rayo, a 1200-mile-long laser fence, a fiery curtain that hangs between 100-foot-high titanium poles, makes a zoned-out humming sound, and constantly bathes the surrounding world in deadly blood red light. Eddie observes living next to El Rayo causes cancer of both the mind and soul.

Prime Players – Joining Eddie and his client on this daredevil mission are not only four drug-enhanced security guards, all seasoned war vets, but also Guadalupe (Lupe) Bernal, star of a weekly show featuring border news mixed with Eddie and Lupe having sex. The drug lord doesn't mind this meeting being recorded since he's proud of the power he wields.

Life Captured on Camera – The filming is being done courtesy of a moving camera called Frankie, “a steel six-legged cross between a lizard and a bug about the size of a chihuahua." Surely one of the most disturbing aspects of Shepard's near future world is men and women not minding their most intimate and emotionally charged moments, including having sex, being filmed, and an eager audience clamoring for more and more. Pathetic. Again, Shepard anticipates the current day omnipresent eye of the camera catching every action, public and private, lawful and unlawful.

Samurai Drug – Sammy is the drug of choice used by soldiers and power-hungry types turning them into super warriors. Users of Sammy are generally referred to as Sammy and form Sammy cults. At one point, Eddie needs the strength to carry a stretcher many miles. Childers, a long-time Sammy user, insists he jabs himself with Sammy so he can do it. Once injected, Eddie's world changes—the desert sand he's walking on transforms into a tactical topography and his skin becomes hot, his heart rate accelerates, and he feels himself indestructible. Readers familiar with the author's Life During Wartime and Salvador will recognize this samurai drug also carries some serious downside.

Technical Transformation – Nanobots, microscopic machines that travel through the bloodstream, make their appearance in the tale. The deeper into the group's desert journey, the more Eddie and Lupe detect these tiny machines are being used to make extreme alterations to the personality.

AZTECH, One – Montezuma, a rogue AI, runs the AZTECH corporation, a huge influence in this murky future world where political leaders, local cartels, guerrilla warriors, and multiple AI vie for dominance. We're provided an example of Montezuma's influence when Eddie's band spot an AZTECH village. “There were thirty-one of the huts. Their shapes were strangely modern, as if they were hotel bungalows designed to reflect a native motif. People moved through the dusty streets. Indians. Most wearing white robes, I spotted a man on horseback. The horse was fashioned of a gray metal that looked to have the flexibility of flesh.” And there's more, much more, including black riders, beings that appear to fuse non-human rider and horse that can swallow a mere mortal into a pool of death.

AZTECHS, Two – Toward the end of the tale, Shepard gives readers much to ponder. AZTECH not only alters personality and identity through the use of nanobots but also creates buildings and even landscapes. Additionally, and here's the clincher, AZTECH promises human immortality. Oh, yes, acting as a god, AZTECH can even scrape away your sins and imperfections and muddled thinking, leaving you pure and clean, ready to enter AZTECH paradise.

Wait a minute. Is this blurring the line between divinity and artificiality acceptable in any way? Read Lucius Shepard's novella to feel the full force of this question.