Blood Sport

by Lisa Smedman

  “Let me guess,” I interrupted. “The eagle’s a symbol of the sun god, too.”

  Hector nodded eagerly, gesturing with his cigar while he alternated steering and shifting with one hand. “The curse continued, even after Xochitalco’s suicide. In 2053 the captain of the Guadalajara Acoatl had a heart attack the day after the final game and died on the operating table. The next year Ortega, captain of the Eagles, got drunk and fell off a ledge during the awards presentations in the adjoining teocalli and broke his neck. And the captain of last year’s winning team—the Mérida Mariposas—died in a motorcycle crash two months after the finals. They say he hit a highway sign and was instantly decapitated. The sign, of course, bore the national symbol.”

  “The eagle of Huitzilopochtli,” Rafael said in an awed voice. He was eating this up. “The one on the cactus that’s killing the snake.”

  Then Rafael’s eyes caught mine, and I saw the sadness in them. So he’d noticed the connection of the symbol to Mama G’s death, too.

  Rafael leaned over the seat, frowning. “You left out 2055.” Hector smiled. “Ah, that is the mystery. What happened to team captain Emilio Ibanez of the Tampico Voladores? No one knows, carnal. He disappeared from the tlachtli on the very night the Flyers won their hard-fought victory. But you can be certain that Huitzilopochtli claimed him, just the same.”

  We descended yet another off ramp and bulled our way, horn blaring, into the narrow street at the bottom of it. Hector double-parked the taxi in front of a blocky-looking concrete hotel whose street-level windows were all barred. I could see why—the neighborhood was one step up from being a squat, and several steps down from our own neighborhood in Auburn. Tough-looking men lounged on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, idly kicking at trash and giving our vehicle the once-over, and graffiti had all but obliterated what once was a colorful mural on the side of the hotel.

  “This is it,” Hector said brightly. “The Iztapalapa Comfort Inn.” He thumbed an icon on the meter. “That’ll be 27,500 pesos.”

  It had been an expensive trip—the equivalent of 55 nuyen.

  I had my suspicions that Hector had taken us on a longish detour that circled through the downtown core and that a more direct route would have been cheaper. But I had to admit that the ride had been entertaining.

  I hadn’t paid much attention to the team names and playoff dates that Hector had rattled off. To me, they were just another drekload of sports trivia and the “curse” was just superstitious nonsense. But Rafael had committed to memory every word.

  At the time, I thought it was all useless information. The usual drekload of statistics, topped off with superstitious nonsense about a curse. But I’d later come to be thankful for Rafael’s endless capacity for soaking up sports trivia.

  10

  Before we left for Aztlan, I had tried to track down information on Domingo Vargas, the consular official who was the Star’s primary suspect in Mama G’s death. I’m not a shadowrunner myself—I prefer the outside of a detainment facility, thank you very much—but I do have a handful of connections among Seattle’s shadow community. You have to, when you’re a private detective. I’m good at legwork—at good old-fashioned, face-to-face question and answer interviews. And when I need muscle, Rafael can stand behind me and scowl. But decking’s a specialized skill—one I sometimes have to turn to the runner community for.

  Angie, my usual contact, had tried to scare up some data. She hadn’t gotten much more than I already knew: Domingo Vargas, age forty-seven, consular official with the Aztlan diplomatic corps. Priest of the Path of the Sun—the Aztlaner state religion—who had dedicated himself to Xipe Totec, god of spring and renewal. Currently serving as a bacab—some sort of priestly title—at the Temple of the Sun in Tenochtitlán. That temple had not one, but four high priests, a system based on the fact that the ancient Azzies thought of the world as having four directions, each associated with a different color, and each assigned to a different god.

  I learned also that Vargas was born and raised in Xpujil—a tiny village in the Yucatán that owes its existence to a nearby temple pyramid that was originally a tourist destination but whose ancient teocalli now was an important center of worship. Hermetic mage—he’d received his training at the Ciudad Universitaria in Tenochtitlán. His current address was inside one of the Aztechnology arcologies the Aztlaners jokingly call castillos. And “castle” is an appropriate name. Nobody but Tenochtitlán’s elite gets inside one of these sprawling complexes, and the security that seals them off from the world at large is said to be more effective than a moat filled with torpedo sharks. If Rafael and I tried going in after Vargas, we’d be eaten alive before we even got a glimpse of the inside of the castillo. No, if we were going to confront Vargas, it had to be somewhere outside the arcology.

  Aside from his trip to Seattle, Vargas only rarely left this corporate fortress. Although he did travel, some, to conduct religious services. Angie had dug up a documentary tridcast on the Path of the Sun that showed Vargas in his ceremonial gear, conducting a ritual in a small Aztlan town that had been hard hit by drought. The ceremony involved Vargas pricking his hands with a cactus spine and “raining” a few drops of blood on the parched soil. According to the tridcast, it had worked. The rains came the next day.

  In the trid, Vargas wore what looked like a gold lame jumpsuit, skin-tight over his somewhat paunchy frame. The outfit was complete with a close-fitting hood with eye holes that left his lower face bare. “Hands” and “feet” dangled at his wrists and ankles. It harkened back to ancient times and was intended to represent the flayed skin of a sacrificial victim.

  After seeing the bodies of the missionaries that Vargas had killed in Seattle, I wondered if he also had other, similar costumes made of actual human skin—maybe a whole collection of them. Just how far did the Aztlaner priests take their religion, anyway?

  In the tridcast, Vargas’ face was painted red with yellow stripes across it, but Angie had been able to edit this color out. His hair was close-cropped, and judging from the bit of it that showed under the hood, was a solid gray. His face was fleshy with heavy jowls, but still aristocratic, more Spanish than Mesoamerind. His downturned, pouting lips were reminiscent of those on the gigantic stone heads the ancient Olmecs used to carve. His eyes were a dark brown, almost black. Flat and cold as obsidian. I imagined them staring down remorselessly as he struck Mama G again and again with his macauitl. . .

  And that was all Angie had gotten me. A few scraps of data that were a matter of public record and an image that haunted my dreams. Nothing on Vargas’ current whereabouts in Aztlan or his future movements. When I’d expressed my disappointment, she’d actually had the guts to try a run against the consulate’s private telecommunications grid—and had immediately run into some black ice that sent the master persona control program in her cyberdeck into meltdown. Later, shaken, she’d admitted that she’d been lucky not to get her brains fried as well. She’d had to jack out—fast—and had suffered a headache for two days as a result of the dump shock.

  Angie had come through, however, with the name of a “data dealer” in Tenochtitlán—an old friend of hers whose trustworthiness and discretion she personally guaranteed. This friend—whom Angie referred to only by the nickname of Caco—relied upon a network of contacts throughout Aztlan who gathered hard data, rumor, and gossip the old-fashioned way—by listening to it with their own ears while working their day jobs as servants, shopkeepers, and security guards. Caco paid for this data in peso libres, which had value outside of Aztlan and thus were coveted by those planning on leaving the country—as Caco’s information-gatherers often had cause to do. Caco then brokered this “word on the street” back to Tenochtitlán’s shadow community, swapping information for pesos or sometimes just trading data for data. If anyone could find the skinny on Domingo Vargas, Angie had assured me, it was Caco.

  Although Angie had met Caco in the flesh twice, she didn’t know if the data dealer was male or female. The
description she’d given me of Caco wasn’t much help, either. Average height, average weight. Average features with no distinguishing marks or obvious cyberware. Collar-length, slightly wavy brown hair, brown eyes. Skin tone half way between Euro and Mesoamerind. Neither a flashy dresser nor scruffy. The kind of person who would blend into an Aztlaner crowd and never be given a second glance.

  Those who were looking to buy information didn’t find Caco—instead Caco found them. The procedure, Angie told me, was to approach any of the esquincles—the street urchins who sold cigarettes, candy, and trid chips on street corners throughout Tenochtitlán—and ask for Chiclets, a brand of gum that had been popular in the previous century.

  If the kid gave you a blank look, that meant they didn’t know Caco. If the kid smiled and agreed to put you in touch with someone who did sell Chiclets, that meant that they dealt with Caco in person. Or—more likely—knew someone who knew someone who knew someone who . . .

  After checking into our hotel, I started my search for Chiclets. I scored on the third esquincle I asked. I made the kid repeat the name Angie used on her runs—“Brain-dancer”—until I was convinced that he could pronounce it properly. Then I sent him on his way with two hundred pesos, then killed time in a nearby plaza, watching the Azzie drivers play chicken with each other. Decades ago, in an effort to cut down on pollution, the city council had decreed that each car was banned from driving in the city one day per week. Drivers responded by buying a second car, and the new set of wheels allowed their family members to take to the streets as well. The number of vehicles doubled and the result was the current anarchy that passes for driving. Amazingly, there are relatively few accidents. Ekchuah, god of travelers, must have been a busy deity.

  The reply came back in two hours in an actual, honest-to-gods Chiclets container—a tiny, bright yellow cardboard box as scuffed and dirty as the kid who handed it to me. It was empty, but when I at last thought to unfold it, I saw words scrawled on the inside. An address in Iztapalapa. No date or time. A pun, perhaps? No time like the present? I might as well find out.

  Rafael, meanwhile, was engaged in an avid discussion with a streetside taco vendor about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Tenochtitlán Jaguars and the Texcoco Serpents. The first two games in the ollamaliztli finals had been held earlier in the week, and each had resulted in a victory for the Jaguars. The whole of Tenochtitlán was celebrating, and the street vendor was happily predicting that the Jaguars would button up the finals by winning the next game—that the final two games would be strictly exhibition matches. He told Rafael that only a fool would bet on the Serpents now—but that the odds were very good, indeed. Rafael listened gravely, nodding between bites of his taco.

  I dragged Rafael away and we headed on foot to the address I’d been given. It proved to be a streetside—a cantina that specialized in pulque, a drink made from fermented maguey cactus. The place wasn’t much more than a hole in the wall—literally. Just a large, square, concrete-walled space that could be closed off from the street by a rolldown metal door. No windows and no decor, save for battered-looking plastene tables and chairs that looked as though they’d been boosted from a public picnic area. Its floor was covered in coarse sawdust.

  There were grocery shops on either side of the pulquería and the sidewalk was crowded with produce stands. A number of street vendors worked a nearby intersection. I thought that one of them—an ork kid whose shtick seemed to be washing the hub caps of the cars that were parked on this stretch of street—winked at me as I passed her. But I couldn’t be sure.

  Inside the pulquería itself, a scruffy-looking collection of young street punks—all of them with the sharp cheekbones and dusky skin of their Aztec and Mayan forebears—sat sipping a foamy white beverage through straws that allowed them to drink without removing their breathers. They looked like gangers. They had the lean, hungry, watchful look of the street and wore the heavy gold jewelry that served as their badge of honor, showing they’d made it to the top of their particular drekpile. More than one had earlobes that were distended by heavy gold ear plugs like the ones I’d seen in Alberto’s shop. Several had gold-plated breathers.

  I saw the bulge of what I guessed was a sawed-off shotgun under one synthleather jacket, and heard the snick of razors as one of the few women present—a bleach blonde in a tight pink sweater—flicked her cybernetic implants in a gesture like a cat flexing its claws. From the way she leaned possessively against one of the better-dressed punks, I guessed her to be in the biz and protecting her turf. I did my best to look uninterested in her man, pointedly avoided making eye contact with her, and walked directly to the bar at the back of the pulquería.

  A barrel-chested human with the battered nose of a boxer and wearing a stained undershirt and jeans served pulque from a large plastic barrel, ladling it out into paper cups. He stood behind a bar that was made from a table placed over two sawhorses. Files rose in a buzzing spiral each time he lifted the barrel lid, and a yeasty-sweet smell filled the air. A very lethal-looking HK227 submachine gun hung on a peg hammered into the wall behind him—a deterrent for anyone who might think about stealing the credslot that was clipped to the bartender’s belt or the coins that were piled in a tin cigar box that sat on one end of the bar. A curtain closed off what I guessed must be a doorway leading to a storeroom where other barrels of pulque were stored.

  I paid coin for a glass of the stuff and chose a seat near the door with my back to the concrete wall. As I stirred the drink with its straw, I used my cyberear’s amplification system to listen in on the conversations of those around me, paying particular attention to the quietest voices. They seemed to be talking about the usual ganger topics: scoring drugs, joyriding in boosted cars, and sex. Some things just don’t change from one sprawl to the next.

  A minute or so later, Rafael jandered into the pulquería. He ordered a drink, then sat on the opposite side of the room. He studiously ignored me, instead winking at the blonde as he settled into his seat. The next time she got up to get a drink, she ran her fingers playfully through Rafael’s hair, then laughed and swished away from him as he tried to catch her hand. Her boyfriend bristled and half-rose to his feet in a challenge, but settled down again when the blonde returned to the table and snuggled up beside him again. Rafael grinned viciously behind his breather as she returned his wink behind her boyfriend’s back.

  I shook my head. The blonde was cheap-looking, not at all pretty. I thought Rafael had better taste than that. But perhaps he was just providing the distraction he’d promised. I just hoped a fight wouldn’t break out before Caco arrived.

  I took a sip of the pulque, which was milky and slightly fizzy. It had an unpleasant texture, slippery and cloying, like saliva. And a strange, nutty aftertaste. I hoped that Caco would show up soon. I didn’t want to drink any more of the stuff than I had to.

  I didn’t have to wait long. I felt Caco’s presence within twenty minutes of sitting down, just as I was wondering how much longer I could make my drink last without raising the bartender’s ire. There was just a tickle at the base of the skull, at first. A cat’s-paw presence that whispered through my mind and caused the hair on the back of my arms to rise as a shiver slid down my spine. I was being mind-probed—my thoughts were being magically sifted and assensed. I tried to resist, but my feeble efforts to block the spell were swept aside like fragile cobwebs.

  I half-rose from my seat, then suddenly found myself unable to move. Sweat trickled down my temples as I fought back against the magical presence that had so easily invaded my mind and that now was not only reading my thoughts, but directing my actions. With a supreme effort I was able to glance over at Rafael, only to see that he was sitting rigidly in place, staring straight ahead with a glassy expression on his face. I knew it wasn’t the pulque—the two glasses he’d drunk wouldn’t even have given the big guy a buzz yet. He too was a victim of a spell. And that scared me even more. A mage who was able to mind-probe one target and control the
actions of another so effectively and completely at once? This was one fragger who could pump mondo mana.

  Suddenly my mind was my own again. I shot to my feet, heart pounding and every instinct telling me to bolt for the street. But before I could coordinate my actions, a figure appeared in the seat across the table from me in the blink of an eye, as if an invisibility spell had suddenly been dropped.

  “Hola,” the newcomer said in a husky voice that could have been male or female. “I’m Caco. You’re a friend of Braindancer’s?”

  Just at that moment, Rafael surged to his feet, hauling the Streetline Special from his boot and pointing it at Caco’s back. Within a heartbeat, half a dozen gun barrels were pointed back at him. The sawed-off shotgun was out from under the ganger’s jacket, the bartender balanced his HK227 in one hand while still holding his dripping ladle in the other, and even the blonde had pulled a slim little Walther pistol from a pocket—although the gods only knew where she concealed it, since her clothing was skin-tight.

  Caco half turned and smiled at Rafael, then patted the empty seat at my table. “Why don’t you join us, Rafael?”

  Rafael’s face was purple with anger. For a heartbeat or two, I though that lead was about to fly. Then a kid’s voice on the street outside bleated a warning: “Los polis! Chill!” And all of the guns disappeared. Rafael had the presence of mind to hide his own gun behind his back and reach for his pulque instead as a heavily armored Aztechnology Corporate Security patrol car rumbled past in the street outside, its surveillance cameras sweeping the street. Then he shrugged and crossed the pulquería to sit with Caco and me.

  While Rafael composed himself and tucked his gun back in his boot, I took a good long look at Caco. Angie was right—it was hard to tell what gender the data dealer was. Caco’s features were angular enough to be male, but there was no hint of stubble or an Adam’s apple. The wrists were slim and the hands delicate, but the arms that emerged from the loose-fitting shirt were muscular enough to be those of a man. I couldn’t see any hint of breasts, but then I’ve known a number of athletic women who had equally boyish figures. And the wavy brown hair and long dark lashes are as common among Hispanic men as women.