Oh, sure, no, dont worry, I said.
Seriously, though, what do you think?
Well, its definitely an important date, I said. In the old days they would have at least had a big festival. And they would have gotten all the wise old scribes or whatever together and worked out what to do next. Maybe theyd have constructed a new calendar.
So no big giant whatever.
I dont think so.
Huh, she said. She almost sounded disappointed. So is it true that the Maya, like, worshipped time?
Well, thats a little strong … it might be fair to say that no other culture has ever been so, so obsessed with time.
But they did come up with all these impossibly complicated dates with the names and the weird numbers.
Actually, if you teach kids Maya numbers, they say theyre easier than Arabic ones. Theyre like dominoes; theyre just spots and lines.
Well, okay, but Taro was trying to tell me about the dates one time and I got totally lost. And Im a code monkey.
Thats a great clock, I said.
Thanks. Yeah, that used to belong to John Huston, you know, the film director, like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre?
Cool.
And then the Neo-Teo team gave it to me after the AIE thing.
Its great.
But like I say, I havent figured it out yet. Although they say its running.
Well, its not really that hard, I said.
You mean, like, the Mayan calendar isnt that hard.
Yeah. There are some tricksomenesses to it but the basic idea is simple, ifwell, look, dont think of it like a clock, think of it like an odometer, you know, in a car, I mean an old car, before they were electric.
Okay.
Well, so each place value in the mileage is on a gear, right? And when one gear turns over once the one to the left of it turns thirty degrees. One twelfth. Except with the Maya dates, most of the gears are in base twenty, like twenty teeth. Except for one that has eighteen. And then theres another important gear with thirteen teeth, thats the ritual calendar, and that one has the names on it. So every thirteen-times-twenty days, the same name-and-number combination comes up. Like say its a Zero Bat day like today, then two hundred and sixty days from now theres another Zero Bat. So its a big day when a lot of the cycles come up at the same time, like
Like when the odometers going to turn over another hundred thousand miles and the kids in the backseat all get really excited and lean over to watch.
Right, I said. Except each time itll be in a different tun, that is, like, a bundle of three hundred and sixty days. And then a katun is twenty tuns, and then twenty katuns make a baktun. And eighteen of those
Okay, I get that.
Okay. And thats it, except there are other counts for Venus and other astronomical things, and for anniversaries, and for supernatural beings, like each day has a different set of protectors and threateners. Its kind of like how the Catholic saints all have days, except
Except its vastly more complicated.
Well … except you have that kind of thing today, right? Like the Olympics and presidential elections are every four years, and then senatorial elections are every six years, but theyre staggered, and then theres, like, economic cycles and five-year plans, and theres seventeen-year locusts and hundred-and-thirty-year bamboo. Uh, John Travolta makes a big comeback every fifteen and a half years
Okay, I get it.
Anyway, the only ones you really have to know are the solar cycle. Thats 360 days, and the tzolkin, and thats in bunches of twenties and thirteens, and that makes up the baktuns. Those are about 256 years. The tzolkin sets the cycle seat and the main
Whats the cycle seat?
Oh, thats, thats like a temporary capital. Like theyd trade off, like, theyd decide on one city or, like, temple district, that would be the place where all the kings met and decided international policy and when the festivals would be or whatever. And then at the end of twenty years that temple district would get ritually killed. Like theyd cancel the inscriptions and the royal family would leave and theyd knock down the monuments and whatever. And then that area would be kind of taboo, and for the next twenty years the capital would be somewhere else.
So is that the reason the Maya just left all those cities?
Well, yeah, its possibly one reason that some of the ceremonial centers were abandoned, but
So anyway, she said, I understand you use a Sacrifice Game system to pick stocks.
Commodities.
Right. And you do it by hand, correct? She meant not on computer.
Well, I still have Taros old software, I said, but, yes, mainly.
Do you have, like, a pouch of little pebbles or whatevs?
A grandeza, I said. Yes.
Do you have it with you?
Uh, yeah.
She didnt ask to see it. Too innuendoish, maybe.
But you know, I said, Im not an astrologer or anything. It doesnt have anything to do with the supernatural. Hey, I thought, how about you show me the book and Ill show you my rocks?
But, still, the Game really does let you predict things. Yes?
Well, a prediction sounds like a, like something a fortune teller would do.
Huh. She paused. Dont be so honest, Jed, I thought. If she doesnt think youre special, shes not going to show you anything. Right? On the other hand, there is the theory of the soft sell. Anyway, youre not trying to get a date with her. Even if she is kind of hot. All you need right now is for her to show you the Codex. Right?
So, she said, so youre saying the old Maya dudes werent really making prophecies?
Well, no, theylook, I guess what Im saying is that they wouldnt have thought of them as prophecies. Its more like they were permanent, like flavors, or, say, like personalities, that each day naturally had. Its like a, a Farmers Almanac that says therell be snow that day, except its saying therell be disease or war or something. And then the flavors would develop over time, like if there were a big battle on that day, that would add a violent taste to the day from then on. Just like how a royal birthday is a lucky day. I mean even these days.
Gotcha.
But the real point is that the Game is not, like, giving you visions of the future. It just improves your guessing.
How?
Well, to oversimplify, I guess Id say it speeds up your brain somehow. Or allows it to focus better, and that feels like the same thing. It makes playtime. So like
Wait, whats playtime, you mean, like, in nursery school?
No, well, thats just jargon from StrategyNet. But they use it to mean how each game generates its own kind of alternate time. Like, you know, a turn-based strategy game uses a different measurement of time thats not based on the wall time, or on duration, but on the events of the game itself. Right?
Right.
Basically a game is measured in tempi. That is, moves. So if a player makes a move that achieves nothing, youve just lost a tempo. The clock time is just a convenience that has nothing to do with the dynamics of an actual game.
She nodded.
And if your move doesnt keep up in the context of the gameif it doesnt jump out far enough or develop your pieces fast enough or whateverits still too slow.
She nodded.
So playtime is like time measured in state changes. Without measuring duration.
She nodded.
It also just means how, you know how when youre playing a game everything around you seems to be moving more slowly?
She nodded.
This time I shut up.
So anyway, she said, youre sayin
g all youre doing is just reading ahead.
In Go reading means working out the next sequence of moves. Professional Go players can read a hundred moves ahead.
Right, I said. Exactly. Yes, I thought. Bond! Game Bond! Brotherhood of gamesters! Now, naturally youll want to show me the damn book. Right? Right.
The thing is, those of us who play a serious gameand by serious I mean what mathematicians call a nontrivial game, like Go, chess, shogi, bridge, poker, the Sacrifice Game, or one of the few important computer games like the Sim gamesknow, or feel we know, that theres a different and more purposeful world out there, one tuned to a more powerful wave. But this knowledge makes us exiles. And, of course, that makes us feel superior to everybody elsedespite everybody elses somehow being healthier, happier, and more socioeconomically successfuland so we become intolerable.
Still, she said, reading ahead is enough for some good investing.
I guess.
I understand youve been making some good trades.
May I ask according to whom?
The firm, she said, giving the word an ominous Grishamish inflection.
Hmm.
Dont worry.
Okay.
So anywaylook, you havent seen any doomingI mean, looming doom a year from now? Have you?
You mean the 4 Ahau date? The end of the calendar?
Right. Twelve twenty-one twelve.
No, I havent, I said. Not yet, anyway.
I guess thats good. I was getting that feeling that we were approaching the end of our conversation, like the sound of a bottle filling up. Come on, Jed. How do you make yourself indispensable to this woman? Come up with some persuasive, spectacular, façade-shattering … no, dont even try. Just ask something.
Hey, I have a question, I said.
Go for it.
Why is an entertainment division sponsoring Taros research? I mean, its not exactly entertainment.
Everythings entertainment now, she said.
Right. Just show me the book, I thought. Show book to me. Show mebook. Bookme.
Anyway, Lindsays always been good at leveraging entertainment with whatever other thingsyou know, thats why the studio did the remake of Silent Running, because he bought Botaniathats a closed-system hydroponics company?
Right.
And it tied in with that.
Mmm. Great, I thought. Survivalism. More Mormon moronities. Stocking up for the Tribulation. You wouldnt want to have to meet Jesus on an empty stomach.
Its got that survivalist thing going on, she said. Evidently shed seen what I was thinking. Damn it, I thought. I hate psychics.
Right, I said. Yeah, I grew up in Utah
Oh, right
so I know a little about that stuff.
Right.
Right.
I mean, its true, Lindsays a major Saint and everything. Hes just been elected to the Seventy.
Gee. The Council of Seventy was the governing body of the Latter-Day Saints, kind of like the College of Cardinals.
But I barely speak to those people. You know.
Yeah.
Theyre scary, she said.
Right. Well, I thought, its nice of her to try to put me at ease. Not that
But Lindsays a lot more enlightened than the rest of them … anyway, those guys fund stuff nobody elsell touch.
Like cold fusion?
Well, yeah, sure, she said, but there are a thousand other things. Its not all O-rings.
Right. For the benefit of those lucky enough not to have lived and/or worked in the Salt Lake region, the events Marena and I were referring to here were, first, the University of Utahs erroneous announcement, in 1989, that theyd successfully produced cold fusion, and, second, the Challenger space shuttle scandal, when it turned out that Mormon congressmen had steered construction of the shuttle to Morton-Thiokol, which skimmed millions of dollars off the project and, as some may remember, delivered an iffy product. And those were only two things out of many. It was kind of a joke, in fact, all the crackpot research the Saints kept paying for. Among science types in the Southwest, anyway. Mormon organizations spend millions every year on spirit detection, genetic memory, DNA-assisted genealogical research, cult archaeology, TEOTWAWKI retreats, free bug-out bags, and a dozen other pseudologies. Actually, the low point was probably in 1998, when a couple of researchers at the Layton Institute for Applied Physics said theyd jazzed the quantum foam and created a bubble universe. That is, for probably the first time since the big bang, a duplicate universe was now forming inside the usual one. Theyd added that the two universes would be identical at the moment of fission, but that because of subatomic randomness theyd start diverging pretty fast. When an interviewer from CNN asked the senior guy where the new universe was, hed said, Were in it. Unsurprisingly, their results were not replicated.
Anyway, Marena Park said, its easier to get it in the report on my budget because I already have Mayan-related stuff going on.
Right, I said.
There was another pause. Well, great, I thought. I guess this means you dont need me for anything. Ill just slink out of here with my tail between my legs and
So you can read Mayan writing, right? she asked.
Well, yeah. Im okay at it. But you know, its not quite like regular reading, theyre usually not really in sentences, and theres a lot of interpretation.
Right. So, I guess you want to look at the Koh Codex, right?
Well, sure, of course I would, I said. YES!!! I thought.
The thing is, its still unpublished, so Im not supposed to let it out yet. Its the biggest secret since Natalie Portmans nose job.
Oh. Pause.
But I dont know, she said, maybe if you want to work with Taro again, maybe you could come in when he starts the next testing phase … that wont be for a while, though.
Oh, uh-huh. Sure, thanks for the brush-off. Youre a loser, Jedface. My hand tightened on the chair arm, inadvertently triggering it to self-adjust up a notch. I was getting a wave of molecular-level disappointment like the G-force reversal at the zenith of the Superman Tower of Power ride at Six Flags over Texas. Well, screw it anyway, this is just probably all part of the hype. Theyre trying to turn this thing into another Dead Sea Scrolls and maybe they dont really have anything, maybe the Codex is just another bunch of Venus tables, a few old names, maybe a recipe for guacamole
You want to look at the End Date page? Marena asked. I bet I can show you just that one without getting in trouble.
Uh, sure. Oh, God our GOD om NI potent REIGN eth! HaaleLUjah! HalleLUJAH! Ha-LE-E-loo-YAH
Okay. She reached down behind her and without looking took a large-screen phone out of a drawer and tapped on it for a few seconds. I scooted my chair over but not too far over. Hot spit.
Would you like me to sign a release or anything? I asked.
Well, you could leave a hostage.
I am a hostage.
She put the phone on the desk, turned it around, and slid it over to me. It had a new OLED-3D display without a trace of a distinguishable pixel, just the high, narrow page lying in three dimensions just under the Zeonex film. Since the gessoed fig-bark paper hadnt seen the sun for centuries, its original fugitive dyes had been preserved, and the hyperspectral imaging had deepened them a little more, so that they throbbed between the dark outlines like old stained glass.
[7]
The game board was in the middle of the page, flanked by two figures. An overlord in jaguar-lineage regalia sat on the left, arms folded. According to Michael Weiners notes, which floated annoyingly over the image, he was probably an ahau named 9 Fanged Hummingbird, who ruled from 644 to rough
ly 666 in a city in Alta Verapaz that Weiners team had identified as Ixnichi-Sotzor, as the locals now called the ruins, just Ix. The portrait glyph above the other figure, who sat facing the future on the southwestern side of the board, seemed to read as something along the lines of Ahau-Na Hun Koh, that is, Lady 1 Tooth:
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