Blood Sport

by Lisa Smedman

  We soon found out why the sales clerk had smiled at our Fellini-Med breathers. In the decades before cybereyes had made glasses obsolete, a person could be instantly recognized as a brainwipe by the type of eyeglasses he wore. The worst, my grandmother once told me, was having to wear the squared-off, black plastic frames that were all her struggling family of six could afford. Back when my grandmother was a kid, in the decades that saw the introduction of glam rock and all of its customized accessories, the rage in eyewear was tinted-glass lenses, color-coordinated frames, flamboyantly outre shapes, and flip-up shades. Sixty years later, she still could remember the names the other kids teased her with on account of her glasses.

  Rafael and I weren’t being called names, but we were getting looks. And it was easy to see why. Suddenly the stories I’d heard of Aztlan go-gangers geeking other kids for their breathers made sense. All around us, the smartly dressed citizens of Tenochtitlán were wearing breathers that looked as though they’d come from a jeweler or a custom bodywork shop. Some were shining chrome or candy-apple red, while others looked as though they had been laminated with silver—or even gold. Many were set with precious stones, including sea-green jade and multicolored opals. A few glittered with the fiery flash that only comes from a real diamond. Others were hung with lace or trimmed with embroidered velvet. The shapes and forms also varied—a number were molded to look like the masks you see on ancient Aztec and Mayan sculptures, while others bore delicate filigree work that took the form of stylized feathers, intricate geometric shapes, or delicately tinkling bells. Compared to these, our breathers were functional and plain in the extreme. They immediately marked us as fashion-unconscious—and as tourists in Tenochtitlán.

  Just as well that José hadn’t tried to set up a cover identity for us as Aztlaner nationals. Between the breathers and the rubber-necking we did as we rode through the city, we’d never have pulled it off. As resident aliens visiting the capital for the first time after contracting to work in Aztlan, we had a better chance of playing our parts.

  We hopped a taxi from the airport and directed the driver to take us to one of the Comfort Inns, a chain of medium-cost hotels recommended by the datasoft I’d slotted earlier that day. I’d had trouble making a booking—it seemed like every hotel in Tenochtitlán was full. I’d finally managed to snag the last room at a hotel in Iztapalapa, a suburb to the south of the downtown core. It wasn’t the nicest part of the city, but I figured an ex-cop and a would-be combat biker could handle it.

  The dataguide told me how much to expect to pay for a taxi—and had offered hints on how to barter the driver down to the proper amount. It had also warned me against accepting a ride from the throng of “taxi” drivers who cluster outside the arrivals gate. They were the ones whose cars had non-standard GridGuide software—or worse yet, who fell back upon their own navigational abilities. According to the guide I’d slotted, at least once a week one of these carcachas wound up crunched against a divider or smashing head-on into a vehicle that was going the right way down a one-way street.

  Compared to these wrecks, the Volkswagen GoCar we climbed into was a luxury vehicle. I sighed in relief as the doors sealed and the air conditioning kicked in, and removed my breather. Rafael did the same—although the taxi was too small to have the head room his massive frame demanded. He slouched down, one muscular arm lying across the back seat, and fluffed out his sweat-stained shirt to catch the cool breeze from the cab’s blowers.

  We only got to see a little of the city as we rode to our hotel. For one thing, the smog limited visibility to about a dozen blocks or so. And much of the drive was confined to the city’s complex system of elevated autoroutes. But we did dip down to ground level now and then—exiting a ramp at a dizzying speed that made me clutch the edge of my seat—and so we saw a little bit of street-level Tenochtitlán.

  The city’s been the cultural and political capital of this area since the Aztecs founded it in the thirteen hundreds. It’s a dog’s breakfast of architectural styles—ultra-modern tinted glass skyscrapers and geodesic domes rub shoulders with heritage buildings constructed shortly after the Spanish conquest (buildings that are patched together with plenty of ferrocrete, and can hardly be called “original” any more). Gleaming luxury hotels alternate with tiny concrete-and-plaster shops that are fronted at street level with corrugated metal roll-up doors painted in vivid primary colors. The culture clash is everywhere—traditionalist Aztlan buildings and taco stands share street space with pagoda-roofed noodle and sushi bars, monumental arches supported by Grecian pillars, New York-style haberdashery shops, a smaller-scale reproduction of the Sydney opera house, dome-topped towers reminiscent of something out of a Russian fairy tale, and streetside cappuccino bars that looked as if they had been lifted, clientele and all (but with fancier breathers, of course) from the rainy streets of Seattle.

  Despite the cosmopolitan air, Tenochtitlán is very much an Aztlaner city. A number of the larger buildings are decorated with wall murals and mosaics celebrating the original “Mexico’s” liberation from Spain and other historical events such as the changing of the country’s name to Aztlan by President Francisco Pavon after the Azatlan Party’s victory of 2015. And despite the fact that the average citizen thumbs his nose at “traditionals,” tributes to the ancient Aztecs are everywhere.

  Our taxi swept around more than one traffic circle—six lanes of cars jostling in and out in a whirlpool of exhaust and honking horns—and passed numerous public squares dotted with pedestalled statues. Some of these were human figures: rifle-toting revolutionaries, top-hatted statesmen, the Aztec king Cuitlahuac in his feather headdress and cape, and a winged “angel of independence.” Others were statues of the gods. I couldn’t see much as we whizzed past, but I got an overall impression of fearsomely grimacing skeletal monstrosities.

  Even though I had Azzie blood flowing in my veins, this country felt totally foreign to me. My mother had severed her ties with her “heathen” relatives in Aztlan when she emigrated north with my father and grandmother. I was born in Seattle and had been raised to be a good Catholic girl by parents who did everything they could to assimilate and fit in. Rendered cultureless by the UCAS melting pot, I had nothing in common with the people I saw on the streets around me. Their clothing, gestures, attitudes—even the pitch of their voices and the way they walked—were completely alien to me. Even the weather didn’t feel right.

  We stopped at one of the few traffic lights and were immediately swarmed with street vendors who did their best to get us to crack the windows of the air-conditioned cab. Rafael waved to one dwarf kid who had to stand on tiptoe to peer in through the window. She was dressed in ragged track pants and a grubby sweater and held a cardboard tray filled with cigarette packages, candies, home-recorded copies of chips that bore what looked like badly scanned sports team logos, and toy-sized jaguar and serpent figures made from garishly colored plastic.

  “Recuerdos! Cigarros!” she called out in a piping voice that was muffled somewhat by her breather. “Chee-eeps! Ollamaliztli chee-eeps! Souvenirs! Cigarettes!”

  Rafael smacked his lips. I could guess that the smog had left the same raw taste in his throat as it had in mine. He pulled some hard cash out of his pocket and began sorting through the unfamiliar metal-coated plastic coins. Before he could finish counting them, however, the driver jammed a fist down on the horn. The street kids jumped back as the traffic suddenly surged into motion again.

  “Hey!” Rafael shouted to the driver. “I wanted to buy some candy. Next time don’t pull away so fast!”

  The driver, a troll who was even more scrunched in the tiny cab than Rafael was, smiled back at us in his rear view mirror, exposing jagged, yellow-stained teeth. “Here,” he said, holding up a box of mints. “The stuff the street kids sell tastes like donkey excremento. Try one of these.”

  While Rafael and the driver—whose name turned out to be Hector—made small talk, I stared out the window. We were nearing the heart of Tenochtit
lán now, and the downtown core was dotted with what looked like Aztec pyramids. The stories of these gigantic government buildings were stacked layer upon layer like a squared-off wedding cake and seemed to be made of massive sandstone blocks, trimmed with gleaming copper. At street level they had the usual collection of doors and windows, but the higher levels were fronted by gigantic sculpted heads of what I could only assume were ancient Aztec gods or rulers. Goggle-eyed monstrosities alternated with leering serpent heads and skulls decked out in feather headdresses and ear plugs.

  In front, on flagpoles, Aztlaner flags hung limp in the smoggy air. The symbol that appeared on them was the same as the crest on the license that adorned the side of the meter that was rapidly ticking away peso normas: an eagle, poised on a cactus and holding a snake in its beak. According to legend, the sun god Huitzilopochtli had prophesied that when the wandering Aztec tribe saw an eagle sitting on a cactus and eating a snake, they would have arrived at their new homeland. The omen came true on the swampy island that was the original core of Tenochtitlán—the name that translated as “place of the cactus.”

  The symbol was a source of Aztlaner pride, but it creeped me out. It reminded me of Mama G’s death. I thought of the dead snake I had found on our doorstep the day before her murder, and of the way my adopted grandmother’s throat had been slashed open by a macauitl. The national symbol seemed all too evocative of the death of this innocent healer shaman, carried out by the warrior eagle of the Aztlaner state. It wasn’t an image I wanted to dwell upon.

  I’d noticed a strong paramilitary presence ever since deplaning in Tenochtitlán—the international airport had been filled with Aztechnology Corporate Security guards, suited up in full combat armor and carrying the latest in personal high-tech weaponry. I was used to seeing guards with SMGs or assault rifles at airports—especially at those with a suborbital hub, a favorite terrorist target. But in Tenochtitlán, it seemed, there was a pair of them on every street corner. Back home, your average Star member carries a heavy pistol and stun baton. In Tenochtitlán, the policla on the beat is more heavily armed than a Star SWAT officer. Several of the cops had obvious cybermods, and more than one had odd-looking trinkets hanging from their heavy armor that I guessed must be the spell foci of a combat mage. They looked like hard-hooped fraggers, indeed. The sort of policía you’d avoid making eye contact with, rather than turning to for help when you’d been mugged.

  I supposed the heavy security was due to the country’s ongoing civil war. Only a few news reports had trickled out—and you could bet your hoop that these were all heavily censored by the powers that be. But it sounded like the Azzies had their hands full. In the week before our arrival a priest had been killed when the government VTOL he was traveling in exploded in mid-air on its approach to Tenochtitlán after returning from Mérida, a civil war hot spot. When I heard the news I thought for one wild moment that it might be Vargas, but instead it was a priest of Huitzilopochtli, the Azzie sun god. And three years ago, a car bomb exploded outside of the Aztechnology corporate headquarters itself, killing twelve people. No wonder the country’s various security forces kept a nervous watch on the passing traffic. Most of the heat was confined to the Yucatán—but they never knew where or when the rebels might strike next.

  Rafael jostled me, breaking my train of thought. As we approached the Cuitlahuac traffic circle the cab driver pointed something out that he called a tlachtli. Rafael craned his neck to see it. The building looked like some sort of stadium, a narrow rectangular structure topped with seats on either side and plenty of ornamental stonework. Right next to it was a teocalli—one of the many temples of the multideity Aztlan state religion.

  “You mean you’re not in town for the ollamaliztli playoffs?” The driver sounded incredulous.

  “No,” Rafael answered. “But I’d really like to see them. Court ball’s a mega-frosty sport.”

  “I can recommend a good sports bar to you,” the troll continued. “It’s called Deportista Virtual and it’s down on Rio Sena in the Zona Rosa. Not that expensive, though—I’m sure you could afford it. My cousin manages the place. The bar serves the best tequila and botanas in town, and every time the Jaguars score there’s a free round on the house. Just mention my name, Hector Escalante, and you’ll get a booth with a good trid seat. And there’s a government betting station right next door.”

  The troll pulled out a pack of matches bearing the Deportista Virtual name and address and passed them back to us with one hand as he cut across three lanes of traffic and zoomed up yet another autoroute on ramp. He half-turned to continue his sales pitch, then suddenly yanked the wheel hard over, narrowly missing a heavily armored vehicle painted a dull matte black. I had a much closer look than I liked of the Aztechnology Corporate Security logo—a stylized, snarling jaguar face—and then we fell behind the patrol car as Hector jammed on the brakes. Rafael and I were thrown forward against our seatbelts.

  “Chingada!” the troll swore explosively. “That’s one poli I don’t want to hit.” His face had drained of color and his hand shook slightly as he down-shifted. He reflexively began to cross himself, then jerked his hand away from his chest.

  “It’s okay,” I told him. “My parents were Catholic. I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Ah.” He relaxed slightly.

  Rafael was still looking at the stadium, which was below us now. “I suppose it’s mondo expensive to see the game in the meat,” he said, sitting back at last. “Your cousin couldn’t get us tickets, could he?”

  The taxi driver burst into full-throated laughter. “She,” he corrected. “And there’s cero chance, carnal. Even if you had the pesos . . .” Suddenly realizing that he might have embarrassed us by implying that we weren’t flush enough, he smiled sheepishly. “That is, you’d have to know someone very well connected. My cousin Eriqueta may be able to put you in touch with—”

  “Never mind,” I said. I didn’t want any entanglements or distractions. “We probably won’t have the time.”

  Rafael seemed choked. “Aw, come on, Le—Leola. It’s the nationals. This game is completely intense. These boys take it seriously. In the 2052 finals, the captain of the Tenochtitlán Jaguars cut his own heart out at the end of the game.”

  “He what?” I asked. “Why? Did he lose?”

  “No, señora the taxi driver chimed in. “Jorge Xochitalco led his team to victory, coming from behind with two goals in the final minute of the game. And then he sacrificed himself and dedicated his win to Tezcatlipoca, god of the smoking mirror. They say he did it to avoid the curse.”

  “This curse was worse than cutting out your own heart?” I asked incredulously.

  “Oh, sí. Xochitalco knew he was going to die anyway and be claimed by a rival god. And so he sacrificed himself.”

  “How do the policía know he killed himself? Maybe someone else did it and made it look like he committed suicide.” Despite myself, I was hooked. Suicide and murder had been my business back when I worked with the Star. There were any number of indicators to tell the difference between the two. Hesitation marks—lesser cuts made while the victim is working up his nerve, the loosening or removal of clothing over the area where the bullet or knife is going to impact, whether the angle and depth of the wound itself corresponds with the handedness of the victim .. .

  “He killed himself, all right,” Rafael said. “He did it on national trid—millions of people saw it live on the sports-nets. They’re still selling chips of it. He shouted out something like, ‘For the glory of Tezcatlipoca!’ and slashed open his own chest with a snap-blade. Then he reached into the wound and grabbed his own heart and tried to yank it out.” He shuddered. “I don’t know how he did it. Must have been juiced on drugs. Or pumping mondo mana.”

  “Xochitalco was a very religious man,” Hector said. He kept one eye on the traffic, cutting deftly back and forth across the four lanes that were flowing at breakneck speed along the autoroute, and the other on the rearview mirror as he engaged
us in impassioned conversation. “The sportscasts say that he entered a telpochcalli when he was just six years old, with dreams of becoming a warrior priest. Then he discovered ollamaliztli and dedicated himself to sport, instead. But he still remained faithful to Tezcatlipoca. He kept the novice warrior’s lock of hair at the nape of his neck until his team won the nationals in 2051—he considered that the equivalent of taking a prisoner in battle. And he—”

  “But why kill himself?” I still didn’t get it.

  “Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli are as much rivals as the Jaguars and the Serpents are,” our driver explained patiently. “Xochitalco wanted to insult Huitzilopochtli by sacrificing himself to another god in the tlachtli—the ball court is dedicated to the sun god and has his temple right next door. And it’s a well known fact that Huitzilopochtli would have claimed Xochitalco otherwise. It’s the curse, you see.”

  Hector took a deep breath. He was wound up now, and there would be no stopping him. I settled back and made myself comfortable.

  “It started back in 2049, the year the Ensenada Eagles won the nationals. On the way home from the game, Nando Lopez died in a plane crash. He was flying with Aero Mariposa—Butterfly Air. And the butterfly is a sacred symbol of Huitzilopochtli.”

  I snorted. Curse indeed. I’d put money on it that Lopez wasn’t the only one to die in the plane crash. And that those who had perished with him hadn’t slotted the sun god off in any way.

  “The next year, Gustavo De Brize led the Zempoala Cats to victory and died in Veracruz one month later when he got caught in the middle of a shootout between two go-gangs. One of the gangs called themselves Los Colibrf—the hummingbirds. And that’s what warriors who died for Huitzilopochtli were said to have been reincarnated as in ancient times: hummingbirds.

  “When the Jaguars won in 2051, Chucho Chamac drowned after falling off the yacht in which the Tenochtitlán team was celebrating its victory. When they found his body, washed up on the shore at Cancun, an eagle was feeding on it.”