"Come on," Parker beckoned from beyond the gate. The two Shawnee watched with cold, disinterested eyes as she shuffled through. The pilot stuck out a hand, which Gretchen shook. His grip was dry and firm. "Take a bag?"
"No. Thanks." Gretchen had her whole life packed up in the duffel, equipment case, and backpack. She wasn't going to give either bag over to some balding, smirky, fly-by-night Company pilot. She didn't trust her employers either. The Company might pay her to do the work she loved, but it had never gained her loyalty. Too many sites had been outright looted – ripped whole from the ground and packed up for shipment back to Anбhuac – for her to believe anything they said. "I've got it. Where are we going?"
"Downstation," Parker said, cutting away from the crowd of people coming out of the customs area. He kept inside the pattern marked with interlocking Jaguar heads on the metal floor. "Like I said, things have changed."
Five minutes later Gretchen was stuffed into a standing-room-only tube-car. Parker was pressed into one side, his hand covering the back of her duffel so no one could cut it open, and two Catholic priests on the other. The monks smelled funny – dust and paper and incense – but Gretchen was used to the smell of ancient things. She was not used to the complete lack of space and air in the car or the incredible humidity. The insides of the plastic windows were already running with thin streams of water, even as the car rose up on the tracks. A queasy moment followed, and then everyone in the car leaned slightly as it accelerated into the long-axis tunnel of the station.
"The Company has offices here," Parker mumbled into her ear. Gretchen made a face as smoke tickled her nose. "The main man is named Per Rubio Gossi – he's Maltese."
"A Knight of the Order?" Gretchen refused to look at the pilot, though that meant she was staring down at three small dark-haired children, all alike, with their hair cut in sharp bangs. They stared back at her, eyes huge and dark in pale white faces. They were dressed in severe blue capes and tunics. Gretchen wondered where their mother was.
"No," Parker laughed. He made a deprecating gesture. His hands were thin and wiry like brown sticks, and they folded over, flat, almost like flippers, the fingers lying together seamlessly. "He's fat and not very energetic. He's the Company rep here – handles outfitting, transshipment, that sort of thing. Warehousing is his big gig. He has the mission plan, though. Have you seen it?"
"No." Gretchen stiffened, feeling the car shudder as it switched from high speed to low. They were approaching a station. "Do we get off here?"
"Not yet," Parker said, craning his head over the people crushed in between him and the door. "This is only the first stop – temples, the market, the upscale hotels. We're going to the end of the line. Another twenty minutes, probably."
Gretchen felt mildly ill, but persevered. Twenty or thirty people crowded out and, thankfully, only two women with shopping bags got on. The three little children were gone. Parker sat down, brushing wrappers and bits of sweet roll off the seat. Gretchen also sat, ignoring the stains. The tube-car had once been painted a light orange, with a roof covered with a stenciled image of the Great City, the true Center, glorious Tenochtitlбn. Most of the mural had peeled away, leaving bare rusting metal. Graffiti, most of them kanji, covered every flat surface.
The car shimmied back up onto repulsion coils, then the outside – briefly visible with people hurrying back and forth, and neon, and huge v-screens showing a recorded tlachcho contest – was gone and there was darkness filled with streaked blurry lights. Gretchen checked the bags, leather jacket, the travel papers, everything she was wearing. Grimacing, she peeled a self-stick advert off her boot. It flickered to life at her touch. A naked woman, glossy black, writhed in her hand for a moment, surrounded by violently throbbing pink glyphs. She wadded up the paper and threw it away. Nothing seemed to be missing.
"Worked for the Company long?" Parker ventured, hands behind his head, watching her with half-lidded eyes. Gretchen supposed it was his "cool" pose. She shook her head.
"Three years, on Ugarit and Old Mars. Digging."
He nodded, making a wry half-smile. "I'm new, only six months. You said you didn't get the new mission plan?"
"No. Last I heard I was heading to Kolob Four to replace Dr. Fearing as xenoarch of the Singing Temple dig."
"Yeah. Well, you're not going there anymore. I was on another assignment, too, but they pulled me in to fly shuttle for you and your team."
"Team?" Gretchen's face screwed up like she'd taken a long gulp of bad coffee. "I don't have a team."
"You do now." Parker rubbed the side of his face. "You, me, Maggie Cat, and a gunner named Bandao. They're waiting at the office. You'll meet them in a minute."
The tube-car slid to a stop, then settled with a clang onto the station rails. Gretchen let Parker go first, then scuttled out of the car. The tube-stop was finished in more faux Tetzcoco-style murals, mostly destroyed by pasted advertisements and graffiti. Everyone on the tube-car walked very quickly, taking long shuffling steps, from the platform to a rank of escalators. Gretchen felt a little queasy, and her bags seemed lighter.
"We're in-core?"
"Yeah." Parker blew a smoke ring into the air. It began to twist into a helix as the escalators rattled and clanked up to the top level of the tube station. "Rents are cheaper here, right? Hard to keep your coffee in the cup, though."
At the top of the escalators there was a security gate and a kiosk selling grilled dogs, mГ©zcal and tobacco sticks. There was a line, though Gretchen found it interesting there were no nonhumans to be seen. Most Imperial stations had a few Kroomakh or Hesht hulking about. The corridor outside was ill-lit and lined with small shops, showing signs in Norman or French or Imperial. Young men and women loitered around the entrance to a pulque counter, smoking and watching people pass by. Like the young everywhere, they were wearing brilliant capes, though here the feathers were polychrome plastic over workaday tunics and rigger's boots. A bad neighborhood, she thought, almost laughing aloud. Even in light g, trash collected in the corners and the walkway was covered with a moirГ© pattern of dried chicle. And I feel safe.
The stairs up to the Company offices passed by a narrow shop crowded with different kinds of v-screens and senso-gear. Every screen was ablaze with a booming discordance of newscasters and chant videos. The landing stank of ozone and rotted meat. Gretchen's nose wrinkled for a moment, but she'd worked in worse. On Ugarit the excavation of a city midden six hundred feet deep had killed four of her workers in a methane pocket explosion. That was a truly foul smell.
The pilot thumbed open the door lock. Pausing, Gretchen raised an amused hand to touch the long list of companies residing at this address. There were six, and the Company was listed fourth.
"Greetings!" A very stocky human, not fat, but very round in features, limbs and body, rose from a chair. There was a table, too, surrounded by cheap office chairs. "I am Gossi. You would be Doctor Anderssen."
"Yes," Gretchen said, putting her bags by the nearest chair. She inclined her head politely to the two other people in the room. Parker was already pouring himself a cup of coffee from an ancient-looking silver pot on a side table. "There has been a change of plans?"