I reached the top of the stairs, puffing a little from the rapid climb. I emerged into a long, narrow room whose stone walls and ceiling were intricately carved with boxy Aztec glyphs and painted with scenes of frowning gods and sacrificial victims dripping blood from severed fingers, hands, and throats. Modern track lighting provided illumination, but the air was filled with the sweet smoke of incense that burned in ancient-looking stone bowls, held in the hands of statues of skeletal, grinning gods that squatted in each of the four corners. Against the far wall hung a neon-tube sculpture of the stylized jaguar head that was the logo of Aztechnology Corporation. Its baleful red glow lent an eerie light to the room. Beside it, on a granite pedestal, was a bronze statue of an eagle sitting on a cactus and eating a snake—the national symbol of Aztlan and of the sun god Huitzilopochtli, patron of the ollamaliztli games.