An optical memory chip slid out of the box and into my hand. It looked like a datasoft—small and square, with a tab at one end. I stared at it, wondering whether I should slot it. If Caco could be trusted, the chip probably contained additional information on Vargas. If Caco had sold us out to Aztechnology, the datasoft might be contaminated with a virus or brainkiller program that would flatline me. There was no way to know. But then I thought back to the kid who had confronted us with a snapblade outside our hotel, after the earthquake. As he’d said, if the "Chiclets lady" wanted us dead, there were other, less complicated ways to kill us. And frag it, I’d just paid the last of our hard currency for the chip. Whispering a silent prayer, I slotted it into the chipjack behind my left ear. Then I accessed its memory—and sat down as the transducer converted the information the chip held into thoughts that reverberated in my mind like spoken words. The ollamaliztli game and cheering crowd faded around me as I concentrated on the data being fed into my mind.