"Syrus."
The sweat is suffocating. My first breath of the morning is thick with the stench of a sweaty, suffocating man in a cot.
"Syrus."
"Yeah... sorry. I had a nightmare." I rub the fatigue from my eyes. Roma is brewing mate in the corner of the tent.
"That's great. We need to start the Work soon."
"Right."
"Don't be late. I'll be upset if you're late."
"Right. Wouldn't dream of it."
Terra exits swiftly, too swiftly for my gaze to linger.
There's a light that never reaches this part of the jungle. We're nestled beneath a stretch of impenetrable foliage, which staunchly forbids the entrance of light. I can see only by the dim glow of an oil lamp.
"Drink up." Roma offers his brew in a steel mug. Every morning begins with a cup of mate from Roma. Lately we've been taking our time to empty the cups, drinking every drop of mate before we surrender ourselves to the daily drudgery.
I adjust to an upright position and drink deeply, letting the brew rouse my consciousness. Roma has already begun talking about hiking in the ruins, while I'm struggling to shake the image of Father being dragged into Hell.
"...that would only take four hours or so to explore the whole area," he says, fumbling with some rough sketches of the terrain, "and it's adjacent to the last place we mapped."
"Are we gonna get lost on the way back like last time?"
"No," Roma insists defensively, "not a chance. We know the region better now."
"You know the region, I know how to follow you," I mumble, dressing for the day. I've never been a morning person. Roma is an all-the-time person. He pounds mate all day and never gets tired. When the Work is done, he drags me deep into the wilderness with him, exploring the jungle and its bizarre contents in the dead of night, when we're supposed to be asleep or studying. He records everything he comes across so he won't forget about it.
"...which is right next to those ruins with the giant pyramid, and that provides a great view of the jungle, which I can use to fix the maps and find the next area we're gonna explore."
I stare at Roma through the steam rising off the steel mug. His insatiable desire to scout the land has gotten us into trouble before, and he doesn't care. "Wounds heal," he says.
At the end of each day, when he beckons me into the verdure, I weigh the risk of getting caught with the rapture of discovery. He plays on my weakness for the unknown.
"Okay," I submit. "That sounds really exciting."
Roma has jade eyes and shaggy brown hair that hangs tautly around his neck, and he never shows his teeth when he smiles.
Stone cliffs reach skyward all around us. They watch over us as the Work commences.
"Give your life to the Blueprint!"
I'm perched atop an irregular chunk of limestone, which must be cleared and resurfaced before the Authors can begin carving. The pickaxe is made heavier by Father's screaming. Terra is clearing foliage across the cenote, on the other side of the clearing. She's a speck in a sea of specks, hundreds of specks laboring over the sprawl of limestone etchings. I spare a glimpse in her direction, but Terra has disappeared from view. Instead I notice a young boy struggling with his assigned task, heaving broken chunks of rock off into the trees, where they will be moved again later, when we inevitably consume the area with engravings. He lifts a boulder just slightly smaller than he is, and waddles off towards the treeline.
