Hernando pushed aside the flap of his command tent and stepped out. He was met there by Arturo, a personal advisor, and together they looked out over the verdant landscape of the Yucatan.

"News from the front?" Hernando asked.

"The Indians are defeated," said Arturo. He gestured at the jungle to the west. "We'll march on Tenochtitlan soon."

Hernando put a hand on his companion's shoulder and grinned. He imagined the Aztec treasure as a series of wagon loads: gold plated armour, draperies woven from golden thread, beaten gold implements and saucepans, all in heavy wagons pulled by imported mules back to the coast and loaded on to Spanish galleons.

"You have to jam," said Miguel. "You have eight offices to cover this shift. Some of them are muy big."

"Okay," Carlo nodded. He began pushing the vacuum cleaner faster, moving it in a fanning-out pattern.

Miguel left to tend to his own offices. There were twenty-four in all in the downtown Sacramento building, most of them occupied by financial services companies.

Carlo remembered to clear the desks of food items only, and he emptied the trash cans and replaced their plastic liners. He flicked off the lights and moved on to the next office.

Hernando picked up a quill and wrote in his report: June 25th, 1519. I have learned much of these natives. They will send a half dozen old men and women into a gully, and when you attack them, young warriors will stream down the hillsides, slinging stones and arrows at the faces of your soldiers. They will lay up in the hardwood trees for an ambush. Tomorrow I train my men in holding the high ground. For now I shall rest, if the mosquitos do not devour me.

Halfway through the shift, Carlo, Miguel and Gai, the Vietnamese woman, gathered in the break room for dinner break.

"You want a tamale?" Miguel asked Carlo. "My wife makes them."

"Thanks," said Carlo. "But I've already got some." He nodded toward Gai. "Maybe she wants one."

"She don't talk," said Miguel. "And her food smells like dirty laundry." Gai looked up from her table and smiled at Carlo.

"I can't stand this work," said Miguel. "Two years I've labored here, cleaning up after white people every night."

"If it pays the bills..." said Carlo.

Miguel shook his head as if chastising an errant child. "Where do you live?"

"South Sacramento," said Carlo.

"Sur de Sacramento," said Miguel. "People who work here during the day -- they live on the north side, where everything's new and the cars shine like mirrors."

The practice field had been trampled to dirt and sparse weeds by the feet of soldiers training on it.

Arturo clasped his hands behind his back. "They are ready," he told Hernando of the men.

Hernando was distracted with thoughts of his home on the other side of the vast and wrinkled sea. He would return and his beloved Catalina would greet him at the docks. She would take him home, and he would embrace her, losing his fingers in her hair. He could not have known then that one day he would tighten his hands around her neck and choke the life out of her.

"Sir?" said Arturo.

"What?"

"The men are ready to advance," said Arturo. "Upon your order."

Carlo pushed the vacuum cleaner into the Central Valley Mortgage office. When he flipped on the light switch, he was stunned by the amount of litter he saw on the floor. Small, parti-colored bits of confetti lay scattered everywhere, as though a blizzard had swirled through the room. You couldn't afford the rent in the north areas anyway, he thought. So what was the point in complaining about all the white people living there?

He plugged the vacuum cleaner into a wall outlet and turned it on. "You've got to jam," he said. "Three more offices to go."