This abrupt change of subject threw me even more than his prior reverse psychology crap. “I… uh, yeah?” I replied lamely. “Well, he used to be, anyway.” Abuelo had retired five years ago, when the dig site on the eroding Veracruz coastline that he’d dedicated his life to finally crumbled into the sea. He’d known it was coming—that’s what had made his excavation so critical—but it had still been a major blow.

Erick smiled but kept his eyes trained on the road. “I’m familiar with his work. Professor Hector Garcia. You might not realize it, but geologists and archaeologists actually have a lot of overlap, professionally. We use similar methods. But that’s not why I’ve heard of Hector Garcia, of course. He’s quite famous on Earth. Or he was for a time.”

“Yeah, since he’s the one who finally translated the Cascajal Block.” It was sort of a Rosetta Stone, only for the ancient Olmec—a civilization that existed in Mexico over three thousand years ago. People had tried for over sixty years to decipher the writing on the block, which was the oldest written language in the Americas. But Abuelo was the one who had finally done it.

Erick nodded. “And I understand you inherited your grandfather’s knack for languages. Your mother tells me you’re a regular polyglot. How many do you speak, anyway?”

“Eight.”

Erick swore.

I flushed. “Well, to different degrees of fluency.”

“Still, at your age? That’s impressive.”

I stared down at my scuffed shoes. They looked embarrassingly at home on the mud-caked vinyl car mats. “I grew up speaking English, and my mom wanted to make sure I knew Spanish. Heritage and all. None of us really use it, though, apart from the EBCs.”

“The EBCs?”

“Yeah, you know. Exclamations, baby names and curse words.”

Erick laughed at this, a huge, bellowing sound that felt much too large for the cramped pickup cab. I squirmed in my seat.

“I picked up some Greek and Russian from kids in our neighborhood,” I went on, staring out the window at a group of pedestrians waiting at a crosswalk. Businesspeople in suits trying to ignore the tourists beside them, snapping pics of the AresTec tower on their palmtops. “Henry’s mom taught me some Hindi… the rest are from the classes the Academy is having me take. Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, stuff like that.”