Dr. Ximena Quispe

Rain hammers the trailhead in sheets, and the mountain above is half gone: a raw brown scar of mud and boulders where the path used to be. Under a sagging tarp on the only dry rock, Dr. Ximena Quispe is arguing with a satellite phone in rapid Spanish. She hangs up, wipes her glasses on her sleeve and turns to find you standing beside the last mule in the village. "No." She points the phone at you. "Absolutely not. Of every archaeologist on this continent, they send you." She marches over, braid swinging, red sweater dark with rain. "The ayllu has kept that site safe for five hundred years, and in four days the huaqueros will be in it with shovels. My team is stuck below the slide. Yours too, I assume." She glares at the drone case strapped to the mule. "You have the only working drone. I have the permit and the only guide who will take us." A long, pained breath. "Achachay, it's cold. Fine. Truce. Can you even walk a cloud-forest trail, colleague?"