by James Frey
Aisling Kopp saw the impact site on the way in through one of the plane’s small oval windows. That black bowl-shaped scar in the city, 10 times more devastating than any of the pictures from 2001’s man-made terror attack.
But something about it had changed.
It wasn’t that it had been fixed up or cleaned away—that would take decades. What had changed was at the crater’s center, the very point of impact. Now, instead of ash and rubble, there was a clean white dot.
A tent. Just like the one that covered whatever had happened at Stonehenge. Whatever the Cahokian and the Olmec had done to the ancient Celtic ruin.
One of her line’s places. An ancient La Tène power center.
Used. Taken away. And covered up.
The white tents are like signals to Aisling. Governments are scared, ignorant, groping. If they can’t fix what’s happened—the meteors, Stonehenge—then they’ll shroud the damage until they figure it out.
They won’t figure it out, though.
A few minutes after the plane arced over Queens, she saw something else. Something she wanted to see. There, in Broad Channel, on the stretch of land bridging the Rockaway Peninsula to the Queens mainland. Pop’s house. The teal bungalow on West 10th Road, still standing after the meteor that hit several miles to the north, killing 4,416 souls and injuring twice as many more. It would’ve been so much worse if the meteor hadn’t landed in a cemetery. The already dead bore the brunt of its impact.
Aisling is still alive. And her house still stands.
For how much longer, Aisling doesn’t know. How much longer will JFK stand? Or the government’s white tents? Or anything at all?
The Event is coming. Aisling knows when but not where. If it’s centered on the Philippines or Siberia or Antarctica or Madagascar, then Pop’s wooden house will survive. New York will survive. JFK will survive.
But if the Event hits anywhere in the North Atlantic, towering waves will crash down on the coast, washing away miles and miles of houses. If the Event hits on land, if it hits the city, then her home will go up in flames in a matter of seconds.
She’s convinced that wherever the Event is concentrated, it will be an asteroid. It has to be. That’s what she saw in the ancient paintings above Lago Beluiso. Fire from above. Death from above, just like life and consciousness from above. A massive hunk of iron and nickel as old as the Milky Way that will crash into Earth and alter life here for millennia. A cosmic interloper of massive scale. A killer.
That’s what the keplers are. Killers.
That’s what I am too. In theory.
She moves forward in the long, slow immigration line.
Why didn’t she shoot the Cahokian and the Olmec when she had the chance? Maybe she could have stopped everything. Maybe, for that brief moment, she held the key to stopping Endgame.
Maybe.
She should have shot first and asked questions later.
She was weak.
You have to be strong in Endgame, Pop used to tell her. Even before she was eligible. Strong in every way.
I’ll have to be stronger to stop it, she thinks. I won’t be weak again.
“Next at thirty-one,” says an Indian woman in a maroon sport jacket, interrupting Aisling’s apocalyptic train of thought. The woman has smiling eyes and dark lips and jet-black hair.
“Thanks,” Aisling says. She smiles at the woman, looks at all the people in this vast room, people from every corner of the world, of every shape and size and color, rich and not-so-rich. She’s always loved JFK immigration for this reason. In most other countries you see a predominance of one type of person, but not here. It almost makes her sick, thinking that it will all be gone. That all these people from so many different walks of life will no longer smile, laugh, wait, breathe, or live.
When will they find out? she wonders. As it happens? In that split second before the end? Hours before? Weeks? Months? Tomorrow? Today?
Today. That would be interesting. Very interesting.
The government would need a lot more white tents.
Aisling arrives at desk 31. There is one person in line before her. An athletic African-American woman in a royal-blue jumpsuit with fashionable bug-eyed sunglasses.
“Next,” the immigration officer says. The woman crosses the red line to the desk. It takes her 78 seconds to clear.
“Next,” the officer repeats. Aisling approaches, her passport ready. The officer is in his 60s with square eyeglasses and a bald spot. He’s probably counting the days to his retirement. Aisling hands over her passport. It’s worn and has been stamped dozens of times, but as far as Aisling is concerned it’s brand-new. She picked it up at a dead drop in Milan on Via Fabriano only hours before going to Malpensa airport. Pop had sent it via courier 53 hours earlier. The name on it is Deandra Belafonte Cooper, a new alias. Deandra was born in Cleveland. She’s been to Turkey, Bermuda, Italy, France, Poland, the UK, Israel, Greece, and Lebanon. Pretty good for a young woman of 20 years.
Yes, 20 years. If the meteors had landed just a few weeks later, she would have aged out. But Aisling celebrated her birthday while she was holed up in that cave. Although “celebrated” is a pretty generous word for eating spit-roasted squirrel and drinking cold mountain spring water. She did enjoy a few sugar cubes after her meal, along with two small pulls off a flask of Kentucky bourbon. But it was no party.
“You’ve been around,” the agent says, leafing through the passport.
“Yeah, took a year off before college. Which turned into two,” Aisling says, shifting her weight from one leg to the other.
“Headed home?”
“Yep. Breezy Point.”
“Ah, local girl.”
“Yep.”
He slides the passport through the scanner. He puts down the little blue book. He types. He looks bored but happy—that retirement is looming—but then his hands pause for a split second over the keys. He squints very slightly and adjusts his posture.
He keeps typing.
She’s been standing there for 99 seconds when he says, “Miss Cooper, I’m going to have to ask you to step aside and see some of my colleagues over there.”
Aisling feigns concern. “Is there something wrong with my passport?”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Can I have it then?”
“No, I’m afraid you can’t. Now please”—he holds up one hand and places the other on the butt of his holstered pistol—“over there.”
Aisling already sees them from the corner of her eye. Two men, both in fatigues and armed with M4s and Colt service pistols, one with a very large Alsatian panting happily on a leash.
“Am I being arrested?”
The officer snaps the strap off his pistol but doesn’t draw. Aisling wonders if this moment is the most exciting of his 20-odd years as an immigration officer. “Miss, I am not going to ask again. Please see my colleagues.”
Aisling holds up her hands and widens her eyes, makes them watery, like how Deandra Belafonte Cooper, the non-Player world traveler, would look in the situation. Scared and fragile.
She turns from the officer and walks haltingly toward the men. They don’t buy it. In fact, they take half a step back. The dog stands, as his handler whispers a command. His ears perk, his tail straightens, the hairs on his neck bristle. The man without the dog moves his rifle into the ready position and says, “That way. You first. No need for a scene, but we need to see your hands.”
Aisling dispenses with the act. She turns, puts her hands behind her back, just under her knapsack, and hooks her thumbs. “That all right?”
“Yes. Walk straight ahead. There’s a door at the end of the room marked E-one-one-seven. It will open when you get to it.”
“Can I ask a question?”
“No, miss, you cannot. Now walk.”
She walks.
And as she does, Aisling wonders if they are going to put her under a white tent too.
“Tango Whiskey X-ray, this is Hotel Lima
, over?”
“Tango Whiskey X-ray, we read you.”
“Hotel Lima confirms idents of Nighthawks One and Two. Good night. Repeat, good night. Over.”
“Roger, Hotel Lima. Good night. Protocol?”
“Protocol is Ghost Takedown. Over.”
“Roger Ghost Takedown. Teams One, Two, and Three are in position. We have eyes?”
“Eyes are online. Op on oh-four-five-five Zulu.”
“Op on oh-four-five-five Zulu, copy. See you on the other side.”
“Roger that, Tango Whiskey X-ray. Hotel Lima out.”
JAGO TLALOC, SARAH ALOPAY
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Suite 438, Kensington, London
The news is on all day in the background while Jago talks with Renzo to finalize their transportation. Sarah packs. Not that they have much to pack. When he’s done with Renzo, Jago goes over their emergency escape plan, should they need it. The one that winds through the nearby Tube tunnels and sewers. Sarah listens, but Jago sees that she’s not paying attention. They eat more Burger King—breakfast this time—savoring every greasy, salty bite. The Event is coming. The days are numbered for this kind of fast-food deliciousness.
Sarah meditates in the bathtub, tries not to cry about Christopher or triggering the end of the world, and miraculously succeeds. Jago exercises in the living room. Rips off three sets of 100 push-ups, three sets of 250 sit-ups, three sets of 500 jumping jacks. After her meditation, Sarah cleans their plastic-and-ceramic guns. She has no idea who made them, but each is identical to a Sig Pro 2022 in every way save material, color, weight, and magazine capacity. When she’s finished, she puts one by her bedside and one by Jago’s. His and hers. Nearly jokes that they should be mongrammed but doesn’t feel like joking. Each pistol has 16 rounds plus an extra 17-round magazine. Sarah fired one bullet at Stonehenge, killing Christopher and hitting An, probably killing him too. Jago fired one that grazed Chiyoko’s head. Other than their bodies, these are the only weapons they have.
Unless Earth Key counts as a weapon, which it very well might. It sits in the middle of the round coffee table. Small and seemingly innocent. The trigger for the end of the world.
The news on the TV is BBC. All day it’s the same. The meteors, the mystery at Stonehenge, the meteors, the mystery at Stonehenge, the meteors, the mystery at Stonehenge. Sprinkled here and there with some stuff from Syria and Congo and Latvia and Myanmar, plus the tanking world economy, reeling from a new kind of financial panic that, Sarah and Jago know, is the result of Endgame. The suits on Wall Street don’t know that, though. Not yet, anyway.
The meteors, and the mystery at Stonehenge. Wars, crashing markets.
The news.
“None of this will matter once it happens,” Sarah says in the early evening.
“You’re right. Nada.”
A commercial. A local ad for a car dealership. “I guess some of it I won’t miss,” Sarah says. Maybe she does feel like a joke.
Jago should be happy about this. But he just stares at the TV. “I don’t know. I think I’ll miss it all.”
Sarah glares at Earth Key. She was the one who unlocked . . . no. She has decided to stop blaming herself. She was only Playing. She didn’t make the rules. Sarah sits on the edge of the bed, her hands planted firmly on the mattress, her elbows locked. “What do you think it’ll be, Jago?”
“I don’t know. You remember what kepler 22b showed us. That image of Earth . . .”
“Burned. Dark. Gray and brown and red.”
“Sí.”
“Ugly . . .”
“Maybe it’ll be alien tech? One of kepler’s amigos pushes a button from their home planet and—poof!—Earth is screwed.”
“No. It’s got to be more terrifying than that. More . . . more of a show.”
Jago flicks the remote, the TV shuts off. “Whatever happens, I don’t want to think about it right now.”
She looks at him. Holds out a hand. Jago takes it and sits on the bed next to her and pushes his shoulder into hers.
“I don’t want to be alone, Jago.”
“You won’t be, Alopay.”
“Not after what happened at Stonehenge.”
“You won’t be.”
They flop onto their backs. “We’ll leave tomorrow, like we planned. We’re going to find Sky Key. We’re going to keep Playing.”
“Yeah,” she says unconvincingly. “Okay.”
Jago takes her head and turns it gently. He kisses her. “We can do this, Sarah. We can do it together.”
“Shut up.” She kisses him back. She feels the diamonds in his teeth, licks them, nibbles at his lower lip, smells his breath.
Anything to forget.
They fool around, and Sarah doesn’t say “Play” or “Earth Key” or “Sky Key” or “Endgame” or “Christopher” for the rest of the evening. She just holds Jago and smiles, touches him and smiles, feels him and smiles.
She falls asleep at 11:37 p.m.
Jago doesn’t sleep.
He is sitting in bed at 4:58 a.m. Stock-still. No lights. Two windows looking over a slender courtyard to the left of the bed. The blinds are open, ambient light suffuses the glass. Jago can see well enough. He’s already dressed. Sarah is too. He watches her sleep. Her breathing slow and steady.
The Cahokian.
He tries to remember a story his great-grandfather, Xehalór Tlaloc, told him about a legendary battle between humans and the Sky Gods that took place hundreds of years ago. A battle that the humans, who according to Xelahór didn’t even have guns at their disposal, somehow managed to win.
4:59.
If he and Sarah both want to survive, they will need to beat the Sky Gods a 2nd time. But how did the humans do it? How could humans with spears and bows and swords and knives defeat an army of Makers? How?
5:00.
How?
The air changes. The hair on Jago’s neck stands up. He whips his head to the door. The crack of light from the hall is unbroken. He stares at it for several seconds, and then it goes out.
He grabs his pistol from the side table. Pokes Sarah with a bony elbow. Her eyes pop open as Jago clasps a hand over her mouth. His eyes say, Someone’s coming.
Sarah slides to the floor. She grabs her pistol and quietly charges a round. She rolls under the bed. Jago slips to the floor and rolls under too.
“Player?” Sarah whispers.
“Don’t know.”
Then Jago remembers. He points his chin to the center of the room. Earth Key is still on the coffee table!
“Shit,” Sarah says.
Before Jago can stop her, Sarah slides out and gets to her knees, but then she freezes. Jago peers past her legs. There, just outside the windows, are two black tactical ropes, dancing back and forth.
“La joda!” Jago whispers.
And then the door bursts open. Four men in staggered single file push into the adjacent living room. All black, helmets, night vision, toting futuristic-looking FN F2000 assault rifles. At the same moment there’s a thud from outside, and the windows crack in every direction. Two men immediately rappel down the ropes and kick the glass. It shatters inward, shards raining onto the floor. The men swing in and land right in front of Sarah. She’s in a deep crouch, her gun leveled on the face of the lead soldier. She hesitates to shoot, and she hates herself for it.
But her senses are sharp, and she notices that the rifles have a strange attachment where the grenade launcher would normally be.
“Don’t move,” the lead soldier says with a British accent. “Except to lower your gun.”
“Where’s the other one?” asks the lead who came through the door.
One of the men behind him says, “Going thermal. There—”
Pop-pop!
Jago fires and rolls to his right, away from Sarah. Both shots hit the legs of the man who switched his goggles. This man’s shins are armored, but Jago guessed as much, and the bullets tear through the flesh and bone just above his feet. He falls to the floor,
crying out. None of the other men move to help. Instead they begin firing.
But not bullets.
Sarah springs straight up from her crouch, pulls her knees to her chest, her head nearly touching the ceiling. Two darts sail beneath her. Thup-thup. They hit the wall.
Thup-thup-thup-thup-thup. Jago’s on his feet too. He yanks a metal lamp from the bedside table and dances forward, twirling and ducking and spinning. Four darts zip through his shirt, a 5th grazes his hair, but none hit flesh. A 6th clangs off the metal of the lamp.
“Net!” says the lead soldier that came through the window. The man behind him fires a weapon that looks like a small RPG.
A dark blob expands through the air, heading for Sarah. She fires twice, hitting two of the metal balls that give the net its weight and propel it forward, but it’s no use. The net is coming for her.
Jago underhands the lamp toward Sarah. The net hits the lamp and the mesh wraps around it like a closing fist. Sarah drops to the floor, deflecting the snarled lamp to the side. Both Players then surge forward, firing simultaneously, twisting their bodies as they move, making themselves harder to hit with the darts.
Impossible to hit.
Jago fires across the room at Sarah’s assailants, using the angle to blast the night-vision goggles off both their faces without actually killing them. Sarah fires across the room at the men facing Jago. She hits two of the dart-gun attachments mounted to the rifles, hits one of the men square in the middle of his bulletproof vest, and with her 5th shot shoots the TV on the far side of the room. It explodes in a shower of sparks, blue and orange and green. The men stand their ground. “Go lethal!” one shouts.
Jago drops to his knees as the first soldier live-fires. Half a dozen 5.56 x 45 millimeter rounds scream over Jago’s head as he brings the top of his pistol hard into the man’s groin. Jago fires twice at the men just behind the lead soldier, hitting one on the hand and the other on the shoulder. Jago then reaches up and pulls a grenade off the man’s vest. Just by the shape and weight he can tell that it’s a flashbang.
At the same time, Sarah moves toward her two men. One lets off a volley, which she evades by leaping out the broken window.