by James Frey
GET IT TOGETHER.
She runs her hands over her thighs and breathes. Her heart races as fast as it does after a long hard run, 127 bpm, which is too high, way too high. Over the next couple minutes she works it down to 116, 107, 98, 91, 84.
When she gets it below 78, she does every centering meditation trick she can think of.
“Okay,” she whispers. “Jago is dead and I’m on my own. I have Earth Key and I can win. Renzo will get me out of here, and if he doesn’t want to, then I’ll make him. I can win. Even if I have triggered the Event, I can win. I’m going to go home, see my family, tell Christopher’s parents that he’s dead, and Play on. I can win. I can win. I can win.”
She thinks of Christopher. Not as she last saw him, his torso gone, his legs toppled over on the green grass of Stonehenge. She thinks of him after football practice back in Omaha, in a sleeveless T-shirt, glowing with sweat, the bright golden hairs on his forearms shining in the late afternoon sun. Smiling, walking toward Sarah as she smiles back.
“I’m going to win. Because what else is there?”
She listens to her heart—59 bpm. Good. She turns the ignition, puts the car in gear, and goes.
Six minutes later she pulls off the A15, swinging onto an unnamed, sporadically paved road surrounded by fields. Wheat, alfalfa, barley, potatoes—lots of potatoes. She recognizes them all instinctively. She is the Cahokian, after all, and has spent more time in the American High Plains than all the other Players put together.
After a mile the road simply ends at the edge of a field that’s carpeted in bright green clover. She pulls the car under the boughs of a weeping willow, hiding it from prying eyes. She peels off the jumpsuit and double-checks that she has Earth Key, which is becoming a nervous habit. She slides the magazine from the plastic-and-ceramic pistol, inspects it. She smacks it back in and makes sure the safety is on before sticking it in the front of her waistband. She lets her hair back down and pulls it into a ponytail. The air is sweet. It smells of soil and water and peat. Some honeysuckle. An undercurrent of manure.
It’s good to be outdoors, in the country.
It calms her down.
She cuts across the clover field, the ankle-high grass grabbing at her pant cuffs. The old airstrip should be right ahead.
You can’t miss it, Jago said.
Fifty paces later she realizes that he was right.
She sees an old military truck of some kind, rusted out, the paint long since peeled away, its insides black and mysterious. It’s almost completely overgrown with vines and tall grass. Decades of exposure have turned it green and gray and brown. It’s being reclaimed by the land, one season at a time, and is perfectly camouflaged. Soon the land—burned, irradiated and toxic—will reclaim everything.
As Sarah gets closer, she sees more ghost machines: motorcycles, amphibious assault vehicles like those used on D-day, trailers, tractors. Wings of World War II-era planes, tail sections, giant tires, all manner of discarded metal in every shape and size. The clover field ends and, as if out of nowhere, is replaced with concrete, right in the middle of the field, cracked and patchwork since it’s also succumbing to the ravages of wind, dirt, rain, and determined plant life.
Life really is remarkable, Sarah thinks. It will continue. Come what may, it will find a way to continue.
And I will too.
Sarah vaults over the front of a derelict tractor. She stands on a rough ribbon of tarmac that extends to her left and right, all the vehicles pushed to the margin. It’s not very long—the northern half appears to be completely overgrown—but it’s still a few thousand feet, which is enough runway for a turbo prop or even a small jet. She looks for some sign of Renzo or a plane that can actually fly and doesn’t see any.
But he has to be here, she thinks. He has to.
She moves to the center of the runway and kneels. Runs her fingers over the ground. She finds the black smears of fresh tire tracks going in both directions. There is a plane. It landed in the last 12 hours, by the look of the tread marks.
She pulls the gun from her waistband and flicks off the safety and stalks north, keeping close to the vacant machinery on her right.
A breeze kicks over the fields, the trees whisper, and some movement catches Sarah’s eye. A tarp billowing behind the skeletal remains of a large truck lying across the northern end of the runway.
A new tarp, covered in a modern camo pattern.
“Renzo!” Sarah calls out.
Nothing. Just the sounds of the countryside.
“Come on! I know you’re here!” she yells.
Nothing.
“I’ve had a long morning,” she says at a normal volume, continuing north, the pistol at the ready position.
“You and me both,” a voice says, much closer than she expects.
She spins to the sound but no one is there. Just another rotted truck and grass and vines and a line of trees in the background.
“Where are you?”
“Here,” Renzo says, his voice coming from her right, which is impossible, since that’s just the open space of the runway. “What, you can’t see me?”
“No,” Sarah says, ashamed, remembering that Renzo is an ex-Player. “Show yourself.”
“Where’s Jago?”
“He—”
“Don’t tell me he didn’t make it. You tell me that and we have a major problem.”
“He didn’t make it.”
“I should kill you, puta,” he says, now his voice coming from behind Sarah.
She wheels, but sees no one.
A ventriloquist.
A rustle, she spins again, and Renzo is there, only 10 feet away near the rotted truck, holding a simple, old-school sawed-off pistol-grip shotgun. He looks the same as he did in Iraq—squat and sturdy and sure of himself—minus the jovial glint in his eye. Today he is all business. His cheeks are ruddy. His brown eyes squinting.
Sarah begins to raise her gun—the same one Renzo gave her back in Mosul, the same one that killed Christopher—as Renzo brandishes the shotgun and yells, “Don’t even think of it!”
Her arms freeze. She keeps the pistol at the ready position. Without sighting down the barrel she can tell that, if neither of them moves, she could shoot his right foot off instantly.
Of course, he could blow her entire chest away in the same instant, so Renzo has the advantage.
Also, he has the plane.
In a cool, serious voice, Renzo says, “If you level that on me, I will shoot. No more talking. We’ll both be dead and that’ll be that.”
“Okay.” She doesn’t raise the gun.
“You look like hell.” She knows it’s true.
“Like I said, long morning.”
“Where’s Jago, Cahokian? And don’t give me that he didn’t make it crap.”
“But he didn’t. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been pretty torn up about it.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better. Tell me how.”
She does. She even mentions the explosion she heard in the cistern, but not the faint sound of footfalls in the sewer. She’s not sure they were really there. And she can’t let Renzo know that she’s on the precipice of a complete mental breakdown.
Which is why she also doesn’t mention the screaming episode in the car, or the crying, or that she is just holding on, and that maybe a small part of her is considering raising that gun and being done with all of it.
When she’s finished, Renzo asks, “So this train passed and you didn’t go back to check on him?”
“He wasn’t there, Renzo. I looked. I saw a piece of his shirt. He was probably pasted to the front car. There were thirty men coming for me. Thirty killers.”
“You’re a killer too.”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t kill Jago?”
“What? No!”
Her gut twists. Her left eye flutters. Did she kill him? She killed Christopher. Willingly. Did she somehow kill Jago too?
No.
She couldn’t have.
Her gun begins to shake. The breeze picks up. She is going to lose it. She is going to lose it. She is going to lose it again.
“What is it, Cahokian? What are you afraid of?”
“Nothing. I told you, I’m pretty torn up. I love Jago. Loved Jago. He was . . . he was the only one I’d ever met like me. Who knew all of me.”
“Love.” Renzo makes a sucking sound through his teeth. “I warned him about that.”
“I don’t think he paid attention.”
“No shit. And because of that, now he’s dead. Or so you say.”
“He’s dead,” she confirms quietly.
Sarah can see Renzo’s wheels turning. “All right. So your play is to come here and get me to fly you away, that it?”
“That’s what I was hoping, yes. England is too hot right now. I need to go home. To see my line.”
“And then what, you just bid me farewell when we land? Good luck to the end and all that?”
“I don’t know what I could give you that you don’t already have, Renzo. I can get you money, if that’s what you want.”
“Don’t insult me. I want to live. I want my line to survive, same as you. I want my Player to win.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, using every effort to conceal the fear growing in her chest.
He’s right to ask: What am I afraid of?
“You have Earth Key?”
“Yes.”
“So let me get this straight. You’re probably being placed on any number of international wanted lists as we speak—FBI, MI6, Mossad, CIA, Interpol—and you’re going to take Earth Key home? You’re made, Cahokian! They came for you in London—what makes you think they won’t come for you in America too?”
“I have to go home, Renzo. Before I keep Playing, I have to.”
“Sentimental bullshit.”
“What?”
The wheels turn some more. “Listen, and listen carefully. Fuck you. I am not taking you anywhere. For all I know, you killed Jago to have him out of the way. For all I know, Jago is still alive, maybe captured, and I need to help him. For all I know, you took Earth Key from him.”
She doesn’t know what to say to this. She wishes that she hadn’t been the first Player to possess Earth Key and trigger the Event—more than anything she wishes it. Even more than she wishes that she hadn’t shot Christopher. After eight seconds she says, “I’m telling you the truth, Renzo, on the honor of my line, and all its Players, all my ancestors, on the history before history. I didn’t take it from him. I was carrying it—am carrying it—but we . . . we were sharing it.”
Renzo shuffles forward a half step, as if he’s having trouble hearing Sarah. “You were sharing it.” A statement.
“Yes.”
“Why would you do that? How can you do that?”
“You know we were Playing together. We were going to find the other keys together, and try to . . .”
Renzo is so floored by what Sarah is saying that he relaxes his grip on the stock of the short-barreled shotgun. “Are you telling me that you decided to try to win . . . together?”
Sarah nods. “Yes.”
“¡Me cago en tu puta madre!” Renzo yells. This blasphemy is too much. He takes another half step forward, absently lowering the shotgun two inches . . .
All she needs is this moment of inattention. She pivots like a dancer. He snaps to attention, raising the gun again and firing. A loud bang, a small cloud of blue smoke, the razor-like clinks of shot bouncing off the metal detritus on the opposite side of the old runway.
Renzo missed.
Before he can fire again, she is next to him. Her left elbow cracks into his shoulder blade with a pop. He lurches forward, releasing the stock of the shotgun. Sarah pivots again and is behind him. She jams the muzzle of the pistol into his lower back and feels the spinal ligaments crunch.
Renzo moans. He tries to step away from her, but Sarah is too quick. She thrusts her left foot forward and sweeps his feet out from under him, the gun in the middle of his back pushing him down. He puts his hands forward, the right hand still gripping the shotgun. The knuckles of this hand drive into the ground, the gun splaying out at an angle away from his body. He manages to prevent his face from smashing into the concrete, but only by a couple of inches.
He pushes up, but again Sarah is too quick. She drops to her knees and straddles him. She slams the back of his head with her forearm, and now his face does find the ground. His nose breaks in two places, the blood begins to flow, and that sneezy nasal sting invades his sinuses. His eyes fill with tears.
Sarah acrobatically twists her right leg forward, relieving Renzo of his gun, breaking his pinkie in the process. The weapon spins over the ground, stopping 11 feet away.
Renzo ignores the pain coursing through his body and again tries to get up. If he gives her any more openings, he’s done for. He feels her ease up with the pistol, feels her weight shift. He will flip over and grab her. He may not be as fast as she is, but he is stronger, and they both know it. All he needs to do is get his hands on her.
He turns quickly, and Sarah topples over. He lunges forward with his arms, and her legs dance out at odd angles. His fingers close as they grab for her shirt, but they come up empty. He catches a glimpse of the pistol. He reaches for her again with his left arm, sees the concentration and the fury on her face. Her left leg bends over his chest, something hard smacks the crown of his head, her hands are behind him pulling at her ankle, and before he knows it she’s locked him up in a figure four. His right arm is pinned uselessly beneath him, his left arm sticks straight up next to his ear, his neck and chest constricting, his eyes watering even more. She’s under him, her shoulder blades and head on the ground, her butt rising, all of her muscles holding and squeezing. He tries to slip out of it, flails with his legs to throw her off, but it’s pointless. She squeezes, squeezes, squeezes.
“It doesn’t have to go down like this, Renzo,” she says, her voice betraying no effort on her part.
She is a Player, after all.
And Renzo isn’t. Not anymore. That much is obvious. To both of them.
Renzo tries to say, “Yeah it does. You broke my nose and my hand and maybe killed my Player. It definitely has to go down this way,” but all that comes out is, “Yeshoes. Brkmyple. Isway.”
She squeezes, squeezes, squeezes. Renzo is passing out.
“I’ll let you go if you agree to tell me the plane’s start-up sequence.”
“Fumptoo.” He sticks up the middle finger of his left hand.
“Fine. I’ll figure it out on my own.”
Squeezes, squeezes, squeezes.
She is so good, so efficient, so capable when she doesn’t think or succumb to her emotions. And this is when she realizes just what it is that she is afraid of.
I am afraid of myself.
I am afraid of what I am.
But not so afraid that she stops squeezing.
And she would keep squeezing Renzo, push him past sleep and into death, if not for the fact that, just after his sturdy body goes limp, a figure jumps through the trees and surprises her.
A figure saying, “Sarah, what the hell are you doing?”
Jago Tlaloc, the Olmec.
DOATNet/Decrypted Message/JC8493vhee938CCCXx
FROM: TYLER HINMAN
TO: Doreen Sheridan
D—Just got this from S and wanted to share it with a trusted colleague. This is powerful information and potentially dangerous in the wrong hands. Take good care of it.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Now that Endgame is coming, I feel compelled to reveal more about the Corruptor-in-Chief. This is the unvarnished truth about Ea.
He is the devil on our shoulder. The violence in our blood. The hate in the pit of our stomach. He IS the corruption. And he came from Out There.
As you know, for far too long he pretended to be my father.
But he is a monster.
He came here
over 10,000 years ago as an alien, a Maker. He acted as an envoy to the people of Mu. His job was to create the technological and societal foundation that would allow humans to advance to the point that they could serve the Makers forever. In the process, he became something like a demi-god to the Mu. The advancements he taught them were nothing short of magic. He brought them miracles. And eventually, the high council of the Mu—the Brotherhood of the Snake—became his acolytes and his fierce protectors.
But to the Makers Ea was expendable, a young volatile brute who had a lot to learn. They hoped that this mission would help straighten him out. Instead, Ea became far too invested in his role as savior, began to believe the lies he fed to the humans, and worst of all, to show insubordination to his superiors.
The Makers decided that Ea should not be saved, and that the Mu needed to be destroyed and its remnants cast to the ends of the Earth. This would implant once and for all the ancestral trauma—the fear—that would fester and rot at the heart of humanity, providing the soil in which Corruption could take root and metastasize over the course of thousands of years.
So they brought down a great cataclysm, a tectonic fury of lava and boiling water that submerged the continent of Mu, and left only a few to drift away across the oceans to find their fate. Ea was dead, and his followers mourned.
But Ea’s hubris had unwittingly provided a way back for him. Using what he had taught them, that ancient order of the Brotherhood revived him and fused his alien essence to a male human that was sacrificed for this purpose. From that moment forward Ea was outwardly human but inwardly alien. For reasons I still don’t understand, his flesh became immortal, and he’s existed in this form ever since.
The visitors came back over the ensuing centuries to look in on their other human creations, the original members of the 12 lines. They enslaved many other people, and harvested more gold, and further proclaimed and solidified their godlike status over prehistoric and Neolithic humans. All the while, Ea kept himself hidden, quietly building his power, and cursing those that left him to die on this pathetic planet.
Yet as much as he hated his brothers and sisters, he hated humans even more. He found them petty and small-minded and gullible and tribal and violent. He despised them, and despised even more that he was fated to live among them. He harnessed their fear, their naiveté, and their willingness to commit the most savage violence against one another. He made them his subjects. He taught people that they were nothing, and that salvation could only be found outside themselves, and that things that were different were things that were to be feared and destroyed.