by James Frey
A rock wall rises sheer and smooth on their right, and up ahead is a cutout in the stone. The path turns in to it and disappears. The rain has stopped. The sky is gray and growing darker with the setting sun. Marrs takes a knee and consults his field computer.
“Little Bertha confirms it,” he says of the drone that’s been moving above them the whole time. He points at the cutout. “That’s the only way in. A straight shot up to the fortress’ courtyard.”
“Whoop-de-do,” Jordan says. He eyes the little green dot on his HUD. The one that’s around the next turn and higher up the mountain, the one that hasn’t moved an inch since they started their trek. “Poor guy’s been waiting a long time, hasn’t he?”
“Yeah, man,” Marrs says.
“How big you think his gun is?” McCloskey asks.
Jordan holds out his arms as far as they’ll go. “Bigger than this. He’s probably sitting up there thinking how grand it’ll be to turn us into mincemeat.”
Aisling stares skyward, tries to pick out Little Bertha’s underside as it floats high above. But she can’t. “Let’s straighten him out.”
Marrs says, “Roger that.”
McCloskey already has the range finder out. She screws a long and slender periscope to its lens. “I’ll paint the target.”
Aisling shifts her attention to the conglomeration of dots farther up and in the courtyard. “That big group of people must be waiting for us too. Just in case we pass this next flashpoint, right?”
“Who knows,” Jordan says. “Maybe they’re knee-deep in some kind of ritual. Maybe they’re communing with the aliens. Whatever they’re doing, I can’t imagine they’ll be too jazzed to see us when we do get up there.”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” Aisling says. Then she snaps her finger and asks, “Marrs, how sensitive is that heat seeker? Could it hone in on the collective body heat of that welcome party?”
Jordan smiles. “Absolutely. We used one to torch an Al Qaeda camp in the middle of the night in Bahrain a few years back, didn’t we, guys?”
“Sure did,” Marrs says.
McCloskey grins. “Warmest thing that night was a bunch of broke-dick terrorists farting to keep themselves toasty. That was a good mission,” she says wistfully.
“So it’d work here too?”
Marrs nods. “It should. We’ll have to do them first, though. If we do it the other way around and blast the guy on the gun, the heat seeker will go there.”
“Let’s do it,” Aisling says. “Take out the courtyard first.”
Jordan claps her on the shoulder. “I like the way you think. You’d’ve made a hell of a case officer, Kopp.”
Aisling shrugs. “Maybe in another life, Jordan. Maybe in another life.”
“They’re here, Shari! They’re here!” Jamal yells over the radio. He’s running. Little Alice is babbling and crying in the background, saying “Earth Key! Earth Key! Earth Key!”
“What?” Shari asks, still in the operations room with Paru and Jov. “Who’s here?”
“I saw three for sure, maybe more.”
“Three what?”
“Players, Shari! They used some kind of . . . some kind of teleporter!”
“But that’s impossible!”
“I’m telling you, they’re here!”
“Which ones? What are they doing now?”
“I don’t know. I grabbed Alice and ran!”
Shari looks at Paru and Jov frantically. “Take her to the storeroom, Jamal. Lock yourselves in. Don’t open it for anyone, do you hear? No one but me.”
“I’m nearly there,” he says, the signal on his radio getting weaker.
“Do you hear me?”
“I . . . h— yo—”
“I’m coming, Jamal!”
“I—lo— ou—”
His voice cuts out.
Jov says, “Go, Shari. Take the guards standing in the hall.”
“I’m coming too,” Paru says. Shari doesn’t want her father to walk headlong into so much danger, but how can she protest? They’re fighting on two fronts now, and the Harappan line hangs by a thread.
Jov says, “I’ll radio Ana in the courtyard and divert as many as I can to the Depths. Pravheet will hold them off at the Elbow. Fear not, my love: Pravheet will hold them off.”
Shari kisses Jov on the forehead. “All right.” She looks to her father. “Come.” And then she spins and runs out of the room, grabbing the two large and heavily armed men standing outside the door.
As they run, she works her hand into her clothing and pulls out her pistol.
Is the Donghu here? she wonders.
A not-so-small part of her hopes that he is.
LITTLE BERTHA
2,003 Feet over Aisling Kopp, Valley of Eternal Life, Sikkim, India
Little Bertha paddles gently on the breeze. A mindless sentinel waiting for instructions.
Little Bertha gets its instructions.
Little Bertha rises 1,436.7 feet to acquire its target.
Little Bertha spins in place 48 degrees counterclockwise.
Little Bertha arms missile A. The heat seeker.
Little Bertha recalculates. Sends its targeting info to the ground to reverify.
The target is reverified.
Little Bertha releases missile A. It falls 45 feet and ignites, its tail dropping before it levels out and swings in an arc and looks for the low heat signature it’s been told to search for.
Missile A finds the signature and zips straight down into the crowd of people who are lined shoulder to shoulder under the only entrance to . Lined up, armed, waiting. Not mindless sentinels, but unsuspecting ones.
They didn’t plan for Little Bertha.
The crowd doesn’t even register the missile. The warhead explodes 15 feet before impact. The air ignites, and a spherical shock wave pushes out in all directions, throwing shrapnel and phosphorous and fire. Dirt and stones and weapons and clothing and straps and shoes and bodies and ears and limbs fly everywhere.
Silence follows.
Fifteen are killed instantly. Seven more will bleed out. Six are unconscious and severely concussed. Only two survive and are awake. And one of these has lost his right arm just below the elbow.
Ana Jha, Shari’s mother, is among the dead.
She’d just spoken to Jov. She was going to send 20 Harappan warriors to the Depths to defend Sky Key from the other threat.
But the warriors are not coming to help Shari or Sky Key.
Little Bertha waits for its next set of instructions.
If Little Bertha could peer through the mist, it would see Pravheet rising from the Vulcan cannon as soon as the explosion goes off, his heart pounding, tears streaming down his cheeks. It would see McCloskey lying on her stomach just at the edge of the Elbow. It would see her slide forward, push the periscope that’s attached to her range finder around the corner. It would see her adjust, search, seek. It would see that 544 feet away from McCloskey is a giant gray Gatling gun.
She paints the gun with the laser just as the man sits back down and takes the gun’s handles.
A fraction of a second later Little Bertha gets its next set of instructions.
Little Bertha spins again. Sends the instructions back to Marrs’s computer for reverification. Receives reverification.
Little Bertha releases missile B.
This one drops free and ignites and makes a corkscrew in the air and then takes off for the tagged position.
There is the very brief but unmistakable drill-like sound of the Vulcan spraying 76 rounds in just 0.7 seconds. And there is a 2nd explosion.
The Vulcan is silent.
The Harappan are routed.
Little Bertha doesn’t care.
Little Bertha drops back to 2,003 feet directly above Aisling Kopp, where it hovers and waits. A piece of mechanized metal, the decisive factor in a battle it can’t know or understand.
A mindless sentinel.
It hovers and waits.
&nb
sp; AISLING KOPP, POP KOPP, GREG JORDAN, BRIDGET MCCLOSKEY, GRIFFIN MARRS
The Elbow, , Valley of Eternal Life, Sikkim, India
Aisling and Pop and Jordan and Marrs run toward the opening to get McCloskey and carry on into the Harappan fortress.
But when they reach the turn in the path, Aisling stops dead in her tracks.
The others stop too.
“BRIDGE!” Jordan yells. He falls forward, drops to his knees. McCloskey is on her face, her shoulders soaked with blood.
Jordan rolls her over, but there’s no point.
Her eyes are open.
Vacant.
Gone.
The Vulcan was destroyed, but its single burst of fire hit the rocks near McCloskey. And even though she wasn’t in the line of fire, the huge rounds ricocheted and broke off hunks of stone and sent them flying in every direction.
Dust still hangs in the air.
“Bridge!” Jordan wails again, probing the top of her head with his fingers. He grabs her, holds her, wipes smeared blood from her cheeks. He fights back tears, but they’re there, wanting to come out. Marrs moves next to them, kneels, puts his hand over McCloskey’s face and closes her eyes. Aisling removes her jacket and drapes it over McCloskey. She puts a hand on Jordan’s shoulder. She doesn’t have words for this situation. In truth, it’s less McCloskey’s death that stings as the humanity on display from Jordan, his sarcastic veneer set aside. These are people—assholes, sometimes, allies, ones she doesn’t fully trust, but ones that have pledged their lives to her nonetheless.
Aisling steps around the Elbow and sights down her rifle five degrees east of due north. She gazes at the fire raging where the missile exploded. The path is before her.
It is safe.
They can continue.
Jordan lowers McCloskey gently to the ground. Wipes the back of his hand across his face. Aisling breaks the silence. Her voice is steady and cold. “We all knew what we were getting into. We have to make sure she didn’t die in vain.” Pause. “We have to make sure none of these people did. We have to honor Bridget and all of these Harappan. We have to honor the lines by stopping the game. Today. Now.”
Aisling Kopp starts walking, at first slowly, then faster, finally breaking into a run toward the fortress.
Pop follows her immediately.
Marrs looks at Jordan. “See you up there,” he says before following too.
Jordan leans over and kisses McCloskey’s forehead through Aisling’s jacket. “Don’t you fucking move,” he says, trying to disarm his grief with the humor he and McCloskey shared so many times in the past. “I’ll be right fucking back.”
This is Endgame.
SHARI CHOPRA
Descending to the Depths, , Valley of Eternal Life, Sikkim, India
The stone walls fly past. Her clothes flutter behind her like banners. The guards keep up easily, their shoes squeaking as they spin around corners. Paru runs hard but keeps up too.
Little Alice! Little Alice!
Shari sees her sweet daughter’s face in front of her eyes, the impenetrable fortress already fallen. Players on the outside coming in. Players on the inside already searching. Players everywhere. How could she have been so small-minded? How could she have underestimated them so thoroughly?
The Players are hunters. Resourceful. Skilled. Merciless.
The Players are killers.
The Players are psychopaths.
Little monsters.
Not just Baitsakhan, the torturer. But all of them.
Monsters.
Little Alice!
I am not a psychopath, Shari thinks. I am not, meri jaan. She turns to go down the last flight of stairs. She grips the pistol harder, harder, harder. The guards keep up. Paru falls behind.
I am coming to you, meri jaan. I am coming to fight for what I love.
I am a mother first.
My bullets are not for you.
xviii
BAITSAKHAN, MACCABEE ADLAI, SARAH ALOPAY, RENZO, JAGO TLALOC
The Depths, , Valley of Eternal Life, Sikkim, India
Baitsakhan gets his bearings.
Finally, he thinks. Let the fun begin.
He shuffles to the Cahokian. Takes her by the hair and drags her to the other side of the room. She moans but doesn’t resist. He grabs the Olmec by the wrist and pulls him to the girl and props them against each other like sacks.
Renzo is semiconscious and balled up on the floor. Baitsakhan ignores him. Not a Player, he thinks, trying to prioritize. Not as important.
He goes to Maccabee. He hasn’t moved. He kicks him in the side. Nothing. He kicks him harder. Nothing. He kicks him harder still.
He finds another packet of salts. Breaks it open and places it in front of Maccabee’s face.
That does it.
Maccabee pops into a push-up and shakes his head. “Wha?”
“We’re not in Bolivia anymore,” Baitsakhan says.
Sarah moans.
Rifles are strewn around the floor. Baitsakhan picks one up.
Maccabee gets to his knees. “Wh’are we?”
“Don’t know. The archway moved us.”
Maccabee remembers. “To Sky Key?”
“Think so.”
Maccabee looks left and right. “Where’s it? Where’s she?”
“Don’t know that either.”
Maccabee slaps his own face. “Earth Key?”
“Got it.” Baitsakhan had slipped it into a pocket on his leg and zippered it shut.
A wave of relief passes over Maccabee’s face. “Th’others?”
Baitsakhan points his chin at the two Players. Renzo is between them, still being ignored.
Maccabee’s body is a mess, but his mind is clearing quickly. “You haven’t killed them yet?”
Baitsakhan shrugs. “I thought you might want to watch.”
He points the rifle at Sarah, at Jago.
Maccabee gingerly gets to his feet, a hand planted on the wall. “My head’s swimming.” He drops back to his knees and picks up the salts and smells them some more.
Baitsakhan grunts and sights the Cahokian. The muzzle makes a little circle. “Mine too.” He tries to steady his HK G36. Sarah’s head lolls to the side and her eyes flutter. She’s coming around.
The Olmec is still out.
Baitsakhan aims for her neck. If he can’t handle the recoil yet, then it will force the gun up and take her head.
But just as Baitsakhan pulls the trigger, the man on the floor rises and leaps into the air. The report is loud and drives into their aching heads like a power drill. Every single round strikes the man, and he falls back to the floor, his arm, shoulder, neck, and chest all hit. Some of the bullets find the resistance of Kevlar. Two tear through flesh.
The gunshots jog Sarah. She jumps to her feet and ignores the pain in her head and the noodles she has for limbs. She’ll have to operate on rote muscle memory. She’ll have to lean on her training.
But she’s not ready for that, and like Maccabee she falls back to her knees.
A stunned Baitsakhan backpedals. The man who flew into the line of fire is badly injured. Not a threat, Baitsakhan thinks, still struggling to prioritize. Then he catches sight of the Cahokian, and his mind registers: she’s awake! He retrains the gun on her, but she’s throwing something at him. And there it is, heavy and metallic, and it hits the rifle hard, knocking it from his hands.
The hatchet.
Both weapons clank to the floor.
Throwing the hatchet took every ounce of effort from Sarah. She slumps forward, her hands and knees on the floor, her head hung low, her eyes closed. Renzo’s blood oozes across the floor toward her.
MOVE! she yells to herself. This is it! You will die!
But she can’t move.
Maccabee tries standing again. His knees feel like balls of wet paper towels, his feet like cinder blocks. He rises as Baitsakhan stalks toward Sarah.
Sarah hears Renzo choking on his own blood. She turns her head a
nd blinks. Her vision is blurry, but she can make out Renzo’s face. His gaze is purposeful. He moves his lips. Tries to speak. No words come.
But she understands.
Kill them. Stop game. Stop Makers.
And she understands more than that. Renzo sacrificed himself for her. Line to line. Ex-Player to Player.
She closes her eyes again. Her head pounds.
Baitsakhan stands over Sarah. He lowers his robotic hand. Unlike the rest of him, the hand isn’t sore or weak or woozy.
Maccabee knows what’s coming. The crushing grip. The thing that killed the Koori. The thing Ekaterina gave him. The thing Maccabee arranged for Baitsakhan to have, and that maybe was a terrible idea.
And then Maccabee remembers: the little tube with the switch. I need to Play alone, he thinks. He fumbles for the transmitter that will send the signal to the hand, and brings his other hand to his nose and inhales the salts sharply.
They clear his head some more. A colorful flash catches his eye in the open doorway. A woman running past. But he can’t think about her, because immediately two other figures storm into the room, rifles ready. Maccabee lunges for cover.
Baitsakhan, not yet grasping the Cahokian, wheels to the door and rushes the men. They open fire. Startled by the ferocious boy, their aim is slightly off. Baitsakhan’s ear is grazed by a bullet but he keeps coming.
One shot hits Sarah in her left forearm, making a clean hole, but the rest of the bullets miss. She falls over and pushes herself to the far end of the room. The pain is intense, but serves a purpose.
She is finally awake.
Everything goes clear.
Maccabee unholsters a pistol with lightning quickness and blasts one of the men—tall, fit, caramel skin, black hair, intense eyes—right through the head. The victim spins on one foot and slumps against the wall. Another man sprints through the hallway just outside the room, an older man. He glances at the action, his expression fraught and worried.
Baitsakhan crashes into the other Harappan guard. The Donghu is shorter by a foot and half, and 60 or 70 pounds lighter, but quicker and more flexible.