by James Frey
That would take them across the line of fire, but Maccabee trusts her. He quickly guesses that the male Player must be the Shang, An Liu. Marcus and Baits are dead, Jago’s with Sarah, and Hilal is probably recovering from his wounds back in Ethiopia.
And if it is Liu, then he’s probably got some bombs.
That means that Maccabee has to MOVE!
He takes a shovelful of sand and throws it into the air, creating a smokescreen, and sprints behind it. He hears a muted clunk, and he spins around a thick tree trunk and throws his hands over Sky Key’s head and boom! An explosion from where they just were, debris showering all around, leaves whipping along on the shock wave, bits of wood and rock pinging here and there. It was a small explosion but big enough to have hurt them if he hadn’t moved.
“Turn right here,” the girl says calmly.
He’s blind in this place and his body aches from everything that’s happened but she did save them, so he listens.
“Left here. Straight. Left. Left. Straight. Right. Left, left, left.”
He follows every instruction, even if it feels like they’re going in circles. They bob and weave, pivot and fly. They’re narrowly missed by several more shots and one more small explosion. She’s transforming the dense cemetery into a maze, and it’s working. Somehow she knows where An is. Maccabee realizes that this girl, at least in this moment, is vastly superior to the mysterious orb that he’s been using to track the Players.
Finally they round a black stone block and find an arched break in the wall big enough for a car. Two small buildings flanking it are painted pink. A wrought-iron fence is on the far side. Past that a wide street, cars moving along, a late-model motorcycle parked on the curb.
The exit. It’s 10 meters away, a straight shot. But those 10 meters are completely exposed.
“It’s too far,” Maccabee says. The orb in his pocket moves back and forth so fast he’s afraid it’s going to jump out. “He’ll kill us.”
Sky Key scratches the side of his neck. “Here,” she says.
“I see the exit, but it’s too far!”
They don’t have more than a few seconds. She scratches harder, begins to claw at his flesh. “Here!” she whispers into his ear.
Then Maccabee understands. Something is in his neck: a tracker. One that An and who knows how many other Players have been using to follow him!
He whips up his knife and expertly carves a lump of skin from his neck. He’s careful not to nick anything important or shred a muscle or tendon. The pain isn’t too bad, but there’s a lot of blood.
“That’s it,” the girl says.
Maccabee pulls the knife away and stares into the lump of flesh and, yes, there it is. A small black blob.
He balls up the flesh and chucks it away. The bloody projectile sails over a gravestone and disappears. He gets ready to run, but the girl digs a nail into this latest wound and whispers, “Wait.”
He stifles a cry and does what he’s told. One second. Two. Three.
“Now. Straight.”
He drops the shovel and runs as fast as he can for the exit. No shots come. They were waiting for An to take the bait of the discarded tracker, and apparently he did.
The exit gets closer and closer and they’re going to make it. A person walks by outside, a woman wearing an orange sari. A bus drives past and Maccabee sees a cigarette ad on the side. The writing is Hindi.
India. We’re in India.
They’re going to make it. The orb in his pocket is going crazy now. He reaches down to secure it but then it pops out and he skids to a stop.
“Leave it!” the girl says.
Maccabee backtracks, the orb glowing bright and yellow and bouncing around on the ground like a living thing.
“No!” she says.
Something catches Maccabee’s eye. There, on the path, is An Liu, a dark pistol in his fist. He hasn’t seen them yet, he’s swinging back and forth and Maccabee almost has the orb but then—too late. An Liu locks onto Maccabee and Maccabee dives sideways and the orb glows so bright that its light eats up the wall and the path and An too. Shots come but all miss since An is blinded by the light and can’t see Maccabee anymore.
“Leave it! I am using it! Go!” the girl implores.
Once again he does what he’s told. He vaults toward the street. He sees the motorcycle and breaks open its ignition switch and hot-wires it in the blink of an eye. He jumps on. It zings to life and they take off, fast. The light from the orb chokes out everything for 20 meters now and people on the street are yelling, pointing, running.
“I am using it,” the girl repeats in a soft voice, her head slumping onto Maccabee’s shoulder. “I am using it.” Her body feels limp. She is exhausted too.
A block later the light gives way to a high-pitched whine and then it’s snuffed out and then—FFFUHWHAM!—the entire street puffs up in a ball of smoke. Maccabee dips the bike around a corner, its rear wheel skidding and his foot planting on the ground as a pivot. Bits of buildings and cars and trees whip through the air at their backs.
The girl passes out, the Indian city is a blur, and for the moment An Liu is no longer hunting them.
For the first time in his life Maccabee ran from a fight. And it worked. With the help of this small, remarkable, maybe possessed Sky Key, it worked.
I won’t let anyone hurt you, he thinks.
And he means it.
AN LIU
South Park Street Cemetery, Kolkata, India
An kneels. He shakes his head, trying to get it clear.
Almost got them.
SHIVER.
Almost.
BLINK.
That was a big blast.
An had thrown a grenade into the light at the last second, but that explosion was from something else. The Nabataean must have planted that glowing thing and set it off in order to create some space and some time. It was successful. The Nabataean is gone now. With the first two keys.
Gone.
BLINK.
An peeks under his shirt at the Chiyoko necklace. Like everything around him it’s covered in a fine dust. He pulls the necklace over his head and shakes it gently, wipes it with his fingertips, blows on it. When it’s reasonably clean he slips it back on.
He brushes himself off, finds his SIG. He loads a new magazine. Sirens in the distance.
Shivershiver.
The world knows about Endgame, and Abaddon is coming, but the law isn’t all the way gone. Not yet.
He trots to the exit. The Nabataean is gone, and An’s bike is gone too.
An spits, the stream thick with black ash.
The Nabataean is gone.
AISLING KOPP, GREG JORDAN, GRIFFIN MARRS, POP KOPP, SARAH ALOPAY, JAGO TLALOC, SHARI CHOPRA
Heading south along the Teesta River near Mangan, Sikkim, India
Aisling looks over her shoulder into the back of the jeep. Shari Chopra slumps in her seat, an IV bag pinned above the window, a tube running into a spike in the back of her hand. Dripping into that line on a regulator is a small dose of BZD, keeping her good and asleep for as long as necessary. All the way to Thailand, where Jordan is taking them and where Stella Vyctory awaits.
The jeep bumps along the road, mountains looming all around. Aisling thinks about Shari. After the standoff with Sarah and Jago, Aisling followed Marrs into the deepest chamber of the Harappan fortress and saw the raven-haired mother of Sky Key, alive and more-or-less well.
This is a wrinkle that has Aisling feeling very conflicted. On one hand, Aisling suspects that Shari is one of the decent Players, one who doesn’t deserve a meaningless death at the hand of a psychopathic Player. She’s glad that Baitsakhan and Maccabee didn’t kill her. But on the other hand, as far as Shari’s concerned, Aisling probably is that psychopathic Player. If it weren’t for Aisling, Shari’s family would be alive. Sure, her daughter would probably still have been taken by the Nabataean, but all the Harappan who’d taken refuge in the mountains would be breathing if it weren’t for Aisling and her
ragtag death squad.
Aisling tries to reason out of this by blaming Endgame for what happened—Aisling didn’t make Shari’s daughter one of the fucking keys, Endgame did. Aisling was only doing what she thought she had to do to stop Endgame, and Shari, for her part, was only doing what any mother would do.
All of which makes Aisling want to stop Endgame—and punish the Makers, especially kepler 22b—all the more.
Aisling knows in her bones that when Shari wakes up she won’t be in a very forgiving mood. All Shari will want is revenge, and Aisling knows that revenge is a soul-gnashing affliction that operates completely outside the realm of logic. Sure, Aisling could wave her hands at Chopra and plead for reason, insisting that Endgame killed all of Chopra’s people, but Aisling also knows that’s bullshit. She killed those people, along with Jordan and Pop and the rest of her team. And for better or worse, Chopra is now slumped behind Aisling in the jeep.
Jordan drives, Aisling wedged between him and Marrs in the front seat. Whenever Jordan shifts gears he reaches between Aisling’s legs. He half apologizes each time until Aisling tells him to shut up. He does. Sarah’s in the middle of the backseat, between Shari and Jago, her body folded awkwardly into Jago’s lap, her injured arm, which Aisling patched up, bent into a sling. Jago is awake and mostly silent. His hand rests on top of Sarah’s head, his fingers entwined in her hair. He’s said very little, but when he does speak he’s been even-tempered and friendly.
Pop is a different story.
He’s in the wayback, jigsawed into the gear they couldn’t leave behind—mainly guns and a mobile satellite uplink that Marrs uses for internet access. Pop has not said a single word since they forged this latest alliance. He hasn’t asked about Sky Key or spoken to Sarah or Jago at all. He hasn’t said if he’s on board with the plan to meet Stella, and he hasn’t said he’s against it.
To Aisling, his silence is the same as a full-throated scream. She knows that Pop hates the course they’re charting. It goes against every one of his beliefs. It is not what Endgame is meant to be.
Aisling is not sure how she’s going to handle Pop, but she knows that it will fall on her to handle him when the time comes.
The others don’t seem as concerned. Especially Jordan and Marrs.
Ever since getting into the jeep, Marrs has been tearing around the internet, going from news sites to encrypted government forums to deep-web hovels full of rumor and intrigue, providing an account of recent world events and bantering with Jordan on pretty much every point.
“The space agencies have been scrambling since the kepler’s announcement. At the moment, NASA’s got Abaddon falling in the North Atlantic,” Marrs says in his nasal monotone. “South of Halifax. Gonna wipe out a lot of land. A lot.”
“Fucking hell,” Jordan says. “What’s DC doing?”
“Moving. Lock, stock, and barrel. Looks like to Colorado.”
“NORAD?”
“Naturally. Gold’s going through the roof, New York’s under martial law but seems pretty tame. Boston is coming apart at the seams, though. One of the New England Patriots did a murder-suicide with his wife and kids—dog too.”
“Any flags on other Players?” Jordan asks.
“There’s some indication that the Shang is in Kolkata, but it’s pretty tenuous, and my Bengali is shit. No sign of the Nabataean yet. Oh—and looks like someone’s destroying monuments.”
“Besides Stonehenge?” Jordan asks incredulously.
“Yeah. This morning while we were trekking from the fortress, a group of nongovernmental operators that remains anonymous, at least to our guys, blew up the ziggurat at Chogha Zanbil. That was the Sumerian one.”
“Stella won’t like that.”
“No, she won’t,” Marrs says.
Jordan whips the jeep around a slow-moving truck, guiding them into oncoming traffic, which is de rigueur for India. A motor scooter buzzes out of the way into the shoulder and passes them.
“What the hell are you guys talking about?” Jago demands.
Aisling nods. “Yeah, what are you talking about?”
“Your line has a monument that is more sacred than any other—right, Aisling?” Jordan asks.
“Jordan, you know it was Stonehenge.” Asshole, Aisling thinks.
Jordan says, “And you, Tlaloc?”
“We do. It’s on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico.”
“La Venta,” Marrs says.
Jago looks a little surprised, and thinks that maybe these guys really do know more than he thought they could about Endgame. “Sí. That’s what we call it.”
Jordan asks, “And your girlfriend?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Jago says. He’s lying, though. He knows the exact location of the prime Cahokian monument. It’s called Monks Mound, and it’s in southern Illinois, not far from St. Louis, Missouri. He knows this because it’s where the Cahokian Rebellion of 1613 occurred. The rebellion that the Olmec oracle, Aucapoma Huayna, told him all about. The rebellion that branded the Cahokians as unworthy of winning Endgame, which was precisely why Aucapoma had implored Jago to end his alliance with Sarah Alopay. No, more than that—the Cahokians were so dangerous that Aucapoma had ordered Jago to kill Sarah so he could prove to the Makers that he’d not been poisoned by the Cahokian Player.
Too late for that.
As much as he might want, Jago isn’t about to start talking about all of this. It would be too revealing, too . . . complicating. So he plays dumb, and they believe him.
“Well, her line has one,” Marrs says. “Called Monks Mound. Big tourist attraction now, kinda like Stonehenge but not as well-known.”
“Never heard of it,” Jago says.
“I have,” Aisling says. “Used to be the center of some huge Native American city.”
“Once upon a time it was the largest city in all of the Americas, long before any Europeans outside of Vikings even knew about the New World,” Jordan says.
“All right,” Jago says, “but why are these places so important to finishing Endgame?”
“What he said,” Aisling adds, sticking a thumb in Jago’s direction.
“I’m going to let Stella fill you in on the details,” Jordan says as he works the jeep through a series of accordion-like turns, “but we’re certain that Sun Key is hidden in one of them.”
Jago leans forward, nearly pushing Sarah’s head off his leg. “No shit?”
“No shit,” Marrs says. “And if they all get toasted before the Player with the first two keys finds it, well . . .”
“No one will be able to win,” Aisling says.
“Bingo,” Jordan says.
“Who is this Stella woman?” Aisling asks.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Jordan says.
Jago leans back in his seat, resettling Sarah’s head across his thigh. “Whoever she is, you’ve gotten my attention, Mr. Jordan. I look forward to meeting her.”
“I can promise that the feeling is mutual. She has been waiting to meet you—all of you—for a very, very long time.”
SARAH ALOPAY, JAGO TLALOC
Heading south along the Teesta River near Mangan, Sikkim, India
Sarah is not asleep. She hasn’t slept at all. And while Jago has been friendly with the others, and truly does want to meet this Stella Vyctory, he’s not convinced. Not by a long shot.
Sarah slumps across Jago’s lap, her hand resting under her hair and on Jago’s thigh. She taps out messages to him in Morse code, and he answers in the same code by squeezing her scalp so softly that the movement can only be felt by her and not seen by anyone else.
Their conversation has been long and a little testy, and it revolves around one question, which in this moment Sarah asks for the seventh time: Should we really trust these people?
And Jago answers, We have to for now. If what Jordan says is true, then maybe we now know of another way to stop this thing. Even if Abaddon hits, and the world is changed, we might have a way to prevent a Player from winning.
And if Jordan isn’t right, it seems that these people really do want the same thing. They can help us, Sarah. We can help them.
Help us so that we can stay together.
Yes. So that we can stay together.
We stick with them, then.
Yes.
All right, she taps. I only wish . . .
What?
I wish we were alone, Feo. I wish it were just you and me.
This is the first time she’s said it all day.
And Jago squeezes back, I do too, Sarah. I do too.
HILAL IBN ISA AL-SALT
Ayutthaya, Thailand
Hilal is also headed to Stella Vyctory, except he is much, much closer.
He hustles out of the Phra Nakhon Provincial Railway Station, turning this way and that, slicing through a mass of people. He went directly from the Bangkok airport, where he last spoke to Stella, to the central Bangkok train station. He got on the first train to Ayutthaya and now he makes his way on foot to Stella, who is a short four kilometers away.
He goes south from the station through a platoon of food carts, smelling fried things and salty things and sweet things. Squid, mushrooms, pork, onions, garlic, sugar, basil, citrus, peanuts. His large rucksack claps his shoulders as he jogs. It contains his twin machetes, a change of clothing, a first aid kit for his wounds, the device from the ark (which has ceased working since the kepler’s announcement), and the incomprehensible book he took from Wayland Vyctory’s hotel suite in Las Vegas.
A few blocks from the station a large group of worshippers blocks the street and forces him to detour into the Wat Pichai Songkram temple complex. Monks are everywhere. Bald and saffron-robed and busy. Devotees wearing conical shade hats and carrying parasols surround the holy men, pleading for mercy and praying to Lord Buddha. Hilal does the same in his mind as he rushes past the gilt icon covered in marigolds and lotus blossoms and surrounded by a pyre of incense. He searches for a way out of the complex so he can pick up the pace again and get to Stella as soon as possible.