Endgame: Rules of the Game

by James Frey

  “There’s a car parked at the bottom of the opposite slope.”

  “People?”

  She shakes her head.

  An slithers next to her and peers over the lip of the hill. The car is a dark-blue late-model Fulwin, unremarkable in every way except that it’s shiny and not road-worn. “Rental,” he says. “From the airport.” He points to the northeast.

  “Let’s move,” Nori Ko says. “Crossing cover, four meters apart. I’ll lead. I know where the entrance is. No more talking.”

  SHIVERBLINKSHIVERbilnkblinkSHIVER.

  Nori Ko rises to a crouch and points her rifle to the trees. An rises too. They move forward until they’re a few meters apart. He angles his rifle so it covers her front and she points hers so that it covers his. If someone pops out and tries to surprise Nori Ko, An will kill him. If someone tries to surprise An, Nori Ko will kill him.

  BLINKshivershiver.

  An sees movement and he swings his weapon in her direction, his finger hovering over the trigger but not firing. Nori Ko mistakes this motion, thinking for a brief moment that he’s aiming at her, and she also swings her rifle in his direction, momentarily sighting him before tipping her Beretta to the ground and mouthing, Sorry.

  Blinkblinkblink.

  A squirrel chitters and spirals around a trunk and then disappears into the branches above. An follows it with his weapon and then repositions to cover Nori Ko. He takes a step forward. She mouths another apology and they continue to advance.

  They walk downhill now, weaving through trees. After 10 meters Nori Ko puts up a fist and both stop in their tracks. They’re on the edge of a patch of grass, a large tree blocking An’s line of sight. Nori Ko signals him to stay put. She slips into the trees and he catches slivers of her as she flits around, clearing in every direction with her rifle.

  Nori Ko reappears, her gun pointed down and held tight to her chest, her face wrinkled with concern. She motions him closer.

  He stalks to her. A curved obsidian spur rises from the clearing to waist height. Broken and discarded earth is thrown to the side as if the stone has grown up from the ground below. An cranes his neck and sees that one side is cut away, revealing a hole big enough to slip into.

  “There’re stairs,” she says cautiously. “I’m sorry, An. But I think the Nabataean is already here.”

  An shudders, he quakes, his knees begin to falter, his head begins to pound, but through the riot of his body he hears her voice:

  It’s all right, love.

  SHIVERshiverSHIVERshiver

  It’s all right, love.

  blinkblink BLINKblink

  It’s all right.

  shiverBLINK

  Love.

  An bites the side of his tongue. The tics stop. His eyes water. The pain feels good. “It’s not all right, An,” he says.

  Nori Ko regards him with a confused look and says nothing. She doesn’t like the tics or the fact that he’s speaking to himself.

  SHIVERblinkblink.

  You can still kill him, love.

  shiver.

  Move! Chiyoko implores.

  “It’s all right,” he says calmly. He looks to the sky, the tops of the trees silhouetted against it like spear points. “He hasn’t won yet. We would know.”

  “Okay, but let’s find out for sure,” Nori Ko says.

  An hoists his rifle and brushes past her. “You can still kill him,” he says.

  “Good,” Nori Ko says. “But won’t you kill him?”

  “Yes. That’s what I meant.” He steps around the stone and into the ground. Nori Ko follows.

  And then he says, “You can still kill him, love.”

  Nori Ko doesn’t know what to think of that. Is he coming undone, now that they’re so close to the end?

  She very much hopes that he is not.

  She needs him. He needs her.

  He can’t come undone.

  Not yet.

  KEPLER 22B

  Teletrans chamber on board Seedrak Sare’en, active geosynchronous orbit above the Martian North Pole

  He stands alone in the room, staring at the blank archway of transpot 2. One Nethinim is dead—dead!—and the other is safe in stasis. The La Tène and her grandfather are interned and semistasised. He wanted to bring back the Cahokian and the Olmec too as extra insurance, but they remain free on Earth.

  But worse than this—much, much worse—they have the weapon.

  “More Players would have been better,” he says. “But no matter. We have one. And we may not require her in the end.”

  Because here, twinkling in the darkness of the transpot, he sees the form of the person he waits for.

  The Nabataean. With the first two keys, and on the verge of discovering the third. He is entering the Shang monument’s star chamber.

  kepler 22b has not felt such excitement since he first arrived in the quadrant over 15,000 Earth years ago. Since he saw the lush sweep of the blue planet and the barren expanse of the red one.

  It is nearly over.

  A winner approaches, and in a few moments, kepler 22b will crown him.

  Crown him with the prize of death.

  HILAL IBN ISA AL-SALT, SHARI CHOPRA, JENNY ULAPALA

  -21.6268, 129.6625, Yuendumu Hinterland, Northern Territory, Australia

  Hilal and Shari stand shoulder to shoulder at the heart of the Koori monument. It is evening. The sky is dark. It is less than 24 hours since they met Jenny Ulapala but it might as well be weeks. Jenny likes them, and while they’ve not yet had their weapons returned, they like Jenny.

  Jenny and Shari and Hilal have spent the better part of the last 20 hours in a simple hut immersed in Wayland’s book, deciphering as much as Jenny can about this last stage of Endgame. It hasn’t been easy. The book is organized in a manner that defies logic, so her understanding of the specifics of Endgame is incomplete, but nonetheless it is greater than it was the day before.

  They have learned many things.

  First, Jenny confirmed that at least one of these twelve ancient monuments is needed to finish Endgame, as Stella believed. But Jenny also learned that in the hearts of these monuments are “star chambers,” which serve a secondary and, especially in the old days when Maker ships orbited Earth by the hundreds, essential purpose.

  They were transportation hubs.

  The Makers had a technology with an unpronounceable name that harnessed something they called “Earth’s intrinsic energy lines,” Jenny explained early that morning. “These are the same things we use to work through the Dreaming. We use the Dreaming in spiritual or mental capacities, not in physical ones. But the Makers—They can use this energy to get about.”

  Jenny learned that while They had flying machines that could travel at great speeds and deliver material around the globe in the days of human prehistory, the Makers preferred to get around using their teleporters. There were many hundreds of these all around Earth in the old days—in places like the pagoda in Xi’an and at the Gateway of the Sun in Bolivia and in the Depths of the Harappan fortress—but these portals just linked places on Earth.

  They did not posses the ability to move Makers to and from orbit.

  “But the portals in the star chambers of the world’s most ancient monuments did possess this ability. And they still do today,” Jenny said.

  After breakfast Jenny kept reading the book, Hilal and Shari helping her to take notes. Their other discoveries were far-ranging, concerning things as varied as gold extraction, genetic modification, neuropathology, advanced bioengineering, religious indoctrination, and, of course, the implementation and execution of the thing the Players have always known as Endgame.

  Jenny needs more time—months or perhaps years—to fully understand why it’s happening and how, but after a few hours she was convinced that the ultimate goal of Endgame as espoused by the Makers and accepted by the lines was false.

  As Hilal observed, “Endgame is merely another tool designed to exert control over an alien race. Us.
It is coercive in nature, designed to get us to act against our best interests.”

  “The Makers are like bloody politicians, then,” Shari quipped.

  Jenny chuckled at that one.

  As the sky darkened that afternoon, the sun hidden behind gathering clouds, Jenny said, “Here’s what we’re looking for.” She stabbed a section of the book. Hilal and Shari huddled closer to her. “It’s about the keys.”

  “Does it say anything about my daughter?”

  “It says her genetic code contains something essential to finishing Endgame. Seems like they hid some bit of information in the lines’ genes, and that certain children are born with the section of code they need. Your Alice, unfortunately, has that running around her little system.”

  Shari said, “We need to get her, Mrs. Ulapala.”

  “Call me Jenny, mum.”

  “All right, Jenny.”

  “We will get her, Shari. A promise is a promise,” Hilal said. “But I want to know, Master Ulapala: What about the third key?”

  “It’s all right here,” Jenny said. “And it’s simple as simple can be, Aksumite. It’s you. Or Shari. Or one of your mates—Jago or Sarah or Aisling. Or Adlai.”

  “Sun Key is a Player?” Shari asked urgently.

  “It’s the Player who’s got the first two keys. There’s also a code in your genome, one you all got. That’s why Players are chosen. You don’t have this code, you can’t Play. Anyway, when it’s all said and done this code links with Sky Key’s, and when these are combined with Earth Key in one of these star chambers, then the Maker gets whatever it is he wants out of Endgame.”

  “I wish we knew what exactly that was,” Hilal said.

  “And me too. This book’ll show us sooner or later. Need more time to study it is all. But right now we got to act. Sky Key is in grave danger, mum.”

  Shari frowned. “More than we already know her to be in?”

  “Yeah. Says here that at the end, she’ll die,” Jenny said. “Player will too.”

  Shari clapped Jenny’s wizened hand. “Jenny.” That was all she said.

  Jenny nodded. “I know, mum. We’ll save her. And I got an idea how. Bit risky, but I think we can use the Dreaming to figure out when Little Alice comes into one of these star chambers. Once we see her I open the portal at the Koori monument—I’ve done this before, but I was always too scared to go through since I didn’t know where it let out. But now I do. You can stay in the Dreaming and hold the connection to Little Alice while Hilal and some of my Koori mates go and whisk her away. We get her here, I close the portal right quick on our end, and that’s it. Endgame over—or effectively over, anyway.”

  “We can define what it means to win,” Hilal said.

  “That’s right,” Jenny said.

  “Is it safe?” Shari asked.

  “That I don’t know, mum. We definitely need to try it first. Don’t want to hurt your girl out of rash stupidity.”

  And so here they are, back at the heart of the Koori monument, doing a trial run of a Sky Key rescue mission.

  Now Jenny and Shari sit cross-legged near the tree in the middle of the circle. The Koori guards stand at intervals around the circle.

  Hilal watches and waits.

  “Ready, mum?” Jenny asks Shari.

  “Ready.”

  “Take my hand and close your eyes and follow my lead,” the old woman says.

  Shari does.

  “You see your girl, don’t jump, understand? You’re just a passenger for now.”

  “I understand.”

  Jenny squeezes Shari’s hand. “It’s going to be fine.” Shari nods nervously. Over her shoulder Jenny says, “Hilal, when the connection is solid I’ll come out and we’ll test the door. Shari, you stay in the Dreaming. Your presence will hold our connection to the other portal in place.”

  “I’ll try,” Shari says.

  “It’ll be easy for you. You’ll see when you’re there, mum. You’ve already done it in your dreams, you just didn’t know it.”

  “All right. Let’s give it a go.”

  Jenny clicks her tongue. “Close your eyes now, mum. Here comes the Dreaming.”

  SHARI CHOPRA

  With those words her world goes dark and silent. It is not so much dreamlike as it’s simply no longer there, like any person experiences as she gives way to sleep and is not yet delivered to her dreams, whether these end up being banal, strange or, as it often happens, simply forgotten.

  Time does not exist. Space does not exist. The desire to see her daughter, the wreckage of Endgame, the vast Australian desert beyond her physical body—none of these exist.

  In many ways she does not exist.

  She spends some time here. Seconds or hours—she doesn’t know and she doesn’t care.

  But then, after an interval, a form comes to her through the darkness. The form is small and her steps are childlike and her hair is dark and straight. Shari can’t see her face, but she knows who it is. She would know who it is from any distance by the way she swings her arms and stands on her toes when she walks. It is Little Alice Chopra.

  She seems to walk to her forever, never getting closer or bigger, yet increasing in presence. The front of her body and her face are cast in shadow, and Shari reaches out and calls for her but the girl doesn’t do anything. She just keeps walking easily toward her mother.

  When the little girl finally comes into view Shari is shocked to find that it’s not Little Alice but Jenny Ulapala. The old woman holds out both hands. Shari is overcome with sadness, and then fear, and then she remembers why she’s here. Where here is.

  “The Dreaming,” she says.

  “Stay with me, mum,” Jenny says. “Don’t act. Follow.”

  Shari takes her hand and they walk, side by side, over the darkness. The ground beneath is not hard or soft. The air is not cold or warm. The void is not limitless or pressing in on them. Jenny swings her hand joyfully, and Shari can’t help but swing it too, like a child would do with her mother or father.

  Like Little Alice would do.

  Eventually they come to the circle of dirt and shrubs in the desert, the same one their physical bodies occupy. It’s early evening. They keep walking, getting incrementally closer to the tree and the portal carved in its trunk. Hilal and the guards are nowhere to be seen.

  “Will it work?” Shari asks, her lips and tongue tingling, her voice echoing through her skull.

  “Quiet, mum,” Jenny answers.

  Shari becomes aware of a shade passing next to her, or perhaps also following. It’s tall, substantial, and with a head of twirling black hair.

  Whenever she looks directly at it, it disappears, but she doesn’t need to see it to know who it is. Shari’s just happy she’s here, in some form.

  It’s Big Alice.

  And she has something to say.

  “They’re all behind you, Shari. You won’t see ’em, you can’t, but they’re all here. An unending parade.” At that moment Jenny and Shari reach the tree in the Dreaming, and the space in the doorway shimmers and turns black like ink. Jenny squeezes Shari’s hand reassuringly. Alice says, “All of ’em. Jamal and Paru leading the line, back through the centuries. They’re all smiling, Shari. The entire line. Your line. All of ’em.”

  Shari’s heart fills, and her gut empties of sadness, and she smiles with them.

  “They’re all here, mate. They’re all here.”

  HILAL IBN ISA AL-SALT, SHARI CHOPRA, JENNY ULAPALA

  -21.6268, 129.6625, Yuendumu Hinterland, Northern Territory, Australia

  “By the Makers,” Hilal says, staring at the portal. It changes before his eyes. It reminds him of the door in the pyramid at the Calling, except that this one is darker and not reflective. It is black and empty save for the faint twinkling of lights like those of intermittent stars.

  “Wait here, mum,” Jenny whispers to Shari. “Stay present and hold the link.”

  Shari doesn’t speak.

  Jenny release
s her hand and rises, her old body creaking upright. She walks halfway to Hilal.

  Jenny says, “Time to see if this portal links with another star chamber. You have the markers?”

  Hilal holds up a pair of flat red stones the size of large coins. Both come from this patch of Australian desert, and both are easily spotted.

  They walk to the tree together. Jenny says, “I’m going back to Shari for a sec. The link to the other portal is there, but it’s like on old window jammed in its frame. Needs unsticking before it’s all the way open.”

  “When will I know?”

  “You’ll know.” She sits back on the ground gingerly and takes Shari’s hand.

  Hilal watches as Jenny’s eyes roll forward, revealing the whites, and then her lids flutter shut. For several moments nothing happens. The portal stays dark and inky and Shari and Jenny remain motionless and silent.

  But then the surface of the portal changes again. Hints of faint blue light stream from it, and a line here and there like the edge of a wall, and a shiny thing set in the ground on the other side like a large salad bowl. It is a star-shaped room, and he knows that it is real and right there, even if it is thousands of miles away.

  “Now!” Jenny blurts.

  Hilal hurls one of the stones at the portal. Its surface ripples exactly like when a rock disturbs a glassy lake, but the stone sails through to the other side. It slides over the floor, dipping into the bowl and shooting into the air on the far side, finally stopping in one of the room’s pointed corners.

  “It worked!” Hilal says.

  “I see it, Aksumite,” Jenny says. “We should be able to cross in either direction when the time comes.”

  Shari grunts. Hilal assumes she is speaking in the Dreaming but is unable to make the words here in the world.

  But then an epiphany. The world includes the Dreaming. This is so spiritually pleasing that he cannot help but smile. Whatever has happened with Abaddon, this world remains, and it is wondrous.

  “We’re gonna try another chamber, Hilal. Gotta make sure we can get to wherever Little Alice shows up.”