Endgame: Rules of the Game
Page 24
Masaka quickly goes into shock. Hilal knows he doesn’t feel any pain. The adrenaline won’t let him.
“Answer me.”
“Sh-Shang. The Shang.”
“And they are where?”
“Marina. South side of island. Please.”
Shock is a wonderful truth serum, Hilal thinks.
Hilal steps back three paces. Takes up his rifle. Points it. Fires one single shot. Masaka slumps forward.
Hilal wipes his machete on Masaka’s pants and sheathes it. “This was unexpected,” he says out loud.
Hilal hooks his fingers under Masaka’s belt and lifts him by his pelvis. He takes the severed arm. He hustles to the luggage cart and puts Masaka on top of the pile of bodies, checking his pockets first and finding his car keys.
He decides to burn all of them.
He works quickly to douse the impromptu pyre with aviation fuel and when he’s done he takes a lighter and sets it off.
He leaves the airport and gets in Masaka’s Toyota hatchback and takes off. As the little car winds up the mountain and away from the water he uses the phone to call Jenny. It rings once before she answers with a curt, “Yeah.”
“Go to the Dreaming now,” Hilal says. “Find the Mu monument and open your portal. It will happen quickly, one way or another. The Shang will be there. He has the keys. And he has an accomplice. A Mu.”
“Blimey,” Jenny says.
“I know. I am on my way now. Send the signal when you see me in the star chamber. Then I will move in and save Little Alice. Tell Shari I will bring her daughter.”
“I will, mate,” Jenny says. “Godspeed.”
“And to you, Master Ulapala. Godspeed to us all.”
Four and Six and Eight and Twelve and Twentyiv
AN LIU, NORI KO, LITTLE ALICE CHOPRA
24.43161, 123.01314, near Yonaguni, Japan
Nori Ko dives off the small fishing boat anchored directly over the sunken Mu monument. She takes her pack and a flare gun and has a bright nylon line tied to her waist. She does not wear a wetsuit. The water is warm and pleasant and bright blue. She swims down seven meters, kicks hard with her fins, her arms at her sides. She blows out her ears three times. Bubbles rise around her face and carbonate her loose hair. On her left is a sprawling stepped pyramid that’s been hidden under the waves for thousands upon thousands of years, its provenance and purpose an eternal mystery to the tourists and locals who’ve dived it over the years.
A pyramid of Mu.
She reaches a shelf, the blue deepening into darkness on her right. She twists under an outcropping and behind a huge frond of fan coral. Yes. There, like a mouth before her, is the dark entryway. She ties off the nylon line, its other end secured to the boat bouncing on the surface. She lights a flare and holds it before her, the black stone twinkling with orange and pink and white. She hits a wall and looks up and sees the square mirror of an air pocket a meter overhead. She detaches her weight belt and kicks twice. She emerges into a dry room, its stale air trapped inside the structure for thousands of years. She tosses the flare into the room before jumping into the water and swimming back down. She tests the nylon line. It holds. She aims the flare gun at the surface, making sure to avoid the hull of the small boat, and fires. It shoots upward in a burst of bubbles and explodes, looking like a deformed firework from under the waves.
She swims back to the room and pulls herself into it. She lights three more flares and tosses each to a different corner. The room is rectangular, and she knows from a previous Mu mission that it’s three meters wide and 4.854 meters long. A slender and tall doorway sits in the western wall. This leads to a shaft that angles downward for several meters and opens into another rectangular room. This second room is as far as she got when she last came here. If she’s to go any farther today—and she hopes she will—it will be into uncharted territory.
While she waits for An she unpacks the bag and checks their swords and their guns and takes what is hers.
A plume of bubbles disturbs the patch of water five minutes later. An and Sky Key appear simultaneously. The Shang Player holds up the girl and Nori Ko takes her and places her gently on top of her empty pack. She slips off the girl’s specialized mask with sealed auto-equalizing ear covers and smooths Sky Key’s wet face and dark hair, the skin around her chin and under her ears creased and reddened from the mask. The girl stirs and moans, but she doesn’t wake.
Go easy now, love, Chiyoko tells An as he watches the other two.
He BLINK he slips SHIVERSHIVERSHIVER he slips out of his scuba gear and strips to BLINKblinkshiver to his underwear. He opens a large dry bag and pulls out the Chiyoko necklace and Earth Key BLINKBLINK and the vest and the wrist pad and a dry set of cotton clothes that are like pajamas. He brings Chiyoko over his head and smells her hair and kisses her ear. He slips Earth Key into a Velcro pocket and then puts his arms through the vest and pulls the straps extra tight against his rib cage. He slips the wrist pad over his left forearm and puts on the clothing that conceals the bulky explosive he will deliver to the kepler. He passes Nori Ko and the girl without talking, slings the strap of his ARX 160 over his shoulder. He picks up BLINKBLINK Nobuyuki’s SHIVERblink Nobuyuki’s katana and straps it to his back, its hilt jutting above his head.
You are ready, love.
“Ready,” he says, staring at Sky Key while addressing Nori Ko.
Nori Ko stares at An in the eerie light, his deep-set eyes like black coals, his body practically glowing with vengeance, and wonders briefly if she’s made a mistake.
But only briefly.
For the thing about An that frightens her most is exactly what draws her to him.
He is a killer first. And in this terrible game, killers win.
She throws An a flare. He catches it nimbly. She picks up the girl and pulls her to her chest. Sky Key’s head flops onto Nori Ko’s shoulder. The girl remains utterly unconscious. She will not witness her end, and Nori Ko is thankful for it.
She is a child, after all.
“Through there,” she says, indicating the doorway. “You first.”
An goes to the door and disappears through it. Nori Ko hustles after him, and after eight minutes of a corkscrewing descent they turn a sharp corner and practically stumble into the next room. Its proportions are the same as the one above, but it’s twice as large. A butcher block of a table carved from the black rock, its edges straight and true, sits in the middle of the room. At the far end is another doorway, its stone door sealed shut.
The keys will open it, love, Chiyoko says.
“The keys”—BLINKshiverBLINK—“the keys will do it.”
“Are you sure?” Nori Ko asks.
“Give me the girl,” An says.
Nori Ko holds her out. An takes her in his arms. He carries her to the closed door. The girl is heavy. Earth Key is heavy in his pocket. He is heavy and getting heavier.
And then—
KEPLER 22B
24.43161, 123.01314, near Yonaguni, Japan
His eyes pop open, black slits set against his mother-of-pearl skin. A grating sound, stone sliding on stone, from not very far above.
It is time.
The old temple moves. In a few minutes its uppermost promontory will be visible to the world above the waves, a rectilinear pillar of sea-worn stone, wet and encrusted with bivalves and corals and anemones.
Like Stonehenge before it, this ancient monument has awoken.
He must prepare for the Player.
He steps from his spot and glides to the room’s center. He folds in half at the waist and places the tips of his seven-fingered hands around the periphery of the gilt bowl set in the floor. The metallic surface swirls with dark colors and glimpses of the cosmos and an occasional beam of escaped light that lances to the ceiling.
He pulls his hands away, careful not to let any part of his body touch the inner bowl.
It is ready for the keys.
He moves to the portal. He places his right han
d on the stone doorjamb and this liquefies and he thrusts his hand forward. He moves his fingers in the plasmastone, so cold to the touch for not having been used for thousands and thousands of years. The blank interior of the portal shimmers and blackens and he leans forward to make sure the link is open. His head appears, millions of miles away, in the teletrans room of his ship. He pulls his head back, and he is wholly in the Mu star chamber.
He swipes a finger across a sensor in the sleeve of his armor and a projectile weapon swings over his right hand. He adjusts its shot from the default wide scatter to pinpoint-thin.
He waits. The grating above continues. He scans the room one last time, moving clockwise from his left. There is the La Tène, should he need her, the living code embedded in her genes. There is the door leading up. There is the bowl in the middle of the room. The walls glow blue. But what’s this? He squints. He quickly crosses the room into the farthest star point and peers down. Something he didn’t see before.
A round red stone.
A stone that shouldn’t be here.
He picks it up and smells it. The grating sound stops. The pebble smells distinct and he places it immediately.
It is from Australia. From near the Koori monument in the hinterland.
He glances over his shoulder. The stone was exactly opposite the portal.
It was thrown into the room from the Koori monument!
He drops the stone and thrusts his left hand back into the plasmastone, fine-tuning its settings. He knows that Players have moved around the world with these portals, he assumed by happenstance like when some went from Bolivia to the Himalayas, but the presence of this telltale pebble means that at least one of them has learned how to use the portals. This Player has not connected to this portal yet, but he assumes that he or she is trying to make a connection.
After another few moments he pulls his hand from the plasmastone and tosses the rock at the inky black of the portal. The rock bounces away and lands at his feet. Then he sticks out his hand, and it passes effortlessly through the frigid void and into his ship.
The test is satisfactory. Only he can pass now, in either direction. No one else will be able to use it to escape or to come here.
He spins back to the middle of the room and waits.
AN LIU, NORI KO, LITTLE ALICE CHOPRA
24.43161, 123.01314, near Yonaguni, Japan
An Liu and Nori Ko plant their feet as the ground shifts and turns. The sound of grinding stone is deafening, and even with no external point of reference, An senses that the room is rising through the water.
It’s happening again, love, Chiyoko says. Like when I died.
“What’s this?” Nori Ko yells. She stumbles and grabs the corner of the carved table, which is attached to the ground.
“The”—BLINKshiver—“the”—SHIVERSHIVER—“it’s changing. Stonehenge did it”—BLINKBLINKblink—“did it too.”
It means we’re on the right track, love, Chiyoko says.
“I”—BLINK—“I know.”
It means we can go the rest alone, Chiyoko says.
“I know.”
Sky Key grows more restless as the room shifts and twists like a Tilt-A-Whirl, but after a few frenzied minutes it’s finished.
Silence reigns.
A gust of cold air spills into the room. Sky Key’s eyes flutter. She points. “Earth Sky Sun,” she says quietly.
An follows the girl’s finger. The doorway is open. Another narrow passageway descending into darkness. An pushes his head into it, and his breath rises visibly around his face.
“Earth Sky Sun,” Sky Key repeats.
An plops the girl onto the floor roughly.
“Hey!” Nori Ko says. “No need for—”
She’s cut off as An whips his rifle into his hands and sights Nori Ko’s face.
Blink.
No. Let her go! Chiyoko implores.
Except An says these words too.
BLINKBLINKBLINKBLINK.
Nori Ko raises her hands defensively.
And she finally understands.
Nori Ko says, “Listen to her, An. Chiyoko loves you.”
“N-n-n-no,” he says. “Thank you for”—BLINKblinkBLINK—“for getting me”—SHIVERSHIVER—“getting me here, but—”
Nori Ko cuts him off. “I can help. I’ll make sure no one comes after you, An.”
Let her go, Chiyoko says.
“I—I—I—I—I d-d-don’t know,” An stammers. “You should”—SHIVERblinkblink—“you should die.”
Why? Chiyoko asks.
But before An can explain that it’s because they all have to die and that he has to be the one to kill them, Nori Ko says, “I understand what you are, An. It’s why I picked you. You’re Death! Let me guard you so you can give this to the Maker, and find it for yourself. Let me help you. Let me help Chiyoko. Please!”
BLINKBLINKSHIVERshivershiverBLINK.
“Earth Sky Sun Key,” the girl says.
BLINK.
Listen to her, love. Go to the kepler. Avenge me, Chiyoko says. Now!
BBBBBLINK. BBBBBLINK. BBBBBBBBBLINK.
His hands shake. The rifle lowers a few inches. Nori Ko considers diving behind the stone table, but while An’s tics give her a chance they also show how on edge he is, how unpredictable.
She stays rooted to the spot.
SHSHSHSHSHIVER. SHIVER. SHSHSHSHShiver.
Noises echo from the passageway leading up and out of the monument. The hiss of crashing waves, a clunk-clunk like a metal container repeatedly bring struck like a drum, and there, right there for a moment—the sound of a man saying, “Faith.”
“More are coming!” Nori Ko says urgently.
“Earth Sky Sun,” the girl says loudly.
An nudges her with his thigh. “Shh.”
Let her go.
BBBBBBBBBBBBLINK. SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHIVER.
The Beretta falls to his side. “Okay. Keep me”—BLINK—“keep me safe, Nori Ko. Keep her”—SHIVER—“her”—blinkblinkblink—“her”—SHIVERSHIVERBLINKblink—“her”—SHIVERBLINKBLINK—“Chiyoko safe too.”
Without saying another word he grabs Sky Key by the shirt collar and half carries, half drags her out of the room and into the darkness, the girl gurgling and moaning. The last thing Nori Ko sees or hears of either is the red glow from An’s wrist pad, the one indicating that his nuclear vest is well and armed.
Nori Ko takes three breaths and centers herself. She draws her sword with her right hand, grips her rifle with her left. She leans against the table and drops behind it, completely hidden from whoever is coming from above.
HILAL IBN ISA AL-SALT
24.43161, 123.01314, near Yonaguni, Japan
Hilal grips a rope that’s secured to his Zodiac’s bow and manages to stay on the planking. The water churns as a twisting, telescoping pillar of stone rises from the waves. When it stops it juts four meters above the surface like a small lighthouse.
The dive boat that he’s lashed his Zodiac to—the same boat that An and his Mu accomplice used to reach this same point—clanks against the stone rhythmically. A huge fan coral is flopped over its side, holding the boat in place. An opening large enough for a person appears on the side of the rock.
This is it.
Hilal reaches into his pocket and threads his fingers through the holes on the lump of metal. Again it does nothing. But again he is certain that somehow, some way, it will work when needed.
“I must have faith,” he says.
He checks his machetes one last time and his HK416 rifle and steps off the boat and through the opening, his faith helping him take each step forward as he moves toward the end.
Reality is a dream.v
SHARI CHOPRA, JENNY ULAPALA
“The Dreaming,” Shari says.
Their physical bodies are in Australia’s Yuendumu Hinterland, but their spiritual bodies are here, in the shared void.
Shari holds Jenny’s hand in both realms. In Australia they sit s
ide by side on the red earth, knees touching. In the Dreaming they walk briskly through nothingness, have been walking for what could be fractions of a second or hours. Their arms swing with purpose, their thighs occasionally brush against each other. Shari can see forever in every direction, but wherever she looks there is nothing to see.
“When?” Shari asks.
“Soon, mum.”
They are alone this time. Big Alice is not there whispering that the Harappan are at Shari’s back, waving their hands, mouthing her name, pushing her forward, ever forward.
A blue glow appears in the distance. Jenny guides them toward it. She says, “I’ll stay with you when we get there, mum. But when Hilal arrives and it’s time for him to bring your daughter through the portal, I’ll have to leave you to signal him. Otherwise he won’t know we’re ready for him. You gotta stay centered and quiet in the Dreaming until Hilal’s crossed with your girl, and you gotta stay calm. No matter what you see happening there, you stay calm or we could lose the connection and any chance of getting them back. You understand, yeah?”
The light grows brighter.
“I understand, Jenny.”
“Good. No more talking. No more spoken thought. Silence, mental and otherwise. This is gonna be the hardest meditation you’ve ever done, ’cause every fiber of your being is gonna tell you to move and act on behalf of your child. You can’t do none of that. Help her by being there and nothing else. If the Maker gets tipped to our presence he’ll shut the door to us and we’ll be good and screwed.”
“I understand.”
“Be nothing, like a stone on the floor, like the floor itself. You are the foundation.”
To acknowledge her, Shari squeezes Jenny’s hand, in this world and in that one. Here and there. Everywhere and nowhere.
They continue.
Brighter.
Brighter.
Brighter.
They see the room now, star shaped and glowing and prepared. They can’t see the Maker anywhere but they can feel his presence.