by James Frey
Her uncle knocks on the door again. Chiyoko stomps her foot twice. Come in. The door is still open. Her uncle keeps his gaze lowered as he stops at her side and hands her first a simple blue silk kimono, which she steps into, and, after she’s in the kimono, a glass of very cold water.
She pours the water over the ember. It sizzles, spurts, and steams, the water immediately boiling. What is left is a shiny, black, jagged rock.
She looks at her uncle. He looks back at her, sadness in his eyes. It is the sadness of many centuries, of lifetimes coming to an end. She gives him a slight bow of thanks. He tries to smile. He used to be like her, waiting for Endgame to begin, but it passed him over, like it did countless others, for thousands and thousands of years.
Not so for Chiyoko.
“I am sorry,” he says. “For you, for all of us. What will be will be.”
SARAH ALOPAY
Bryan High School, Omaha, Nebraska, United States
The principal stands, smiling, and looks out over the crowd. “And so it is with great honor that I present your class valedictorian, Sarah Alopay!”
The crowd cheers, applauds, whistles.
Sarah stands. She’s wearing a red cap and gown with the valedictorian’s blue sash across her chest. She smiles. She’s been smiling all day. Her face hurts, she’s been smiling so much. She’s happy. She’ll be 18 in less than a month. She’s going to spend her summer at an archeological dig in Bolivia with her boyfriend, Christopher, and in the fall it’s off to college at Princeton. As soon as she turns 20, she can start the rest of her life.
In 742.43625 days she’ll be free.
No longer eligible.
She’s in the 2nd row, behind a group of administrators, PTA board members, and football coaches. She’s a few seats from the aisle. Next to her is Reena Smithson, her best friend since 3rd grade, and four rows behind her is Christopher. She steals a look at him. Blond hair, five-o’clock shadow, green eyes. An even temper and a huge heart. The best-looking boy in her school, her town, maybe the state, and, as far as she’s concerned, the world.
“Go get ’em, tiger,” Christopher says, grinning.
Sarah and Christopher have been together since the 7th grade. Inseparable. Christopher’s family is one of the wealthiest in Omaha. So wealthy, in fact, that his mom and dad couldn’t be bothered to fly back from business in Europe to attend their own son’s graduation. When Christopher crosses the stage, it will be Sarah’s family cheering the loudest. Christopher could’ve gone to private school, or the boarding school where his father went, but he refused, not wanting to be apart from Sarah. It is one of the many reasons she loves him and believes they will be together for their entire lives. She wants it, and she knows he does as well. And in 742.43539 days it will be possible.
Sarah gets into the aisle. She has on the pink Ray-Ban Wayfarers her dad gave her for Christmas, a pair of glasses that obscures her brown, wide-set eyes. Her long auburn hair is pulled into a tight ponytail. Her smooth, bronze skin is luminous. Under her gown she is dressed like all the others.
Yet how many others in her graduating class will bear the weight of an artifact onto the stage with them? Sarah wears it around her neck, just as Tate had worn it when he was eligible, as it has been, passed from Player to Player, for 300 generations. Hanging from the chain is a polished black stone that has seen 6,000 years of love, sorrow, beauty, light, sadness, and death. Sarah has been wearing the necklace since the moment Tate got hurt and her line’s council decided she should be the Player. She was 14. She hasn’t taken the amulet off since, and she’s so used to it that she hardly feels it.
As she makes the trip to the stage, a chant begins in the back of the assembly. “Sar-ah! Sar-ah! Sar-ah!” She smiles, turns, and looks at all her friends; her classmates; Christopher; her older brother, Tate; and her parents. Her mom has her arm around her dad, and they look proud, happy. Sarah makes an I’m nervous face, and her dad smiles and gives her a thumbs-up. She steps onto the stage, and Mrs. Shoemaker, the principal, hands Sarah her diploma. “I’ll miss you, Sarah.”
“I’m not leaving forever, Mrs. Shoe! You’ll see me again.”
Mrs. Shoemaker knows better. Sarah Alopay has never gotten a grade lower than an A. She was All-State in soccer and track, and got a perfect score on her SATs. She’s funny, kind, generous, and helpful, and clearly meant for bigger things. “Give ’em hell, Alopay,” she says.
“I always do,” says Sarah.
She steps to the mic, looks west over her class, her school. Behind the last line of 319 students is a stand of tall green-leafed oaks. The sun is shining and it’s hot, but she doesn’t care. None of them do. They’re finishing one part of their lives, and another is about to begin. They’re all excited. They’re imagining the future, and the dreams they have and hope to realize. Sarah has worked hard on her speech. She’s to be the voice of her classmates and wants to give them something that will inspire them, something that will drive them forward as they embark on this new chapter. It’s a lot of pressure, but Sarah is used to that.
Sarah leans forward and clears her throat. “Congratulations and welcome to the best day of our lives, or at least the best day so far!”
The kids go crazy, and a few prematurely toss their caps into the air. Some laugh. More cheer, “Sar-ah! Sar-ah! Sar-ah!”
“While I was thinking about my speech,” Sarah says, her heart pounding, “I decided to try to answer a question. Immediately I thought, ‘What question is most often asked of me?’ and though it’s a little embarrassing, it was easy to answer. People are always asking me if I have a secret!”
Laughter. Because it’s true. If there was ever a perfect student at the school, it was Sarah. And at least once a week, someone asked what her secret was.
“After thinking long and hard, I realized it was a very simple answer. My secret is that I have no secrets.”
Of course, that is a lie. Sarah has deep secrets. Profound secrets. Secrets that have been kept among her people for thousands and thousands of years. And though she’s done all the things she’s popular for, earned every A and trophy and award, she’s done so much more. Things they can’t even imagine. Like make fire with ice. Hunt and kill a wolf with her bare hands. Walk on hot coals. She has stayed awake for a week straight; she has shot deer from a mile away; she speaks nine languages, has five passports. While they think of her as Sarah Alopay, homecoming queen and all-American girl, the reality is that she is as highly trained and as deadly as any soldier on Earth.
“I am as you see me. I am happy and able because I allow myself to be happy. I learned young that being active breeds more activity. That the gift of studying is knowledge. That seeing grants sight. That if you don’t feed anger, you won’t be angry. Sadness and frustration, even tragedy, are inevitable, but that doesn’t mean that happiness isn’t there for us, for all of us. My secret is that I choose to be the person that I want to be. That I don’t believe in destiny or predetermination, but in choice, and that each of us chooses to be the person we are. Whatever you want to be you can be; whatever you want to do you can do; wherever you want to go you can go. The world, and the life ahead, is ours for the taking. The future is unwritten, and you can make it whatever you want it to be.”
The kids are quiet now. Everyone is quiet.
“I’m looking west. Behind you, above the bleachers, is a bunch of oaks. Behind the trees are the plains, the land of my ancestors, but really the ancestral land of all humans. Past the plains are the mountains, from where the water flows. Over the mountains is the sea, the source of life. Above is the sky. Below is the earth. All around is life, and life is—”
Sarah is interrupted by a sonic boom overhead. Everyone cranes their necks. A bright streak breaks over the oaks, scarring the blue sky. It doesn’t appear to be moving, just getting bigger. For a moment everyone stares in awe. A few people gasp. One person very clearly says, “What is that?”
Everyone stares until a solitary scream comes from the
back row, and it hits the whole assembly at once. It’s like someone has flipped a switch for panic. The sounds of chairs tipping over, people screaming, total confusion. Sarah gasps. Instinctively, she reaches through her gown and grabs the stone around her neck.
It’s heavier than it has ever been. The asteroid or meteor or comet or whatever it is, is changing it. She’s frozen. Staring as the streak moves toward her. The stone on the chain changes again, feeling suddenly light. Sarah realizes that it’s lifting into the air under her robe. It works itself free of her clothing, pulls in the direction of the thing that is coming for them.
This is what it looks like.
This is what it feels like.
Endgame.
The sounds of terror fall away from her ears, replaced by stunned silence.
Though she has trained for it for almost her entire life, she never thought it would happen.
She was hoping it wouldn’t. 742.42898 days. She was supposed to be free.
The stone pulls at her neck.
“SARAH!” Someone yanks her arm hard. The fireball is riveting, terrible, and suddenly audible. She can literally hear it moving through the air, burning, raging.
“Come on! NOW!” It’s Christopher. Kind, brave, strong Christopher. His face is red with alarm and heat, his eyes watering, spit flying from his lips. She can see her parents and her brother at the bottom of the steps.
They have seconds.
Maybe less.
The morning sky darkens, turns black, and the fireball is upon them. The heat is overwhelming. The sound is paralyzing.
They are going to die.
At the last moment Christopher vaults off the stage, pulling Sarah with him. The air fills with the smells of burning hair, wood, plastic. The necklace pulls so hard in the direction of the meteor that the chain digs into the skin of Sarah’s neck.
They shut their eyes and crumple onto the grass. Sarah feels the stone pull free. It sails into the air, seeking out the meteor, and at the last minute the huge fireball changes direction, stopping a thousand feet short and skipping over them like a flat rock on a smooth lake. It happens so quickly that no one can see it, but somehow, some way, for some reason, the ancient little stone has spared them.
The meteor flies over the cement grandstand and impacts a quarter mile to the east. The school building is there. The parking lot. Some basketball courts. The tennis courts.
Not anymore.
The meteor destroys them all.
Boom.
They’re gone.
Those comforting and familiar places where Sarah has spent her life—her normal life, anyway—are gone in an instant. Everything wiped away. A new chapter has begun, just not the one Sarah hoped for.
A shock wave rushes out and over the field, carrying dust and darkness. It hits them hard, flattens them, knocks them down, blows out their eardrums.
The air is hot and choked with particles, gray and brown and black. It’s hard to see. Christopher is still with Sarah. Holding her. Shielding her. He pulls her close as they’re pelted with stones and dirt, fist-sized chunks of god-knows-what. There are others around them, some hurt. They cough. They can’t stop crying. They can’t stop shaking. It’s hard to breathe. Another shock wave passes through and pushes them farther into the ground. Sarah gets the wind knocked from her. Spears of fleeting light illuminate the dust. The ground shakes as things begin to fall around them. Hunks of cement and steel, twisted cars, furniture. They can do nothing but wait, praying that nothing lands on top of them. Christopher is holding her so hard it hurts. She is digging her nails into his back.
They have no idea how much time has elapsed when the air begins to clear and smaller sounds begin to return. People are wailing in pain. Names are being called. One of them is hers.
Her father.
“Sarah. SARAH!”
“Here!” she yells. Her voice sounds muffled and distant, even to herself. Her ears are still ringing. “I’m here!”
Her father emerges from the dust cloud. His face is covered in blood and ash. Against the filth on his face, she can see the whites of his eyes, brilliant and clear. He knows what she knows.
Endgame.
“Sarah!” Her dad stumbles toward them and falls to his knees, wrapping both of them in his arms. They cry. Their bodies heave. People scream in every direction. Sarah opens her eyes for a second and sees Reena in front of her, dazed, in shock. Her best friend’s left arm is gone above the elbow; all that remains is blood and shredded skin and jagged bone. The graduation gown has been torn from her body, but somehow her cap has stayed on. She’s covered in soot. Sarah calls, “Reena! Reena!” but Reena doesn’t hear. She disappears back into the dust, and Sarah knows that she’ll never see Reena again.
“Where’s Mom?” she whispers, her lips on her dad’s ear.
“I was with her. I don’t know.”
“The stone, it . . . it . . .”
“I know.”
“Sarah?” her mom calls out.
“Here!” the three say together.
Sarah’s mom crawls toward them. All the hair on the right side of her head is gone. Her face is burned but not too badly. When she sees them she looks so happy. Her look is different from the one she gave Sarah when she walked onto the stage.
I was giving a speech, Sarah thinks. I was giving a speech at graduation. People were happy. So happy.
“Olowa,” Simon says quietly, reaching for his wife. “Tate?”
Olowa shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
An explosion in the distance.
The air starts to clear, the carnage becoming more evident. There are bodies everywhere. The Alopays and Christopher are the lucky ones. Sarah sees a head. A leg. A torso. A cap falls to the ground near them.
“Sarah, it’s on. It’s on for real.”
It’s Tate, walking toward them, his arms extended. One hand is in a fist; the other holds a grapefruit-sized hunk of gold-and-green rock streaked with black veins of metal.
He is amazingly clean, as if the whole thing passed him over. He smiles. His mouth is full of blood. Tate was a Player once, but no longer. Now he looks almost excited for his sister, in spite of all that’s happened around them. All the death, all the destruction, all that they know is coming.
“I found them!” Tate is 10 feet away now. Another small explosion from somewhere. He opens his fist and puts the small piece of stone that was around her neck into the bigger multicolored rock. “It fits perfectly.”
“Nukumi,” Simon says reverently.
“Nukumi,” Sarah says, much less reverently.
“What?” Christopher asks.
Sarah says, “Nothing—”
But she is cut short as an explosion sends shards of metal flying through the air. A six-foot-long piece of steel embeds itself into the middle of Tate’s chest. He is dead. Gone. Killed in an instant. He falls backward, Sarah’s stone pendant and the piece of green-veined rock still in his hand. Her mother screams; her father yells, “No!”
Sarah cannot speak. Christopher stares in shock. Blood oozes out of Tate’s chest. His eyes are open and staring, lifeless, to the sky. His feet twitch, the last bits of life leaving him. But the stone and the pendant, they are safe.
This is not accidental.
The stones have meaning.
Carry a message.
This is Endgame.
JAGO TLALOC
Tlaloc Residence, 12 Santa Elisa, Juliaca, Puno, Peru
Jago Tlaloc’s sneakers crunch across broken glass. It is night and the streetlights are out. Sirens wail in the distance, but otherwise Juliaca is quiet. It was chaos before, when Jago first headed for the crater in the city center to claim what had been sent for him. In the madness, survivors poured into the streets, shattering shop windows, taking whatever they wanted.
The looting will not sit well with Jago’s father, who runs protection for many of the local businesses. But Jago does not blame his people. Let them enjoy some comforts n
ow, while there is still time. Jago has a treasure of his own: the stone, still warm, wrapped in his satchel and tossed over his shoulder.
A hot wind rushes through the buildings, carrying ash and the smell of fire. They call Juliaca the Windy City of Peru for good reason. Unlike many of his people, Jago has traveled well beyond the city limits. He has killed at least twice on every continent, and still he finds it strange to visit a place where the wind is missing.
Jago is the Player of the 21st line. Born to Guitarrero and Hayu Marca just over 19 years ago. Once Players themselves, several years apart, his parents now run this part of the city. From the legitimate businesses to the illicit materials that flow through the neighborhood’s back alleys, his parents take a cut of everything. They are also philanthropists, in a way, turning around their often ill-gotten money to open schools and maintain hospitals. The law does not touch them, refuses to come near them; the Tlaloc family is too much of a resource. In just a few more months, Jago would have become ineligible and joined his parents in the family business. Yet all empires must crumble.
A trio of shadows peels from the mouth of a nearby alley. The figures block the sidewalk in front of Jago, looking wolfish and dangerous.
“What you got there, my friend?” hisses one of the shadows, nodding at Jago’s satchel.
In response, Jago flashes his teeth, which are perfectly straight and white. His maxillary lateral incisors are each capped with gold, and each inset with a small diamond. These gems glint in the moonlight.
The three scavengers shrink back. “Sorry, Feo,” says the leader, “we didn’t recognize you.”
They should be scared, but not of Jago or the power of his family, though Jago is strong and merciless, and his family more so. They should be scared of what is to come. They don’t know it, but Jago is the only hope these people have. Once, the power of his family was enough to keep this neighborhood and its people alive and happy. Now that responsibility falls to Jago.