by James Frey
Sarah is next to him, blinking her way back to awareness. Her presence is strangely comforting—one familiar thing amidst an overwhelming sea of questions. He notices something on the ground a few feet away from Sarah’s knapsack. The gray stone disk that hung around kepler 22b’s neck. You will each receive a clue.
Jago dives for it.
Chiyoko notices Jago move for the disk. He’s the first one to act. Impressive. Chiyoko’s own muscles are stiff, sluggish.
She fights this weariness and also lunges for the disk, but Jago is faster. Chiyoko’s fingertips graze the cool stone surface as he snatches it away.
Jago jumps to his feet. Sarah shoulders her bag and stands beside him. Chiyoko reaches into her bag and pulls out a coil of rope. She can’t give away to the others that Jago has a disk of Baian-Kara-Ula, or she’ll never be able to steal it for herself. Slowly, very slowly, she begins to back out of the clearing.
Jago takes his eyes off Chiyoko. The mute girl saw him take the disk but is leaving him alone. A smart play. Better to avoid open conflict at this point. Jago will have to keep an eye on her. He slips the disk quickly into a small knapsack he bought in Xi’an and grabs Sarah by the arm. Her muscles are hard, tense.
“Let go of me,” she whispers.
Jago leans close to her ear. “I have kepler’s disk. Let’s get out of here.”
Finding the disk is a piece of luck, even if neither of them knows exactly what it means. They have an alliance, and now they have an advantage. Better to not let the others find out, Sarah thinks. It could make us a target. She wishes Jago hadn’t grabbed her arm. She shrugs him off and steps to the side, hoping they didn’t give anything away.
But Kala saw their exchange. “What did you just say to her?” She holds a short golden spear, lowers it, ready to strike.
Jago meets her eyes, unblinking, and smiles with his diamond-studded teeth so that dimples form in his pockmarked cheeks. “You want to die so soon, little girl?”
Jago and Kala stand across from each other, loose, confident, unbending. It’s the first of many confrontations that will decide the outcome of Endgame.
One by one around the circle, weapons are drawn. This is exactly what Chiyoko was worried about, why she backed away. The paranoia in the air is palpable. She takes another step backward, toward the cover of the woods.
An begins to tremble. He reaches a hand into his vest—a fisherman’s utility jacket covered with small pockets and zippers. Marcus notices. His dagger is drawn and itching to spill some blood. But if that jittery little creep has a gun or something long-range, he’ll have to act fast.
“What’re you doing?” Marcus demands, flipping his knife from hand to hand.
An pauses. “M-m-m-m-meds. I have to take my m-m-m-m-meds.”
Chiyoko silently retreats into the shadows. No one notices her disappear.
Sarah looks at her watch. It is 3:13:46 a.m.
If Jago has the disk, then I am going with him, Sarah decides. Aside from the strategic advantage, I’m not sure I’m ready for this. Maybe he’ll help me stay alive.
Hilal steps forward to where the center of the circle was. He holds out both his hands, empty. He’s one of the few not to have gone for a weapon.
“Sisters and brothers of Endgame, let’s talk,” Hilal says, his voice smooth. “We have much to discuss. This night does not have to end in bloodshed.”
Baitsakhan titters, amused by the coward. Everyone else ignores Hilal. Kala doesn’t take her eyes off Jago and doesn’t lower her spear.
Shari, noticing Chiyoko’s absence, barks in her Indian accent, “Where’s the mute?”
Alice scans the perimeter of their circle. “Lit out. Smart girl.”
Hilal looks grim, disappointed. He knew it would be difficult to make peace, but he expected them to at least hear him out. “Sisters and brothers, we should not be fighting. Not yet. You heard the being. There are no rules. We can work together, for the good of the people and creatures of Earth. We can work together, at least until we are forced to work against one ano—”
He is interrupted by a swoosh as a rope with a weighted metal object on the end of it flies from the shadows. It wraps tightly around Hilal’s throat. He raises his hands to his neck. The cord is pulled taut, and Hilal spins in place and falls, choking, to the ground.
“What the hell was that?” Maccabee asks, swiveling.
Baitsakhan doesn’t wait to find out. He also sprints into the forest. Another rope attack issues from the darkness, this one from a different place, as if from a different person. It lashes out at Jago, but as the rope nears, he jumps backward, and the cord falls limply to the ground before being whisked into the woods.
A twig snaps. They catch a glimpse of Chiyoko’s pale skin and black hair darting through the undergrowth.
“It’s the bloody mute!” shouts Alice.
As they turn to Alice, an arrow whistles from the darkened forest and hits Maccabee’s right thigh. He staggers and looks down. A long shaft has pierced the front of his leg and punched through the back; blood is welling and starting to run. It was that little mongrel boy, Baitsakhan, sniping from the cover of the woods. Without thinking, Maccabee snaps the shaft and pulls the arrow free. It is excruciating, but he does not cry. He is infuriated. The little shit ruined a perfectly good suit.
“To hell with this, I’m gone,” Kala says, forgetting about Jago. She sprints for the pyramid.
“Stop this madness!” Hilal has freed himself from the rope and gotten his breath back. “It does not have to be this way!”
In response, an arrow thuds into the dirt between his legs. Hilal scrambles away, also into the woods.
“Maybe save the sermon for another time, preacher,” says Aisling, before she follows him into the forest.
Another whistle cuts the air. Sarah’s instincts take over, and she reaches toward Jago’s head and with her bare hand snatches an arrow out of the air just before it would have found its mark in Jago’s skull.
Jago looks at her. He has never seen someone do that before. He is wide-eyed, grateful. “How did you—”
“We have to get out of here,” Sarah says. She can’t believe she did that either. She practiced it over and over and over, sliced her hands to ribbons trying to catch arrows, but she never succeeded. Not until this moment.
She throws the arrow to the ground and grabs Jago by the hand. “Let’s go.”
They turn toward the forest and begin to run.
An Liu is no longer fishing around for his bottle of pills. He stands, shoulders square, facing what is left of the group. He wears a sinister smile.
A third arrow flies from the woods, striking An square in the chest. An looks down, amused, and flicks the shaft away from the ballistics vest that went unnoticed beneath his fisherman’s pockets. He casually tosses a small, dark sphere the size of a walnut toward the remaining Players. Marcus, who is closest, is taken by surprise. His instincts lead him to reach out and catch An’s offering. But just before it can land in Marcus’s hand, it explodes.
The blast is much bigger than the size of the bomb would suggest. Bodies fly. Sarah loses her hearing, and for a few moments all is chaos. She lifts her head to see the zombielike form of Marcus. Both of his arms are gone at the shoulder, and his jaw hangs dislocated and slack from his skull. Blood covers his face and upper body. The skin on the left side of his head is shredded like cheese, and his ear is hanging low by his neck.
Something falls spinning from the sky and lands at Sarah’s feet. A finger. Pointing 167°49'25".
Sarah’s stomach turns as she is reminded of the meteor strike and her graduation and leaving Christopher.
She is reminded of her best friend, Reena.
And her brother, Tate.
It was only a week ago.
A week.
She should be grieving, with her family, sitting in the living room, eating and hugging and holding hands.
Instead, she is here.
Alone.
She glances at Jago.
Maybe not alone.
Marcus falls to his knees, face-plants into the ground. For Marcus Loxias Megalos, Minoan Player of the 5th line, Endgame is over.
An spins, and a fire lights behind him as he disappears into the woods. He’s let off another incendiary device. The forest starts to burn. Even though the fire is 59 feet away, the heat stings Sarah’s face.
“Come on!” Jago says. He lifts her to her feet and they stumble away. They have to get out through the pyramid. Through the door that has reappeared, though they don’t know where it will take them. They can’t risk the woods, not with the fire, not with An, Chiyoko, Baitsakhan, and who knows who else lurking there. They reach the pyramid and stop at the door.
Its incandescent surface reflects the light of the fire, the dark of the woods. Sarah reaches out. A series of golden images drift across the doorway. Some are recognizable: the pyramids at Giza; Carahunge; the jumble of geometric stones at Pumapunku; Tchogha Zanbil.
Others are megaliths and signs, idols and statues, numbers and shapes that Sarah doesn’t recognize.
Another explosion rattles the air behind them.
“I think it’s asking where we want to go,” Sarah says.
Jago glances over his shoulder. “Anywhere but here,” Jago says.
He squeezes Sarah’s hand, and together they step forward and pass through the strange portal. They don’t notice that right behind them is Maccabee Adlai, bleeding and angry and hungry for death.
CHRISTOPHER VANDERKAMP
Xi’an Garden Hotel, Dayan District, Xi’an, China
Christopher wakes with a start. He can’t believe he fell asleep. He looks at his watch:
3:13 a.m.
It could all be over by now. Sarah and the others could have finished whatever they were doing in the pagoda and moved on.
He grabs the backpack that contains his passport, money and credit cards, his phone, some food, and a folding knife he bought at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda gift shop. A headlamp, a change of underwear, and a Chinese phrase book. He takes one pair of binoculars and throws it in the bag and leaves the room. He doesn’t bother with the $5,000 worth of equipment, all bought the day before. He knows he’ll never come back.
He’s going to go into the pagoda. He’s going to go find out if Sarah is still there or already gone. He runs down five flights of stairs, into the night, streetlamps casting an orange glow over the city. There are very few cars out, no people. He looks at his watch.
3:18.
He runs as fast as he can, which is fast. His bag bounces on his back. Floodlights on the ground illuminate the pagoda. He hopes there isn’t a guard, but if there is, he’s prepared to do whatever he has to do, knowing in his heart he’s doing it for love. He has to get inside. Find Sarah. Help her win.
He arrives, looks for a guard, doesn’t see one. It’s strangely empty. Whatever was happening here, it was meant to take place in private. He pauses before moving toward the door, looking up and around. He stops dead in his tracks, something catching his eye. His jaw drops.
A young woman leaps from a window at the top of the pagoda, 200 feet up. She starts to fall, her colorful scarves flapping and fluttering around her. As she moves toward the ground, she spreads out her arms and legs, and the scarves billow out and catch the wind. Even though she’s falling fast, she also seems to be slowing down.
Christopher shakes his head, can’t believe what he’s seeing.
She is not falling at all, not anymore.
She is flying.
KALA MOZAMI
Big Wild Goose Pagoda, 6th Floor, Xi’an, China
Kala materializes in the attic of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, tumbling across the rough wooden floor. She dove into the emptiness of the pyramid’s door and this is where it spit her out. She’s out of breath but relieved to be away from the other Players.
For now, she wants to keep it that way.
For now, she wants to retreat and breathe and decode the random string of Arabic numbers and Sumerian letters kepler 22b tattooed onto her consciousness like a sudden, driving madness.
She wonders if the codes are this intense for the others. She hopes they are. Because it’s strange and upsetting; it disarms her and confuses her.
She doesn’t want to be the only one who feels this way, an indecipherable message burned across the forefront of her mind. It would put her at a great disadvantage. She does not like being at a disadvantage of any kind. She will do what she can to remedy this. As soon as possible. Now.
The room is as she remembers it: dark and small and old. But there are no Players stacked like rugs in the corner, and there is no ghostly voice of kepler 22b. Blessings to Annunaki for that, she thinks. She does not want to be there when another Player arrives, and is not sure when that might happen, so she gathers herself and bolts down the small hidden stairway to the main room of the pagoda’s penultimate story, the room that has windows looking out over China, over the rest of the world.
The world that is going to end.
Filled with people who are going to die.
Kala pauses and balls her fists around her scarves and does a little pirouette as she eyes the open window. She has to get away. She shakes her body violently, and two flaps of webbing drop from her jumpsuit, one beneath her arms and another between her legs. She stares at the night outside. She takes a deep breath and runs straight toward the window.
She jumps headfirst. She’s done the math, knows how much distance she needs. She knows that she only has 200 feet before the ground will rush up to meet her. It’s just enough. Her scarves flutter and snap and the flaps catch the up-rushing wind and it happens. She’s not falling but gliding, flying. For a moment, a too brief moment, she feels free.
Blessings.
The code seared onto her brain is gone. The others are gone. The pressure is gone. Just like that.
She’s flying.
But not for long.
Because here comes the ground.
She jerks her head and shoulders and thrusts her pelvis forward. The suit is special. Designed not just for flying but landing too. An array of miniature chutes opens along the flaps that slow her down. Kala pushes a button on a loop of cloth that is stretched around her middle finger, and the whole front of the suit inflates with a loud hiss. She hits the ground and it hurts, but she’s fine. The cushions deflate just as quickly as they blew up, and just like she has practiced 238 times, she is upright and already running. Running away from it all, and running toward it all as well.
Everything is here, Kala recalls kepler 22b saying. What does that mean? The way the creature said it made her feel small and meaningless. She didn’t like that. Kala cannot think about this for long, though. Because, as her feet move across the ground, the code comes back to the forefront of her mind like a supernova.
Kala is so distracted that she doesn’t even notice the young man following her.
Falsel
CHRISTOPHER VANDERKAMP
Big Wild Goose Pagoda, Ground Level, Xi’an, China
Christopher stood and watched as the girl’s clothing inflated like a balloon and, without breaking stride, she hit the ground and started running. He takes it as a good omen that this is the same girl he was able to ID from his room. The one with the dark-tanned skin and the colorful scarves and the green eyes.
He also takes it as a good omen that she doesn’t notice him.
She’s playing catch-up, he says to himself as he tries to run silently after her. I have to assume that she was the last to leave, that the others have already moved on from the Calling. I have to follow her. She’s the best and only connection I have to the girl I love.
And he follows. And as he does, it doesn’t occur to him that Kala is in fact the first Player to leave the Calling through the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. That if he had waited a few more minutes, he might have seen Sarah Alopay, the Cahokian Player of the 233rd.
SARAH AL
OPAY, JAGO TLALOC
Big Wild Goose Pagoda, 6th Floor, Xi’an, China
Sarah and Jago arrive in the same room as Kala did. It is 3:29:54 a.m. Kala jumped exactly 10 minutes and 14 seconds ago. They have no idea she jumped. Sarah has no idea that Christopher is so close. If she were to imagine Christopher, it would be back in the relative safety of Omaha, helping diligently with the cleanup efforts. But she doesn’t imagine him; she’s pushed Christopher out of her mind.
That part of her life is over.
Blindly leaping through an alien door was a strange experience. It seemed to Sarah like something magical, but she knows that’s not the case. It’s just like what the first men must have thought about fire. The door wasn’t magic; it was science. Just tech, far-off and advanced tech, something humans have not yet learned, or maybe were never allowed to learn.
For centuries, this has been the power and allure of the Sky People. Their machines, technology, and abilities were what made them gods in the eyes of countless ancient peoples around the world. Sarah knows that the Sky People could do the same to modern humans if they so wished. Awe them, intimidate them, enslave them. All the Players know that humans are but a diversion to the Sky People. Even with contemporary DNA sequencing and nuclear reactors and geotechnical engineering and space stations, humans are just a crude amusement, like ants who make fire out of anything, kill one another for no reason, and stare into mirrors for too long.
But ants that, for whatever reason, the gods have taken an interest in.
“You still have it?” Sarah asks, her head spinning.
“I have it,” Jago replies, motioning to his backpack. His head throbs; he’s panting, dizzy. The shock wave from the bomb took a toll.
“You okay?” Sarah reaches out.
“Fine,” he grunts, straightening.