by James Frey
The remaining people step aside. The birthing woman is not a woman but a girl. Maybe 13 years old.
Like Shari was once.
Except that Shari did not give birth to her Little Alice aboard a sweltering bus. It was a lovely day and Jamal was there to hold her hand. She wishes he could be here now.
The baby is crowning. It is not long in arriving. It would be here already if something weren’t wrong.
“May I help?” Shari asks the girl.
The girl is scared. Blood vessels have popped across the bridge of her nose and over the rise of her cheeks. She nods.
Such pain.
Such sweat and tears, such fear.
Shari is suddenly calm. For a moment she forgets about Alice, about Endgame. Her head clears of those blasted numbers.
“My name is Shari.”
“Lin.”
“Breathe, Lin. I am going to put my hands here. After you breathe, I will feel. Don’t push. Am I saying the right words? My Mandarin is not good.”
“I understand. I won’t push. You will feel.”
“Right. Good. Now, one, two, three, big breath.”
Lin fills her lungs and blows out her cheeks.
Shari touches the girl’s skin. It is hot, damp. She kneads the girl’s abdomen. Shari can feel the baby’s arm. It is caught. The cord is wrapped around it. If the cord is short, the baby will die and possibly the mother too. If the cord is long enough, there is hope.
A man brings an armful of water bottles from a box at the front of the bus.
Shari looks at him.
He is scared too.
He is not a man.
A boy, 14, maybe 15.
The father.
She puts a hand on the boy’s wrist. “Don’t worry.”
He nods quickly, nervously, doesn’t even look at Shari. He is locked on Lin. Lin is locked on Shari.
Shari has him open a bottle and pour the water over her hands to remove the alcohol. While doing this she looks Lin intently in the eye. “The cord is holding the arm. I have to try to free it.”
Lin nods, her eyes full of fear.
Shari searches the faces around her. And there, like an apparition, appears Alice Ulapala over the heads of the diminutive Chinese throng. They lock eyes for a tense moment.
“What’s happening?” the Koori asks, but her voice is casual—friendly, even.
Shari is shocked. “Helping this girl,” she answers in English.
The other riders regard Alice like she is a giant from another world. And in a sense, she is.
“We need to stop the bus,” Alice says. Shari hesitates. If they stop the bus, it will be easier for Alice to get away. But if they don’t, this girl and her baby could die.
“Yes,” Shari says, deciding. “Please, Alice, go ask the driver to stop.”
“Will do, mate.”
Alice turns. Shari doesn’t know what comes over her then. It’s an impetuous feeling, but it somehow feels right. Even though she knows she should keep her family a secret, her instincts tell her that this is the right course of action. She shouts after Alice, “My daughter is also named Alice!”
Alice Ulapala freezes. Looks over her shoulder. Shari can see the crescent-shaped birthmark like a waxing moon rising on the Koori’s darkened skin. She looks like she’s trying to decide whether to trust this new information or not. Whether to trust Shari. “That so?”
“Yes,” Shari says desperately. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
“That’s all right. Kids are angels, they are. I hope you see yours soon, I really do.”
“Thank you.”
“No worries, mate.” The Koori continues down the bus, and the peasants part for her like the Red Sea did for Moses.
Shari watches as Alice speaks with the driver, and within a minute the ride has stopped. Everyone on board is now paying attention, some of them hopeful that Lin will be all right, others just annoyed at the delay.
Shari looks at Lin. She forgets about Alice and Endgame and the Calling and Jamal and her Alice too. She is focused only on this task. Her mind is sharp and clear.
“This will hurt,” she says to Lin in Mandarin. “But it will be over soon.”
One way or another it will all be over soon, Shari thinks.
“Breathe!”
The girl inhales. Shari reaches down and slides her hand over the baby’s head and face. She can feel its heart beating, beating, beating. It’s a strong baby. The girl screams. Fearing for Lin, the father reaches for Shari, but a middle-aged man in round spectacles and a beaten canvas hat holds the boy back. Two women gasp. The girl screams some more.
Shari can feel the cord. She probes and gets a finger under it, between the arm and the tube, and then another finger. The baby arcs its back and pushes its face into Shari’s wrist. She can feel both heartbeats now, the mother’s and the child’s, striking against each other. Shari tries to slide the cord over the fingers. Lin is panting. Her legs start to quiver.
“Hold on, I’ve almost got it!”
A car passes on the road honking its horn; someone shouts from its open window.
Shari glances over. Just across the shoulder, opposite the bus, is Alice Ulapala. She’s looking directly at Shari. She raises her hand to her forehead and snaps a respectful salute, then gets into the car. Shari knows she should go after her. That she should go and Play.
But she can’t.
She moves her finger. The cord slides down one centimeter. The heartbeats race each other. Shari’s own heartbeat joins the contest, galloping away like a thoroughbred.
Alice is gone.
Shari is here.
Here she will stay.
The cord is squeezed and snags on Shari’s index finger. She lowers her shoulder. Lin heaves, her breath is erratic, and her midsection is locked in a contraction.
“Breathe!”
The baby’s heartbeat slows. Slows. Slows.
“Breathe! Breathe!”
Lin tries but the pain is unbearable.
Shari gets lower and pinches the cord in the crook of her finger, forcing her knuckle uncomfortably into the girl’s pelvis.
Lin begins to pass out.
“Pour water on her face!”
A woman does. Lin wakes. She’s exhausted, can barely function.
Shari is calm. It’s strange to her. She holds a life—two lives—literally in her hands. It’s calm, peaceful.
I am Playing, she realizes.
It is the puzzle of life, kepler 22b said of the game. The puzzle of life.
29. 9. 8. 2. 4.
They’ll come together.
She’s a Player and she is Playing.
The baby pushes against her wrist. Shari works her hand around, and finally the cord is free. Slowly she unhooks her finger and pulls out her hand. As she does, she feels the baby’s heartbeat go up up up.
“It’s done.”
The middle-aged man with the glasses and the canvas hat smiles at her and pours water over her hands. Shari washes the blood and amniotic fluid onto the hard floor of the bus.
“Lin. Are you with me, Lin?” The girl nods weakly. “The baby is almost here. After the next—” Shari doesn’t know the word for contraction, so she mimes one by flexing her arms and stomach and wrenching her face. Lin understands. “After that, you breathe and push, breathe and push, breathe and push.”
“Okay.” She is still frightened.
They wait. Shari offers her hand to hold. Lin takes it. Tries to smile. The father takes her other hand.
The contraction comes.
“Go!” Shari lets go of the girl’s hand and gets ready. “Go go go!”
Lin does as she’s been told and does it again and again and it comes it comes it’s crying.
“A boy! A boy! A boy!” people shout as they see. The news ricochets down and around the bus. The driver fires the engine back up, but an old lady hits him with a rolled newspaper and he turns it off.
Shari holds the baby.
Lin cries with tears of everything—hope, joy, grief, pain. Shari passes the baby to the beaming father. Someone hands him a scarf, and the baby is wrapped up. Shari reaches in her fanny pack and pulls out a folding knife. She opens it and cuts the cord.
A throng pushes in on the new mother and father. Shari steps back. Her heart is still going fast.
There is more than one way to Play Endgame.
She smiles.
And as she retreats to her seat, people make way for her. She’s a hero. They give her space. She sits, silently thanks the Koori for being there. Something about her presence helped. And as the adrenaline from the birth starts to fade, she realizes the numbers that were taunting her, tormenting her, are gone.
In their place is a string of Sanskrit letters. A jumble. She works them in her mind, and finally they come together.
The child is in your line now.
Win or he will die.
SARAH ALOPAY, JAGO TLALOC
Wei’s Bnguân, Chang’an District, Xi’an, China
The owner of the guesthouse—a fiftysomething man named Wei—caters to travelers seeking refuge from the bustle of Xi’an. Most of his customers, he says, make day trips back to the city or to some of the local pyramids. He is happy to point out that he took the picture that is framed and hanging behind his desk. It’s a photo of a pyramid washed in the orange light of the setting sun, a wispy white cloud far in the distance.
Wei speaks very good English and mistakes the strange-looking pair of travelers for a couple. As they check in, Jago tries to play this up by sliding his arm around Sarah’s waist, but she elbows him in the side and he immediately backs off.
Wei laughs. “Traveling is not always easy, friends. You can trust that I will take good care of you here. It is what I do. I can tell that you need rest.”
“You have no idea,” Sarah says.
Wei laughs again and shoots Jago a knowing look. “Perhaps after you rest, no more elbows, hmm?”
Jago and Sarah exchange a quick look. He flashes his studded smile at her, but she just stares back at him, deadpan. Jago decides to change the subject. “Do you have internet access, Mr. Wei?” he asks.
“There is a shared computer off the dining room. I have satellite service and a generator for when the power fails, so we are never disconnected,” he says proudly.
They pay for three days in advance and head for their room. As they go up the stairs, Sarah asks, “Why did you try to put your arm around me?”
“He wants to see a couple, so I was giving him a couple.” Jago shrugs. “Makes us more incognito.”
“Jago, there’s no way we could ever be incognito in this country.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”
“You’re not getting any of this, you know,” she says playfully.
“No? Why not?”
“This isn’t a James Bond movie. You”—she points at him and makes a little circle in the air—“are no Bond.”
“I could kick Bond’s ass, you know.”
She laughs. “So could I.”
They come to the door. Jago opens it for her. “I just want to lie down. Can I do that, at least?”
“So long as it’s on your bed.”
Sleep is high on the list of things they each want to do. Another is shower. But at the top is getting a good look at the disk.
They walk into their room. It has large windows that look over an inner courtyard, two twin beds, and a small bathroom with a tub.
Sarah makes immediately for the tub and turns on the water. It’s hot, and she smiles contentedly as it splashes across the back of her hand. Jago takes the disk out of his backpack, although he’s really paying more attention to Sarah. He’s imagining her in that tub and what might happen in this room. Smartly, he keeps his mouth shut, playing it cool. James Bond—psshh, he has nothing on Jago Tlaloc.
Sarah steps out of the bathroom and examines the disk with Jago, their heads close together. It is gray stone. Eight inches across and two inches thick. On one side is a spiral groove 1/8th of an inch thick that runs out from the center. In this are little nicks and creases. Jago turns it over, and on the other side is a series of 20 concentric circles. Within some of the circles are strings of a mysterious, nonpictorial text. It is full of curlicues and exacting dot matrices and short diagonal hash marks.
As old as the disk is, the markings look as if they were written with a machine.
“You ever seen marks like that?” Sarah asks.
“No. You?”
“No. Can I hold it?”
He passes it to her. And it happens. Like a shot through her brain it happens. Jago asks if she is all right, but he sounds far-off and she can’t answer. Her clue of incomprehensible numbers changes. Most of the digits flutter and disappear. The ones that are left fly and rearrange, right in front of her, as if they are floating in the air.
“Jago, grab those.” She points at a pad and pen sitting on the side table between their beds.
“What happened?”
“Get the pen and paper!”
Jago does it. “Bossy,” he grunts.
“Write this down. 346389863109877285812. Got it?”
“346389863109877285812.” Jago squints down at the meaningless line of numbers. “What does it mean?”
“I have no idea,” Sarah says. “My clue . . . something changed when I touched the disk.”
“Perfect. More puzzles,” he says in frustration. There hasn’t been enough fighting in Endgame for Jago. Fighting or—he glances at Sarah—other physical activity.
As they stare at the numbers on the page, Sarah’s satellite phone rings.
Jago frowns. “Who’s calling you?”
She shrugs, puts the disk on the foot of the bed, and fishes the phone out of her bag. She looks at its display. “Oh my god.”
“Who is it?”
“It’s . . . my boyfriend.”
Jago arches an eyebrow. “You have a boyfriend?”
“I did, but I broke it off with him after the meteor hit. When I knew this was all real.”
“You tell him why?” Jago asks. “Or did you just say”—he fumbles for the American expression—“it’s not you, it’s me?”
The phone is still ringing. Christopher. What could he want? Sarah shakes her head, annoyed; annoyed that he would call, annoyed at how much she wants to answer the phone.
“I told him I was leaving and he’d probably never see me again and he should let go of me.”
“Seems he didn’t get the message.”
“If I don’t answer, maybe he will.”
“You don’t strike me as an easy girl to get over,” Jago muses.
Sarah doesn’t answer. She’s tired of the banter. Eventually the phone stops ringing.
“I’m taking a bath,” she says abruptly, turning and walking into the bathroom. “I’ll figure out those numbers later.”
A boyfriend, Jago thinks. More competition, though of a different kind.
She closes the door.
After a few moments, he hears her getting into the tub.
I like competition, he thinks.
I have spent most of my life eliminating it.
And the trees laid down like toothpicks.lv
CHRISTOPHER VANDERKAMP
Grand Mercure Hotel, Room 172, Huímín Square, Xi’an, China
Christopher finds Kala surprisingly easy to follow. It’s as if she is constantly preoccupied and distant and blissfully unaware of her surroundings. Like she is focused on some figment of her imagination or some distant target that she’s trying to find.
If this is the type of person Sarah is up against, she should have no problem winning.
After 36 hours on Kala’s tail Christopher has become so at ease with shadowing her that his only fear is that she will jump off another building.
Because there’s no way he is going to do anything like that.
But so far so good. Here he is in the same internet café as her. Here
he is in the same tea shop. Here he is standing outside the electronics store where she’s shopping. Here he is in the same hotel—a very nice one—on the same floor. Here he is watching the hall through the peephole. Here he is bribing the bellhops to call him if they see her leave. Here he is outside the same internet café as the day before. Here he is following her taxi in a taxi of his own. Here he is at the airport. Here he is in line, just behind her, and still she doesn’t notice him. Here he is overhearing her conversation with the desk agent at Qatar Airways. Here he is buying a ticket to the same place she just bought a ticket to, a place called Urfa in Turkey. They have to fly first to Changzhou, then to Dubai, then to Istanbul.
The first flight leaves in 45 hours.
Here they are leaving the airport.
Sarah said she’d trained for years to master all this Endgame stuff. Granted, Christopher hasn’t had to fight anyone yet, but he’s pretty excited at how easy all the superspy moves are coming to him. He wishes Sarah could see what he’s been up to. Maybe she’d reconsider teaming up.
Since he knows where and when Kala is flying out, Christopher lays off for a day. He goes back to the hotel and watches TV and reads the news on the laptop he brought from home. He unpacks and repacks his bag. He sleeps fitfully. His dreams are plagued with images of Sarah being tortured or chased, beaten or burned. He keeps seeing her standing amidst 11 other Players, all of whom are trying to kill her.
He wakes at 4:17 a.m. and tosses and turns for an hour, unable to get the dreams out of his mind. He gets out of bed and goes to the bathroom and splashes cold water on his face. He wonders where she is, what she’s doing, if she’s okay, if she’s alive. He decides to call her. He called her once already and her phone rang until it went to voice mail.
The greeting was automated.
Impersonal.
He didn’t leave a message.
He just wanted to hear her voice.
Hear her say hello.
Hear her laugh.
Hear her say, “I love you.”
He misses her.
He just wanted to hear her voice.