Endgame: The Calling

by James Frey

  Kala jabs an elbow into Baitsakhan’s shoulder. The gun goes off again, but Kala has his arm like a vise and the shot hits the dirt. She backs him to the golden altar and rakes her left thumb across the gun’s magazine release. The clip falls to the ground. She lets go of his wrist, knowing he will raise the weapon to fire the sole round left in the chamber.

  Predictable fool.

  She clamps her arm over his and the gun goes off. And that’s it. No more bullets in this fight.

  She lets him have it with her fists, one of which still contains the glass Earth Key, pummeling his stomach and ribs. He balls up defensively, tears falling from his eyes. Muscles bruise; bones snap. When he stops moving, she stops too. She steps back. She is disgusted. He’s pitiful.

  “Blood for blood,” she says slowly, mockingly.

  Christopher has seen kids Maccabee’s size before, usually on the football field. He recognizes that cocky smirk from any number of opponents at sectionals. The best way to deal with these types is hard and fast. Christopher loads up and lets fly with a haymaker. But Maccabee catches his fist and holds it. Maccabee’s smirk widens into a full-fledged grin. Christopher drops the phone and swings with his other hand. Without releasing his fist, Maccabee blocks the punch and simultaneously hits Christopher hard across his left shoulder. Before Christopher can react, Maccabee raises a foot and brings it down on his knee. The pain is excruciating and the pop stomach-churning. The phone lies screen up on the floor, illuminating the pair from below. In accented English, Maccabee says, “What else you got?”

  But Christopher has nothing.

  “In that case . . .”

  The last thing Christopher remembers is the guy’s head coming hard for his. Maccabee lowers the boy to the floor, unsheathes his knife, and takes off at a jog toward the altar.

  His bloodthirsty partner needs help.

  Kala pulls back her hand. It will land squarely on Baitsakhan’s throat and collapse his windpipe and his trachea, crush his Adam’s apple and break his neck. He stares up at her, his eyes already dead, waiting for the blow.

  “Good-bye, silly child,” she says. “Blessings.”

  As she raises her arm, her back lights with a sharp pain, followed by a chill. She cannot move. A hand grips her shoulder and keeps her from collapsing to the floor. She knows immediately that her spinal column has been severed. Her arms and legs are paralyzed.

  Her eyes widen. I am the fool.

  Baitsakhan manages to stand, his face wet with sweat and blood and tears. His eyes red and swollen. His cheek oozing.

  “You look like shit,” observes Maccabee, his knife still in Kala’s back.

  “Shut up,” growls Baitsakhan. “Let me finish this one.”

  “Whatever you say,” Maccabee says with a snicker.

  Baitsakhan spins to Kala and spits on the ground. “Blood for blood, Sumerian,” he hisses. “Blood for blood.”

  ALICE ULAPALA

  Knuckey Lagoon, Northern Territory, Australia

  Alice pokes the remnants of a campfire with a stick. It is night. The sounds of the outback surround her. The clicking, the cooing, the yelping, the hissing. The serenade of a limitless army of crickets.

  Home.

  The thick Milky Way turns like a wheel overhead. She moves the coals around, drawing a spiral in them. But not just any spiral. A special one. A Fibonacci spiral.

  Hydrogen, helium, lithium, oxygen, aluminum, scandium, selenium, cesium, actinium.

  The cesium was tricky because originally she thought it was calcium, but that didn’t fit. Also, the clue passed over boron for a reason that Alice cannot fathom.

  But undoubtedly this is what her clue referred to. And it was seconded with the numbers of the Players’ lines.

  1, 2, 3, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89 . . . the atomic numbers of the elements of her clue. Add 5 for boron between 3 and 8, and a 0 and a 1 at the very beginning, and that’s it.

  The Fibonacci sequence.

  It can go on forever.

  Yet starts in nothing.

  It is found throughout nature. In shells, in flowers, in plants, in fruit, in the inner ear. In galaxies. In our very hands: not counting thumbs eight fingers total, five digits on each hand, three bones in each finger, two bones in one thumb, and one thumb on each hand. The ratio of one instance to its predecessor approximates, sometimes with eerie accuracy, the golden mean: 1.618. For example, 89/55=1.6181818181818 . . .

  Alice rubs her face. Her head hurts. All these numbers and formulas. She’s done a lot of studying since leaving the bar in Darwin. Too much for her tastes, but she has to figure this out.

  Where do the numbers fit into Endgame? The line numbers, she realized, are also Fibonacci numbers. The Players are like a list of otherworldly isotopes: Mu-2, Celt-3, Minoan-5, Nabataean-8, Donghu-13, Olmec-21, Koori-34, Harrapan-55, Sumerian-89, Aksumite-144, Cahokian-233, Shang-377. But what does that mean, if anything?

  Where do they fit?

  She does not know.

  She stares at the fire for 18 minutes. The only sounds are the slight breeze and the crackle-pop of the burning scrub.

  Then the yellow, glowing eyes of a dingo appear on the far side of camp.

  “C’mere, mate.”

  The eyes don’t move.

  Alice holds out her hand. Makes a low, submissive sound.

  The dog pads toward her, enters the light of the faltering campfire. A black nose. Mottled fur. Dark eyes.

  “That’s it. There you are.” Alice throws the dog a scrap of charred snake meat. The dog sniffs and gobbles it up.

  “Was just wondering what I should do, mate.”

  The dog looks up from its snack. Cocks an ear. Hell, she got answers talking to some American tourist; might as well try a dingo.

  “Should I stay and wait for round two, or leave Oz and go out for this first key?”

  The dog looks at her seriously. Points his nose to the heavens. Sniffs. Alice looks up too. Sees a massive green-and-orange-tailed shooting star streak through the sky.

  The Player and the wild animal, each looking as feral as the other, lock gazes.

  The dog sits on its haunches.

  Alice nods deeply.

  “Yeah. I think you’re right. Round two it is. When it starts, I think I’ll go after that little wanker that chopped Shari’s finger.”

  The dog lies down. Puts its head on its forepaws.

  “Yeah.”

  The Milky Way.

  The dark.

  The little fire.

  “I’ll wait.”

  Lord Krishna’s home, swallowed and gone.lxvi

  CHIYOKO TAKEDA, KALA MOZAMI, MACCABEE ADLAI, BAITSAKHAN, CHRISTOPHER VANDERKAMP

  Altn Odas, 25 m Underground, Turkey

  Chiyoko watches Maccabee carry Kala’s frozen body to the exit. She can hear and see everything from her perch. Baitsakhan has the black orb. He paid for it with blood and pain and a huge helping of humility. Christopher is moaning but still unconscious. When they reach the exit Maccabee pushes Christopher aside with his foot. He lowers Kala onto a large waist-high stone.

  “You’re welcome, by the way,” Maccabee says, not quite feeling the gratitude he expected for saving Baitsakhan’s ass.

  Baitsakhan grunts.

  Pompous fool, Chiyoko thinks.

  She considers killing them. She would do Maccabee first, then the boy. But it’s too risky. She can kill only one at a time, after all, and that split second, even with his wounds, might be all that the Donghu would need.

  No. There has been enough underestimation here for one night. Patience.

  “This is it, Maccabee.” Baitsakhan holds out the ball. “Earth Key. She found it for us!”

  “Let me see that,” Maccabee says, unconvinced.

  Besides, one will eventually kill the other. And before that happens, they will probably eliminate at least one other Player. They are idiots, but for now they remain useful.

  Baitsakhan sweeps an arm through the air. “Look at this pl
ace! It has to be.” He draws his knife and points it at Kala. “Isn’t that right, sister?”

  “Get screwed!” she says in partially formed words.

  “She’s got a lot of spunk,” Maccabee says, chuckling. He gestures to Baitsakhan. “Bring the light closer.”

  Baitsakhan does. “My god,” Maccabee says, staring into the orb. He sees the contours of the continents and the oceans and the mountains, all right there, alive in his hand, just beneath the orb’s surface. “I think you’re right.”

  Christopher struggles to get up and says, “Wha—?”

  The Players ignore him.

  Baitsakhan leans in to Kala’s face and says, “What else do you know? What was your clue?”

  Kala is fading. “I said, get screwed.”

  “Where is Sky Key?” Baitsakhan asks. He lets the point of his ancient blade rest on her chest, between her breasts.

  “You’ll never find it.” She coughs, her mouth full of blood. “Not smart enough.”

  “I don’t intend to find it. I intend to take it. Just as I have taken this.”

  “Just as we have taken this,” Maccabee interjects.

  Baitsakhan says, “Yes. We.”

  “Won’t happen,” Kala mumbles.

  “It will.”

  “He’ll kill you first.” She points her eyes at Maccabee. “He’ll kill you soon, child.”

  “Mind your business, dead one,” Maccabee snarls.

  Baitsakhan kneels in front of her. He lets his blade rest on her thigh. “If you won’t tell me, I’ll kill you.”

  She coughs again. “I’m already dead.”

  Maccabee looks at his fingernails. “You’re right about that,” he says absently.

  Kala ignores Maccabee. She locks eyes with Baitsakhan. His gaze is like stone. Hers is something older, and harder. “I am home, Annunaki,” she whispers in Sumerian, a language only she can understand. “I am sorry that I come empty-handed. Peace and blessings.”

  Baitsakhan nods. “This is for my brother, Jalair. The gods take him.” And he drives the knife into her chest.

  Christopher has propped himself up and sees it all. He is mortified, riveted. Baitsakhan twists the blade as blood covers its handle. Kala whimpers, a hole carved right through her heart. He pulls the knife free and stands. He is finished.

  And so is Kala.

  I should have listened, Christopher thinks, overflowing with fear.

  “Hey.” Maccabee snaps his fingers in Christopher’s face. “Who are you? Why are you here?”

  Christopher is too broken to lie. “I’m Christopher,” he says, unable to peel his eyes from Kala’s still bleeding body. “I know Sarah Alopay. Kala was going to ransom me.”

  “Can you contact Alopay?” Maccabee asks.

  “Yes.”

  His newest captors share a look.

  “This just gets better and better,” Maccabee says.

  Maccabee hauls Christopher to his feet and drags him to the doorway. Christopher is wasted, pale, gone. Chiyoko has never seen a more frightened look in all her life.

  Poor boy, she thinks.

  Maccabee drags Christopher into the stairwell and disappears. Only Baitsakhan and Kala remain. Life clings to her like late-morning dew to a spider’s web. Baitsakhan sneers, “Blood for blood,” and throws the torch onto her lap. Kala whimpers, smoke billowing, her flesh searing, clothing melting, and Baitsakhan walks away.

  As soon as Chiyoko is sure he’s gone, she drops silently from the stone and pulls the wakizashi from her belt. Kala sees her through the flickering tongues of flame and manages a small smile. Chiyoko draws the blade swiftly across the Sumerian’s throat.

  Kala’s eyes go dark, her arm falls outstretched, index finger extended at 166°30'32".

  Rest, sister.

  With the tip of her weapon Chiyoko prods Kala’s still-burning body until she finds what she’s looking for. Using the blade, she cuts the cloth and picks up the ring. It rattles down the length of the steel and stops at the hand guard. Chiyoko stares at it for a moment, feels, senses, knows she got what she came for.

  Kala did too.

  Chiyoko secures the ancient ring and looks at her tracker display. Jago and Sarah are less than 15 km away. They’ll be in the parking lot soon. It’s time to go and meet them.

  Time to get the disk.

  Time to Play Endgame.

  It’s full of stars.lxvii

  CHRISTOPHER VANDERKAMP

  Audi A8 Leaving Gobekli Tepe

  Christopher is dragged up the stairs, into the night, toward the party. They skirt around the rave until they reach the parking lot, where he is thrown in the back of a black sedan. He slides to the far door. His leg is killing him. He puts his face in his hands and begins to cry.

  Maccabee gets behind the wheel, and Baitsakhan is in the passenger seat. Baitsakhan turns around and studies Christopher, his swollen lips curled in distaste.

  “If you try to escape, I will gut you,” Baitsakhan warns. “And if you keep crying, I will gut you.”

  Christopher tries to get himself under control. He can’t bear to meet Baitsakhan’s eyes. He hated Kala with all his heart, but no one deserved that. These two are monsters.

  They pull out of the parking lot, Christopher staring out the window. He sees the glow of the lasers and the smiling people and a girl running giddily across the parking lot. They have so much to live for, these happy kids. They’re just like he was before the meteors fell, just like Sarah was. He’s glad they don’t know what he knows, that they’re able to live freely and in the moment. At least for now. Christopher remembers Sarah’s words: Endgame is a puzzle. The solution is life. But he realizes that she didn’t tell him everything. Endgame might hold the key to life, but Endgame itself is death, just as Kala promised.

  But the game is death, he thinks, as if he is speaking to Sarah.

  And then, as he stares blankly out the window, wondering what Baitsakhan and Maccabee are going to do to him, and if he’s about to die, and how it’s going to happen, and how terrible it’s going to be, he sees Sarah, behind the wheel of another car, passing them.

  Just like that.

  Was she real? He doesn’t know. Can’t be sure. She comes and goes, and fades into the distance. She is gone.

  The game is death.

  He plants his hands on the glass and he knows. He’s going to die. He’s going to die and he will never see Sarah Alopay again.

  SARAH ALOPAY, JAGO TLALOC, CHIYOKO TAKEDA

  Peugeot 307 on the anlurfa Mardin Yolu, Route D400, Heading East

  A black Audi screams past the 307 as Sarah and Jago pull into the parking lot at Gobekli Tepe. They were expecting Kala and Christopher, not all these cars and buses and revelers.

  “How’re we supposed to find her in this?” Sarah asks, waving her hand in front of her.

  “Look for someone like us,” Jago answers, the M4 resting in his lap. “Someone with guns.”

  And that’s when Sarah sees her. A girl in a black bodysuit, a hood, a mask. Yeah, that definitely fits the description of a Player. Sarah points her out.

  “Told you,” Jago says. He clicks the safety off. “Easy.”

  When the girl sees them, she tears off her hood and spreads her arms out wide. It isn’t Kala.

  “Is that . . . ?”

  “The mute,” Sarah says.

  Chiyoko works her way to the driver window, signing frantically. She makes a show of demonstrating that her hands are empty.

  “What the hell is this?” Jago says, his voice low. “Why is she here?”

  Sarah rolls down the window. “Are you with Kala?” she asks.

  Chiyoko reaches for her phone and the notepad program she can use to communicate. She hears a gun cock within the car and stops, glancing up.

  “Hands where we can see them,” growls Jago.

  Chiyoko sighs.

  “Where’s Kala?” Sarah asks again.

  Chiyoko shakes her head at Sarah and draws her thumb slowly across
her throat.

  “Dead?”

  Chiyoko nods.

  “You killed her?” Jago asks, leaning across Sarah to get a better look at Chiyoko.

  Chiyoko ignores Jago’s question, the answer too complicated to communicate right now. Instead, she points to Sarah, then clasps both her hands over her heart in a loving gesture, then points at Sarah again.

  “My . . . my friend?” Sarah asks hesitantly. “My boyfriend?”

  Chiyoko nods. She points down the road at the pair of taillights that are quickly melting into the night. Then, she holds up two fingers.

  “Two of them?” Sarah asks. “Took Christopher?”

  Chiyoko nods.

  Jago claps sarcastically from the passenger seat. “Shit—next time bring something to write with.”

  Chiyoko frowns, gestures at her pockets, then at his gun.

  “Don’t blame me,” he says. “This is Endgame, sister. You know the drill.”

  “Hell with this,” says Sarah, putting the car in gear. “We’ve got to catch them. Whoever they are.” With Christopher in trouble, Chiyoko is an afterthought. “Thanks,” Sarah shouts out of the window as she steps on the gas.

  “Whoa!” shouts Jago as Chiyoko leaps in front of the car, blocking their path.

  Sarah barely has a chance to hit the brakes. She grips the wheel with both hands. “What the hell, Mu?”

  Chiyoko holds out her sheathed short sword and slams it flat on the hood. She makes a grand bow, as if she’s presenting the blade to Sarah and Jago.

  “I think she wants to come with us,” Jago says.

  They don’t have time to negotiate. Sarah leans her head out the window. “All right, come on, but don’t try anything!” From the corner of her mouth, to Jago, she whispers, “If things get weird, kill her.”

  “Gladly.”

  Chiyoko opens the back door. As she gets in, she hands her sword to Jago. And then Sarah guns the car in reverse.

  “I guess I should thank you,” Sarah yells as she cranes to look out the rear window. “If we save my friend, it will be because of you.”