by James Frey
All of that takes 2.7 seconds. They’re close together now. Almost a hug, but more like a choke hold. She can feel him breathing. He can feel her heartbeat.
He says into her ear, “Do you really want to do this?”
“Promise me you won’t hurt him.”
“Why would I do that?”
“For me.”
“For you? You just betrayed me. I should kill you.”
“You ever been in love, Jago?”
“Yes.”
“Ever been in love with more than one person?”
“No.”
“It’s not easy.”
“What are you saying, Cahokian?”
“You know what I’m saying.”
He loosens his grip.
“If you’re playing me, I’ll kill you.”
“I’m not, Jago. But if you think I am, kill me now. I don’t want to go on with someone who’d think that of me.”
Loosens a little more.
“I’m not going to be his friend or help him.”
“We’ll leave him eventually. I swear. I was going to do it today—that’s why I spent the night with him. So we could sneak away.”
Jago can tell she isn’t lying. “All right.”
“I didn’t sleep with him, Jago. We just . . .”
Jago can tell she isn’t lying about this either. “It’s all right.”
“Just promise you won’t hurt him until we can leave him.”
“I promise,” Jago sighs, letting her go. They step apart, look each other over, both of them breathing fast, starting to sweat a little. There’s energy between them, but they need to focus on the task at hand.
“We’ll need a new car,” Sarah says.
Jago points across the road at a late-model Porsche Carrera convertible. “There.”
He pulls a knife from his back pocket. Sarah follows him across the street. Christopher emerges from the hotel, carrying their bags, hobbling fast to keep up with them. They disturb a flock of 56 pigeons, which jump into the sky and start to turn in a wide circle. Jago holds the knife over the soft top of the car. He is going to cut it open and steal it.
“Wait!” Sarah says.
Jago pushes in the knife.
She reaches him, stays his arm before he can cut any more.
She watches the pigeons turn. They are fast. She can hear their wings sluicing the air. “I think I’ve got it.”
Jago gives her a wild, simmering look. “Got what?”
“The puzzle, Feo. The puzzle!”
“What good is that without the disk?”
“I don’t know. But if I’ve solved it and she hasn’t gotten too far, maybe we can head her off.”
He pulls the knife from the car’s roof. “I’m going to kill her.”
Sarah walks around the car to a low wall near the edge of the water. “She didn’t kill you,” she points out.
Jago doesn’t answer. He paces. Sarah sits. Gets out her notes, the folded copies of the grid from the golden chamber of the gods. Christopher watches. He keeps his distance from Jago.
Sarah writes. She starts slowly, starts going quicker. She marks up a printout of the grid, crumples it, throws it on the ground, marks up another, pushes it away, another, another, another.
Stops.
She holds it up. “Here.”
Jago takes it. He doesn’t understand what she’s drawn over the random assortment of letters and numbers. “What is it?”
“Look. Here and here and here.” She points. Continues to point. The first is a dash, then eight letters, then a dash.
-EARTHKEY-
“Now. Here, here, here.” Repeats, indicating a different pattern.
DIRECTIVES.
He looks at her in shock.
“You did it?”
She nods. They are rapt. “There’s more. Here.”
He says the numbers as she points. “Five-one-point-one-eight, negative one-point-eight-three, and four-six-point-zero-nine, one-zero-point-one-two.”
“Yeah.”
“What about the rest?” Jago asks, pointing at the numbers that clutter Sarah’s papers.
“The rest is junk.”
“They’re coordinates, aren’t they?”
She looks at him eagerly. “Yes!”
“To where?”
She beams. “Not sure exactly, but somewhere relatively close.”
Jago gets out his smartphone. “I’ll look it up.”
“The first one, I remember that from when we were in Mosul and I was mapping all those points from my clue.” Sarah pauses. “It’s Stonehenge.”
Jago looks up from his phone, matching Sarah’s excited look. “A stone circle.”
“Yes.”
“Like the disk. A circle of stone.”
“Yes!” She grabs him by the arm and squeezes excitedly.
He looks back to the phone. Punches the other numbers into a tool server called ~geohack. Holds it up for Sarah to see the map. Christopher watches with his arms crossed over his chest. They haven’t even looked in his direction in minutes. He watches Sarah’s easy rapport with Jago, the way they bounce ideas off each other, their energy. Last night feels hollow to him. He edges closer, but doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to make himself useful. Doesn’t know how to make Sarah see him as her partner, instead of Jago. Sarah pinches the screen to zoom in. “The Alps.”
“No roads.”
“But there’s a lake. Lago Beluiso.”
“We need a plane, not a car,” Jago says wistfully. “One that can land on water.”
Christopher grandiosely holds out his arms. “I’ve got a floatplane,” he interrupts. “But it’s parked on Lake Michigan.”
Sarah rolls her eyes. “That’s not funny, Christopher.”
He ignores her. Reaches out and points toward the water. “Seriously, though. I’ve got one just like that.” They follow his finger to a bright orange Bush Hawk four-seater, floating on the water right in the middle of the marina. “Same color and everything. I don’t know how you missed it. You know, being Players and all.”
They ignore his attitude. Sarah looks at Jago. “I guess we’re not stealing a car after all.”
“No,” he replies, smirking, “we’re stealing a plane.”
34.341568, 108.940175lxxii
CHIYOKO TAKEDA
Tsoukalos Residence, 20 Via Cereto, Capo di Ponte, Italy
Chiyoko pulls the 307 onto a round gravel driveway and parks next to a black vintage Ferrari. The “house” before her is a sprawling Italianate mansion surrounded by stands of cypress and birch. It is completely isolated.
She sits in the car for a while, mapping out exactly how this encounter will go. She does this by writing phrases on a series of index cards. It’s not the first time she’s interrogated a person with just index cards. Chiyoko knows some people find her silence intimidating. The cards, she thinks, make it even worse. When she’s ready, she gets out of the car, grabbing Jago’s backpack from the passenger seat.
She has changed clothes. A short pleated skirt and leather Mary Janes and a yellow polo shirt. Her hair is pulled into pigtails. She has on a thin coat of makeup and is wearing her Lolita-esque heart-shaped sunglasses. She approaches the huge oaken double doors. She checks the time. 7:36 a.m. She pushes the doorbell. The barking of some large-sounding dogs comes from within. Seventy-eight seconds later she hears the clicking of the dogs’ nails on the floor inside. An eye slit slides open and a man says, “Chi è?”
Chiyoko holds up the first card. It’s written in English. I am mute.
“Ah . . .” he says hesitantly.
The 2nd card reads: Do you speak English, please?
“Yes,” he answers.
Chiyoko flashes a bright smile. She shifts her backpack, making sure that the man notices she’s brought a gift. Another card. I am here on behalf of Cheng Cheng Dhou.
“Dio,” the man says worriedly, and slides the slit shut.
Chiyoko removes the dis
k from the bag. She searches above her. Sees a camera in a corner of the porch’s overhang. She holds the disk out. She knows Musterion is afraid, so she turns one knee in toward the other, like a little girl might.
“Dio,” she hears the man say again. One of the dogs barks. She lowers the disk and holds another card up to the camera. I am his niece. He wanted you to have this.
Twenty-seven seconds pass.
A lock is thrown.
Another.
Another.
Chiyoko puts the disk in the bag, slings the bag over her shoulder. She pulls down the hem of her skirt. The dogs bark; the door opens.
A short man with a high, perfect pompadour reins in two massive cane corsos. He’s still in his pajamas. He has on fine leather loafers. Chiyoko curtsies. The man offers a tentative smile. “Please, come in. I apologize for the dogs. You were . . . unexpected.”
The dogs growl. Musterion pulls them back. Chiyoko concentrates her chi. She looks each dog in the eyes. As she does, they sit back on their haunches. The one on the left whimpers. She kneels and scratches it under the chin. Its dim black eyes go soft.
She looks at Musterion with a disarming smile. She hands him a card.
Are you alone here?
Musterion’s hand trembles as he reads the message. “Just me and the dogs. Why?”
The dogs gurgle with pleasure, their tails beating happily on the floor. They don’t notice their master’s sudden apprehension. He’s having second thoughts about this girl who he’s let into his house. She hands him another card.
The disk belongs to Stonehenge, correct?
“I think . . . I’d like you to leave,” Musterion says. He snaps his fingers at the dogs, but they pay him no mind. Another card.
How do I use it?
“You’re one of them,” Musterion exclaims, apprehension and terror filling his voice. He starts to back away, tugging on the leashes. Chiyoko stands up. The dogs watch her expectantly, as if she’s going to give them a treat. Instead, she produces a coil of rope. Her hojo. Musterion drops the leashes, turns, and runs. Chiyoko unfurls the hojo and it slings around his neck. She pulls, and he comes crashing to the floor. The dogs bark merrily, like it’s all a game. Musterion tries to get up, but Chiyoko stands over him. She puts her heel on a pressure point in his chest and his right lung collapses. As he gasps for air, she holds a card in his face.
How do I use it?
When he answers, she shows him his final card.
AISLING KOPP, SARAH ALOPAY, JAGO TLALOC, CHRISTOPHER VANDERKAMP
Lago Beluiso, Lombardy, Italy
Aisling hasn’t decided what she should do. Go to Stonehenge? Or stay and wait, knowing she’s safe, knowing more Players are going to die? Now that she’s settled in, and may have figured out the cave paintings, she’s kind of enjoying the sideline gig. Camping suits her.
Aisling is hunting. She’s sick of that cave, with its morbid prophecies. The cool air clears her head as she tries to decide how long to procrastinate and what exactly she believes.
As a baby, her dad spirited her away to this very place. Aisling thinks she could’ve been happy growing up here.
An engine echoes off the sides of the mountains. Aisling thinks nothing of it. Milan is relatively close to the west; there have been many small planes since she began her vigil. She returns to the task at hand. Pulls the white rabbit from the snare and slices its stomach, pulls out the guts. She takes a flap of skin and begins to tear. She pauses.
Something is different.
This plane is low.
Getting lower.
The engine growls and sputters and she knows.
Someone is coming.
Coming to see what she’s seen.
She wipes her bloody hands on her jeans and grabs her rifle.
No more waiting.
Much like her father’s peace was shattered, so is Aisling’s.
Lago Beluiso is a long lake with steep mountains on all sides. Christopher is at the controls. He’s logged more hours than Sarah or Jago. He took flying lessons while the assassin kids were learning krav maga.
“Finally good for something,” mutters Jago, but Christopher ignores him. He feels good. He even rests a hand on Sarah’s leg and she doesn’t brush it off. They pass over Beluiso from north to south and turn. He noses down and decelerates, and the plane bumps along the lake. He steers it to the western shore and cuts the engine. Jago jumps into the water and wades to land, consulting a GPS. He wanders into the woods. Sarah jumps into the water, follows him. Christopher leans out the door. “I’ll wait here. That grade’s too steep for my knee.”
“We’ll be back as soon as possible,” Sarah replies. “Good flying.”
Christopher nods and tries to suppress a smile. Watching Sarah and Jago puzzle out that number crap—which Christopher still doesn’t understand, and probably never will—he’d felt hopeless. But now, maybe there is a use for him after all. Jago has already moved into the woods. Sarah smiles and follows, jogging up the steep hillside.
Aisling moves into position. The rifle is heavy; the carabiners on her harness clank. The Pirana descender is pulled tight over two loops. She has to get to a place where she can have a good look at these visitors.
These Players.
Pop taught her to shoot first and ask questions later. That’s how she planned to Play Endgame. But after staring at those paintings, Aisling is reconsidering that course of action. She flies through the woods, leaping logs and rocks and depressions.
What if they’re friendly? What if all this can be avoided?
She tightens her grip on the barrel.
What if they’re not and what if it can’t?
Up up up.
Fast and faster. Sarah moves to the front, leaping like a fawn. Jago keeps up, but not easily. Sarah stops. Jago does too. She crouches. Points. Jago sees it. A dark green cord in a small loop lying across a deer track. A game snare. Jago sneers. “A Player is here.”
Sarah nods, draws her pistol. “Not Chiyoko, though. She’d have no reason to set that trap, not since this morning.”
“Agreed.” He inspects the positioning device. “We’re close. About a hundred meters.”
Besides the pistol, the only weapons they have are their bodies and Chiyoko’s wakizashi. The rest of the hardware was all in the 307.
Sarah cracks her neck. “Let’s go.”
Aisling skids to a stop on a cliff high above the cave’s entrance. She grabs the rope, checks the anchors, pulls a small set of very high-powered binoculars from a case on her side. She peers down the mountainside: nothing. She lets the binoculars hang around her neck and works the rope through the descender, moves the rifle’s strap across her body. She turns her back to the lake and sets her brake hand and plants her feet wide and jumps, scaring a nearby hawk and sending it into the sky.
Sarah and Jago reach the edge of a small clearing as a hawk suddenly takes wing overhead. Something, or someone, startled that bird. They each wonder, Who?
There are footprints everywhere.
Not one of the larger Players. Not Alice, Maccabee, or Hilal.
But a girl.
There is a small pile of sticks near a gash in the rock. A cave. Without speaking they agree that whatever’s in there must be what the clue is leading them to. Sarah holds up three fingers.
Two.
One.
Fist.
They dash across the clearing. The hawk cries out, its screech echoing over the vast alpine bowl.
The hawk wails. Aisling brakes and twists 180 degrees. She scans with the binoculars. The camp is still empty, but she hasn’t been watching it for the last 46 seconds. She hangs there for another minute, waiting for a sign, but none comes.
She turns, resumes lowering herself.
Sarah flicks on a flashlight and checks the chamber. A bedroll. A pack against the wall. A fire circle. A stack of wood. A pile of animal bones. Drawings and notes in charcoal on an otherwise blank section of wall.
“Empty,” says Jago.
“No Chiyoko, at least.”
“Lucky her.” Jago walks across the room, shining his own light. “Look at this,” he says slowly.
They stand before the ancient picture Aisling has been contemplating for nearly a week. “That’s us,” Sarah says with wonder. “All twelve of us.”
“Or something like us,” Jago agrees.
“The monoliths . . . Stonehenge.”
“And there is one of kepler 22b’s ancient cousins.”
Jago stuffs the GPS in his pants and takes out a smartphone. He snaps a picture of the painting.
Sarah runs her hands over it. “This figure has a disk. It looks . . . it looks like she’s putting it on this rock.” She places her finger on a stone with a dagger drawn in it.
Jago lowers his phone. “Or putting it in it.”
They stare in silence.
Here is their story, their future, their past.
Everything and nothing.
All the time.
Here and here and here.
“You think . . .” Sarah trails off.
“This is how we’re supposed to use the disk to get Earth Key. . . .”
“It has to be,” Sarah whispers in awe.
Jago snaps close-ups of the painting.
Sarah points at the red ball above the scene. “What’s that?”
“The sun? A moon? kepler 22b’s home?”
Sarah shakes her head. “It’s one of the meteorites. Has to be. This is our story, or part of it anyway.”
“I suppose so.”
Sarah takes one of Jago’s hands. “I’ve seen enough, Feo. We need to leave.”
Jago nods, his face grim. “We need to get that disk back.”
They miss the 2nd painting entirely. The one of the woman on the ocean, floating alone, after Endgame.
They don’t have the revelation.
Not like Aisling.
Aisling stops on a narrow ledge above camp and checks again. And there they are.
Two of them.
Unexpected.
She swings the rifle off her shoulder. She flips the lids on the scope, throws the bolt, lets the air out of her lungs, steadies herself. These motions come naturally to her; she’s done this many times before, feels comfortable killing from a distance. But she’s not going to kill this time. Not yet. She eases her finger off the trigger. She wants to get a better look at them before she decides what to do.