by Frey, James
“Cute, aren’t they?”
Boone’s question brings me back to the moment. “Yes,” I agree. “Cute.”
Boone studies my face for a long moment.
“What?” I ask.
“I’m just trying to imagine you playing as a kid,” he says. “I can’t picture it. I bet you were born with a knife in your hand.”
“I cut the cord myself,” I joke.
He laughs. Then he asks, “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“A sister,” I tell him. “Cassandra.”
“Younger or older?”
“Younger. By four minutes.”
“You’re twins?” Boone exclaims.
“Identical,” I say.
He laughs again. “One of you is a lot to deal with. I can’t even imagine two. Is she just like you?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t sound too happy about that. Don’t you get along?”
The answer to this is complicated. “Maybe we did before we began training,” I say. “Once it became clear that only one of us would wear the golden horns, we became rivals. And once those horns were placed on my head and not hers, the rivalry deepened to something else.”
“I can’t imagine competing against my brother,” Boone says. “I mean, we had our fights like all brothers do. But nothing like that.”
“Didn’t you train with him?”
Boone shakes his head. “I did most of the things he did,” he says. “But we never fought each other. And I wasn’t supposed to be our Player anyway.”
“Really?” I say.
“There was another boy. Tim Palhook. He was going to follow Jackson when he aged out. But he was killed.”
“In training?”
“No. Plain old car accident. That’s when I got called up from the minors.”
Boone notices the confused look on my face. “Sorry,” he says.
“American baseball reference. It means I took his place.”
So Boone was never meant to be the Cahokian Player. I wonder if this explains why he doesn’t always behave like a typical Player. Also, why there seems to be some tension between him and his brother.
I still have the scar under my chin from where the point of Cassandra’s knife caught me during a skirmish. I touch it now as I wonder what she’s doing. Actually, I know what she’s doing. Training. As always. Perfecting her strengths and correcting her weaknesses. In case I should fail.
Sauer approaches us, ending the conversation for now. “It’s almost dark,” he says. “We should go.”
We get ready. Ott says very little, sitting with the children, but his eyes are on us. I ignore him. My goal is to keep an eye on Sauer and, once we have what we’ve come for, figure out my next move.
The four of us leave the house and get into Ott’s car. Jackson drives with Sauer in the passenger seat. Boone and I sit together in the back. Nobody speaks as we drive into the center of the city and park a short distance from Museum Island. It’s fully dark now, and the snow has started again, which is good. It will provide some cover.
Sauer is correct that Museum Island is not patrolled by Soviet troops. I’m not surprised. The museums suffered extensive damage during the war, and everything of value was removed from them before then anyway. Now the buildings sit unused and unattended. The riskiest part is the short walk over the bridge leading to the island, and even this is unremarkable. After only a few minutes, we are standing before the ruined facade of the New Museum.
Sauer does not hesitate. He walks up the short flight of steps that leads to the front doors. Snow-covered rubble is everywhere, and the doors are hanging from their hinges. It feels like walking into a cave more than walking into a building.
Once we are inside, we switch on the flashlights we have brought and take in the damaged interior. There is evidence everywhere of the bombing. Shattered pillars. Holes in the walls. Snow falling through gaps in the ceiling. Sauer walks us through the eerie landscape, leading us down a corridor that feels like walking through time. It reminds me a bit of Greece’s ruined temples, like the Temple of Athena Nike, or my personal favorite, the Temple of Aphaia on the island of Aegina. Even partially destroyed as they are, the magnificence remains.
At the end of the corridor he turns into one of the galleries. The walls here are black from smoke and fire, the tiles on the floor shattered and covered in bits of stone. We pass through it, finally reaching another door. On the other side is a stairwell. Sauer descends, and we follow him.
“This leads to the rooms open only to staff,” Sauer explains as we go down one, two, three flights. Each flight takes us deeper into darkness. At the bottom, Sauer leads us through another door and down another hallway. Now we are in a part of the museum most likely never seen by visitors. We are underground, and there is less damage here. Still, it looks as if the rooms have been ransacked.
“The Soviets took everything of value,” Sauer says. “At least, everything they could find.”
He leads us into what looks like an almost-empty office. There is a desk but nothing else except for some papers strewn around on the floor. I begin to wonder if we aren’t being made fools of, or being led into a trap of some kind. I am on guard, ready should anything unexpected happen. I can tell that Boone is as well, although he is trying to look relaxed.
Sauer walks to a closet at the back of the room and opens the door. He steps inside, and for a second I flash back to the escape tunnel in his house and worry that he’s attempting to get away. A moment later there is a grating sound, and he steps out again. He motions for us to look inside.
Boone and I step forward and peer inside the closet. A bar stretches across it, with empty hangers where coats would normally hang. But where there should be a back, there is now an opening.
“An elevator,” I say.
“It holds only two,” Sauer explains. “I’ll have to go on the first trip. To open the door below. Who is coming with me?”
I look at Boone. I don’t like the idea of Sauer being out of our sight. I also don’t like the idea of another Player being with him alone.
“Jackson can go first,” Boone says. “Then you and I will go together. All right?”
“Agreed.”
“I’ll send the elevator back up for you,” Sauer says as Jackson gets in with him. “There’s only one button. Press it.”
There’s a clanking as the elevator descends. A few minutes later, it returns. I step inside, followed by Boone. The two of us barely fit in there, and we’re pressed closely together. Boone reaches up and presses the single button. The elevator door shuts, and now it feels as if we’re trapped inside a coffin. As the elevator descends, I listen to Boone breathing beside me.
“What do you think we’re going to find?” he asks me.
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “Maybe nothing.”
“Or maybe the biggest thing to ever happen in Endgame,” he says as the elevator comes to a stop.
The door slides open, and we step out into a square room that I estimate is 8 meters on each side. The walls are lined with cabinets. Behind us, the doors to the elevator shut.
“How deep underground are we?” Boone asks Sauer as he looks around the room.
“Approximately 60 meters,” I say.
Everyone looks at me.
“That’s right, isn’t it?” I say.
“Yes,” says Sauer. “The museum was built between 1843 and 1855. This room was initially built to store items sensitive to temperature and light. Later, it became a place to hide some of the many items collected by the team of researchers tasked with indulging Hitler’s obsession.”
He sounds dismissive, and so I ask, “You don’t believe any of the findings are real?”
“I was only asked to lend my skills to the weapon found in Cappadocia,” he says. “Of the rest, I have no scientific opinion.”
“But the weapon is real,” Boone says.
“Yes, the weapon is real,” says Sauer.
“Then let’s get it and get out of here,” I suggest. “The longer we stay here, the greater the risk of someone else showing up.”
“Only a handful of people know about this chamber,” Sauer says. “And most of them are dead or imprisoned. I’ve been guarding the secret for a long time.”
Something about the tone of his voice unsettles me. And he’s making no move to open any of the cabinets or produce the weapon or whatever plans for it are kept here.
“I don’t know what I was waiting for,” he continues. “Now I see I should have done this a long time ago.”
“Done what?” I ask.
Instinctively, I draw my gun. Boone notices and does the same, although for now we keep them aimed down. Suddenly, I am very aware of the closed door of the elevator. I turn and press the button on the wall. Nothing happens.
“It won’t open,” Sauer says.
“What have you done?” I ask.
Sauer speaks calmly, which worries me more than if he were agitated. “As I said, this room was designed to house objects. It was later modified to prevent those objects from getting into the wrong hands. There is a network of pipes connected to the Spree, which as you know flows above us. Some of them lead directly to this room. After you enter, you have five minutes in which to disable the mechanism that opens those pipes. If you don’t, water will come through those openings.” He points to a series of vents in the ceiling. “The room will fill with water. The cabinets themselves are watertight, so the contents will be protected. Anyone inside, however …”
The implication is obvious. I calculate how long we have been in the room, but my answer comes when water begins to pour from the openings overhead. It’s ice cold, and I step away from the nearest torrent as it falls to the floor.
“Evrard!” Jackson yells.
Sauer looks at him. Water is drenching him, but he seems not to notice. “I’m sorry,” he says. “But I can’t let anyone have the weapon. Not even you.”
I advance on him, my gun pointed at him. “How do we stop this?”
He looks at me, and his eyes tell me everything before he even speaks. “You don’t,” he says.
Boone
The water is rising quickly. More quickly than I would have thought possible. It’s already over my shoes. I estimate we have about 10 minutes before the entire room is filled with water.
Ariadne is shaking Sauer.
“Turn it off!”
Sauer says nothing. Ariadne pushes him away and points her gun at him. “Do it, or you die.”
Sauer just looks at her. His meaning is obvious. He’s going to die anyway. We all are. He’d rather kill all of us than have the weapon be discovered. I know nothing she says or does will get him to stop what’s happening. Whether he’s wrong or right, he sees her as the enemy. Her and me. And he’s decided that nobody is getting their hands on the weapon or the plans.
Still, I think, there might be a chance. Jackson could get through to him. “Try to get him to shut this down,” I say to my brother. Then I touch Ariadne’s shoulder. She whips around, smacking my hand away.
“We need to look for a way out,” I tell her.
She starts to argue, then nods. With a last withering glance at Sauer, she comes with me as Jackson takes over for her. I tune out the sound of Jackson’s pleading voice and focus on Ariadne.
First, I try to pry the elevator doors open. They won’t budge. “They must be locked,” I say. “We’re not getting them open without tools or explosives. And those water pipes are too small to go through. We need another way.”
I see her focus shift in an instant from thinking about Sauer to scanning the room for options. Despite the situation, I can’t help but be impressed by her.
“There,” she says, pointing.
I look. In one corner of the ceiling, barely visible, is a vent cover.
“Air has to get in here somehow,” Ariadne says. “That must be the shaft.”
“But where does it go?”
“Probably a simple supply and return,” she says, walking over to stand beneath the vent. “It doesn’t really matter where it ends, does it?”
“It does if we can’t get out,” I say. “Once this place fills up, the water is going to go right up that shaft. If we’re stuck in it, we drown.”
“We’re going to drown anyway,” Ariadne says. “I’d rather do it trying to get out. Lift me up.”
I link my fingers together and make a kind of step. Ariadne puts her foot on it, places a hand on top of my head, and steps up. I lift her so she can reach the edge of the vent. She works her fingers under the grate covering it, and it pulls out. She drops it into the water and shines her flashlight up.
“What can you see?”
“It seems to go straight up,” she says.
She jumps down, and I shake my hands out. I turn to see if Jackson is making any progress with Sauer. He isn’t. Sauer is now sitting down in the icy water, leaning against the cabinets at a weird angle. Jackson is squatting beside him.
“He took something,” Jackson says. “A cyanide capsule, I think.”
Sauer’s face is pink and heading for red. His eyes are closed, and he’s shaking. A moment later, he’s unconscious.
“Evrard!” Jackson says, slapping Sauer’s cheeks. I can hear in his voice how upset he is, and I realize that he must have come to think of Sauer as a friend.
“He’s as good as dead,” says Ariadne. “Leave him.”
Jackson glares at her. His anger at Ariadne’s suggestion can be felt through the cold air of the room.
“He left us for dead, so why do we care about him?” Ariadne’s not even looking at him, she’s eyeing the air shaft, calculating our next move.
“You’ve gotten soft since your time as Player. We need to go.”
“We can’t just leave him here,” Jackson pleads. “Sam?”
I put my hand on my brother’s shoulder. “Ariadne’s right. There’s nothing we can do for him.”
Jackson looks at Sauer, now lying on the floor with water covering his face. He’s obviously gone. “Jackson, we have to go,” I say gently.
He nods. He looks at the opening to the vent, and the Player he used to be comes out. “Who’s first?”
“You’re the smallest,” I say to Ariadne. “And probably the fastest. You go first. Then Jackson.”
“Wait,” Jackson says. “How will you get inside? You can’t reach it, and we can’t turn around to lift you in.”
I point to the water, which is now up to our waists. “I’ll swim,” I say.
Jackson shakes his head. “It’s too cold. You’ll get hypothermia.”
“I’ll be fine,” I tell him. “I didn’t spend all those hours swimming in the frozen pond behind Grandma’s house for nothing.”
He starts to argue, but I stop him. “When the water reaches the ceiling, I’ll be able to swim right in,” I say.
“And then the water will fill the shaft,” he says.
“I’ll climb fast. Now let’s go.”
Jackson and I lift Ariadne up. She reaches into the vent, gets a handhold, and pulls herself inside. A moment later she yells out, “Clear.”
I help Jackson up and watch him disappear into the vent. He’s bigger than both Ariadne and me, and for a moment I think he’ll get stuck. But he wriggles in. Then I’m alone in the room with Sauer’s body and the freezing water. To distract myself from how cold it is, I look around at the cabinets. I try to imagine what’s hidden behind the locked doors. I know Sauer was telling the truth about it being here. If he was lying, there’d be no point in killing himself.
I wonder if there’s time to try to open the cabinets. I could try shooting at the locks. But how do I even know which cabinet to try? Besides, the water is rising fast. Being so close to the weapon but unable to get to it is the most frustrating thing I’ve ever encountered as a Player. As stupid as I know it is, I want to punch the cabinets, try to break them open with my bare hands. If only I had more time.
> My only consolation is that the rising water means I’ll soon be able to follow Jackson and Ariadne. When the water reaches my chin, I lie on my back and float. Slowly, I rise up toward the ceiling. An icy chill is soaking into my bones, and I close my eyes and picture myself sitting in front of a roaring bonfire. The mind trick works. I push the cold away, at least for now, and wait.
After another few minutes, the room is almost completely flooded. I open my eyes and tread water below the opening to the air shaft. When I’m finally close enough, I reach up and pull myself inside. It’s difficult to get a grip with my frozen fingers, but the water helps a little, lifting me up.
“I’m in!” I shout.
Then I climb.
The cold metal beneath my hands burns like fire as every muscle in my body screams out that it can’t do any more. My back scrapes as I press my knees against the opposite side of the shaft and push up. A rivet scratches a line of pain across my shoulder.
By placing my feet and pushing up, I make my way slowly up the shaft. Each new repositioning is torture, and within a dozen feet my thighs ache and my fingers are bleeding.
All I can do now is keep climbing, an inch at a time. Time slows down as every movement, every bit of forward progress, seems to take an eternity. Since I can’t see anything anyway, I close my eyes and imagine that I’m exploring an underground cave. I’ve done it dozens of times back home, slipping my body through narrow crevices until I can’t go any deeper, then making my way back to the surface. My trainer had me do it to get used to being in confined spaces. At first I would panic, sure I was going to be trapped underground. Over time, I learned to control my breathing and my emotions, remaining calm and clearheaded. I do that now, picturing myself emerging at the top into somewhere bright and open. Even though I know that’s not likely to be the case, it gives me the motivation to keep going.
I hear Jackson and Ariadne moving above me. Then I hear Ariadne’s voice coming from far away as she shouts, “I’m at the top.”