by James Frey
“Oh, I see, you’re training me to tell better jokes. Glad to see you finally realize that a good Player needs a sense of humor.”
“A Player has no need to be funny,” Henry says sternly. But he can’t help himself. His lips quirk into a small smile. “My daughter, on the other hand, should find herself some better material. This family has a reputation for comedy to uphold.”
Alice gives him a gentle slug on the shoulder. “Yeah, Dad, that’s what I always say about you. You’re a laugh a minute.”
He pretends to take offense at the insult, and she pretends to mean it, and for a moment, everything is like it used to be between them. For a moment, they are father and daughter, the two of them against the world, laughing in the face of death and danger.
Then the moment passes. Henry hands her a dossier. “Study it. We’ve only got a half hour till we land.”
He didn’t used to be this serious. When he first started training her, he made it into a game. She was five years old and her mother was dead. They both needed something to do—some way to be with each other and to be with their own grief, without letting it consume them. Training showed them the way. Henry taught her to be strong, taught her to run and hunt and fight. He taught her to love her people, and to love life again, even without the person who had given it meaning. They trained hard, but they also laughed, a lot. They came to know each other, to understand each other and trust each other, as they never had before. They learned to be two instead of three. And they did it all without forgetting the woman they’d lost, not for a single second. How could they, when life was all about Playing, and Alice’s mother had been a Player?
Not just any Player, but one of the best.
She’d broken records (and more than a few noses). She’d made a name for herself by the time she was fourteen, been beloved by her people for her courage, infamous for her fearlessness and steely nerve. She’d bested one death-defying risk after another, waiting eagerly for Endgame to arrive so she could fulfill her destiny and save the world.
But it didn’t matter how good she was—she’d ended up just like every other Player before her. Waiting in vain for the beings from the stars to return. Growing up, growing old, until she was too old to Play. Old enough to fall in love, take a husband, bear a daughter, get cancer, die.
Infamous nerve, fearlessness, courage—none of it helped her, not in the end.
Or rather, it did help.
Just not enough.
At first, Alice trained to forget her mother—pushing her body to its limits was the best way to escape her mind, and her pain. But later, she trained to remember. She dreamed of becoming as good as her mother, as brave and strong. The older she got, the fuzzier her memories got. Life before her mother’s illness was little but old stories and faded photos. Alice had always thought that if she could really do it, if she could be named the Player, she would have a connection to her mother that neither time nor death could break.
Maybe Henry had thought so too.
Maybe he’d thought that by turning her into the Player her mother used to be, he could bring his wife back.
Maybe he still thinks so, even though now Alice is the Player, and she’s no closer to her mother than ever.
The only thing that’s changed, now that it’s official, is Henry.
Training used to be the thing that made them a family. But once she officially took on her role as a Player? Training took over their lives. It’s all Henry talks about anymore, all he thinks about. In his eyes, she’s a Player first, a daughter second. Sometimes she wonders if he even remembers he’s more than just her trainer. If, maybe, he wishes he weren’t.
“I don’t know what you’re so worried about,” she tells him now. “I’ll get the job done. Don’t I always?”
“This isn’t like the others, Alice. This is your first kill.”
“Tell that to the dingoes,” she points out. She once took out three with a single toss of her boomerang, a personal record.
“Your first human kill,” he says, like she needs the reminding. Like this whole field trip to the bush, this journey into her dreams, hasn’t been about exactly this moment. This mission. Her first human kill.
She’s mastered everything else a Player could possibly need to do. She’s an expert in 16 different forms of hand-to-hand combat, can handle ancient weapons just as well as she can an AK-47; she’s leaped out of airplanes, scaled mountains, scavenged for artifacts at the bottom of the sea, deciphered coded passages that have foiled expert cryptographers for centuries. But she’s never killed a person before. She’s always found a way to avoid it, another way to get the job done. A better, easier, less deadly way.
Until now.
Now Henry says it’s time she learns what it means to kill.
Learns whether or not she has it in her to do it.
Learns now, before her life and the lives of her entire people are at stake.
This dossier in her lap lays out the life of a man who will be dead by sunrise, if she does what she’s supposed to do.
She opens the file.
Zeke Cable is a 42-year-old bank executive with a wife, a child, a three-bedroom condo in a fashionable part of Melbourne, and a studio in a significantly less fashionable one. His juvenile record shows a couple of misdemeanor charges from his days as a graffiti skate punk, but since then, he’s stayed clean. No record, not even a drunk-driving charge. No signs of criminal activity or domestic abuse. No sign he’s done anything deserving of death.
And she’s supposed to kill him?
“What the bloody hell is this, Henry?” she growls.
“What?”
“You know what.”
Maybe so, but he pretends not to. “I don’t think I’m asking you to do any more than you’re capable of,” he says. “The target poses minimal risk to you.”
“I’ll say,” she snaps. “You want me to shoot some random guy? Some innocent who hasn’t done anything wrong?”
“Everyone’s done something wrong.”
“You know what I mean.”
“And you know what I mean,” Henry says. “He’s not Koori, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Alice laughs angrily. “You think that’s what I’m worried about? So if he’s not Koori, it means he deserves to die?”
“It means you’re not meant to care whether he dies or not,” he says. “The Koori are your concern. No one else.”
Alice remembers a time, long ago, when she was still doing target practice with her boomerang. She spotted a kangaroo streaking through the bush and was set to take it down, when her father stayed her hand. “There are those who believe roos are sacred to our people,” he told her. When she asked if he believed this, he shrugged, and said better safe than sorry. “It’s always better to err on the safe side when it comes to killing, Allie.” He had called her that when she was small, and then, eventually he stopped. She didn’t remember when, or why. “Killing is one choice you can’t take back.”
Even when he was pushing her past her limits, he was gentle with her then.
That stopped too.
And apparently he’s changed his mind about killing.
Or maybe his rules are different when it comes to people.
“I thought you were going to set me out against a criminal, Henry,” she says. A part of her knows there’s no point in arguing, but she can’t help trying. He’s taught her never to give up. “A drug dealer. A gangster. A terrorist. You know, a bad guy.”
“Like in the movies?” he says, keeping his eyes straight ahead. She doesn’t know if he’s refusing to look over at her, or just doesn’t want to bother. “Real life isn’t always so black-and-white, Alice. Though if it makes you feel better, Zeke Cable is a bad guy.”
“Oh, yeah? What, did he cheat on his taxes? Roll a bloody joint?”
“He’s dangerous, Alice. He’s a dangerous man whose death is necessary for the protection of the Koori people. You don’t need to know why. You don’t
need to see evidence. You just need to trust me, and do as you’re told.”
“Kill him,” she clarifies.
“Yes.”
“Just to prove that I can?” She snorts. “That’s stupid.”
“What’s stupid is putting the fate of our people on the shoulders of a girl who’s afraid to kill,” Henry snaps. “It doesn’t have to be easy. It should never be easy. But sometimes it must be done, and you have to know you can do it. Otherwise you might be the one to die.”
“You’re yabbering again,” she tells him. “I get it.”
“I just want to make sure you understand why I’m asking you to do this. And that you’re careful.” He puts his fingers to his lips and then to her forehead, as he always does before a mission, and she allows it, because before he was her trainer, he was her father, and sometimes he still is.
“I’m always careful,” she tells him.
“You’re never careful. And I know this mission is—”
“I told you, I get it. It’s peachy,” she says, not wanting to hear him hammer away at it more. Not wanting to hear her father urging her to kill. She understands that it needs to be done, and she understands that that’s what being the Player is all about. Doing what must be done. The spirits of her ancestors have affirmed that this is the way, that Alice must fulfill her duty. Whether she likes it or not, it’s time for her to prove herself.
To kill a human being.
Just to show that she can.
Alice hates Melbourne.
She hates all cities, the way the buildings press in on you and block out the sky, the air heavy with smog, the streets dense with people. The crush of bodies, the brute intrusion of humanity at every turn, its smells and fluids and inescapable whine. The cruelty of humanity, that pains her too, and it is nowhere more evident than in cities, where breathing bodies stretch along sidewalks and curl against buildings and are treated by passersby like inanimate parts of the landscape. Eyesores to be stepped over, brushed past—overlooked and ignored. Melbourne is meant to be one of the loveliest cities in the world, but all Alice sees is a desecration of land, a trash heap of so-called civilization where once there was beauty.
She’s a creature of the land. She doesn’t want to spend any more time here than she needs to.
But she’s in no hurry to get the job done.
Zeke Cable lives in a bleak, modern high-rise that towers over its neighbors. The building is nearly all windows. It’s not a home for someone with secrets. It’s a building meant for people eager to show off, to live their lives under a spotlight, hoping passersby will envy the glow.
The doorman gives Alice the side-eye when she steps past. Even in her city drag—black skirt and impractical heels—he can tell she doesn’t belong here. But she’s hacked the complex’s computer system and put herself on the list of approved guests for apartment 12D, so there’s little he can do.
Apartment 12D is a multimillion-dollar luxury condo with views of the water, whose resident is on a business trip in Sydney.
Apartment 12D is also directly above Zeke Cable’s apartment, with a convenient network of air and heating ducts connecting the two.
From her luxury perch, Alice can listen in on her target. She can watch him through the vents, see him pack his daughter off to school in the morning and burn his toast, see him rant at the sports page and kiss his wife good-bye. And that evening, she can watch him strip down to his boxers and crawl into bed beside his sleeping wife; she can unscrew a vent and ease it open; she can lower her Colt Delta Elite and orient its muzzle in the direction of his head.
Her stocky, muscled body is a cramped fit in the narrow ducts. Her grip is slick with sweat, but she holds the gun steady.
The boomerang’s no good in close quarters like this, not when she doesn’t have enough room for a good throw. It makes sense to use a gun.
Except she hates guns. Hates the cold machinery of them, the cold steel wall they erect between predator and prey. Hates how easy they make things. Her boomerangs are a part of her, an extension of her limbs. Most of the world imagines them as a joke, a child’s toy, and so much the better. The best weapons are easily underestimated. Just because Alice has only wounded, never killed, just because she prefers to hunt animals over people, doesn’t mean she doesn’t know a good weapon when she sees one.
She has many, and treasures them all. The smooth wood boomerang she’s had since she was a child, the carbon-reinforced plastic one Henry gave her for her last birthday, with its aerodynamically perfect angle and razor edge. Her mother’s boomerang, carved out of bone and handed down her line for centuries, from Player to Player, a deadly gift from the past. Each is a weapon that requires dedication and skill—more than that, it demands a deep knowing, a communing with both the world and the target. It means understanding angles and wind currents and anticipating your target’s next move before he knows it himself. A good throw casts the boomerang into the future, allowing the target to step into his own fate.
Guns feel like cheating.
All of this feels like cheating. There’s no challenge in reaching through a vent and putting a silenced bullet in a sleeping man’s head. There’s certainly no justice in it.
There’s no sense in it.
Henry has always done what’s best for her, and for her training. If he says she has to kill this man—if he says it’s better for the Koori if this man dies—then he must have a good reason. But there’s no reason to take that on faith.
If Zeke Cable does need to die, then Alice will make it happen. She promises herself that. But first she will take the time to get to know her target, to find out what’s so dangerous about him. She’ll convince herself of what needs to be done.
And then she’ll find it in herself to do it.
It’s a good plan.
Except that she can’t find the answer to her question. She can’t find anything about Zeke Cable that would consign him to death. She watches him in his apartment, stalks him through the city streets, slips into his office disguised as a delivery girl, hacks his computer files, taps his phones, and finds . . . nothing.
Or rather, she finds the foibles of a middling man, one who sometimes tries his best and sometimes doesn’t bother.
He’s a fine father, except when he’s in a temper and rages at his six-year-old until she bursts into tears. He follows celebrity gossip, but mocks his wife for watching reality TV. He also cheats on her, and keeps a studio apartment in the city for rendezvous with his mistresses, both of whom are nearly a decade younger than he is. He spends more of his workday surfing the Net than actually working and, probably of more concern to his employers, has embezzled nearly half a million dollars of company funds. He’s untrustworthy and often unkind.
But that’s not enough for her.
She doesn’t know what would be. She doesn’t know if Henry’s right, if there’s a softness in her that needs to be rooted out. Maybe even if Cable were a monster, an unabashed killer who took giggly pleasure in stabbing women in dark alleys or smothering small children, she would still hesitate to put him down. Would still pull back at the last second, thinking about what it means to pull a trigger, to end a life, blot out an existence for all time.
Maybe, but her father hasn’t given her the chance to find out.
He’s never been one for easy tests.
“We don’t know what Endgame will be,” he likes to say. “But we know it won’t be easy.”
Cable’s daughter is named Lily, and at six years old she has a sunshine smile, Pippi Longstocking pigtails, and a blithe trust that the world is without shadow. She loves her father, even when he yells, and she doesn’t imagine a life in which he does not exist.
Alice knows this, because she remembers being six and assuming her parents were immutable fixtures. She remembers discovering she was wrong.
Alice watches Cable’s eyes sparkle as Lily locks her arms around his neck, watches him swing her through the air while she giggles and cries, “More, Daddy
, more!”
Alice never played this kind of game with her own father—or if she did, she no longer remembers. When he smiles at her with fatherly pride, it is because she has set the explosives properly and demolished a building in one shot, or she has translated a difficult passage of Coptic that has foiled scholars three times her age. Never because she’s giggled or smiled or put her arms around him and called him Daddy.
She’s certainly never called him that.
Love doesn’t have to come with hugs and giggles, she knows that.
And love doesn’t make someone a good person, she knows that too.
Even bad guys have someone they love; even monsters have family.
But if she kills this guy in cold blood, which of them is the monster?
The longer Alice stays in apartment 12D, the longer Alice listens and watches and lives as Zeke Cable’s shadow, the less sure she is.
She descended into dreamtime to ask the question, and her ancestors answered:
You are the Player.
This is your fate.
She has seen the two futures spread out before her, the destruction lying in wait if she chooses to abdicate responsibility, defy her elders and her destiny.
But dreams are unspecific—loopholes abound.
Who’s to say fulfilling her duty means doing exactly as Henry says, following his orders blindly? Who’s to say Playing means obeying? Means killing?
Sometimes she wonders what her training might have been like if her mother had lived. Or whether she would have been trained at all. Maybe, having endured those years as the Player, Shayna Ulapala would have wanted a different life for her daughter—different choices. Alice tries to imagine that. Imagine if, instead of spending every second of her childhood competing with her cousins, learning to stalk prey and strike down her enemies, studying the words of the past and the threat of the future, she had grown up without responsibility, believing there was nothing to fear. Imagine if she had played with dolls and puppies, attended a normal school, made friends and cut classes, lived life like the girls on TV.
Alice tries to imagine, but it’s impossible. It’s like trying to imagine herself out of existence—everything she is, everything she’s ever known or cared about, is rooted in this life, this game.