Sky Key

by James Frey

  He taught them corruption. And through his teachings he became powerful, and rich, and influential. His resources were, and still are, unlimited. His mind, although poisoned, is honed to the sharpest of points. He IS evil.

  Throughout the course of human history Ea has emerged as consigliore to many prominent people, urging them to ever more sadistic conquests. He was whispering in the ear of people like Pharaoh Thutmose III, Emperor Caracalla, Hugh Capet, Tomás de Torquemada, Adam Weishaupt, and Josef Mengelev. He has been at least partially responsible for every single war, religious or otherwise, every genocide, every mass atrocity in the history of humankind.

  Every single one.

  Yet in spite of his meddling in human development, what Ea has really been waiting for is the beginning of the promised Judgment Day known to the lines, and now to us, as Endgame.

  His goal is simple and terrifying. Let Endgame play out, killing as many humans as possible, and then do everything in his power to prevent his brothers and sisters from ever returning to our solar system. He wants nothing less than to have this planet—our planet—to himself. So that he can breed a world solely beholden to him, an eternal, savage playground.

  Even though we share Ea’s desire to see the Makers vanquished from our corner of the universe, we also cannot let Ea succeed in making his ancient, twisted vision come true. We must stop him. We must find a way. WE MUST.

  Yours in Truth,

  S.

  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

  ALICE ULAPALA

  Lufthansa Flight 341, Initial Descent

  Depart: Kuala Lumpur

  Arrive: Berlin

  Alice wakes from another vivid dream. This one of a forest on fire, all the animals running out of the billowing smoke to safety.

  Running to the open arms of the girl, Little Alice Chopra.

  Little Alice was smiling, happy, welcoming—not scared as she has been in so many of Alice’s other dreams. She glowed in beams of gold and silver, her radiance so powerful that it kept the tongues of flame at bay as the animals darted into her protective aura.

  Glowing.

  Like a bright and sunny day.

  Like the midday sky.

  And Alice understands.

  She smacks her forehead. “I’ll be snookered,” she says, turning to the man next to her. “Little Alice is Sky Key!”

  The man—mid-20s, bulky headphones around his neck, baggy pants, Oakley sunglasses over his eyes, and a noxious breath courtesy of too many whiskeys during the flight—looks at Alice, who has not uttered a single word to him otherwise. “Y’don’t say.”

  “Yeah! Those kepler bastards have pulled a little girl into the mix. Can you believe it?”

  The man hiccups, turns in his seat so he can size up Alice. “Y’know, you look pretty strong.”

  “Damn right I am. Fit as a mallee bull. You don’t know half of it.”

  The man chuckles. “No doubt.” He adjusts his sunglasses and leans into the corner of his seat. “What’d you say before? A kepler? The hell is that?”

  “A bastard, that’s what. Tall and skinny and blue-skinned, like a goddamned Smurf.”

  “Smurfs are short.”

  “Yeah well, these ones are tall. Think they run the bloody universe.”

  “Do they?”

  God, I love drunkards, Alice thinks. Talk about anything. Take it all at face value. Smurfs, for Chrissakes!

  “Yeah, they kinda do run the bloody universe. Still, to hell with them. A little girl! And Shari’s, to boot.”

  “So you’re going to see one of these kepler guys in Berlin?”

  “Me? Nah. They’re cowards. At least that’s my opinion. They wouldn’t be caught dead just walking around on this planet. Not yet anyway.”

  “Oh, so they’re aliens.”

  “Yeah,” Alice says, as if this man is an imbecile. “But I’m in Berlin to see someone else. A boy. He’s a lot of things, but not a coward. Little Ned Kelly–type shit.”

  The man has no idea who Ned Kelly is, but lets it slide. “So this guy’s like, what, a boyfriend?”

  “Hell, mate. You trying to make me laugh?” A PA announcement interrupts them. The woman says they’ll be on the ground in 20 minutes. “Gonna piss.”

  “Go for it.”

  Alice makes for the business-class lavatory. As she walks, she becomes more and more aware of the acute signal pinging in her head, marking Baitsakhan, the Donghu.

  The beacon is like a three-dimensional map with Alice in the middle. Being in a plane and above the world accentuates the sense of depth. The map extends in every direction, and its edge is defined by the blip. When Alice was on the other side of the world, the blip was far away and faint, but still discernible. Now that she’s within a couple hundred miles of the source, it’s bright and sharp. The map has shrunk accordingly and feels more navigable. In fact, it’s so clear she could probably walk from the airport to Baitsakhan’s location blindfolded. Not that she will, but she could.

  Alice unbuttons her jeans, pulls them down, and sits on the toilet. Alice wonders if Baitsakhan has captured another Player, if he is torturing one of them for information about the keys like he did Shari, if he’s made any progress in the game. She wonders if he’s hurt, and if so how he found someone to help him. Maybe he’s hiding out.

  She wonders if maybe he was the one to find Earth Key, and is taking a break to bask in his success, as any sociopath would.

  Sociopaths are fun.

  Always shocked when they die.

  Alice stands, pulls up her pants, and washes her hands. The PA chimes, indicating that it’s time for her to return to her seat.

  She will be on German soil in less than an hour.

  She will go to a hotel and check in.

  If the Donghu moves, she will follow.

  Otherwise, she will sleep, and tomorrow she will hunt.

  “Breaking news today that a leaked email from a scientist at NASA is beginning to cause panic in some coastal communities of New England and the mid-Atlantic states. Covering the story is Mills Power, fresh from his assignment at Stonehenge. Mills?”

  “Good afternoon, Stephanie.”

  “Good afternoon. This supposedly leaked email from NASA scientist William Wallace is causing quite a stir. What can you tell us?”

  “Well, I’m here at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab headquarters in California, and despite numerous attempts I have not been granted access to Mr. Wallace. I have managed to obtain written confirmation that one Will Wallace, a planetary geologist with a doctorate from Caltech, does indeed work at JPL’s NEO program.”

  “NEO is, for our viewers watching at home . . .”

  “Near Earth Object, Stephanie. This team looks for asteroids that come close to Earth and figures out the likelihood of an impact.”

  “Interesting, particularly in light of recent events.”

  “Indeed.”

  “And what have they told you about him, or about his allegations?”

  “Not much. Other than verifying Mr. Wallace’s employment status, NASA has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the giant asteroid nicknamed Abaddon that is—according to this now widely circulated email—headed for Earth.”

  “Well, Mills, some folks are interpreting the lack of an outright denial as a confirmation. Is this truly strange behavior from NASA, though? They are a government agency, after all, and with the recent tragedies . . .”

  “It might seem reasonable, but practically all the data and imagery JPL and NASA generate is for the benefit of the public—not just the United States, but the world. Typically, all of their discoveries are posted online, and are updated weekly, sometimes daily. If Mr. Wallace’s email is indeed legitimate, then JPL is taking the unprecedented step of keeping this information secret.”

  “I don’t want to lend credence to these conspiracy nuts, Mills, but if NASA is withholding this information, could it be in the public’s best interest, so that the government has time to formulat
e, uh, some kind of a response?”

  “If developments on the East Coast are any indication—the water hoarding, the mile-long lines at gas stations, the run on cash at the banks, and most tellingly this nascent boom in online gun and ammunition sales—then not knowing the truth could be just as disruptive as knowing it.”

  “It sounds like people are preparing for the end of the world, Mills.”

  “I really, really think they’re overreacting, Stephanie. This is, after all, one as yet unverified email. But yes, you are correct. These people are getting ready for the end of the world.”

  vi

  AISLING KOPP

  JFK International Airport, Terminal 1 Immigration Hall, Room E-117, Queens, New York, United States

  That’s nice, Aisling thinks after Operations Officer McCloskey makes her grand overture of top-secret hit-squad government assistance. Only I don’t want the help of my “number one fans.”

  Of course Aisling doesn’t say this. She doesn’t fully buy McCloskey’s pitch, and she’s positive the agent is holding something back. She is CIA, after all. Isn’t it part of her job description to lie, and often?

  But because what Aisling wants more than anything is to get out of this room, she gathers herself and calmly says, “Thanks, McCloskey. I’ll accept your offer. Gladly. Armageddon isn’t going to be an easy thing to deal with.”

  “No. It isn’t.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to meet your team.”

  McCloskey sticks out her hand. “Sure. But first we gotta shake.”

  Aisling stands and takes the tall, attractive woman’s hand.

  McCloskey doesn’t smile. Neither does Aisling.

  They shake and the locks in the door whisper one, two, three and McCloskey says, “Let’s go.”

  McCloskey pulls a badge on a thin chain from inside her pocket and slings it over her head. Then she leads Aisling back into the teeming immigration hall. They stop at the same group of K-9 officers who led Aisling in. One of them hands McCloskey a holstered pistol, which she straps to her waist. Aisling stares at the officers, but they don’t acknowledge her at all. They’re just grunts following orders.

  Aisling follows McCloskey through baggage claim to an older man of average height with a scraggly brown-and-white beard. He’s wearing circular, gold-rimmed sunglasses, à la Steve Jobs. If Aisling had to pick a spook out of a thousand people, he would be one of her last guesses—which is probably one reason he’s a spook.

  “This is Case Officer Griffin Marrs,” McCloskey says, coming to a stop.

  “Hi, Marrs,” Aisling says.

  “Howdy-hey,” he says. Her carry-on backpack is slung over his shoulder and he points at Aisling’s checked bag by his feet. “That’s a big gun you got in there, man,” Marrs says in a pothead’s nasal monotone.

  “I have an international transfer permit for it.”

  He raises his eyebrows. “Under a fake name too. Pretty impressive.”

  “I am a Player. We do have our ways.”

  Marrs looks at McCloskey. “Least we cooked the right chicken.”

  “Oh, there’s no doubt about that,” McCloskey says. She turns to Aisling. “Ready to meet Officer Jordan?”

  Aisling gives a curt nod. “The sooner the better. Time’s a-wasting.”

  “It most definitely is,” Marrs says.

  McCloskey goes first, then Aisling, then Marrs. McCloskey hands a piece of paper to the last customs agent before the exit. Except for the CIA seal and a block of text, Aisling can’t see what’s on it. The agent reads it as McCloskey and Marrs present their credentials. Nobody says a word. As Aisling passes, the agent says, “Have a nice day, miss.”

  They move through the arrival terminal, passing a line of people pressed against a metal railing as they wait for loved ones from all parts of the world. People dressed in T-shirts, jeans, suits, saris, sweats, fatigues. They hold flowers and stuffed animals and little signs. There are children and wives and cousins and grandparents. Aisling and her new friends pass a phalanx of limousine drivers, holding tablet computers or placards with names on them—Singh, X. James, Örnst, Friedman, Ngala, Hoff, Martin. They leave the terminal. An all-black Cadillac CTS waits at the curb. Engine running. An unseen driver behind tinted windows. McCloskey opens the rear passenger door. “After you.”

  Aisling notices that the car rides low on its suspension—it’s armored—and that there’s a clear partition separating the back seats from the front.

  “Nice ride,” Aisling says as she moves toward the open door. “Especially for government.”

  “I told you—we’re tooled up,” McCloskey says proudly, one hand resting on the edge of the car door, the other on the butt of her Beretta 92FS.

  Marrs puts Aisling’s bags in the trunk and walks to the other side of the car. He opens the back passenger door. He’s going to ride with Aisling. Maybe McCloskey is too, with Aisling wedged in the middle, keep it all cozy.

  I don’t want your help, she thinks again.

  Aisling steps off the curb and turns casually to face McCloskey. She lowers her butt onto the edge of the seat. Behind her, she hears the beep-beep-beep of a shuttle bus moving in reverse, and the vrooming throttle of a stationary motorcycle from the far side of the median.

  A fast-sounding motorcycle.

  Aisling lifts her feet from the ground, but instead of swinging them into the footwell, she kicks them up and hits McCloskey square in her chest as hard as she can.

  I don’t want your help!

  McCloskey reels onto the sidewalk, gasping for air as Aisling executes a backward somersault through the car and launches out of the other side feet first. She catches Marrs across the jaw and shoulder, and he slams into the car door with a crack. “Hey, man!” he blurts.

  Aisling lands on her feet and pivots. She’s at top speed in three steps as she darts around the reversing shuttle bus, putting her out of view of the CIA officers for a few precious seconds.

  “Stop!” McCloskey strains to shout.

  A scream.

  Another.

  Aisling doesn’t have time to look, but she guesses that the agents have unholstered their weapons.

  Aisling sprints toward a thin man straddling a black-and-silver BMW S1000 RR sport bike. He’s in fully padded riding gear, his helmet on, his bike idling. He doesn’t notice the commotion or the girl with the short red hair rushing toward his right side.

  Aisling skids to a stop, reaches down, grabs him by the ankle, and lifts. Surprised, he cartwheels off the bike and splays onto the pavement, a muffled shout coming from behind his visor.

  “I said stop!” Aisling can just barely hear McCloskey yell as Aisling snags the bike and jumps on and takes the grips and guns it.

  She’s out of the pickup area in seconds, and screams toward the airport exit ramp at 85 mph, weaving between cars and cabs and Port Authority blue-and-whites.

  One of these flashes its cherry lights and gives chase.

  It’ll never catch her.

  Aisling works the bike up to 95, 103, 112, 119, humming good in 5th gear at 8,000 rpm. It’s just getting warm. It’s got another gear and 60 or 70 mph to go before it tops out. Inside a minute she’s on the JFK Expressway, snaking through the potholed and confusing interchanges to the Belt Parkway.

  Two gray Malibus tear onto the highway in front of her from North Conduit Avenue. Aisling makes them for regular cops, undercover, not part of McCloskey’s posse. Aisling zips the bike to the left shoulder, hugging the median, zooming by cars and SUVs. The cops are still in front, trying to block her. Aisling slows to 79 mph and, at the last moment, swerves dangerously between an Escalade and a little Smart car to screech onto the off-ramp at exit 17N, the back wheel skipping and sliding before catching the road and propelling her up the ramp. Aisling changes gears, guns it again, and pops a wheelie onto the streets, heading west.

  She blurs past the Aqueduct horse-racing track, pulling two marked squad cars, along with one of the gray undercovers
from the highway, into her wake. As she slaloms through the cars at 111 mph in 3rd, not stopping for any red lights, she glances in the mirror and catches sight of the CIA Caddy several blocks back, its front lights flashing, red high beams glaring from behind the grille.

  McCloskey is coming, and she won’t be happy when she catches Aisling.

  You’re not telling me something, McCloskey. And you’re not gonna catch me.

  Aisling kicks it into 4th, whips around a truck, veers onto Linden Boulevard, and finds a long, wide, straight stretch of road.

  And midway down that road, a twinkling congregation of police vehicles blocking the way, officers out and guns out too.

  Aisling crunches the brake and clutch and cycles down through the gears, turning left onto Drew Street, cutting across two lanes of traffic. She would mash the gas and go go go, but in front of her is an oncoming squad car.

  Screw it.

  Time to play chicken.

  She goes goes goes.

  And the squad car goes too.

  Neither flinches, neither swerves.

  They’re going to crash.

  Aisling pictures it. She’ll go over the bars and probably splatter her brains everywhere. If not that, then she’ll almost definitely get caught. And if not that, she’ll be so messed up from the crash she’ll have no chance of surviving Endgame.

  But at the last second the cop car brakes hard, and the laws of physics drive the hood toward the ground, the front bumper throwing sparks. Aisling lifts the wheel again and slams onto the roof of the car and rides over it and up and through the air. She lands 30 feet later, bouncing violently onto the ground, struggling to keep the handlebars straight, two quick gunshots ringing behind her, both clumsy and off the mark. She turns right onto another street and one block later finds herself at the edge of a multiblock housing project.