Sky Key

by James Frey

  An hasn’t been this formal in a long time, and speaking like this takes effort and concentration. More than he expected. It is important that he keep his disdain for formalities in check, that he keep his voice neutral.

  “My name is Nobuyuki Takeda. And yes, I would have rejected you. Perhaps worse.” He reaches out and takes the hilt of his sword but doesn’t lift it.

  “Who are you to . . . to Chiyoko?” An asks. “Her father?”

  “She is my niece.”

  “Master Takeda, I am sorry. But I must tell you that your niece is dead.”

  Nobuyuki jumps to his knees. This time he lifts the sword. Even from across the room, An can see tears welling in Nobuyuki’s eyes.

  “Speak quickly and truthfully. I will be able to tell if you are lying.”

  An gives him a curt but respectful nod. “She died at Stonehenge. I was there. One of the ancient megaliths fell on top of her when the ground shifted. It crushed her from the waist down. She died instantly.”

  “You witnessed this?” Nobuyuki’s voice is even, not afraid, not sorrowful, but demanding.

  And yet a tear rolls down his cheek.

  An shakes his head. “No. I was unconscious. Another Player, the Cahokian, shot me in the head.” He points to his star-shaped stitches. “If not for the metal plate I have here, I would have died too.”

  “Were others there?”

  “Yes. One called Jago Tlaloc. The Olmec. He was Playing with the Cahokian. And another, a non-Player allied with the Cahokian. He was killed as well.”

  “And you? Were you Playing with Chiyoko?” Nobuyuki sounds confused. He knows that Chiyoko would never agree to an alliance. She was always a loner. That was one of her many strengths.

  An shakes his head again. “Not officially. But we did have . . . an understanding. A relationship.”

  This last word is hard for him to say.

  “You knew her? Beyond the confines of the game?”

  “Takeda-san”—An uses the Japanese honorific, one of the few words he knows—“there is no ‘beyond the confines of the game.’ As Chiyoko told me, she Played for life. This phrase, I think, had many meanings for her. Among them, that the game encompasses everything. To go beyond the game is to go beyond life.”

  Nobuyuki eases back on his knees, but not on his grip of the katana. An’s words intrigue him. “Tell me. About your time with her.”

  “I met your niece while we were Playing—in fact, our first altercation after the Calling was a fight in a hardware store. Neither won. She was incredibly fast. Her chi was unparalleled.”

  “I know.”

  “Infectious, even.”

  “Explain yourself.”

  “I am sick, Takeda-san. My line has made me so. I suffer from debilitating tics that, at their worst, cloud my thinking and my actions. They are the result of a harsh childhood, a criminally harsh one. They made me into a monster.”

  “All of you had harsh childhoods.”

  “Mine was different.”

  “Yes. Not all of you became monsters.”

  “You loved her, didn’t you, Takeda-san? She knew love?”

  “I love her, An Liu. Even if she is gone. More so if she is gone.”

  An lets his chin fall to his chest. He sees her hair that hangs around his neck. Her ears. Her eyelids that he cut free. “As do I,” An says quietly. “And, remarkably, she loved me back. She was the first, maybe the only person, ever to love me. Ever.”

  “If you are sick, why does it not show? Where are these tics you speak of?”

  An raises his head, and gazes into Nobuyuki’s dark eyes. The fire cracks. There is no other sound.

  “She cured me. Her chi cured me, and her love saved me.”

  Nobuyuki raises the sword and points it at An’s throat. Four meters separate them. “What is that around your neck?”

  “It is what I could salvage from your niece. The things she gave me. The things that continue to save me.”

  “You cut them from her? You desecrated her?” Nobuyuki growls.

  “I am sorry, Master. But she would have consented. I promise you. I would not have taken them if I knew otherwise.”

  Nobuyuki’s eye twitches. An can hardly blame him. An watches as Nobuyuki suppresses his rage.

  The tone of Nobuyuki’s voice shifts. “You said that my niece Played for life. I know this to be true. But now I must ask, Shang, what is it that you Play for?”

  An sighs. “Not for life, Takeda-san. Life has been cruel to me. Death makes more sense. I would rather snuff out every last Player—myself included—and let the game go unwon than see life go on. I would rather see humanity gone, our alien ancestry wiped away and forgotten, than carry on and perpetuate its lies and hypocrisies and cruelties. There is a big part of me that still wants this. Humanity does not deserve this planet, and this planet does not deserve humanity.”

  “But . . .” Nobuyuki says, egging on An.

  “But . . . then I met your niece, and she lit something in me. I changed, if only a little. And I am hoping that you, and your most ancient and venerable line, perhaps the one most closely related to the Makers, would help me realize that change and make it permanent.”

  “You wish to propose something? Something mutually beneficial?”

  “Yes. I would humbly and respectfully like to renounce my line and Play for yours. Chiyoko deserved to live. To win. I do not. My line certainly does not deserve to inherit the Earth after the Event. I think that yours does. I pledge myself to you, Takeda-san. If you will accept me, I pledge myself to you.”

  Nobuyuki frowns. An can’t read him, can’t decide if he’s merely caught the old man off guard or if the very idea offends and disgusts him. Either way, Nobuyuki doesn’t speak.

  “Please, Master Takeda. The only alternative is for me to go back to what I was. I am filled with hatred and rage. Do you understand? It boils inside me, explodes out of me, makes me . . . Your niece could soothe me. She was the only one, but she is gone, and I have done a shameful thing to remain close to her. . . .” An touches the necklace again. Holds his hand there. “I believe you could show me a different way, Master Takeda. Show me Chiyoko’s way. I want to Play for the Mu. I want to be Mu. The keplers don’t care for rules, only for the game and its conclusion. If I can win then I can tell them that I Play for Chiyoko, and for the Mu. They will accept it. I know it. I feel it. Please. I beg you, for the sake of your line, and for the sake of my soul—as tarnished and desperate and imperfect as it may be.”

  These words exhaust An. There are too many of them, and they are too revealing, pleading, pathetic. But they are true.

  Nobuyuki uses the sword like a cane to stand up. He looks labored. Spent. A thousand years old and counting.

  “No,” the Mu elder says quietly, his voice shaking ever so slightly.

  “But—”

  “No. The answer is no, Shang.”

  A hollow feeling grows rapidly in An’s stomach. He feels like he is going to cry.

  An says nothing.

  “I do not make this decision lightly, Shang,” Nobuyuki says with effort. “But it must be this way. If the Mu line is to fade, then so be it. What will be will be.”

  “Please . . .” An begs. His left hand begins to twitch.

  Nobuyuki’s voice deepens, grows more restive. “You speak of honor, but what do you know of honor? Of respect? You have come uninvited into my house in the dead of night. You have disturbed my meditation to tell me that my dearest Chiyoko is no longer living. You have spoken to me with words that sound respectful, but are nothing more than an ultimatum disguised as a proposition. You do not even bother to learn how to greet me in my mother tongue—in Chiyoko’s mother tongue. You come here prepared to renounce the full history of your people, all for your own selfish purposes. Chiyoko may have been young, but she was not selfish. Your trainers were cruel to you. Maybe they beat you and tortured you. So what?”

  BLINK.

  “What of your ancestors from hund
reds, thousands of years ago? Were they cruel to you? What of your line’s descendants in the generations to come? Would they be cruel to you? Perhaps they are redeemable, all of them, perhaps you can save them, now, here, by Playing honorably for your people, as well as for Chiyoko’s memory. That is how she would have wanted it. This I know. She understood what it meant to be a Player. You, clearly, do not. I am sorry, An Liu of the Shang, but I cannot accept you. Chiyoko may have loved you. I hope she did. But that does not mean that I can, or that any of my people can. If you are broken, then you must fix yourself. I can’t save you.”

  “But . . .” An mumbles, his voice failing. There is nothing more for him to say.

  “Now, I would request that you leave, but first there is something that I must ask of you.” Nobuyuki raises his sword and points it once more at An. “If all that is left of my niece—of my beloved Chiyoko—is what you wear around your neck, then I ask that you give it to me so that my line can memorialize her for the hero that she is, and give what remains of her a proper burial.”

  BLINK.

  BLINKshivershiverBLINK.

  SHIVER.

  An takes blink takes a step back. “N-no.”

  Nobuyuki steps forward and, still keeping the blade raised, bows deeply. “Yes,” he says to the floor. “With respect, Player, I insist.”

  An flicks the arming switch on his left forearm while Nobuyuki isn’t looking.

  “N-n-n-no!”

  Nobuyuki. Still bowed. “Yes.”

  An reaches across his body and unsnaps his gun’s holster. Nobuyuki rises like a giant and lunges forward, covering the space between them in a half second. He slashes the katana at An, who backpedals into the hallway unscathed.

  The blade comes again, this time for An’s outstretched hand, and, with ease, cleanly slices the muzzle off the gun, rendering its firing mechanism useless.

  The sword is angled down, its point in the floor. Without hesitating An pistol-whips Nobuyuki across the cheek. He cries out. An dances over the blade and kicks Nobuyuki’s legs out. Chiyoko’s uncle falls to the floor. An drops what’s left of the pistol and steps on Nobuyuki’s sword hand, the bones crunching. The cloth-wrapped hilt comes free.

  An bends to pick it up.

  Shiverblinkshiver.

  “Stand”—blink—“stand up.”

  Nobuyuki stands. Faces An. Skinny, insignificant-looking An, playing the part of a Player.

  Chiyoko’s uncle rubs his cheek with the back of his wrist. An holds the sword with both hands, high and at the ready.

  “Careless, disrespectful boy,” Nobuyuki says, blood coating his teeth.

  “Enough,” An commands. “No”—blink—“no”—blink—“no more words.”

  “If you had given her remains to me freely—honorably—then I would have reconsidered your request.”

  The words are BLINKBLINKBLINKBLINKBLINK the words are SHIVERBLINK SHIVERSHIVER the words are searing.

  “A test? You would have”—blink—“you would have”—SHIVER—“you would have accepted me?”

  “Ye—”

  But Nobuyuki’s answer is cut short as An slashes the ancient sword—sharper than a razor, harder than a diamond—diagonally through the air, cutting Nobuyuki clean in half from his left shoulder to his right hip. The blade is so sharp that for a moment Nobuyuki—every vital organ save his brain and lower intestine completely severed—stands there wearing a look of shock. His face instantly goes pale, and then, after a couple seconds, his top half slides off his bottom half and spills to the floor. Just after that, his lower body falls over sideways.

  An breathes hard, his back hunches, his mind reels. He lets one hand off the sword and reaches into his pocket. He clicks the detonator.

  Outside, in the backyard, a firebomb goes off. The sound of breaking glass and combustion. A blast of air whooshes past An, pulling at his loose clothing. He already smells the burning wood. The old Takeda home will go up in minutes.

  An spins to the front door, dragging the katana at his side. Another keepsake. He pulls the black hood over his head, the air growing warmer at his back. He pulls the scarf over his scrunched face.

  He walks to the front door and unlocks it and grabs the metal ring and pulls.

  There is Naha.

  There is Japan.

  There is the world.

  There is Endgame.

  He touches Chiyoko. Her hair. Her skin. Her ears. The tics are gone again.

  He walks down the steps.

  “I play for death,” he mutters.

  “I play for death.”

  JAGO TLALOC, SARAH ALOPAY, RENZO

  On Board Renzo’s Cessna Citation CJ4, Private Airstrip, Outskirts of Valle Hermoso, Tamaulipas, Mexico

  Ever since her crying fit following the president’s speech, Sarah has been sleeping. An incredible 19 hours and counting.

  Renzo landed the plane in Valle Hermoso, a sleepy but sometimes violent border town in northeastern Mexico, 13 hours ago. Sarah barely stirred as the plane bumped along and taxied to a hangar. Jago let her sleep. He gingerly took Earth Key from Sarah’s pocket and placed it in his own. They left her in the plane, posting two armed guards outside with strict orders not to disturb her. Jago also left her a cell phone with a local number on a Post-it so she could call him if she woke up.

  She didn’t wake up.

  While she slept, Renzo and Jago met with the 67-year-old Olmec line member Maria Reyes Santos Izil at her modest adobe home a kilometer away. They had beef-tongue tacos, and poached red snapper with chiles and coconut slivers, and corn custard with creamy poblano sauce. They watched a Mexican football match. Jago showed Earth Key to Maria Reyes Santos Izil. She inspected it from all angles, turned it in her fingers, shone a light on it. “Es una bolita,” she said, shocked that such a small thing could be so powerful. Jago and Renzo each drank two beers. They each slept for 6.33 hours. They each said good-bye and thank you to their hostess. “Vaya con los dioses del cielo,” she said to them, and then, to Jago, “Gane.” The men returned to the refueled plane and called Juliaca to let Jago’s parents know they would be there soon.

  “You’ll need to roll out the old woman,” Jago tells his father as he stands just outside the plane, running his hand along the leading edge of a wing.

  Sarah still sleeps.

  Jago goes inside the plane and sits opposite her. He watches her for over half an hour. As he does this, he turns Earth Key in his fingers. Contemplates it, tries to get something from it, anything.

  If only this “key” opened some door that would lead to the next passage. If only the keplers hadn’t made Endgame so opaque. Of course, that’s the point, though. To make us suffer before the suffering really begins.

  The more he Plays, the more he hates these bastards from the stars. These so-called gods. He wishes he could eradicate them, and not the other way around.

  But that’s impossible, and he knows it.

  Finally, Sarah moves.

  Jago places Earth Key in a recessed fireproof compartment built into the bulkhead and locks it shut.

  Earth Key is safe.

  He watches Sarah again. She brings her fists to her eyes and rubs the sleep away. She swallows. She stretches her legs and her back and flexes her toes.

  “Hey,” Jago says.

  She blinks. Looks at Jago. “Hey yourself.” Her voice is raspy, sexy, confident. Jago’s happy she sounds like the girl he met on the train in China, like the girl he flirted with, like the girl he was Playing with before she got Earth Key.

  Like Sarah Alopay.

  “How long’ve I been out?”

  “Little over nineteen hours.”

  “What?” Sarah props herself on her elbow and looks around, trying to see out the windows.

  “Sí, nineteen hours. Never seen anyone sleep like that. I once did a twelve-hour lick after a training mission in the Andes, but never more than that.”

  “I wish you’d woken me when we landed.”

  “I trie
d. You were like a rock.”

  She swings her legs over the edge of the seat. “Well, I’m up now.”

  He smiles. “I’m glad.”

  “Listen. About London. I . . . I shouldn’t have run like that.”

  “I told you I wasn’t mad at you. I understand. You were scared.”

  “Yeah, but I shouldn’t have left you.”

  “You thought I was dead. It’s all right, Sarah.”

  “No, it isn’t. You wouldn’t have left me like that.”

  “You’re right.”

  Sarah’s heart pounds. A lump forms in her stomach. “I shouldn’t have left you, Feo.”

  “It’s all right, Alopay. Really. Just don’t do it again.”

  I don’t deserve him, Sarah thinks. She tries hard not to think of Christopher. Tries and fails. I don’t deserve anyone.

  “Don’t think of him, Sarah.”

  “That obvious, huh?”

  “Sí. Don’t think about it. You did what you had to do, and you got Earth Key. You Played. What’s done is done.” He reaches for her hand. She takes it. Squeezes. “I can’t help it. Just sitting here like this, with you, reminds me of him. Of what we were.”

  Jago doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything.

  “I did a horrible thing, Jago.”

  “You have to forgive yourself. You have to find a way. And you will. I’ll help you.”

  Sarah squeezes Jago’s hand again and peers over his shoulder and out the window. And that’s when she notices the hangar outside. Her family doesn’t have a hangar at the Cahokian compound on the Niobrara River in northwestern Nebraska.

  Sarah frowns. “Wait—we’re not in Nebraska? I gave you the coordinates. I saw Renzo punch them into the nav computer. I didn’t dream that, right?”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Then where the hell are we?”

  “There’s been a change of plan, Sarah.”

  Sarah lets go of Jago’s hand and stands, forgetting that there’s an overhead compartment directly above her. She bangs her head, rebounds onto her seat. She rubs her crown. Her hair’s a mess. Jago likes the look of it—also sexy—but knows he shouldn’t be thinking of that right now.