Sky Key

by James Frey

  And about him.

  About An.

  The Shang loads up his video and swipes his finger across the screen, swipes his finger, swipes his finger, swipes his finger, and there it is. He stares at the phone as he walks.

  Stares at the message posted by one of the Players.

  Because only a Player would have an account name like that.

  He stares at it and SHIVERblinkSHIVER stares at it and smiles.

  The code is elegant and strange, like a rarely seen bird.

  An swipes at his phone some more, punches in a string of characters, and manages to break the code easily. Discovers that it was the Aksumite who posted it. His clues were generous. All the Players would make quick work of it, so long as they had been paying attention at the Calling.

  An memorizes the decryption since it would be foolish to write it out on his phone or anywhere else, to leave a record of it.

  He stares and smiles.

  “Uncle Nobuyuki didn’t see this, did he, my love?” So much bitterness for that old man, next to so much adoration for his departed beloved.

  “They will be driven together, and it will be a slaughter.”

  AISLING KOPP, POP KOPP, GREG JORDAN, BRIDGET MCCLOSKEY, GRIFFIN MARRS

  Gulfstream G650, 42,000 Feet over the China-Mongolia Border

  “I got it. That’s it. That’s it!”

  Aisling holds up the laptop. The others lean in and read Hilal’s decoded message. They read it again and again.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Jordan says.

  “Sky Key is a . . . ?” Pop says quietly.

  Aisling isn’t as surprised. “Why wouldn’t it be an innocent? I believe the keplers are about suffering, first and foremost. Why not have a Player suffer even more by making a loved one a target? It’s kind of brilliant, if you think about it.”

  Pop says, “That’s not how I would put it, but I see your point.”

  Aisling’s eyes narrow. “So it’s a little girl, and she belongs to Shari Chopra. And if I’m remembering my UTM correctly, those coordinates are somewhere in India.”

  Jordan checks his laptop. “Affirmative. In the middle of a tiny Indian state called Sikkim. Never been, but heard nice things.”

  “We need to go there. Now. Yesterday. Last week.” Aisling plops the laptop on her thighs. She punches the screen with her index finger. “We scratch this Stonehenge idea. India’s a hell of a lot closer anyway. How far are we—a thousand miles, two thousand, tops? Everyone else is far-flung. We can beat every other Player there!”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” McCloskey says. “Did it not occur to you that this al-Salt dude could be waiting for us? That this might be a giant ploy to get the drop on other Players? Christ, he might have the site wired to blow as soon as the first Player shows up.”

  Aisling bristles. “An would do something like that, but not the Aksumite. I’m telling you, al-Salt is nowhere near India, I guarantee it. He wants what we want: to stop this thing.”

  “What makes you so certain?”

  “He was the only one at the Calling who asked for calm, who pleaded for reason. The only one. He didn’t want all of this . . . horror. This madness. Besides, his post is less than a day old, and if he was in this Sikkim place he’d have found the girl already. He’d have killed her. He wouldn’t need help. He wouldn’t need to use that message. No, he’s somewhere else. Somewhere far, far away.”

  “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away?” McCloskey asks. “Gimme a break. I’m not Princess Leia and you’re not Luke Skywalker.”

  Jordan holds up his hand. “Can it, guys. Marrs, we need you!”

  Marrs ducks through the cockpit door. “You will not believe what just came over the wires, man.”

  “What?”

  “Stonehenge was just blown away. Huge explosion. Possibly a tiny nuke, even. Nothing’s left.”

  There’s a moment of silence, not just because they’re shocked, but also because, for Aisling and Pop, Stonehenge was a La Tène monument, a piece of their ancient past.

  “Who did it?” Pop asks.

  “No one’s come forward, but it looks like common terrorists, just like back at Narita,” Marrs says.

  “Fuck,” Aisling says. “Guess we have to go to India now.”

  “I don’t know,” McCloskey says. “Stonehenge getting totaled sucks, but you can’t say you didn’t see it coming—people are scared, and when people get scared they start destroying the things that are scaring them. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that some of our esteemed colleagues at the agency were behind it, to be honest.”

  “So where would you have us go, McCloskey?” Aisling asks.

  “I don’t know. But just because Stonehenge is gone doesn’t mean we should blindly follow the suggestion of another Player. Like I said, it could be a trap—or it could simply be a diversionary tactic. Something to shake us off the real trail . . .”

  Aisling doesn’t buy it. “But what if it is true? And what if the Event happens and we didn’t try to do this thing that the Aksumite says will stop it? Chopra didn’t strike me as one of the evil Players, but I wouldn’t hesitate to kill her or her daughter or her whole fricking line if I thought it had the potential to save billions of lives. Shit, I’d kill you or Jordan or Pop or even myself if I thought it might save humanity.”

  McCloskey crosses her arms. “Duly noted, Player.”

  Aisling sits. “Jesus, McCloskey, I’m not threatening you. I need you. And we need to go to India. All due respect, but I have to be in charge. I should have been the one in that room with An Liu, not the KFE team. At the very least I should have been in there with them. If you want to Play for me, McCloskey, then you have to do what I say. Plain and simple.”

  “I don’t have to do anyth—”

  But Jordan cuts McCloskey off: “Bridge, she’s right. We screwed that mission up. We all know it. Aisling’s a resource. We’re a resource to her, and she to us, but we have to serve her in this thing. That’s the bottom line. We have to suck it up and listen to her. Follow her.”

  McCloskey doesn’t say anything.

  Aisling says, “Thanks, Jordan.”

  Jordan claps his hands. “It’s settled. India.” He leans into the cockpit and says something to Marrs, and almost immediately the plane banks hard to the south.

  A new heading: 206˚14'16".

  “Fine,” McCloskey says. “I just hope you’re right, Aisling. I hope this al-Salt Player—this opponent of yours—isn’t outmaneuvering us.” She pulls a small pill out of a shirt pocket and swallows it. She tucks her feet under her butt and wraps her arms over her ankles and closes her eyes. “I’m gonna take off to Planet Xanax and conk out. If we really are going to assassinate a little girl, I’m going to need some rest.”

  She doesn’t say anything else, and in less than a minute she’s snoring.

  Loudly.

  Aisling, Jordan, and Pop huddle over the desk, and for the next hour they pore over satellite images and road maps and topographic charts of Sikkim. Jordan summons Marrs and asks him to reposition one of the National Reconnaissance Office’s top-secret Spectacle-class imaging satellites to get a closer look at the location given by the Aksumite, “Because this Google map ain’t showing us squat.”

  “Man, any excuse to dance with the octopus!” Marrs says, clearly giddy.

  “He loves it when I tell him to play with the NRO’s toys. They got this logo of an octopus hugging planet Earth—”

  “I’ve seen it,” Pop says. “‘Nothing is beyond our reach.’”

  While they wait for Marrs, they go over a plan of approach. The location Hilal has given them is challenging. The only way to get into the Himalayas from Siliguri is to drive. They’ll have to figure out a way to buy two jeeps, load them up, and leave ASAP, but even then it will take them no less than 10 hours of driving on bumpy roads. Once there, they’ll have to find a place to stage, drive what’s sure to be a dirt track into the mountains, tool up, and start hiking. Jordan figures
that the whole trip, from their spot in the air to the exact point on the map, will take 30 hours, minimum.

  According to Hilal, Sky Key is located on the side of an unnamed valley, 12,424 feet high in the eastern Himalayas. The satellite image shows no sign of any of settlement or structure—no road, no solar panels, no discernible radio tower. The location is nothing more than an exposed wall of rock. Knuckled fingers of tree-covered stone surround it in every direction. No-man’s-land. The valley runs more or less east to west, originating in a snowcapped section to the west and terminating at a raging river to the east labeled Teesta, a cold-water tributary to the mighty Brahmaputra.

  Pop shakes his head. “It’s as blind an alley as I’ve ever seen. If no one’s there, it’ll be a colossal waste of time and effort.”

  “If there’s something there, the octopus will see it.” Jordan looks at his watch. “How much longer on the sat, Marrs?”

  “Right now,” Marrs announces, stepping into the cabin. “And I think this Hilal guy might be right, man.” He squeezes between Aisling and Jordan to take control of the computer. He changes the input on the screen—snap!—and they see a very close, very live, very high-definition shot of the Himalayan valley.

  And there, without question, carved into the side of the rock, are windows and doors and bridges and walkways. All hidden from a distance, all plain to see up close.

  “It’s a village,” Pop marvels.

  “No. It’s a fortress,” Aisling corrects.

  “She’s right about that,” Marrs says. He punches a few buttons and fiddles with a mouse and the image changes. It goes dark, except for little webs of green filaments and dots moving here and there like ants.

  “Those are . . . people!” Aisling exclaims. “Right?”

  McCloskey snores again.

  Marrs nods. “Yep. The little lines are heat trails. Power’s probably geothermal, with some generators and gas lighting.” He indicates several points on the image that look like green fires. “They seem to be venting steam—probably from small turbines—along this corridor here.” He zooms out and overlays the satellite image with the infrared image. A faint but discernible line zigzags south of the fortress and extends to the east, along the valley floor, terminating at the Teesta. “My money says that’s a path.”

  Aisling stabs the river intersection with her finger. “That’s it. That’s where we go in. Sky Key is there. Chopra’s gotten a bunch of her people together and taken them up to this fortress. . . . She’s guarding Sky Key. She’s waiting for the other Players.”

  “She’ll know we’re coming, then. We won’t have the element of surprise, Ais,” Pop points out.

  Aisling stares at the screen. “You can feed this into those monocle things, right, Marrs?”

  “Hell yes.”

  She turns to Pop. “They may know we’re coming. But we’ll know exactly where they are at any given moment. I can promise you, they don’t have anything like this.” She beams and throws an arm over Marrs. “This is amazing. Really amazing. I don’t suppose this satellite has a laser on it or anything? So we can smoke people from orbit?”

  Jordan laughs. “That kind of thing is just for the movies.”

  “Or the Makers,” Pop says.

  “But we’re not fighting them, are we, Pop?” Aisling says.

  McCloskey snores again, a three-parter, deep in the throat. She turns her body. One of her feet falls to the floor.

  “Got one more thing for us too,” Marrs says. “Packed away in the hold is a drone.”

  “Shit! I forgot about Little Bertha,” Jordan says.

  Aisling asks, “More eyes?”

  “Sure, but that’s not the best part. The best part is it carries two lightweight but very powerful air-to-surface missiles. One laser-guided, one heat-seeking.”

  Aisling beams even more.

  Pop can see what she’s thinking.

  Boy, I’m glad I didn’t ditch these people.

  She shakes Marrs’s shoulder, like he’s her best oldest buddy.

  I am really fucking glad I didn’t ditch them.

  JAGO TLALOC

  Casa Isla Tranquila, Juliaca, Peru

  It’s been two nights since Jago spoke with Aucapoma Huayna. He’s still at his parents’ estate. He’s still waiting to Play, to take Earth Key to Tiwanaku. But what the elder told him about the Cahokians and Sarah has confused him, made him pause.

  He’s not used to feeling confused.

  He hasn’t told his father all of what the elder said, but he has told Renzo everything. He needed to tell someone. And they talked about it. And they decided.

  And now that they’ve seen the Shang’s video, they know. They’ve not discovered Hilal’s message, but it doesn’t matter. Jago can no longer wait. He’s marked. They all are.

  Jago and Renzo watch the video a 2nd time.

  A 3rd.

  They don’t speak.

  They don’t watch it a 4th time.

  Jago navigates to his laptop’s music app. Finds a track by Behemoth. Plays it. Loud and driving and pounding and evil-sounding.

  Jago loves it.

  “Are you with me, Renzo?” Jago asks, the music drowning out his words.

  “Now more than ever, my Player. You’re going to need my help.”

  “You’re sure? If you cross me, I’ll kill you.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “You know I can.”

  “I know I’m too old to stop you.”

  “And too fat.”

  “Screw you.”

  They laugh uneasily, the music assaulting their eardrums. Jago’s diamond teeth flash in the light. “Get our stuff ready, but be quiet about it. Guitarrero can’t know.”

  “Of course.”

  “Papí will be out late tomorrow night for a meeting about the Cielos. At three fifteen that morning, we act. And deal with Sarah.”

  “Three fifteen.”

  “You won’t cross me?”

  “On our line and on Endgame, I swear it.”

  “Good. Tomorrow night we Play.”

  xiv

  MACCABEE ADLAI, BAITSAKHAN

  Unnamed Gravel Road, San Julian District, Juliaca, Peru

  Maccabee and Baitsakhan do not see An Liu’s video or Hilal’s message.

  And they probably wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if they did.

  Instead, they wait for the right time to pluck some low-hanging Peruvian fruit. Two mercenaries who they’ve been following for the afternoon and evening. One short, like Baitsakhan, the other big, but not quite as big as Maccabee.

  “His uniform will be snug on you,” Baitsakhan says wryly, apparently trying to joke.

  “Here they come,” Maccabee says, ignoring the poor joke.

  The Tlaloc mercenaries emerge from a rough cantina called El Mejor. It’s in a low-slung wooden building that must be 100 years old. They’re drunk, they bob and weave, laugh, their breaths are visible on the cold air. Their rifles sway under their arms.

  “The Olmec would not approve of their state,” Baitsakhan judges. The boy who has never had a drink in his life.

  “They’re standing on the edge of the world, Baits. We all are. Everyone needs to have fun now and then, right?”

  “I don’t.”

  “No. Of course you don’t.”

  The men approach from the east. Their truck, a large Chevy that for some reason lacks the red-talon emblem, is across the street to the north. A woman rounds a corner out of a blind alley. She wears a long dress over petticoats, a thick sweater, a red and blue and yellow poncho, a dark felt fedora, its crown popped out and up like a rounded top hat. The drunks set on her immediately. Poke her clothes. Squeeze her arms. The shorter one tries to lift the hem of her many-layered dress with his rifle, but she pushes it down. She shakes her head, waves a hand, tries to protest. She’s scared. The taller one looks around the barely lit street. No one.

  No one to hear her.

  No one to help.

  He raises his rifle
and points it at her head.

  Maccabee says, “He’s telling her not to scream or he’ll kill her.”

  She doesn’t scream.

  Her shoulders begin to shake.

  The larger soldier backs her toward the alleyway. The smaller one licks his lips and slings his rifle behind his back. He reaches for the woman, she recoils, the man persists. He stabs his hand toward her face and grabs her hat. He smiles as he places it on his head. The larger one backs her into the alleyway. She disappears from view. The smaller one runs after her. The larger one looks around one more time, nervous, excited. Still no one.

  He disappears as well.

  Maccabee opens the Escort’s door and puts a foot on the hardscrabble ground.

  Baitsakhan blurts, “What’re you doing?”

  “I’ve seen enough.”

  “I thought you said they should have some fun.”

  Maccabee winces. “What the hell, Baits? They’re going to rape that woman. Both of them. You think that’ll be fun for her?”

  Baitsakhan shrugs. “I wouldn’t know.”

  Maccabee steps out of the car. “No. You wouldn’t.”

  Maccabee is about to close the door when Baitsakhan holds a Kel Tec PLR-22 across the inside of the car. “You’ll want this.”

  Maccabee pulls his ancient and sharp blade from his hip, flashes his deadly pinkie ring. “I don’t need that to kill a couple of sex-starved drunks.” He runs toward the alley. Baitsakhan kicks his seat back and lays the gun on his lap. Maccabee rounds the corner in seconds and disappears. The orb sits in the car’s open ashtray above the gearshift. It glows brightly. How Baitsakhan wishes he could touch it. If he could, he would do away with the Nabataean. And he would enjoy it. This new hand that Maccabee foolishly gave him would make killing him easy.

  A single rifle report comes from the dark alley, the sound disappearing into the cool night. Baitsakhan rolls down the window with the manual hand crank. Takes a deep breath. The air is sweet, crisp. He loves the cold, wishes it were colder. It reminds him of the open Gobi and his beloved horses.