by James Frey
He paces left to right, hits his spot, spins on his heel, and paces back.
An unsheathes the katana and slides it through the gate, blocking the boy soldier’s path. He stops. He has pale skin and rosy cheeks from the chill. An guesses by his features that he is ethnically Han. Black peach fuzz lines his upper lip.
“Open the gate,” An says. “This is not a request.”
“I know who you are,” the boy says, his Mandarin thick with a Qinghai accent. “My father showed me. You’re the Shang. You’re in Endgame.”
“Who’s your father?”
“My father’s dead.”
“So is mine.”
“He sent me up here before he died. To do his job when he no longer could. To protect the homeland from . . .”
This boy isn’t even an official soldier. He’s a pretender. A misguided patriot. “Open the gate. I won’t say it again.”
The boy half spins and brings the rifle to firing position, aiming for An’s chest. An hears the door of the Defender click open behind him, but he doesn’t look. Nori Ko is undoubtedly aiming a Beretta at this child.
But his old rifle is rock steady. “You’re calm. It’s impressive,” An says.
The boy moves the muzzle from An to Nori Ko.
An pulls the sword back half a meter and angles the tip so that it presses the flesh of the boy’s stomach. It does not cut. Not yet.
“Keep the rifle on her. Put it on me again and you’re dead. Like your father.”
The boy doesn’t move.
“She’s Japanese. You know what they did to us in the war, yes?” An says, trying to stoke his nationalistic ire. An doesn’t want Nori Ko to die, but he’s curious to see what this one might do.
He does nothing. The rifle stays.
“What are they saying about me?” An asks.
The boy doesn’t speak.
An pushes the sword forward a centimeter. It effortlessly slides through the first layer of the uniform.
The boy says, “The government says you should be killed on sight, but the generals say you should be captured. Some people say you are a monster. Others say you will save all of China from Abaddon’s coming winter.”
“What do you say? What did your father say?”
He says nothing.
“Answer. I am a Player of Endgame, and I am coming home. You can facilitate that, or you can die.”
The boy shakes his head ever so slightly. “You can’t come home. No one can. Father said. ‘The borders are sealed. No one is allowed in or out. Guard them, son. Keep them.’ The border is sealed.”
No it isn’t, An thinks. He thrusts the sword forward in a flash. The hilt’s hand guard clanks into the metal gate. The boy lurches forward. He convulses and squeezes off a round, but the slug hits the pavement and bounces away harmlessly. The blade juts out of the boy’s back and drips thick blood. An slides his hand through the gate and lifts a small box off the boy’s belt. He pulls the sword free. The boy crumples to his knees. Blood pools on his lips. “The border is sealed,” the boy says before pitching onto his side.
An presses the button on the box. The gate creaks and clatters as it slides open.
“No it isn’t.”
An goes back to the car. His steps curt. His shoulders slumped. His sword dripping. He wipes a flat side of the blade on his palm, transferring some of the blood to his skin. The liquid is warm and comforting, like an old glove.
Nori Ko utters her disbelief in Japanese. An can’t understand her exact words but he doesn’t need to and he doesn’t care.
Chiyoko says, China. You’re going home.
An smiles.
He is glad to be going home with blood on his hands.
SHARI CHOPRA, AISLING KOPP, HILAL IBN ISA AL-SALT, SARAH ALOPAY, JAGO TLALOC, POP KOPP, GREG JORDAN, GRIFFIN MARRS
En route to hidden airstrip, Thailand
Shari emerges from the escape tunnel six klicks north of the hotel. It opens onto a paved road hidden between a pair of jute fields. She drives fast for a few minutes, wanting nothing more than to drive and keep driving. Away from the people behind her. Toward her daughter.
But where is Little Alice?
She looks from the road to Pop to the road to Pop. I didn’t kill him because it was the strategic thing to do. The strategic thing. What else would be strategic?
She’s so far in front of the van now that she can’t see it in the rearview mirror, but she knows they’re following her.
She knows they might have information about Little Alice.
Much as she hates it, she knows she could use their help.
She slams the brakes, coming to a screeching halt on the side of the road. She exits the car and stalks to the passenger door and opens it. She takes Pop by the collar and pulls him out, letting him fall onto the ground in a heap. She goes to the back of the car and sits on the trunk and waits, reminding herself every few moments that not killing Pop Kopp is the smart thing to do.
Even if she wants to do the not-smart thing very, very badly.
The van appears in the distance. It is not being pursued. Shari can see that they’re several kilometers west of Ayutthaya now, a tendril of smoke rising above the city’s skyline. This must have been where the hotel was. Where the people hunting Stella were.
The van is closer.
Little Alice. You’re doing this for her.
Closer.
Close.
Here.
Shari pops off the trunk as the Sprinter screeches to a halt in the middle of the road. Before the van comes to a complete stop Aisling opens her door and jumps out.
“Where is he?” Aisling demands, jogging to a stop a few meters away from Shari.
“He’s fine,” Shari says.
Aisling marches toward her. “But where?”
Shari points toward the front of the car. Aisling stops for a moment, glaring at Shari. Shari glares straight back. “I’m telling you, he’s fine.”
“He better be,” Marrs says from inside the van. “Because I’m going to fucking kill him.”
Aisling shoots Marrs an angry look before checking on Pop. He’s been dragged into the dirt and there’s a bloody nick on his neck, but Shari’s telling the truth. Aisling props Pop into a more comfortable-looking position and slowly walks back to the Harappan, eyeing her warily.
“Listen, Shari,” Aisling says, intending to offer some explanation as to why so many Harappan had to die.
But Shari’s head twitches. “No. You listen. There are things I need to say to you.” She points at the van. “You too, al-Salt. All of you, in fact.”
The van’s doors open and everyone files out. Hilal takes a spot next to Aisling. His head held high but his eyes forlorn and contrite. Jordan and Marrs stand behind them, their faces red with anger over Stella’s death and shame over the death of Shari’s family. Sarah and Jago, sensing this has little to do with them, stand off to the side.
Shari asks, “First—are we being followed?”
“I don’t think so,” Marrs says.
“Did you set that bomb off?” Jago asks.
“Yes,” Shari says. “I found a remote detonator in the car. I got lucky.”
“You mean we got lucky,” Sarah points out.
“Yes,” Shari says reluctantly. “We did. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about what I heard in that place. What I heard this Stella say. I want to talk about you.” She bites her lower lip. “I want to kill you,” she says, squinting at Aisling. “For what you did to my family and what you wanted to do to my daughter.”
Aisling takes a breath to speak but Shari cuts her off again. “No. Don’t talk. I can’t hear your voice anymore. It’s too painful. The same goes for you, Aksumite.”
Hilal nods. Aisling is stock-still.
“I know Endgame is amoral,” Shari says. “I know that the Makers are amoral. I know it must be stopped. I think I knew this the moment I understood who—what—my daughter is. My child, Little Alice
. She is the only reason I didn’t kill your line member, Aisling. The only reason I have not tried to kill you right here and now.”
“Can I ask something?” Sarah says.
“Yes.”
“What if we were to help you? What if we promised to help you find your daughter? Would you help us? Because I think we’re going to need all the help we can get.”
“Sarah speaks for me as well,” Jago says. “I’m truly sorry we intended to kill your child. But you heard us. We couldn’t do it. We wouldn’t.”
“I think I speak for Aisling and Hilal too,” Sarah says. “And for these men. Their names are Greg Jordan and Griffin Marrs.”
Smart of her to name them. Humanizes them, Shari thinks.
“I’ll consider it,” Shari says slowly. “But Hilal, I have a question. You said Stella had another supply cache in—we’re in Thailand, right?”
“We are,” Hilal says. “And yes, she does. At an airstrip in the north. This place is at least three hours away.”
Shari bites her lip again. “All right. Then let’s go. I’ll follow you. And I’ll think about your offer while we drive. Is this acceptable?”
“Sounds good to me,” Sarah says.
“Me as well,” Hilal says. The others nod silently.
After a moment Shari says, “If I do agree, I’ll have two conditions. First is that if we split up I cannot go with Aisling or her men. You have hurt me too much. Second is that we make saving my daughter a priority. We don’t place it above stopping Endgame, but we do place it above everything else, including our own lives. Little Alice is special, and if this world is to survive I believe it will need her. If you think that’s a bunch of nonsense, then at least agree to this condition because of what you’ve done. You owe me at least this much.” She takes a deep breath. “Little Alice is three years old. Every child who survives Abaddon will inherit this world. But it will be hers.” She points to the sky. “Not the Makers’.” She pats her chest. “Not mine.” She points at them. “Not yours.” She lets her hand fall to her side. “If I agree, then I ask you to help me deliver it to her.”
Afternoon crickets in the brown field. The growl of a generator in the distance. The smell of a brush fire upwind.
Defying Shari’s order for silence, Aisling says, “I swear I will help you, Shari Chopra.” But her voice is so low and so small and so heartfelt that they all understand that she’s really saying, “I’m sorry. So sorry.”
Jordan and Marrs swear it next, their voices equally contrite, before helping Aisling retrieve Pop. They take him to the van and put him in the back and then get in themselves.
Sarah and Jago promise their help and also go back to the Sprinter.
Finally, Hilal says defiantly, “I swear she will live. On my life.”
Then he climbs into the van and closes the door.
They move out, Shari following them alone in the car.
Hilal is wrong. It takes them five hours to get to Stella’s airstrip. They loop west toward Sai Yok National Park, then head north on small roads through hilly jungles. Jordan insists on this circuitous route to make sure no one follows them. They eventually link up with a main road in Tak and head north-northeast for Lampang, turning west again before reaching the city center and then leaving it to detour deep into the jungle.
As they drive Hilal briefs them on Stella’s plan. He says that the airstrip has three Bombardier Global 8000 jets, each modified for extended range and equipped with enough food, weapons, and supplies to last them weeks. “She wanted us to form three teams that would go out into the world in search of Sun Key. Stella and I were to be one such team. We were to go to the Koori monument in Australia and then to the Mu monument in the South China Sea.”
“I assume Sarah and I would be another?” Jago says.
“Naturally. She wanted you to go to the Cahokian and Olmec monuments. You know where these are, yes?”
“Of course,” Sarah says.
“Sí. I know La Venta. No problema.”
Hilal points to the sky, which is now clear and dark, a few stars here and there. “What will be a problem for you is Abaddon. It is due to hit very soon. Your side of the world will be very . . .”
“Different,” Sarah says dejectedly.
“Yes. Your lines’ monuments, even though they are thousands of miles from where the asteroid is supposed to hit, may not survive.”
“One way to find out,” Jago says. “We go to them.”
Hilal strokes his arm—the same arm that’s wrapped with the wooden ouroboros from his fight with Wayland Vyctory back in Las Vegas—and shrugs.
Sarah gets the impression he’s not telling them something.
Before Sarah can ask what this is, Aisling says, “And what about us? Obviously we’re not heading to my line’s monument, since Stonehenge is long gone.”
Hilal tilts his head. “Stella suggested the Donghu monument in Mongolia followed by the Shang one in China.”
“I’m game, Hilal, but by my count you’re leaving four out,” Jordan says. “The Nabataean, Minoan, and Harappan monuments—and yours.”
Hilal holds up a finger. “You are right, Mr. Jordan. I can assure you that the Aksumite monument has already been searched and is being guarded by my master and our line members. Sun Key is not there. Categorically. And Wayland’s people will not be able to breach it or destroy it.”
“And the other three?” Sarah asks.
“We will be in contact as we finish searching these places, and will decide who will go to them after this first phase. With any luck, we may not have to. Hopefully we will have found Sun Key and thereby prevented Adlai or Liu from winning.”
“About that,” Aisling says. “Based on the way it’s gone so far, I’m pretty sure we can agree that the Shang isn’t interested in winning.”
“So you would consider him an ally?” Hilal asks incredulously.
Aisling shakes her head vehemently. “Fuck no. He’s got his own agenda, whatever that is. I’m only saying I don’t think he wants to win. That doesn’t mean he wants to stop Adlai from winning or stop Endgame or make sure the Makers don’t get whatever it is they want. It simply means that, well, he’s unpredictable.”
“Honey,” Sarah says, “we’re all unpredictable at this point.”
“True,” Aisling says with a snicker.
“We’re almost there, guys,” Marrs says from the wheel. “Another klick or two up this road, if your coordinates are right, Hilal.”
The van dips through a large bump in the road as Hilal says, “They are correct, Mr. Marrs.”
They fall into silence for this last leg of their trip. The road they’re on is not much more than a dirt track, and the jungle is tight on all sides, including overhead. Each of them is preoccupied with what’s coming—the concerted search for Sun Key, yes, but also the impact of Abaddon. How will it alter their world? They know it will be big, but will they feel it on this side of the planet? Will it be a geologic-level extinction event like the one that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago? Will the entire planet be shrouded in darkness for months or years, or will they be spared an impact winter? Will all the plants and all the animals that depend on them die? If the sun is blotted out, how long will it be until they can stand on the earth and look up and see the life-giving solar disk again?
And what of humanity? Will nearly everyone die, as promised by the Makers? If Adlai manages to win, will his line really be the only one to survive? How will the Makers ensure that everyone else perishes?
None of them can answer these questions. No amount of training or studying has changed this fact. All they can do now is act, and do this in good faith, with hope in their hearts. The truth is that no matter what the prophecies say, life must be lived to be experienced. The rules of the game may have changed, but this rule is immutable.
Time will tell.
What will be will be.
Shari thinks of these things too as she follows the van into the jungle. She do
esn’t know the details of their plan, but she does know that the reckoning promised by the Makers is imminent.
Finally, at a little after midnight, they stop at a chain-link fence running right through the jungle’s undergrowth. Shari watches as Hilal jumps out of the van and moves to a kiosk hidden under a thick-trunked tree. A few red lights flicker here and there and then the fence starts to slide open. Hilal—stark-looking in the halogen glow of her sedan’s headlights—gives Shari a little salute.
She doesn’t salute back.
He wouldn’t have been able to see her anyway.
As Shari follows the van through the gate she notices several guns mounted on swivel turrets and a few cameras here and there. She concludes—rightly—that when the gate closes behind her, the perimeter of this hidden airstrip will be guarded by a computerized sentinel system.
Shari follows the van down the length of a smooth runway. It is well hidden. Nearly the entire length of the strip is covered by jungle canopy, with an opening in the trees at one end for takeoffs and landings.
They stop near three private jets parked on the side of the tarmac. Shari stays behind the wheel while the others get out and form a semicircle near her car. They’re waiting for her.
“My enemies are my friends. For now. My enemies are my friends,” she repeats, trying to convince herself. “I’ll use them to get Little Alice. Then . . . then I don’t know.”
She gets out and joins them. They stand in silence for a moment.
Friends.
Enemies.
No. The Maker is the enemy right now.
“Well?” Sarah asks. “You in?”
“Yes,” Shari says. “I’m in.”
They will leave at first light.
Right after Abaddon falls into the ocean on the other side of the world.
But they don’t talk about Abaddon. It’s too much. They can’t.
Instead they get ready, spending the night taking care of business.
They clean off Stella’s body and dress her in fresh clothes and bind her in a stark-white sheet from one of the airplanes. Hilal wraps a bullet and the red bloom of a local flower he does not know the name of in a piece of cloth and tucks this package into Stella’s rigor-mortised hand. They bury her in an unmarked grave under a tall rubber tree, Jordan and Marrs pushing back tears, Hilal giving a brief but heartfelt eulogy for this remarkable woman he knew for less than a week.
