Endgame: Rules of the Game

by James Frey

  Maccabee has never seen the woman before, but there is no doubt that she resembles the Mu, Chiyoko Takeda.

  Maccabee holds out his hand to Little Alice. “Come here.” The girl sprints to him, slams into his leg, grabs it, digs her nails into his pants, his flesh. His hand clutches the top of her head, his fingers in her hair. He can smell it. Rich and sweet and powdery, like a baby’s.

  “I want my mama,” she says.

  “I know, sweetie,” he says.

  He gently—lovingly—squeezes her scalp.

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  He thinks, No, I’m the one who’s sorry.

  The woman steps all the way into the room. She’s three meters away, her rifle tucked to her shoulder. Her eye is in the sight. Her finger is on the trigger. It is aimed for Maccabee’s crooked and bruised nose.

  Maccabee smooths Alice’s hair. He tilts his head in An’s direction. The rifle moves incrementally. “Don’t let him hurt—”

  His back goes straight as a board. His neck snaps. He falls.

  He doesn’t hear Little Alice cry out. He doesn’t feel any pain.

  He didn’t even hear the shot.

  KEPLER 22B

  Teletrans chamber on board Seedrak Sare’en, active geosynchronous orbit above the Martian North Pole

  Transpot 2 ripples and shatters like broken glass, blasting debris into the teletrans chamber and throwing kepler 22b to the floor. He became aware of the Shang at the last moment, when it was too late to stop him from detonating a bomb inside the star chamber of the Shang monument.

  kepler 22b scrambles backward. His armor protected him and he is uninjured, but transpot 2 is plainly damaged beyond repair. He jumps to his feet and rips off his hood. He hastens past the holographic map of Earth. He stops in front of transpot 1 and sinks his arms into the plasmastone control panel. It shouldn’t take more than a few seconds to link transpot 1 to the portal in Xi’an. His fingers dance furiously and the liquidy stone grows over his bare arms and past his elbows. His eyes flit between transpot 1 and the map, transpot 1 and the map, and yes, there, he sees the link and yes, transpot 1 is powered up and yes, there, it is activated!

  He can go to the Nabataean! He can still finish Endgame!

  His eyes rest on the empty space of the transpot, expecting it to fill from the edges with the dark medium that will enable him to move instantly to Earth’s surface.

  But the dark medium does not appear.

  His fingers work faster, and his mind too, and the transpot lights around the edge. He checks and double-checks the switches and connections and they’re all correct but nothing happens.

  He swings to the map. The dot marking the Shang monument changes color, indicating that the portal in that room so far away—that room that contains the three keys—is no longer functional. It is utterly destroyed.

  He will have to wait until a Player gets the keys to a different star chamber now.

  He will have to simply wait.

  Unless he can finish Endgame on his own!

  He tears his hands from the plasmastone quickly, peeling a thin layer of skin from his forearms. He curses aloud and stomps from the room, crossing the ship’s hallway and entering the medbay where the La Tènes are interned. He rips the Player free from a web of wires and bindings, checks her consciousness level, yanks the mask from her face, pulls out the tubes that snake around her mouth and down her throat to her stomach and her lungs. She remains unconscious but her body reflexively gasps for oxygen, of which there is little on the Seedrak. He pulls a bag from the wall and slips it over her head, and it filters the nitrogen- and methane-laden air. She breathes. He drops her on the floor and takes a storage shroud from a far corner and wraps her body in it.

  He picks her up with one arm and moves back to the teletrans room. He looks at the map. He has a Player. All he needs is Earth Key and Sky Key, and in order to get these he has to make a guess as to which monument they will show up at next.

  He must decide correctly. If he doesn’t, all could be lost.

  He considers the situation carefully. The Shang has probably already killed the Nabataean, so Liu now has Earth Key and Sky Key. kepler 22b knows that the Shang loved the Mu. He knows that Liu is as sentimental as he is disturbed. Which means that if An Liu has any choice in the matter, and is resourceful enough to figure it out, he will take the keys to the Mu monument located at 24.43161, 123.01314.

  kepler 22b has decided.

  He shoves his free hand into the plasmastone of transpot 1 and reconfigures its connections.

  He will go to the Mu monument.

  He will go to the undersea temple of Yonaguni.

  AN LIU, NORI KO, LITTLE ALICE CHOPRA

  34.36226, 108.640262, Huzhucun, China

  “Come on. Wake up.”

  Nori Ko nudges An with her foot. She holds her rifle in one hand and Sky Key in the other. The girl slumps over Nori Ko’s shoulder, her face nestled in her neck, her arm jutting out at an odd angle. Nori Ko injected the girl with a very small dose of Demerol from her field kit. The girl was beside herself with fear and anxiety over losing the Nabataean and who knows what else.

  “Wake up, An,” Nori Ko repeats.

  An rolls onto his side.

  “There you are. Come on.”

  He moans. His hands rise to his face, they rub his skin and eyes. A red welt grows over his left eyebrow and cheek where Nori Ko struck him. “Wha-what . . .”

  “The Nabataean is dead.”

  An cranes his neck and squints at Maccabee Adlai. “How?”

  Nori Ko pats her rifle. “Don’t know why you bothered with the sword.”

  An pushes to a sit. He drapes his arms over his knees. His head hangs between them.

  You should thank her, love, Chiyoko says.

  SHIVERSHIVERSHIVER. His head quakes like a madman’s. SHIVERSHIVERSHIVER.

  Quiet! he thinks.

  You should thank her for saving the girl. You were being rash, and foolish, Chiyoko says. Thank her.

  BlinkSHIVERblink.

  An’s head snaps up. “Thank you, Nori Ko.” His eyes point to Sky Key. “I wasn’t right in the head. You’ve seen me when I’m fighting. You understand.”

  Good, Chiyoko says.

  “I couldn’t have done any of this without you. I wouldn’t be here without you. Thank you.” He says it because he needs Nori Ko, but he also says it because it’s true.

  Nori Ko reaches down and offers a hand. “I understand. Players are made to kill. You most of all.”

  “Yes.” She pulls him up. He presses a thumb into one of his nostrils, shutting one side tight. He exhales sharply through his nose, a bloody ball of phlegm smacking Maccabee’s leg. “You check him?” An asks.

  “He’s dead.”

  “Is he rigged to blow if he dies?”

  “No. Are you?” she asks, half joking.

  “Not right now,” he says seriously.

  An doesn’t notice Nori Ko roll her eyes. “He doesn’t have any explosives of any kind,” she says.

  “And Earth Key?”

  “Here.”

  Nori Ko holds out a fist. An cradles his hand underneath it. She unfurls her fingers and a stone ball drops into his palm.

  “It’s so . . . small.”

  “I’m sure that’s what the others thought too.”

  An zips it into a pocket. He picks up Nobuyuki’s sword and sheathes it, saying, “I didn’t shoot him because the Maker was coming.” Blinkshiver. “I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “What do you mean?” Nori Ko asks urgently. “Did you see the Maker?”

  An points at the cracked stones around the portal. “I did. He was stepping through there. It was like a doorway to wherever he is hiding. I greeted him with fire, but I don’t think he was hurt.”

  Nori Ko reaches for him. He flinches a little when her hand comes to rest on his shoulder. “We will have our revenge, An.”

  “That’s all that matters.”

  “Nothin
g else,” she says.

  He fingers the necklace of hair and flesh. Points his chin at the girl. “What did you do to her?”

  “Drugged. She was hysterical. She seemed to . . . care for the Nabataean. She didn’t want him to die.”

  Do not scare her again, love, Chiyoko chides.

  “I’ll try,” he says.

  Nori Ko frowns. “What’s that?”

  BLINKshiverSHIVER.

  “Nothing. Thinking out loud. The Cahokian,” he says, getting to the point. “The Olmec. They’re next.” Nori Ko nods. An unclips a bomb from his vest. Presses a few buttons and then places it carefully in the middle of Maccabee Adlai’s stomach.

  “One hour until this explodes,” he explains. “No Maker will come here again.” He pushes past Nori Ko and the girl and steps through the exit. “No one will ever come here again.”

  SARAH ALOPAY, JAGO TLALOC, SIMON ALOPAY

  Famoso Airfield, Bakersfield, California, United States

  “Hey there, sweetheart.”

  Sarah opens her eyes. Simon stands over her, kneading her shoulder gently.

  “What happened?”

  “You fell asleep.”

  She sits. “Shit.” She rubs her face. “Been doing that a lot lately.”

  “That’s what Jago said. He also said you went a few days with hardly any sleep at all in Peru, when his parents took you captive, so it’s not very surprising.”

  “He told you about that, huh?”

  “He did.”

  Sarah glances around the inside of the plane. “Where’s Jago, anyway?”

  “Outside. Trying to convince Rodney Q and Hibbert not to kill him,” Simon jokes.

  Sarah knows both men well. They’re Cahokian trainers, one specializing in extreme survival skills and the other in metallurgy and demolitions.

  Sarah rises to her feet. “So we’re in Nebraska?” she asks. “We’re home?” She’s excited to see Olowa, to hold her hand, to tell her she that she loves her, face-to-face.

  “No,” Simon says. “We’re in Bakersfield, California. The West Coast is a mess—earthquakes rippling up and down the San Andreas Fault since the impact—but the power grid, along with radio communications, GPS, and various satellite feeds, are working here.”

  Sarah frowns. “What do you mean, we’re in California?”

  “We couldn’t risk flying home. Yellowstone’s still erupting and there’s too much debris to risk it. I drove to Illinois, you know.”

  “Then we should have driven back!” Sarah says.

  “I’m sorry, Sarah. But you couldn’t abandon this plane. You know that. So long as you can find fuel, it will get you anywhere in the world.”

  “Not anywhere,” Sarah points out.

  Simon squeezes her arm gently. “We’re not going to stop Endgame in Nebraska, Sarah. Jago explained what’s happened. All of it. He convinced me. To be honest, it wasn’t that hard.”

  “All of it?”

  “All of it. Including the Cahokian Rebellion.”

  “You sound like . . . you already knew about it.”

  “I’ve known about it for a long time, and I would have told you too after you aged out. But I couldn’t while you were training. If Endgame actually happened to you then you couldn’t begin with doubt in your heart. Yeah, I knew about our rebellion, but I also believed there was a chance that the prophecy was true. It was a teeny chance, but it meant you could win, and it mean that we might be able to live a long life—together. All of the Cahokians. Or, as many of us as possible . . .” He trails off and looks at the floor. She knows he’s thinking about Tate, because that’s who she’s thinking of too.

  “Dad . . .”

  Tears fill Simon’s eyes. “I miss him.”

  Sarah’s grief catches in her throat. She wipes her nose with her arm. “Me too,” she manages to say.

  Pause.

  “I should have told you, Sarah. I understand that now, and I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Dad. I’m sorry too.”

  “For what? I’m proud of you. So proud.”

  You shouldn’t be, she thinks, the image of Christopher’s face hanging in the air next to her father.

  Simon continues, “If you’d known about the rebellion you wouldn’t have been able to stop Endgame from starting, Sarah.”

  She shrugs. “Maybe. I could’ve blown myself up at the Calling, along with every other Player and maybe kepler 22b too. That might have stopped it. It would have saved him, if nothing else, the big idiot.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “I—” Sarah says, but is cut short as Jago bounds into the cabin.

  “Sarah—Jordan’s on the radio. Hilal and Shari should be on soon too. We need to talk to them.” Jago holds out his hand. Her gaze lingers on her father—she wants to tell him that she killed Christopher, she needs to tell him, but not right now. She grips Jago’s strong fingers. “Come on,” Jago says, a smile creasing his scar.

  Sarah glances at her father once more as Jago pulls her away.

  Simon follows, still wondering what it is that Sarah needs to say.

  GREG JORDAN

  Govi-Altai Province, Mongolia

  “This is Charlie Echo One, on secure channel Alpha Romeo Five Seven, over. Repeat, Charlie Echo One, over.”

  He clicks the transmitter and waits. Silence. He’s in the cockpit of the de-winged Bombardier, his face bruised, his nose broken. Breathing hurts. Badly. The explosion from his grenade as it met the alien’s projectile threw him at least 20 feet over the rocky Mongolian terrain. He has at least one cracked rib on his right side, and what feels like two or three on the left below his shoulder blade. He has a long abrasion up the back of his right arm and a golf ball–sized lump on the back of his head, and his neck is so strained that he can’t tuck his chin to his chest. He was unconscious well into the night of the attack, and barely able to move the whole next day. It took him an hour to get to his hands and knees and crawl the 50-odd feet to the plane. Once inside he drank water and ate some crackers and threw up and ate some more crackers and began treating his wounds. He tried hard not to fall asleep, since he was positive he’d been concussed.

  Whatever. He’s the lucky one. Because he’s alive. He’s here.

  “Charlie Echo One, on secure channel Alpha Romeo Five Seven, over. Repeat, Charlie Echo One, over.”

  He takes a breath—or tries to—and is stopped dead by the pain stabbing his side. “Fuck,” he whispers. He spits into a paper cup from the galley. The saliva has trails of blood in it, which is an improvement. It’s a lot less than when he first came around, shivering in the twilight. His spit then was dark purple and thick. He was afraid he was bleeding internally, but since then it’s let up.

  The lucky one.

  A crackle on the radio. Jordan clicks his transmitter again. “Charlie Echo One, copy back, over?”

  “This is Oscar Kilo Fifteen. I read you.” Jago. “We have company?”

  “Negative,” Jordan says. “Maintain silence for third party, copy back.”

  “Copy that. I’ll get the other,” Jago says, referring to Sarah.

  Jordan is glad that at least one other group lives, especially the one that had to go back to America and so close to the impact zone. He takes three tiny sips from a plastic water bottle and waits. He wonders how much he should say. What he should reveal about his situation, about Marrs and Aisling and Pop, in case the Makers are listening.

  They must be listening.

  He doesn’t have long to contemplate his options. Hilal’s voice pops over the radio, crackling with urgency. “This is Tango Lima One. Is anyone there?”

  “Oscar Kilo Fifteen, checking in,” Sarah says.

  “Charlie Echo One, checking in,” Jordan says.

  “Excellent,” Hilal says. “Tell us your status.”

  Sarah says, “Objective complete. Near West Coast of US. Ready to move to the next monument.”

  Jordan says, “Objective complete.” He paus
es.

  Hilal says, “Objective changed on our end, but the results are positive. We have some news regarding—”

  “I gotta say something,” Jordan interrupts.

  Hilal says, “As do I, Charlie Echo One. Please, listen—”

  “I’m sure your shit is urgent too, but my news is probably more urgent. We were attacked. By one of Them. Marrs was killed. Our plane is disabled. I should have been killed too but . . . got lucky.” He spits into the cup. He hasn’t spoken so much since coming around, and every word hurts. “Didn’t see what happened to Aisling. She’s either dead or . . . she’s not here, whatever happened to her. Pop isn’t either. No sign of them.”

  “He took them.” It’s Shari. “He must have. If what we learned about Sun Key is true, then he needs one of us to finish the game. He took her!”

  Jordan turns his ear to the speaker and raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean? What have you learned?”

  “One attacked us too,” Sarah says before Shari or Hilal can explain about meeting Jenny Ulapala and her being able to read the Maker’s book.

  “What?” Shari asks.

  “We were ambushed near our objective. The Maker nearly got us, but we . . .” Sarah pauses. “We fought back. We survived.”

  “How the fu—” Jordan starts, remembering the invisible and bulletproof force that waylaid them, the thing that obliterated Marrs where he stood, the giant unseen hand that caught three grenades and let them explode in its grasp as if they were popping balloons. But then he thinks better of it. If Sarah and Jago have some way of fighting the Makers, best not to talk about it over the radio.

  Hilal says, “Charlie Echo One, please reconfirm: You cannot travel?”

  “That’s right. Might as well be on the moon. But I’m safe. Have food, water, medicine, shelter, and power. I’ll be fine till you can circle back.”

  “And you, Oscar Kilo Fifteen?”

  “Mobile and ready. We can go wherever you think we should go,” Jago says. “You were going to tell us something important about Sun Key?”