Rules of the Game

“Destroyed you,” Jago says, also letting down his guard a little. “I also tried, Celt. I couldn’t do it. It may have been selfish, but I think Sarah was right not to kill Sky Key. She was a child. A baby. Whatever happens, she was right.”

Aisling sighs. “Fuck.” No one speaks for a moment. “I get it. Truth is, I was praying the whole way up here that I wouldn’t have to do it up close and personal. That I’d have a clear and long shot with this.” She jostles her rifle and peers around Sarah into the dark room at the end of the hall. “But I guess I missed, right?”

Sarah nods. “She’s gone. She was repeating ‘Earth Key’ over and over and I think she touched it and—”

Jago clicks his tongue. “Poof.”

“What do you mean, ‘poof’?” Jordan asks.

“They just disappeared,” Sarah says. “It’s not that crazy when you consider that about thirty minutes ago Jago and I and the other two Players were in Bolivia.”

“Bullshit,” Aisling says.

“What, you didn’t teleport here too?” Jago asks, trying to make a joke, even while he still aims at Aisling’s temple.

Aisling doesn’t care anymore. It’s not the first time someone’s aimed a gun at her and it won’t be the last. “No, we didn’t teleport,” Aisling says. “Just good old-fashioned planes, trains, and automobiles … and feet. Lots of feet.”

“But Sky Key—she is gone, right?” Jordan asks.

Sarah nods. “Her mother’s in there, though.”

Aisling double-takes and tries to peer into the room. “Who—Chopra?”

“Yeah,” Sarah says.

“Alive?” Aisling asks, her voice a little too desperate.

“Sí,” Jago answers.

“Shit,” Jordan says. “That’s not good.”

“Why not?” Sarah asks.

Aisling says, “We uh … we just killed her entire family.”

“¿Que?” Jago says.

“This is a Harappan stronghold,” the old man explains from the back of the room, pride lacing his words. “Except it wasn’t strong enough.”

“She’s not going to like me too much when she wakes up,” Aisling says. “I wouldn’t like me, either.”

“Shit,” Sarah says.

“Sí. Mierda.”

“We should kill her,” the old man says.

But Aisling raises a hand. “No. Jordan’s right. It’s been too much today. Marrs”—Sarah and Jago realize that Aisling is talking to the man with the walkie-talkie—“you can keep her all Sleeping Beauty, right?”

“Sure, no problem,” Marrs answers, his voice nasal and high-pitched.

Jordan says, “Hey, we all sound cool. We’re cool, right?”

“Cooler,” Sarah says. But she gets where he’s going and lowers her gun. Jago does the same.

Aisling lays her rifle on the floor. “Listen, Sarah, Jago. I’m done Playing. I thought for a while that I would try to win, but there’s no winning here. We’re all losers—maybe the one who wins will end up being the biggest loser of all. Who wants the right to live on Earth if it’s ugly and dying and full of misery? Not me.”

“Not me either,” Sarah says, thinking again of how she set the whole thing in motion when she took Earth Key at Stonehenge.

Thinking again of Christopher and her guilt.

Aisling drifts toward Sarah, holding out her hand. “When me and Jordan and Marrs teamed up I told them that if we couldn’t win Endgame then we would try to find like-minded Players. We’d give them the option of teaming up with us so we could stop this whole fucking mess. For instance, if I ever find Hilal, I want to fight with him. He was right, way back at the Calling. We should have worked together then. Hopefully it’s not too late to work together now.”

Sarah steps closer but doesn’t take Aisling’s hand. “How do we know we can trust you?”

Aisling frowns, the corner of her mouth turning up. “You don’t know. Not yet.”

“Trust must be earned,” Sarah says, as if she’s quoting something out of a training manual.

Aisling nods. She’s heard that. They all have. “That’s right. But you can have some faith. I didn’t shoot you when I tried to kill Sky Key. I didn’t shoot you in the back in Italy when I had the chance, though I arguably should have. Pop over there certainly thinks so.” The old man grunts. “And a few days ago I thought the same thing. But maybe I didn’t do it so we could meet right now. Maybe I didn’t because the three of us aren’t done yet. What will be will be, right?”

“Sí. What will be will be,” Jago mutters.

Aisling says, “If we try to stop this thing together, really try, then I won’t hurt you. None of these guys will. You have my word.”

Sarah cradles her injured left arm. She stares at Jago and tilts her head. Suddenly all she wants is to fall asleep in Jago’s arms. She can tell that he wants the same thing. He snaps off a quick nod. Sarah leans into his body.

“Okay, Aisling Kopp,” Jago says for them. He puts out his hand and takes the Celt’s. “We’ll put our faith in you, and you will do the same with us. We’ll kill Endgame. Together. But one of my many questions can’t wait.”

Aisling smiles. It’s as if a gust of air has blown into the hallway. Sarah feels it too, and relief washes over her. No more fighting on this day. Jordan makes a low whistle and Marrs lights his cigarette. He crosses the hallway, mumbling something about checking on Shari Chopra as he passes Sarah and Jago. The only one who stays on edge is the old man.

Aisling ignores him and gives her full attention to her new allies. Maybe her new friends. “What question is that, Jago Tlaloc?”

“If Sky Key survived and we missed our chance, then how do we go about stopping Endgame now?”

Aisling looks to Jordan. “I’m guessing that’s where you come in, isn’t it?”

Jordan shrugs. “Yeah.”

Aisling sighs. “I know you’ve been holding something back since the day we met, Jordan. So, you ready to get on the level here?”

Marrs laughs loudly from the next room. Jordan straightens. He says, “Friends, it’s time you met Stella Vyctory.”

MACCABEE ADLAI, LITTLE ALICE CHOPRA

South Park Street Cemetery, Kolkata, India

Maccabee thumbs a Zippo lighter. The flame pops and flickers. They are in a small and pitch-black chamber, one that Maccabee doesn’t recognize. Apparently, Maccabee has been teleported somewhere beyond his control yet again.

He lowers the flame and there, yes, is Sky Key. She trembles before him. Big eyes, beautiful dark hair. Fists balled at her chest. A terrified child.

All the girl can manage is, “Y-y-y-y-y-you.”

“My name is Maccabee Adlai. I’m a Player, like your mother.” His words are muffled, his voice twangy from the beating he took from Jago Tlaloc before he woke up here in the darkness. He reaches up and shifts his jaw back into place with a loud snap!

“Y-y-y-y-you.”

His whole body hurts, especially his groin, the pit of his stomach, his left pinkie, and his jaw. The pinkie is bent completely backward. At least he has his ring. He flips the ring’s lid shut so the poisoned needle is covered, then he cracks his finger straight by pushing it against his thigh. A line of pain shoots up his arm and into his neck. The finger won’t bend at the knuckles, but it’s not sticking out at an odd angle anymore.

When I do win this thing there’ll hardly be any of me left, he thinks.

“Y-y-y-y-y-you,” the girl says again.

He moves toward her. She recoils. Color drains from her face. She can’t be older than three. So young. So innocent. So undeserving of what’s happened to her.

The game is bullshit, Shari Chopra said. And in that moment Maccabee agreed with her. He realizes that this sentiment was probably the one that saved Shari’s life—the one that prompted him to knock her out instead of gun her down. Looking at Alice now, he doesn’t regret this decision.

So young.

“Your mother lives,” Maccabee says. “I saved her from a bad person. He came for her and I … I stopped him.” He almost said killed, but that would be inappropriate, wouldn’t it? With a child? He says, “She lives, but she’s not here—wherever we are.”

“Y-y-y-y-you,” she repeats, her eyes widening.

Maccabee shuffles forward another foot, his chin tucked to his chest, the back of his head grazing the stone ceiling. The air is damp. The only sound is their breath. Maccabee wiggles his fingers at her, the unmoving pinkie like a stick growing out of his hand. “It’s okay, sweetie. I won’t hurt you. I promised your mother I wouldn’t and I meant it.” He stumbles over something. Looks down. A clump of cloth.

“Y-y-y-y-you. From my dream. You-you-you hurt people …”

“I won’t hurt you,” he repeats. He lowers the lighter and pushes the thing on the ground with his foot. It’s heavy. He looks. A limb. A leg. A hole burned in the cargo pocket on the thigh. He sweeps the Zippo through the air, illuminating the blood-spattered face of Baitsakhan, his eyes vacant and staring, slack-jawed, the throat torn open by the bionic hand that still clutches the cervical section of his own spine.

Baitsakhan.

Take.

Kill.

…

Lose.

His Endgame is over.

Good riddance.

Maccabee spits on the floor as the girl gasps and points. “No! Not you! Him! He is the one! He took Mama’s finger! He hurt people! He is the one! He is the one!”

Maccabee kicks the Donghu’s body so that it flips facedown. He steps between Sky Key and Baitsakhan. She shouldn’t see that. No child should see that.

“It’s okay. You’re okay. He can’t hurt you.”

“Mama.”

“He can’t hurt her either. Not anymore.”

Maccabee is suddenly afraid that Shari also made the trip to wherever they are. And the Olmec too, and maybe the Cahokian. He spins, searching the rest of the chamber, but no one is there. It is just him and Sky Key and—

“Earth Key!” he says.

WHERE IS IT?

The girl shudders. She jumps up and then her body stiffens as if she’s possessed. Her right hand falls to her side, her left hand juts out, palm up. Maccabee leans closer. She doesn’t move. It’s like her fear has been spirited away and replaced with emptiness. Shock, Maccabee thinks. Or maybe a force more powerful.

He peers into her hand. A little ball. Earth Key.

He swipes it from her. Her eyebrow twitches but otherwise she’s expressionless.

“I’ll keep that.” He slips it into a zippered pocket on his vest and pats it.

“Earth Key,” she says.

“That’s right,” he says. He inspects the small room. Where the hell are we? The floor is earth, everything else is featureless stone. There are no windows, no doors. No way in or out. As he looks around he runs a hand over his torso, checking to see what he’s got to work with. No guns, but he has his smartphone, a pack of gum, and his ancient Nabataean blade.

A wave of pain crashes over him as the adrenaline fades from his system. He realizes that everything that’s happened recently—finding Sarah and Jago in Bolivia, tracking them through the Tiwanaku ruins, getting teleported somewhere through that ancient portal, fighting, killing, fighting some more, and then getting knocked clean out by the live-wire Olmec, who is 20 or 30 kilos lighter than him, and then getting teleported yet again—all of that probably happened in only the last couple hours.

He needs rest. Soon.

“Earth Key says that …” the girl says in a monotone.

His pant leg vibrates.

“… says that one is coming.”

It vibrates violently. He touches his leg—the tracker orb!

Another Player!

He looks left and right and up and down and can’t figure out where to go. Is another Player going to appear in this small room? Is he going to have to fight with a broken-down body in this box? This, this—sarcophagus?

He whips around, the lighter’s flame blows out. He thumbs the flint. Flick, flick, flick—the sparks don’t take. But in the total darkness something catches his eye. Right before his face. A thin white line. He follows it, tracing a faint square on the ceiling. He stuffs the lighter in a pocket and places both hands on the stone overhead and pushes. It’s heavy and he strains and grunts as his panting mingles with the scraping sound of rock on rock. An opening. Light. Hot air pours into the small room as he gets his fingers around the edge of the six-centimeter-wide slab, heaving it away. He gets on his tiptoes and looks over the edge.

They are in a hole in the ground. The hole is covered by a pillared gothic cupola like one that might cover a grave or a monument. A point of orange light from a streetlamp somewhere, the muted glow of dusk in the sky beyond the cupola, the black boughs of leafy trees hanging over everything like a curtain. A dove coos and then flaps away. The muted jostle of a city—traffic, AC hum, voices—in the near distance.

Maccabee grabs Sky Key and pushes her out of the hole. He jumps out. They’re in the middle of a vast cemetery from a bygone era, every grave marker grand and significant and carved from stone—domed Victorian tombs that must hold entire families, and seven-meter-tall obelisks and basalt pedestals that weigh thousands of kilos. Many are covered in moss and lichen and all are splotchily weatherworn. Plants grow in every available nook and patch—grasses, palms, hardwoods, weeds, sprawling banyan trees with their air roots diving down to the ground here and there. It’s one of the most impressive cemeteries Maccabee has ever seen.

Sky Key steps onto the path, her arms glued to her sides, her legs moving like a robot’s. She’s completely zoned out but manages to say, “One is coming. He is close.”

Maccabee gets out the orb with his right hand and pulls his knife with his left. His unbending pinkie sticks out. As when Alice Ulapala closed in on his hideout in Berlin, the orb simply glows its warning, not giving any intelligence as to who is coming or from which direction.

Maccabee knows that for the first time in his life he is going to have to run. He’s too hurt and too unarmed and too disoriented and too vulnerable with Sky Key to stand his ground.

He stuffs the orb in a pocket and snags the girl, tucking her under his arm like a parcel.

He takes off along a dirt path, the cemetery dark and claustrophobic, until the trees and massive graves give way to an open area. A three-meter-high stone wall rises in front of them, plain concrete buildings beyond it on the street side.

Where the hell am I? This doesn’t look like Peru or Bolivia at all. Or even South America!

He goes to the solid wall, peers left then right. It’s rough enough to scale, but not while carrying Sky Key. He turns left and trots along, keeping the wall on his right. The orb in his pocket has calmed a little, so maybe whoever’s coming got thrown off the trail.

Sky Key weighs about 15 kilos. He holds her sideways, her head forward and her legs flopping behind him. It’s like he’s carrying a life-sized toddler doll.

Near the interior corner of the wall Maccabee comes across a cache of gravediggers’ tools: a shovel stuck in a pile of sand, a pickax, a coil of sturdy rope. He carefully puts down Sky Key and cuts a four-meter length of rope. He lashes it around his waist and shoulders and then works Sky Key onto his back and loops the rope under her butt and twice over her back. He pulls her tight, tying a hitch in the X of rope that crosses his chest. She’s secure in this makeshift child carrier, and he has the use of both hands. He feels her quick breath on his neck. She remains zoned out, likely from the trauma of being taken from her mama, and from coming into contact with Earth Key.

He wants to climb the wall and get out onto the street of whatever city he’s in, but the wall is smoother here and there’s nothing for him to grab. He’s about to double back to where he can climb but then freezes. The rope! The pickax!

He ties the rope to the wooden handle and hurls the pickax over the wall, creating a kind of grappling hook. He gives it a hard tug and it holds. He places his feet on the wall and starts up.

But then, at the same instant, the orb in his pocket jostles like a tiny earthquake, and Sky Key shakes off her zombie-like state and grabs a handful of his hair and yanks it. He loses his footing and swings a half meter to the side. The air cracks around him. A chunk of wall explodes next to his face, followed by a pistol report.

“He’s here,” Sky Key says.

Maccabee dives behind a stone grave marker as three more rounds tear by them, each barely missing. Maccabee kicks the shovel into the air and snatches it. He spins to his right, but Sky Key yanks his hair again and says, “Other way.”

That would take them across the line of fire, but Maccabee trusts her. He quickly guesses that the male Player must be the Shang, An Liu. Marcus and Baits are dead, Jago’s with Sarah, and Hilal is probably recovering from his wounds back in Ethiopia.

And if it is Liu, then he’s probably got some bombs.

That means that Maccabee has to MOVE!

He takes a shovelful of sand and throws it into the air, creating a smokescreen, and sprints behind it. He hears a muted clunk, and he spins around a thick tree trunk and throws his hands over Sky Key’s head and boom! An explosion from where they just were, debris showering all around, leaves whipping along on the shock wave, bits of wood and rock pinging here and there. It was a small explosion but big enough to have hurt them if he hadn’t moved.

“Turn right here,” the girl says calmly.

He’s blind in this place and his body aches from everything that’s happened but she did save them, so he listens.

“Left here. Straight. Left. Left. Straight. Right. Left, left, left.”

He follows every instruction, even if it feels like they’re going in circles. They bob and weave, pivot and fly. They’re narrowly missed by several more shots and one more small explosion. She’s transforming the dense cemetery into a maze, and it’s working. Somehow she knows where An is. Maccabee realizes that this girl, at least in this moment, is vastly superior to the mysterious orb that he’s been using to track the Players.

Finally they round a black stone block and find an arched break in the wall big enough for a car. Two small buildings flanking it are painted pink. A wrought-iron fence is on the far side. Past that a wide street, cars moving along, a late-model motorcycle parked on the curb.

The exit. It’s 10 meters away, a straight shot. But those 10 meters are completely exposed.

“It’s too far,” Maccabee says. The orb in his pocket moves back and forth so fast he’s afraid it’s going to jump out. “He’ll kill us.”

Sky Key scratches the side of his neck. “Here,” she says.

“I see the exit, but it’s too far!”

They don’t have more than a few seconds. She scratches harder, begins to claw at his flesh. “Here!” she whispers into his ear.

Then Maccabee understands. Something is in his neck: a tracker. One that An and who knows how many other Players have been using to follow him!

He whips up his knife and expertly carves a lump of skin from his neck. He’s careful not to nick anything important or shred a muscle or tendon. The pain isn’t too bad, but there’s a lot of blood.

“That’s it,” the girl says.

Maccabee pulls the knife away and stares into the lump of flesh and, yes, there it is. A small black blob.

He balls up the flesh and chucks it away. The bloody projectile sails over a gravestone and disappears. He gets ready to run, but the girl digs a nail into this latest wound and whispers, “Wait.”

He stifles a cry and does what he’s told. One second. Two. Three.

“Now. Straight.”

He drops the shovel and runs as fast as he can for the exit. No shots come. They were waiting for An to take the bait of the discarded tracker, and apparently he did.

The exit gets closer and closer and they’re going to make it. A person walks by outside, a woman wearing an orange sari. A bus drives past and Maccabee sees a cigarette ad on the side. The writing is Hindi.

India. We’re in India.

They’re going to make it. The orb in his pocket is going crazy now. He reaches down to secure it but then it pops out and he skids to a stop.

“Leave it!” the girl says.

Maccabee backtracks, the orb glowing bright and yellow and bouncing around on the ground like a living thing.

“No!” she says.

Something catches Maccabee’s eye. There, on the path, is An Liu, a dark pistol in his fist. He hasn’t seen them yet, he’s swinging back and forth and Maccabee almost has the orb but then—too late. An Liu locks onto Maccabee and Maccabee dives sideways and the orb glows so bright that its light eats up the wall and the path and An too. Shots come but all miss since An is blinded by the light and can’t see Maccabee anymore.

“Leave it! I am using it! Go!” the girl implores.

Once again he does what he’s told. He vaults toward the street. He sees the motorcycle and breaks open its ignition switch and hot-wires it in the blink of an eye. He jumps on. It zings to life and they take off, fast. The light from the orb chokes out everything for 20 meters now and people on the street are yelling, pointing, running.

“I am using it,” the girl repeats in a soft voice, her head slumping onto Maccabee’s shoulder. “I am using it.” Her body feels limp. She is exhausted too.

A block later the light gives way to a high-pitched whine and then it’s snuffed out and then—FFFUHWHAM!—the entire street puffs up in a ball of smoke. Maccabee dips the bike around a corner, its rear wheel skidding and his foot planting on the ground as a pivot. Bits of buildings and cars and trees whip through the air at their backs.

The girl passes out, the Indian city is a blur, and for the moment An Liu is no longer hunting them.

For the first time in his life Maccabee ran from a fight. And it worked. With the help of this small, remarkable, maybe possessed Sky Key, it worked.

I won’t let anyone hurt you, he thinks.

And he means it.

AN LIU

South Park Street Cemetery, Kolkata, India

An kneels. He shakes his head, trying to get it clear.

Almost got them.

SHIVER.

Almost.

BLINK.

That was a big blast.

An had thrown a grenade into the light at the last second, but that explosion was from something else. The Nabataean must have planted that glowing thing and set it off in order to create some space and some time. It was successful. The Nabataean is gone now. With the first two keys.

Gone.

BLINK.

An peeks under his shirt at the Chiyoko necklace. Like everything around him it’s covered in a fine dust. He pulls the necklace over his head and shakes it gently, wipes it with his fingertips, blows on it. When it’s reasonably clean he slips it back on.

He brushes himself off, finds his SIG. He loads a new magazine. Sirens in the distance.

Shivershiver.

The world knows about Endgame, and Abaddon is coming, but the law isn’t all the way gone. Not yet.

He trots to the exit. The Nabataean is gone, and An’s bike is gone too.