Endgame: The Calling (11 page)

In less than 48 hours she will sneak into the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and find whatever it is that is waiting for her.

What is waiting for all the Players of Endgame.

Chiyoko watches the crowd of tourists. She nibbles on spicy rice crackers from a little white paper bag. She is convinced that other Players are here now, doing the same thing she is. Scattered among the Chinese throng are foreigners, and every one intrigues her.

Especially the young ones.

The African boy with the lollipop.

The Southeast Asian girl decked out in Hello Kitty gear.

The pale white girl with flame-red hair and skull-shaped headphones.

The brooding Indian boy in the cornflower-blue shirt.

The Central Asian girl smoking a thin cigarette as she swipes her thumb across the screen of her iPhone.

The squat blond girl wearing tight white jeans and leather Birkenstocks.

The sinewy pockmarked boy with the scar on his face.

Surely they are not all Players, but some are, some definitely are.

Chiyoko stands, walks toward the tower. She is determined to remain alone throughout Endgame. Any alliances she makes will be temporary and opportunistic. She finds friendships to be burdensome, so why bother with any in the crucible that is about to consume them? Nor will she strive to make enemies. These are even more annoying than friends. No, her plan is simply to follow for as long as she can. She will use her best skills and attributes—silence, furtiveness, ordinariness—to her advantage.

She walks to the pagoda. She is so unobtrusive and quiet that the guards don’t notice her, don’t ask for her ticket.

She moves inside. It is cooler there. The sounds are clearer. If there weren’t so many people inside, she would like it. There is so much noise in China. Very few understand the value of silence like Chiyoko.

She makes her way to the stairs, moving without any sound.

I must choose wisely
, she thinks. She must pick the Player or Players she believes has the best early chance. Then she will shadow and track that Player. When they are not looking, she will take whatever it is she wants or needs and move on.

She makes her way up, up, up. She reaches the top of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. There is a small door at the back of the room. She makes her way to it, casually inspects it. Etched into its wood, in very small markings, is the word
ROBO.

As far as ciphers go, it is child’s play. But since it is recognizable as an English word fragment, it goes unnoticed.

Chiyoko notices, though.

Chiyoko understands.

And the others will too, if they haven’t already.

She turns from the door and goes to the western window. She peers out over the sprawl of Xi’an. There is the crater, where the other pagoda stood, still smoldering, six days after the impact. The wind carries the smoke to the south in black and gray tendrils.

A small group of monks arrives, clad in orange and red robes. Like her, they are quiet. Perhaps they also have dedicated themselves to silence.

She wonders if they’ll scream when it all comes crumbling down.

Chiyoko won’t scream. When the world goes to hell, Chiyoko will do what she always does. Slip away unnoticed.

Xi’an Garden Hotel, Dayan District, Xi’an, China

Christopher watches the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. He has not seen Sarah. But he has been looking, and he knows that she’s out there. He’d like to think that she can sense his love, but that would be crazy. He needs to keep his head on straight, to go about this rationally.

He didn’t travel halfway around the world, chasing his girlfriend who is involved in an apocalyptic game of allegedly alien design, to get sidetracked by silly puppy-love emotions.

His hotel is across the street from the pagoda. He has a telescope and two pairs of binoculars mounted on tripods. He has a DSLR with a 400-mm fixed lens. All of them face the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

He watches.

Waits.

Dreams of seeing her, touching her, smelling her, kissing her.

Looking into her eyes and seeing love returned.

He watches.

Waits.

And on the night of the solstice it happens.

He sees seven people sneak into the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. Most are disguised, hidden, incognito. He can’t be sure if any of them is Sarah. Sarah said there were 12 Players, so he assumes the other five must have gone in from a different entrance, or gone undetected. He can’t cover all the angles from his room.

Snap snap snap.

He takes pictures.

Lots of pictures.

Only one person gives him a good image. A girl. Dark-tanned skin. Wearing colorful scarves over a form-fitting jumpsuit. Full black hair peeking out from a head wrap. The glint of brilliant green eyes.

He is tempted to go too. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he is afraid. Of the other Players. Of Endgame. Of—he can hardly believe he is thinking it—the Sky People.

But mostly he is afraid of what Sarah would look like—what she would say, how she would feel—if she were to see him now.

He knows the time isn’t right.

Not yet.

He needs a moment where he can swoop in and help her, where he can prove his worth and his love. He doesn’t want to seem like a stalker, lingering around the pagoda like some kind of Endgame groupie. That would be embarrassing. So he waits. For an hour. Two. Two and a half.

Nothing.

He waits.

His eyes are heavy. His chin is in his hand. His elbow is on his knee. There’s nothing, no one.

He can’t fight sleep anymore.

He’s been up for over 27 hours.

And just like that, he is out.

35.2980, 25.1632
^xlvii

Big Wild Goose Pagoda, Xi’an, China

Up, up, up.

Marcus checks his watch.

Keep going up.

12:10 a.m.

He’s late.

Up.

How could he have been so stupid?

Up.

He should have stayed within walking distance, not at a hotel in the walled part of the city.

Up.

Not have-to-take-a-taxi distance.

Up, up.

A taxi that hit another taxi, which plowed into a couple standing on the side of the road eating fried persimmon cakes out of a red plastic bag. Both died on the spot. And Marcus’s driver took the damn cakes to boot.

Up.

His heart beating hard, beating hard.

Going up.

Finally he stops. He faces a low door at the top of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. Etched on the door is the word
ROBO
. Is it really this easy?

Seems it is.

No one’s seen him, or if someone has, they haven’t called Marcus out. Maybe the guards have been bribed. Maybe they have been bribed by one of
Them
.

It’s about to begin. Provided he didn’t miss it by being—he looks again—11 minutes late and counting.

How
stupid
of him to be late.

Marcus puts his hand on the door. The other Players have already arrived. They must have.

He pushes it in.

A narrow wooden staircase is behind the door. Marcus draws his bronze knife from a sheath under his pant leg. He enters and closes the door. It’s dark. The staircase goes up half a flight and makes a turn.

His heart beats harder.

His clothing soaks up sweat.

Marcus is the son of Knossos. A child of the Great Goddess. A Freeborn. An ancestral Witness to the Breath of Fire.

He is the Minoan.

He squeezes the hilt of his knife. It’s adorned with glyphs understood only by him and the man who taught him. All the others who understood are dead.

The old stairs creak. The wind outside whistles over the roof tiles. The smell of smoke, from the crater, wafts over and through the still-standing Big Wild Goose Pagoda. The stairs end.

Marcus is at the edge of a small room. It is shrouded in darkness, and he can barely make out any details. There is no movement.

He breathes.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

“Anyone there?”

Nothing.

He fishes in his pocket for a Bic lighter.

Flick flick flick.

A weak flame ignites.

His heart skips a beat.

Stacked at the far end of the room like logs are the Players. Each is wrapped in a silver shroud and blindfolded with a simple black cloth. Though it is hot and stuffy, he can see their breath on the air, as if it’s winter.

A trap?
he wonders.

He takes a tentative step forward.

He can make out features on three of the others. One girl looks Middle Eastern, maybe Persian. She has fine, copper skin; thick black hair; a hooked nose; and high cheeks. A boy—and he is undoubtedly young—is tanned and has round cheeks. His face is locked in a grimace. A tall girl has short-cropped red hair and freckles and lips so thin and pale they are practically nonexistent. She looks like she’s dreaming of rainbows and kittens, not the end of the world.

He takes another step, drawn to the pile of Players like a moth to a flame.

You are late.

The voice is in Marcus’s head, like the voice of his thoughts, only it’s not the voice of his thoughts.

Marcus begins to say he’s sorry, but before the words can pass his lips, the voice comes again.

It is not preferable, but it is acceptable.

The voice is pleasant, deep, neither male nor female.

“You can hear—”

I can hear your thoughts.

“I’d prefer to speak.”

Fine.

The others did too.

Except for one.

“Why are they wrapped up like that?”

So I can take them.

“You need me to put on one of those things too?” Marcus is impatient. His lateness makes it worse.

Yes.

“Okay. Where do I go?”

Here.

“Where?” Marcus sees nothing. He blinks—a routine, taken-for-granted, split-second blink—and when he opens his eyes, floating before him is one of the silvery shrouds. He can see faint markings in gold, green, and black on the inside of the cloth. He recognizes some of the characters—Arabic, Chinese, Minoan, Grecian, Egyptian, Mesoamerican, Sanskrit—but many are unknown. Some must belong to the other Players. Some must belong to whoever is speaking to him.

“Where are you?” he asks as he takes the shroud.

Here.

“Where?” The cloth has substance but is virtually weightless, and it’s cold, freezing cold.

Everywhere.

“What do I do?”

Put it on, Marcus Loxias Megalos. Time, as you understand it, is of the essence.

He pulls the shroud over his shoulders, and it’s like stepping out of a sauna and into Antarctica. The sensation is shocking, and would be debilitating if not for the pair of unseen hands wrapping a blindfold around his head. As soon as the blindfold is in place, Marcus falls into an immediate slumber. It’s so deep that he can’t feel his body. There’s no cold or heat. There’s no pain or pleasure. He is neither comfortable nor uncomfortable. It’s as though his body has ceased to exist.

What consumes him is the image of a vast black nothingness perforated by points of light in a rainbow of colors. Blotting out this cosmic scrim is a silent, cratered, tumbling rock that gets closer and closer but never arrives.

There’s no telling how big it is.

Or how small.

It just is.

Tumbling.

Closer and closer and closer.

I flew around a mountain and then we came to a valley. Directly below us was a gigantic white pyramid. It looked as if it were from a fairy tale. The pyramid was draped in shimmering white. It could have been metal, or some other form of stone. It was white on all sides. What was most curious about it was its capstone: a large piece of precious gem–like material. I was deeply moved by the colossal size of the thing.

—US Air Force pilot James Gaussman,
^xlviii
March 1945,

somewhere over central China

Great White Pyramid, Qin Lin Mountains, China