Endgame: The Calling (57 page)

An wasn’t bluffing.

Time slows.

Everyone but Sarah freezes.

She spins to the Altar Stone, grabs the disk, and dives toward the stone with the small dagger carved into it. She slides the center of the disk over this carving. It’s just like in the cave painting in Italy, except it isn’t the Mu claiming the key; it’s the Cahokian.

She holds the disk in place, but realizes after a moment that she doesn’t have to. The giant blue sarsen rock envelops the disk, as if each is made of mercury. The disk starts spinning very rapidly, and the center of it, a small globe covered with hieroglyphs, the size of a marble, falls out and into Sarah’s hand. The giant blue sarsen rock swallows the rest of the disk, and there’s a massive boom, which explodes across the English countryside.

Chiyoko runs toward An. Jago struggles to keep his gun on Chiyoko. The ground rumbles, and everything is vibrating. The air fills with electricity, and though it is dawn, the sky darkens. The ground sways so violently that they have trouble standing.

Chiyoko reaches An and drops to her knees next to him. She places a hand on the nearest rock for support.

But it is not steady.

It is moving.

Up, out of the ground.

Fissures open underfoot, but not in straight lines, as they would during an earthquake. They open in circles. Circles moving against one another, like the wheels of a gigantic machine. Everything shifts as something long hidden rises from the earth, tearing Stonehenge apart.

Sarah is on the innermost ring. She’s on her knees crying, sobbing, her chest heaving, tears running down her face. She has the key. Earth Key. One of three. And she just won the first stage of Endgame. The first stage of the game that will determine the future of everyone she knows and everyone she loves, her friends, her family. She has a chance to save them all. All of them but one. The one she loved the most. Christopher. Crazy, stubborn, beautiful Christopher. She knows she warned him not to follow her, asked him to stop and go home, told him Endgame was dangerous and could get him killed. And she knows An was going to kill him regardless of what she did. But still. Still. Crazy, stubborn, beautiful Christopher. Dead. A bullet in his head. A bullet she fired. He was going to die, so she decided she would take him. An act of love. And though it breaks her heart, she knows he understood. She saw it in his face, and in his final words, “Do it and win. Win for me.” So she will. She clutches Earth Key in her hand and she sobs and she swears to herself that she will honor him, and honor their love, and honor his final words. She will win. And she will do it for him. As the stone takes her higher, she swears on her heart, her family, and her line, she will win, and she will win for him.

Jago, Chiyoko, and An are on the second ring, also going up, but not as high. Chiyoko is trying to stay upright, caressing An’s face, looking for vital signs. She thinks she can feel a fading pulse. The last pangs of life leaving his tortured soul. She is happy that he came for her, but why? Why did this have to happen? Why couldn’t he understand? Why couldn’t he Play for life?

Chiyoko hates Endgame in this moment. In a life filled with training and death, filled with hatred for her burden and her destiny, she hates it more than she’s hated anything.

Chiyoko smiles, leans over, and kisses An’s cheeks. The ground is moving crazily now. An looks peaceful. Not tortured. And at least they are together. At least they are together.

Life is not the same as death,
she thinks.

Chiyoko moves her mouth. She tries to speak. Tears spring to her eyes. “I have to go now,” she wants to say. “I have to go, my love.”

She stands and turns. The ground is rioting. The monument growing below them is a monstrosity. She is about to raise her hands in surrender and move toward Jago, but the sky darkens behind her.

“Look out!” Jago shouts, a jittery blur not 20 feet away.

Chiyoko spins. A cool blast of air strikes her face just before a 21-ton piece of stone falls on top of her, crushing her below the stomach.

She collapses next to An, his motionless body unharmed by the ancient rock. Chiyoko reaches out and takes his hand.

Takes his hand and dies.

Jago watches Chiyoko die. In spite of himself, in spite of Endgame, in spite of his training and her betrayal, he feels sorry for her. But there isn’t time for feelings. Not now.

Jago tries to find Sarah amongst the spinning, turning wheels of the moving Stonehenge, and glimpses her standing in the center ring, the blue sarsen stones of the horseshoe rising above her like the bars of a cage.

She steps to the loose edge of her section, her heart racing, tears in her eyes, thinking of Christopher, thinking of the key and the others to come. She watches the ground as the stones spin, sees what was hidden underground. It’s a massive version of a new, pristine Stonehenge. An otherworldly structure that was buried for ages. One that man mimicked aboveground. But this structure wasn’t made by man; it was made by gods, by Annunaki, by Sky People, whatever they are, whatever you want to call them. It was made by those who made us. And it’s not stone, but metal, glass and gold, materials unknown, by processes unknown. As it continues to rise on the telescoping circles, the stones at ground level fall like megaton dominoes, a giant boom as each plows into the ground. Amid the chaos Sarah notices that they are falling in a pattern, pointing to the undisturbed Heel Stone 256 feet away.

Lying beyond this is the gray ribbon of road, the parking lot, the countryside, England, Europe, the rest of the world. A world that will never be the same, that will soon descend into irrevocable chaos, that will never understand why this madness just shot up from the earth, will never believe who is responsible for it.

“Sarah!” Jago screams, but he is drowned out by a massive sonic boom. They’re both thrown to the ground as the sky lights up. Sarah’s ears ring and her head swims, and she manages to stand. The Heel Stone is gone. In its place is a perfect hole 15 feet across. The Heel Stone moves up and out of the ground, traveling like a missile on a beam of white light, moving through an opening in the cloud cover, roaring toward the heavens. Within seconds, it is gone.

The light, though, the light remains. A beacon surging into space. Sarah is reminded of the beam shooting from the top of the Great White Pyramid in China. She is drawn to the light, can’t turn away. Something there is calling her. As she moves, the ringing in her ears strengthens, becomes deafening. She stops at the edge of the beam, reaches for it.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

A voice in her head.

Yes.

Jago screams her name, but she can’t hear him. All she can hear is the ringing, the voice in her head saying,
Yes yes yes.
She drops to the ground, drawn toward the light. She reaches for it, her arm moving into it. The light is bitter and cold and bites at her skin and calls to her
Yes Yes Yes.
She steps into it
Yes Yes Yes
and she’s immediately lifted 30 feet into the air. Her eyes go white—a blinding, terrifying, crushing white—and in her mind she sees:

Marcus, festering, buzzards and worms devouring his flesh.

Kala, rotting, half burned in a room of gold.

Alice, sleeping, a mottled dog curled at her feet.

Hilal, weeping, covered in bandages, watched over by an elderly man.

Aisling, moving through the forest, stalking a deer, rifle in her hands.

Baitsakhan, seething, fixing a steel hook to his wrist.

Maccabee, staring, transfixed by a white-hot orb of light in his hands.

Jago, kneeling next to Christopher’s body, staring in awe.

Chiyoko, dead, one hand clutching An’s, the other outstretched, finger pointing 175°21'37".

Shari, cooking, a small girl tugging at her pants.

She sees kepler 22b, surrounded by others like him, her, it, smiling, applauding.

And she sees the light, infinite and unending, moving through space, millions of miles, billions of miles, of space.

The key is in her hand.

She’s ahead of them all.

If they want to win, they will have to take her.

And she will be ready for them.

Sarah Alopay, daughter of the Bird King and the Sky Queen, the 4,240th Player of the 233rd line, will be ready for them.

She can feel the key in her hand.

She can feel Christopher in her heart.

She will be ready.

For him.

For him.

She opens her eyes.

The light disappears.

She falls back to Earth.

Sarah Alopay.

Daughter of the Bird King and the Sky Queen.

Bearer of Earth Key.

Falls.

This is Endgame.

So many years ago, love,

That soon our time must come

To leave our girl without a home;—

She’s like her Mother, love, you’ve said:

At her age I had long been wed,—

How many years ago, love,

How many years ago?

Chopra Residence, Gangtok, Sikkim, India

It has only been 11 days since Shari Chopra unraveled the clue that the Sky Gods put into her head. Now she’s mashing chickpeas with the flat side of a cleaver on a plastic cutting board, and she has not thought of Endgame for 58 hours, an extraordinary stretch.

A small black-and-white television with a coat hanger for an antenna is tuned to the only station it can get. A Bollywood dance routine fights its way through a pattern of snow. The song is about love and how wonderful it is. A plump brown chicken prances across the floor tiles, and Little Alice chases after it, calling, “Here, dinner, dinner! Here, dinner, dinner!” And they disappear into the yard.

Shari laughs to herself—her daughter is so much like she once was—and doesn’t notice that the music on the television has stopped. But then she hears the voice. . . .

Esteemed Players of the lines, hear me now.

Him.

Her.

It.

kepler 22b.

She turns to the screen. The image there is of an odd but good-looking man, vaguely Asiatic, with round eyes and high cheeks, a thin nose and full lips. His hair is dark and parted down the middle. He wears a collared shirt open at the neck.

A strange disguise.

Earth Key is found, the Beacon sent, the Event is triggered. Congratulations to the Cahokian of the 233rd for finding it, possessing it, and bringing the Event to the Unwitting Billions, most of whom are going to die. It will occur in 94.893 days. Now you must find Sky Key. Live, die, steal, kill, love, betray, avenge. Whatever you please. Endgame is the puzzle of life, the reason for death. Play on. What will be will be.

He disappears, and the movie comes back. The music is ridiculous, flippant, inconsequential. Shari takes a deep breath.

Triggered?

Little Alice stands on the kitchen’s threshold.

Triggered?

She points at the cutting board.

Triggered!

“Mama, you got a boo-boo.”

Shari looks down, sees she’s pressing the knife deeply into the side of her finger.

“So I have,
meri jaan
,” she says, moving the knife and wrapping her hand in a dishtowel.

“Mama, who was that man on the TV?”

Shari looks at her daughter with sad eyes.

“Don’t worry about him, cupcake. Nothing he said concerns you.”

Shari scoops up Little Alice, wraps her in her arms, carries her outside to the patio. Jamal is there, drinking a glass of iced tea. He immediately recognizes the ashen look on his beloved’s face.

“What happened?”

“Ninety-four days,” she repeats.

“The first key is found?”

“Yes,” she says, bouncing Little Alice on her knee.

“Will you be leaving us?”

“No, love. I’ll stay here with you. My Endgame is different. They will pursue, search, hunt, and kill. I will wait here, with you. And our beautiful girl. And they will come to me. Eventually, they will have to come to me.”

Jamal knows she’s not telling him something. He waits. Little Alice laughs, swatting at a butterfly as it floats by.

“They will have to because of what the Sky God told me.”

“What was that?”

“It told me where the next key is found. And it told me that I was the only one of the twelve who knew.”

“But you won’t go get it?”

“No. I won’t have to. You see, Sky Key is here.” Little Alice bounds off her lap, her feet pounding the soft grass. She chases after the butterfly.

“What?”
Jamal asks.

“Love—I am the Gatekeeper.”

Little Alice chants, “Sky Key! Sky Key! Sky Key!”

Jamal reaches out and takes Shari’s hand. They look at each other and smile, lean in, and share a long, sweet kiss.

94 days remain.

94 days.

94.

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