Rules of the Game

By 9:13 he is ready to go.

But now that he’s sitting in his Defender and looking at the monitors that show what’s happening outside his safe house, he’s a little worried.

An didn’t expect this.

Not at all.

Hundreds of people choke the alleyway outside. All men. All crammed into the narrow street that is his Defender’s sole egress. They sit on the ground, lean against walls, mill around. Someone must have followed him from the cemetery and called their friends, and then they called friends, and they called friends. The men have sticks and pipes and machetes and a few have semiautomatic rifles. Some have dogs on ropes. Many are shirtless and rail thin and wear the ubiquitous loose cotton pants seen all over India. Some carry placards. Most of these are in Bengali or Hindi, which An can’t read, but some are in English. They say, WE SEE YOU! and BROTHERHOOD OF MAN! and EARTH IS OURS! and NO TO ENDGAME! NO TO THE PLAYERS! NO TO KEPLER 22B!

More than a few have blood smeared over their faces and arms. Blood from chickens or goats or dogs, sacrificed in ceremonies at local temples.

An understands. These men know who he is—the Shang, An Liu, Player of Endgame—and they want his pain. His life. His blood.

He understands perfectly.

BLINKshiverBLINK.

An pounds something into a laptop mounted in the center of the car. He hits enter. Like all Shang safe houses, this one is wired to blow, and blow dirty, irradiating this section of Kolkata. But the bomb will only detonate when his system detects that he and his vehicle have reached a safe distance.

He flicks the laptop closed.

“Are you ready, Chiyoko?”

And then he hears a small sound deep in his mind.

“Chi”—BLINK—“Chi”—SHIVER—“Chiyoko?”

The sound grows a little louder, like a hum in the distance.

“Are you ready?”

SHIVERSHIVERSHIVER.

And then—I am, she says in the voice she never had.

The quality of her voice doesn’t surprise him. Calm but firm. It is her. It is perfectly, succinctly, fully her.

He’s been expecting her.

He says, “You are always ready and I love you for it.”

An taps a button and the garage doors crack open.

“I love you.” An repeats. And she says it too, at the exact same moment, his voice mingling and weaving with hers.

He smiles.

Chiyoko and An. The Mu and the Shang.

They are the same.

The mob outside stirs and crackles.

Those who were sitting stand.

He hits the button again and the doors swing wide. A Kalashnikov fires. Shots explode across the Defender’s bulletproof windshield.

BLINK. SHIVER.

He flips the key in the ignition. The engine comes to life. He jams the gas and the engine roars. The men howl and gesticulate, wave their arms and sticks and their ridiculous placards, as if An cares for any of what they have to say.

This is not a protest, it is a war.

And he will fight it with his beloved.

SARAH ALOPAY, JAGO TLALOC

Gulfstream G650, Bogdogra Airport, Siliguri, West Bengal, India

Sarah and Jago recline in very comfortable seats in Jordan’s very comfortable private jet trying to figure out what to do. It took them a long time to get down from the Himalayas, and now they’re stuck waiting for permission to take off.

The wait is agonizing.

Aisling and Jordan are in the cockpit going through preflight stuff. Marrs is outside dealing with airport personnel. Pop sits in a seat alone near the bulkhead, staring out the window, his rocky knuckles white with tension. Shari is unconscious in the rear of the plane, already seat-belted in place, an IV bag hanging from the overhead compartment. Her chest rises and falls evenly.

Sarah is envious of Shari. Being knocked out would quell the hate and guilt and doubt and fear roiling inside her. Being knocked out would quiet her mind, her soul.

She leans into Jago’s side and whispers, “I wish we were fighting, Feo. Right now. I wish we were moving—Playing.”

“I know,” he says. “Me too.”

Action or oblivion, she thinks. Those are the only options right now.

Aisling emerges from the cockpit, interrupting Sarah’s train of thought.

“How long till we’re outta here?” Jago asks.

Aisling drops into the nearest seat. She reaches for her Falcata and lays it over her thighs. She runs her fingertips over the sword.

“At least an hour,” she says. “Maybe less if Marrs can bribe the right air traffic controller. But for the moment we’re holding.” She pulls a stone from a pocket and runs it over her blade’s edge. It’s razor sharp and doesn’t need the attention, but she needs something to do.

Also restless, Sarah thinks.

Sarah straightens and asks, “All right if Jago and I take over the lav for a little while?”

Jago snickers.

“Really?” Aisling’s eyebrows spring upward. “Now?”

Jago flashes his glittery smile and strokes Sarah’s knee. “Sí. No time like the present, ¿sabes?”

Sarah jabs him with her elbow. “Don’t listen to him. Jago picked up a dye kit back in Peru. I’m gonna be raven-haired from now on. Since Liu’s video came out and we can all be made, I don’t want to take any chances.”

He runs his fingers through his platinum hair. “I’m sure you couldn’t tell, Aisling, but I’m not a natural blond.”

Aisling shakes her head and tilts the blade in her lap, eyeing a miniscule nick. “Go for it. It’s all yours.”

Sarah and Jago move to the rear of the plane. The lavatory is very nice. There’s space between the toilet and the sink, and the sink is normal-sized, not a tiny bowl wedged into the corner. The towels are real, the toilet paper plush and soft.

Jago closes the door behind them. He helps Sarah out of her shirt, being careful with her wounded arm. She leans over the basin, face down, and Jago washes her hair using a plastic cup and the liquid soap on the counter.

“Rosemary,” Sarah says. “And lemon. Smells nice.”

“Mmm,” Jago says. He massages her scalp, rinsing out the soap. He runs his fingers along her nape and lets them trail down her back and over the band of her sports bra.

“Give me a towel,” she says.

He does.

She wraps it around her head and stands. They’re face-to-face. Her bra brushes his shirt and a shot of electricity races up her back. She smiles. “Can you dry my hair?” she asks.

“Sí.”

But instead he immediately leans forward and they kiss. She holds his head tightly between her strong hands and pulls him closer.

And they kiss.

And kiss.

They stop.

She sits on the closed toilet seat. He dries her hair. She brushes it, working through the tangles, while he preps the dye. When she’s done brushing, Jago separates her hair into sections and fastens a towel over her bare shoulders. He puts on latex gloves and gets to work, moving methodically from the back of her head and over the crown.

“Feels good, Feo.”

“I know.” He pushes his leg into hers in a show of affection. She pushes back. “I’m glad we’re alive,” he whispers.

“Me too. We shouldn’t be, though.”

Jago pauses so she can speak.

“Baitsakhan had us dead to rights back in the Harappan fortress,” she explains. “You were out and I was pretending to be. He had the opportunity, the motive, and the gun. Would’ve taken a second. Pop, pop.”

Jago’s hands resume working. “Why didn’t he?”

“Who knows. Arrogance? He was messed up from the teleportation? Who cares?”

The plane’s hydraulics and servos make some preflight music. Jordan says over the PA, “Just got word that we’re close, amigos.”

Sarah looks up at Jago, his ugly scar, his stern eyes. “Know what we should do, Feo? Steal a plane first chance we get,” she jokes. “Run away and make babies and teach them how to fight and survive and love.”

“Sounds great.”

“It will be.”

They both chuckle at the impossibility of all that.

They are silent for a while.

“If we want to do that someday—and I do—then we really need to stop Endgame,” Jago says seriously.

“Yes, we do.”

“And you think these people will show us how?”

Sarah shrugs. “I hope so.” Then, very quietly, as if she’s worried they’re being listened to, she says, “Do you believe Aisling? Do you trust her people?”

Jago shrugs. “They haven’t tried to kill us.”

“No. And I guess we haven’t tried to kill them, so we’re even there.”

“True.” He removes some clips from her hair, places them carefully in the sink.

“Okay. Done.” He drapes another towel over her. He opens the door and angles his head into the cabin. “Sarah, I have to tell you something.”

Sarah frowns, takes his hand, and he leads her to the closest pair of empty seats. Aisling is near the front, sitting next to Pop in silence. Shari is across the aisle, the closed window shade by her shoulder illuminated by the dawn’s early light.

Sarah laces her fingers into Jago’s. “What is it, Feo?”

“I couldn’t tell you before. It was too much. It was Aucapoma Huayna. My line’s elder. She told me that … she told me that you needed to die.”

Sarah releases Jago’s hand. “What?”

Aisling turns to look at them for a brief moment. Sarah and Jago lower their voices.

“And she said that I was the one who had to do it.”

Sarah clenches his hand tightly, painfully. “Why would she say that?”

Jago looks her directly in the eye, not wavering, not showing any signs of being dishonest. He wants her to hear. He needs her to. “It had something to do with your line. She said the Makers would never allow the Cahokians to win, nor would they allow my line to win so long as I walked alongside or Played with you.”

Sarah winces. “That’s nonsense.”

“She said your line did something extraordinary. She said that back in the sixteen hundreds the Cahokians actually fought the Makers!”

Sarah shakes her head. “What do you mean?”

“According to her, before the very last group of Makers left Earth—back in 1613—They asked the Cahokians to fulfill an old bargain. You had to give up a thousand young people in a grand and final sacrifice, I guess for Them to take with them on their ships.”

“And?”

“And your people refused. She said that by then the Cahokians understood that the Makers were mortal and that they appeared to be godlike simply because they possessed more knowledge and technology than humans. She said your people fought, using an old Maker weapon against Them, and that as a last resort the battlefield was iced from orbiting ships, killing everyone there, Maker soldiers included.”

“A Maker weapon?”

“Yes. And she said your line received more punishment. She said you were made to forget your rebellion and much of your ancient past, even the original name of your line. ‘Cahokian’ is apparently what you’ve called yourself since this battle. Before that you were known as something else.”

Marrs bounds back into the plane and closes the door behind him. He plants his hands on the bulkhead and leans forward. “Buckle up. We’re flying in five.”

Sarah pulls the seat belt over her lap. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says a little more loudly as the plane’s engines come to life. “The Cahokians have plenty of documents going way past 1613. I’ve seen them. We have plenty of language and knowledge, Jago. Plenty of history. And I have never heard anything like what you’re describing—”

Jago raises a hand. “I’m merely telling you what she said. It’s been eating at me. Obviously I’m not going to kill you, Sarah. And obviously I don’t care what the Makers think or want for themselves. I want you, and I want to stay alive, and to save my family if I can, as fucked up as they are. I want to fight—and fight hard—for what’s right.” He shrugs as the plane lurches backward. “Who knows,” he says. “Maybe she didn’t expect me to kill you. Maybe she wanted me to doubt you—doubt us—so that I’d leave you at my parents’ estate. So they could deal with you.”

“We’re number one for takeoff,” Jordan announces on the PA. The plane pulls around a turn and jerks to a stop. “Flight attendants, cross-check, and all the rest. Sit down and do a crossword.”

Aisling peers around the edge of her seat at Sarah, smiling at Jordan’s lame joke.

Sarah smiles back, not letting her expression relay the seriousness of the conversation she’s having with Jago.

“You didn’t let me finish,” Sarah says, thankful for the sudden hiss of the engines as the jet throttles down the runway. “I don’t know about this battle, but I do know about the weapon. I’ve never seen it, of course. No Cahokian Player has since—get this—1614. But I know where it’s hidden.”

“Where?”

“A little south of Monks Mound. The Cahokian monument Marrs was talking about earlier.”

“A place that someone, for some reason, might try to destroy.”

Sarah shakes her head decisively. The plane jostles through a small cloud, sunlight lancing the cabin as soon as they clear it. “Maybe, Feo. But not if we can get there first.”

AN LIU

Shang Safe House, Unnamed Street off Ahiripukur Second Lane, Ballygunge, Kolkata, India

An Liu’s Defender moves into the daylight to meet the mob. His Beretta ARX 160, specially modified with a powered picatinny rail, fires through a slot below the windshield. The report is loud inside the vehicle and he likes it. The bullets sail into the crowd. The casings pitter onto his lap. A few men are hit. They dive and scatter to the side but the mob doesn’t dissipate. He gives the rifle four more long bursts, swinging it side to side. Red sprays of blood and small clouds of dust as bodies fall and feet scamper. An puts the car in second and lets out the clutch, and the Defender jumps forward. Another volley. He hopes the men will thin enough for him to escape to the wider street at the end of the alleyway.

And for a moment this is exactly what happens. But then the men yell and turn back all at once like a school of fish, surging toward his car. They throw rocks and pipes, and the soldiers with rifles fire at will. These projectiles bounce off his car without causing any real damage, but now things are about to get trickier.

They’re blocking his escape.

He’ll have to run them down like dogs.

Which is fine with him.

An yanks his rifle into the interior, the flap under the windshield closing immediately. He flips open a panel on the dashboard. Two covered switches and a pistol grip with a trigger are built into the console. He snaps open the switch covers. Presses the left button. It glows red. He takes the grip and angles it up and pulls the trigger. A white arc traces from the front of the car, the projectile rainbowing over the crowd, sailing 30, 40, 50 meters before hitting the ground at the end of the alley and detonating. The air there turns orange and black as the grenade does its job.

An feels giddy.

He slams the clutch, puts the car in the third, and grinds forward.

He meets the men. The sound is sickening, lovely, unusual. Yells of defiance turn to screams of pain and terror, but still the men press in on him. The Defender rides over a body. Faces mash into his windows, their flesh going flat and pink and brown and white against the glass. A pair of men grabs the door handles and tries in vain to work them open. The car slows a little. An drops it into second gear. The men beat the car and grab at it and jump on top of it. The car rocks side to side as An jogs the wheel, pinning men on the sides between the car and buildings, blood smearing across the hood and then the windshield. Some men with the kepler masks get caught and crumple under the rear wheels. The car is a four-wheel-drive beast. He lets out a little laugh. He flicks the wipers. Bad idea—the blood smears and obscures his view. The car moves forward more slowly now, the men treating it like a drum, but it’s useless. It’s too heavy for them to topple and they can’t get in or breach its armor. An is sure that he’ll make it out and get away.

But then a giant man jumps from a low building onto the hood. He turns and sits on the roof, facing out, his feet planted wide. An peers through the arcs of blood swiped across the glass and sees that he’s almost reached the street where the grenade went off. A burned-out car, a few bodies, a dying cow. A strangely dressed woman—cropped hair, a stick tied to her back—darts across the street. A matted stray dog limps from left to right. The grenade cleared a path and if he can get there then he should be able to gain some speed and get away and then, once he’s three kilometers distant, poof! His bomb will detonate and that will be the end of the mob and the end of this safe house and the end of this dank little corner of Kolkata, India.

But then, BAM! An is rattled. The man on the hood has swung a heavy maul into the windshield. The bulletproof glass holds. The men outside whoop and yell and—blink SHIVERSHIVERblink—An’s heart nearly stops as a trio of men heave a thick metal bar across the end of the alleyway and bolt it into place. It’s a meter off the ground, and there’s no way he’ll be able to drive over it.

An pulls the car to within five meters of the barricade and stops.

SHIVERSHIVERSHIVERblinkSHIVER.

“This can’t be it, Chiyoko, can it? Do we abandon the car?” He turns left and right and looks into the cargo area for ideas. His equipment, his weapons, the sword. His vest.

It would be a waste to use that now.

The street.

The barricade.

“We have to at least try.”

BAM! The maul again and the car shakes.

BAM! Again. A small spiderweb in the glass. A chink in the armor.

An puts the car in reverse and guns it. The mauler falls onto his hands and knees, his weapon sliding off the hood to the ground. The mob at the back folds under the car as it rides over them. More mashing. More popping. The mauler looks over his shoulder, stares right at An. Anger, menace, stupidity. An slams the brake and the mauler slides up the hood and into the windshield, his legs bunching under him. An grabs the rifle and sticks it back into the hinged flap, and he fires directly into the mauler’s thigh and buttocks. The mauler rolls to the side in agony. An puts the car in first and it jumps forward and the mauler tumbles off the hood.

Clutch, second, gas, clutch, third, gas. He’s up to 55 kph in no time, the men flying away from the car, gunshots hitting the rear window. He takes the wheel with both blinkblinkblink both hands and peers at the barricade. Will it hold? Will it buckle? Will he make it?

An squints, readying for impact. And then—what is that? A head sailing through the air?

Whatever it is, it rolls under the barricade, and then another head-like ball, and then, at the last second before impact, the barricade is unlocked and the grille slams into it and the bar swings violently away and into the street. He hits the brakes. The car swerves and stops. The street ahead is clear enough for him to complete his getaway. But before he leaves he looks back down the alley, full of bodies living and dying and dead. What is left of the mob comes for him.

But another comes for him too. The woman with the cropped hair. She’s wiry and fast and strong. A stick—no, a sword—in her hand.

And her face.

Her face.

It looks like Chiyoko’s, except 20 or 30 years older.

SHIVERSHIVERSHIVERSHIVERSHIVERblinkblinkblinkblinkSHIVERblink SHIVERSHIVERSHIVER SHIVERSHIVERblinkblinkblinkblinkSHIVERblink SHIVERSHIVERSHIVERSHIVERSHIVERblinkblinkblinkblinkSHIVER blink

BAM! BAM! BAM!

“Go, go, go!” the woman yells in Mandarin. She stands on the running board, right next to An on the outside of the car, slapping her hand on the roof. “Go! They’ll kill us!”

“Who are you?”

“I am Nori Ko. I am Mu. I knew Chiyoko. I can help you. Now, we have to go!”

And An’s heart fills and he feels light and free and he wonders how many has he killed today and how many more will die when the bomb goes off and ChiyokoChiyokoChiyokoNoriKoNoriKoChiyoko and he feels free and light and An’s heart fills.

He drives. Half a kilometer later he stops. He lets her in. “Watch,” he says, and she says nothing. He drives some more and a short while later the sky behind them lights up, and they are free.

MACCABEE ADLAI, LITTLE ALICE CHOPRA

Road SH 2, Joypur Forest, West Bengal, India

Maccabee runs a straight razor over his bare scalp. He swishes the blade in a copper bowl half-filled with a stew of water and black stubble and soap. Next to the bowl is a pair of scissors covered by a pile of thick hair. He squints at his reflection in a clouded mirror that’s propped against the wall. He’s never shaved his head before and he likes the way it feels. The smoothness, the lightness. Also, with his bruises and his crooked nose and his physique, the baldness makes him look like a real badass.

Which of course he is.

“What do you think, Sky Key?”

The girl sits next to him. She leans into his side. Her body is warm, and he feels comforted by it. He wonders if she is comforted in turn.

Probably not.

Her legs are tucked up and her arms are wrapped over her knees. She doesn’t answer his question. He briefly touches her hair. It’s thick and soft, the hair of a girl who’s been well cared for.

If he’s going to get her to the end, he’ll have to take good care of her too.

He passes her a bowl of rice and lentils, a stiff circle of dal balanced on top. “Here. Have some more food.”

She digs in with her bare hands and eats. Her appetite is strong and, so far, insatiable.

They are in an abandoned roadside hut 130 kilometers west and north of Kolkata. It’s midmorning. The landscape outside is lush and verdant. Jungle surrounds the hut, but fields of jute and potatoes lie less than a kilometer to the north. Sporadic cars and buses pass on the road, but other than that there are no signs of people here.

Which is good. Early that morning he and Sky Key wandered through a shopping center west of Kolkata buying supplies. Rice, soap, candles, batteries, towels, a sewing kit, a small butane camp stove with a liter of fuel. Baby wipes, pull-up diapers for Sky Key to sleep in, a blanket, and three changes of clothing for the girl. He also lucked into finding one of those cloth child carriers that straps over the shoulders and holds the kid tightly on the back. At a pharmacy he bought generic ibuprofen, amoxicillin, Cipro, zolpidem, and a small first aid kit with an extra bottle of iodine. Back at the hotel he packed all of this into a new knapsack as well as into the stolen Suzuki’s touring panniers, one of which blessedly contained a SIG 226 and two magazines.

The same kind of gun An Liu had fired at them back in the cemetery.

It was then that he realized he’d had the good fortune to steal An Liu’s bike.