Полная версия
The Calling
52.294888, 20.950928xxxii 7,459 dead; $1.342B damages
26.297592, 73.019128xxxiii 15,321 dead; $2.12B damages
40.714411, -73.864689xxxiv 4,416 dead; $748.884M damages
9.022736, 38.746799xxxv 18,888 dead; $1.33B damages
-15.49918, -70.135223xxxvi 10,589 dead; $1.45B damages
40.987608, 29.036951xxxvii 39,728 dead; $999.24M damages
-34.602976, 135.42778xxxviii 14 dead; $124.39M damages
34.239666, 108.941631xxxix 3,598 dead; $348.39M damages
24.175582, 55.737065xl 432 dead; $228.33M damages
41.265679, -96.431637xli 408 dead; $89.23M damages
26.226295, 127.674179xlii 1,473 dead; $584.03M damages
46.008409, 107.836304xliii 0 dead; $0 damages
SARAH ALOPAY
Gretchen’s Goods Café and Bakery, Frontier Airlines Lobby, Eppley Airfield, Omaha, Nebraska, United States
Sarah sits with Christopher at a small plastic table, an untouched blueberry muffin between them. They hold hands, touch knees, and try to act like this isn’t the strangest day of their young lives. Sarah’s parents are 30 feet away at another table, watching their daughter warily. They’re worried what she might say to Christopher, and what the boy—a boy they’ve always treated like a son—will do. Their actual son, Sarah’s brother, Tate, is in a funeral home, awaiting cremation. Everyone keeps saying there will be time to grieve for Tate later, but that may not be true.
In 57 minutes Sarah is getting on a plane that will take her from Omaha to Denver, from Denver to San Francisco, from San Francisco to Seoul, from Seoul to Beijing.
She does not have a return ticket.
“So you have to leave to play this game?” Christopher asks for what feels to Sarah like the 17th time.
Sarah is patient. It isn’t easy to understand her secret life. For a long time, she dreamed of telling Christopher about Endgame; she just never thought she would actually have to. But now she feels relieved to finally be honest with him. For this reason it doesn’t matter if he keeps asking the same questions over and over. These are her last moments with him, and she’ll treasure them even if he’s being obstinate.
“Yes,” Sarah replies. “Endgame. The world is not supposed to know about it, or about people like me.”
“The Players.”
“Yes, the Players. The councils. The secret lines of humanity …”
She trails off.
“Why can’t the world know?”
“Because no one would be able to live a normal life if they knew Endgame was hanging over them,” Sarah says, feeling a pang of sadness for her own “normal life” that went up in smoke just days ago.
“You have a normal life,” Christopher insists.
“No, I don’t.”
“Oh, right,” Christopher says, rolling his eyes. “You’ve killed wolves and survived on your own in Alaska and are trained in all kinds of karate and crap. Because you’re a Player. How did you ever manage to squeeze in soccer practice?”
“It was a pretty packed schedule,” Sarah answers wryly. “Especially for the last three years, you know, because Tate was supposed to be the Player, not me.”
“But he lost his eye.”
“Exactly.”
“How did he lose it, by the way? None of you ever told me that,” Christopher says.
“It was a pain trial. Withstand the stings of a thousand bees. Unfortunately, one got him right in the pupil, and he had a bad reaction, and he lost the eye. The council declared him ineligible and said that I was in. Yeah, that definitely made my schedule a bit crazy.” Christopher stares at her like she’s lost it. “You know, I’d think this was a sick joke if your parents weren’t here. If that meteor hadn’t hit and Tate hadn’t … Sorry, it’s just a lot to take in.”
“I know.”
“You’re basically in a death cult.”
Sarah purses her lips, her patience slipping. She expected Christopher to be supportive; at least that’s how it went when she imagined this conversation. “It’s not a death cult. It’s not something I chose to do. And I never wanted to lie to you, Christopher.”
“Whatever,” Christopher says, his eyes lighting up as if he’s just come to a decision. “How do I sign up?”
“For what?”
“Endgame. I want to be on your team.”
Sarah smiles. It’s a sweet thought. Sweet and impossible. “It’s not like that. There aren’t teams. The others—all eleven of them—won’t be bringing teammates to the Calling.”
“The others. Players, like you?”
“Yeah,” Sarah says. “Descendants of the world’s first civilizations, none of which exist anymore. Each of us represents a line of the world’s population, and we play for the survival of that line.”
“What’s your line called?”
“Cahokian.”
“So, like, Native American. I think there’s a little Algonquian on my dad’s side. Does that mean I’m part of your line?”
“It should,” Sarah answers. “Most people in North America have some Cahokian blood, even if they don’t realize it.”
Christopher thumbs his chin. Sarah knows all of Christopher’s tics, so she knows that this means he’s about to make an argument, he’s just not quite sure how to phrase it. There are 52 minutes left before her flight leaves. She waits patiently, although she’s starting to worry that this is how they’ll spend their last hour together. She was hoping to give her parents the slip, find a secluded gate, and make out one last time. “Okay,” says Christopher, clearing his throat. “So you’ve got twelve ancient tribes abiding by these weird rules and waiting for some sign. And that’s how you’ve chosen to interpret the meteor that, admittedly, is a pretty fucked-up and crazy coincidence. But what if that’s what this is? Just a coincidence and you’re like a hot, brainwashed, alleged killing machine only because of some dumb prophecy that doesn’t really exist.”
Christopher catches his breath. Sarah stares at him, smiling sadly.
“It’s for real, Christopher.”
“How do you know? I mean, is there some kind of commissioner who runs this game? Like the NFL?”
“Them.”
Christopher dips his chin. “Them?”
“They have lots of names,” Sarah says, not meaning to sound so cryptic. She’s having trouble putting the next part into reasonable-sounding words.
“Give me one,” Christopher says.
“Cahokians call them the Sky People.”
“The Sky People?”
“Yes.” Sarah holds up a hand before he can interrupt. “Listen—you know how every culture around the world believes that their god or gods or higher power or source of enlightenment, whatever you want to call it, comes from above?”
Christopher shrugs. “I guess. I don’t know.”
“They’re right. God, or the gods, or the higher power, whatever and whoever it is, did come from above. They descended from the sky amid smoke and fire and created us and gave us rules to live by and left. All of the world’s gods and myths are just variations of the same legends, variations of the same story, the same history.”
Christopher shakes his head. “This is crazy. Like, Jesus-riding-a-dinosaur crazy.”
“No, it isn’t. It makes sense if you think about it.”
“How?”
“It all happened so long ago that every culture adapted the story to fit their experience. But the core of it—that life came from above, that humanity was created by gods—that’s true.”
Christopher stares at her.
“Sky People. You mean like …” He shakes his head. “This is insane. What you’re saying can’t be real. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard! And you’re crazy if you go.”
“I’m sorry, Christopher. If I were in your shoes I’d probably react the same way. Actually, probably way worse. You know me as Sarah Alopay, your girlfriend, but I’m also someone else, and even though Tate was supposed to be playing, I always have been someone else as well. I was raised, as were 300 generations of my people, to be a Player.
Everything that just happened—the meteor, the piece that we found, my necklace becoming part of it, the message and the code—it was all exactly as foretold in our legends.”
Sarah studies him, waiting for a reaction. Christopher’s face has gone completely serious; he’s no longer trying to talk her out of Endgame, as if that tactic ever had a chance.
“Why now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why did it have to start now?”
“I’ll probably be asking myself that question until I die, Christopher. I don’t know the answer. I know what the legend says, but I don’t know Their real reasons.”
“What does the legend say?”
“It says Endgame will begin if the human race has shown that it doesn’t deserve to be human. That it has wasted the enlightenment They gave to us. The legend also says that if we take Earth for granted, if we become too populous and strain this blessed planet, then Endgame will begin. It will begin in order to bring an end to what we are and restore order to Earth. Whatever the reason, what will be will be.”
“Fucking Christ.”
“Yeah.”
“How do you win?” he asks in a low voice.
“No one knows. That’s what I’m going to find out.” “In China.”
“Yeah.”
“And it’s going to be dangerous?”
“Yes.”
“You talked about choice in your speech—choose not to do it.” Sarah shakes her head. “No. It’s what my parents were born to do, what my brother was born to do, what I was born to do. It is the responsibility of my people, and it has been since we appeared on this planet, and my choice is to do it.”
Christopher has no words. He doesn’t want her to leave. Doesn’t want her to be in danger. Sarah is his girlfriend. His best friend. His partner in crime, the last person he thinks of before he falls asleep and the first person he thinks of when he wakes. She’s the girl of his dreams, only she’s real. The thought of someone trying to hurt her, it ties his stomach in knots. The idea that he’ll be thousands of miles away when it happens makes it even worse.
“The stakes are dire, Christopher. You probably won’t ever see me again. Mom and Dad, Omaha, Tate—I’m looking back on all of it already. I love you, I love you with everything in me, but we may never see each other again.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I may not come back.”
“Why?”
“If I don’t win, I’ll die.”
“Die?”
“I will fight to stay alive, I promise I will. But yes. It could happen. Easily. Don’t forget that I’m a backup. Tate was supposed to be here, not me. The other Players, they’ve probably been training since before they could walk.”
They stare at each other. The sounds of the airport—the announcements of gate changes, the whispering wheels of rolling luggage, the squeaks of sneakers on polished granite floors—swirl around them.
“I’m not gonna let you die,” Christopher says. “And if you have to win to stay alive, then I am coming with you. I don’t give a shit about the rules.”
Her heart drops to the floor. She knew saying good-bye wasn’t going to be easy, but she didn’t expect this. And in a way it makes her love him more. Kind, generous, strong, beautiful Christopher.
She shakes her head. “The Players have to go to the Calling alone, Christopher.”
“Too bad for the others, then. Because I’m coming with you.”
“Listen,” she says, changing her tone. “You need to stop thinking of me as your girlfriend. Even if you could come, I wouldn’t let you. I don’t need your protection. And, honestly, you aren’t up for it.”
So much for finding a quiet gate where they can make out. Sarah knew it could come to this, that she might have to be harsh with him. She sees that her words hurt him, that his pride is wounded. She’s sorry about that, but what she said is the truth.
Christopher shakes his head, persisting. “I don’t care. I’m coming.” Sarah sighs. “I’m gonna stand up in a minute. If you try to follow me, they’ll stop you.” Sarah tilts her head toward her parents.
“They can’t stop me.”
“You have no idea what they can do. The three of us, we could kill everyone in this terminal quickly and easily and escape, no problem.” Christopher snorts in disbelief. “Christ, Sarah. You wouldn’t do that.” “Understand me, Christopher,” Sarah says, leaning forward and gritting her teeth. “I will do whatever it takes to win. If I want you, my parents, everyone we know to survive, I have to do whatever it takes.” Christopher is silent. He glances at the Alopays, who are staring back at him. Simon is giving him a hard, cold look. It’s unlike anything he’s ever seen before. Christopher thought he knew these people. He was closer to them than his own family, and now …
Sarah sees Christopher’s face change, notices the fear blossoming there, and worries that she’s pushed too hard. She softens her tone. “If you want to help me, stay here and help the people who need it. Help my parents deal with Tate’s death, and maybe mine. If I win, I’ll come back and find you, and we can live the rest of our lives together. I promise.”
Christopher looks deep into Sarah’s eyes. His voice shakes. “I love you, Sarah Alopay.” She tries to smile but fails. “I love you,” he repeats earnestly. “And I swear that I’ll never, ever stop loving you.”
They stand at the same time and wrap their arms around each other. They kiss, and though they have shared many, many kisses, none of them has meant as much, or felt as strong. Like all such kisses it doesn’t last long enough.
They pull apart. Sarah knows that this is probably the last time she will ever see him, speak to him, touch him.
“I love you too, Christopher Vanderkamp. I love you too.”
30.3286, 35.4419xliv
AN LIU
Liu Residence, Unregistered Belowground Property, Tongyuanzhen, Gaoling County, Xi’an, China
An Liu has a disadvantage, and he is ashamed.
Blinkblink.
A tic.
BlinkSHIVER.
SHIVERSHIVER.
But An Liu has advantages too:
1. The Players are coming to Xi’an, China.
2. An Liu lives in Xi’an, China.
BlinkSHIVER.
SHIVERblink.
3. Therefore, he has initial home-court advantage.
4. An is a world-class hacker.
5. An is an expert bomb maker.
BlinkSHIVERblinkblink.
Blinkblink.
BlinkblinkSHIVER.
6. An knows how to find people.
After decoding the message, An continuously hacked passenger manifests at airports close to the other impact zones, filtering results for age, ticket-purchase date, date of visa issuance, and blink-blink-blink assuming there would be a more-or-less even distribution of gender, sex.
SEXSHIVERSEX.
He figures that shiver-blink the Players near the Mongolian and Australian impact zones, on account of their remoteness, will be tricky, so he abandons them. The Mongolian will be coming overland blink anyway, and the Aussie will also probably start his or her journey blink by jeep or possibly chartered aircraft. Instant dead ends.
He also discounts Addis Ababa, Istanbul, Warsaw, and Forest Hills, New York, on account of these being shiver-shiver-SHIVER rather populous. He concentrates on Juliaca, Omaha, Naha, and Al Ain. These smaller markets make the hacking and filtering easier.
Initial results provide 451 candidates. These are cross-referenced with train and/or plane ticket purchases for transport within China. An blink is blink not blink hopeful.
Blinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblink.
Had it been necessary for him to travel to reach the Calling, he would have taken the obvious precaution of using aliases, forged visas, and at least two passports, but he knows that not all people are as paranoid as he is. Even Players.
And lo. Shiver. He gets a hit: Sarah Alopay.
SHIVERblinkblink.
Blinkblink.
Blink.
JAGO TLALOC, SARAH ALOPAY
Train T41, Car 8, Passing through Shijiazhuang, China Depart: Beijing Arrive: Xi’an
Jago Tlaloc is on an overnight train from Beijing to Xi’an. It has taken him nearly three days to get this far. Juliaca to Lima. Lima to Miami. Miami to Chicago. Chicago to Beijing. 24,122 km. 13,024.838 nautical miles. 79,140,413.56 feet.
And now the train for 11.187 hours.
Longer if it gets delayed.
Endgame doesn’t wait, so he is hoping for no delays.
Jago has a private sleeping cabin, but the mattress is hard and he’s restless. He sits up and crosses his legs, counts his breaths. He stares out the window and thinks of the most beautiful things he has ever seen: a girl falling asleep in the sand as the sun set over a beach in Colombia, streams of moonlight reflecting off the rippling waters of the Amazon, the lines of the Nazca giant on the day he became a Player. His mind won’t calm, though. His breath is not full. Positive visualizations disintegrate under the weight.
He cannot stop thinking about the horror visited on his hometown. The hellfire and the smell of burning plastic and flesh, and the sounds of crying men, burned women, and dying children. The helplessness of the firemen, the army, the politicians. The helplessness of everyone and everything in the face of the violence.
The day after Jago claimed his piece of the meteorite, the sun rose on a huddled mass of people lined up outside his parents’ villa. Some of them had lost everything and hoped his family would be able to restore them. As Jago packed, his parents did what they could. On television, astrophysicists made hollow promises about how an event like this would never happen again.
They’re wrong.
More are coming.
Bigger, more devastating.
More will suffer.
More will burn.
More will die.
The people called the meteor that fell on Juliaca el puño del diablo. The Devil’s Fist. Eleven other fists punched into the earth, killing many, many more.
The meteors fell and now the world is different.
Vulnerable.
Terrified.
Jago knows he should be above such feelings. He has trained to be above such feelings, yet he cannot sleep, cannot relax, cannot calm himself. He swings his legs over the bed and places his bare feet on the thin, cool carpet. He cracks his neck and closes his eyes.
The meteorites were just a preamble.
Todo, todo el tiempo, he thinks. Todo.
He stands. His knees creak. He has to get out of his compartment, move, try to clear his mind. He grabs a pair of green cargo pants and pulls them on. His legs are thin, strong. They’ve done more than 100,000 squats. He sits in the chair and puts on wool socks, leather moccasins. His feet have kicked a heavy bag over 250,000 times. He straps a small tactical knife to his forearm and slips into a long-sleeved plaid shirt. He has done over 15,000 one-handed pull-ups. He grabs his iPod and sticks in a pair of black earbuds. He turns on music. The music is hard, heavy, and loud. Metal. His music and his weapons. Heavy heavy metal.
He steps to the door of his compartment. Before exiting he looks in the full-length mirror. He is tall, thin, and taut, as if made of high-tension wire. His hair is jet-black, short, and messed. His skin is the color of caramel, the color of his people, undiluted for 8,000 years. His eyes are black. His face is pockmarked from a skin infection he had when he was seven, and he has a long, jagged scar that runs from the corner of his left eye, down his cheek, over his jaw, and onto his neck. He got the scar when he was 12, in a knife fight. It was with another kid a little older than him. Jago got the scar, but he took the kid’s life. Jago is ugly and menacing. He knows that people fear him because of the way he looks, which generally amuses him. They should fear him for what he knows. What he can do. What he has done.
He opens the door, steps into the hall, walks. The music blares in his ears, hard, heavy, and loud, drowning out the steely screech of the wheels on the rails.
He steps into the dining car. Five people are seated at three tables: two Chinese businessmen sitting alone, one asleep in his booth, his head on the table, the other drinking tea and staring at his laptop; a Chinese couple speaking quietly and intensely; a girl with long, auburn hair woven into a braid, her back to him.
Jago buys a bag of peanuts and a Coke and walks toward an empty table across from the girl with the auburn hair. She is not Chinese. She is reading the latest edition of China Daily. The page is covered in color photos of devastation from the crater in Xi’an. The crater where the Small Wild Goose Pagoda had stood. He sits down. She’s five feet away from him, engrossed in the paper; she does not look up.
He removes the peanuts from their shells, pops them into his mouth, sips the Coke. He stares at her. She’s pretty, looks like an American tourist, a medium-sized backpack next to her. He has seen countless girls like her stop in Juliaca on their way to Lake Titicaca.
“It’s not polite to stare,” she says, looking at the paper.
“I didn’t think you’d noticed,” he replies in accented English.
“I did.” She still hasn’t looked at him.
“Can I join you? I haven’t spoken to many people the past few days, and this country can be bien loco, you know?”
“Tell me about it,” she says, looking up, her eyes drilling into him. She’s easily the most beautiful American, and maybe woman, he’s ever seen.
“Come on over.”
He half rises and sidles into the booth opposite her. “Peanut?”
“No thanks.”
“Smart.”
“Hm?”
“Not to accept food from a stranger.”
“Were you going to poison me?” “Maybe.”
She smiles and seems to reconsider, like he’s challenged her to a dare.
“What the hell, I’ll take my chances.”
Her smile crushes him. He is usually the one who has to charm a woman, which he has done dozens of times, but this one is charming him. He holds out the bag and she takes a handful of the peanuts, spreads them on the table in front of her.
“How long you been here?” she asks.
“On the train?”
“No. In China.”
“Little over three weeks,” he says, lying.
“Yeah? Me too. About three weeks.” His training has taught him how to tell if someone is lying, and she is. Interesting. He wonders if she could be one of them.
“Where you from?” he asks.
“America.”
“No kidding. Where in America?”
“Omaha.” She’s not lying this time. “You?”
“Peru, near Lake Titicaca.” So he won’t lie either.
She raises her eyebrows and smirks. “I never thought that was a real place until these …” She points at the paper.
“The meteors.”
“Yeah.” She nods. “It’s a funny name. Lake Titty Caca.” She pronounces the words individually, like all amused English speakers do. “You couldn’t come up with anything better than that?”
“Depending on who you ask, it either means Stone of the Puma or Crag of Lead, and it’s considered by many to be a mystical, powerful place. Americans seem to think UFOs visit it and aliens created it.” “Imagine that,” she says, smiling. “Omaha’s not mystical at all. Most people think it’s kind of boring, actually. We got good steak, though. And Warren Buffet.”
