Endgame Novella #1 (7 page)

After Hebat, Kala was different. That was the first sliver of ice in her heart. The beginning of the cold, the empty. After Hebat, she had
wanted
not to feel, had wanted to forget her beloved minder and the parents who came before. She was angry and alone, and so she taught herself not to care. By the time the anger faded and the loneliness grew, by the time she needed to care again, she no longer remembered how.

Maybe if she found them again, the ones she’d left behind . . . maybe if she could remember the faces of her mother and father, she could remember everything else she’d lost.

She needs to be whole again, now more than ever. Because now she has him.

“It was a good lesson,” Alad says. “I bet you never fell for anyone’s bullshit again.”

“It was a cruel lesson.”

“To prepare us for cruel lives. To harden us.”

“Maybe I didn’t want to be hard,” she says.

He presses his lips to the smooth flesh of her stomach, and even though there is nothing beneath it but rigid muscle, he says, “I bet we can still find a few soft spots. If we try.”

Sometimes, it’s better not to talk.

They avoid each other now, during the day, so no one will suspect the thing between them. It’s agony to stare at him from across the room while she should be working on her ancient Sumerian translations, wanting to brush aside the lock of hair that’s fallen across his eyes, knowing she can’t. But it’s the delicious kind of agony, like pressing on a bruise. It distracts her from her training. She’s slowed down, and people notice.

“What’s different about you?” Britney asks one night, as they brush their teeth, and Kala nearly laughs with delight. She likes the idea that there is something different about her, that the other girls can see her happiness painted on her skin, a badge of honor.

“It’s a mystery,” she says, and Britney shakes her head and then, for good measure, her booty. (Britney named herself after her favorite American pop star and never lets anyone forget it.) She’s used to Kala keeping her secrets to herself; they all are.

But this is the first time Kala wishes she didn’t have to.

Alad is terrified of what will happen if the minders find out. Kala, on the other hand, can’t bring herself to worry. “What’s the worst they can do to us?” she asks him, tickling the spot behind his knee where he’s especially sensitive.

“I don’t even want to think about it,” he says.

But she has thought about it. A lot. The worst they can do is disqualify her from being a Player. Would that be so bad?

She’s played hard because she’s liked how it feels to win, because it’s a good way to pass the time. The others are all so desperate to be selected, to gain the recognition, to earn the chance to save their people. For Kala, all of that has always rung hollow, like everything else. Player. Endgame. Bloodline. Nothing but words, no more or less important than any others.

Now she has something real.

Now she knows what it is to really care, and she knows what she
wants. All she wants.

Alad.

Let them discover the truth. Let them send her away. What does it matter to her, as long as Alad goes with her?

And she knows he would.

He loves her as much as she loves him.

She can tell.

“I wish we could stay here all night,” Alad tells her, in the place she has come to think of as
their
place, the clearing dusted with pebbles and moonlight. “I wish I could wake up beside you.”

“Someday,” she says, then stops.

They never talk about the future.

“Someday this will be all be over and we can be together for real,” he says.

She wants to freeze this moment in time and live inside it forever.

“Tell me,” she says. “Tell me a story.” She nuzzles her head into the curve of his shoulder and presses her palm to his. She likes that their hands are exactly the same size. That they know the same languages and can perform the same complex algorithms and multivariable equations with the same lightning speed. That he is slightly stronger but she is slightly faster. This is not how it is in the movies, but that doesn’t matter. She thinks this is the way it should always be.

“Once upon a time, there was a handsome boy and a beautiful girl.” His voice is like honey, slow and deliberate. “They grew up together, but even though the girl was very smart, she was slow to notice the obvious.”

“Which was?”

He grins. “Which was that the boy was amazing. A prince among men.”

“I bet the girl wasn’t too shabby herself.”

“You bet right,” he says. “The girl was . . . she was a miracle.”

The word sits between them. He does love her, she knows that now, without a doubt. It’s not just the things he says; it’s the way he says
them. The way he looks at her when he does.

She wonders if that would change, if he knew her secret—if he knew what she’s done.

“The boy and girl were forbidden to be together, but they found a way,” he continued. “Every night, they came together and—”

She puts a finger to his lips. “It’s not polite to kiss and tell.”

He clears his throat. “And had a very nice time. Then, one day, the boy was chosen as his generation’s Player.”

“Oh, the
boy
?” she says.

“Naturally.”

She gives him a teasing shove. “Sexist pig.”

“Oink.”

“If you think just because you’re the guy, you—”

“May I continue with my story?” he asks her.

She can’t play mad for long. She doesn’t care who is named the Player in this story, any more than she does in life. She doesn’t care about the game; she wants to know what happens after. “You may,” she says.

“
Anyway
, the boy was chosen to be his generation’s Player, not because he was a boy, which is a stupid thing to assume, but because he was a magnificent example of the human species, quite possibly the apotheosis of the race.”

“And modest too.”

“Exactly.” Alad strokes her as he speaks, his fingers trailing back and forth across her body in time with his words.

“The boy and girl were separated for a time . . .”

She wants to make a joke here, to keep the mood light, to prove to him and to herself that the story isn’t real, but she can’t do it. The thought of being separated from him, it’s like a physical ache. Like imagining someone amputating a limb.

“But their sacrifice was worth it,” he says. “Because the boy acquitted himself admirably as a Player, and when his tenure was over—”

“Uneventfully.”

“When his completely lacking in eventfulness tenure was over, he was
showered with all the rewards that accrue to a Player past his prime. Fame, fortune, power.”

This much, she knew, was true. Former Players had their pick of the good life—the rest of their bloodline saw to it that they got whatever they wanted, as thanks for their years of duty and sacrifice. Players-in-training got no such advantage: You were sent on your way with a small bank account and a forged high school diploma, and you hoped that would be enough. You spent the rest of your life on call to any Player who might need you—except for the ones who came crawling back, volunteering to be minders, because they could imagine no other life. But actual Players? It was like winning the lottery. Assuming you survived long enough to cash in your ticket.

“Totally free of responsibility and obligation, the boy and girl moved to a beautiful mansion in Abu Dhabi. They got married and had two very handsome sons, and promised each other they would never be apart another day in their lives. And they lived happily ever after.”

Kala rolls over on her side so she can get a clear look at his face. “So do you really want that?” she asks.

“What, marriage? Kids? Yeah. I know we’re young, but eventually . . .”

“No, not that. I mean, yes, that, I’m glad you want that, because . . .” She shakes her head. Everything’s getting muddled. Until tonight they have never talked about the future, and now suddenly it’s all laid out before her, a street paved with gold. It’s so much, so fast. And there’s so much he still doesn’t know about her. “I mean, do you really want to be chosen as the Player?”

“Of course I do.” He sits up, looks at her like she’s a stranger. “Don’t you?”

She sits up too, and takes his hands. It’s good to hold them, but not as good as it is to be held by them, to curl her body into his embrace and feel cut off from the rest of the world. “I guess? I don’t know, I never gave it much thought.”

“Yeah, I can see how that would be, given that it’s
our entire purpose in life
. And has been since we were born.”

“Not since we were born,” she says quickly. Because that’s the whole point.

“Get picked as the Player and you get
everything
,” he says. “It’s not just an honor; it’s being set for a lifetime. You watch so many movies—but do you know what the world’s really like? The world outside Hollywood? It’s hard and it’s expensive and it’s getting shittier every day. Yeah, I want to be the Player. I want the chance to save the world. And after, I’ll have enough money and power to live life the way I want to live it.” He gives her hands a very gentle squeeze. “And protect the people I love.”

Love
. It is the first time either of them has said the word.

Except that Players don’t love. Everyone knows this. Those chosen to be the Player are broken of the habit of love, and they never regain it. Even those who live on to old age choose to die alone.

He must tell himself that he will be different. Kala has noticed this about human nature: everyone likes to believe they are the exception to the rule.

She’s not going to argue with him, certainly not after he’s used that word. Letting someone believe whatever he needs to—maybe that is also love.

“It was a good story,” she tells him. “Really good.”

“How about you?”

“I’m not really much for stories,” she says.

“No, I mean, what do
you
want?”

She reaches for him, with pointed purpose.

He laughs and pushes her away. “Aside from the obvious, I mean.”

Now is the moment. She can lie to him, make up some trivial desire, some stupid thing like a motorcycle or a Nobel Prize—or she can show him the part of herself that she’s been keeping secret all this time. Say it out loud, this truth that she’s never exposed to the light. She can trust him enough to hear her dark desire, the desperate wish at the base of her life, and love her anyway.

Maybe he will even understand her dream.

Maybe he will share it.

She turns away from him and, for good measure, closes her eyes. She doesn’t want to see his face when she admits it.

“I want a family,” she says.

“What, like kids? You know I want to give you that. I mean, not anytime soon, obviously, but—”

“No,” she says, though it would be easy enough to let it go. “I mean, yes, I want that too, someday, but that’s not what I mean. I want
my
family. The people I came from. The people they took me away from.”

“Oh.”

She can’t read his voice, and after a long moment of silence, she can’t stand it anymore. She turns back to him. He searches her face, and she loves him for trying to understand. But she can see that he doesn’t.

“Don’t you ever think about it?” she says. “Where you came from? Who you belong to?”

“Why would I think about that? They gave us away, Kala.”

“We don’t know that,” she says. “We don’t know anything. What makes you so sure it was their choice? Has anyone ever given
us
a choice?”

She’s ready now, charged with anger. If she can just make him see it, then she can tell him everything. About the late nights spent hacking through the camp’s firewalls, searching for back doors to password-locked archives, decoding encrypted files. About what she’s spent so long looking for—and what she’s found.

About how she hasn’t done anything about it, not yet. Hasn’t known what to do, until now.

Now, they can do it
together
.

“You know why it has to work this way,” he says, and it almost sounds like he’s chastising her. “You don’t give toddlers a choice. You make smart choices for them, for their own good. For
everyone’s
good.”

“And now? We’re not toddlers anymore, Alad.”

“And now we choose to do what needs to be done to protect our people,” he says. “Or at least
I
do.”

You sound like a robot
, she wants to tell him.
You sound brainwashed
.

“This is bigger than us,” he says. “This is the end of the world. The survival of the race. If our birth families didn’t want to give us away, then they were being selfish. Some things are worth a sacrifice.”

“What if someone tried to take me away from you?” she asks.

“That’s never going to happen.”

“But if it did?”

“I would never let anyone take you away from me,” he says, voice deadly serious. “I promise.”

But a promise is more than just the word. They both know he can’t promise her anything, not really. Their lives have no space for any promises except the promise they’ve made to the cause. The promise they were forced to make.

She doesn’t point this out to him. She doesn’t want to argue, or to talk about duty or families or promises anymore. For once, she doesn’t want to talk at all. She kisses him to win his silence, and keep it.

Easier not to hear the judgment in his voice, the doubt.

There’s no doubt in his touch.

And in the quiet of his arms, she can imagine that, deep down, they are the same.

It happens the next day. There’s no warning, no portent in the sky or tension in the air, some flashing neon sign to indicate
This is the day everything changes
. There’s just a tap on her shoulder as she cools down after her afternoon run, a whisper in her ear that she’s wanted in the central office.

Her first thought, her only thought, is that they know about her and Alad. Because what else could it be?

Stepping into the office is like crossing into a different world. The only part of the camp with central air-conditioning, the room offers no hint that it’s in the middle of the Rub’ al-Khali, the biggest sand desert in the world. The room’s air is crisp and cool, its lines sleek and modern—they could be in a luxury high-rise in the heart of Abu Dhabi. Except that, through the window, the desert stretches on and
on.