Endgame: The Calling (53 page)

“We’ll be back as soon as possible,” Sarah replies. “Good flying.”

Christopher nods and tries to suppress a smile. Watching Sarah and Jago puzzle out that number crap—which Christopher still doesn’t understand, and probably never will—he’d felt hopeless. But now, maybe there is a use for him after all. Jago has already moved into the woods. Sarah smiles and follows, jogging up the steep hillside.

Aisling moves into position. The rifle is heavy; the carabiners on her harness clank. The Pirana descender is pulled tight over two loops. She has to get to a place where she can have a good look at these visitors.

These Players.

Pop taught her to shoot first and ask questions later. That’s how she planned to Play Endgame. But after staring at those paintings, Aisling is reconsidering that course of action. She flies through the woods, leaping logs and rocks and depressions.

What if they’re friendly? What if all this can be avoided?

She tightens her grip on the barrel.

What if they’re not and what if it can’t?

Up up up.

Fast and faster. Sarah moves to the front, leaping like a fawn. Jago keeps up, but not easily. Sarah stops. Jago does too. She crouches. Points. Jago sees it. A dark green cord in a small loop lying across a deer track. A game snare. Jago sneers. “A Player is here.”

Sarah nods, draws her pistol. “Not Chiyoko, though. She’d have no reason to set that trap, not since this morning.”

“Agreed.” He inspects the positioning device. “We’re close. About a hundred meters.”

Besides the pistol, the only weapons they have are their bodies and Chiyoko’s wakizashi. The rest of the hardware was all in the 307.

Sarah cracks her neck. “Let’s go.”

Aisling skids to a stop on a cliff high above the cave’s entrance. She grabs the rope, checks the anchors, pulls a small set of very high-powered binoculars from a case on her side. She peers down the mountainside: nothing. She lets the binoculars hang around her neck and works the rope through the descender, moves the rifle’s strap across her body. She turns her back to the lake and sets her brake hand and plants her feet wide and jumps, scaring a nearby hawk and sending it into the sky.

Sarah and Jago reach the edge of a small clearing as a hawk suddenly takes wing overhead. Something, or someone, startled that bird. They each wonder,
Who?

There are footprints everywhere.

Not one of the larger Players. Not Alice, Maccabee, or Hilal.

But a girl.

There is a small pile of sticks near a gash in the rock. A cave. Without speaking they agree that whatever’s in there must be what the clue is leading them to. Sarah holds up three fingers.

Two.

One.

Fist.

They dash across the clearing. The hawk cries out, its screech echoing over the vast alpine bowl.

The hawk wails. Aisling brakes and twists 180 degrees. She scans with the binoculars. The camp is still empty, but she hasn’t been watching it for the last 46 seconds. She hangs there for another minute, waiting for a sign, but none comes.

She turns, resumes lowering herself.

Sarah flicks on a flashlight and checks the chamber. A bedroll. A pack against the wall. A fire circle. A stack of wood. A pile of animal bones. Drawings and notes in charcoal on an otherwise blank section of wall.

“Empty,” says Jago.

“No Chiyoko, at least.”

“Lucky her.” Jago walks across the room, shining his own light. “Look at this,” he says slowly.

They stand before the ancient picture Aisling has been contemplating for nearly a week. “That’s us,” Sarah says with wonder. “All twelve of us.”

“Or something like us,” Jago agrees.

“The monoliths . . . Stonehenge.”

“And there is one of kepler 22b’s ancient cousins.”

Jago stuffs the GPS in his pants and takes out a smartphone. He snaps a picture of the painting.

Sarah runs her hands over it. “This figure has a disk. It looks . . . it looks like she’s putting it on this rock.” She places her finger on a stone with a dagger drawn in it.

Jago lowers his phone. “Or putting it
in
it.”

They stare in silence.

Here is their story, their future, their past.

Everything and nothing.

All the time.

Here and here and here.

“You think . . .” Sarah trails off.

“This is how we’re supposed to use the disk to get Earth Key. . . .”

“It has to be,” Sarah whispers in awe.

Jago snaps close-ups of the painting.

Sarah points at the red ball above the scene. “What’s that?”

“The sun? A moon? kepler 22b’s home?”

Sarah shakes her head. “It’s one of the meteorites. Has to be. This is our story, or part of it anyway.”

“I suppose so.”

Sarah takes one of Jago’s hands. “I’ve seen enough, Feo. We need to leave.”

Jago nods, his face grim. “We need to get that disk back.”

They miss the 2nd painting entirely. The one of the woman on the ocean, floating alone, after Endgame.

They don’t have the revelation.

Not like Aisling.

Aisling stops on a narrow ledge above camp and checks again. And there they are.

Two of them.

Unexpected.

She swings the rifle off her shoulder. She flips the lids on the scope, throws the bolt, lets the air out of her lungs, steadies herself. These motions come naturally to her; she’s done this many times before, feels comfortable killing from a distance. But she’s not going to kill this time. Not yet. She eases her finger off the trigger. She wants to get a better look at them before she decides what to do.

Life or death?

She can’t get a bead on the girl from this angle, but she can see the boy. One of the skinnier ones. Jago Tlaloc? Or the Shang? It’s hard to tell. If it’s the Olmec boy, he didn’t seem too bad. Unlike the Shang, Jago didn’t blow anyone up during the Calling. The Shang, on the other hand, he deserves to die. She touches the trigger, feeling the coil taut beneath her finger. Aisling squints. “Come on,” she mutters. “Turn around. Let me see your beautiful face. . . .”

Sarah emerges from the cave behind Jago. She glances over her shoulder at the cliff rising behind the trees. A glint on the lower half of the rock—a scope.

“Run!” Sarah shouts. “Run for the trees!”

Jago doesn’t need to ask why; he trusts her, and he moves immediately. Sarah runs too, aiming over her shoulder with her pistol, firing toward the cliff.

A chunk of rock explodes next to Aisling’s shoulder. She flinches. Cover fire so they can get to the safety of the woods. Aisling should’ve taken the two of them out when she had a chance. Unless . . .

How would I react if I saw a sniper rifle aimed at me?
Aisling wonders.

It’s all a cycle,
she hears her father say. Which means that maybe it can be broken.

Aisling fires a shot into the air. She wants to get their attention. She lets the gun down from her cheek.

“I am Aisling Kopp, La Tène of the 3rd line. Whoever you are, listen!”

Sarah and Jago hunker down behind a thick tree. They crane their necks, trying to get a look at their assailant, but they can’t see the cliff face anymore.

“She can’t see us,” Jago says.

“Do you have the disk?” Aisling shouts, her voice desperate.

Sarah frowns at Jago. “How does she know about that? She couldn’t have seen you take it at the Calling.”

“Listen, if you have it, and you know what to do with it, do not use it!”

“She’s bullshitting,” Jago says. “Just trying to prevent us from getting Earth Key.”

“I repeat, DO NOT USE THE DISK!”

Sarah whispers, “Screw her. Let’s get out of here.”

Jago dips his chin in agreement.

“If you have it, don’t go to England. It wi—”

But Aisling’s voice is drowned out by the guttural echo of the Bush Hawk’s engine jumping to life.

“Chris heard the shots,” Sarah says.

Jago stands and turns his back on the clearing. “We need to get out of here and intercept Chiyoko.” He moves furtively down the steep slope.

Sarah follows, glancing only once over her shoulder. She can still hear the Player on the cliff yelling, but she can’t make out the words. Something bothers her about what just happened, but she can’t quite put her finger on it.

Aisling continues to shout, but the unseen plane’s engine is too loud, and Aisling’s voice is out of range. She angrily slaps the side of the cliff and flails in her harness. They wouldn’t hear her out and she didn’t shoot them. Not her most productive day.

The heavy rifle languishes in front of her. Aisling looks at it as if she just noticed it. “Well,” she says, “there’s still time.”

She pulls it to her shoulder. Raises it, slides the bolt, chambering a round. The lake stretches out below her. The sound of the engine roars. They’ll have to rise in order to escape. Easy pickings.

“I tried talking,” she says to herself. “Now let’s try this other thing.”

Christopher is relieved to see Sarah, and disappointed to see Jago, emerge from the woods. They splash into the water and clamber onto the plane.

“What happened out there?”

“We got shot at,” Jago says.

“Sounded like a big gun.”

“Get us out of here,” Sarah says. “We got what we came for.”

“Cool,” says Christopher, not bothering to ask what new piece of alien mythology they dug up this time. They put on the headphones and mics and Christopher grabs the control stick and moves the plane around, lets out the throttle.

“Stay low and behind the trees for as long as possible!” Sarah says into her mouthpiece.

Christopher punches the throttle and the plane lifts into the air. He holds the craft close to the water’s surface until they reach the edge of the lake.

“Here we go!” He pulls back hard and they move up, up, up.

Aisling pushes her eye to the scope.

There you are
.

Breathe.

Fire.

Bolt.

Repeat.

A port-side window blows out as a round tears through the fuselage. Christopher jogs the wheel, and the plane waves back and forth. Sparks fly off the prop as another round grazes it.

“You got this?” Sarah asks, turning pale, grasping Christopher’s arm.

“I got this,” he says, teeth gritted. He’s not going to be in another plane crash. He banks hard left.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Jago screams. The mountain is right in front of them like a wall.

“Closing the damn gap.”

Jago scans the cliff face and sees a muzzle flash. A round tears through the port wing.

Christopher pushes the throttle harder.

“Pull up, pull up, pull up!” Sarah yells.

Aisling abandons the scope and fires at will.

She fires her 5th shot.

Wing again.

One hundred meters and closing.

6th.

Pontoon.

7th.

Blade.

8th.

Fuselage.

It’s overhead and screaming up the mountain as she fires her 9th shot. The plane growls and strains. Droplets of gas spray.

The plane disappears over the mountains to the west.

Aisling smiles.

You won’t get far.

Malpensa International Airport, Milan, Italy

At the Milan airport, on her way to Heathrow, Chiyoko composes an email.

Dearest An,

I am en route to Stonehenge. I will soon have Earth Key. I will have won the first round. Before I Play on I will come to you, dearest. I will give you more of me. I will.

Yours until the End,

C.

She hits send.

She’ll soon be winning.

She’ll soon be there.

She’ll soon be with him.

Soon.

Church of the Covenant, Kingdom of Aksum, Northern Ethiopia

“They can’t, they can’t, they can’t.” Hilal ibn Isa al-Salt’s voice is weak and muffled, delirious.

“Hush now. Be calm, Hilal.” Eben is by his side, on a stool, working over a surgeon’s stainless-steel table. A small pewter Christ watches them from the wall.

“We would know.” Hilal is covered in burns. His arms, face, chest, and head are loosely wrapped in gauze.