There is, somehow, a weapon in her hand. A Caracal pistol, her favorite. Compact and deadly. Just like her.
“You gave yourself away to a fool,” Zikia tells her. It is Zikia’s gun, and Zikia’s hand on her shoulder, its gentle pressure telling her what she needs to do now. Who she needs to be now. “Your misguided attachment blinded you to the truth of him, and look what it’s done.”
Caring is weakness.
Love is threat.
“Kala,” Alad says. Pleads. “Kala, I love you. I only did this for us. For our future.”
She can smell the blood, its iron tang. This is what she will think of now, when she remembers her mother. Not saffron, but blood.
Not the life she could have had, but death.
“Kala, please.” Alad’s voice breaks.
Kala is only a word she chose to call herself. It is not real. No more real than Simin, that leftover from a child’s dream. Kala means “time,” the destroyer of all things. There are those who say Kala is the name of the god of death.
She is 5SIGMA. She has always been 5SIGMA. She sees that now. She sees the way forward.
She pulls the trigger.
Blood blossoms at the center of his forehead. His eyes go wide, then empty.
She has always had excellent aim.
“Good,” Zikia says. Then: “I’m sorry it had to happen like this.”
“I’m not,” Kala says, and is already in motion, stepping past Zikia, past the bodies of the people she will force herself to forget, past this present and into her future. She will not pause to cry, or to regret.
She has been scooped out, emptied of the capacity for tears, and of the weakness that goes with them.
She will move forward. She will forget Alad, forget her family, forget love, forget what was or what might have been, focus only on what is.
Playing.
Winning.
Surviving.
There is nothing else.
MU
CHIYOKO
All day, every day, Chiyoko belongs to her people. Her life, her time, her choices, none of them are her own. She lives for the Mu, the thousands who share her ancient bloodline and will rely on her to save them if Endgame comes. It is both obligation and honor; it is a promise she made before she was old enough to understand sacrifice. A promise made on her behalf, before she was born. The stars spelled out her fate six days before baby Chiyoko made her way, red-faced and gasping—but never crying, never that—into the world. She was training for her role before she was old enough to understand what training meant, that training was anything other than life. She has never had friends, never had hobbies. She has never doubted the person she would grow to become, the things she would be capable of, the obligations she would serve, because her uncle told her what would come to pass, and she knew no other way but to believe him.
She begrudges none of it. The Mu are her people and she is their Player. Her days belong to them.
But her nights are her own.
By day she endures an isolated, regimented existence, her every minute accounted for. She is a precious object, to be protected at all costs. Yes, the training is rigorous and often puts her life in danger—she’s leaped from airplanes, scaled skyscrapers, infiltrated military installations, walked through fire—but those are calculated risks, efficient risks. They serve a purpose. When she is not enduring missions, preparing for an end that might never come, she is meant to be safe at home, under her uncle’s watchful eye. If and when Endgame begins, she will be the champion of her people. But until then, her uncle never tires of reminding her, she is a 13-year-old girl. A 13-year-old girl who can tie a hundred different knots, load a machine gun in three seconds flat, disarm a man three times her size. But she cannot do something so simple as open her mouth and ask for help.
Chiyoko lived 13 years as a Player-to-be, and accepted the limitations of that life, having never known any other. But 10 days ago, on her 13th birthday, she ascended. Player-to-be no more. She is now the Player, the one and only. She has placed her hands on the ancient scrolls, the ones that tell of the near obliteration of the Mu by their alien overlords. She has sworn to protect her people in the event that these merciless beings finally return. The Mu were saved once, by the cruel grace of the creatures from the stars. Only Chiyoko can save them again. This she swore to do—silently, with a slow nod of the head that her uncle understood. She could hear several of the elders on the Council of Twelve muttering, as if a promise were not a promise unless spoken aloud. As if her entire life had not been a promise of service to them and their needs.
She thought things would change after the ceremony. That upon coming of age she would live a freer life, able to make her own choices.
She was wrong.
If anything, her uncle’s rules have gotten more oppressive. She is still a precious possession, now more precious than ever. Her skills, her energies, her days—these belong to her people, her uncle reminds her, as he pushes her ever harder.
Chiyoko lives to please her uncle, the only one who believes in her without reservation. She delights in meeting his expectations and exceeding them. So by day she lives the life he sets out for her.
By night she flies.
Rooftop to rooftop, soaring over the streets of Naha, a creature of the dark. She runs up the sides of building, vaults over walls, lets momentum carry her up, across, away. She never hesitates at the edge of a roof: to hesitate is to fall. She flings herself at edges, leaps across chasms, holds tight to those seconds aloft, defying gravity. In those seconds, suspended between roofs, tens or hundreds of feet above the ground, she can be free.
Her trainers called it parkour, and they taught her well. No one knows how much she took the training to heart, that she has made the night city her own.
Chiyoko has always been good at secrets.
Some nights she spies on her neighbors, alighting on a balcony or windowsill and stealing glimpses of a stranger’s life. More often she enjoys her solitude, letting her mind drift into fantasy as her body takes flight: She is a vampire; she is a superhero; she is a monster. She is an anime vigilante, flickering in two dimensions across a cartoon sky. She wonders what they would make of her, these innocents, if they caught sight of her silhouette streaking across the low-hanging moon. Whatever it might be, it couldn’t be stranger than the truth.
That she is a superhero. A vigilante. That she is fated to save the world. Or at least her people. And she’s been taught to understand that they are all of the world that matters.
In the day, while she trains with her uncle, she bears this responsibility without telling anyone of her doubts: Can she do it? Is she strong enough? If Endgame comes, will she survive? She keeps her fears to herself, and lets no one guess how much she dreads Endgame, how much she hopes her time as the Player will pass without incident. That the days and years will slip past until she ages out of eligibility and the fate of the world slides onto someone else’s shoulders.
At night, the doubts disappear. They have no more hold on her than gravity.
She feels it as she leaps fearlessly into shadow: certainty. A sureness that she is the one, that Endgame will come, and come soon. That she will rise to meet it.
Part of it, surely, is the solitude of night, its promised escape from the doubting eyes of the Mu. Out here in the dark, there is no one to wonder how a girl who can’t speak can do anything else. No one to treat her like she is broken, damaged, stupid, wrong. No one to smile and pretend to believe her uncle, believe she is up to the challenge, while their gaze shines with the truth of their skepticism.
No wonder it’s easier to believe in herself when she can be invisible.
But that’s not all of it.
That may be what sent her into the night for the first time, but it’s not why she stayed, or why she can’t stay away.
Soaring from building to building, she becomes one with the dark. A shadow slipping across the sky, she feels connected to the stars as she never does
on the ground. Only in motion, in the air, can she hear them singing to her. Whispers on the breeze, chimes in the night, a message meant only for her ears.
We are coming.
We are coming.
We are coming back.
Alone in the dark, she imagines she can feel their presence, their watchful eyes, those beings from the stars. And their eyes hold no doubt. They know she is the one. They know she will be ready.
This is why she defies her uncle’s wishes and sneaks into the night. She needs these booster shots of confidence. She needs that belief that comes only in darkness, to get her through all those hours in the light.
But tonight is not about confidence or freedom.
Tonight is about learning her fate.
Tonight she scales the barbed-wire gate surrounding Satoshi Nori’s estate and climbs his ivy-carpeted walls. She perches lightly on a sill and activates the transmitter she long before hid in his sitting room. The transmitters are long-range, and she could have eavesdropped on this conversation from the comfort of her own home. But she prefers it here, with the wind sharp on her cheeks and the Mu Council of Twelve bickering in hushed tones behind the bulletproof glass. Twelve of them, one for each of the original 12 tribes of Mu that stood up to the creatures from the stars. As reward for their rebelliousness, 11 of the tribes were wiped from the Earth. One line remained, one charged with remembering the price of defiance. The Mu have been obedient servants ever since, playing their role in the game, warning the ancient bloodlines of humanity about the Endgame to come. Millennia of tradition and servitude, all resting in the hands of these 12 old men and women. These are the 12 who have placed the burden of her people on Chiyoko’s shoulders, and among them now are those who would try to take that burden away.
They may refuse to face her, but they can’t stop her from facing them.
They may treat her like a child, but they’re fools if they think she’s going to act like one, letting decisions be made for her, letting conversations fly over her head that will decide her future.
Satoshi Nori is the de facto leader of the Mu—he is neither the wisest nor the boldest among them, but he has the most money, and that counts for plenty.
Chiyoko has been listening in on him for more than a year now. Which is how she knows his to be the loudest voice speaking up against her, arguing that a girl like her—a defective like her—should not be the Player, no matter what the signs may say.
Unlike her elders, she has never much cared what Satoshi thought. But maybe she should have. Because this afternoon she overheard her uncle agreeing to attend a meeting of the council, a meeting in which they would hear Satoshi out once and for all.
The Council of Twelve meets, as a rule, only once a year. An unscheduled meeting is agreed to only under grave consideration—if her uncle agreed to attend, he must have had good reason. He must have believed Satoshi would say something worth hearing.
Her uncle’s eyes are the only ones that have never lied to her. His faith in her is bone deep, and it is what sustains her through every doubting day. Or so she has always thought.
Maybe she is foolish after all.
Chiyoko clings tight to the wall, disappearing into the darkness. She closes her eyes against the wind, and listens.
“The girl is weak,” Satoshi says. “After so many generations, you would have us trust our people’s survival to this defective thing? This mute?”
It’s nothing she hasn’t heard before.
“You would have us cast away a hundred generations of tradition, defy the word of the gods, all on your opinion?” Chiyoko’s uncle says. “Chiyoko’s voice may be weak, but her spirit is strong. She is our Player, whether you like it or not.”
This, too, is familiar territory. No one questioned Chiyoko’s annunciation as Player-to-be—not until she was five years old and it was clear she would never speak. For three millennia, the elders have anointed a Player in the womb, and that child has grown up to Play. Never has this tradition been violated. Never has the child proven unworthy. But three millennia is a long time. There are those who believe that maybe, finally, the elders have made a mistake. That maybe it’s time to dispense with tradition and apply common sense. Choose a Player who will be whole. The argument has raged behind Chiyoko’s back for a decade.
It is as if they think that because she cannot speak, she does not hear.
So tonight’s argument is familiar—but then it takes an unexpected turn.
“This cannot continue,” her uncle says. “This dissension, the lack of faith. It’s too dangerous.”
“Then we are in agreement,” Satoshi says.
“You said you had a proposal?”
“I propose we offer our people a Player they deserve, one without defect or disability. Akina Nori.”
Chiyoko barely knows the girl. The Mu rarely socialize with one another, finding it safer to assimilate into Naha society and keep their bond hidden from prying eyes. On those rare occasions when their children came together, Chiyoko was always ignored. She played silently by herself, while the others chattered together. But she knows enough about Akina Nori: The girl is beautiful, athletic, wealthy. She is also Satoshi Nori’s daughter.
“Imagine my surprise,” her uncle says, and Chiyoko can hear the wry smile in his voice.
“She’s a good candidate,” Satoshi says. “Top of her class, and the most accomplished fighter I’ve ever seen.”
“You’ve never seen Chiyoko.”
“In fact, I have,” Satoshi says.
Girls like Akina don’t learn how to fight. Not unless they’re being trained for something. Groomed for something.
“I have support,” Satoshi says, and there is a murmuring among the elders, a murmuring that sounds like agreement. “You would be surprised to know how much.”
“I have support as well,” her uncle says. “But I agree with you—this cannot continue.”
Chiyoko nearly loses her grip on the sill. The wind is suddenly colder than it was, biting sharp and angry at her flesh.
She never asked to be the Player. Never thought to wonder whether she wanted it.
But she finds now she does not want to lose it.
Who would she be without it?
Who would she be without her uncle’s belief that she is special, that she is the one?
Who would she be but a broken girl who only feels whole in the dark?
Then her uncle speaks again. “I propose a test,” he says. “A challenge. Chiyoko has a training mission coming up. Survival in the wilderness. I intended to test her against the elements—but I see no reason not to pit her against an enemy as well. Akina will have the element of surprise, the superior firepower; Chiyoko will have her training and the will of the gods. Let us leave them to their own devices and see who lives.”
A woman gasps, and Chiyoko recognizes this as Satoshi’s wife. Akina’s mother.
“Chiyoko will know none of this?” Satoshi says.
“You have my word,” her uncle says, and all the Mu know what this is worth.
“You would send your own niece into an ambush?”
“I have no fear that she can take care of herself,” her uncle says, and relief surges through her. This is how much he believes in her. Enough to risk her life on her skill and his certainty. “Can you say the same for your daughter?”
“Satoshi, think about this,” Akina’s mother says. Her name is Lia, and Chiyoko knows her to be a fearsome woman, all sharp vision and sharper edges. There are those who whisper that she is responsible for much of Satoshi’s success and all his decisions. She doesn’t sound fearsome now. She only sounds afraid. “This is our daughter.”
Satoshi says nothing.
“If you have no faith in her, how can you expect our people to defy the gods’ will and follow yours instead?” Chiyoko’s uncle says.
“If Akina kills Chiyoko, then you’ll accede to my wishes?” Satoshi asks. “You and yours will acknowledge that she is to be our next Player?
”
“She will have earned her place. And if it is Chiyoko who survives, there will be no more of this,” her uncle says. “No more questioning, no more dissent. You will accept the gods’ will. You will accept Chiyoko.”
“If she survives.”
“Yes. If.”
Chiyoko leaps from the sill and lands noiselessly on the dewy grass. She takes no pleasure in the flight home, racing down streets and grazing roofs. She doesn’t enjoy the silence or spare a glance for the crystalline stars. She allows herself no thought, no emotion, not until she is safely enclosed in the dark of her room. Surrounded by evidence of her uncle’s love for her: The books he has brought her. The weapons he has given her. The mural he painted on her wall, a serpentine river to remind her that she is like water: deceptively peaceful, quietly strong, dangerous when underestimated, often deadly.
Chiyoko’s uncle has always believed in her. He has raised her, all these years, while her parents travel the world, monitoring Mu business and Mu fortunes in other countries, ensuring that the people—and its secret, ancient mission—will live on. Like Chiyoko, they have a responsibility to their bloodline, and she cannot begrudge them that. She knows they love her. Even if there’s a part of her that wonders whether it’s easy to love her from a distance. With thousands of miles between them, they don’t have to be confronted by her silence, her failure. She, in turn, doesn’t have to be reminded of their disappointment.
Her uncle has never been disappointed. He speaks up for Chiyoko, who cannot speak for herself. As a child, when she cried herself to sleep after a hard day of training, only to wake up screaming silently from a nightmare, her uncle was always there, waiting. He knew. He told her of his time as a Player; he told her it was an honor, and that she would do her people proud.
She still has nightmares.
Sometimes, in the dreams, she can speak. She never remembers the sound of her voice when she wakes up. But sometimes she can almost hear the echo of her scream. Always, when she wakes up afraid, he is there to calm her, as he is tonight. He brushes her hair from her forehead and sets a soft kiss on her brow. “Whatever happens is meant to happen,” he whispers. “That has always been the way.”