We both went quiet as we reached the tunnel entrance. It was narrow and dim, a low, curved ceiling closing in on us. There was the silhouette of someone standing in the center holding a push broom. We approached him and he stopped sweeping.
“Is there a secret word?” I whispered to her.
“No. We just give him a ten.”
I dug into my pocket, but she was faster than me, and in a moment she slipped him the money. He opened a door and let us into a small, dimly lit room.
The room smelled of motor oil and grass clippings. It was an equipment room for the care of the rose garden and the park on the other side. There were two desks, each with a chair, and a beat-up sofa. About 20 people were already there. I recognized most from last weekend. Jim stood up from one of the desk chairs and offered the seat to Mary. She protested, but he insisted.
Tommy rushed over when he saw me. “Mike! I’ve been worried, man. I saw the paper this morning but I haven’t been to the room all day. I was hoping I’d see you here.”
John came over too. He shook my hand and then clapped me on the back. He had a ball cap on, but I could see a gauze bandage peeking out under the brim. “First things first,” he said. “We know about the picture. And I want you to know that you have our complete loyalty. You’re one of us now, Mike. A part of Zero line, if you want to be.”
I shrugged, angry. “I don’t know what good I’ll be to you after this. I’ve got to get out of town. I’m screwed if they find me.”
“I know, Mike. It’s a bad spot. But you’ll be a lot of good to a lot of us. A lot of people in this room have stuff. You know that I’m AWOL, don’t you? Walter too.”
Eugene, a scrawny guy with a wispy beard, spoke up. “I was right there with you at the march yesterday. I saw—you were trying to help John. I’d have done the same thing if I’d been closer. And I’ve got a record.”
Mary leaned over and whispered to me. “Eugene robbed a couple banks.”
One of the older guys, Henry—maybe 30 years old—waved his hand. “I’ve got warrants. Three of them. Battery and possession.”
Bruce nodded. “I served sixty days for failure to appear.”
“See, Mike?” John said. “We get it. And we’re going to be watching out for you.”
I nodded. “Thanks, guys. Seriously—I don’t know what else I would do. I mean, I don’t know anybody else. You guys are my lifeline right now.”
“And we’ll protect you. Keep a roof over your head,” John said. “That’s a promise.”
He nodded at me, but then pointed at a girl I didn’t know. “We’ll come back to this,” John said. “But first, let me introduce you to our guest of honor. Agatha, a former Player from the La Tène line. She’s seen all of this lifestyle up close and personal.”
A pale-faced woman with reddish-blond hair stood up. I couldn’t believe it—she was so young! I was expecting a grizzled warrior, not a girl just a few years older than me. Watching her now, I was disturbed by her age. She, and others like her, would be deciding our world’s destiny.
“Agatha,” John said, “you’ve already been introduced to everyone else. Mary here has been part of our group for a year. And Mike is our newest recruit.”
“What do they bring to the table?” she asked.
John seemed surprised by the question, and paused for a moment. “Mary is smart as a whip, an aspiring lawyer, and a passionate supporter of the cause. And you should see the ranch she’s got up in Northern California. Lots of land, secluded, private. A great place to train. We’ve been going up there for about a year now.”
“What about him?” Agatha said. “What’s he good for? Sounds like he’s a wanted man.” She tapped a cigarette out of a pack from her pocket and lit it. She took a long, deep drag, and then blew the smoke into the air above her.
“He’s got a famous right hook,” John said with a smile, giving me a little wink. “It was on the front page of the paper.”
I didn’t smile back. It may have been a clever thing to say, but I was still wanted by the police. I was still wondering where I was going to sleep that night.
Agatha looked at Mary, then at me. “So is everybody here, then?”
“Yes,” John said. “We can get started.”
“All right,” she said, tapping ash onto the cement floor. “Well, where to begin? I know all of you, though you don’t know me.”
“Well,” John said. “I’ve told you their names, but—”
Agatha held up her hand. “I’ve been to the Bay Area several times, watching. Ever since you reached out to me, John. I know all about you.”
John stared at her for a moment and finally smiled.
“Told you,” said Walter.
John laughed uncomfortably. It was strange to see him shaken up. Even at the rally, he’d seemed to have everything under control.
“Well, Agatha,” John said. “We have Walter, from the Cahokian line. He has told us as much as he knows, but there are holes.”
“Before we get started,” Agatha said, “I want to make sure of what we’re all talking about. The Zero line’s goal is to stop the Players, stop Endgame before it happens for real, right?”
“Absolutely,” Walter answered. “We’re in one hundred percent. It’s all or nothing.”
“Good,” she said. Despite her freckles and cigarette, she came across as an expert, like a warrior, like a sage. “Because that’s the only way that you can make this work. Everybody has to agree; all the Players need to be stopped. We need to make them all see Endgame for what it is. If even one goes behind the other Players’ backs and seeks the keys, they can still ‘win’ this goddamned thing.” She spoke like someone a lot older than she looked. I had to admit, she was intimidating.
“Several years ago, I discovered documents about the origins of Endgame. I stole them from the archive at the La Tène compound,” she continued, handing an unbound sheaf of paper over to John, who looked at it and then passed it to Walter. “Only a few people know about these papers. Stealing them led to my excommunication from my line. Worse, the day I started asking questions about this, they killed my sister. They told me to keep my mouth shut, and that if I ever spoke out against Endgame—that if I ever did something like speaking to you—I’d be killed. But I learned the truth. It cost me my family and the only life I’ve ever known, but I learned the truth. I’ve been on the run, in hiding ever since, but I swore to myself that I would find a way to stop Endgame. If you want to know the true story of Endgame, read this.”
Walter flipped through the pages. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. He reached into his shirt pocket for the paper he had read to us, and then looked at the last page of Agatha’s papers again.
“It’s the same,” Walter said, startled.
“The same as what?” Agatha said.
Walter handed his paper to her. “I stole this one from the Cahokian vault.”
Agatha read through the paper, and Walter handed the unbound pages back to John.
“We don’t know where it comes from,” Agatha said. “It was written by a member of the Brotherhood of the Snake. I translated it from Latin. Annunaki is a Sumerian word, but it can mean lots of things: Sky People, Gods, Makers, aliens.” She stepped over to John, turned a couple pages. “Read that. Out loud.”
John cleared his throat.
The Annunaki’s presence in the pages of human history becomes obvious, if you know where to look. Their fingerprints are everywhere. We find the Annunaki in the enormous stone heads of Central America’s Olmec civilization, whose depictions of ancient Olmec rulers include elaborately carved stone headdresses—headdresses that are actually Annunaki helmets that protect against the harsh light of the sun, marking these rulers as aliens in disguise. Though a volcanic eruption in the 1st millennium BCE spelled the end of the Olmec, enough survived to pass their culture down to the civilizations that followed. And so even in the Maya and Aztec traditions, we can see shadows of the Sky People.
We have forgotten what we are;
we have forgotten where and who we came from. And our creators will not take kindly to the oversight. The Annunaki are, as I have said, a proud race. They crave the worship and dread of their human servants.
They do not appreciate being forgotten.
The Annunaki have not been kind to us, but they have, in their way, been generous. Our success as a species is due only to their repeated and continual intervention. We have forgotten this too.
We believe we owe nothing to any being other than ourselves. We believe we are the highest power in the universe. We have become proud, as proud as our old masters.
I fear the Annunaki will not abide it for much longer.
Endgame is their corrective, their reminder to us, the human race, that we are nothing but tools. Endgame is their way of putting us in our place. They defeated us once—they taught us humility, and obedience, and fear. We may have forgotten this, but the Annunaki have not.
They have great patience, these beings from the stars. But their patience is not infinite, and time grows short.
Heed me now: They are coming.
It is coming.
Endgame is coming.
We cannot prevent it. I, certainly, cannot prevent it. But I will do what I can—I have always done that.
I have inscribed what I know in these pages, and I will do everything in my power to circulate them among the lines, so that they and their Players can know the truth.
So that you can know the truth.
The room was silent.
It seemed so real, so rooted in history. If this document told the truth, Endgame sounded terrifying. I was starting to understand why the Zero line would do anything they could to prevent it from happening. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a bigger task than even we could take on. If Endgame was real, was stopping it even possible?
“You can keep that copy,” Agatha said. “Read it, every one of you.”
“Has it stopped the La Tène line?” John asked as he stared at one of the pages.
“It was part of what convinced me to change my mind. But few agree with me, and of those few, none would dare risk their lives to speak up about it. Especially after I was cast out. Not many have seen this document or even know of its existence. I asked the wrong people about it—the power brokers within the line didn’t want everyone to know that I was questioning Endgame. They’re on the wrong side of this. I’m happy I’m out. So, of the twelve lines, you don’t need to worry about La Tène. I’ll take care of the La Tène Player.”
“Tell us about the Players,” Julia said. “Are there any like you?”
“What do you mean?” Agatha said. “Do you mean ‘are they as well-trained’ or ‘are they thinking of quitting?’”
“Both, I guess.”
“All are highly trained. One thing to remember, though, is that some of the Players are pretty young. Players have to be older than thirteen and younger than twenty. I’m twenty-two, and I’m sure I could easily take care of any tough guy. Face-to-face with someone my age—who’s had as much training and experience as I’ve had—it would be a toss-up. But none of you, with the possible exception of Walter, should ever let yourself go one-on-one against a Player. They’ll eat you alive. Even the thirteen-year-olds.”
Tommy said, “So tell us what we’re supposed to do. We’ve got eleven people we need to track down and talk into giving it all up, like you. And there’s only twenty-one of us. First, how do we find them, and next, how do we stop them?”
Agatha stretched. “I can help you find them. La Tène have spies. All the lines do, don’t they, Walter?”
Walter nodded.
“We know where everyone else is living,” she said, taking Walter’s bottle of whiskey and taking a healthy swig. “I still have enough friends in my line to get the latest intel. We can get to their compounds.”
John spoke up. “But, Tommy, you’re right. If we split up into smaller units, we wouldn’t want to face them with just two or three of us. Agatha, Walter, and I have been talking, and we have a plan worked up. We’ll vote on it, of course.”
Henry folded his arms and audibly scowled. Henry was a Vietnam vet himself, and I got the impression that he didn’t like looking up to someone who had gone AWOL—or the idea that a kid could take him out.
“First,” John said, “Agatha, tell us more about the Calling.”
She took another drag on her cigarette. “The Calling is a big event that will be seen by all the Players on a global scale. So we’re not talking about an earthquake in Istanbul. It would be an earthquake in Istanbul and New York and Ulaanbaatar and every other place the Players are. When the Calling happens, each Player is sent a message about where to go and meet.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Agatha said. “That’s what the council tells us. A real Calling has never happened. Legend and ancient documents are all we can go on.”
“But that’s a good thing, right?” John asked. “That means it’s unlikely to happen anytime soon?”
“Yes, but we’ll come back to that. For now, just think of the Calling as a disaster meant to get our attention. Natural disasters: earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes. We would literally get a tornado in every city where a Player is living.”
“So,” Kat began, “tell me if I’m understanding this correctly. What we’re going to do is have you, Agatha, direct us to the other eleven compounds and try to get all the Players to sign some kind of peace treaty?”
“No,” Agatha said. “You can’t get into a compound. If you went to my house and asked to see me, my line members would kill you on the spot and make it look like you disappeared. No one would ever see or hear from you again.”
“Then what?” I asked. “There has to be something we can do. How did we find you?”
“You didn’t. I found you. I found Walter originally. I’ve been looking for a way out for a long time now. There are a few other groups like yours—people who have stumbled onto Endgame. But no one as organized as you, no one who knows as much. You’re our best shot.”
John opened a notebook. There were dozens of papers. He looked at us. “We’ve been communicating through letters for some time now.”
“The thing is,” Agatha said, “all of us Players are constantly under threat of death if things don’t work out well. I’ve been keeping my eye on you. It took me months to believe you guys were real—and serious about stopping Endgame.”
Kat spoke up again. The sarcasm dripped from her voice. “So is that really what we’re going to do? Write letters to all of the Players?”
“No,” John replied firmly. “We’re going to fake a Calling.”
CHAPTER NINE
“How the hell do we fake a Calling?” I asked. Agatha’s story was convincing—she at least seemed sincere—but how could we fake an earthquake? Let alone do it simultaneously around the world?
“Here’s the plan,” John said. “I’ll go through it and explain exactly what we need to do, and then we can discuss the details.”
Mary looked at me. Her eyes were wide with excitement and determination. I could see it on her face: the talk was over. This was it—when Zero line finally met its purpose.
“We’re going to use explosives,” John said, “and we’ll hit all twelve compounds at the same time, all over the world. With the explosives, we’ll leave a signature—the symbol of the Munich Olympics. They’ll take it as a message from the Makers that that’s where they need to go. We’ll be one step ahead of them, go there first, wait for them to arrive. And then, well, we’ll stop the game.”
Henry laughed sardonically. “That sure makes it sound easy.”
“Well, let’s take all the pieces individually,” John said. “First, we use explosives that Lee and Lin have been smuggling to various warehouses all over the world.”
I looked at Lee and Lin. They were not much older than me, but they were smugglers?
“We set the bomb, and Lee has made som
e thermite artwork.” Walter stepped up, holding a large roll of black fabric. As he opened it across the desk, I saw it was a symbol I’d seen in the papers—a spiral of rectangles. “This will burn into walls, floors, asphalt, lawns—wherever we put the bomb in each location.”
“So they see this burning,” Tommy said, “and they’ll go to Munich?”
“Exactly,” John said. “There’s a replica of this symbol built into the Olympic plaza—big cement thing. I’ve seen pictures on the news and in the papers. Exactly the kind of place you’d see a group gathering.”
Walter added, “Agatha is coming to help identify who is who so we can make sure we don’t miss anyone.”
“And we’ll just walk up to these trained killers and kindly explain to them why they should not play the game?” I asked, getting suspicious.
“We’ll use Agatha as an example. We’ll convince them to go rogue, like her, when the real Calling finally occurs. We’ll get them to join Zero line with us, abandon their lines and their lives as Players. Or else . . .”
“Or else what?” I asked.
Walter’s eyes blazed. “Or we stop them permanently. Kill them. Send a powerful message back to their lines that people in this world won’t stand for Endgame.”
“Kill them?” Mary’s hand gripped my leg tightly, and I turned to look her right in the eyes.
“Only if they won’t listen, Mike,” she said. “We’ll all be there to explain. And Agatha’s giving us more—she stole a lot of documents.”
“You have to understand,” Agatha said. “These people are trained in death. They can kill you with a bullet, a knife, or the side of their hand. And they’re desensitized to pain and fear. Yes, I think we can reason with some of them. But not all of them. The most important thing is to stop them. And you can’t hesitate, because they certainly won’t. That’s all there is to it.” She leaned in. “Look, we can’t stop the Makers. But we can stop the Players. We can convince them to end this multimillennium bloodline feud.”
I took a deep breath and held it. If the Players didn’t agree, we’d stop them. We’d kill them. Dead players couldn’t win the game. And if no one won, no other lines would be wiped off the face of the planet. Killing 12—11—teenagers was going to save the world. I exhaled, looking Mary in the eyes. She believed this. And I wanted so badly to believe her, to be with her. I had a feeling that if I opted out of Zero line, a future with Mary was unlikely.