Seven blocks away from the street where I’d left Kat, I stopped running, and I walked until I found a gift shop. I bought a white Olympics T-shirt—one with the sunburst logo on the chest—and pulled it on over my blood-spattered shirt. I also bought a map, and I asked the cashier, who spoke a little English, where we were. He pointed the intersection out to me, and I was able to figure out a path to get back to the safe house. I could have hailed a cab, but I wanted to walk. There was too much going on in my head, and, to tell the truth, I wasn’t in a hurry to get back to the house. I wanted to freeze time. I didn’t want to get on with my life. I wanted to go back in time, not forward.
I couldn’t believe that I had left Kat there on the road. Was there something I could have done for her?
What about Mary? I had just left her too. They were dead, and I’d just moved on, leaving them on the street for the birds.
I got sick to my stomach, remembering their wounds. Both had been brutal, hateful injuries. Both had devastated their bodies, killing them instantly. If there was a good thing, that was it. There’d been no suffering.
I put my hand to my face. I’d started sweating heavily. I still had Kat’s blood on my shirt.
I bent at the waist and puked in the gutter. And as I did, I thought about what had become of this entire mission. John was the only hope now—he had to kill the Harappan. If he did that, we would have won. Zero line would have killed all the Players. The Makers—the Annunaki, the Sky Gods, whatever they were called—had no more game to play. They had no more Players. No more Endgame.
Or did they? Was Raakel right? Would the next generation of Players take their place? Would it continue, forever?
That was the thing that hurt the worst—that all of this might have been for nothing.
Were the Makers watching all of this from above? Some kind of alien satellite that monitored the Players?
Would they punish humanity for ruining their fun? I wouldn’t bet against it. Maybe they were on their way right now. Maybe they’d punish me and John for trying to stop Endgame.
I walked the final blocks to the safe house. I continued to hear sirens, but they never came close to me. I never saw flashing lights or police cars or motorcycles.
The safe house was just as I’d left it. I’d hoped I’d find John there, but I didn’t. No one was there. I went into the dining room, where all our gear had been laid out—all the pistols were gone, but there were a dozen long guns there. Shotguns, AK-47s, an M21 sniper rifle, two HK33s, and several guns I couldn’t name. They’d all been smuggled into town by Lee and Lin, both of whom were dead now.
I picked up an Uzi, testing its weight in my hand. I should have taken that to the plaza, not a lousy revolver.
My fingerprints were on it now. They were on everything in this house. Should I bother trying to wipe the place down? Now that Eugene had talked, I was connected to all of this.
I set the Uzi back in its place and moved to the bag with all the forged papers. My Frank Finn passport was in there, along with everyone else’s fake IDs. I took mine and put it in my back pocket, then emptied the rest of the bag into the fireplace. I found a bottle of vodka on an end table and splashed it on the passports. I struck a match and the whole pile went up in blue flame.
I put a few logs on top of the IDs and then sat down in a leather high-backed chair. I took a sip of the vodka straight from the bottle and got too much, and my eyes started to water.
“Who are you?” a voice behind me asked.
I was too despondent to bother turning around. Or answering. I took another swig and rolled it around my mouth for a minute.
“Who are you?” the male voice repeated. The accent was Indian.
“Frank,” I said. “Finn.”
“That’s not what I mean,” he said, moving into my view. He was holding a small pistol I didn’t recognize. It looked Russian, maybe.
“I am Pravheet.”
“I’m walking away,” I said.
“You are La Tène?” he asked, sitting down in the chair opposite me. Aside from his pistol pointing at me, we looked like two old friends sitting by a fire.
“Me? No.”
“Your friend,” he said calmly. “The one I just killed. He was not a Player.”
“No,” I said. “Neither am I.”
“Then who was? The girl killed by the Nabataean?”
“No.”
“Fine,” he said. “Don’t tell me. She died, and he died, and now you will die.”
“You don’t have to do this,” I said. “I’m not a Player.”
“You’re American, aren’t you? I know the Cahokian Player by sight, but I don’t know La Tène. I assume it’s you. Or are you something else? Minoan?”
“Something like that,” I said, taking another hit off the bottle. I wasn’t a drinker, and the vodka burned.
“When there is a Calling, only the Player is supposed to come. The Makers will show their displeasure on you and your line.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We failed.”
“You have.”
“You don’t have to kill anymore,” I said. “You can stop Playing.”
He smiled. “Surrender? To you?”
“No, I don’t mean that. I mean that you don’t have to Play. There are no other Players. They’re all dead. You can refuse to Play the game.”
“There will be a test,” he said. “There is more to Endgame than simply defeating the other Players.”
I screwed the cap on the bottle and set it on the table next to my chair. “This wasn’t a real Calling,” I said. “I’m with a group called Zero line. We are not Players. Our goal was not to kill, but to persuade. Let me guess: your invitation to the Calling was an explosion and the symbol of these Olympics burning.”
“Yes,” he said, his brow furrowed. “The same as all of the lines. A sign from the Makers.”
“It was a couple bricks of C4 and a thermite stencil,” I said. “Look around this room—there’s clothes and gear for twenty people. In the next room you’ll find a table full of guns. We, Zero line, invited you here. Our goal was to try to talk you out of fighting. What would happen if you quit? Walked away?”
“My entire line would be destroyed in flame and ruin.”
“No, because all of the lines would walk away.”
“Then all of the lines would perish,” he said. “The Makers do not tolerate disobedience. We are their servants, and all they ask of us is to prepare for Endgame.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” I said. “You’re the only Player left. When there’s a real Calling, there will be no one else to Play against. We have won. Humanity—Zero line—has won.” But even as I spoke, the words felt hollow. I had no idea anymore if that was true. It didn’t feel like we’d won. This didn’t feel like any kind of victory I wanted.
He put a finger to his chin. We stared at each other for several seconds. I turned my attention back to the fire. The passports were all destroyed.
“If what you say is true,” the Harappan said slowly, “if this was a sham Calling, then you are all fools and have died for nothing. How many of you were killed?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “There were once twenty of us. Some never made it here.”
“Then twenty have died for nothing.”
“What do you mean?”
“There will always be Players. If you were to kill me, and it was not during a true Endgame, then someone from my line would immediately take my place as Player. There will always be Players. There could be a true Calling today, and twelve new Players would be brought forward.”
I continued to stare at the fire. I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it. Walter had known about Endgame. He’d known it from personal experience. He would have known if all this was worthless.
“But I don’t believe that you’re so ignorant. You are the La Tène Player. And all of this is a ruse to get me to give up so you can shoot me in the back. You’re a poor Player. All of your
line was working with you, and you couldn’t even kill everyone.”
“And that’s easier for you to believe than that this is all phony?”
He stood up. “You are a disgrace to the game. I come from a proud lineage. You rely on cheap deceptions and a La Tène army.”
“You’re wrong,” I said. He still had his gun pointed at me, and I had nothing to defend myself with. Except the bottle. I picked it up and opened it. My gun was in the other room, so I couldn’t shoot Pravheet, but I could light him on fire. Maybe it would give me time to get in the weapons room.
“I will kill you, and with this kill I will have won Endgame.”
With all my strength I threw the bottle at the floor between him and the fireplace. The glass shattered, and the clear liquid sprayed across the room.
At that same instant I felt a searing pain in my chest, and my whole body seized.
Blackness started to close in. All around me was flame, but as the fire spread, it dimmed.
I was wet—my shirt was wet.
Pravheet pulled a blanket from the floor and tamped out the flames on his leg.
I tried to get up, but my body wouldn’t respond. I could feel my muscles firing, tightening and releasing, but I wasn’t in control of any of it.
“No one can stop Endgame. Endgame will come, and Players will Play. What will be will be,” Pravheet said, and I felt the barrel of his gun against the back of my head.
All went to black.
Excerpt from ENDGAME: THE CALLING
SEE HOW ENDGAME BEGINS:
Endgame has begun. Our future is unwritten. Our future is your future. What will be will be.
We each believe some version of how we got here. God made us. Aliens beamed us. Lightning split us, or portals delivered us. In the end, the how doesn’t matter. We have this planet, this world, this Earth. We came here, we have been here, and we are here now. You, me, us, the whole of humanity. Whatever you believe happened in the beginning is not important. The end, however. The end is.
This is Endgame.
We are 12 in number. Young in body, but of ancient people. Our lines were chosen thousands of years ago. We have been preparing every day since. Once the game begins, we must deliberate and decipher, move and murder. Some of us are less ready than others, and the lessers will be the first to die. Endgame is simple this way. What is not simple is that when one of us dies, it will mean the deaths of countless others. The Event, and what comes after, will see to that. You are the unwitting billions. You are the innocent bystanders. You are the lucky losers and the unlucky winners. You are the audience at a play that will determine your fate.
We are the Players. Your Players. We have to Play. We must be older than 13 and younger than 20. It is the rule, and it has always been this way. We are not supernatural. None of us can fly, or turn lead to gold, or heal ourselves. When death comes, it comes. We are mortal. Human. We are the inheritors of the Earth. The Great Puzzle of Salvation is ours to solve, and one of us must do it, or we will all be lost. Together we are everything: strong, kind, ruthless, loyal, smart, stupid, ugly, lustful, mean, fickle, beautiful, calculating, lazy, exuberant, weak.
We are good and evil.
Like you.
Like all.
But we are not together. We are not friends. We do not call one another, and we do not text one another. We do not chat on the iinternet or meet for coffee. We are separated and scattered, spread around the world. We have been raised and trained since birth to be wary and wise, cunning and deceptive, ruthless and merciless. We will stop at nothing to find the keys to the Great Puzzle. We cannot fail. Failure is death. Failure is the End of All, the End of Everything.
Will exuberance beat strength? Stupidity top kindness? Laziness thwart beauty? Will the winner be good or evil? There is only one way to find out.
Play.
Survive.
Solve.
Our future is unwritten. Our future is your future. What will be will be.
So listen.
Follow.
Cheer.
Hope.
Pray.
Pray hard if that is what you believe.
We are the Players. Your Players. We Play for you.
Come Play with us.
People of Earth.
Endgame has begun.
MARCUS LOXIAS MEGALOS
Hafz Alipaa Sk, Aziz Mahmut Hüdayi Mh, Istanbul, Turkey
Marcus Loxias Megalos is bored. He cannot remember a time before the boredom. School is boring. Girls are boring. Football is boring. Especially when his team, his favorite team, Fenerbahçe, is losing, as they are now, to Manisaspor.
Marcus sneers at the TV in his small, undecorated room. He is slouched in a plush black leather chair that sticks to his skin whenever he sits up. It is night, but Marcus keeps the lights in his room off. The window is open. Heat passes through it like an oppressive ghost as the sounds of the Bosporus—the long, low calls of ships, the bells of buoys—groan and tinkle over Istanbul.
Marcus wears baggy black gym shorts and is shirtless. His 24 ribs show through his tanned skin. His arms are sinewy and hard. His breathing is easy. His stomach is taut and his hair is close-cropped and black and his eyes are green. A bead of sweat rolls down the tip of his nose. All of Istanbul simmers on this night, and Marcus is no different.
A book lies open in his lap, ancient and leather-bound. The words on its pages are Greek. Marcus has handwritten something in English on a scrap of paper that lies across the open page: From broad Crete I declare that I am come by lineage, the son of a wealthy man. He has read the old book over and over. It’s a tale of war, exploration, betrayal, love, and death. It always makes him smile.
What Marcus wouldn’t give to take a journey of his own, to escape the oppressive heat of this dull city. He imagines an endless sea spread out before him, the wind cool against his skin, adventures and enemies arrayed on the horizon.
Marcus sighs and touches the scrap of paper. In his other hand he holds a 9,000-year-old knife, made of a single piece of bronze forged in the fires of Knossos. He brings the blade across his body and lets its edge rest against his right forearm. He pushes it into the skin, but not all the way. He knows the limits of this blade. He has trained with it since he could hold it. He has slept with it under his pillow since he was six. He has killed chickens, rats, dogs, cats, pigs, horses, hawks, and lambs with it. He has killed 11 people with it.
He is 16, in his prime for Playing. If he turns 20, he will be ineligible. He wants to Play. He would rather die than be ineligible.
The odds are almost nil that he will get his chance, though, and he knows it. Unlike Odysseus, war will never find Marcus. There will be no grand journey.
His line has been waiting for 9,000 years. Since the day the knife was forged. For all Marcus knows, his line will wait for another 9,000 years, long after Marcus is gone and the pages of his book have disintegrated.
So Marcus is bored.
The crowd on the TV cheers, and Marcus looks up from the knife. The Fenerbahçe goalie has cleared a rainbow up the right sideline, the ball finding the head of a burly midfielder. The ball bounces forward, over a line of defenders, near the last two men before the Manisaspor keeper. The players rush for the ball, and the forward comes away with it, 20 meters from the goal, free and clear of the defender. The keeper gets ready.
Marcus leans forward. Match time is 83:34. Fenerbahçe has yet to score, and doing so in such a dramatic way would save some face. The old book slides to the floor. The scrap of paper drifts free of the page and slips through the air like a falling leaf. The crowd begins to rise. The sky suddenly brightens, as if the gods, the Gods of the Sky themselves, are coming down to offer help. The keeper backpedals. The forward collects himself and takes the shot, and the ball blasts off.
As it punches the back of the net, the stadium lights up and the crowd screams, first in exaltation for the goal, but immediately afterward in terror and confusion—deep, true, and profoun
d terror and confusion. A massive fireball, a giant burning meteor, explodes above the crowd and tears across the field, obliterating the Fenerbahçe defense and blasting a hole through the end of the stadium grandstand.
Marcus’s eyes widen. He is looking at total carnage. It is butchery on the scale of those American disaster movies. Half the stadium, tens of thousands of people dead, burning, lit up, on fire.
It is the most beautiful thing Marcus has ever seen.
He breathes hard. Sweat pours off his brow. People outside are yelling, screaming. A woman wails from the café below. Sirens ring out across the ancient city on the Bosporus, between the Marmara and the Black.
On TV, the stadium is awash in flames. Players, police, spectators, coaches run around, burning like crazed matchsticks. The commentators cry for help, for God, because they don’t understand. Those not dead or on their way to being dead trample one another as they try to escape. There’s another explosion and the screen goes black.
Marcus’s heart wants out of his chest. Marcus’s brain is as hot as the football pitch. Marcus’s stomach is full of rocks and acid. His palms feel hot and sticky. He looks down and sees that he has dug the ancient blade into his forearm, and a rivulet of blood is trickling off his hand, onto the chair, onto his book. The book is ruined, but it doesn’t matter; he won’t need it anymore. Because now, Marcus will have his Odyssey.
Marcus looks back to the darkened TV. He knows there’s something waiting for him there amidst the wreckage. He must find it.
A single piece.
For himself, for his line.
He smiles. Marcus has trained all of his life for this moment. When he wasn’t training, he was dreaming of the Calling. All the visions of destruction that his teenage mind concocted could not touch what Marcus has witnessed tonight. A meteor destroying a football stadium and killing 38,676 people. The legends said it would be a grand announcement. For once, the legends have become a beautiful reality.