Kitabı oku: «Rules of the Game», sayfa 4

AN LIU
Shang Safe House, Unnamed Street off Ahiripukur Second Lane, Ballygunge, Kolkata, India

An Liu’s Defender moves into the daylight to meet the mob. His Beretta ARX 160, specially modified with a powered picatinny rail, fires through a slot below the windshield. The report is loud inside the vehicle and he likes it. The bullets sail into the crowd. The casings pitter onto his lap. A few men are hit. They dive and scatter to the side but the mob doesn’t dissipate. He gives the rifle four more long bursts, swinging it side to side. Red sprays of blood and small clouds of dust as bodies fall and feet scamper. An puts the car in second and lets out the clutch, and the Defender jumps forward. Another volley. He hopes the men will thin enough for him to escape to the wider street at the end of the alleyway.

And for a moment this is exactly what happens. But then the men yell and turn back all at once like a school of fish, surging toward his car. They throw rocks and pipes, and the soldiers with rifles fire at will. These projectiles bounce off his car without causing any real damage, but now things are about to get trickier.

They’re blocking his escape.

He’ll have to run them down like dogs.

Which is fine with him.

An yanks his rifle into the interior, the flap under the windshield closing immediately. He flips open a panel on the dashboard. Two covered switches and a pistol grip with a trigger are built into the console. He snaps open the switch covers. Presses the left button. It glows red. He takes the grip and angles it up and pulls the trigger. A white arc traces from the front of the car, the projectile rainbowing over the crowd, sailing 30, 40, 50 meters before hitting the ground at the end of the alley and detonating. The air there turns orange and black as the grenade does its job.

An feels giddy.

He slams the clutch, puts the car in the third, and grinds forward.

He meets the men. The sound is sickening, lovely, unusual. Yells of defiance turn to screams of pain and terror, but still the men press in on him. The Defender rides over a body. Faces mash into his windows, their flesh going flat and pink and brown and white against the glass. A pair of men grabs the door handles and tries in vain to work them open. The car slows a little. An drops it into second gear. The men beat the car and grab at it and jump on top of it. The car rocks side to side as An jogs the wheel, pinning men on the sides between the car and buildings, blood smearing across the hood and then the windshield. Some men with the kepler masks get caught and crumple under the rear wheels. The car is a four-wheel-drive beast. He lets out a little laugh. He flicks the wipers. Bad idea—the blood smears and obscures his view. The car moves forward more slowly now, the men treating it like a drum, but it’s useless. It’s too heavy for them to topple and they can’t get in or breach its armor. An is sure that he’ll make it out and get away.

But then a giant man jumps from a low building onto the hood. He turns and sits on the roof, facing out, his feet planted wide. An peers through the arcs of blood swiped across the glass and sees that he’s almost reached the street where the grenade went off. A burned-out car, a few bodies, a dying cow. A strangely dressed woman—cropped hair, a stick tied to her back—darts across the street. A matted stray dog limps from left to right. The grenade cleared a path and if he can get there then he should be able to gain some speed and get away and then, once he’s three kilometers distant, poof! His bomb will detonate and that will be the end of the mob and the end of this safe house and the end of this dank little corner of Kolkata, India.

But then, BAM! An is rattled. The man on the hood has swung a heavy maul into the windshield. The bulletproof glass holds. The men outside whoop and yell and—blink SHIVERSHIVERblink—An’s heart nearly stops as a trio of men heave a thick metal bar across the end of the alleyway and bolt it into place. It’s a meter off the ground, and there’s no way he’ll be able to drive over it.

An pulls the car to within five meters of the barricade and stops.

SHIVERSHIVERSHIVERblinkSHIVER.

“This can’t be it, Chiyoko, can it? Do we abandon the car?” He turns left and right and looks into the cargo area for ideas. His equipment, his weapons, the sword. His vest.

It would be a waste to use that now.

The street.

The barricade.

“We have to at least try.”

BAM! The maul again and the car shakes.

BAM! Again. A small spiderweb in the glass. A chink in the armor.

An puts the car in reverse and guns it. The mauler falls onto his hands and knees, his weapon sliding off the hood to the ground. The mob at the back folds under the car as it rides over them. More mashing. More popping. The mauler looks over his shoulder, stares right at An. Anger, menace, stupidity. An slams the brake and the mauler slides up the hood and into the windshield, his legs bunching under him. An grabs the rifle and sticks it back into the hinged flap, and he fires directly into the mauler’s thigh and buttocks. The mauler rolls to the side in agony. An puts the car in first and it jumps forward and the mauler tumbles off the hood.

Clutch, second, gas, clutch, third, gas. He’s up to 55 kph in no time, the men flying away from the car, gunshots hitting the rear window. He takes the wheel with both blinkblinkblink both hands and peers at the barricade. Will it hold? Will it buckle? Will he make it?

An squints, readying for impact. And then—what is that? A head sailing through the air?

Whatever it is, it rolls under the barricade, and then another head-like ball, and then, at the last second before impact, the barricade is unlocked and the grille slams into it and the bar swings violently away and into the street. He hits the brakes. The car swerves and stops. The street ahead is clear enough for him to complete his getaway. But before he leaves he looks back down the alley, full of bodies living and dying and dead. What is left of the mob comes for him.

But another comes for him too. The woman with the cropped hair. She’s wiry and fast and strong. A stick—no, a sword—in her hand.

And her face.

Her face.

It looks like Chiyoko’s, except 20 or 30 years older.

SHIVERSHIVERSHIVERSHIVERSHIVERblinkblinkblinkblinkSHIVERblink SHIVERSHIVERSHIVER SHIVERSHIVERblinkblinkblinkblinkSHIVERblink SHIVERSHIVERSHIVERSHIVERSHIVERblinkblinkblinkblinkSHIVER blink

BAM! BAM! BAM!

“Go, go, go!” the woman yells in Mandarin. She stands on the running board, right next to An on the outside of the car, slapping her hand on the roof. “Go! They’ll kill us!”

“Who are you?”

“I am Nori Ko. I am Mu. I knew Chiyoko. I can help you. Now, we have to go!”

And An’s heart fills and he feels light and free and he wonders how many has he killed today and how many more will die when the bomb goes off and ChiyokoChiyokoChiyokoNoriKoNoriKoChiyoko and he feels free and light and An’s heart fills.

He drives. Half a kilometer later he stops. He lets her in. “Watch,” he says, and she says nothing. He drives some more and a short while later the sky behind them lights up, and they are free.

MACCABEE ADLAI, LITTLE ALICE CHOPRA
Road SH 2, Joypur Forest, West Bengal, India

Maccabee runs a straight razor over his bare scalp. He swishes the blade in a copper bowl half-filled with a stew of water and black stubble and soap. Next to the bowl is a pair of scissors covered by a pile of thick hair. He squints at his reflection in a clouded mirror that’s propped against the wall. He’s never shaved his head before and he likes the way it feels. The smoothness, the lightness. Also, with his bruises and his crooked nose and his physique, the baldness makes him look like a real badass.

Which of course he is.

“What do you think, Sky Key?”

The girl sits next to him. She leans into his side. Her body is warm, and he feels comforted by it. He wonders if she is comforted in turn.

Probably not.

Her legs are tucked up and her arms are wrapped over her knees. She doesn’t answer his question. He briefly touches her hair. It’s thick and soft, the hair of a girl who’s been well cared for.

If he’s going to get her to the end, he’ll have to take good care of her too.

He passes her a bowl of rice and lentils, a stiff circle of dal balanced on top. “Here. Have some more food.”

She digs in with her bare hands and eats. Her appetite is strong and, so far, insatiable.

They are in an abandoned roadside hut 130 kilometers west and north of Kolkata. It’s midmorning. The landscape outside is lush and verdant. Jungle surrounds the hut, but fields of jute and potatoes lie less than a kilometer to the north. Sporadic cars and buses pass on the road, but other than that there are no signs of people here.

Which is good. Early that morning he and Sky Key wandered through a shopping center west of Kolkata buying supplies. Rice, soap, candles, batteries, towels, a sewing kit, a small butane camp stove with a liter of fuel. Baby wipes, pull-up diapers for Sky Key to sleep in, a blanket, and three changes of clothing for the girl. He also lucked into finding one of those cloth child carriers that straps over the shoulders and holds the kid tightly on the back. At a pharmacy he bought generic ibuprofen, amoxicillin, Cipro, zolpidem, and a small first aid kit with an extra bottle of iodine. Back at the hotel he packed all of this into a new knapsack as well as into the stolen Suzuki’s touring panniers, one of which blessedly contained a SIG 226 and two magazines.

The same kind of gun An Liu had fired at them back in the cemetery.

It was then that he realized he’d had the good fortune to steal An Liu’s bike.

He checked the SIG’s decocker and stuffed it into the top of his pants.

Throughout the morning he’d dealt with merchants and for the most part they were nice to him. He had to pay a small fortune for everything, though—prices were going through the roof under the threat of Abaddon, even here on the other side of the world where the effects of the asteroid would be less urgent. The fact that he wasn’t Indian didn’t make things any cheaper. Regardless, none of the shopkeepers recognized him as a Player, which was fortunate.

But then they stopped for breakfast at a dosa stall, and as they sat at a plastic picnic table the owner turned up the news on the small television mounted over the counter. He gabbed on in Bengali with one of his workers, no doubt talking about all the craziness happening in the world, while stills from An Liu’s video clicked past one by one on the screen. And that’s when Maccabee saw his own face, clear as day.

He didn’t worry about it at first. He was banged up from all the fights he’d been through and he didn’t think that the shop owner was paying close enough attention to make the connection. But he was. He turned on Maccabee and Sky Key in a flash, pointed a finger, started yelling. Maccabee stood, his mouth half-full of curried potatoes, and hoisted up the girl. The man stepped around the counter with a long kitchen knife. Maccabee backed away, swallowed his food, lifted his shirt to reveal the butt of the pistol, and said, “You don’t need to get hurt, my friend. None of us do.”

Stunned, the man quieted for a few moments as Maccabee and Sky Key left. He resumed yelling as soon as they were out on the street, and people began gawking, but the pair made it onto the bike in front of the hotel and Maccabee got Sky Key into the child carrier and they whisked out of there.

They rode all morning, stopping once to buy some rice and lentils at a food stall. Not long ago he caught sight of this hut flickering through the trees. Sky Key had been squirming for the previous 10 kilometers, and Maccabee had to piss, so he pulled over. He hid the bike in the bush and crept toward the corrugated metal building, the SIG pistol in hand. The hut was empty of people. It contained some basic items like bowls and a mirror and a few bedrolls and a low table. Maccabee figured it was a crash pad for itinerant farmhands, but it didn’t look like it had been used in a while.

They went in and he fed Sky Key some already cooked rice and lentils that came in simple plastic bags. Then he got going with the scissors and the straight razor. And now he is done. It isn’t a perfect disguise, but he doesn’t look anything like he did in the video.

It will do.

“Well, I like it,” Maccabee says of his new look.

Sky Key chews and manages a grunt. One of the first noises she’s made all morning.

Maccabee scoots over so that he’s sitting opposite the girl. A warm breeze pushes through the windows. The leaves outside rustle, a tree trunk creaks.

So young, he thinks.

Too young.

He dips his fingers into the bowl of rice and lentils and takes a handful in the Indian fashion and brings it to his lips. For food purchased from a roadside hawker, it’s surprisingly good.

Sky Key’s face is wind worn and streaked with grime. He reaches across the bowl and uses his thumb to wipe her cheek. She doesn’t move away. Her eyes are locked forward, staring at Maccabee’s chest.

“I’ll steal a car soon. You shouldn’t ride like that. Too exposed.”

She chews. Stares. Swallows.

“Good,” she says, breaking her silence since the day before.

“So you are going to talk?” he says, trying to sound kind.

“I don’t like it. The motorbike.”

“We’ll get rid of it then.”

“Good,” she repeats. She takes another mouthful of food.

“The problem is—once we get a car, where do we go?”

She doesn’t say anything.

“I mean, we should probably wait out the impact before we keep going,” he says, thinking out loud more than talking to her. “But where will we be safe? And how will we find Sun Key?”

“We’ll be safe, Uncle,” she announces emphatically.

He frowns.

She takes another bite of food in her fingertips, pushes it into her mouth.

Strange girl, he thinks.

“Please, call me Maccabee. Or Mac.”

“All right, Uncle,” she says, as if she’s agreeing to a different request.

He ignores it. “How do you know we’ll be safe?”

The girl swallows her food before answering. “The Makers won’t destroy me or Earth Key. Mama said. The bad thing will happen far from here. From me. From who is with me. What we need to be afraid of are the others. Like the man from yesterday. That’s what Mama said too.”

“Your mama,” he says slowly.

“Yes. Thank you for killing the bad man, Uncle,” she says in a smaller than usual voice. “Thank you.”

Very strange girl, he thinks as pangs of guilt shudder through him. Baitsakhan was absolutely bad, but that didn’t make Maccabee a saint. Not by a long shot. After all, he nearly killed Shari Chopra too.

But he didn’t. And this girl, she does not need to know otherwise.

“You’re … welcome,” he says. He wonders if she’s always spoken beyond her years. He wonders if touching Earth Key made her this way, or if she was like this before.

He can’t know that she was.

That Little Alice was always precocious, always special.

He says, “All right, let’s assume we are safe from the asteroid. I still don’t know where to go. How do I win? Where is Sun Key?”

She chews. Swallows. Then she sticks out her arm and points a few degrees south of due east. “I know, Uncle.”

Maccabee frowns. “You know?”

“Two two dot two three four. Six eight dot nine six two.”

He gets his smartphone, launches Google Maps, and punches in the coordinates. A pin over water pops up, a short distance from the coast of the western Indian port city of Dwarka. He shows it to Sky Key.

“This? Is this where we’ll find Sun Key?”

The girl nods.

“It’s not that far at all!”

Giddiness wells in his heart and works into his throat.

“Yes, Uncle. Sun Key is there.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

He fumbles with the smartphone and his smile grows. Two thousand four hundred thirty-four kilometers. Thirty-six or 37 hours of driving. Maybe faster if he can find a plane to steal.

He can win Endgame, he can guarantee the survival of the Nabataean line after the cataclysm, he can see the new Earth and live on it until he is old and frail. Maybe he can save this young girl and fulfill the promise he made to her mother.

Maybe he can win and right some wrongs.

He jumps to his feet, intent on going outside and flagging down the next decent-looking car that comes along the road and carjacking it. He can hardly contain himself. “Sky Key, this is amazing!”

“I know, Uncle.” The girl takes another bite. “They call me Little Alice.”

“I could win, Alice! The Nabataeans could win!”

She chews. Swallows. “I know.”

AN LIU, NORI KO
HP Petrol Pump, Baba Lokenath Service Station off SH 2, Joypur Jungle, West Bengal, India

An’s heart is full.

After the explosion Nori Ko moved to the Defender’s backseat. She said in Mandarin, “Drive west.”

He did.

He watched the road slip under the car and continue to unfurl before them and he watched her in the rearview mirror and he watched the road and he watched her. The road and her. Road and her. He did not speak. He did not need words. He did not speak for over three hours.

She did not bother him with words either.

Chiyoko would have done the same.

ChiyokoChiyokoNoriKoChiyoko.

Now they’ve stopped to refuel. He’s outside. She’s in the car, her head propped against the far window. He’s in the stifling heat, a gas pump in his hand. The paved highway lies to the north. A few kilometers earlier they entered a jungle reserve and now trees rise all around, making the air a couple of degrees cooler than it is out by the open fields of jute and corn. Behind the filling station is a low concrete building, a white bull lolling under a jackfruit tree, its leafy boughs heavy with oblong fruit. Aside from the attendant in the air-conditioned booth, no people are around.

An finishes and pays and gets in and drives.

“West?” he asks.

“West.”

He merges onto State Highway 2, headed for Bishnupur. They drive through the jungle. An doesn’t see any buildings or signs of people except for the road they’re on and a brief glimpse of a derelict metal hut hiding behind the trees. He thinks nothing of it.

After another quarter hour, An says, “I’m ready”—blink—“I’m ready”—blink—“I’m ready to talk.” SHIVER. “We have to talk.”

“We do,” Nori Ko says. She moves An’s rifle from the front passenger seat and climbs forward. “You have questions.”

An nods. “Why did you find me?”

“I found you because I also loved Chiyoko.”

His skin crawls at hearing another person say her name. Even this one, who comes from her stock and looks so much like her. He’s reminded of the British interrogator on the destroyer who insisted on saying it. That one who wielded the name like a blade. Drove it into An’s ears and twisted it. An almost tells his new ally that she should not say Chiyoko’s name either, but he knows he doesn’t have the right. Whoever Nori Ko is, she was someone to Chiyoko. That counts for something.

“Chiyoko,” Nori Ko says quietly.

Yes, it counts for something. But …

The name is mine now, he thinks. Chiyoko. Chiyoko Takeda. My name.

Nori Ko reaches across the inside of the car, her fingers yearning for the necklace that hangs around An’s neck, breaking his train of thought.

SHIVER.

He moves away from her.

“It’s okay,” she says. “I want to touch her. Like you do.”

BLINKSHIVERBLINK.

She touches the necklace. After a moment Nori Ko returns her hands to her lap. Her fingertips rub together, the residue of Chiyoko on them.

“I love her,” Nori Ko clarifies. “After what happened I couldn’t sit idly by. That’s why I found you.”

“After what happened?”

“I am Mu. A high member of the training council. I know much about Endgame.” She pauses, and then says quietly, “I saw a recording of your conversation with Nobuyuki. I saw how you killed him.”

SHIVERSHIVER.

“Yes, I saw it, Shang. There was a black box containing surveillance recordings that survived the fire in Naha. I heard what you said, what he said. I thought Nobuyuki was unfair to you. Under no circumstances would he have allowed you to Play for the Mu, but I thought it not right of him to test you like that.”

“He deserved what he got,” An says.

“No, he did not.”

SHIVER.

She says, “You didn’t need to honor his request for Chiyoko’s remains. You did not have to respect Nobuyuki the way you respected Chiyoko. But for that same reason, you should have spared him. Not for his sake, but for hers. Killing him dishonored Chiyoko, An. As well as yourself. It did nothing to tarnish the honor of Nobuyuki Takeda.”

BLINKBLINK.

Her voice is cold.

SHIVERBLINKblink.

“You speak like him,” An finally says.

“I can speak like him. But I am not him.”

An wrings the wheel in his hands. His knuckles whiten. He pushes the gas a little more. The car accelerates.

Her voice is cold.

Her words cut.

“I loved Nobuyuki too,” she says. “But don’t worry, I’m not interested in honor like he was. I’m not here to punish you for his death.” The thought of this woman punishing him almost makes An laugh. She continues. “I chose you precisely because I’ve seen what you’re capable of.”

Death, he thinks. She wants death.

“What were you to her?” An asks.

“A trainer. Bladed arts, karate, acrobatics, evasion, disguise. She was my best student. I’ve never met anyone faster or more ruthless. She was—”

“She should not have died.”

“No. She shouldn’t have.”

Silence. One kilometer. Two.

“You love her,” An says. “I love her. This doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

“Because I want the same thing you want.”

“And that is?” He’s glad to be wearing Chiyoko right now. She gives him strength. Allows him to speak without too many glitches or tics.

So glad.

She is like you, love, Chiyoko says to him.

Nori Ko says, “What you want is as plain as the nose on your face, An Liu. Love multiplied by death—by murder—has only one solution.”

Pause.

“Revenge,” An says.

“Revenge,” Nori Ko says.

More silence. The sky is bright. They pass a multicolored Tata truck laden with rebar.

She doesn’t lie, love, Chiyoko says. Her anger makes her strong.

I know, An thinks. It is the same with me. Chiyoko doesn’t say anything to this.

“How did you find me?” An asks.

“I’ve been on your trail since Naha. I was going to approach you the other day, right after you arrived in Kolkata, but then Endgame caught us by surprise, didn’t it?”

“It did. Things happened quickly. Very quickly. We were so close.”

“To Adlai?”

We were so close to killing the Nabataean, love, Chiyoko reminds him.

He nods. “Yes. We were very close,” An says to Chiyoko and Nori Ko.

Nori Ko ignores An’s use of the first person plural and says, “I tried to reach the cemetery, but I was too late to help you. Believe me, I would have.”

An thinks of what she did to the mob in Ballygunge. He says, “I believe you.”

“Good.”

Silence again. They pass roadside things. A group of women in bright clothing, a flock of pigeons rising from the treetops, a road crew patching potholes in the oncoming lane.

The other side of the world faces the apocalypse, but in India life goes on.

“What do you think of when you think of revenge, An?”

“Blood. Ashes. Swollen things.”

Nori Ko shakes her head. “No. I mean, who do you think of?”

The answer is quick. “The Cahokian. The Olmec. They were there when she died. If they hadn’t been, she would’ve lived.”

A brief silence before Nori Ko intones, “Then I want their deaths too, An Liu.”

SHIVERshiverSHIVERshiverSHIVERshiver.

“But tell me, An Liu—is there someone else you want dead?”

The car jounces over a bump. Neither speaks for a moment. He looks at the instrument panel. The Defender whips along at 123 kph. The engine hums at 2,900 rpms. It is 37 degrees Celsius outside.

“Yes,” he answers.

Nori Ko says, “The kepler.”

An nods. “Him. It.”

Nori Ko grunts. “I’m also in the mood for his blood. And I will see that you have it. That we both have it.”

An says, “You’re not like Chiyoko.”

“I’m older than she was. Age does things to a person, and people who know of Endgame age even faster and in different ways.” She waves her hand as if to bat away a fly or an unpleasant memory. “I had ideals once, if that’s what you mean.”

BLINKshiverblink.

“It is.”

“I’ve learned a lot about Endgame over the years, An. From a lot of different people, not all of them Mu. Not all of them wanting Endgame the way the Players did. My ideals, such as they were, suffered the more that I learned.” Pause. “They were dashed for good when Chiyoko was killed.”

Hearing her name again hurts. She shouldn’t say it, he thinks.

Chiyoko whispers, It’s all right. She will help you. Don’t be hard on her. She will help you. She will help us.

An shakes his head—not a tic, just a hard shake to quiet her voice, which echoes in his brain.

A car appears in the rearview mirror, driving very fast.

“So tell me—where are we headed, Mu Nori Ko?”

“You’ve been watching the news?”

“Yes.”

“And seen that someone’s destroying monuments from Maker-human antiquity?”

“Yes. Do you know who?”

“I have a hunch, but that’s not important. What is important is that we get to the next closest monument—which happens to be the Harappan one in western India. Odds are that is where the Nabataean is taking the first two keys. It is where he thinks he will win.”

“Where exactly?”

“A sunken temple near the Gujarati town of Dwarka.”

An jams the brakes and holds the wheel tightly and Nori Ko braces herself on the dashboard and the tires squeal and they come to a lurching halt.

The car that is driving fast so fast overtakes them. A small late-model sedan, one driver, bald and in a hurry. No passengers. The driver looks nothing like Maccabee and there is no one else in the car so An doesn’t pay it any mind. Everyone drives like a speed demon in India anyway.

“Why is Adlai going there?” he asks urgently. “Is it because of Sun Key?”

“Yes.”

“Is it there?”

“I don’t know for sure.”

“But you think it’s at one of these monuments? The ones that are being destroyed?”

“Yes. It is. Although I don’t know which one.”

He pauses. Squints. The car disappears around the next turn. He says, “Then Sun Key could also be at the Mu monument? Or the Cahokian? Or the Olmec? Or—the Shang?”

“Yes. It could.”

An puts the car back in gear, whips the wheel around, pulls a tight U-turn, and heads back in the direction from which they came, going fast fast fast.

“What are you doing?” Nori Ko demands.

BlinkSHIVERSHIVERblinkBLINKBLINKSHIVERshiverBLINK.

She reaches out and puts a hand on his arm. He yanks it away.

China, Chiyoko says.

Yes, he answers.

“The Nabataean could already be halfway to Dwarka!” Nori Ko protests.

“I know. And if he’s lucky enough to find Sun Key there, then he’s already won, and we are already too late,” An says through clenched teeth. “Nothing we do will matter. We need to get the keys to see the kepler face-to-face. If he wins, then we will have lost our chance to meet and then kill the Maker. But …”

And then Nori Ko understands. “The pyramid of Emperor Zhao.”

“Yes. We start at the Shang monument. If Dwarka doesn’t have Sun Key—and the odds are decent that it won’t—then Adlai will go to the next closest monument. Mine.”

“China,” Nori Ko says. Accepting. Approving.

“Yes. We’re going home,” he says, thinking of all the things he hated about it, of all the pain he endured during his training, of all the suffering. “My hellish home.”