Rules of the Game

Sarah’s gun is light. One bullet. Maybe two.

“Move out of our way,” Jago insists. His pistol is aimed at Aisling’s head. Aisling looks different from when he last saw her. Older, harder, sadder. They must all appear so. Endgame was simpler in the early stages, before any of the keys had been recovered. Now it is vastly more complicated.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Aisling says, her eyes not moving from Sarah’s. “Not until we find out where Sky Key is.”

Sarah says, “Well, she’s not here.”

Shoot her! Sarah orders herself. Do it!

But she doesn’t.

She can’t.

Aisling tried to do what Sarah couldn’t. She tried to kill the little girl.

Aisling tried to stop Endgame.

Which means that Aisling and her friends can’t be all bad.

Sarah glances at the other men in the room, the ones who haven’t spoken. One is old but formidable-looking, an eye clouded and white. Maybe a former La Tène Player. The other is middle-aged, a contemporary of the Peacemaker. He has a bandanna tied over his head, wears round eyeglasses, and is strapped with a heavy-looking pack spilling with communications equipment. He also carries a sniper rifle, which he doesn’t bother to aim at anyone. Instead, he reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a hand-rolled cigarette. He puts it in his mouth but doesn’t light it.

Both men look spent.

Long day, Sarah thinks.

Long week.

Long fucking life.

Sarah figures she could jump backward and fire simultaneously, killing Peacemaker. Aisling would instantly return fire, but since Peacemaker has his hand parked on her rifle, this shot would miss. Jago would kill Aisling. Then they would finish the old Celt and the hippie walkie-talkie. Provided no one else is hidden nearby, she and Jago could let their guard down and fall into each other’s arms and exhale. They could walk out unscathed. They could continue their mission to stop Endgame. Sarah puts their chances of killing these four people at 60 or 65 percent. Not bad odds, but not great.

“Don’t do it,” Peacemaker says, as if he can read Sarah’s thoughts.

“Why not?” she asks.

“Just hear me out.” He glances at Aisling. “Please.”

“Here it comes,” the man with the cigarette mumbles, breaking his silence. The old man with the white eye stays mum, his gaze dancing from person to person.

The man says, “My name is Greg Jordan. I’m a retired, twenty-plus-year vet of the CIA. I’m associates—no, friends—with Aisling here. I know all about Endgame. Maybe more than any of you know about it, believe it or not.” He glances at Aisling. “More than I’ve been letting on,” he says apologetically. Aisling’s left eye twitches. The old man exhales loudly. “Anyway, I’ve seen my share of Mexican standoffs, and this qualifies big time. One wrong move and we all die in this hallway pretty easily. Like I said, no one else has to die today. A lot of people already have.” Sarah doesn’t know what he’s talking about. She doesn’t know that Aisling and Greg and the other two men—and also a woman, now dead, named Bridget McCloskey—spent the previous day marching into the mountains and killing everyone they met. Killing, killing, killing. By the end of the day many, many Harappan were dead. Well over 50.

Too many.

The man sighs. “Let’s not add to the body count.”

Aisling’s shoulders slump, her burgeoning guilt palpable. Greg Jordan’s words so far make some sense. Bullets remain in chambers. Feet remain planted on the ground. Sarah’s and Jago’s faces say, Go on.

Greg Jordan continues. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I think we can all be friends. I think we all want the same thing—namely, to put a stop to this madness. Am I right? Whadya say, guys? Friends? At least until we’ve had a few minutes to chat and are out of this Himalayan fortress?”

Pause.

Then Jago whispers, “Screw these guys, Sarah.”

And a part of Sarah is inclined to agree, but before she does anything rash Aisling asks, “Why didn’t you kill her, Sarah? Why couldn’t you do it?” As she speaks she lets her rifle fall to her side. Aisling is now completely defenseless, and that counts for something.

The Celt steps past Greg Jordan. “Why?” she repeats, staring intently at Sarah, her voice barely above a whisper.

Aisling wants the game to end badly. She wants to stop it. She wants to save lives.

Just like Sarah and Jago do.

Sarah’s forearm pounds, reminding her that in the fight with Maccabee and Baitsakhan she suffered a gunshot wound that needs attention. Her head spins a little. Her grip on the pistol loosens. “I know I should have …”

“Damn right you should have,” Aisling says.

“I wanted it to stop. I needed it to stop.”

“Then you should have pulled the trigger!”

“You’re … you’re right. But I needed it to stop,” Sarah repeats.

“It’s not going to stop until that girl is dead,” Aisling points out.

“That’s not what I mean,” Sarah says, her voice dropping half an octave. “I want Endgame to stop too, Aisling, but I needed—what did you say, Greg? Madness? I needed the madness to stop. The madness in my head. If I’d pulled that trigger, then it would’ve … it would’ve …”

“Destroyed you,” Jago says, also letting down his guard a little. “I also tried, Celt. I couldn’t do it. It may have been selfish, but I think Sarah was right not to kill Sky Key. She was a child. A baby. Whatever happens, she was right.”

Aisling sighs. “Fuck.” No one speaks for a moment. “I get it. Truth is, I was praying the whole way up here that I wouldn’t have to do it up close and personal. That I’d have a clear and long shot with this.” She jostles her rifle and peers around Sarah into the dark room at the end of the hall. “But I guess I missed, right?”

Sarah nods. “She’s gone. She was repeating ‘Earth Key’ over and over and I think she touched it and—”

Jago clicks his tongue. “Poof.”

“What do you mean, ‘poof’?” Jordan asks.

“They just disappeared,” Sarah says. “It’s not that crazy when you consider that about thirty minutes ago Jago and I and the other two Players were in Bolivia.”

“Bullshit,” Aisling says.

“What, you didn’t teleport here too?” Jago asks, trying to make a joke, even while he still aims at Aisling’s temple.

Aisling doesn’t care anymore. It’s not the first time someone’s aimed a gun at her and it won’t be the last. “No, we didn’t teleport,” Aisling says. “Just good old-fashioned planes, trains, and automobiles … and feet. Lots of feet.”

“But Sky Key—she is gone, right?” Jordan asks.

Sarah nods. “Her mother’s in there, though.”

Aisling double-takes and tries to peer into the room. “Who—Chopra?”