Читать книгу: «The Calling», страница 2

SARAH ALOPAY
Bryan High School, Omaha, Nebraska, United States

The principal stands, smiling, and looks out over the crowd. “And so it is with great honor that I present your class valedictorian, Sarah Alopay!”

The crowd cheers, applauds, whistles.

Sarah stands. She’s wearing a red cap and gown with the valedictorian’s blue sash across her chest. She smiles. She’s been smiling all day. Her face hurts, she’s been smiling so much. She’s happy. She’ll be 18 in less than a month. She’s going to spend her summer at an archeological dig in Bolivia with her boyfriend, Christopher, and in the fall it’s off to college at Princeton. As soon as she turns 20, she can start the rest of her life.

In 742.43625 days she’ll be free.

No longer eligible.

She’s in the 2nd row, behind a group of administrators, PTA board members, and football coaches. She’s a few seats from the aisle. Next to her is Reena Smithson, her best friend since 3rd grade, and four rows behind her is Christopher. She steals a look at him. Blond hair, five-o’clock shadow, green eyes. An even temper and a huge heart. The best-looking boy in her school, her town, maybe the state, and, as far as she’s concerned, the world.

“Go get ’em, tiger,” Christopher says, grinning.

Sarah and Christopher have been together since the 7th grade. Inseparable. Christopher’s family is one of the wealthiest in Omaha. So wealthy, in fact, that his mom and dad couldn’t be bothered to fly back from business in Europe to attend their own son’s graduation. When Christopher crosses the stage, it will be Sarah’s family cheering the loudest. Christopher could’ve gone to private school, or the boarding school where his father went, but he refused, not wanting to be apart from Sarah. It is one of the many reasons she loves him and believes they will be together for their entire lives. She wants it, and she knows he does as well. And in 742.43539 days it will be possible.

Sarah gets into the aisle. She has on the pink Ray-Ban Wayfarers her dad gave her for Christmas, a pair of glasses that obscures her brown, wide-set eyes. Her long auburn hair is pulled into a tight ponytail. Her smooth, bronze skin is luminous. Under her gown she is dressed like all the others.

Yet how many others in her graduating class will bear the weight of an artifact onto the stage with them? Sarah wears it around her neck, just as Tate had worn it when he was eligible, as it has been, passed from Player to Player, for 300 generations. Hanging from the chain is a polished black stone that has seen 6,000 years of love, sorrow, beauty, light, sadness, and death. Sarah has been wearing the necklace since the moment Tate got hurt and her line’s council decided she should be the Player. She was 14. She hasn’t taken the amulet off since, and she’s so used to it that she hardly feels it.

As she makes the trip to the stage, a chant begins in the back of the assembly. “Sar-ah! Sar-ah! Sar-ah!” She smiles, turns, and looks at all her friends; her classmates; Christopher; her older brother, Tate; and her parents. Her mom has her arm around her dad, and they look proud, happy. Sarah makes an I’m nervous face, and her dad smiles and gives her a thumbs-up. She steps onto the stage, and Mrs. Shoemaker, the principal, hands Sarah her diploma. “I’ll miss you, Sarah.”

“I’m not leaving forever, Mrs. Shoe! You’ll see me again.”

Mrs. Shoemaker knows better. Sarah Alopay has never gotten a grade lower than an A. She was All-State in soccer and track, and got a perfect score on her SATs. She’s funny, kind, generous, and helpful, and clearly meant for bigger things. “Give ’em hell, Alopay,” she says.

“I always do,” says Sarah.

She steps to the mic, looks west over her class, her school. Behind the last line of 319 students is a stand of tall green-leafed oaks. The sun is shining and it’s hot, but she doesn’t care. None of them do. They’re finishing one part of their lives, and another is about to begin. They’re all excited. They’re imagining the future, and the dreams they have and hope to realize. Sarah has worked hard on her speech. She’s to be the voice of her classmates and wants to give them something that will inspire them, something that will drive them forward as they embark on this new chapter. It’s a lot of pressure, but Sarah is used to that.

Sarah leans forward and clears her throat. “Congratulations and welcome to the best day of our lives, or at least the best day so far!” The kids go crazy, and a few prematurely toss their caps into the air. Some laugh. More cheer, “Sar-ah! Sar-ah! Sar-ah!”

“While I was thinking about my speech,” Sarah says, her heart pounding, “I decided to try to answer a question. Immediately I thought, ‘What question is most often asked of me?’ and though it’s a little embarrassing, it was easy to answer. People are always asking me if I have a secret!”

Laughter. Because it’s true. If there was ever a perfect student at the school, it was Sarah. And at least once a week, someone asked what her secret was.

“After thinking long and hard, I realized it was a very simple answer. My secret is that I have no secrets.”

Of course, that is a lie. Sarah has deep secrets. Profound secrets. Secrets that have been kept among her people for thousands and thousands of years. And though she’s done all the things she’s popular for, earned every A and trophy and award, she’s done so much more. Things they can’t even imagine. Like make fire with ice. Hunt and kill a wolf with her bare hands. Walk on hot coals. She has stayed awake for a week straight; she has shot deer from a mile away; she speaks nine languages, has five passports. While they think of her as Sarah Alopay, homecoming queen and all-American girl, the reality is that she is as highly trained and as deadly as any soldier on Earth.

“I am as you see me. I am happy and able because I allow myself to be happy. I learned young that being active breeds more activity. That the gift of studying is knowledge. That seeing grants sight. That if you don’t feed anger, you won’t be angry. Sadness and frustration, even tragedy, are inevitable, but that doesn’t mean that happiness isn’t there for us, for all of us. My secret is that I choose to be the person that I want to be. That I don’t believe in destiny or predetermination, but in choice, and that each of us chooses to be the person we are. Whatever you want to be you can be; whatever you want to do you can do; wherever you want to go you can go. The world, and the life ahead, is ours for the taking. The future is unwritten, and you can make it whatever you want it to be.”

The kids are quiet now. Everyone is quiet.

“I’m looking west. Behind you, above the bleachers, is a bunch of oaks. Behind the trees are the plains, the land of my ancestors, but really the ancestral land of all humans. Past the plains are the mountains, from where the water flows. Over the mountains is the sea, the source of life. Above is the sky. Below is the earth. All around is life, and life is—” Sarah is interrupted by a sonic boom overhead. Everyone cranes their necks. A bright streak breaks over the oaks, scarring the blue sky. It doesn’t appear to be moving, just getting bigger. For a moment everyone stares in awe. A few people gasp. One person very clearly says, “What is that?”

Everyone stares until a solitary scream comes from the back row, and it hits the whole assembly at once. It’s like someone has flipped a switch for panic. The sounds of chairs tipping over, people screaming, total confusion. Sarah gasps. Instinctively, she reaches through her gown and grabs the stone around her neck.

It’s heavier than it has ever been. The asteroid or meteor or comet or whatever it is, is changing it. She’s frozen. Staring as the streak moves toward her. The stone on the chain changes again, feeling suddenly light. Sarah realizes that it’s lifting into the air under her robe. It works itself free of her clothing, pulls in the direction of the thing that is coming for them.

This is what it looks like.

This is what it feels like.

Endgame.

The sounds of terror fall away from her ears, replaced by stunned silence.

Though she has trained for it for almost her entire life, she never thought it would happen.

She was hoping it wouldn’t. 742.42898 days. She was supposed to be free.

The stone pulls at her neck.

“SARAH!” Someone yanks her arm hard. The fireball is riveting, terrible, and suddenly audible. She can literally hear it moving through the air, burning, raging.

“Come on! NOW!” It’s Christopher. Kind, brave, strong Christopher. His face is red with alarm and heat, his eyes watering, spit flying from his lips. She can see her parents and her brother at the bottom of the steps.

They have seconds.

Maybe less.

The morning sky darkens, turns black, and the fireball is upon them.

The heat is overwhelming. The sound is paralyzing.

They are going to die.

At the last moment Christopher vaults off the stage, pulling Sarah with him. The air fills with the smells of burning hair, wood, plastic. The necklace pulls so hard in the direction of the meteor that the chain digs into the skin of Sarah’s neck.

They shut their eyes and crumple onto the grass. Sarah feels the stone pull free. It sails into the air, seeking out the meteor, and at the last minute the huge fireball changes direction, stopping a thousand feet short and skipping over them like a flat rock on a smooth lake. It happens so quickly that no one can see it, but somehow, some way, for some reason, the ancient little stone has spared them.

The meteor flies over the cement grandstand and impacts a quarter mile to the east. The school building is there. The parking lot. Some basketball courts. The tennis courts.

Not anymore.

The meteor destroys them all.

Boom.

They’re gone.

Those comforting and familiar places where Sarah has spent her life—her normal life, anyway—are gone in an instant. Everything wiped away. A new chapter has begun, just not the one Sarah hoped for. A shock wave rushes out and over the field, carrying dust and darkness. It hits them hard, flattens them, knocks them down, blows out their eardrums.

The air is hot and choked with particles, gray and brown and black. It’s hard to see. Christopher is still with Sarah. Holding her. Shielding her. He pulls her close as they’re pelted with stones and dirt, fist-sized chunks of god-knows-what. There are others around them, some hurt. They cough. They can’t stop crying. They can’t stop shaking. It’s hard to breathe. Another shock wave passes through and pushes them farther into the ground. Sarah gets the wind knocked from her. Spears of fleeting light illuminate the dust. The ground shakes as things begin to fall around them. Hunks of cement and steel, twisted cars, furniture. They can do nothing but wait, praying that nothing lands on top of them. Christopher is holding her so hard it hurts. She is digging her nails into his back.

They have no idea how much time has elapsed when the air begins to clear and smaller sounds begin to return. People are wailing in pain. Names are being called. One of them is hers.

Her father.

“Sarah. SARAH!”

“Here!” she yells. Her voice sounds muffled and distant, even to herself.

Her ears are still ringing. “I’m here!”

Her father emerges from the dust cloud. His face is covered in blood and ash. Against the filth on his face, she can see the whites of his eyes, brilliant and clear. He knows what she knows.

Endgame.

“Sarah!” Her dad stumbles toward them and falls to his knees, wrapping both of them in his arms. They cry. Their bodies heave. People scream in every direction. Sarah opens her eyes for a second and sees Reena in front of her, dazed, in shock. Her best friend’s left arm is gone above the elbow; all that remains is blood and shredded skin and jagged bone. The graduation gown has been torn from her body, but somehow her cap has stayed on. She’s covered in soot. Sarah calls, “Reena! Reena!” but Reena doesn’t hear. She disappears back into the dust, and Sarah knows that she’ll never see Reena again.

“Where’s Mom?” she whispers, her lips on her dad’s ear.

“I was with her. I don’t know.”

“The stone, it … it …”

“I know.”

“Sarah?” her mom calls out.

“Here!” the three say together.

Sarah’s mom crawls toward them. All the hair on the right side of her head is gone. Her face is burned but not too badly. When she sees them she looks so happy. Her look is different from the one she gave Sarah when she walked onto the stage.

I was giving a speech, Sarah thinks. I was giving a speech at graduation. People were happy. So happy.

“Olowa,” Simon says quietly, reaching for his wife. “Tate?” Olowa shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

An explosion in the distance.

The air starts to clear, the carnage becoming more evident. There are bodies everywhere. The Alopays and Christopher are the lucky ones. Sarah sees a head. A leg. A torso. A cap falls to the ground near them. “Sarah, it’s on. It’s on for real.”

It’s Tate, walking toward them, his arms extended. One hand is in a fist; the other holds a grapefruit-sized hunk of gold-and-green rock streaked with black veins of metal.

He is amazingly clean, as if the whole thing passed him over. He smiles. His mouth is full of blood. Tate was a Player once, but no longer. Now he looks almost excited for his sister, in spite of all that’s happened around them. All the death, all the destruction, all that they know is coming.

“I found them!” Tate is 10 feet away now. Another small explosion from somewhere. He opens his fist and puts the small piece of stone that was around her neck into the bigger multicolored rock. “It fits perfectly.”

“Nukumi,” Simon says reverently.

“Nukumi,” Sarah says, much less reverently.

“What?” Christopher asks.

Sarah says, “Nothing—”

But she is cut short as an explosion sends shards of metal flying through the air. A six-foot-long piece of steel embeds itself into the middle of Tate’s chest. He is dead. Gone. Killed in an instant. He falls backward, Sarah’s stone pendant and the piece of green-veined rock still in his hand. Her mother screams; her father yells, “No!”

Sarah cannot speak. Christopher stares in shock. Blood oozes out of Tate’s chest. His eyes are open and staring, lifeless, to the sky. His feet twitch, the last bits of life leaving him. But the stone and the pendant, they are safe.

This is not accidental.

The stones have meaning.

Carry a message.

This is Endgame.

JAGO TLALOC
Tlaloc Residence, 12 Santa Elisa, Juliaca, Puno, Peru

Jago Tlaloc’s sneakers crunch across broken glass. It is night and the streetlights are out. Sirens wail in the distance, but otherwise Juliaca is quiet. It was chaos before, when Jago first headed for the crater in the city center to claim what had been sent for him. In the madness, survivors poured into the streets, shattering shop windows, taking whatever they wanted.

The looting will not sit well with Jago’s father, who runs protection for many of the local businesses. But Jago does not blame his people. Let them enjoy some comforts now, while there is still time. Jago has a treasure of his own: the stone, still warm, wrapped in his satchel and tossed over his shoulder.

A hot wind rushes through the buildings, carrying ash and the smell of fire. They call Juliaca the Windy City of Peru for good reason. Unlike many of his people, Jago has traveled well beyond the city limits. He has killed at least twice on every continent, and still he finds it strange to visit a place where the wind is missing.

Jago is the Player of the 21st line. Born to Guitarrero and Hayu Marca just over 19 years ago. Once Players themselves, several years apart, his parents now run this part of the city. From the legitimate businesses to the illicit materials that flow through the neighborhood’s back alleys, his parents take a cut of everything. They are also philanthropists, in a way, turning around their often ill-gotten money to open schools and maintain hospitals. The law does not touch them, refuses to come near them; the Tlaloc family is too much of a resource. In just a few more months, Jago would have become ineligible and joined his parents in the family business. Yet all empires must crumble.

A trio of shadows peels from the mouth of a nearby alley. The figures block the sidewalk in front of Jago, looking wolfish and dangerous. “What you got there, my friend?” hisses one of the shadows, nodding at Jago’s satchel.

In response, Jago flashes his teeth, which are perfectly straight and white. His maxillary lateral incisors are each capped with gold, and each inset with a small diamond. These gems glint in the moonlight. The three scavengers shrink back. “Sorry, Feo,” says the leader, “we didn’t recognize you.”

They should be scared, but not of Jago or the power of his family, though Jago is strong and merciless, and his family more so. They should be scared of what is to come. They don’t know it, but Jago is the only hope these people have. Once, the power of his family was enough to keep this neighborhood and its people alive and happy. Now that responsibility falls to Jago.

He passes by the thugs without a word. He is lost in thoughts of the 11 other Players, scattered around the world, each with a meteor of their own. He wonders what they will be like, what lines they come from. For the lines do not know the other lines. They cannot know. Not until the Calling.

And the Calling is coming.

Will some be stronger than him? Smarter? Will one even be uglier? Perhaps, but it is no matter.

Because Jago knows that he can, and will, kill them all.

Not the first not the last. ^vii

BAITSAKHAN
Gobi Desert, 222 km South of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Baitsakhan wants it, and he’s going to get it.

He rides hard south into the Gobi Desert with his twin cousins, Bat and Bold, both 12.5, and his brother, Jalair, 24.55.

Baitsakhan has been 13 for 7.23456 days and is just eligible for Endgame.

He is happy about this.

Very happy.

The meteor fell in the middle of the night two days ago in the vast central nothingness of the Mongolian steppe. A small group of old yak herders saw it, and they called it in to Baitsakhan’s grandfather Suhkbataar, who told them to leave it alone or they would be sorry. The herders listened. Everyone in the steppe knows to listen to Suhkbataar in strange matters like these.

Because of this, Baitsakhan knows that the space rock will be there, waiting, alone. But when they are about a half mile from the impact zone they see a small group of people, and a worn Toyota Hilux, sitting in the distance.

Baitsakhan reins his horse and slows it to a walk. The other riders pull alongside him. Jalair draws a brass telescope from a saddlebag and looks across the plain. He makes a low sound.

“Who are they?” Baitsakhan asks.

“Don’t know. One wears an ushanka. Another has a rifle. The truck has three external gas cans. One of the men is leaning on a long pry bar. Two are bending to the ground. The one with the rifle is going toward the Hilux.”

Bat rests a longbow across his lap. Bold absently checks his smartphone. No signal, of course, not this far out. He opens Temple Run and starts a new game.

“Do they have the rock?” Baitsakhan asks.

“Hard to tell … wait. Yes. Two are carrying something small but heavy. It’s wrapped in hide.”

“Have they seen us?” Bat asks. “Not yet,” Jalair says.

“Let’s introduce ourselves,” Baitsakhan says.

Baitsakhan kicks his horse and it launches into a canter. The others follow. Each of the horses is light brown with a braided mane and black tail. Dust rises behind the beasts. The group around the meteorite notices them, but they don’t show any alarm.

When they draw very near, Baitsakhan reins his horse and, before it stops, jumps from the saddle. “Hello, friends!” he calls. “What have you found?”

“Why should we tell you?” the man with the pry bar says cockily. He has a low, raspy voice and a thick, excessively groomed mustache. Next to him is the man in the Russian hat. Between them on the ground is the hide-wrapped bundle.

“Because I asked,” Baitsakhan answers politely.

Bat gets off his horse and begins to casually check his animal’s shoes and hooves for rocks. Bold, still in the saddle, gets his phone out and restarts Temple Run.

A short grizzled man with horribly pockmarked skin steps forward.

“Forgive him. He’s like that with everyone,” he says.

“Shut up, Terbish,” Pry Bar says.

“We think we found a shooting star,” Terbish says, ignoring Pry Bar.

Baitsakhan leans toward the bundle. “Can we see it?”

“Yeah, not every day you get to see a meteorite,” Jalair says from atop his horse.

“What’s going on?” someone calls. It’s the man returning from the Hilux. He’s tall and casually holds a .30-06 at his side.

“These kids want to see the rock,” Terbish says, studying Baitsakhan.

“And I don’t see why not.”

“Cool!” Baitsakhan exclaims. “Jalair, check out this crater!”

“I see it.”

Baitsakhan doesn’t know, but this meteorite is the smallest of the 12. Less than 0.2112 meters. The smallest rock for the youngest Player. Terbish smiles. “I found one of these when I was about your age,” he says to Baitsakhan. “Near the Chinese border. The Soviets took it, of course. They took everything in those days.”

“So they say.” Baitsakhan sticks his hands in his jean pockets. Jalair dismounts, his feet crunching on the gravel.

Terbish turns toward the bundle. “Altan, unwrap the thing.”

The man in the ushanka bends and peels back the pony hide.

Baitsakhan peers into it. The thing is a hunk of black metal the size of a small shoe box, pockmarked with glowing lattices of gold and verdigris ingots, like extraterrestrial stained glass. Baitsakhan removes his hands from his pockets and drops to a knee. Terbish stands over him. Pry Bar sighs. Rifleman takes a few steps forward. Bat’s horse whinnies as Bat adjusts the girth.

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Terbish says.

“Looks valuable,” Baitsakhan says innocently.

Jalair points. “Is that gold?”

“I knew we shouldn’t have shown it to them,” Pry Bar says.

“They’re boys,” Terbish says. “This is like a dream come true. They can tell their friends at school about it.”

Baitsakhan stands. “We don’t go to school.”

“No?” Terbish wonders. “What do you do then?”

“Train,” Jalair says.

“For what?” Pry Bar asks.

Baitsakhan takes a pack of gum out of his vest and pops a piece in his mouth. “Do you mind if we check something, Terbish?”

Terbish frowns. “What?”

“Go ahead, Jalair,” Baitsakhan says.

But Jalair has already started. He quickly bends over the meteorite. He has a small black stone in his hand. It has a series of perfectly cut T-shaped holes in it. He runs his hand over the rock, underneath it. His eyes widen. “Yes, this is it,” he says.

Bold turns off his smartphone, puts it in a cargo pocket on his pant leg, spits.

“Bubble gum?” Baitsakhan holds the pack of gum out for Terbish. Rifleman frowns and moves the gun across his body, holding it with two hands.

Terbish shakes his head. “No thanks. We’re going to be going now.” Baitsakhan pockets the gum. “Okay.”

Jalair stands as Altan starts to rewrap the boulder.

“Don’t bother,” Jalair orders.

Pry Bar huffs. “You little shits seriously aren’t trying to say you’re taking this thing, are you?”

Baitsakhan blows a pink bubble. It bursts across his face and he gobbles it back into his mouth. “That’s exactly what we’re saying.” Terbish draws a skinning knife from his belt and takes a step backward. “I’m sorry, kid, but I don’t think so. We found it first.”

“Some yak herders found it first.”

“I don’t see any yak herders around here,” Pry Bar says.

“We told them to leave. And they know to listen. The rock belongs to us.”

“He’s being modest,” Jalair adds. “It actually belongs to him.”

“You?” Terbish asks doubtfully.

“Yes.”

“Ha!” Pry Bar says, holding the rod like a quarterstaff. “I’ve never heard anything so ridicu—”

Jalair cuts Pry Bar short by grabbing the rod, twisting it free, and slamming the pointed end into Pry Bar’s sternum, knocking the wind out of him. Rifleman shoulders the .30-06, but before he can fire, an arrow strikes him cleanly through the neck.

They’d forgotten about Bat behind his horse.

Altan, the man in the hat, gets his hands around the bundle, but Bold throws a black metal dart at him, about eight inches long and a half inch in diameter. It strikes Altan through the hat’s earflap and drives a few inches into his head. He collapses and begins to foam at the mouth. His arms and legs dance. His eyes roll.

Terbish is full of terror and disbelief. He turns and sprints for the truck.

Baitsakhan blows a short whistle through his teeth. His horse trots next to him; he jumps on, kicks it in its side. It catches Terbish in seconds. Baitsakhan pulls hard, and the horse rears and comes down on Terbish’s shoulders and neck. The man is crushed into the earth as the horse turns a tight circle first one way then the next, prancing over Terbish’s body, crushing his bones, taking his fading life.

When Baitsakhan returns to the crater, Pry Bar is sitting on the ground, his legs in front of him, his nose bloody, his hands tied behind him. The rod is under his elbows, and Jalair is pulling up on it.

Baitsakhan jumps from his horse.

The man spits. “What did we ever do to—”

Baitsakhan puts his fingers to his lips. “Shh.” He holds out his other hand, and Bat appears as if from nowhere and places a long and gleaming blade in it. “Don’t talk.”

“What are you doing?” the man pleads.

“Playing,” Baitsakhan says.

“What? Why?” Pry Bar asks.

Baitsakhan puts the knife against the man’s neck and slowly slices the man’s throat open.

“This is Endgame,” Baitsakhan says. “There is no why.”