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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 (#u01d97e74-138b-5058-b0df-1043694466fe)
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.
BAITSAKHAN (#u01d97e74-138b-5058-b0df-1043694466fe)
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.”
SARAH ALOPAY (#u01d97e74-138b-5058-b0df-1043694466fe)
