Endgame Novella #1 Read online

  “His cable snapped. I tried to help him, but I couldn’t.” Marcus knows he sounds like a robot, but he’s capable of nothing else. “I couldn’t get there in time.”

  Elias shakes his head, still chuckling. “Okay, then, how about I tell the truth. His cable snapped? Yes. You tried to help him? No. You watched and did nothing while your best friend hung on for dear life? Yes. You watched and did nothing while he fell to his death, then came home and lied about it, stole everything that was supposed to be his?”

  Marcus swallows hard. His tongue feels huge in his mouth, clumsy and incapable of speech. His throat is clenched, his breath gone. But he manages to squeeze out the necessary word: “Yes.”

  “Yes,” Elias says. “Yes. Good. Yes. That’s a start. And don’t you want to ask me something now?”

  Marcus stares at him blankly. He’s waited for this moment for so long, for someone to ferret out the truth, for the consequences to crush him. He’s pictured this moment, but never past it. He doesn’t know what happens next.

  “You want to ask me how I know,” Elias prompts.

  “How do you know?” Marcus says obediently, although he doesn’t care. He doesn’t see how it could matter.

  “I know because I was there,” Elias says. “Many of us were. We all wanted to see for ourselves what you would do when the opportunity presented itself.”

  Marcus gapes at him, wheels turning. Because if Elias was there, waiting and watching, that meant he knew something would happen, which meant—

  “Good, you’re keeping up,” Elias says. “Alexander’s cable snapped because our sniper shot it.”

  “You were testing him?” Marcus says in wonder.

  Elias sighs, obviously disappointed. “For someone who’s so sure he deserves to be a Player, you’re not very quick on the uptake. We were testing you.”

  The words are like an explosion; Marcus could swear the ground is shaking beneath him. Thunder roars in his ear. The muted colors of the graveyard burst so bright he needs to shut his eyes against the pain of them.

  This is how it feels, when your world falls apart and remakes itself into something you don’t recognize.

  When everything you thought was solid melts away.

  “It was always going to be you, Marcus,” Elias says. “It was obvious the first day I met you. But we had to know how much you wanted it. We had to know how far you would go—how much you would sacrifice for victory.”

  Marcus concentrates on standing still. It takes all the energy he has to hold his muscles rigid. He fears that if he relaxes his control, even for a second, he will collapse. Or he will lunge at Elias and pummel him to death.

  He thinks about relaxing his control.

  Thinks hard.

  Instead he forces out the obvious question. “Why are you telling me this? Why now?”

  “Because it’s time for you to grow up,” Elias says. He takes the golden horns off Xander’s grave. “Stop sulking. Stop beating yourself up—what’s done is done. You made a choice, and it’s a part of you now. You know what you’re capable of, and that’s a good thing. It’s something you won’t soon forget.” He presses the horns into Marcus’s hands.

  Marcus wants to let them drop to the dirt—but instead his fingers close around them, the sharp point of a horn digging into his palm.

  “You’re the Player now,” Elias says. “You, not Alexander. Time to start acting like it.”

  It should make some kind of difference.

  It should make all the difference.

  It means that everything Marcus has been telling himself, all those lies about obligation and noble sacrifice, about doing what must be done for the good of his people . . . they’re all true. If Endgame comes during his tenure—and it must come, it has to come, or else what was the sacrifice for?—the Minoans will have a champion worthy of them. A Player who knows exactly what he’s capable of, and can never forget it.

  It means death was simply Xander’s fate. Letting him die, that was Marcus’s.

  He only did what he was supposed to do.

  What he was meant to do.

  This is the gift Elias has given him: his new truth.

  He’ll spend the rest of his life trying to believe it.

  SUMERIAN

  KALA

  It begins in motion.

  For Kala, life is motion.

  Life is blazing sun and endless desert dunes. Life is duty and honor. Life is Playing and life is winning.

  And winning means staying in motion. Being the fastest. Being the strongest. Being the best.

  She is running.

  Mile after mile, noon sun scorching the earth, sweat soaking her shirt and brow, feet pound-pound-pounding the sand, muscles screaming, joints pulsing, heart thumping, brain willing go go go.

  But she cannot go as fast as she needs, because the boy in front of her is too slow. This is a team training exercise, run in single file, let the leader set the pace, and Kala is not the leader. She pumps and gasps behind him, her breath on his neck, hoping he’ll get the message.

  Kala hates this kind of exercise, hates having to depend on someone else to get things right.

  Faster.

  Behind her, the long tail of her cohort stretches along the sand. If she looked back, she would see a straight line of identical black uniforms and identically determined runners, their feet pounding in lockstep, their dreams fixed on the same distant goal of becoming the Player. But Kala never looks back.

  The boy in front of her, unfortunately, follows a different rule. He turns toward her, opens his mouth as if to speak—and stumbles over his own feet. He catches himself, but not soon enough: Kala slams into him, and they both go down in a tangle of sweaty limbs.

  The line of Players-in-training races on. Even in team exercises, the fallen are to be left behind.

  “Watch it!” Kala snaps, extricating herself from the boy.

  “It’s impossible not to,” he says. She is already back on her feet, but he sprawls in the sand as if lounging at the beach. His eyes pin her in place.

  For a moment, all is still.

  As if time has stopped.

  And the world has narrowed, so there is only her.

  And only him.

  “Whatever,” she says, then shakes it off and starts running. If she’s fast enough, she can catch up with the group.

  She’s always fast enough.

  The boy’s name is Alad. That’s what he calls himself, at least. His official designation is 37DELTA. All the Players-in-training are assigned numbers instead of names. They had names when they were born, just like they had families. But when the minders choose a child for training, all record of the past is erased. The children are snatched from their homes at age four, raised in a communal camp, assigned a number and a series of minders, and, very quickly, they forget there is any other way. When they’re old enough to care, they choose a name for themselves.

  Kala is 5SIGMA. She chose the name Kala because it means “time,” and time is the enemy she plans to conquer. Time is what lies between her present in this camp and her future beyond it. Her life is a ticking clock, hours to fill and be disposed of.

  She used to wonder if she would have liked her real name as much.

  The minders don’t like it when you say real name.

  This is the real you, they say. This is the only you there is.

  Blood muddies the water, they say. Players must stay clear.

  This is why they have no family but one another.

  Some of the Players-in-training in her cohort have bonded, formed tight cliques and pairings, but Kala has never bothered. She has always felt separate from them. She has always known herself to be different. It’s so easy for them to accept what they’ve been told, to believe what they’re meant to believe. They’ve been told they must want to win, they must need to win, and so they do. They’ve been told that this life, this training, should fill them up, and so it does.

  They’ve been told not to think a
bout the world beyond this camp, or a future beyond Playing; they’ve been told nothing matters beyond the game.

  And so they do not; and so it does not.

  It would be easier, if she could be like them. But Kala has never been filled up by this life. She remains hollow. She stays in motion so she can ignore the empty hole at her center, so she doesn’t have to worry about what’s wrong with her that nothing is ever enough. She runs, because every step forward is a step away from here, into a future where she will have more. At least, she has to believe she will. That someday she will know what it is to feel, to want, to need.

  She has never been able to imagine what that might be like.

  Until now.

  She has never paid much attention to Alad. After the run, after the fall, he is everywhere. He sits beside her at meals. He manages to be chosen as her sparring partner in combat drills and her spotter in strength training. He fires beside her in target practice and grins when her perfectly aimed bullets tear the target to shreds. She nearly falls over him on the camouflage field, where he has turned himself into a creature of sand and lies still and prone in the seemingly unbroken stretch of brown. He distracts her with a wink as she’s arming grenades, and she nearly blows them both up.

  He distracts her a lot.

  He is always watching her. When she points this out to him, he grins. “How would you know?” he says. “Unless you’re watching me too.”

  She is watching. She notices things about him she somehow never saw before: The way his dark eyes crinkle when he smiles. The way his muscles ripple under his shirt, and the thin line of hair trailing down from his belly button when the shirt comes off. His forearms, and the way the veins bulge when he bears her weight. The curve of his neck, the line of his back, the glow of his skin in the sun, the languid grace of his movements, never urgent, always assured. His lips—quirked in a smile, pursed in a frown, tight with anger or loose with laughter, but always, always, full and soft and waiting.

  She really needs to stop noticing his lips.

  Alad is quiet like her, but there is a kindness to his quiet. While she is an isolated unit, closed off to distraction and connection, he is open to the world, noticing all. Noticing her. She is always in motion, but he is still. When she sits beside him, the silence filling the space between them, she can feel his stillness encompass her. When he is near, the urge to run, to fight, to move falls away. There is no need to escape from her thoughts, because her thoughts are of him.

  And she doesn’t mind.

  Alad pretends not to push himself. He doesn’t let the others see how hard he works to be the fastest or the best.

  “Why bother trying?” she hears him say to one of his bunkmates. “It’s not like it’s a race. Who knows how they choose the Player?”

  The truth is, no one knows. There are nearly 100 of them in this cohort. They were all born within a few months of one another, all taken from their parents and brought to this place. Many are from Iraq; others come here from Kuwait, Qatar, Syria. There is even a girl from Scotland. They have in common only their Sumerian bloodline—and their determination to win.

  Only one of them can.

  From these 100 rigorously trained potentials, a single Player will be selected.

  The Player will train even harder, will prepare, will wait for Endgame. Those not chosen will live to serve him. And, somewhere in the desert, another cohort, several years younger than Kala’s, eagerly awaits its turn, for when that Player ages out. Somewhere else, a hundred weeping four-year-olds struggle to understand what’s become of their lives. They too will grow up to Play this game, and after them more children will be taken from their homes, more children will train, more children will wait.

  The cycle has played out for millennia, and it will never end. Not until Endgame finally comes, and the chosen Player gets her chance to Play.

  No one knows when the choice will come, and no one knows why. You simply wake up one day to discover that one of your own is gone, and that is the Player. Which means you are not.

  This, at least, is what they have heard.

  Each of the bloodlines has its own strategy for picking a Player. Kala knows she is supposed to believe the Sumerian way is the best. But it’s difficult, when no one seems quite sure what the Sumerian way is.

  Alad claims not to care, but Kala can see him straining to be the best. She can see how much he wants it, how he believes that his efforts will be enough. And sometimes the minders do pick the strongest in the cohort, sometimes the smartest. But sometimes the choice makes no obvious sense. They have picked scrawny Players and foolish ones, saintly Players who care only for their bloodline and egomaniacal Players who will Play only for themselves. The last Player was chosen six years ago, after the one before that died unexpectedly in training, a dagger through his chest. Kala remembers when the girl was chosen, remembers the swirling rumors: she was immune to pain; she was a record-breaking weight lifter; she was chosen by the flip of a coin. Kala tries not to listen to gossip, but she can’t ignore the chatter about what is to come. The current Player is about to age out—a new one is needed. So the choice will come soon, they know that much. There is nothing they can do but train and wonder and wait.

  And, of course, speculate endlessly about the choice: when it will come, how it will be made. This is the favorite hobby of Kala’s cohorts, and they never shut up about it.

  Kala doesn’t play along. She’s never seen the point. She likes that Alad doesn’t see it either.

  Friendship in the camp is not encouraged, but neither is it forbidden. And somehow, without realizing it, Kala lets Alad become her friend. They begin to count on each other; more than that, they begin to know each other. When they spar, she can anticipate his movements—recognize a feint, block a punch before he throws it. At meals, Alad now reaches without asking for her untouched saltah, at least when the stew is made with goat, which she detests. When he can get his hands on some halvah, he always snags extra for her, though never enough to satisfy her sweet tooth. They don’t talk about anything that matters, but then, no one talks about things that matter. Nothing is permitted to matter except their training. Not their hopes for the future, and certainly not their faded memories of the past.

  Everyone has at least a few that they hold precious and secret.

  Kala remembers a red stuffed elephant named Balih, and she remembers her mother’s smell, a comforting waft of saffron and nutmeg.

  At least, she thinks it was her mother.

  She prefers to believe that.

  Even without talking, Kala can sense Alad’s moods. When he broods, she can almost see the dark cloud hovering over him—and when he brightens up, he nearly sparkles. He brightens often when she is near, and it makes her feel sparkly as well.

  Which is ridiculous.

  She tells herself that this is a natural bond between two warriors. That it will make her stronger, and strength is what she needs to endure the passage of time. That maybe this—knowing someone inside and out, needing them near, skin prickling when they are—is what it means to be family.

  Kala doesn’t know much about family. But she knows family doesn’t make your stomach flip when they smile. Family’s touch doesn’t feel like an electric charge.

  Kala doesn’t believe in lying to herself, so she is forced to admit: it is not family, and it is not friendship. It is something more.

  And something more is definitely forbidden.

  Kala swings the ax in a wide circle. It cracks hard against the staff of Alad’s ax. Her teeth clack together with the impact.

  Alad feints left, swings right, Kala anticipates him, blocks the attack.

  She always anticipates him.

  He is fast; she is faster.

  “You’re dragging today,” he teases her. An undercurrent of tension hums in his voice. He’s lost three bouts in a row, and he’s about to lose this one too.

  They both know how much he wants to win.

  “I’m just taking
it easy on you,” Kala says, and pretends this is a joke. She leaps gracefully as he swings his ax at her ankles. The blade whirs harmlessly beneath her feet. Kala twists in the air, head over heels, landing behind him, her ax already in motion.

  He dances away just in time. The blade slashes at his tunic, tears through the thin cotton. She can see his anger rising, has come to recognize the telltale signs. The sweat beading at his neck, the twitch of his ear, the way his grip tightens on the ax. He’s not angry at her—never at her. He’s angry at himself.

  She attacks; he blocks.

  She attacks again; he blocks, swiftly and surely.

  But she can feel his ax give way to hers when she bears her weight against it, and she knows his arms are tiring.

  She wields the ax like it’s weightless. Like it’s an extension of her arms. She spins and dances, whirls and leaps. In her hands the blade is a quicksilver, a blur of deadly motion.

  “I’m just waiting for the perfect moment to make my move,” he says, and jabs at her. She grins at his boast as she darts from reach.

  She can hear the gasps beneath his words. He’s tiring. She could fight forever.

  Instead she swings the ax up hard, then turns it at an abrupt right angle, spins around, knocks his feet out from under him. That fast he is on his back, the tip of her ax pressed to his chest.

  He smiles up at her, and she can see what it costs him to lose, and to bear it. “You’re beautiful when you’re a sore winner,” he says.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Kala protests.

  “You’re thinking it.” He winks.

  She clasps his hand and pulls him to his feet. Every time they fight, he hopes to win, but she knows he never will.

  It’s not that he’s a lesser fighter. It’s that he’s too eager to win. Too needful. When Kala takes a weapon in her hand, she gives way to the emptiness at her center. She needs nothing but to make clean cuts, to let the ax or dagger or sword do its job. She lets herself not care—because she has come to understand that in battle, caring gets in the way.

  She’s glad Alad doesn’t ask for the secret of her triumph. She doesn’t want him to know how easy it is for her. Especially now that she sees there is another way. Now that she sees what it is to be desperate, to need. She envies his heat, draws close to him as if to warm herself on his fire.