James Frey - Sky Key

Jago doesn’t speak for a few seconds. “Sí,” he says slowly, drawing it out. “Less than a year later. Only two days before my birthday, right before I became eligible.”

“And?”

“He was even faster. But I’d learned a lot, and I was faster too.”

“So you drew first blood?”

“No. We had blades, but after a couple minutes I punched him in the throat and collapsed his windpipe. When he went down I stepped on his neck. Didn’t spill a drop. And I can still see his eyes. Uncomprehending, confused, like when you shoot an animal. It doesn’t understand what you’ve done. It was outside the rules of his nature, this favela boy, best knife fighter I have ever seen. He did not understand that his rules did not apply to me.”

Sarah doesn’t say anything. She rolls onto her side, her back to Jago.

I’m in bed with a murderer, she thinks.

And immediately after, But I’m a murderer too.

“I’m sorry, Sarah. I didn’t mean to—”

“I did it.” She takes a deep breath. “His rules didn’t apply to me either. I chose to do it. I killed him . Killed … Christopher.”

There. She said it. Her body starts to shake, as if a switch has been thrown. She pulls her knees to her chest and shakes and sobs. Jago moves his hand over the skin of her bare back, but he knows it’s a small comfort. If it’s any comfort at all.

Jago never thought much of Christopher, but he knows that Sarah loved him. She loved him and she killed him. Jago isn’t sure he could have done what Sarah did. Could he shoot his best friend from back home? Could he kill José, Tiempo, or Chango? Could he put a bullet in his father, or, even worse, his mother? He’s not sure.

“You had to do it, Sarah.” He’s said this 17 times since they checked into the hotel, mostly unprompted, just to fill the air.

Every time it has rung hollow. Maybe this time more than ever.

“He told you to do it. He understood in that moment that Endgame would kill him, and he knew the only way to die was in the service of helping you . He helped you, Sarah, sacrificed himself for your line. You had his blessing. If you’d done what An wanted, Chiyoko would be the one with Earth Key, she would be the one on her way to winni—”

“GOOD!” Sarah screams. She isn’t sure what’s worse—having killed the boy she grew up loving or having caught Earth Key as it popped out of Stonehenge. “Chiyoko shouldn’t have died,” she whispers. “Not like that. She was too good a Player, too strong. And I … I shouldn’t have shot him.” She takes a deep breath. “Jago … everyone— everyone— is going to die because of me.”

Sarah curls into a tighter ball. Jago bumps his fingers along her vertebrae.

“You didn’t know that,” Jago says. “None of us did. You were just doing what kepler 22b said. You were just Playing.”

“Yeah, Playing ,” she says sarcastically. “I think Aisling might have known … Christ. Why couldn’t she have been a better shot? Why couldn’t she have shot us or taken out our plane when she had the chance?”

Jago has wondered the same about Aisling—not about taking down the Bush Hawk, but definitely about what she was trying to tell them. “If she had shot us down, then Christopher would still be dead,” Jago points out. “And you and I would be too.”

“Yeah, well …” Sarah says, as if that would be preferable to everything that’s happened since Italy.

“You were just Playing,” he says again.

No words for several minutes. Sarah resumes crying, Jago continues to caress her back. It’s one in the morning, drizzling outside, the sounds of cars and trucks on the wet street below. An airplane now and then, Heathrow-bound. A far-off whistle, like a boat’s. A police siren. The faint sound of a woman laughing drunkenly.

“Fuck kepler 22b and fuck Endgame and fuck Playing,” Sarah says into the silence.

She stops crying. Jago lets his hand fall into the sheets. Sarah’s breathing deepens and slows, and after several minutes she’s asleep.

Jago slides out of bed. He gets in the shower, lets the water run over him. He thinks about the knife fighter’s eyes, about how they looked as life abandoned him. About how Jago felt, watching, knowing he’d taken that life. He gets out and towels off, dresses silently, eases out of the hotel room, the door closing silently behind him. Sarah doesn’t stir.

“ Hola , Sheila,” Jago says to the clerk when he reaches the lobby.

Jago has memorized the names of everyone who works at the hotel and in the restaurant. Aside from Sheila there are Pradeet, Irina, Paul, Dmitri, Carol, Charles, Dimple, and 17 others.

They’re all doomed.

Because of Sarah. Because of him. Because of Chiyoko and An and all the Players.

Because of Endgame.

He exits onto Cromwell Road and pulls his hood over his head. Cromwell, Jago thinks. The hated puritanical lord protector of the English Commonwealth, the terror of the interregnum. A man so loathed and reviled that King Charles II had his body exhumed so it could be killed all over again. The body was beheaded and the head placed on a pole outside Westminster Hall, where it stayed for years, getting picked at and spat on and cursed until there was nothing but a skull. That head rotted away not more than a couple kilometers from where Jago walks on this night. On this road named after the usurper.

This is what they’re fighting for. To keep devils like Cromwell and libertine kings like Charles II and hate and power and politics alive and well on Earth.

He’s begun to wonder if it’s even worth it.

But he can’t wonder. Not allowed to. “Jugadores no se preguntan,” Papi would say if he could hear Jago’s thoughts. “ Jugadores juegan.”

Sí.

Jugadores juegan.

Jago sticks his hands in his pockets and walks toward Gloucester Road. A man 15 centimeters taller and 20 kilograms heavier than him wheels around the corner and slams into Jago’s shoulder. Jago does a half spin, keeps his hands in his pockets, barely looks up.

“Oi, watch it!” the man says. He smells like beer and anger. He’s having a bad night and looking for a fight.

“Sorry, mate,” Jago replies, imitating the South London accent, moving on.

“You havin’ a laugh?” the man asks. “Tryna be hard?”

Without warning, the man swings a fist the size of a toaster at Jago’s face. Jago leans backward, the fist breezes past his nose. The man swings again, but Jago sidesteps.

“A right fast little twat,” the man blurts. “Take your hands out your pockets, mate . Stop fuckin’ about.”

Jago smiles, flashes his diamond-studded teeth instead. “Don’t need to.”

The man steps forward and Jago dances toward him, slamming his heel onto one of the man’s feet. The man cries out and tries to grab him, but Jago kicks the man’s stomach. The man doubles over. Jago’s hands are still in his pockets. He turns to walk away, toward the all-night Burger King down the street, to get a couple of bacon cheeseburgers. Players need to eat. Even if one of them claims to be done with Playing. Jago hears the man quickly pull something out of his pocket. Without turning to look Jago says, “You should put that knife away.”

The man freezes. “How’d ya know I got a knife?”

“Heard it. Smelled it.”

“Bollocks,” the man whispers, surging forward.

Jago still doesn’t bother to take his hands out of his pockets. The silver metal flashes in the lamplight. Jago lifts a leg and kicks straight back, hitting the man in the ribs. The knife misses Jago as he folds forward and lifts his foot and cracks the man in the chin. Then Jago brings his foot down on the man’s knife hand. His wrist slams into the ground, the instep of Jago’s shoe on top of it. The knife comes free. Jago flicks it away with the toe of his shoe. It falls over the edge of the curb and clatters down a drain. The man moans. This skinny shit beat him without even taking his hands out of his pockets.