James Frey - Sky Key

“Yep. Breezy Point.”

“Ah, local girl.”

“Yep.”

He slides the passport through the scanner. He puts down the little blue book. He types. He looks bored but happy—that retirement is looming—but then his hands pause for a split second over the keys. He squints very slightly and adjusts his posture.

He keeps typing.

She’s been standing there for 99 seconds when he says, “Miss Cooper, I’m going to have to ask you to step aside and see some of my colleagues over there.”

Aisling feigns concern. “Is there something wrong with my passport?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Can I have it then?”

“No, I’m afraid you can’t. Now please”—he holds up one hand and places the other on the butt of his holstered pistol—“over there.”

Aisling already sees them from the corner of her eye. Two men, both in fatigues and armed with M4s and Colt service pistols, one with a very large Alsatian panting happily on a leash.

“Am I being arrested?”

The officer snaps the strap off his pistol but doesn’t draw. Aisling wonders if this moment is the most exciting of his 20-odd years as an immigration officer. “Miss, I am not going to ask again. Please see my colleagues.”

Aisling holds up her hands and widens her eyes, makes them watery, like how Deandra Belafonte Cooper, the non-Player world traveler, would look in the situation. Scared and fragile.

She turns from the officer and walks haltingly toward the men. They don’t buy it. In fact, they take half a step back. The dog stands, as his handler whispers a command. His ears perk, his tail straightens, the hairs on his neck bristle. The man without the dog moves his rifle into the ready position and says, “That way. You first. No need for a scene, but we need to see your hands.”

Aisling dispenses with the act. She turns, puts her hands behind her back, just under her knapsack, and hooks her thumbs. “That all right?”

“Yes. Walk straight ahead. There’s a door at the end of the room marked E-one-one-seven. It will open when you get to it.”

“Can I ask a question?”

“No, miss, you cannot. Now walk.”

She walks.

And as she does, Aisling wonders if they are going to put her under a white tent too.

“Tango Whiskey X-ray, this is Hotel Lima, over?”

“Tango Whiskey X-ray, we read you.”

“Hotel Lima confirms idents of Nighthawks One and Two. Good night. Repeat, good night. Over.”

“Roger, Hotel Lima. Good night. Protocol?”

“Protocol is Ghost Takedown. Over.”

“Roger Ghost Takedown. Teams One, Two, and Three are in position. We have eyes?”

“Eyes are online. Op on oh-four-five-five Zulu.”

“Op on oh-four-five-five Zulu, copy. See you on the other side.”

“Roger that, Tango Whiskey X-ray. Hotel Lima out.”

The news is on all day in the background while Jago talks with Renzo to finalize their transportation. Sarah packs. Not that they have much to pack. When he’s done with Renzo, Jago goes over their emergency escape plan, should they need it. The one that winds through the nearby Tube tunnels and sewers. Sarah listens, but Jago sees that she’s not paying attention. They eat more Burger King—breakfast this time—savoring every greasy, salty bite. The Event is coming. The days are numbered for this kind of fast-food deliciousness.

Sarah meditates in the bathtub, tries not to cry about Christopher or triggering the end of the world, and miraculously succeeds. Jago exercises in the living room. Rips off three sets of 100 push-ups, three sets of 250 sit-ups, three sets of 500 jumping jacks. After her meditation, Sarah cleans their plastic-and-ceramic guns. She has no idea who made them, but each is identical to a Sig Pro 2022 in every way save material, color, weight, and magazine capacity. When she’s finished, she puts one by her bedside and one by Jago’s. His and hers. Nearly jokes that they should be mongrammed but doesn’t feel like joking. Each pistol has 16 rounds plus an extra 17-round magazine. Sarah fired one bullet at Stonehenge, killing Christopher and hitting An, probably killing him too. Jago fired one that grazed Chiyoko’s head. Other than their bodies, these are the only weapons they have.

Unless Earth Key counts as a weapon, which it very well might. It sits in the middle of the round coffee table. Small and seemingly innocent. The trigger for the end of the world.

The news on the TV is BBC. All day it’s the same. The meteors, the mystery at Stonehenge, the meteors, the mystery at Stonehenge, the meteors, the mystery at Stonehenge. Sprinkled here and there with some stuff from Syria and Congo and Latvia and Myanmar, plus the tanking world economy, reeling from a new kind of financial panic that, Sarah and Jago know, is the result of Endgame. The suits on Wall Street don’t know that, though. Not yet, anyway.

The meteors, and the mystery at Stonehenge. Wars, crashing markets.

The news.

“None of this will matter once it happens,” Sarah says in the early evening.

“You’re right. Nada .”

A commercial. A local ad for a car dealership. “I guess some of it I won’t miss,” Sarah says. Maybe she does feel like a joke.

Jago should be happy about this. But he just stares at the TV. “I don’t know. I think I’ll miss it all.”

Sarah glares at Earth Key. She was the one who unlocked … no. She has decided to stop blaming herself. She was only Playing. She didn’t make the rules. Sarah sits on the edge of the bed, her hands planted firmly on the mattress, her elbows locked. “What do you think it’ll be, Jago?”

“I don’t know. You remember what kepler 22b showed us. That image of Earth …”

“Burned. Dark. Gray and brown and red.”

“Sí.”

“Ugly …”

“Maybe it’ll be alien tech? One of kepler’s amigos pushes a button from their home planet and— poof! —Earth is screwed.”

“No. It’s got to be more terrifying than that. More … more of a show .”

Jago flicks the remote, the TV shuts off. “Whatever happens, I don’t want to think about it right now.”

She looks at him. Holds out a hand. Jago takes it and sits on the bed next to her and pushes his shoulder into hers.

“I don’t want to be alone, Jago.”

“You won’t be, Alopay.”

“Not after what happened at Stonehenge.”

“You won’t be.”

They flop onto their backs. “We’ll leave tomorrow, like we planned. We’re going to find Sky Key. We’re going to keep Playing.”

“Yeah,” she says unconvincingly. “Okay.”

Jago takes her head and turns it gently. He kisses her. “We can do this, Sarah. We can do it together.”

“Shut up.” She kisses him back. She feels the diamonds in his teeth, licks them, nibbles at his lower lip, smells his breath.

Anything to forget.

They fool around, and Sarah doesn’t say “Play” or “Earth Key” or “Sky Key” or “Endgame” or “Christopher” for the rest of the evening. She just holds Jago and smiles, touches him and smiles, feels him and smiles.

She falls asleep at 11:37 p.m.

Jago doesn’t sleep.

He is sitting in bed at 4:58 a.m. Stock-still. No lights. Two windows looking over a slender courtyard to the left of the bed. The blinds are open, ambient light suffuses the glass. Jago can see well enough. He’s already dressed. Sarah is too. He watches her sleep. Her breathing slow and steady.