James Frey - Rules of the Game

“True.” He removes some clips from her hair, places them carefully in the sink.

“Okay. Done.” He drapes another towel over her. He opens the door and angles his head into the cabin. “Sarah, I have to tell you something.”

Sarah frowns, takes his hand, and he leads her to the closest pair of empty seats. Aisling is near the front, sitting next to Pop in silence. Shari is across the aisle, the closed window shade by her shoulder illuminated by the dawn’s early light.

Sarah laces her fingers into Jago’s. “What is it, Feo?”

“I couldn’t tell you before. It was too much. It was Aucapoma Huayna. My line’s elder. She told me that … she told me that you needed to die.”

Sarah releases Jago’s hand. “What?”

Aisling turns to look at them for a brief moment. Sarah and Jago lower their voices.

“And she said that I was the one who had to do it.”

Sarah clenches his hand tightly, painfully. “Why would she say that?”

Jago looks her directly in the eye, not wavering, not showing any signs of being dishonest. He wants her to hear. He needs her to. “It had something to do with your line. She said the Makers would never allow the Cahokians to win, nor would they allow my line to win so long as I walked alongside or Played with you.”

Sarah winces. “That’s nonsense.”

“She said your line did something extraordinary. She said that back in the sixteen hundreds the Cahokians actually fought the Makers!”

Sarah shakes her head. “What do you mean?”

“According to her, before the very last group of Makers left Earth—back in 1613—They asked the Cahokians to fulfill an old bargain. You had to give up a thousand young people in a grand and final sacrifice, I guess for Them to take with them on their ships.”

“And?”

“And your people refused . She said that by then the Cahokians understood that the Makers were mortal and that they appeared to be godlike simply because they possessed more knowledge and technology than humans. She said your people fought, using an old Maker weapon against Them, and that as a last resort the battlefield was iced from orbiting ships, killing everyone there, Maker soldiers included.”

“A Maker weapon?”

“Yes. And she said your line received more punishment. She said you were made to forget your rebellion and much of your ancient past, even the original name of your line. ‘Cahokian’ is apparently what you’ve called yourself since this battle. Before that you were known as something else.”

Marrs bounds back into the plane and closes the door behind him. He plants his hands on the bulkhead and leans forward. “Buckle up. We’re flying in five.”

Sarah pulls the seat belt over her lap. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says a little more loudly as the plane’s engines come to life. “The Cahokians have plenty of documents going way past 1613. I’ve seen them. We have plenty of language and knowledge, Jago. Plenty of history . And I have never heard anything like what you’re describing—”

Jago raises a hand. “I’m merely telling you what she said. It’s been eating at me. Obviously I’m not going to kill you, Sarah. And obviously I don’t care what the Makers think or want for themselves. I want you, and I want to stay alive, and to save my family if I can, as fucked up as they are. I want to fight—and fight hard—for what’s right.” He shrugs as the plane lurches backward. “Who knows,” he says. “Maybe she didn’t expect me to kill you. Maybe she wanted me to doubt you—doubt us —so that I’d leave you at my parents’ estate. So they could deal with you.”

“We’re number one for takeoff,” Jordan announces on the PA. The plane pulls around a turn and jerks to a stop. “Flight attendants, cross-check, and all the rest. Sit down and do a crossword.”

Aisling peers around the edge of her seat at Sarah, smiling at Jordan’s lame joke.

Sarah smiles back, not letting her expression relay the seriousness of the conversation she’s having with Jago.

“You didn’t let me finish,” Sarah says, thankful for the sudden hiss of the engines as the jet throttles down the runway. “I don’t know about this battle, but I do know about the weapon. I’ve never seen it, of course. No Cahokian Player has since—get this— 1614 . But I know where it’s hidden.”

“Where?”

“A little south of Monks Mound. The Cahokian monument Marrs was talking about earlier.”

“A place that someone, for some reason, might try to destroy.”

Sarah shakes her head decisively. The plane jostles through a small cloud, sunlight lancing the cabin as soon as they clear it. “Maybe, Feo. But not if we can get there first.”

An Liu’s Defender moves into the daylight to meet the mob. His Beretta ARX 160, specially modified with a powered picatinny rail, fires through a slot below the windshield. The report is loud inside the vehicle and he likes it. The bullets sail into the crowd. The casings pitter onto his lap. A few men are hit. They dive and scatter to the side but the mob doesn’t dissipate. He gives the rifle four more long bursts, swinging it side to side. Red sprays of blood and small clouds of dust as bodies fall and feet scamper. An puts the car in second and lets out the clutch, and the Defender jumps forward. Another volley. He hopes the men will thin enough for him to escape to the wider street at the end of the alleyway.

And for a moment this is exactly what happens. But then the men yell and turn back all at once like a school of fish, surging toward his car. They throw rocks and pipes, and the soldiers with rifles fire at will. These projectiles bounce off his car without causing any real damage, but now things are about to get trickier.

They’re blocking his escape.

He’ll have to run them down like dogs.

Which is fine with him.

An yanks his rifle into the interior, the flap under the windshield closing immediately. He flips open a panel on the dashboard. Two covered switches and a pistol grip with a trigger are built into the console. He snaps open the switch covers. Presses the left button. It glows red. He takes the grip and angles it up and pulls the trigger. A white arc traces from the front of the car, the projectile rainbowing over the crowd, sailing 30, 40, 50 meters before hitting the ground at the end of the alley and detonating. The air there turns orange and black as the grenade does its job.

An feels giddy.

He slams the clutch, puts the car in the third, and grinds forward.

He meets the men. The sound is sickening, lovely, unusual. Yells of defiance turn to screams of pain and terror, but still the men press in on him. The Defender rides over a body. Faces mash into his windows, their flesh going flat and pink and brown and white against the glass. A pair of men grabs the door handles and tries in vain to work them open. The car slows a little. An drops it into second gear. The men beat the car and grab at it and jump on top of it. The car rocks side to side as An jogs the wheel, pinning men on the sides between the car and buildings, blood smearing across the hood and then the windshield. Some men with the kepler masks get caught and crumple under the rear wheels. The car is a four-wheel-drive beast. He lets out a little laugh. He flicks the wipers. Bad idea—the blood smears and obscures his view. The car moves forward more slowly now, the men treating it like a drum, but it’s useless. It’s too heavy for them to topple and they can’t get in or breach its armor. An is sure that he’ll make it out and get away.