James Frey - Rules of the Game

He didn’t worry about it at first. He was banged up from all the fights he’d been through and he didn’t think that the shop owner was paying close enough attention to make the connection. But he was. He turned on Maccabee and Sky Key in a flash, pointed a finger, started yelling. Maccabee stood, his mouth half-full of curried potatoes, and hoisted up the girl. The man stepped around the counter with a long kitchen knife. Maccabee backed away, swallowed his food, lifted his shirt to reveal the butt of the pistol, and said, “You don’t need to get hurt, my friend. None of us do.”

Stunned, the man quieted for a few moments as Maccabee and Sky Key left. He resumed yelling as soon as they were out on the street, and people began gawking, but the pair made it onto the bike in front of the hotel and Maccabee got Sky Key into the child carrier and they whisked out of there.

They rode all morning, stopping once to buy some rice and lentils at a food stall. Not long ago he caught sight of this hut flickering through the trees. Sky Key had been squirming for the previous 10 kilometers, and Maccabee had to piss, so he pulled over. He hid the bike in the bush and crept toward the corrugated metal building, the SIG pistol in hand. The hut was empty of people. It contained some basic items like bowls and a mirror and a few bedrolls and a low table. Maccabee figured it was a crash pad for itinerant farmhands, but it didn’t look like it had been used in a while.

They went in and he fed Sky Key some already cooked rice and lentils that came in simple plastic bags. Then he got going with the scissors and the straight razor. And now he is done. It isn’t a perfect disguise, but he doesn’t look anything like he did in the video.

It will do.

“Well, I like it,” Maccabee says of his new look.

Sky Key chews and manages a grunt. One of the first noises she’s made all morning.

Maccabee scoots over so that he’s sitting opposite the girl. A warm breeze pushes through the windows. The leaves outside rustle, a tree trunk creaks.

So young, he thinks.

Too young.

He dips his fingers into the bowl of rice and lentils and takes a handful in the Indian fashion and brings it to his lips. For food purchased from a roadside hawker, it’s surprisingly good.

Sky Key’s face is wind worn and streaked with grime. He reaches across the bowl and uses his thumb to wipe her cheek. She doesn’t move away. Her eyes are locked forward, staring at Maccabee’s chest.

“I’ll steal a car soon. You shouldn’t ride like that. Too exposed.”

She chews. Stares. Swallows.

“Good,” she says, breaking her silence since the day before.

“So you are going to talk?” he says, trying to sound kind.

“I don’t like it. The motorbike.”

“We’ll get rid of it then.”

“Good,” she repeats. She takes another mouthful of food.

“The problem is—once we get a car, where do we go?”

She doesn’t say anything.

“I mean, we should probably wait out the impact before we keep going,” he says, thinking out loud more than talking to her. “But where will we be safe? And how will we find Sun Key?”

“We’ll be safe, Uncle,” she announces emphatically.

He frowns.

She takes another bite of food in her fingertips, pushes it into her mouth.

Strange girl, he thinks.

“Please, call me Maccabee. Or Mac.”

“All right, Uncle,” she says, as if she’s agreeing to a different request.

He ignores it. “How do you know we’ll be safe?”

The girl swallows her food before answering. “The Makers won’t destroy me or Earth Key. Mama said. The bad thing will happen far from here. From me. From who is with me. What we need to be afraid of are the others. Like the man from yesterday. That’s what Mama said too.”

“Your mama,” he says slowly.

“Yes. Thank you for killing the bad man, Uncle,” she says in a smaller than usual voice. “Thank you.”

Very strange girl, he thinks as pangs of guilt shudder through him. Baitsakhan was absolutely bad, but that didn’t make Maccabee a saint. Not by a long shot. After all, he nearly killed Shari Chopra too.

But he didn’t. And this girl, she does not need to know otherwise.

“You’re … welcome,” he says. He wonders if she’s always spoken beyond her years. He wonders if touching Earth Key made her this way, or if she was like this before.

He can’t know that she was.

That Little Alice was always precocious, always special.

He says, “All right, let’s assume we are safe from the asteroid. I still don’t know where to go. How do I win? Where is Sun Key?”

She chews. Swallows. Then she sticks out her arm and points a few degrees south of due east. “I know, Uncle.”

Maccabee frowns. “You know ?”

“Two two dot two three four. Six eight dot nine six two.”

He gets his smartphone, launches Google Maps, and punches in the coordinates. A pin over water pops up, a short distance from the coast of the western Indian port city of Dwarka. He shows it to Sky Key.

“This? Is this where we’ll find Sun Key?”

The girl nods.

“It’s not that far at all!”

Giddiness wells in his heart and works into his throat.

“Yes, Uncle. Sun Key is there.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

He fumbles with the smartphone and his smile grows. Two thousand four hundred thirty-four kilometers. Thirty-six or 37 hours of driving. Maybe faster if he can find a plane to steal.

He can win Endgame, he can guarantee the survival of the Nabataean line after the cataclysm, he can see the new Earth and live on it until he is old and frail. Maybe he can save this young girl and fulfill the promise he made to her mother.

Maybe he can win and right some wrongs.

He jumps to his feet, intent on going outside and flagging down the next decent-looking car that comes along the road and carjacking it. He can hardly contain himself. “Sky Key, this is amazing!”

“I know, Uncle.” The girl takes another bite. “They call me Little Alice.”

“I could win, Alice! The Nabataeans could win! ”

She chews. Swallows. “I know.”

An’s heart is full.

After the explosion Nori Ko moved to the Defender’s backseat. She said in Mandarin, “Drive west.”

He did.

He watched the road slip under the car and continue to unfurl before them and he watched her in the rearview mirror and he watched the road and he watched her. The road and her. Road and her. He did not speak. He did not need words. He did not speak for over three hours.

She did not bother him with words either.

Chiyoko would have done the same.

ChiyokoChiyokoNoriKoChiyoko.

Now they’ve stopped to refuel. He’s outside. She’s in the car, her head propped against the far window. He’s in the stifling heat, a gas pump in his hand. The paved highway lies to the north. A few kilometers earlier they entered a jungle reserve and now trees rise all around, making the air a couple of degrees cooler than it is out by the open fields of jute and corn. Behind the filling station is a low concrete building, a white bull lolling under a jackfruit tree, its leafy boughs heavy with oblong fruit. Aside from the attendant in the air-conditioned booth, no people are around.

An finishes and pays and gets in and drives.

“West?” he asks.

“West.”

He merges onto State Highway 2, headed for Bishnupur. They drive through the jungle. An doesn’t see any buildings or signs of people except for the road they’re on and a brief glimpse of a derelict metal hut hiding behind the trees. He thinks nothing of it.