Rules of the Game. James Frey

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      Maccabee thumbs a Zippo lighter. The flame pops and flickers. They are in a small and pitch-black chamber, one that Maccabee doesn’t recognize. Apparently, Maccabee has been teleported somewhere beyond his control yet again.

      He lowers the flame and there, yes, is Sky Key. She trembles before him. Big eyes, beautiful dark hair. Fists balled at her chest. A terrified child.

      All the girl can manage is, “Y-y-y-y-y-you.”

      “My name is Maccabee Adlai. I’m a Player, like your mother.” His words are muffled, his voice twangy from the beating he took from Jago Tlaloc before he woke up here in the darkness. He reaches up and shifts his jaw back into place with a loud snap!

      “Y-y-y-y-you.”

      His whole body hurts, especially his groin, the pit of his stomach, his left pinkie, and his jaw. The pinkie is bent completely backward. At least he has his ring. He flips the ring’s lid shut so the poisoned needle is covered, then he cracks his finger straight by pushing it against his thigh. A line of pain shoots up his arm and into his neck. The finger won’t bend at the knuckles, but it’s not sticking out at an odd angle anymore.

      When I do win this thing there’ll hardly be any of me left, he thinks.

      “Y-y-y-y-y-you,” the girl says again.

      He moves toward her. She recoils. Color drains from her face. She can’t be older than three. So young. So innocent. So undeserving of what’s happened to her.

      The game is bullshit, Shari Chopra said. And in that moment Maccabee agreed with her. He realizes that this sentiment was probably the one that saved Shari’s life—the one that prompted him to knock her out instead of gun her down. Looking at Alice now, he doesn’t regret this decision.

       So young.

      “Your mother lives,” Maccabee says. “I saved her from a bad person. He came for her and I … I stopped him.” He almost said killed, but that would be inappropriate, wouldn’t it? With a child? He says, “She lives, but she’s not here—wherever we are.”

      “Y-y-y-y-you,” she repeats, her eyes widening.

      Maccabee shuffles forward another foot, his chin tucked to his chest, the back of his head grazing the stone ceiling. The air is damp. The only sound is their breath. Maccabee wiggles his fingers at her, the unmoving pinkie like a stick growing out of his hand. “It’s okay, sweetie. I won’t hurt you. I promised your mother I wouldn’t and I meant it.” He stumbles over something. Looks down. A clump of cloth.

      “Y-y-y-y-you. From my dream. You-you-you hurt people …”

      “I won’t hurt you,” he repeats. He lowers the lighter and pushes the thing on the ground with his foot. It’s heavy. He looks. A limb. A leg. A hole burned in the cargo pocket on the thigh. He sweeps the Zippo through the air, illuminating the blood-spattered face of Baitsakhan, his eyes vacant and staring, slack-jawed, the throat torn open by the bionic hand that still clutches the cervical section of his own spine.

      Baitsakhan.

       Take.

       Kill.

       …

       Lose.

      His Endgame is over.

       Good riddance.

      Maccabee spits on the floor as the girl gasps and points. “No! Not you! Him! He is the one! He took Mama’s finger! He hurt people! He is the one! He is the one!”

      Maccabee kicks the Donghu’s body so that it flips facedown. He steps between Sky Key and Baitsakhan. She shouldn’t see that. No child should see that.

      “It’s okay. You’re okay. He can’t hurt you.”

      “Mama.”

      “He can’t hurt her either. Not anymore.”

      Maccabee is suddenly afraid that Shari also made the trip to wherever they are. And the Olmec too, and maybe the Cahokian. He spins, searching the rest of the chamber, but no one is there. It is just him and Sky Key and—

      “Earth Key!” he says.

       WHERE IS IT?

      The girl shudders. She jumps up and then her body stiffens as if she’s possessed. Her right hand falls to her side, her left hand juts out, palm up. Maccabee leans closer. She doesn’t move. It’s like her fear has been spirited away and replaced with emptiness. Shock, Maccabee thinks. Or maybe a force more powerful.

      He peers into her hand. A little ball. Earth Key.

      He swipes it from her. Her eyebrow twitches but otherwise she’s expressionless.

      “I’ll keep that.” He slips it into a zippered pocket on his vest and pats it.

      “Earth Key,” she says.

      “That’s right,” he says. He inspects the small room. Where the hell are we? The floor is earth, everything else is featureless stone. There are no windows, no doors. No way in or out. As he looks around he runs a hand over his torso, checking to see what he’s got to work with. No guns, but he has his smartphone, a pack of gum, and his ancient Nabataean blade.

      A wave of pain crashes over him as the adrenaline fades from his system. He realizes that everything that’s happened recently—finding Sarah and Jago in Bolivia, tracking them through the Tiwanaku ruins, getting teleported somewhere through that ancient portal, fighting, killing, fighting some more, and then getting knocked clean out by the live-wire Olmec, who is 20 or 30 kilos lighter than him, and then getting teleported yet again—all of that probably happened in only the last couple hours.

      He needs rest. Soon.

      “Earth Key says that …” the girl says in a monotone.

      His pant leg vibrates.

      “… says that one is coming.”

      It vibrates violently. He touches his leg—the tracker orb!

      Another Player!

      He looks left and right and up and down and can’t figure out where to go. Is another Player going to appear СКАЧАТЬ