The Calling. James Frey
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Название: The Calling
Автор: James Frey
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Детская проза
isbn: 9780007585212
isbn:
“They can’t stop me.”
“You have no idea what they can do. The three of us, we could kill everyone in this terminal quickly and easily and escape, no problem.” Christopher snorts in disbelief. “Christ, Sarah. You wouldn’t do that.” “Understand me, Christopher,” Sarah says, leaning forward and gritting her teeth. “I will do whatever it takes to win. If I want you, my parents, everyone we know to survive, I have to do whatever it takes.” Christopher is silent. He glances at the Alopays, who are staring back at him. Simon is giving him a hard, cold look. It’s unlike anything he’s ever seen before. Christopher thought he knew these people. He was closer to them than his own family, and now …
Sarah sees Christopher’s face change, notices the fear blossoming there, and worries that she’s pushed too hard. She softens her tone. “If you want to help me, stay here and help the people who need it. Help my parents deal with Tate’s death, and maybe mine. If I win, I’ll come back and find you, and we can live the rest of our lives together. I promise.”
Christopher looks deep into Sarah’s eyes. His voice shakes. “I love you, Sarah Alopay.” She tries to smile but fails. “I love you,” he repeats earnestly. “And I swear that I’ll never, ever stop loving you.”
They stand at the same time and wrap their arms around each other. They kiss, and though they have shared many, many kisses, none of them has meant as much, or felt as strong. Like all such kisses it doesn’t last long enough.
They pull apart. Sarah knows that this is probably the last time she will ever see him, speak to him, touch him.
“I love you too, Christopher Vanderkamp. I love you too.”
30.3286, 35.4419xliv
Liu Residence, Unregistered Belowground Property, Tongyuanzhen, Gaoling County, Xi’an, China
An Liu has a disadvantage, and he is ashamed.
Blinkblink.
A tic.
BlinkSHIVER.
SHIVERSHIVER.
But An Liu has advantages too:
1. The Players are coming to Xi’an, China.
2. An Liu lives in Xi’an, China.
BlinkSHIVER.
SHIVERblink.
3. Therefore, he has initial home-court advantage.
4. An is a world-class hacker.
5. An is an expert bomb maker.
BlinkSHIVERblinkblink.
Blinkblink.
BlinkblinkSHIVER.
6. An knows how to find people.
After decoding the message, An continuously hacked passenger manifests at airports close to the other impact zones, filtering results for age, ticket-purchase date, date of visa issuance, and blink-blink-blink assuming there would be a more-or-less even distribution of gender, sex.
SEXSHIVERSEX.
He figures that shiver-blink the Players near the Mongolian and Australian impact zones, on account of their remoteness, will be tricky, so he abandons them. The Mongolian will be coming overland blink anyway, and the Aussie will also probably start his or her journey blink by jeep or possibly chartered aircraft. Instant dead ends.
He also discounts Addis Ababa, Istanbul, Warsaw, and Forest Hills, New York, on account of these being shiver-shiver-SHIVER rather populous. He concentrates on Juliaca, Omaha, Naha, and Al Ain. These smaller markets make the hacking and filtering easier.
Initial results provide 451 candidates. These are cross-referenced with train and/or plane ticket purchases for transport within China. An blink is blink not blink hopeful.
Blinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblinkblink.
Had it been necessary for him to travel to reach the Calling, he would have taken the obvious precaution of using aliases, forged visas, and at least two passports, but he knows that not all people are as paranoid as he is. Even Players.
And lo. Shiver. He gets a hit: Sarah Alopay.
SHIVERblinkblink.
Blinkblink.
Blink.
Train T41, Car 8, Passing through Shijiazhuang, China Depart: Beijing Arrive: Xi’an
Jago Tlaloc is on an overnight train from Beijing to Xi’an. It has taken him nearly three days to get this far. Juliaca to Lima. Lima to Miami. Miami to Chicago. Chicago to Beijing. 24,122 km. 13,024.838 nautical miles. 79,140,413.56 feet.
And now the train for 11.187 hours.
Longer if it gets delayed.
Endgame doesn’t wait, so he is hoping for no delays.
Jago has a private sleeping cabin, but the mattress is hard and he’s restless. He sits up and crosses his legs, counts his breaths. He stares out the window and thinks of the most beautiful things he has ever seen: a girl falling asleep in the sand as the sun set over a beach in Colombia, streams of moonlight reflecting off the rippling waters of the Amazon, the lines of the Nazca giant on the day he became a Player. His mind won’t calm, though. His breath is not full. Positive visualizations disintegrate under the weight.
He cannot stop thinking about the horror visited on his hometown. The hellfire and the smell of burning plastic and flesh, and the sounds of crying men, burned women, and dying children. The helplessness of the firemen, the army, the politicians. The helplessness of everyone and everything in the face of the violence.
The day after Jago claimed his piece of the meteorite, the sun rose on a huddled mass of people lined up outside his parents’ villa. Some of them had lost everything and hoped his family would be able to restore them. As Jago packed, his parents did what they could. On television, astrophysicists made hollow promises about how an event like this would never happen again.
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