Читать книгу Rules of the Game - Джеймс Фрей, James Frey, Nils Johnson-Shelton - Страница 16

Sarah and Jago recline in very comfortable seats in Jordan’s very comfortable private jet trying to figure out what to do. It took them a long time to get down from the Himalayas, and now they’re stuck waiting for permission to take off.

The wait is agonizing.

Aisling and Jordan are in the cockpit going through preflight stuff. Marrs is outside dealing with airport personnel. Pop sits in a seat alone near the bulkhead, staring out the window, his rocky knuckles white with tension. Shari is unconscious in the rear of the plane, already seat-belted in place, an IV bag hanging from the overhead compartment. Her chest rises and falls evenly.

Sarah is envious of Shari. Being knocked out would quell the hate and guilt and doubt and fear roiling inside her. Being knocked out would quiet her mind, her soul.

She leans into Jago’s side and whispers, “I wish we were fighting, Feo. Right now. I wish we were moving—Playing.”

“I know,” he says. “Me too.”

Action or oblivion, she thinks. Those are the only options right now.

Aisling emerges from the cockpit, interrupting Sarah’s train of thought.

“How long till we’re outta here?” Jago asks.

Aisling drops into the nearest seat. She reaches for her Falcata and lays it over her thighs. She runs her fingertips over the sword.

“At least an hour,” she says. “Maybe less if Marrs can bribe the right air traffic controller. But for the moment we’re holding.” She pulls a stone from a pocket and runs it over her blade’s edge. It’s razor sharp and doesn’t need the attention, but she needs something to do.

Also restless, Sarah thinks.

Sarah straightens and asks, “All right if Jago and I take over the lav for a little while?”

Jago snickers.

“Really?” Aisling’s eyebrows spring upward. “Now?”

Jago flashes his glittery smile and strokes Sarah’s knee. “Sí. No time like the present, ¿sabes?”

Sarah jabs him with her elbow. “Don’t listen to him. Jago picked up a dye kit back in Peru. I’m gonna be raven-haired from now on. Since Liu’s video came out and we can all be made, I don’t want to take any chances.”

He runs his fingers through his platinum hair. “I’m sure you couldn’t tell, Aisling, but I’m not a natural blond.”

Aisling shakes her head and tilts the blade in her lap, eyeing a miniscule nick. “Go for it. It’s all yours.”

Sarah and Jago move to the rear of the plane. The lavatory is very nice. There’s space between the toilet and the sink, and the sink is normal-sized, not a tiny bowl wedged into the corner. The towels are real, the toilet paper plush and soft.

Jago closes the door behind them. He helps Sarah out of her shirt, being careful with her wounded arm. She leans over the basin, face down, and Jago washes her hair using a plastic cup and the liquid soap on the counter.

“Rosemary,” Sarah says. “And lemon. Smells nice.”

“Mmm,” Jago says. He massages her scalp, rinsing out the soap. He runs his fingers along her nape and lets them trail down her back and over the band of her sports bra.

“Give me a towel,” she says.

He does.

She wraps it around her head and stands. They’re face-to-face. Her bra brushes his shirt and a shot of electricity races up her back. She smiles. “Can you dry my hair?” she asks.

“Sí.”

But instead he immediately leans forward and they kiss. She holds his head tightly between her strong hands and pulls him closer.

And they kiss.

And kiss.

They stop.

She sits on the closed toilet seat. He dries her hair. She brushes it, working through the tangles, while he preps the dye. When she’s done brushing, Jago separates her hair into sections and fastens a towel over her bare shoulders. He puts on latex gloves and gets to work, moving methodically from the back of her head and over the crown.

“Feels good, Feo.”

“I know.” He pushes his leg into hers in a show of affection. She pushes back. “I’m glad we’re alive,” he whispers.

“Me too. We shouldn’t be, though.”

Jago pauses so she can speak.

“Baitsakhan had us dead to rights back in the Harappan fortress,” she explains. “You were out and I was pretending to be. He had the opportunity, the motive, and the gun. Would’ve taken a second. Pop, pop.”

Jago’s hands resume working. “Why didn’t he?”

“Who knows. Arrogance? He was messed up from the teleportation? Who cares?”

The plane’s hydraulics and servos make some preflight music. Jordan says over the PA, “Just got word that we’re close, amigos.”

Sarah looks up at Jago, his ugly scar, his stern eyes. “Know what we should do, Feo? Steal a plane first chance we get,” she jokes. “Run away and make babies and teach them how to fight and survive and love.”

“Sounds great.”

“It will be.”

They both chuckle at the impossibility of all that.

They are silent for a while.

“If we want to do that someday—and I do—then we really need to stop Endgame,” Jago says seriously.

“Yes, we do.”

“And you think these people will show us how?”

Sarah shrugs. “I hope so.” Then, very quietly, as if she’s worried they’re being listened to, she says, “Do you believe Aisling? Do you trust her people?”

Jago shrugs. “They haven’t tried to kill us.”

“No. And I guess we haven’t tried to kill them, so we’re even there.”

“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.”