Читать книгу The Calling - Джеймс Фрей, James Frey, Nils Johnson-Shelton - Страница 22

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.

They’re wrong.

More are coming.

Bigger, more devastating.

More will suffer.

More will burn.

More will die.

The people called the meteor that fell on Juliaca el puño del diablo. The Devil’s Fist. Eleven other fists punched into the earth, killing many, many more.

The meteors fell and now the world is different.

Vulnerable.

Terrified.

Jago knows he should be above such feelings. He has trained to be above such feelings, yet he cannot sleep, cannot relax, cannot calm himself. He swings his legs over the bed and places his bare feet on the thin, cool carpet. He cracks his neck and closes his eyes.

The meteorites were just a preamble.

Todo, todo el tiempo, he thinks. Todo.

He stands. His knees creak. He has to get out of his compartment, move, try to clear his mind. He grabs a pair of green cargo pants and pulls them on. His legs are thin, strong. They’ve done more than 100,000 squats. He sits in the chair and puts on wool socks, leather moccasins. His feet have kicked a heavy bag over 250,000 times. He straps a small tactical knife to his forearm and slips into a long-sleeved plaid shirt. He has done over 15,000 one-handed pull-ups. He grabs his iPod and sticks in a pair of black earbuds. He turns on music. The music is hard, heavy, and loud. Metal. His music and his weapons. Heavy heavy metal.

He steps to the door of his compartment. Before exiting he looks in the full-length mirror. He is tall, thin, and taut, as if made of high-tension wire. His hair is jet-black, short, and messed. His skin is the color of caramel, the color of his people, undiluted for 8,000 years. His eyes are black. His face is pockmarked from a skin infection he had when he was seven, and he has a long, jagged scar that runs from the corner of his left eye, down his cheek, over his jaw, and onto his neck. He got the scar when he was 12, in a knife fight. It was with another kid a little older than him. Jago got the scar, but he took the kid’s life. Jago is ugly and menacing. He knows that people fear him because of the way he looks, which generally amuses him. They should fear him for what he knows. What he can do. What he has done.

He opens the door, steps into the hall, walks. The music blares in his ears, hard, heavy, and loud, drowning out the steely screech of the wheels on the rails.

He steps into the dining car. Five people are seated at three tables: two Chinese businessmen sitting alone, one asleep in his booth, his head on the table, the other drinking tea and staring at his laptop; a Chinese couple speaking quietly and intensely; a girl with long, auburn hair woven into a braid, her back to him.

Jago buys a bag of peanuts and a Coke and walks toward an empty table across from the girl with the auburn hair. She is not Chinese. She is reading the latest edition of China Daily. The page is covered in color photos of devastation from the crater in Xi’an. The crater where the Small Wild Goose Pagoda had stood. He sits down. She’s five feet away from him, engrossed in the paper; she does not look up.

He removes the peanuts from their shells, pops them into his mouth, sips the Coke. He stares at her. She’s pretty, looks like an American tourist, a medium-sized backpack next to her. He has seen countless girls like her stop in Juliaca on their way to Lake Titicaca.

“It’s not polite to stare,” she says, looking at the paper.

“I didn’t think you’d noticed,” he replies in accented English.

“I did.” She still hasn’t looked at him.

“Can I join you? I haven’t spoken to many people the past few days, and this country can be bien loco, you know?”

“Tell me about it,” she says, looking up, her eyes drilling into him. She’s easily the most beautiful American, and maybe woman, he’s ever seen.

“Come on over.”

He half rises and sidles into the booth opposite her. “Peanut?”

“No thanks.”

“Smart.”

“Hm?”

“Not to accept food from a stranger.”

“Were you going to poison me?” “Maybe.”

She smiles and seems to reconsider, like he’s challenged her to a dare.

“What the hell, I’ll take my chances.”

Her smile crushes him. He is usually the one who has to charm a woman, which he has done dozens of times, but this one is charming him. He holds out the bag and she takes a handful of the peanuts, spreads them on the table in front of her.

“How long you been here?” she asks.

“On the train?”

“No. In China.”

“Little over three weeks,” he says, lying.

“Yeah? Me too. About three weeks.” His training has taught him how to tell if someone is lying, and she is. Interesting. He wonders if she could be one of them.

“Where you from?” he asks.

“America.”

“No kidding. Where in America?”

“Omaha.” She’s not lying this time. “You?”

“Peru, near Lake Titicaca.” So he won’t lie either.

She raises her eyebrows and smirks. “I never thought that was a real place until these …” She points at the paper.

“The meteors.”

“Yeah.” She nods. “It’s a funny name. Lake Titty Caca.” She pronounces the words individually, like all amused English speakers do. “You couldn’t come up with anything better than that?”

“Depending on who you ask, it either means Stone of the Puma or Crag of Lead, and it’s considered by many to be a mystical, powerful place. Americans seem to think UFOs visit it and aliens created it.” “Imagine that,” she says, smiling. “Omaha’s not mystical at all. Most people think it’s kind of boring, actually. We got good steak, though. And Warren Buffet.”

Jago chuckles. He assumes that’s a joke. He doesn’t know who Warren Buffet is, but he has a fat, dumb American name.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” She cracks another peanut.

“What?”

“I’m from Omaha, you’re from near Lake Titicaca, and we’re on a train to Xi’an. The meteors hit in each place.”

“Yes, that is weird.”

“What’s your name?”

“Feo.” He pops a peanut in his mouth.

“Nice to meet you, Feo. I’m Sarah.” She pops a peanut in her mouth.

“Tell me—you going to Xi’an to see the crater?”

“Me? No. Just touring. I can’t imagine the Chinese government is going to be letting anyone get too close to it anyway.”

“Can I ask you another question, Feo?”

“Sure.”

“You like to play games?”

She’s outed herself. He’s not sure this is wise. His response will go a long way to determine whether or not he will be outed too.

“Not really,” he answers quickly. “I like puzzles, though.”

She leans back. Her tone changes, the flirtatious lilt melting away. “Not me. I like knowing things for sure one way or the other. I hate uncertainty. I tend to eliminate it as quickly as I can, get it out of my life.”

“Probably a good policy, if you can actually do it.”

She smiles, and though he should be tense and ready to kill her, her smile disarms him. “So—Feo. That mean something?”

“It means ‘ugly.’”

“Your parents name you that?”

“My real name is Jago; everyone just calls me Feo.”

“You’re not, though, even though you’re trying to be.”

“Thank you,” he replies, unable to stop himself from smiling, the diamonds in his teeth flashing. He decides to throw her a crumb. If she takes it, they will both know. He’s not sure that it’s a smart play, but he knows one must take risks to win Endgame. Enemies are a given. Friends are not. Why not take advantage of an early chance encounter and find out which this beautiful American will be?

“So, Sarah from Omaha who is here on vacation, while you’re in Xi’an do you want to visit the Big Wild Goose Pagoda with me?”

Before she can answer, a white flash comes from outside. The train lurches and brakes. The lights flicker and go out. A loud sound like a vibrating string comes from the other side of the dining car. Jago’s eyes are momentarily drawn to the faint blip-blip of a red light from under a table. He looks back to the window when the light outside intensifies. He and Sarah both stand and move toward it. In the distance, a bright streak runs across the sky, going east to west. It looks like a shooting star, but it’s too low, and its trajectory is as straight as a razor’s edge. Jago and Sarah both stare, transfixed, as the streak speeds against the darkness of the Chinese night. At the last minute, before it passes from view, the streak suddenly changes direction and moves in an 88-degree angle north to south, disappearing over the horizon. They pull back from the window and the lights come back and the train starts to accelerate. The other people in the dining car are talking urgently, but none seem to have noticed the thing outside.

Jago stands. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Come with me if you want to live.”

“What are you talking about?”

He holds out his hand. “Now.”

She stands and follows him but makes a point of not taking his hand.

As they walk he says, “If I told you I’m the Player of the 21st line, would that mean anything to you?”

“I would tell you I’m the Player of the 233rd.”

“Truce, at least for now?”

“Yes, for now.”

They reach the table where Jago saw the blinking red light. The Chinese couple is sitting at it. They stop talking and look at the two foreigners quizzically. Jago and Sarah ignore the couple, and Jago kneels and Sarah bends to look over his shoulder. Bolted to the wall under the table is a black metal box with a small, faintly blinking red LED in the middle. Above the LED is the character . In the corner of the black box is a digital display. It reads AA:AA:AQ. A second later AA:AA:AP. Another second, AA:AA:AO.

“Is that what I think it is?” Sarah asks, taking a step back.

“I’m not willing to wait around to find out,” Jago says.

“Me neither.”

“Let’s get your bag.”

They head back to the table and Jago grabs the backpack. They move to the rear of the car and open the door, step into the space between cars.

If the letters are seconds, they have 11 left.

Sarah pulls the emergency brake.

It doesn’t work.

The moving landscape is there. Waiting for them.

“Go,” Jago says, stepping aside.

Eight seconds.

She doesn’t hesitate, jumps.

Seven seconds.

He hugs the backpack, hoping it will soften his landing, jumps.

It hurts when he lands, but he’s been trained to ignore pain. He rolls down a gravel embankment and into the dirt, takes a mouthful of grass, scratches his face and hands. He can’t be sure, but he thinks he’s dislocated his right shoulder.

Three seconds.

He stops rolling.

Two seconds.

She’s a few yards away, already standing, as if she somehow landed unhurt. “You all right?” she asks.

One second.

The train is past them.

“Yes,” he says, wondering if she can tell he’s lying.

Zero seconds.

She crouches next to him, waiting for the train to explode.

Nothing happens.

The stars are out.

They stare.

Wait.

Jago looks in the sky above the train and sees Leo and Cancer above the western horizon.

“Maybe we overreacted—” Sarah starts to say, just as the dining car lights up and the windows blow out. The entire car is lifted 50 feet or more into the air amidst a cloud of orange fire. The force ripples through the train. The aft cars crumple, momentum piling them into a screeching and jumbled pile. The forward cars are obscured by the blast and the darkness, but Jago can make out the lights of the engine as it’s twisted off the rails. The sound of grating metal tears through the night, and another, smaller, explosion goes off toward the front of the train. There is a brief moment of silence, just before the screaming starts.

“Mierda,” Jago says breathlessly.

“I guess we’re going to have to get used to things like that, aren’t we?”

“Yes.” Jago winces.

“What is it?”

“My shoulder.”

“Let me see.”

Jago turns to Sarah. His right arm is hanging low in his shirt.

“Can you move your fingers?”

He can.

“Your wrist?”

He can.

“Good.”

She gingerly takes his arm with both hands and lifts it a little. The pain shoots over his shoulder and down his back, but he doesn’t say anything. He has been through far worse.

“Dislocated. I don’t think it’s too bad,” she says.

“You don’t think, or you don’t know?”

“I don’t think. I’ve only set one of these before. For my brother,” she says quietly.

“Can you put it back?”

“Of course, Feo. I’m a Player,” she says, trying not to sound like she’s convincing herself. “I can do all sorts of wonderful things.” She lifts it again. “It’s gonna hurt, though.”

“I don’t care.”

Sarah pulls, twists, and pushes the arm, and it pops into place. Jago breathes deeply through his teeth, testing out his arm. It works. “Thank you, Sarah.”

The screaming is louder.

“You’d have done the same for me.”

Jago smiles. For some reason, he thinks of the people who came to see his parents after the meteor struck Juliaca. There are some debts that must be honored.

“No, I wouldn’t have,” he says. “But I will now.”

Sarah stands, looks toward the wreckage. “We need to get out of here. Before the government gets here, before they start asking questions.” “You think it was meant for one of us?” Jago asks.

“It had to be. This is Endgame,” she says, reaching out her hand, offering it. “My name is Sarah Alopay. I’m the Cahokian.”

He takes her hand, and it lights him up, feels as if it belongs in his, as if it’s something he’s been waiting for. It also scares him, because he knows these feelings can be dangerous, can make him vulnerable, especially with someone who has the skills he suspects she has. For now, though, he’ll allow himself to feel it, to love it.

“I’m Jago Tlaloc. The Olmec.”

“Nice to meet you, Jago Tlaloc. Thank you for saving my life. I owe you one.”

Jago looks up to the cloudless sky, remembering the streak of light that passed overhead, that short-circuited the train’s power long enough for him to see the blinking light of the detonator. He’ll take credit for saving Sarah, sure. It’s good to have another Player in his debt. But he knows the truth: that streak across the sky was a warning. A warning from Them, making sure that they would live until at least the Calling. “Don’t mention it,” he says.

Without another word Sarah puts her backpack on and starts to run into the darkness. She’s fast, strong, graceful. He smiles as he watches her braid sway back and forth.

He has a new friend.

The beautiful Player of the 233rd.

A new friend.

Maybe more.