Read Online Endgame Novella #1 by James Frey - Free Book Online Page A

says, though it would be easy enough to let it go. “I mean, yes, I want that too, someday, but that’s not what I mean. I want my family. The people I came from. The people they took me away from.”
    “Oh.”
    She can’t read his voice, and after a long moment of silence, she can’t stand it anymore. She turns back to him. He searches her face, and she loves him for trying to understand. But she can see that he doesn’t.
    “Don’t you ever think about it?” she says. “Where you came from? Who you belong to?”
    “Why would I think about that? They gave us away, Kala.”
    “We don’t know that,” she says. “We don’t know anything. What makes you so sure it was their choice? Has anyone ever given us a choice?”
    She’s ready now, charged with anger. If she can just make him see it, then she can tell him everything. About the late nights spent hacking through the camp’s firewalls, searching for back doors to password-locked archives, decoding encrypted files. About what she’s spent so long looking for—and what she’s found.
    About how she hasn’t done anything about it, not yet. Hasn’t known what to do, until now.
    Now, they can do it together .
    “You know why it has to work this way,” he says, and it almost sounds like he’s chastising her. “You don’t give toddlers a choice. You make smart choices for them, for their own good. For everyone’s good.”
    “And now? We’re not toddlers anymore, Alad.”
    “And now we choose to do what needs to be done to protect our people,” he says. “Or at least I do.”
    You sound like a robot , she wants to tell him. You sound brainwashed .
    “This is bigger than us,” he says. “This is the end of the world. The survival of the race. If our birth families didn’t want to give us away, then they were being selfish. Some things are worth a sacrifice.”
    “What if someone tried to take me away from you?” she asks.
    “That’s never going to happen.”
    “But if it did?”
    “I would never let anyone take you away from me,” he says, voice deadly serious. “I promise.”
    But a promise is more than just the word. They both know he can’t promise her anything, not really. Their lives have no space for any promises except the promise they’ve made to the cause. The promise they were forced to make.
    She doesn’t point this out to him. She doesn’t want to argue, or to talk about duty or families or promises anymore. For once, she doesn’t want to talk at all. She kisses him to win his silence, and keep it.
    Easier not to hear the judgment in his voice, the doubt.
    There’s no doubt in his touch.
    And in the quiet of his arms, she can imagine that, deep down, they are the same.
    It happens the next day. There’s no warning, no portent in the sky or tension in the air, some flashing neon sign to indicate This is the day everything changes . There’s just a tap on her shoulder as she cools down after her afternoon run, a whisper in her ear that she’s wanted in the central office.
    Her first thought, her only thought, is that they know about her and Alad. Because what else could it be?
    Stepping into the office is like crossing into a different world. The only part of the camp with central air-conditioning, the room offers no hint that it’s in the middle of the Rub’ al-Khali, the biggest sand desert in the world. The room’s air is crisp and cool, its lines sleek and modern—they could be in a luxury high-rise in the heart of Abu Dhabi. Except that, through the window, the desert stretches on andon.
    Three minders are seated along one side of a conference table: Adar, who runs the weapons range; Ninsuna, who oversees discipline; and Zikia, who teaches military strategy or, as she puts it, how to win. Unlike the other minders, Zikia has never stayed at the camp for more than a week or two—but also unlike the others, she always comes back. Hardened by training and age, Zikia seems molded from steel. Her expression is sharp