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

enough to cut. It is from Zikia that Kala has learned to appear weak when she is strong, and appear strong when she is weak.
    But this depends on knowing the difference between face and mask, and in this moment, Kala does not. She feels strong and weak in equal measure.
    If Zikia is here, summoning her, then this is bigger than she expected.
    This is real trouble.
    “5SIGMA,” Zikia says, giving her a sharp nod. Kala has always liked the tough old woman. An aging former Player, she is good at mustering charm when she needs to persuade, but there is always steel in her eye. Kala appreciates that, unlike the other minders, she does not pretend to care about any of them.
    Kala stops midway between the minders and the doorway, and waits for them to speak her transgression, and her punishment.
    As long as she and Alad can stay together, nothing else matters.
    And they will stay together.
    He promised.
    Zikia pulls her lips back in a chilling smile. “Congratulations,” she says. “You’ve been chosen.”
    It’s so far from what Kala is expecting to hear that it takes her a moment to understand. “Chosen for what?” she asks, and then the foolishness of the question sinks in. What else is there to be chosen for? What has there ever been?
    “You will be our Player.”
    Now all three of them are smiling. They have the look of jackalswatching the weakest member of a herd fall behind, biding time before they pounce.
    “I don’t understand,” she says.
    “Six months from today, the current Player will age out,” Zikia says. “At which point the honor will fall to you.”
    Kala told Alad she didn’t know whether she wanted to be the Player. That wasn’t a lie. It had seemed so unlikely, and so huge, even her imagination couldn’t encompass it.
    Now that the moment is here, she knows exactly what she does and doesn’t want.
    She doesn’t want the responsibility.
    She doesn’t want a new life that’s even more restricted, more circumscribed by obligation, more dictated by the needs of others.
    She doesn’t want to sacrifice herself, even for the survival of her people.
    She doesn’t want to spend years waiting for death to rain down from the sky, knowing that when it does, she will have to act.
    She wants to cry.
    But Kala has been well trained. She has been molded into a warrior, a flesh-and-blood weapon, sleek and strong and always in control. She is not capable of falling apart, even when she wants to.
    When she speaks, her voice does not tremble. “Can I ask you, ma’am, why me? Britney is a better fighter, Farzin is much better at military strategy, and—” She cuts herself off just before she can say his name.
    Alad wants this so much, for himself.
    What will he think when he finds out she’s taken it from him?
    “You can ask, but we’re under no obligation to answer,” Zikia says. “All you need know is that we have faith in our choice. Yes, along some vectors, others are superior to you. But you are the only one capable of Playing the game as it needs to be Played. It must be you.”
    The message is clear: the choice is theirs, not Kala’s.
    No one is going to ask her whether this is what she wants. This is what it is , and she’s meant to accept it.
    “Tomorrow you and I will begin your training.”
    “Begin?” she says. Her mouth is working of its own accord. Her mind is frozen. Stunned. “I’ve been training for my whole life. Training is my life.”
    “You don’t know true training,” Zikia says. “But you will.”
    “Pack up your belongings,” Adar says. “Tomorrow you leave this place.”
    “Wait, leave? What? To go where?”
    “We can’t tell you that,” Zikia says. “And Kala, we trust that you’ll keep this discreet—better the others not know of our decision until you’re gone. People can be . . . unpredictable.”
    “I’m not even supposed to say good-bye ?” she says, her voice catching on the word. There’s only one person she would care to say good-bye