the end? Hours before? Weeks? Months? Tomorrow? Today?
Today. That would be interesting. Very interesting.
The government would need a lot more white tents.
Aisling arrives at desk 31. There is one person in line before her. An athletic African-American woman in a royal-blue jumpsuit with fashionable bug-eyed sunglasses.
“Next,” the immigration officer says. The woman crosses the red line to the desk. It takes her 78 seconds to clear.
“Next,” the officer repeats. Aisling approaches, her passport ready. The officer is in his 60s with square eyeglasses and a bald spot. He’s probably counting the days to his retirement. Aisling hands over her passport. It’s worn and has been stamped dozens of times, but as far as Aisling is concerned it’s brand-new. She picked it up at a dead drop in Milan on Via Fabriano only hours before going to Malpensa airport. Pop had sent it via courier 53 hours earlier. The name on it is Deandra Belafonte Cooper, a new alias. Deandra was born in Cleveland. She’s been to Turkey, Bermuda, Italy, France, Poland, the UK, Israel, Greece, and Lebanon. Pretty good for a young woman of 20 years.
Yes, 20 years. If the meteors had landed just a few weeks later, she would have aged out. But Aisling celebrated her birthday while she was holed up in that cave. Although “celebrated” is a pretty generous word for eating spit-roasted squirrel and drinking cold mountain spring water. She did enjoy a few sugar cubes after her meal, along with two small pulls off a flask of Kentucky bourbon. But it was no party.
“You’ve been around,” the agent says, leafing through the passport.
“Yeah, took a year off before college. Which turned into two,” Aisling says, shifting her weight from one leg to the other.
“Headed home?”
“Yep. Breezy Point.”
“Ah, local girl.”
“Yep.”
He slides the passport through the scanner. He puts down the little blue book. He types. He looks bored but happy—that retirement is looming—but then his hands pause for a split second over the keys. He squints very slightly and adjusts his posture.
He keeps typing.
She’s been standing there for 99 seconds when he says, “Miss Cooper, I’m going to have to ask you to step aside and see some of my colleagues over there.”
Aisling feigns concern. “Is there something wrong with my passport?”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Can I have it then?”
“No, I’m afraid you can’t. Now please”—he holds up one hand and places the other on the butt of his holstered pistol—“over there.”
Aisling already sees them from the corner of her eye. Two men, both in fatigues and armed with M4s and Colt service pistols, one with a very large Alsatian panting happily on a leash.
“Am I being arrested?”
The officer snaps the strap off his pistol but doesn’t draw. Aisling wonders if this moment is the most exciting of his 20-odd years as an immigration officer. “Miss, I am not going to ask again. Please see my colleagues.”
Aisling holds up her hands and widens her eyes, makes them watery, like how Deandra Belafonte Cooper, the non-Player world traveler, would look in the situation. Scared and fragile.
She turns from the officer and walks haltingly toward the men. They don’t buy it. In fact, they take half a step back. The dog stands, as his handler whispers a command. His ears perk, his tail straightens, the hairs on his neck bristle. The man without the dog moves his rifle into the ready position and says, “That way. You first. No need for a scene, but we need to see your hands.”
Aisling dispenses with the act. She turns, puts her hands behind her back, just under her knapsack, and hooks her thumbs. “That all right?”
“Yes. Walk straight ahead. There’s a door at the end of the room marked E-one-one-seven. It will open when you get to it.”
“Can I ask a question?”
“No, miss, you cannot. Now walk.”
She walks.
And as she does, Aisling wonders if they are going to put her under a white tent too.
“Tango Whiskey X-ray, this is Hotel Lima, over?”
“Tango Whiskey X-ray, we read you.”
“Hotel Lima confirms idents of Nighthawks One and Two. Good night. Repeat, good night. Over.”
“Roger, Hotel Lima. Good night. Protocol?”
“Protocol is Ghost Takedown. Over.”
“Roger Ghost Takedown. Teams One, Two, and Three are in position. We have eyes?”
“Eyes are online. Op on oh-four-five-five Zulu.”
“Op on oh-four-five-five Zulu, copy. See you on the other side.”
“Roger that, Tango Whiskey X-ray. Hotel Lima out.”
The news is on all day in the background while Jago talks with Renzo to finalize their transportation. Sarah packs. Not that they have much to pack. When he’s done with Renzo, Jago goes over their emergency escape plan, should they need it. The one that winds through the nearby Tube tunnels and sewers. Sarah listens, but Jago sees that she’s not paying attention. They eat more Burger King—breakfast this time—savoring every greasy, salty bite. The Event is coming. The days are numbered for this kind of fast-food deliciousness.
Sarah meditates in the bathtub, tries not to cry about Christopher or triggering the end of the world, and miraculously succeeds. Jago exercises in the living room. Rips off three sets of 100 push-ups, three sets of 250 sit-ups, three sets of 500 jumping jacks. After her meditation, Sarah cleans their plastic-and-ceramic guns. She has no idea who made them, but each is identical to a Sig Pro 2022 in every way save material, color, weight, and magazine capacity. When she’s finished, she puts one by her bedside and one by Jago’s. His and hers. Nearly jokes that they should be mongrammed but doesn’t feel like joking. Each pistol has 16 rounds plus an extra 17-round magazine. Sarah fired one bullet at Stonehenge, killing Christopher and hitting An, probably killing him too. Jago fired one that grazed Chiyoko’s head. Other than their bodies, these are the only weapons they have.
Unless Earth Key counts as a weapon, which it very well might. It sits in the middle of the round coffee table. Small and seemingly innocent. The trigger for the end of the world.
The news on the TV is BBC. All day it’s the same. The meteors, the mystery at Stonehenge, the meteors, the mystery at Stonehenge, the meteors, the mystery at Stonehenge. Sprinkled here and there with some stuff from Syria and Congo and Latvia and Myanmar, plus the tanking world economy, reeling from a new kind of financial panic that, Sarah and Jago know, is the result of Endgame. The suits on Wall Street don’t know that, though. Not yet, anyway.
The meteors, and the mystery at Stonehenge. Wars, crashing markets.
The news.
“None of this will matter once it happens,” Sarah says in the early evening.
“You’re right. Nada.”
A commercial. A local ad for a car dealership. “I guess some of it