Other Books in the Endgame series

Novels:

The Calling

Sky Key

Digital Novellas:

Endgame: The Training Diaries Volume 1: Origins

Endgame: The Training Diaries Volume 2: Descendant

Endgame: The Training Diaries Volume 3: Existence

Endgame: The Zero Line Chronicles Volume 1: Incite

Novella Collection:

Endgame: The Complete Training Diaries

WWW.THISISENDGAME.COM

Copyright

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2016

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Endgame: The Zero Line Chronicles: Incite © 2016 by Third Floor Fun, LLC

Cover design and logo by Rodrigo Corral Design

Additional logo and icon design by John Dismukes

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780062332707

Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780007585199

Version: 2016-02-12

Contents

Cover

Other Books in the Endgame series

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Keep Reading for Endgame the Calling

Keep Reading for Endgame the Complete Training Diaries

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

“So that was your first murder?”

“No. It was my first kill,” I respond. “It wasn’t planned. I’m not a murderer. I killed him, but I’m not … it’s not what you think.”

He sits down across from me at the table in the corner by the hotel window. My left wrist is handcuffed to the armrest, but it’s an old wooden chair, and when I lean back, the arm comes out of joint. I haven’t tried to push back far enough to get my handcuff off the arm yet. I have to be ready to roll when I do that. I only have one shot at escape.

“How is that not murder?” he asks, his face a mask.

“It was self-defense.” My heart is in my chest. I can’t even tell if I’m bluffing anymore, or if it’s the truth.

“You had just killed two other men. Was that self-defense too?”

“I didn’t kill two men.”

“Your friends did.” The agent—I don’t know if he’s CIA or FBI or what—stands up from his chair and paces the room. I don’t know what to say to him. All I know is that I’ve got to get out of here, fast. The team is counting on me. We don’t have much time.

“The cop,” I say, thinking fast, “had just shot my friend in the chest.”

“Your friend was shot in the chest while you were robbing a store at gunpoint. You face charges of grand larceny, assault with a deadly weapon, and murder, and that doesn’t begin to address what you’re doing here in Germany.”

He is the only agent here—alone and stupid. He’s from the US consulate, and he clearly has no idea who he’s dealing with. He thinks I’m just a run-of-the-mill terrorist. But I’m not. I’m Zero line. What we are doing is so much bigger than one local cop’s life. So much bigger than an FBI agent. So much bigger than me. He’s wasting my time, and time is the one thing we need on our side.

“Listen,” I say, “can I use the bathroom? You’ve had me handcuffed here for two hours.” I’ve also scanned the place for anything I can use to escape. It’s no prison—it’s a hotel. Someone slept in the bed last night. It’s probably this agent’s personal room.

He stares at me through narrowed eyes. “I’ll let you get up when you’re finished answering my questions.” He leans forward, trying to intimidate me. “Why are you in Munich? What’s your plan here?”

“I want a lawyer.”

“We’re not in the United States,” he says. “Different rules.”

“Different rules?” I say, nervously laughing a little bit. “You’re an American, I’m an American. The Constitution guarantees my rights.”

“Here’s the passenger manifest from your flight. I’m going to read through the names, and you’re going to tell me who else is in your group.”

“Seriously?” I say, and laugh. “You have no idea what is going on. No idea.”

“I know that you are part of a terrorist group. That you’re here to make a political statement at the Olympics.”

“I’m not a terrorist. I didn’t have any friends on the plane. I’m not here to make a political statement,” I say flatly and truthfully.

“I don’t believe you, kid.”

While the agent talks, I lean back in my chair. The armrest isn’t moving enough. The joint is loose, but the back of the chair hits the wall, and I’m not able to squeeze the handcuff out through the gap. I grip the armrest, try to guess its weight.

He’s sitting again, and his chair is scooted all the way in to the table.

“I know you’re not here alone. Who else from the plane is working with you? I’m not going to ask again.”

“You’re wasting my time,” I say. “I need to get out of here. I don’t have time.”

I grip the arm of the chair with my handcuffed left hand.

“If it’s so important, why won’t you tell me what it is?”

I shove the table with my right hand, tipping it into the agent’s stomach. I leap to my feet, yank up the chair, and smash it into him. It loses some of its momentum as it scrapes against the wall, but I’m still able to bring it down on him hard. The chair breaks as it hits his shoulder and the table, but the armrest is still in my hand. I beat him across the face with it until he goes down. He’s dazed, and I scramble out from behind the table and pieces of broken chair.

He goes for his gun, slowly pushing the broken chair away. He’s bleeding from his head—a lot. I hit him again with the armrest and then give him a right hook. He’s not struggling anymore, and I grab his pistol from his holster.

I pull the broken armrest out of the handcuff and kneel down next to him to find his keys. I grab them just as he tries to throw a weak punch. It catches me off guard, and I stumble back slightly. But I have his keys and gun, and I hold the pistol in my left hand while I unlock the cuffs.

He looks up at me, his eyes barely open. “Who are you?”

“I’m Zero line. This is Endgame. I’m in Munich to save the world.”

CHAPTER ONE

It was a beautiful May afternoon as the bus drove into Berkeley. I was finally getting out on my own, leaving Pasadena, my job, and my parents behind. My mom had given me a halfhearted hug. We’d never been close. I wondered if my mom had ever been close to anyone. She was small and subservient and never talked.

My dad did the talking for both of them. He barked orders around the house from the minute he got home at night until long after I’d gone to my room.

He’d never wanted me to go to college. Well, to tell the truth, I was never sure what he wanted of me. After high school, I tried working at the family business for a year—Dad ran a furniture store—and I couldn’t remember doing anything that he approved of. I could never meet the outrageous quotas that he gave me, and he certainly didn’t make an effort to teach me anything. But when I told him I was going to college—that I’d saved up enough for tuition—he sneered at me as though I’d just said I was joining the circus.

But I’d held on to my money—everything I’d ever earned at the furniture store, and everything I’d earned the summers I’d worked for the Forest Service. My friends loved to go out to movies and dinner and spend money on girls and weed, but I knew I needed to be a penny-pinching miser if I ever planned to get out from under Dad’s thumb.

After I told him that I was going to Berkeley, of all places, he stopped talking to me. It was the best two months I’d ever had at home.

I wasn’t starting school until the fall, but I’d managed to get a janitorial job cleaning the empty dorms over the summer. The school let me move in early, into one of the dorms that held guys year-round, and it gave me a chance to earn a little more money and leave my parents’ house.

I couldn’t help smiling on the bus. This was everything I wanted. Freedom. A place where I could be in the middle of the action: the protests, the rallies, the parties, the free life and free love. I wanted a place where I could be my own man, voice my own opinions, be part of something important.

I was finally there.

After checking in at the administration building, I found my dorm and headed upstairs to room 117.

“Hey!” a guy said, jumping up when I opened the door. “Are you the new guy? I’ve been expecting you!”

“I’m the new guy.” I had a backpack and an old duffel bag I used to store my football gear in, and dropped them both on the empty bed. “Mike Stavros.” I held out my hand to him.

He shook it enthusiastically. He had medium brown skin and black hair that fell to his shoulders. “Tommy. Tommy Selestewa.”

“Good to meet you.”

“What are you here for? They told me you were coming, but I don’t know why anyone would come this time of year. School just got out.”

“Job brought me early,” I said. “Why are you still here?”

“Just trying to graduate earlier. I’m a sophomore, and I don’t have anything else to do—no reason to take summer off. I’ve loaded up on classes.” Tommy sat down at his desk. “Got a major?”

“Not sure yet. I’m thinking city planning, or forestry. Or maybe political science.” I sat on my bed. The mattress was thin and hard.

Tommy laughed a little. “No worries, man, you’ve got time.”

I looked at Tommy’s desk and bookshelf. He had a typewriter. A book lay open beside it—Plato’s Republic—and under it was Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle. It made me feel a little small that my roommate was studying such great philosophies. This was why I’d wanted to come to college. To learn about something bigger than myself.

“I used to work for the Forest Service,” I said, “during my summers in high school. I was part of a fire crew that saved a neighborhood from a forest fire. It was coming from two sides, and we were able to redirect the flames. I was really proud of that. It makes me want to do something that will make a difference. Become someone important. Or, well, just do something important. Not just be a furniture salesman like my old man.”

“Why school, then? Why not join the fire department?”

“I thought about that, but I decided that, on the fire crew, I was just one person with a shovel and a mattock. What if I could do something bigger? Design a subdivision where fires are less likely? What if I could invent something—some kind of emergency sprinkler, or I don’t know what. Something.”

“I get that,” he said. “So you want to fight fires on a big scale.”

“Not necessarily fires. Anything, as long as it’s something worth fighting for. My old man has never done shit. I just haven’t figured out what I’m going to do yet.” I smiled. “How about you?”

“I haven’t declared yet. I’ve just been doing my generals. I think I’ll end up in engineering. But this summer I’m taking a lot of ancient history classes.”

“Whoa. Those are pretty different.”

“I read a lot.” He motioned to the bookshelf above his desk. It was filled with titles like Turning Points in Ancient History and Inventions of the Gods. “I’m sure I’ll be boring you to death with some of my theories soon.”

“Go for it. I have nothing else to do. I don’t know anyone north of Santa Barbara, and I was worried it was going to be a long, lonely summer.”

Tommy laughed. “You want to go out tonight? Some of my friends and I were talking about having some beers, shooting some pool. Interested?”

I was exhausted, but I didn’t care. I was finally on my own, and I couldn’t wait to celebrate. “Absolutely. What time?”

Tito’s was a local dive, about a 20-minute walk from our dorm. It was busy, and Tommy led me through the crowd of students to a row of pool tables in the back. There was no one in the place who looked over 30, but they were all dressed better than average. Tommy had changed from jeans and a T-shirt into corduroys and a zippered sweater. I was more casual—a pair of beat-up jeans and a Rose Bowl sweatshirt.

A small group in the back called out to Tommy, and we made our way over to them.

“Guys,” he said. “This is Mike, my new roomie. Mike, meet Jim, Julia, and Mary.”

“Hi,” I said, and stretched out my hand. Jim grabbed it. He was black, with silver-rimmed glasses and a newsboy cap.

“Jim Jefferson,” he said. “Not James, definitely not JJ.”

“Mike Stavros,” I said back. “Good to meet you.” But my eyes weren’t on him. They were glued to the blonde sitting next to him, the one Tommy had called Mary.

I reached out my hand to her.

She took it in a firm grip and stood up. “This isn’t a business meeting, you know.”

“Is shaking hands too formal?” I asked, letting go and laughing at myself. “I’ve been living the life of a furniture salesman. Salesmen shake hands with people. It makes them feel at ease.”

Mary laughed, a sweet, melodic tone. “I can assure you, I’m feeling very at ease.” She picked up her beer and took a quick sip.

“I’m Julia,” the next woman said. She was black, with short hair, and dressed in purple paisley. She reached for my hand, and I shook back. “Where you from?”

“Pasadena,” I said. “You guys?”

“Northern California,” Mary said. “Ever heard of Susanville?”

“Never.”

“You’re not missing out,” she said with a quick laugh. “I grew up north of there on a ranch. Moved to Piedmont when my dad retired.”

“I’ve never heard of Piedmont either,” I said, and she laughed again.

“Touché, Mike.” I beamed.

“So, how’d you all become friends?”

I noticed a look between Tommy and Mary. Mary shook her head slightly. My stomach dipped—I hoped that didn’t mean they were together.

“Julia and I are locals,” Jim said. “Grew up in Oakland, known each other since kindergarten. You play pool?”

“A little.”

“Eight ball,” Jim said. “You and Mary, me and Julia.” He handed me a cue.

I was about six feet tall, and Mary had to be a foot shorter than me. But she was gorgeous. Long, blond, curly hair that flowed loose down her shoulders like a waterfall. I didn’t want to say no to being on her team, but I turned to Tommy.

“That’ll leave you out.”

“The night is young,” he said. “I’m going to get something to drink. Want anything?”

“Not now,” I said.

Julia racked the balls and stood back. Mary looked at me. “You wanna break?”

“You go for it,” I said. I hadn’t played a lot of pool at home, and I wanted to pull off looking cool in front of this girl for as long as I could.

She broke, and the 14 ball fell into a side pocket.

“Do all of you guys go to Berkeley?” I asked.

“We do,” Jim said, gesturing to himself and Julia. “Art program. She paints; I sculpt.”

“Not me,” Mary said, lining up her new shot. “Stanford. Prelaw.”

“Really?”

“It gets better,” Julia said. “She’s there on scholarship. Smart kid.”

“Why are you here if you’re at Stanford? That’s like an hour away.”

“Taking a quarter off,” she said. “I’m interning for a firm across the bay. Divorces and bankruptcies.” She rolled her eyes and added, “Real exciting stuff.” She missed her shot.

Julia took a pull from her beer and bent down, taking aim at the 3 ball.

“So, Mike,” Jim asked, “why are you showing up in the summer?”

“I’m starting in the fall,” I said, “but I got a job over the summer. It’s no internship with a law firm, though. You’re looking at Berkeley’s newest janitorial staff member.”

“Nice,” Jim said with a laugh. “I hope you’re not the poor sap who has to clean up Wurster Hall. My studio is a mess.”

Julia missed, and I was up. I searched for a good shot. There was a long one, right along the bumper. I knew I couldn’t make it, so I tried a closer, easier shot and missed, of course.

“No worries,” I said. “Just cleaning out empty dorms.”

Jim was really good. He got three balls in before missing on an awkward, reaching shot.

Tommy came back with a beer.

“So,” I said as Mary leaned over to take her shot, “prelaw, huh? What kind of lawyer do you want to be?”

“It’s better to ask what kind of lawyer I wanted to be. I’m probably going to drop out. The biggest thing I’ve learned about the law is that I hate it. Taking notes during back-to-back-to-back divorce settlements has made me swear off marriage too.”

“John!” Tommy shouted. At once, the whole group turned. Someone was walking toward us, a huge grin on his face. Everyone smiled wide when they saw him.

“Tommy!” The guy waved as he made his way over. John was tall, wearing jeans and the coolest jacket I’d ever seen. It was denim, but embroidered intricately all over the back, shoulders, and arms. Bright splashes of color—flowers, spirals, and a peace symbol.

It was clear everyone in the place knew him. He slapped hands with the people at the bar and hugged one of the waitresses.

“What’s up, man?” Jim asked, and gave him a hug, thumping him loudly on the back. John kissed Julia and Mary each on the cheek. When he got to Tommy, they did some kind of secret handshake.

“Everything is up, guys. It is a good day.” He turned to the waitress and shouted, “Bring a round of—what are you guys drinking? Looks like three beers and a … What’s that, Julia?”

“Jack.”

“Three beers, a Jack, and I’ll take a Scotch and water.” He turned, noticing me for the first time. “You want a drink?”

“No thanks, I’m good.”

“Suit yourself. I’m John, man. Good to meet you.” He stretched out his hand and I took it.

“Mike,” I said.

“Cool,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. “So who brought you?”

“Tommy,” I said. “I’m his new roommate. Spent the day on a bus ride from Pasadena, and this is my first look at Berkeley nightlife.”

“Well, we better make it a good one, then. You’re not drinking anything, so we’ll need a higher level of discourse.”

Tommy laughed. “Higher than beer and pool?”

“Did you guys see the news today?” John asked as he sat down. I looked back at the pool table. It was my turn.

“No,” Julia said, her brow crinkling. “I was in the studio all day. What’s happening?”

“The bastard just said that he’s mining Haiphong Harbor.”

“The bastard?” I asked. I took a shot and missed the pocket by an inch.

“We don’t say his name,” Jim said with a laugh.

Mary laughed. “If you say Nixon three times into a mirror, he’ll appear next to you.”

“What’s Haiphong Harbor?” I asked.

John took off his hat and twirled it in his hands. “Don’t know your Vietnam geography?”

“I know Hanoi and I know Saigon,” I said. “I know the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Gulf of Tonkin.”

“And what, may I ask, is your position on the war?”

It was Mary’s turn, and she drilled the 5 ball into the side pocket. She held out her hand as she walked past me and I slapped it. “Good shot.”

“Thank you.” She lined up another one.

“My father,” I said to John, “would tell you that the Vietnam War is being fought to prevent the vile spread of Red Communism and strengthen our alliance with Australia. I worked with him nine to seven almost every day of the year, selling furniture, and he said that at least four times a week.”

John smiled and put his hat back on. “And what do you say?”

“I think we’re sending kids over there to die just so the president can say we’re doing something about the ‘communist threat,’ with the false belief that, as a superpower, we have the right to invade any small country we want.”

Mary knocked in the 7 ball and then stood up.

John nodded his agreement, and the waitress arrived. She set the drinks on the table beside John. John paid her and, if I was seeing correctly, gave her a huge tip.

“And today,” John said, “the bastard has declared that he’s going to be placing mines in Haiphong Harbor, the main port of North Vietnam. There are military ships in those waters, but it’ll mostly affect imports, like food and medical care. Yeah, it will hurt the army, but it’s sure as hell going to hurt the civilians more.”

Jim nudged me. “He was over there.”

“You’re a vet?” I looked at John.

He stared back at me and then pulled up his sleeve. There was a tattoo of a skull wearing a green beret.

Mary walked over next to me. “You coming? I don’t want to have to win this all by myself.”

“She could too,” John said.

I stood up. John looked older than everyone else. He looked weathered. “John, what do you do?” I asked.

John exhaled, a deep, slow breath. “It’s a long story.”

Mary pulled on my arm. “Come on.”

He grinned. “It’s called Endgame. Now go play pool.”

CHAPTER TWO

I sat on one of the couches, watching Jim and Julia play nine ball against each other. Mary had stuck with me all evening, which surprised me, but I didn’t want to question it. I didn’t think a girl like Mary had ever even looked at me, but here was one who was pulling me over to the couch by the hand and was in no hurry to let go. Tommy followed us and sat down in the chair next to our couch. He put his feet up on the table in the center, and I waited for John to join us.

“So, how do you know all these people?” I asked again, more to cut the silence than because I was interested.

Mary waved her hand dismissively. “Eh, I don’t want to talk about them. Tell me about you. Who is Michael Stavros?”

I took a breath. “Well, I already told you the important stuff. I came to Berkeley to do something more with my life than just be a furniture salesman. But for now I’m a janitor. Classy, right?”

“Don’t feel bad about that,” she said. “I worked at a burger place until I got my internship. I’ll probably go back there when school starts.”

“I thought you were on scholarship.”

“Pays for tuition, but nothing else. My dad has plenty of money, but he wants me to make my contribution, which is a buck sixty-five per hour, fifteen hours a week. But it could be worse. He originally didn’t want me to go to college at all.”

“You should be a janitor. We make one eighty.”

“I’d rather flip burgers.”

“What about your internship? That doesn’t pay?”

“Nope, but that’s okay, because I don’t really do anything. I make coffee, I take notes in meetings, and I get ogled by men who are divorcing their wives. But I have a desk with a window on the eighteenth floor, and my mom took me on a shopping spree for business clothes. That was fun. You should see me before I change clothes after work. I look like a Republican.”

“Scandalous,” I said with a laugh. “I could see you as a big-name lawyer in the city.”

She grimaced. “That’s because you don’t know me very well yet. I should get paid just for having to wear high heels every day. I’m a country girl, born and bred. I hated leaving the ranch and moving here. Give me boots and a rifle and I’m your girl.”

“I liked that about Pasadena. You can be over the hills and out of the city in ten minutes. Well, scratch that. I don’t like Pasadena. It’s too suburban—is that the word I’m looking for? It’s too bland. Nothing happens there.” I laughed. “The thing I just said that I liked about it was how easy it is to get out of there.”

“Never been there. Is it close to Disneyland?”

“About an hour. If you’re still a country girl at heart, how did you ever get into law?”

“I like to argue,” she said, and laughed.

John sat down with us and put a foot on the coffee table. He was wearing boots—looked like alligator skin.

“Mike, answer a question for me.”

“Sure,” I said. “Anything.”

“I don’t know Pasadena, but there was something in the paper about it a couple weeks ago. Made me think. There was an apartment fire. A guy had gotten out safely, but he ran back inside. They found his body in a hallway—they speculated that he’d been knocking on all the doors. Now, he wasn’t the manager. Neighbors said he was quiet, and no one really knew him.”

I nodded. I’d heard about the fire. “So what’s the question?”

“Why did he run back in? He was safe. The fire department was there.”

“Do you want details from a Pasadena native? Or just my opinion?”

“Just your opinion,” John said. “Hypothetical. Let’s say you’re the guy.”

“I think he was just a good guy. Wanted to help. Got out of his depth.”

A waitress brought him a new Scotch and water, but he seemed in no hurry to drink it. “You know, the Mormon missionaries came knocking on my door once. They have a saying: ‘It becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor.’ You sure you don’t want a drink?”

I shook my head. “No,” I said, and decided to change the subject. “Tell me about that game. What’s that?”

“Endgame?” John asked, and took a sip.

“It’s scary shit,” Tommy said.

Mary squeezed my hand.

“There’s a lot to know,” John said. “The history of it would take hours to tell. I’ll start with a question—what do you believe about the end of the world?”

I laughed for a moment, because I didn’t think he was being serious. But I was the only one laughing. “The end of the world? I don’t know. My mom is the churchgoer in our family. A Baptist. I’ve never paid much attention. Raining fire and brimstone, and all the sinners go to hell and the good people go to heaven, I guess? Why’s that important?”

“You want to know about Endgame, right? Mary, tell us what you know,” John said.

“What I know? Or what I was taught in catechism?”

“First what you were taught.”

She brushed some loose strands of hair out of her face. “I was raised Catholic. The Bible says that Christ will return, and that no one knows the time of his coming. The wicked will grow worse and worse and the Antichrist will come and the entire world will fall away. Finally Christ will come down to purge the wicked and sit in judgment of all people. That’s what I was taught, anyway.”

I smiled, first at her and then at John. “Are we really sitting in the back of a bar talking about the end of the world? Do you know what I’d be talking about if I was back home? Furniture. And if I went out with my friends—which I never had time to do—we’d talk about baseball. And I hate baseball.”

“Oh, you’ve just never seen good baseball,” John said with a laugh. “But yeah—the end of the world. It’s is a crazy topic. You’ve got to be a little bit nuts to deal with it all. Tommy, how about you? What do you believe?”

Tommy rolled his eyes. “I’m Hopi. Everything is different for us.”

“Yeah,” John said, “but I like to hear it. And it will help Mike understand.”

“There are, supposedly, nine signs to watch for. The first one is that white men will come. As you can see, that one’s already happened.” Tommy laughed. “There are prophecies about covered wagons and longhorn cattle and telescopes. But it all comes down to the ninth sign. All the others have happened already. We’re currently in the Fourth World, and the ninth prophecy says we’re going to hear a crash in the heavens and see a blue star. The Blue Star Kachina will be revealed and take the faithful to the Fifth World.”

“So,” I asked, “what happens if you’re not Hopi?”

He pointed at Mary. “What happens if you’re not Catholic?”

John took a sip of his drink, looked at me, and said, “What do you think the truth is?”

“Nuclear holocaust,” I said. “Sooner or later.”

“And you don’t believe in a god or a kachina or the Rapture or anything like that?”

“I’m not saying there definitely isn’t a god. I’m just saying I never really believed in one, like you.”

John eyed me carefully. “I don’t believe in God,” he said. “I believe in Endgame.”

“What?” I asked. “What religion is that?”

“It’s not a religion. It’s the end of the world. It could start at any moment. I don’t know.”

I looked at Tommy, who stared at me like he was waiting for me to say something. Mary still held my hand, her other holding her bottle of Budweiser. She looked back at me as I stared, our faces close together.

“This,” I said, turning back to John and laughing, “is why I never drink. You guys are freaking me out.”

“I like you, Mike.” John leaned back and laughed. “Listen, when do you start work?”

Mary’s hand brushed against mine, but I tried to focus on John. “Uh … not till next week.”

“We’re having a get-together this weekend with a lot of my friends. Up at Mary’s ranch. Nothing formal, just fishing and shooting and hiking. Come with us—it’ll be fun.”

“Thanks, man. But I don’t have a car.”

“That doesn’t matter,” John said. “We have plenty of people coming who can give you a ride. Why don’t you get a lift with Mary?”

She nodded emphatically. “I have my dad’s old Buick. I’ll pick you up.”

Tommy spoke up. “C’mon, Stavros. It’s cool. You should come.”

I never did anything like this. And not only that, but I never did it so spontaneously. “Well, I don’t know how to shoot, and I haven’t fished since I was in the Boy Scouts, but sure, sounds good.”

I was happy. I’d found a group of friends who felt like they could be my people. And for a moment I forgot about all the talk of the end of the world as John bought another round of drinks.

Tommy and I walked back to our dorm. He was drunk—we’d played pool for two straight hours. For my first day of college, this had been pretty cool. I’d met a bunch of new people, including a beautiful girl who’d stayed next to me most of the night. I had no idea where that had come from—I didn’t know what she meant by it.

I hoped it meant something.

“Tommy,” I said, “how long have you known Mary?”

“Not long. I only started hanging out with that group … um … during fall semester?”

“So you’re pretty new?”

“Yeah,” he said, his words slightly slurred from all the beer. “I guess. She’s been with the group for only a little longer than me. But I always get the feeling that she’s known John forever.”

“Forever?”

“For a long time. I don’t know. Longer than a year anyway. Are you interested in her?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Hey man, that’s cool. She’s not my type anyway.”

We turned onto a street without any streetlights.

“A totally hot girl with deep blue eyes and blond hair isn’t your type? She’s on a scholarship at Stanford, so she’s smart too. What is your type?”

“I like brunettes,” he said.

“Well, your loss is my gain.”

Tommy winked at me. “I assume this means you’re coming on our ranch trip?”

“A whole weekend with Mary?” I said. “Are you kidding? Of course I’m in.”

I really did want to go—and not just because of Mary. I’d had this picture in my head of what Berkeley was supposed to be like, and suddenly I was living it. Getting together with friends, talking about big issues—the war, the government. Even the end of the world.

Of course, at that point I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

CHAPTER THREE

We all met in the grocery store parking lot Friday at five in the morning, and I was stunned by who showed up. I thought it was going to be just our group, but it turned out to be a whole lot bigger than that. There were the people I knew—Mary, Tommy, Jim, Julia, and John—but there were also many I’d never met.

Other than a change of clothes, I hadn’t brought anything with me, but most had fishing poles or shotguns or deer rifles. When we got there, Mary threw her arms around me in a huge hug. She smelled like flowers, and I let my face nuzzle in her hair. My heart sped up at what that hug could mean. But then she gave the same big hug to Tommy, and another one to John. She was a hugger, I guessed.

She looked like the youngest girl there, and I was probably the youngest guy. I introduced myself to everyone.

“We’re going to have fun today,” said a girl named Kat, smiling at me. She was in her twenties, super skinny, and a nurse. She gave me a hug too, and whispered in my ear, “This may seem crazy at first, but you’re going to love it.”

What? I thought. It seemed like such an odd thing to say. I figured she meant I’d love the group—the fishing and shooting.

“The old guy,” I asked Kat. “Who’s he?”

“That’s Rodney. And he’s only thirty-two,” she said. “That’s not old. It’s his beard. But you should get to know him—he owns a deli in Oakland. And watch for it: he’ll ask you to go fishing with him, and he’ll make a bet on who will catch the first fish. Don’t take him up on it. I swear, he could get a fifteen-pound bass out of a pothole.”

Mary came and took my hand and led me to her car. “It’s a coupe,” she said, “so there’s only room for the two of us.”

“Great,” I said. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that showed her curves, and I couldn’t believe Tommy wasn’t interested in her. She was beautiful. Her hair was loose and long, and her skin was soft and warm in my hand. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was that we had the whole car ride to ourselves.

Once everyone had arrived—there were eight cars and 21 people—Mary and I pulled out of the parking lot and headed west. Her ranch was five hours north. I’d heard Northern California was pretty, and she said there were lakes and rivers and hills on her family’s property.

“Do your folks know you’re going up there?” I asked.

“What makes you ask that?” she said, tilting her head.

“Just curious.”

“No,” she said, her expression suddenly tense. “They don’t. And they can’t find out, or I’m dead.”

“So we have to keep the place nice and tidy?”

“Exactly.” Mary glanced over at me, noticed I was smiling. Her face loosened up, and she laughed. “Really, though, my parents don’t use the ranch for much anymore. So they don’t care. In the spring my dad will go up and make sure the fences are okay, and in autumn he still takes us hunting. The ranch is really big—have I said that? It’s fifty-five thousand acres.”

“Wow,” I said. I knew from my time with the Forest Service that that was enough land to get seriously lost in. It could cover whole mountain ranges.

“My oldest brother owns a feed store up in Klamath Falls, Oregon. We keep expecting him to ask for the land so he can start his cattle operation, but so far he hasn’t. His wife is from there, and I think she wants to stay. For now everything works out well for the ZL, though.”

“The ZL?”

“Oh,” she said, glancing over at me, like maybe she’d said something she shouldn’t have. “That’s us. The group of us. It stands for Zero line.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means … basically, it means that we consider each other family. You know how people talk about their bloodline? We—this group—call ourselves Zero line. We’re our own kind of family.”

“I like that idea,” I said. “God knows I’d like to distance myself from my own family.” Mary laughed. I loved her laugh: so quick and light. “Speaking of family,” I said, “where does yours think you are this weekend?”

Mary laughed. “Back at school for a workshop. There are just some things you don’t want to tell your parents, you know? They’re not the most open-minded people in the world. My dad—forget about sneaking onto the ranch. He wouldn’t care about that too much. But if he knew I was with a boy from Berkeley, I think he’d flip.”

“Too liberal?”

“My dad is a staunch Catholic, Nixon-supporting old cowboy. Just the idea that you want to study urban planning is enough to make him think you’re a pot-smoking hippie with newfangled ideas and immoral goals. He thinks a man should work with his hands. He should be a self-made man with big plans for being self-reliant.”

“And has that worked with the rest of the family?”

“Well, I’m the baby,” she said. “And I’m going to college on scholarship, which is the only way that he’d let me go. Otherwise it would be secretarial school. I hate to say it, but my dad is a bit—well, more than a bit—sexist. My two older sisters married men my dad approved of—men like himself. One married a farmer down in Southern California. They grow avocados and artichokes. The second married a contractor who builds big modern houses in San Jose. And my two brothers: the one runs a feed store—I told you that—and the other is a doctor … and he got drafted. His wife, Bonnie, lives with us. She’s a doctor too, and I think that drives my dad crazy, that my mom is effectively raising their baby while Bonnie works.” She glanced over at me, and smiled. “I’m talking a lot. Your turn.”

“I don’t have much to say. I have a dad who … well, he’s an asshole. Not like your dad—a man of principles. You can say that your dad is sexist, but my dad is a cheat and a liar. I worked with him at his furniture store, and he cut every corner and raised prices and gouged people when they needed something. The only way he gets away with it is because he’s the only shop in town, and he makes all of his profit off the old-timers who never realized there are other stores in the greater Los Angeles area. I swear, he once sold a desk, and then, when the customer was writing the check, he explained to her that the drawers were an extra five dollars each. I’ve tried to find some way to describe him, and the only thing I can come up with to adequately do the job is just to call him an asshole. He stays out late, and when he finally comes home, well …”

She was quiet, and I was beginning to wonder if she had been listening, but she finally spoke.

“That’s why you don’t drink.”

“What?”

“You don’t drink. Because your dad’s a drunk … and an asshole.”

I paused. “Well, yeah.”

“Does he hit your mom?”

“What?”

“Does he hit your mom? You don’t have to answer.”

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t like that she could see right through me. But she was right. “Yes.”

“And you?”

“Sometimes.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and reached over to take my hand.

“It’s—” I said, and then stopped. “It’s okay. I got out of there. I’m not going to be like him. I have to be different. I have to do something real.”

“Well, it’s a good thing that you fell in with us.”

We drove in silence for most of the rest of the way. I fell asleep and dreamed of furniture until she woke me up as the caravan drove through Susanville, the town where she was born. Her ranch was still 45 miles past it, on a turnoff that was obscured from most of the houses and buildings by a small row of hills. Mary went on and on about this water pump and that orchard and I just listened and wondered what lay ahead.

We came to a turnoff with an archway made of three large logs—one standing on each side of the road and one laid across the top. The words GOLDEN PINE RANCH were carved into the crossbeam. A few of the other cars were already there.

“This is it!” Mary said excitedly. She climbed from her seat and ran over to the padlocked gate.

Beyond the gate, I couldn’t see much more than tall green and yellow grass, sloping upward until the crest of the hill got obscured by forest: tall, straight white firs, short and stubby western junipers, and crooked and droopy gray pines. It reminded me of my time with the Forest Service.

Mary unlocked the gate and swung it open. I drove her Buick through after everyone else had gone in; then she closed the gate and put the lock back in place and mashed it closed with the butt of her hand.

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