Slowly, Martin rested the phone in its cradle on the tiled kitchen wall, and Maria put her hand over his.

"That was the last of them, wasn't it?" she said, clasping his hand between them.

Martin nodded. "Two. We got two."

"That's more than I thought possible," said Maria, smiling as if it were a good thing.

"Two. Out of an entire-"

"Two is good. I believed it impossible to save any." There was such compassion on her face.

"Yes, it is," said Martin faster than he thought. "It means you were wrong, there's nothing against saving my students, and that means we can-"

"It means only that I may have presumed too much upon what foreknowledge I have."

"And what happens in the time between now and when we enter this game is unknown. I believe that means you were wrong."

"No. It …alright, it opens that possibility. I can't dismiss that it's possible you might somehow get them all to this house just before time's up and use it as a sort of ark."

"Yes. That's precisely-"

"I also can't dismiss that one of them might be slain by a meteor, or sleep through the start of the game, or be halfway up to York by now."

An image of Charlie Baker, whose family had planned to take him to York this weekend, flashed through Martin's head.

"Besides," continued Maria, "we need to prepare, and I need your help."

"But we could…" Martin stopped. Maria was right. He could find no rebuttal. He took a breath. "If there's any spare time, I'd like to make a few calls."

"Of course," said Maria. She clasped his hands tight once more. "Come here." She pulled him close and wrapped her arms about him, and kissed his neck, slow and soft. As always, there was a deep hunger in her kisses that drove her forward, pulling him too close, letting go a moment too late. From anyone else, it would too much, indeed there was a time when it had been: those early years when she would pull him too close, when he would push away, but twenty years later it was a signature of her touch, so familiar and comfortable that anything else might seem alien. She pulled him tighter still, pressing his face into her iron-grey hair. It was thick and a bit frizzy, and it tickled his nose, and like always, it was worth it.

Martin sucked in a deep breath. He let it out slowly, focusing his mind, Maria's embrace stabilizing him. He stifled a sneeze. Though she had explained them to him, the jumble of images racing through his brain, vague and half-formed: fire raining from portals in the sky, allies from around the world, punch-card mechanisms, a digital clock, always ticking down to zero. There might well be a logic to this game, but trying to find it was a trap. When he fenced, the world was small. There was only the present, the realm of steps and breaths and steel on steel, and the moment after, where thought and impulse spun infinite potential into just a few possibilities. A choice, and its consequence. A step, and the next. True, there were patterns, a logic to the bout, but that was for the audience to see. For the fencer, to look past the immediate was to risk hesitation, a non-choice, which only lead to one possibility.

Martin opened his eyes.

He looked up at the clock. It was two hours until midnight, a bit more than that until the start. "You're right. We should prepare."

Maria pulled back and studied his face, recognized the focus there, and nodded approval. "You're ready?"

"Yes. It's time to…er, what needs to be done?"

Maria looked down in thought, making her features seem sharper, more aware. "Most of it's done and ready, but we need Mr. Timbal to give us the go-ahead before we can do any real set-up." She broke from his arms and leaned on the counter. "Before that, I have some equipment to prepare." She led Martin down the hall and through the cellar door. Martin flipped the light as they descended the concrete staircase, and warm light blossomed from the naked bulb, chasing shadows into the corners to reveal a room full of boxes, crates, tools, and more boxes. Of everything down here, only small stack of old luggage in the corner belonged to him. The wooden crates, leftovers from Maria's time at SkaiaNet, didn't look like they'd been touched since Martin and Maria had moved here fifteen years ago. That made sense; Maria kept most everything she needed for her work in her office at Reading. She had never said much about what was in these crates, and Martin left her to her secrets.

Maria knelt down beside a box and drew a three-foot crowbar, obviously struggling with its weight. She quite pleased with herself until it began to wobble in her grasp.

Martin placed a hand on the crowbar, stabilizing it. "Shall I?"

Maria sucked in a short breath, then sneezed, dust blowing in the lamplight. "Please. All these years in academia haven't done wonders for my strength."

"You carry books, don't you? And priceless, heavy artifacts." He nodded toward the kitchen, where those stone tablets of hers still lay on the table.

"That's why we have teaching assistants," Maria said, offering the crowbar.

To Maria's credit, the crowbar wasn't exactly light. She led him to a wide, low crate pressed flush against the wall and nodded, and Martin jammed the crowbar into a groove on the top. He heaved, and nothing happened. The crate was remarkably sturdy, made of good, thick wood and fastened with screws instead of nails. After a few minutes and a screwdriver, he got it open. Packed tight inside with shaped foam pads at the edges was a matte-grey metal locker, no, a chest, with a combination lock built into the latch. Maria fiddled with until it clicked, and the lid cracked open.

The chest, too, had foam padding along the inside walls, and inside, neatly stacked, were very serious-looking oblong cases made of black molded plastic. Each was about two feet by eight inches, with two latches to keep it shut and a handle for easy carrying. They were in four stacks, each one five or six cases deep, judging by the chest's depth.

Martin had an idea what they were, and he suspected it wasn't a shipment of sabres. "SkaiaNet…it's an American company, isn't it?"

Maria leaned down to pick up a case. She placed it atop another crate and began to unlatch it. "The way you timed that question seems almost apropos." From within the case, cradled in even more foam padding, was the dull gleam of a barrel painted black.

–

Secretly, Shafti did not wear the skirt.

It was so much easier to simply drape it the long shift she wore to bed, just like a blanket. Putting on a skirt was a major affair when you couldn't move your legs, and she hadn't had that kind of time. It was best this way. Having excuse to avoid those old-style skirts Grandmother made almost made up for her legs. Okay, it didn't make up for them at all, but it was still nice. Chiran didn't notice Shafti wasn't actually wearing the skirt. Grandmother would have noticed if she got a look, which is why Shafti was sure to get into the car before Grandmother was out of the house. She'd only had time to collect her phone, laptop, and a single bag of candied anise on the way out. With Chiran nearly falling asleep on his feet, Grandmother had taken charge and driven them back to the SkyAir offices. With Chiran dozing in the front seat, Shafti had looked up and read off directions from the back, munching her anise absently.

The digital clock glowing green in the cab read 3:28 when they stopped with a lurch. The drive had been far shorter than Shafti remembered. The roads were clear, but even so…as she removed her seatbelt, Shafti tried not to think of how fast Grandmother must have driven. She removed her seatbelt and opened the door. It hung open. Good door. Doors were all terrible, but as doors went, car doors were some of the least bad. They had the courtesy to stay open when you opened them. Self-closing doors, like the doors in a hospital, were the worst. You had to brace yourself so you could pull the handle, then heave them open and launch yourself through. Half the time they would still close and you'd be caught with one wheel stuck against the door and the other against the frame. Shafti lifted her collapsing wheelchair out from its spot beneath her useless legs and planted it on the pavement outside the car. With a bit of awkward twisting and jiggling, she expanded it into full wheelchair shape and tucked the table attachment under the seat. She scooted left until she was just on the edge of the car seat, then swung her knees into the gap between the car and the wheelchair. Grasping the solid edges of the car door and taking a moment to judge the distance, she heaved herself out of the car, arcing right over the wheelchair's arm and landing in its seat. Perfect. Just like the pole vault.

After securing her bag to the chair, Shafti wheeled herself to the portable metal ramp laid over the short stairway to the building's entrance, with Grandmother and Chiran climbing the stairs ahead of her. April was the hottest month here, the air thick and muggy, and by the time she reached the ramp she was already sweating. Ramps like this were almost as terrible as self-closing doors; not only were they steep and nauseatingly unstable, they bounced as you moved, not a lot, but just enough that if Shafti moved any faster than a snail it might flip her, chair and all, right off the side. Moving slowly wasn't easy either, because on a ramp this steep you had to keep up some good momentum or risk stalling and rolling backward. Grandmother and Chiran waited for her at the top of the steps, mere feet ahead. Shafti opened her mouth to ask one of them for help, then glanced at Grandmother and thought better of it.

With a grunt of effort, Shafti started to heave herself, one push at a time, toward the entrance. The building was wide and flat and unmarked except for SkyAir's logo, a neon-green cloud above the door. She had never been inside. Shortly after Alok and Chiran had founded the company, back when she still went to school, she'd asked Chiran to take her on a tour during a break. It would be a day trip. It would be fun. Chiran had refused. Alok had been fine with showing her at first, excited even, but on the day he was to bring her, he'd cancelled at the last moment. Over a text message. She was furious, and became even more so when she found they were hiding something. Not telling her wasn't just insulting, it was stupid. Even as children, when little Chiran led the older Alok into trouble, they had never been able to keep a secret, not from her. They could never hide the fact that they were up to something, and Shafti could always, eventually, find it out. Just like Mom had.

Shafti pushed harder, the rage of that day driving her. The ramp wobbled beneath her, but she didn't care. She'd started digging, and all too soon she found a connection between her brothers' company and that American software firm, SkaiaNet. She had been perplexed. Rumors about SkaiaNet and its alleged game Sburb had been bouncing around the gaming community for as long as the community had existed. Sburb was advertised as a breakthrough, a miracle, but years of development had turned it into a joke, spurred by its increasingly outlandish advertisements. Sburb could remodel your house. Sburb could combine real-life items to create something new. Sburb could create a portal to a new dimension. SkaiaNet's very existence seemed like absurd prank played on the entire world economy: despite global reach and massive expenditures, it had never produced a single product. It didn't even seem to have a source of income. It had invested heavily in a number of baked-goods companies, but given its tendency to support them through spectacularly bad luck, it clearly wasn't in it for the money.

Then, just days later, came the car crash. It took Shafti's parents and her legs, and gave her the one thing she needed least of all: time to think. Trying not think of her own life, with the computer as her only window to the outside, she started to look into Sburb. Days became weeks, and poking around became research, then investigation. And after three years of inquiry and lurking on message boards, of self-taught crash courses on international business and data compilation and synthesis and far too many spreadsheets, the search had led her right back here. To this unassuming corporate park right in the suburbs of Bangalore, which, three years ago, her brothers had refused to let her see. Cresting the top of the ramp, she halted beside Grandmother, munching a few anise seeds. Chiran stood by, ready to open the door in. Whatever she would find beyond those doors would be completely outside her realm of experience. It would be wild and new and terrifying.

Grandmother nodded, and Chiran opened the door.

Wild, it wasn't.

Shafti didn't know what she had expected, but the atrium of the SkyAir building failed to live up to it. It was cramped and shallow, and the reception desk that took up too much space out of the middle was just as bland as the room itself. Uncomfortable-looking couches lined the walls, and in each corner was a potted plant, obviously fake. The doors were self-closing, and would have caught her on the way if Chiran weren't there to hold them. She thanked him with a nod.

"I never liked this foyer," said Grandmother. She walked around the reception desk and down the hall. She moved confidently, like she knew the place. "Chiran. Once this ends, please change it."

"I will, Grandmother," muttered Chiran.

Already partway down the hall, Grandmother turned and cocked her head. Speak clearly, the gesture said.

"I will," enunciated Chiran.

Once Grandmother was far enough ahead of her and Chiran, Shafti whispered, "So you let her visit, but not me?"

"Have you ever tried saying no to her?"

"Yes! Very-" Grandmother glanced back down the hall. Shafti's voice must have carried. "Very often, in fact," she whispered.

"Does it ever work?"

"…sometimes."

"I'm impressed. Tell me, when has it worked for you?"

"Well…the other day she tried to take away my anise seeds."

Chiran did not look impressed.

"You don't have to spend all day around her. It's worse than…" Shafti shook her head. It wasn't the time for this discussion. She didn't know if that time would ever come. "Just push me, alright?"

"Why didn't you ask for help outside? That ramp didn't look easy."

Shafti hesitated, then nodded toward Grandmother, now a good way down the hall. "Her. Watching."

"So when I cave to her, it's a crime, but can't even let yourself look weak when she's around." He took hold of the handles, glancing down at her. "Weaker, I mean." He realized what he had said, and his mouth slammed shut as if to catch the words on the way out.

He was too late.

A hot day, sun behind a cloud bright in the car's backseat, bright against the rain-wet pavement. Mom and Dad talking in the front. Shafti ignoring them, tapping her feet, impatient. Slow traffic today. Sun flashing against one windshield after another, little suns in the afternoon haze, barely moving. Minutes pass. A light shower. An intersection. Green light. The sky clears. A little sun in the sea of other little suns, moving on the left. Not slow. Shafti sees, but doesn't realize. Mom and Dad don't see. Shafti looks again. Realizes. Shouts. Too late.

A wrenching pain, a flash. Then black, and after, a slow pain, far worse. Loss. Shame. Isolation. And words, over and over. Useless. Burden. Fat. Weak. Cripple. Over and over and over, those words, shouted by some, hidden by the platitudes of others. Reminders great and small that she would never be what she was. Never, never, ever.

She hated those words. And she hated that they could reduce her to this.

Hands shaking, world spinning, tilting around her, Shafti still managed to look up at Chiran. His face held nothing but guilt. Somehow, that made it even worse.

Chiran opened his mouth long before he spoke. "Shafti, I-"

"Did you have to?" Shafti heard her voice shout. Somehow she found herself speeding down the hall, arms pushing her wheels madly forward. She was probably crying, and she didn't care if Grandmother saw.

14:05 Seattle, 17:05 New York, 22:05 Oxford, 3:35 Bangalore