by Isaac Hooke
CHAPTER TWO
Earlier...
Ari lay spreadeagled, her arms and legs roped to the ground so that she floated an inch off the sand. Her wrists and ankles burned with agony where the ropes made contact, and her shoulders and thighs felt like they were going to tear right out from their sockets. Her face throbbed with heat and her body was covered in sweat. She used the gol mindtrick that allowed her to ignore the heat and the pain, but that trick needed a focus she was quickly losing.
Her fire sword jutted from the ground, off to the right, stabbed hilt-first into the sand. The handmirror that could get her out of this was off to the left, face down.
Around her, the sand dunes slumped to the horizon, vaguely reminding her of the snow drifts she'd lived with most of her life. Snow. What she would've given for a blizzard about now. Or even just a glass of water—the molten sun had scorched away what little moisture remained inside her, and had almost done the same to her sanity.
She gazed across those dunes, toward the distant, picked-clean skeleton of her only companion, one of the dead leviathans. From the unburied skull, wide as a house, a backbone extended, cupped by a prodigious basket of ribs.
"Water." She mouthed the word, but no sound came. She laughed, but it came out a hiss. It wouldn't be long before she joined that giant skeleton, strewing the landscape with her bony remains. "Water."
She was thirsty, yes, but it was the hunger she felt most keenly. Hunger from not eating in the real world. The umbilical cord that tethered her to this world was made of copper and steel and gave her none of the nutrients an actual umbilical would have.
She appeared in this world as a gol, an artificial entity designed to look like a human, but perfect of form, and stronger in body than any human. Because of her gol-strength, the ropes shouldn't have held her, yet here she was.
"Have you calmed down yet?" came the voice of her captor.
A long lever materialized between her legs. A mirage? She tensed her arms and legs to keep from touching it.
"Good," her captor said. "I wouldn't advise touching that."
She had to constantly maintain the tension—relax just a little, and her most sensitive parts would trigger that lever. Her muscles shook from the effort.
An apparatus appeared around her now, along with the lever.
Ari lay face-up with her head in a guillotine.
CHAPTER THREE
Ari felt the strength slipping from her.
"So now you find yourself in the same situation your father once did," her captor taunted. "Tits-up, splayed, and ready for the guillotine. Your father escaped because the guillotine blade was dull, and he wore a collar. This blade is sharp. And you have no collar."
She tried to disbelieve reality. Tried her hardest. But it didn't work. She needed that mirror to attempt the trick Hoodwink had shown her...
Her arms and legs relaxed, just slightly—
She pressed the lever—
The guillotine triggered.
She felt the vibrations along her throat as the blade descended the rails.
She shut her eyes.
A loud clang assailed her ears, and a sharp reverberation passed down the frame into her throat.
She opened her eyes.
An ax was lodged between the blade and her neck. The ax tore away, ripping the guillotine blade from its tracks, splitting open the wooden vise that pinned her. The ropes that bound her arms and legs slackened, and she fell to the sand.
Immediately she reached for the hilt of her sword.
"Tut-tut," her captor said.
She froze, the hilt a handspan away. She glanced at the gol whose shadow covered her.
It was Seven the Dwarf, garbed in a leather jerkin and breeches, its thick, hairy feet bulging from openwork sandals that were a little too tight. The Dwarf shaded its round head with a black umbrella in one hand, and it held the ax in the other. The number 111 was written on the Dwarf's jerkin.
"So now you know, by vicarious association, what it feels like to be a man," Seven said. "One small misstep with that thing you hold between your legs, and..." The Dwarf made a cutting motion across its neck with the ax.
Ari hadn't moved. But her eyes slid to the sword.
Seven shook its head. "Only thirty seconds and already you're missing the company of the ropes? Think of the sword as a test. You failed the test the first time. Would you like to fail again?"
Where was Tanner?
"Ah." Seven swayed the umbrella from side-to-side. "I see you ruminating. Perhaps expecting help from your friend? If you hoped he might inject something on the Inside, or pull you out, you're mistaken. I've shielded the area."
She tried to talk but no sound came. Her parched throat constricted.
A water bladder appeared at her knees. She scooped it up and drank deeply. When she'd emptied the entire thing, she stumbled to her feet.
"You stocky little runt," Ari said. Her throat still burned. "I'll shove that ax up your—"
"I see baking in the sun for two hours hasn't improved your constitution. Shall I reset the ropes?"
She bit her lip. "No. I'm... I'm sorry." Apologizing wasn't her strongest suit. "I didn't mean it."
Seven sighed. "You're almost as gutter-tongued as your father. And stubborn to boot. But your apology is accepted. You may stand. But leave the sword."
She reluctantly slid her hand away from the hilt, and stood to her full height, making the Dwarf look like, well, a dwarf.
"Now we may talk civilly." Seven threw the ax down in the sand, and the weapon buried up to the handle. "So, let's start over again, shall we? Pretend it is two hours earlier, and you have just arrived, and you didn't draw your sword." Seven straightened, and cleared its throat three irritable times. "Greetings, krub-in-gol-clothing. What brings you to my wonderful dunes?"
"I want to send a message to Hoodwink."
Seven pursed its lips. "Ah yes. That's right. Hoodwink. He's been here several times. So. The message is...?"
"We've set the tracker in Jeremy's mansion." Ari mentally reviewed the points she needed to cover. "We've stolen the Revision Box—"
"You have the mayor's Revision Box?" Seven interrupted. "One won't be pleased. Not at all. But I will relay the message."
"I'm not done yet," Ari said. "But what do you mean One won't be pleased? This message is for Hoodwink alone."
"Can't be avoided." Seven shrugged those thick shoulders. "One is all-seeing, all-knowing."
"Who?"
"One," Seven said. "He has his tendrils in everything."
Ari frowned. "That still doesn't tell me who One is."
Seven lifted its index finger. "He is One. He exists on the Inside. And the Outside. Like me. Like you."
Well that line of questioning was getting her nowhere. Maybe Seven had contracted the gol mind disease. "Right. So, I'll finish the message. As I was saying, we plan to have the Control Room in our possession by week's end, or next week at the latest. Roughly half a day to a day from now on the Outside."
"You plan to steal the Control Room?" Seven's eyes gleamed.
Ari ignored the question. She was disliking this Seven more and more all the time. "Continuing with the message. We haven't heard from the children, but we've setup a pinger, and they should respond soon. Our utopia awaits." She paused, feeling a little uncomfortable that Seven would hear the next part, though she convinced herself that it didn't matter because Seven was just a gol. "Love... love you dad." She crossed her arms, and regarded the Dwarf peevishly. "And that's it."
Seven grinned. "How sweet."
Ari let her scowl deepen.
"I find it interesting that you've set up a pinger." The Dwarf rubbed its chin with one hand.
Ari didn't have time for this. "Are you going to send the message or not?"
"I will relay your message." Seven closed its eyes.
Ari waited. As the moments dragged on, her impatience grew. "Well?"
"I am sending the message."
&nbs
p; If Seven could answer her while sending the message, she might as well see what she could learn from the thing. Her gaze drifted to the dunes and the leviathans buried in their grasp. "What's with the skeletons?"
The Dwarf's eyes remained closed. "A side effect of the germ. The system becomes confused, and spawns creatures meant to live in oceans that don't exist, and when these creatures appear in this place they die and rot." Seven opened its eyes. "Message sent."
Ari waited expectantly. She and Seven looked at one another, the gol smiling that irritating smile.
"So," she said. "What did Hoodwink say?"
"I'll let you know in a day or so."
"A day?"
"I thought you were aware of the time dilation?" Seven raised an eyebrow. "Time passes slower on the Outside. Return in a day, or don't. It matters little to me."
"How exactly do you communicate with my father?"
Seven's smile widened. "Hoodwink restored my connection to the Core. So, I merely leave him a message, and he checks that message."
Ari tapped her foot. "Where does he check that message?"
"The Outside."
Ari looked up at the sky. "Tanner, get me out of here. We came for nothing. The Dwarf can't communicate with Hoodwink."
Seven swung that umbrella about. "Why, I most assuredly can."
"Hoodwink's not on the Outside anymore. He's dead."
The smile left the Dwarf's face. "Impossible."
"I saw him die with my own eyes," Ari said.
"I'll have to consult One about this. Impossible. Hoodwink can't die. Impossible." Seven turned away.
She grabbed the sword.
Seven spun around and unleashed a massive bolt of lightning. The bolt ripped the sword from her grasp, and a trailing tendril struck her smack in the torso, exiting just below her armpit. Ari was sent flying backward into the sand.
"I am no mere messenger boy," Seven said. "I am a master golem. And the lands outside the cities are mine. I can do what I want out here. And I told you not to touch your sword. I told—"
A collar fastened around the Dwarf's neck from behind.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ari watched the scene unfold groggily from where she lay in the sand.
"No no no!" Seven's voice sounded distant. "I can't reach the Core. What have you done? What have you done!"
Tanner stood behind the Dwarf. A chain dangled from Tanner's fist, connected to the collar.
Seven fell to its knees and struggled to tear the collar free. "No no no!"
Ari smiled. "We did it," she said. Or rather, mouthed. That lightning bolt had affected her worse than she thought.
Her head fell back and darkness veiled her vision.
***
She opened her eyes in the Outside, to walls of cold metal. To the severed cords on the floor, some sparking with electricity. To the dim slabs of light in the ceiling, one flickering. To the view of the stars outside, and Jupiter with its all-seeing eye. To the broken window and the crumpled desks beneath it that formed a ramp to the dead moon outside. To the wide window frame, rimmed by fragments of glass.
To the glass fragment that had Hoodwink's blood on it.
You've died twice for me now, father. I won't let you down. I swear it.
She lay against a desk, in a protective suit whose metallic skin reflected the light. A thin cord ran from the center of her suit to the desk. This was her umbilical to the Inside, when active.
She looked at Tanner. He was tethered to the desk across from her, the only other desk beside hers that was undamaged. She squinted in the dim light and peered into his helmet. He was awake.
"What happened?" she said.
"You fainted." His voice sounded tinny in her ear. "I got you out after I used the handmirror to disbelieve reality. I hit pretty close to my record of seven minutes."
Her stomach rumbled. The hunger pangs were getting worse. And she had one of those lack-of-food headaches, the kind that insistently drummed the skull with each heartbeat.
"I can't believe you still need that," she said. Though she needed the mirror too. On a good day it took her minutes to disbelieve. On a bad day, hours. Thankfully Tanner could bring her out with a press of a button on that terminal of his. Usually.
She brought a hand to her face, wanting to rub her temples, but her gloved fingers found only the glass of her helmet. "What took you so long to collar the Dwarf anyway? And why didn't you get me out when Seven roped me up like that?"
"Sorry." Tanner sounded sheepish. "The Dwarf had the place shielded somehow." That's right. "I came in outside the shield, and I had to crawl forward in the sand so that Seven wouldn't see me. It was only when you got him to launch his lightning that I had a chance to strike."
"Well, thanks for getting me out." She focused on the inside of her helmet. "How much air do we have?"
In answer, the intelligence that lived in her suit projected a message onto the helmet glass.
Estimated Oxygen: 23 Hours.
"It's only been about a day altogether," Tanner said. "If we keep going Inside, and stay in hibernation? Might have another day left out here. That's at least ten days on the Inside."
"And the Dwarf?"
"Collared, and delivered as promised to our New User friends."
Seven's collar was a specially modified bitch. In addition to blocking vitra, it also dampened the Dwarf's links to the system, and prevented the gol from teleporting from place to place. The collar also had a tracker in it, so Tanner could move the Dwarf where he wanted from that terminal of his. Ari had worried that the gols would eventually track Seven down, and then launch an offensive to get the Dwarf back, so she'd had the New Users prepare a specially fortified holding cell in the Black Den, that section of town known for its murderers and thieves. The whole quarter was cordoned off, and the Black Faction which ruled the Den had implemented an elaborate system of checks and balances to prevent any gol from ever obtaining entrance. Well, those gols they didn't want in, that is. Ari wasn't sure the Faction's promise of protection would be enough, and she'd told those New Users assigned to the Den to flee at the first sign of trouble. She'd already lost too many good men. The death of Marks at Jeremy's hands weighed heavily on her conscience.
"I don't think Seven can talk to Hoodwink anymore," she said.
"What makes you say that?"
"Seven said Hoodwink checks the messages on the Outside. But as you know, Hoodwink isn't here anymore, on the Outside. When I told Seven that I saw Hoodwink die, the gol couldn't believe it."
Tanner was silent a moment. "I was afraid of something like this. We'll just have to go on without Hoodwink for now."
"You're certain he's coming back?" Ari said.
Tanner shifted uncomfortably. "He's coming back. Though I have no idea how, he's coming."
Ari searched for any sign of deceit, but as far as she could tell he was telling the truth. Or believed he was, anyway.
There was something else she hoped he could explain. "The Dwarf mentioned someone—or something—named One who can overhear every message in the system. Have you heard of such a thing?"
"One?" Tanner frowned. "Sounds like an A.I. name. There's different levels of A.I.s in the system. It's a hierarchy of sorts. Each of the numbered A.I.s controls a subset of those beneath it. The lower you go in the hierarchy, the more control you have. If there is a One, it would have indirect control of every last subsystem."
"How about control of Seven?"
Tanner shrugged. "It's possible. But with the damping effects of the collar, we're in control of what reaches Seven, or what the gol sends out."
Even so, she didn't think that was good. She sat back, and the helmet bumped the desk. She cursed quietly.
Her stomach growled. She closed her eyes. What she wouldn't have given for a nice steak right about now.
Tanner's voice spoke rudely in her ear.
"What did you want to be when you were little?" Tanner said.
She looked at him throug
h the glass of her helmet. "Seriously?" When he didn't answer, she couldn't help but smile. "You're flirting with me?"
"It's just a question," Tanner said. "Don't read too much into it."
Her smile widened. "Sure. Just a question. Okay. What I wanted to be when I was a little girl. A princess. No I'm kidding. Well, I remember my father used to take me up on his shoulders when I was little, and he'd walk me to the square by our house. I'd get to see everyone from the same perspective as him. All the merchants in the square. The buyers. The world looked so much smaller from up there. And I knew then I wanted to be someone who could explain the world to others, make it smaller, show it to them from different perspectives."
"Wow, you really got all that out of piggyback rides?"
She laughed. "Yeah."
"But that's not really an occupation," Tanner said.
"No, I suppose not."
"Actually, I got it." He clapped his gloved hands together. "A teacher. You wanted to be a teacher. Am I right? Explaining the world, showing it from different perspectives. That has to be a teacher."
"Sure."
"Hoodwink must have been a good father," Tanner said.
He didn't mean anything by it. Of course he didn't. But Ari literally felt like she'd been struck in the stomach, and she almost threw up.
"No," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
CHAPTER FIVE
"No." Ari closed her eyes. "It was fake. All fake."
"The virtual world, you mean?" Tanner said.
Ari shot him a withering look. "Jeremy's revision! Those memories... the piggyback rides... they weren't real. Injected memories. They weren't of Hoodwink. Though I wish they were."
"Oh," he said. "I'm sorry. I forgot."
"I was only eighteen years old when Jeremy took me. Or so they tell me. I don't remember any of it."
Tanner hugged the thin metal of the suit that sheathed his chest, as if he were cold. "I can't imagine what it's like. Being revised. Sure, I was strapped into the machine a few days ago. I saw the island. Saw the vortex of new memories competing with the old. Felt the pain. But I didn't have my memories ripped away and replaced with something else."
