by Isaac Hooke
The blade rose in spurts until the tip reached the middle of her chest. She felt Tanner's shoulder brush against her calf.
"How's that?" Tanner said.
Ari braced her feet against the chimney. She slid her hands from the wall and reached down, knowing that if she slipped now, she'd send herself and Tanner to their doom. Death by broken neck or blunt force trauma wouldn't be the funnest experience.
You die violently in here as a gol, you die for real, no matter what.
She was just able to wrap her hands around the hilt.
Vitra filled her. The source of life. A false source, she knew. But it invigorated her nonetheless, the wires inside her real-world body stimulating her brain. Pleasure, pain, and lust, all at once.
"Okay!" she said. "Let go of it!"
Ari lifted the blade, the glow of the sword full in her face. Her elbows were by necessity locked against her sides. Her flesh scraped the tight mortar around her. Sand poured down from above. In moments the tip of the sword extended beyond the opening of the chimney.
She let vitra accumulate in the blade and the sword glowed red-hot. When she'd gathered enough, she unleashed a torrent of flames. She swiveled the superheated weapon at the same time, in a funnel-like pattern, and cut through the bricks around her like a hot knife through ice.
The next part was critical, or all those bricks would come tumbling down on them. As the upper part of the chimney collapsed, she released a fiery half-sphere. It was a trick she'd learned in recent days after much practice with the sword.
The half-sphere exploded upward, bringing with it the dislodged bricks, and the sand just beyond.
Success.
Her head and shoulders were exposed to the air. She was at the bottom of a pit, surrounded by a depression where she'd blasted the sand away. The rest of the house was buried below her.
Abruptly fragments of crystallized sand flowed back down against the new, lower rim of the chimney. Some of those opaque crystals overtopped the uneven rim and spilled down like shards of ice, sharp and cutting. She heard Tanner curse beneath her. Ari's own arms and legs received their share of cuts.
Above, at the outskirts of the sand pit, she saw five iron monsters on treads, similar to the golems she'd witnessed on the Outside. Long buckets had been set into the fronts of these monsters and were used to dump sand into the pit. Back and forth the iron golems moved in sequence. Scoop sand in the bucket. Turn toward the pit. Dump the sand. Repeat.
She scrambled from the chimney onto the crystallized shards, and helped Tanner over the rim. The two of them waded through the fragments and the fresh loads of sand that continually poured in. Ari tried to crouch, hoping to escape notice, and she picked a path that was between the monsters. When she neared the top of the pit, she waited until the nearest monster turned its back to retrieve more sand, and then she hurried past, dragging her feet across the dune.
She and Tanner moved away from the golems. She glanced back, expecting the things to be in pursuit, but the iron monsters hadn't even noticed them.
Ari stopped right away. She looked at the nearest iron monster, and cocked her head.
"Ari..." Tanner had that tone again. The tone that said, we don't have time for this. And, you're going to get us in trouble. "I think you should give me back my sword."
She was never a big fan of that tone.
She filled the sword with vitra, and then ran toward the back of the nearest monster as it dumped a load of sand. She plunged the blade deep inside that metallic skin and released the flames. The monster ground to a halt. Its internal humming stuttered and dropped in pitch, ending in a final abrupt cough.
Another iron monster turned toward her.
She pulled at the sword. It wouldn't budge from that metallic body, not even with her gol-strength.
Tanner came to her side. "Ari let's go!"
"Think I broke it," Ari said.
"What?" Tanner sounded exasperated. "The sword? Or the machine?"
"Both!" She abandoned the sword and sprinted away.
Only the one iron monster pursued. The other three remained behind to finish burying the house. Not that there was much left to bury.
She didn't think those treads would work quite so well on the sand as her own legs, but the monster moved as fast as she and Tanner did.
Faster, actually.
She should have listened to Tanner, and now her recklessness had put the both of them in danger once again.
If anything happened to him, she'd never forgive herself.
The iron monster was gaining.
CHAPTER NINE
Ahead the bones of a dead leviathan strewed the dunes, the house-sized skull and claw-like ribcage baking in the sun. Ari sprinted toward it, and when she reached it, Ari ducked beneath the topmost hinge of the jaw. The colossal skull engulfed her. Tanner joined her and together they retreated to the far side. The skull was half-buried so that there was no other way out except through that gaping maw.
"I don't think this is such a good idea..." Tanner said.
Ari balled her hands. "You're welcome to go back out there."
The iron monster slammed into the opening of the skull, but, as expected, the tall bucket it carried in front prevented the monster from fitting in the gap between bone and sand. The monster gave it a good try though, pushing with all its might, treads spinning stubbornly, internal mechanisms whirring in protest, but the only result was to shift the entire skull backward just slightly.
The monster backed up and began shoveling sand away from the entrance.
"I told you this wasn't a good idea," Tanner said.
Ari watched the monster. "Draw it off. Circle the skeleton."
"Draw it off? I don't think so. Just give me the mirror."
"I have a plan," Ari said. "Trust me."
"Why don't you ever tell me your plans?"
She smiled grimly. "The longer we stay here talking—"
Tanner raised his hands. "Fine."
He waited until the monster turned to offload the sand in its bucket, and then he ducked outside. The monster detected his presence and pursued.
When the iron monster was gone, she left the skull and ran toward the backbone of the dead leviathan. She dashed onto one of its prodigious ribs. The bone extended up and out like a small curving footbridge. Before the climb became too steep, she jumped straight up, and when she landed she pushed down with both legs. She jumped a second time. A third time. She pushed all-out when she landed. If this didn't work she'd have to rush back to the pit and try for the sword again...
Tanner sprinted by below. The iron monster was almost on him.
Come on, gol-strength!
Her fourth jump did it, and the timing was perfect—the massive rib popped from the backbone and crashed down onto the iron monster, pinning it.
Ari was sent sprawling. She scrambled to her feet and wiped the grit from her palms and the sand from her knees. She watched, satisfied, as the trapped monster spun its treads and dug itself deeper into the dune.
And then she realized she'd lost Tanner.
"Tanner?" She turned in a circle, but other than the remaining iron monsters in the distance, she saw no one else. Her eyes fell on the golem and she felt a stab of fear.
"Tanner." She approached the monster. Those treads continued to spin uselessly.
"Now I know why you didn't want to tell me your plan," Tanner said, coming up behind her. "And I thought I was the crazy one. What if the socket hadn't rotted away enough and you couldn't knock the rib down?"
She spun on him irritably. "There were other ribs already lying around. So I knew it would work, okay? But where were you just now?"
"On the other side of that rib. Why? What's up your shaft today?"
"Damn it. I was worried, all right?"
He shrugged.
"And just to clarify matters," Ari said. "I never claimed to be sane."
Tanner smiled, though it seemed a bit forced. "Right. Let's get back to the city."
&n
bsp; To reach the city they had to return to the Outside and reset their coordinates. That, or climb the Forever Gate. She preferred the former.
She went back to the protection of the giant skull in case those other monsters decided to visit, and she removed the handmirror from her livery to begin the process of disbelieving reality.
Tanner joined her, and peered into the mirror beside her. He made faces at first, trying to distract her. But she was dead serious, intent on beating him to the Outside, still angry that he'd worried her like that.
She focused on her features.
I am the illusion. The reflection is real. I am the illusion.
The moments passed. Eventually she began to see her reflection initiate movements that should have originated from her own body first. Her reflection blinked. Then she blinked. Her reflection tilted its head. Then she tilted her head.
This isn't real. Any of it.
She woke up on the Outside to see an iron golem looming over Tanner.
Its pincers were raised—the thing was about to smash Tanner's helmet.
CHAPTER TEN
Ari bounded to her feet. "Tanner!"
His eyes shot open.
The iron golem swung its pincers down—
Tanner ducked to one side—
The pincers smashed into the desk behind him. The area crumpled.
Ari dashed forward, forgetting about the tether at her belly, and when she reached the cord's limit she was instantly flung backward.
She cursed. She got a hold of the cord and wrenched it from her suit, hoping she didn't damage the thing. She stood up, and saw that Tanner had climbed onto the desk. The iron golem—a steel barrel on treads with two wiry arms and a thin, hilt-like head—was swatting at him, and a new pit formed in the desk with each strike.
Tanner could never hope to fend off the golem. And Ari couldn't help. Not with the weak human body she had on the Outside. There was no way. She felt so powerless.
Unless...
"Ari get out of here!" Tanner's desperate voice blared in her ear.
She went to the window, where the broken desks lay in a pile beneath it. She twisted free a desk leg with some effort and then hobbled over to the golem as fast as the suit would allow. She was frightened. Terrified. But she could do this. She would.
"Hey!" she said. She wasn't sure how far her voice carried beyond the helmet, but apparently it was far enough, because the iron golem pivoted toward her.
"Ari don't—" Tanner said.
She swung the leg like a bat and smashed the three disks that served as the golem's eyes. Glass fragments sprayed from the sword hilt that was its head.
The iron golem froze. The small red light above the damaged disks flashed on and off.
She waited a moment, poised to swing the leg again, but the golem made no further movement.
Ari helped Tanner down from the desk, not taking her eyes from the golem. The two of them backed away from the monster, and she kept the desk leg pointed at it. Not that the leg would be of much use if the golem came back to life.
"Thanks Ari," Tanner said, panting.
She felt her old anger flare. "I thought you said none of the golems would ever come here. That this isn't a critical section. Repair units won't swing by for a long time, you said."
"I did say that." Tanner touched the top of his helmet. If the glass wasn't there she thought he'd be rubbing his forehead right now. "But that unit was sent for a reason other than repair, I think."
"And that reason is...?"
Tanner smiled grimly. "To kill us."
"What? How? Why?"
"The Dwarf must have relayed our coordinates to its higher-ups before I collared it. You told the Dwarf about the pinger as part of the message to Hoodwink. Maybe Seven used that to track us down somehow. Or it could be that the A.I.s detected us the moment I turned the pinger on."
"Then we have to shut the pinger down," Ari said. "And find another way to alert the children about our little situation."
Tanner was silent for a moment. "There is another way, but I'm not sure shutting down the pinger will help. If the A.I.s used it to track us down, they already know where we are."
Ari closed her eyes a moment. "Okay. Fine. But first of all, tell me. What's the other way to communicate with the children?"
"By using the Control Room."
She smiled wanly. "Ah. It always comes back to the Control Room, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
Something occurred to her, and Ari frowned. "Okay. You say they want to kill us. I still don't understand why. They're just devices. Things of iron and glass. Why should they care about us?"
"Why else? We're a glitch in the program. We shouldn't be out. No one's allowed out until the machines say so. I'm convinced it was one of the A.I.s that sucked us Inside. Must have been monitoring us. Maybe it knew about the trap and wanted us dead. Or maybe the point was to distract us, while it dispatched this one to finish the job. This is why we have to change the iron golems. They'll keep trying to kill us until we get the Control Room and change that."
"All right, fine. But we can't go back Inside, not while that thing's still in here. And not while others might come." She glanced at the silent figure of steel and shattered glass. "How did it get in here anyway?"
Tanner's gaze went to the window. "Those arms can bend at some really odd angles, I tell you. Wouldn't be a stretch for the golem to pull itself up and swing onto those smashed desks."
"Okay." She took a deep breath. Had to think this through. "Okay. So. First things first, shut off the pinger."
Tanner touched the pad on the desk beside her, and entered some commands. "Done."
"Now, we still have to move to a different room." She glanced at the desolate landscape beyond the broken window.
"I think I can set the pinger so that it looks like it's coming from a different room. Make the A.I.s think we've moved. It's called ghosting."
"I'm not sure I like the idea. Won't the golems just check here when they don't find us? I say we move for real."
"Ari, we can't go out there. There's iron golems everywhere outside, repairing the hull. We're safer in here believe me. Just let me ghost the pinger." He entered more commands into the pad. "There, that should do it."
"Should? I'm supposed to put my life in your hands based on a should?" She hated it when her voice sounded whiny like that but there was nothing for it. Tanner needed to be sure, dammit.
"Ari, I'm positive that will do it." He rested a gloved hand on her suit just above the shoulder. "We'll be fine." For a moment she wished the suit weren't there, and that his real hand was touching her shoulder. There was something to be said about human-to-human contact. Especially from him. But it was a fleeting wish. One that she wouldn't have allowed, anyway.
"Here," Tanner said. "Tell you what. I can link the room's motion detectors with the terminal. Have it pull us out if there's any movement on the Outside, in this room. Will that satisfy you?"
She looked at him incredulously. "Why didn't you set that up in the first place? Would have saved us a bit of trouble back there, don't you think?"
"Honestly it hadn't even crossed my mind," Tanner said. "A golem coming in here. Although I suppose it should have." He returned his attention to the terminal.
"And you're supposed to be the smart one?"
He looked at her rather sheepishly. "Ari, I didn't think we'd need it. I'm sorry."
"You didn't think is right," she said.
His face darkened, but he didn't answer.
It felt like she'd crossed some line with him. That acid tongue of hers again. "I take that back," Ari said. "I can be a bit harsh sometimes. You know that by now. My inner bitch acting up."
"Don't worry about it." He entered a few more commands. "Done. Anything moves in here while we're under, we'll be out in no time, Teach."
"Don't call me that." She tapped her gloved fingers on the glass plate of her helmet, near the chin. "Can we set a timer too? Say, have the
system pull us out after ten minutes? Rather than having to use the mirrors to disbelieve the world?"
Tanner pondered that a moment. "There's probably a way, but I don't know it. None of the children ever mentioned anything like that. Here, I'll check the archives." He flicked the pad a few times. "Hmm. A bunch of search results on timer, but none what we want. Well, for now I'll have to say no."
She shrugged, though Tanner wouldn't have seen the gesture, buried as she was within the suit. "Okay, so the pinger has been ghosted. And the motion detectors set up. So we're almost good to go, though I wish we could have that timer. But—and here's the key part—what about that thing?" She nodded at the damaged golem. "I'm not going Inside while it's on the loose in here."
He glanced at the golem and then gave her an exasperated look. She raised her eyebrows twice and smiled stubbornly.
"Give it over." He motioned to the desk leg she held. She handed it to him.
Tanner crossed to the iron golem.
"What, are you going to smash it to bits with that toothpick?" she said.
"Let me know if it makes a move would you?" He bent low and wedged the leg into one of the treads. Ari expected the golem to attack at any moment. It didn't.
Tanner pressed his weight onto the lever of the desk leg, and eventually the black material around the tread lifted. "This one's got rubber treads. The ones that go out on the moon usually do. Gives them better traction in the dust or something. The ones inside the ship are more like tanks though, with steel plates for treads, or rubber reinforced with steel wires, so I wouldn't be able to do this."
"Tanks?" she said. "What's a tank?"
"Never mind." Tanner forced free the long, grooved loop that made up the tread. He took the loop, clambered onto the desk, and slid the rubber down over the golem's body. With some effort, he managed to hook the far end over a corner of the desk. The fit was close, and the loop reminded Ari of a giant elastic stretched to near breaking. But the golem was wrapped tight to the desk.
Still, Ari wasn't completely satisfied. "What if the rubber snaps?"
Tanner shot up his arms in frustration. "What do you want me to do then?"
