The Forever Gate Ultimate Edition

by Isaac Hooke

  "Man-eating bullet ants," One said. "One of my specialities. Combines the sheer agony of the bullet ant with the rapacious appetite of the piranha."

  One released Gray-cloak's facial muscles so that the ancient man could howl. After several moments that were sheer agony to watch—and, judging from the raving howls, must have been terrible to endure—the bones of the man's chest and lower body were picked clean. The sated ants fell to the floor before finishing, leaving the lifeless face and neck only partially eaten.

  One allowed the skeleton to fall to the floor with a sickening thud.

  "That worked out a little better," One said. "Though still a bit quick for my newly acquired tastes."

  One turned on another man Hoodwink recognized. Green-cloak.

  "No." Hoodwink said. "Stop."

  One released his most ghastly work yet. Green-cloak tore apart. On the floor, his maimed pieces sprouted arachnid legs and mandibles, and scurried off to feed upon the two men on either side of him. The A.I. released the facial muscles of those men, and their dying screams filled the room.

  Hoodwink couldn't watch anymore. He closed his eyes until the howls of the two men ended.

  One approached Tanner. "This man. He sits high in your favor, doesn't he? Tanner. Yes, that's his name. A man pretending to be a gol, somewhat like you, Hoodwink. He even has the Direwalker teeth. A nice touch. I have a most fitting end in mind for him." One positioned its empty hood before Tanner, and addressed him. "You are missing a hand. What do you think it would feel like to have your insides sucked out through the stump? Bones, guts, lungs, brain?"

  No. Not Tanner. It would kill Hoodwink to watch his protege die. But it would kill Ari even more.

  "One, please," Hoodwink said. "Anything but this. Anyone but Tanner."

  The A.I. turned away from Tanner. "Anyone?"

  A tingle of dread passed through Hoodwink. He knew who One was going to threaten next.

  But then he realized something.

  Ari wasn't in the bedchamber.

  The glass window shattered inward, and a form thrust through the curtain, landing right behind One.

  A bronze bitch clasped around One's throat.

  So that's where she was.

  The electricity vanished from One's fingers, and Hoodwink and the others were instantly released.

  One stepped back, tearing at the collar with its dual-pronged fingers. One's hood was crimped because of the bronze bitch but there was still no sign of a face within the darkness.

  "You fools," One said. "You seek to trammel me? Already I can see the source for this collar. I am unraveling it as we speak."

  One unexpectedly snatched up a fire sword from one of the fallen.

  Tanner was there in an instant and crossed swords with One.

  Time was short, Hoodwink knew. One wasn't lying—the A.I. was likely delving the collar's source at this very moment, searching for the flags that would disable it.

  But the children would be scanning the Inside too, waiting for the shield to drop so they could transfer the group across the Forever Gate to the outlying desert.

  But the clock ticked slower on the Outside. It would take some moments for the children to realize that the shield was down. And longer still for them to react.

  The men were taking turns occupying One now, but the A.I. fought with a speed and agility that even Tanner and Ari were hard-pressed to match. And One was still invulnerable—both fire and steel bounced from its robes. One abruptly released a stream of flame from its blade and burned a man down.

  Hoodwink joined Ari's side and tossed her an approving nod. She returned the nod a little smugly he thought.

  He took a turn at One but the A.I. easily beat him off. Come on children, get us out of here.

  A Direwalker emerged from the mirror. Now that One's power was collared, whatever block the A.I. had put on the mirror was gone. Direwalkers could spawn anew.

  The Direwalker tore open an unready man's throat.

  "The mirror!" Hoodwink said, chopping the Direwalker down. "Smash the mirror!"

  Two men made for the mirror, but One shifted, taking up a protective stance in front of it.

  Another Direwalker came out.

  Hoodwink hurled himself forward, exchanging three quick blows with One.

  The distraction was enough for Ari to slip past and break the mirror. The sharp fragments fanned across the floor.

  A claw swiped at Hoodwink from behind, slicing into his shoulder blade.

  Hoodwink jumped backward, barreling into the Direwalker.

  He dropped the sword and lost his balance, tumbling to the floor with the Direwalker. The gol, now underneath him, bit into his neck.

  Hoodwink reached back and gripped its head with both hands, preventing the Direwalker from tearing his throat open. He tried to push the Direwalker away, but it held on tight. He began to feel lightheaded as the Direwalker drank his blood.

  Around him, the sound of battle ebbed and flowed.

  Hoodwink reached for vitra through the lightning rings and, still hanging onto the Direwalker's head, he released a half-bolt from either hand. His palms slapped together as the Direwalker's skull imploded.

  He saw Ari coming toward him. "Dad!"

  The world blinked.

  128

  Hoodwink lay in the hot sand. Though it had just been night, the sun shone from the midpoint of a clear sky. He sat up, and took a moment to reorient himself.

  A vast desert surrounded him. The half-concealed skeletons of giant beasts were strewn at random across the dunes. From east to west, the Forever Gate towered into the sky, eating up the distant horizon.

  "Dad." Ari rushed to his side.

  His neck throbbed with pain, and he stanched the ruptured blood vessels using a gol trick. He let Ari help him upright.

  "Damn children sure took their time." He instinctively tried to take off his long-sleeved tunic in the sweltering heat, but the fabric was melded to his skin—the downside of being a gol. The upside was he could readily ignore that heat.

  "You all right?" Ari said.

  Hoodwink glanced at the sand behind him. The Direwalker's body was gone. It didn't have a tracker, so the children hadn't moved it along with everyone else.

  "I'm fine." He looked past Ari. The other members of the party were here, including the fallen, their blood blackening the dunes.

  One was here, too. Still collared, the A.I. fought like a master swordsman, shooting flames at will from the stolen fire sword. Men were burned. Limbs were cut off. A globe of darker air surrounded the A.I. and followed One as it moved, compounding matters.

  Tanner led the men in attack. Or rather, defense.

  "Tanner needs your help, I believe," Hoodwink said, a little reluctantly. But she was a grown woman now and he had to let her choose her fights.

  She kissed him on the forehead and then she ran to Tanner's side.

  Hoodwink positioned himself so that he faced directly away from the Forever Gate. He jogged forward. There was nothing ahead of him but empty desert.

  Hoodwink collided with an invisible barrier a few seconds later, banging his nose something nasty. He slid a hand over the glass-like surface that defined the boundary of the Inside, his fingers making a distinct squeegee sound.

  He summoned vitra from the rings on his fingers, remembering how Seven, the Dwarf, had opened a gap in the boundary when Hoodwink had first come here a lifetime ago.

  He released electricity and it pulsed across the surface in waves. He intensified the barrage, shooting actual bolts. Thunder shook the air. The others must have noticed, and hopefully they herded One this way.

  A section of the invisible boundary abruptly flickered out.

  Hoodwink ended the barrage. He'd made the necessary gap. The air flickered intermittently in front of him, alternating between an uninterrupted view of the landscape to a triangular shard of darkness large enough to fit a man.

  Hoodwink glanced at the others. Tanner and Ari had driven On
e closer to the gap, but the A.I. still defended itself ceaselessly with the fire sword. There were only two others left standing besides Tanner and Ari—Calico Cap and a man Hoodwink didn't know, both of them clearly exhausted.

  Hoodwink approached, pausing to retrieve a sword from a fallen man. He twirled the blade and walked up to One.

  Hoodwink came up behind the A.I. as Tanner and Ari kept it occupied. He studied the globe of darkness that surrounded One, and spotted the chain connected to the collar, the bronze links dragging in the sand.

  Hoodwink entered the globe, picked up the chain, and yanked.

  One whirled toward him.

  Hoodwink sidestepped the killing slash aimed at his neck and he returned the strike with one of his own.

  One didn't even bother to parry. As Hoodwink's weapon bounced from the impervious robe, One merely struck at him again.

  Hoodwink twisted sideways, barely dodging the attack.

  Tanner barreled into One from behind, and the A.I. stumbled forward.

  Hoodwink pulled hard on the chain, adding to the momentum and forcing One closer to the gap.

  One chopped down with its blade, aiming to sever the chain.

  Hoodwink hurled the chain aside just in time, and the A.I.'s sword sliced empty air.

  Tanner pummeled One again from behind. This time, caught off-guard and off-balance, the A.I. toppled. Tanner fell over it.

  Hoodwink dropped his sword and piled onto them. Together he and Tanner wrestled One. The darkness was almost complete this close to the black robes. Still, Hoodwink could see well enough to shove his sweaty palms between One's fingers. He released electricity from his rings while simultaneously prying at those clammy fingers, and the combined effort allowed him to wedge the fire sword from One's grip.

  He threw the weapon aside.

  "One is disarmed!" Hoodwink announced, panting.

  One headbutted him damn hard, and Hoodwink nearly lost consciousness. He rolled away into the sand as Tanner and One continued to wrestle.

  At the edge of his vision he saw Ari throw herself into the fray.

  Hoodwink crawled to his knees, and shook his groggy head.

  The other three were on their feet again. He saw Ari shoving One from behind, while Tanner dragged the A.I. from the front. Tanner had wrapped the chain around his stumped arm, and pulled with his good hand. Together the two of them led One inexorably toward the flickering gap.

  Hoodwink found a sword and scrabbled upright.

  One shook Ari off, and sent her sprawling with a boot to the chest.

  Hoodwink came forward, intending to take her place.

  Tanner was almost at the gap. As Hoodwink closed, he had a sudden worry that Tanner meant to pull the A.I. into the gap with him, killing himself and One together.

  But Tanner never made it.

  A sword pierced him from behind. The blade emerged from Tanner's heart, and he released the chain, falling drunkenly to his knees, sliding off the skewer that was the sword.

  It was Calico Cap. The other man who'd been with Cap lay dead on the ground behind him.

  Hoodwink merely stared, too shocked for anything else.

  He heard Ari scream. She ran across the sand, her fire sword flaring a blinding white. She sprinted straight for Cap, ignoring One.

  But One extended a hand and caught her by the throat. The A.I. moved mechanically and lifted her squirming body toward the gap in the boundary. Her face became a bright red, and she kicked the air helplessly, weakly pounding her sword against One's grip.

  Hoodwink beat One to the gap, and hammered his blade into the A.I.'s arm. Again and again he struck, with a strength that surpassed even his gol powers.

  How dare One threaten his daughter like that? How dare it.

  Hoodwink broke One's hold, and Ari fell to the sand, gasping for air.

  "Touch my daughter, will you?" Hoodwink grabbed One by the arm. He wrenched the A.I. toward the gap. "You'll pay for that." He could scarcely hear his own voice for the hot rage that pumped through his veins.

  One strove to punch Hoodwink in the face, but he dodged each blow. He could feel the gush of air from the near misses—those weren't gentle blows. But neither was Hoodwink in all that gentle of a mood right now.

  He reached the gap and was about to throw the A.I. through and finish this, when a burning sword touched his throat.

  The pain quenched his rage a tiny bit, and Hoodwink froze. He glanced down. Perspiration sizzled onto the blade.

  One's fist crushed into his cheek.

  Hoodwink was distantly aware as an arm wrapped around his torso and pulled him backward, away from One. The hot sword stayed close against his throat.

  "Can't let you betray your own race, Hoodwink," Cap's voice came in his ear.

  Hoodwink blinked away the dizziness from One's blow, and saw Ari rise unsteadily from the dune.

  One smashed her in the face with the back of its pale hand. Blood spattered from her mouth and she fell.

  "No!" Hoodwink struggled against Cap, but the traitor pressed the blade into his neck and stilled him.

  Ari didn't get up again. Her eyes were closed. For a moment Hoodwink feared the worst, but then he saw that her chest still rose and fell.

  "Never thought it would come this far," Cap said. "Never thought any of you would get this close to ruining it all."

  "I'll kill you," Hoodwink said against the pain of the blade.

  "I had wondered," One said. "If any of the others remembered."

  "I remember parts," Cap said. "Enough."

  Cap released Hoodwink and forced him to kneel in the sand beside Tanner. Hoodwink glanced up, readying a string of curses to further chew out the traitor, but his breath caught. He hadn't realized the severity of Cap's burns in the dim light of the mansion, but up close beneath the bright sun the terrible extent of Cap's injuries was revealed. The entire right half of his face was burned away, to the bone in places. Bare tendons, muscle and cartilage hung flaccidly. A lone eyeball perched in a blackened socket. Hoodwink almost sicked up.

  He looked away. The triangular gap in the system boundary was right beside Hoodwink, flickering from black to desert to black again. He wondered if Cap meant to send him through the gap. Well, Hoodwink wouldn't go without a fight.

  He pondered his options.

  Ari hadn't moved. She was still unconscious.

  Tanner meanwhile seemed out of it beside him. His friend had apparently stanched his heart wound with a gol trick, and forced the punctured organ to pump, but Hoodwink didn't think Tanner could last much longer. No one could, not after a blow like that.

  So it was just Hoodwink versus One and the traitor.

  Just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, the bronze bitch around One's throat abruptly dissolved.

  129

  Hoodwink stared at One helplessly.

  There was nothing he could do, not anymore.

  One had its full powers restored.

  Humanity was lost.

  Cap turned toward One. "What are your orders—"

  The man exploded in a fountain of blood. Nothing remained of him but a fine red mist.

  "I've changed my mind about not killing Satori surrogates," One said.

  A squadron of fifty uncollared men appeared behind One, led by Jacob.

  Hoodwink hadn't noticed it before, but a two-way diary was open on the sand beside Tanner—somewhere along the way his friend had managed to convey a message to the children for help.

  One swiveled toward the newcomers. Before those men could take a step, or flex an arm, or blink an eye, each of them became rooted in place. One had probably already raised a shield to keep the children from further meddling.

  Hoodwink hadn't been paralyzed, nor Tanner, who still swayed on his knees beside him. Were the two of them overlooked? Or merely beneath One's notice?

  It didn't matter. There was nothing the two of them could do anyway. They were like ants compared to the power that One wielded.

 
; There had been a few other collars lying in the sand nearby, but they were gone now. Indeed, every item of metal had vanished from the battlefield, including the fire swords and the lightning rings.

  Hoodwink had failed humanity.

  He had failed Ari.

  The world was doomed.

  In these final moments as a living man, he experienced a moment of absolute lucidity. For the first time he clearly understood the guilt that had gnawed at him all these years.

  He thought he was doing the right thing by letting Jeremy revise Ari, thought he was saving her from a life as a User. But he'd never done anything so wrong. He'd let Ari down, true, but the greater sin was that he'd let himself down. He'd allowed others to dictate his own affairs. He should've stolen her back from Jeremy once he'd realized his mistake, and taken her to another city, the law be damned. He should have done everything in his power to get her back.

  Everything.

  He suddenly knew what he had to do.

  There was a way to save humanity, though it required the ultimate sacrifice.

  But humanity was worth it.

  She was worth it.

  Hoodwink lowered his voice and spoke for Tanner's ears alone. "Tell her I'm sorry."

  "Whatever for?" Tanner said.

  Hoodwink smiled grimly and then he leaped through the gap.

  "Hoodwink no!" Tanner tried to grab Hoodwink but his friend was already gone.

  Tanner's body froze like the others.

  His shout had attracted One's attention. Enough for the A.I. to immobilize him, anyway.

  The pain from the sword wound in his heart flared, and he would have grimaced if he was able. But there were worse pains than the physical.

  Hoodwink was dead.

  Stepping beyond the system boundaries would've killed him instantly.

  And since Hoodwink was a gol, that meant he was dead in the real-world too, his mind burned to a crisp by the wires embedded in his neocortex. He would be in that place called Topside, if anywhere.

  Assuming dying as a gol didn't kill him in that place, too.

  Tanner struggled against the invisible binds. When that proved unfruitful, he strove for vitra through the lightning rings he wore, but then he realized the rings were no longer there.