by Jay Allan
His face became grave. "When you come back, yes. But you'll be safe from the mind disease."
"And will I lose vitra?"
He nodded. "Yes."
She sighed. Always a price.
"But there are other powers you can tap into," Hoodwink added hastily. "I swear it's true."
Her gaze drifted to the window. "I've sat in this same chair every day for the past two years, stared out at the same snowy street. A recluse, waiting to die alone."
"Come back with me, Ari." He strode to her, and held out his hands. "Come back and be young again. Cross the Forever Gate with me."
She grunted dubiously. "How? I can't climb it, not in my condition."
"The Forever Gate isn't the wall that hugs the city. It's a token for crossing over to the other side of life. For jumping up a level of the mind. It can be crossed in two ways. The first is by dying. Die, and you'll find yourself in the Outside. That way is a bit of a blow to the body though, and I don't suggest it. A lot of people die for real. Definitely don't want that." He turned toward the mirror, and spoke to his reflection. "The second way is by denying reality. You just refuse it. It's where you know, deep inside, that none of this is real. That your heart beats in a far-off place. That your thinking comes and goes in a mind that lives on the Outside." He smiled at his reflection. "It helps to have a symbol. Something to focus on. I like to use a mirror."
He extended a palm toward her. "So? Have you made your choice?"
She took his fingers.
Hoodwink helped her to the mirror. She hadn't looked at her reflection in so long. Was she really so old? So ugly? Already?
"Place your hand on the mirror," Hoodwink said.
She did so, joining her hand to its reflected twin.
"You know what you see in the mirror is an illusion, right?" Hoodwink said. "A copy?"
"Sure," Ari said.
"Okay. So what if I told you that you were the illusion, and the person in the mirror was the real one?"
"What?" Ari glanced at him. "That's absurd."
"Maybe. But it's not so absurd. Not when you know the truth. Look in the mirror. Good. Believe that the world you see there, past your fingers, is the real world. Believe that the person you see there is the real you, and that the person standing here is the copy. That's the key to all this. See the mirror for the illusion it shows you to be."
She cocked an eyebrow, unable to keep from smiling. When she saw that Hoodwink was dead serious, she bit her lip, and concentrated on her reflection. I'm the copy. Every gesture, no matter how subtle, was played back to her in the way that mirrors did. The reflection was obviously the copy, not her.
At last she couldn't take it and erupted in a haggard giggle. "I feel like a fool! This is silly. Of course my reflection is the illusion, and not the other way around."
Hoodwink lifted an eyebrow. "So you're sure that the idea for each action starts with you, and not the person in the mirror?"
She tapped her foot irritably. "I am."
"How do you know the old woman you see there isn't staring back at a mirror on her own side, believing for all the world that you're the one copying her?"
Ari opened her mouth, but didn't know what to say to that. Of course it was impossible, but Hoodwink was right, she couldn't know for sure. There were few certainties in this world.
"That's what I thought," Hoodwink said. "Now look back to the mirror."
She did.
"Let your eyes lose focus. Stare past yourself, into the copy of the room. Gaze at your bookshelf, or out the window, at the street beyond. Let the walls of reality tumble down."
Ari gazed intently into the mirror. She focused on the window beside the bookshelf, and stared, unblinking, at the reflected street beyond. After some moments, she no longer felt like she gazed at a reflection at all, but the real world. It was only when her eyes drifted back to her own image that the illusion fell apart, and so she concentrated on the window and nothing else.
Her thoughts wandered as the moments dragged on, and again her eyes were drawn to her own reflection. She pretended her image was a part of her, and that together they formed the twin halves of some unified whole, a conscious entity more than the sum of its parts.
Gazing at her trembling hand, she realized she couldn't tell if the hand in the mirror originated the motion first, or her own hand. And when she blinked, was it the image that blinked first, a split-second before her? Or was it she?
Was it really possible that none of this was real? That the mirror, herself, the floor she stood on, the very air she breathed, was all illusion? Was she merely the reflection of some distant being, connected to this body by thin strings that existed in dimensions she couldn't see? The puppet of an invisible puppeteer?
She leaned forward, steadily increasing the pressure she applied to the mirror. Her image was definitely blinking its eyes first, now, and she was the one playing catch-up.
I'm an illusion! I've been tricked my entire life!
It felt like the hand in the mirror pushed back. She should have been shocked. Instead, she felt outraged.
Outraged at the lie.
Without warning the surface gave and swallowed her arm up to the elbow. Her reflection stared back in mock disbelief. She tried to pull the hand away, but it was stuck, just as if she'd pressed it into some thick sludge. There was no way to go but forward—into the mirror.
She glanced around frantically. "Hoodwink!"
But he was gone.
She knew she had to press on, but she couldn't bring herself to. Hadn't Hoodwink said that passing through the Forever Gate was the same as death? If that was true, wasn't she killing herself by doing this?
She tugged and tugged, but couldn't wrest her arm free. Exhaustion began to seep into her limbs.
Come back and be young again.
Her heart raced in her chest. Was she really going to go through with this?
Be young again!
Hoodwink wouldn't lie to her. Would he?
Be young.
She surrendered. She slid her arm further into the unseen sludge. The mirror ate her flesh greedily.
Young...
Her face was almost touching the surface now, and she was eye-to-eye with her reflection.
"Be young," she said.
Without warning an invisible hand grabbed her from the other side and yanked her through.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ari was enveloped in gluey sludge. Sap, mud, mucus, whatever it was, it hampered her every movement. She couldn't open her eyes. Her ears were plugged. She tried to hold her breathe against the sludge, but she realized her lungs were already full of the stuff. She was drowning in it.
The hand still grasped her firmly, and continued to pull, though the grip didn't feel solid, just as if it clutched her through some kind of membrane. Panicking, she tried to break free of its hold, but then the membrane gave. She slid through an ever-expanding orifice and smashed into a hard surface with a clang. She banged her knee pretty bad. The sludge piled down on top of her.
She hacked the mucilage from her lungs, feeling for all the world like she was dying. Dying might have been preferable to the burning pain she felt in her throat and lungs just then. She expected to black out from lack of air, but her vision remained clear, and her mind lucid through it all. Her fingers tightened reflexively, and wrapped around the cold bars beneath her. Some kind of grill, a part of her mind noted.
She wasn't sure how long she lay there, hacking away, but eventually the sludge seemed mostly expunged from her lungs, and she gave two long, painful inhales. After that, she was able to breathe evenly, with only a few coughs here and there. Her lungs still burned though, like she'd run a marathon.
She released the grill, wiped the guck from her eyes, and opened her lids after much blinking and shedding of tears.
"It's a bit upsetting at first isn't it? Shit from one world, to the next. But you'll get over it, you will." Hoodwink towered above her. The nobleman outfit was
gone, replaced by a tight blue uniform that sheathed him from neck to toe. The red boots had become black, the hair, ash gray. He held a strange metallic clamp in his right hand, one that had small, flashing blue and green lights on it. He followed her gaze to the clamp. "My own little access port. Wireless, mind. But you wouldn't know what that means yet, would you?" He dropped the clamp into the duffel bag beside him, then knelt and lifted her upper body from the floor. "Welcome to the Outside, my daughter." His face looked older than before. About the same as she remembered it ten years ago. His eyes crinkled as he grinned.
"I'm too old for this." Ari slurred the words, just as if she'd never used her tongue her entire life.
"Are you really?" Hoodwink glanced down at her naked body.
Ari followed his gaze. She couldn't remember ever looking so gaunt. Her arms and legs were all elbows and knees. She ran two fingers along her side. Every rib protruded. Her breasts were deflated pockets. Her hands were all knuckles and bones. But the wrinkles were gone from her hands, that was true. As were the liver spots.
She shook her head. "Not old then. But definitely not beautiful. And why do I talk like thith?" Her voice repulsed her.
Hoodwink chuckled. "We'll fatten you up, don't worry. Get you nice and plump. And you'll be talking like your old self in no time."
She realized something else, and slumped.
Hoodwink raised his eyebrows, and he seemed concerned. "What's wrong?"
"I guess I didn't really believe it. I didn't really understand. The spark." She looked up at him. "The spark's gone. Ripped away."
"Part of the price." Hoodwink said. "Vitra never existed in the first place. People never evolved electrical powers. It's only part of the program, on the Inside. We'll set you up real good when we send you back though. Promise." His eyes twinkled, but she didn't feel all that reassured. She couldn't, not after what had become of her body.
He lowered her to the floor and dug into that duffel bag of his. He pulled out a pair of scissors.
"You're breathing on your own now, so we can snip this." He lifted the scissors to her belly. "Won't hurt a bit."
"What—" She looked down, and watched as he cut away the umbilical cord that jutted from her belly. He was right, she felt nothing. When he was done, he expertly knotted the severed end. It only hurt when he bent the cord a little too far, and she felt the pain deep in her belly. But she kept a straight face. She'd known worse pain.
"You've done this before," Ari said. "Besides the fact I have an umbilical cord in my stomach!" She flexed her lips—the corners of her mouth were getting sore from talking.
Hoodwink patted her head fatherly-like, then he wiped the scissors on his knee and returned them to the duffel bag. "Think of this as your real birth. From the intestines of the old world to the—"
"Yes Hoodwink, I get the picture." She sat up on those bony elbows, and glanced at the deflated pod she'd emerged from. There were other pods beside it, cylindrical, with human shapes inside them. Slime still dripped from her own pod, and she followed the guck downward with her eyes, and watched the translucent, glistening substance ooze past the gaps in the floor. She squinted, looking beyond the grill that was the floor, and she saw another corridor, just like this one, filled with similar pods. And below that corridor, another one.
"Don't look too long." Hoodwink said. "It's a bit like gazing upon a mirror in a mirror."
"You have a thing for mirrors don't you?" Ari said distractedly. "Where are we?"
"A ship of some kind, far as I can tell."
"A ship." She tried to stand, but couldn't. Her legs were a withered mess. And she thought being old was bad.
"Easy now. You've no muscle to stand. You'll find your arms are a little stronger than your legs, since they move from time to time in the pod-dream. The hands clench and unclench, and whatnot. But your legs, well, other than the occasional kick, you haven't used them your entire life."
Hoodwink wiped the sludge from her body with a towel, then grabbed a blue uniform from the duffel bag and tossed it to her. "Put this on."
The full body suit he gave her seemed much the same as his, with a single zipper running along the back from nape to bum. When it became clear that she wouldn't be able to slide into the thing on her own, not while sitting on the floor, Hoodwink bounded to her side. She felt no chagrin at being naked in front of her father. It may as well have been Nurse Richard helping her.
Hoodwink sealed the zipper, and as the suit closed, the remnants of her umbilical cord folded painfully against her stomach. She bit her lip, taking the pain. Hoodwink slid two black boots onto her feet, then retrieved a set of long metallic braces from his duffel bag. "I remember a time not so long ago when you were the one handing me toys from a duffel bag. Here." He clamped the braces around each of her legs. "These will help until you have the strength to walk on your own."
She tried standing again. The braces immediately came to life and she stood in a whir of gyrating parts. She almost lost her balance when she was fully upright, and she had to grab onto Hoodwink for a moment.
"That's the way," he said. "That's the way."
When she released him and stood on her own, Hoodwink positively beamed. He looked her up and down. "Looking quite dapper, you are! My shit and image."
She frowned. "Dapper's what you call men. And don't you mean spit and image?"
"That's right! Been hanging around blasted juveniles too long." His face seemed a little flushed, as if he were embarrassed, and he masked it by quickly glancing both ways down the corridor. "Come on then. We don't have all that much time. A sentry golem will loop by here soon. I was lucky it didn't get me while I was in with you. They come and pick up the dead, or those who wake-up too early. Some of them make a sport of it, and this is their hunting ground."
"On this so-called ship," Ari said.
He nodded absently, scooped the duffel bag over one shoulder, and let her hook a hand around his neck. He slid the other hand around her waist. She had so many questions, but didn't know what to ask first. Didn't know if she even wanted to ask them.
So she let him lead the way in silence. Her weak legs obeyed, the tiny parts in the braces whirring away. Her knee still throbbed from the impact with the floor, but it was already getting better. If she had been in that old body of hers, the pain would have lasted for days.
Glowing white slabs were set in the ceiling, and illuminated walls lined with more of the translucent pods. She couldn't get over the fact that there were human shapes inside them, floating in the same sludge that had birthed her.
"There's so many of them," she said. "They're all from our city?"
"Was wondering when you'd ask about them," Hoodwink said. "They're from all the cities of humanity. Or those on the Inside, anyway."
"How many people?"
"I don't know," Hoodwink said. "Thousands. Tens of thousands. This place is one giant inn, except the travelers don't know they've checked-in, and they never wake up."
Just then a siren wailed to life. The white slabs in the ceiling dimmed, and a rotating beacon she hadn't noticed before began cutting a swathe of red along the corridor.
"Pick it up, Ari," Hoodwink said above the siren.
She felt her heart thump in her breast. "Why? What is it?"
"An attack." He tightened his grip on her waist, and doubled the pace. "Not safe in the halls during an attack!"
An incredible boom resounded and the corridor shook.
"What was that?" she said.
"That's the attack." Hoodwink dragged her along even faster. "It's been happening since I came to this place. The halls shake, and sometimes whole sections catch fire, killing everyone. And then the attack stops, just like that."
"Entire sections catch fire?" She glanced at Hoodwink. "What about the pods?"
"Fried."
Well, that explained why some people on the Inside suddenly dropped dead where they stood—The Drop.
Hoodwink was pulling a little too hard now, and h
is wrist dug into her side. "Let go let go." She retracted the arm she'd slung over his neck and wiggled out from her father's grip. "I can walk on my own."
"Okay, but keep up."
Another boom. The floor shook. "Who are the attackers?" she said, joining his side. She was panting. The mechanical braces helped, true, but her body was still weak.
"The attackers?" Hoodwink spread his arms to steady himself against the latest tremor, and he almost fell into her. "I have an idea. But I can't tell you. Not yet. Your mind isn't ready."
She let him leave it at that. The two continued onward. Each segment of hall contained its own siren, and its own beacon, so that Ari and her father were constantly bombarded by wails and spinning red lights, in addition to those unending booms.
"Dad," she said, a thought coming to her. "How long have you been here?"
He pursed his lips, not slowing the pace. "Let's see. About ten months, I think."
"What? But you were gone ten years."
He smiled gently. "I know, Ari. Time passes faster on the Inside. It always does. At least for that level of the mind."
"That level of the mind?" She shook her head. "You make it sound like there's more than one Inside."
Hoodwink looked at her, and he seemed like he was about to tell her something, but a distant rumble shook the chamber, and he changed his mind.
"Is this the real world or not?" she said.
Hoodwink glanced over his shoulder. "Now's not the time, Ari." His voice had a strange tightness to it. "We got one on our tail. Take a look, and meet the gols of the Outside."
She glanced back. At the far end of the corridor she saw a shadowy, boxlike figure. It nearly filled the entire dimensions of the hallway, but in the dim light she couldn't tell exactly what it was.
And then one of the rotating alarm beacons shined over the figure.
She gasped.
It was some kind of mechanical monster.
A steel barrel embossed with rectangles and symbols served as its torso. It rolled on treads. It had pincers for arms. She couldn't make out the face from here, but a devious red light shone where the forehead should've been.