by Isaac Hooke
Die on the Inside as a gol, and you die for real.
She deserved death for what she'd done. She'd allowed Hoodwink to die. Led Marks to his doom.
And now Tanner was dead, because of her.
Tanner.
Dying was the only way to end this grief. Dying was the only way to save herself.
The only way to reach Hoodwink.
Her father hadn't sold her to Jeremy. She knew it in her heart. But even if he had, it didn't matter. Not anymore.
She'd been given a second chance at life. Youth. But it was past her time. Well past her time.
"Across the Forever Gate," she said. "To the morning of the new world. I'm coming to your utopia, Hoodwink."
She grabbed the base of the sword with both hands.
"This isn't the way," Hoodwink said.
She stiffened, and glanced over her shoulder. "Hoodwink?"
But no one was there. The storm played tricks with her mind.
She closed her eyes and thrust her body forward.
But an arm wrapped around her torso, pulling her back, denying her even this release.
"What?" she said. "Can't you leave me alone? Can't you let me do this last thing in peace? Let me choose my own exit to the world?"
She turned around, ready to accept whatever death the giant Direwalker decided to inflict on her.
But Tanner stood there. Tanner, his body intact, with no sign of the terrible injury. Cora's robes were gone, and he was dressed in a heavy cloak more suitable to the storm.
"I watched you die!" Ari said. Joy competed with disbelief inside her. She didn't know if she should hug him or stab him.
Tanner shook his head and spoke above the storm. "The blow didn't finish me. I lay there, dying, the blood flowing from my body. Just flowing. But I'd stashed a handmirror in my outfit while pretending to be Cora. I used it to disbelieve reality before I died. Kind of a record for me. Five minutes." He smiled grimly. "Turns out the threat of impending death is a wonderful goad."
"Impossible. Five minutes? You would have bled out in under thirty seconds. You should be dead." She scooped up her sword and stood in one smooth motion. She wedged her forearm behind his head and pressed the blade to his throat. "Who are you? And why do you wear the Poultice?"
"Ari." The man was breathing hard, now. "It's me. It's really me. Listen, if I was in a human body, you're right, I would've been dead. But I used a gol trick to cramp my arteries. Stanched the blood flow. Sure, some blood still got through, but it gave me enough time to escape. Ari, you have to believe me. Ari. Teach."
Though he'd used his private nickname for her, she still wasn't entirely convinced. "I thought you needed to target a tracker when you inject on the Inside, otherwise you appear somewhere random."
"You carry a tracker on your person."
That was true. She studied Tanner uncertainly for a few long moments, and then she released him with a shove. "If you're lying to me..." She raised the weapon dangerously.
"I'm not," Tanner said. He seemed frank, she had to admit.
"A gol trick huh?" She glanced down at the tourniquet she'd tied over her own wound. Just how many gol tricks were there that she didn't know about?
She worried that he would give her hell for what she'd almost done in her grief just now, even though she truly deserved whatever tongue-lashing he might give. Instead he said, "I brought presents."
Tanner held up a sword belt.
She caught the new belt, and cast aside her existing blade. She touched the hilt. Vitra flowed within her. Life.
She drew the blade.
A fire sword. The surface gleamed eagerly.
"Maybe you really are Tanner." Either that, or he was the person who'd stolen the fire blades in the first place.
She sheathed the sword in the scabbard she already wore.
Tanner's gaze latched onto something behind her, and his eyes went wide. "Run. Run!"
Ari looked.
Within the whirling snow a shadowy form loomed.
Three scimitars extended in deadly greeting.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Tanner released a covering wall of flame, and Ari scooped up the Box.
"Come on!" She sprinted through the storm across the fresh layer of snow that covered everything. When she glanced back, she could make out Tanner just behind her. And almost lost in the white-out beyond him, the Direwalker. Brute hadn't assumed its centipedal form. The snow must be too deep for that.
She followed the street, those portions of it she could discern anyway, and quickly became lost. Then she remembered she could overlay the city map in her head. She did so, and when she saw where she was, she had an idea.
On a whim she vaulted onto a barrel beside one of the small houses and scaled the coarse stalagmite of frozen shit that had accumulated from years of chamber pot dumping. She swung herself onto the roof with one hand. The roof was slanted slightly, and the accumulated snow broke off and slid away. Tanner came up beside her.
The flimsy rooftop timbers creaked.
"What are we doing up here?" Tanner said above the storm. "The roofs won't hold us."
"They'll have to."
Brute bounded onto the rooftop beside them. Ari felt the whole thing shake.
She ran, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, clumps of snow sliding down. Some roofs were dual-sloped, others single-sloped, but either way it was a struggle to keep balanced. She used the fire sword to clear a path when necessary, because snow had apparently accumulated for years on some of these roofs—it was a wonder the timbers hadn't collapsed from the weight.
Using the city map, she made her way back toward the richer quarter. The roofs became progressively higher, and the distance between houses widened. The leaps were becoming harder.
A gust of snow momentarily cleared the air beside her. She glanced to the right. The Forever Gate climbed into the sky, as expected.
What's impossible, is possible, she remembered telling Hoodwink ten years ago. Ascend the impossible.
She reached the house she sought.
"This way," she told Tanner over her shoulder. "To the Forever Gate!"
She slid down the sloping roof to the eave, and a clump of snow came with her. She balanced there while the snow fell over, and then she ran along the rooftop's edge. She spotted the portcullis that sealed the alleyway below. Without the key, that tall gate was virtually unscalable, especially when time was of the essence—hence the need for the rooftop route. Though she supposed the fire sword might have been able to carve a path through it anyway.
Ahead in the white-out, she caught glimpses of a rope hanging down from the heavens.
The rope that climbed the Forever Gate.
It was a bit of a leap from here.
But she could make it.
She sheathed the sword, braced the Box between her elbow and ribs, and when she reached the corner of the rooftop she jumped—
She hit the Forever Gate—
Bounced off—
Wrapped her numb fingers around the rope—
She came to a halt eight paces above the ground, and nearly dropped the Box.
The rope shook as Tanner hit the wall and latched on just above her.
"Look out!" Ari said.
Brute leaped from the nearby roof. The Direwalker was aimed straight at Tanner. Ari loosened her grip and slid down a pace. Tanner did the same.
Brute collided with the Forever Gate where Tanner had been, and bounced from the rock. Those four hands fumbled for the rope, but Brute's momentum had already carried the gol too far from the Gate. Flailing hands grabbed at Ari's back as the four-armed Direwalker plunged past.
The snow puffed where Brute struck the ground.
"Climb!" Ari clamped one of the side handles of the Box between her teeth, and scaled the rope with both hands, not the easiest task given how numb her fingers were. She hauled herself near Tanner's boots, and was ready to climb over him if need-be. But he got the message and moved.
Ari felt the rope stiffen as Brute joined them below.
"I'm not sure this is such a good idea," Tanner said.
"Move!" she said through clamped jaws. Her voice was muffled.
And so she was finally scaling the Forever Gate, taking the same path of doom she had sent her father on those many years before.
She wasn't sure how long she climbed. Three minutes. Five. All she knew for long moments were the exertions of her muscles, and the cold wind whipping at her exposed flesh. Jeremy's "suit-and-tie" was hardly an outfit appropriate for such a climb. She couldn't even feel her fingers anymore, and sometimes had to look to make sure she was reaching for the rope and not empty air. Her jaw was quickly becoming sore from gripping the Box handle. She ignored the pain and cold with the gol mindtrick, but her body would eventually give out. It was inevitable. Even gols were subject to the laws of the Inside. Except Brute.
The snowstorm lessened the higher she went, and she briefly wondered what excuse Tanner would give for that. The system saves computational power by limiting the storm to the innermost regions near the ground.
When she'd climbed a sufficient height, she paused, and drew the fire sword from her belt. Brute was about eight paces below her. She meant to cut the rope beneath her and send Brute plummeting to its death, however a gust of wind assailed her at that moment, and her unbalanced body hurled into the Forever Gate. When she collided with the hard stone, the sword flew from her numb fingers.
She watched, mesmerized, as the sword plunged. The blade sparked every time it bounced from the Gate until it was lost to the storm.
Brute would have survived the fall anyway. And the Direwalker probably would have scaled the wall regardless of whether there was a rope or not. But at least its fall would have bought them time. Why did the wind have to gust right when she meant to cut the rope? Well, nothing she could do about it now. Tanner still had his sword, at least. Speaking of Tanner, he'd continued to climb, probably assuming that she was right behind him. She'd have to hurry to catch up.
She did that now, climbing for all she was worth. The gap slowly closed between her and Tanner. He must have glanced down, because all at once she caught up, and he was waiting for her.
When she reached him, she transferred the Box from her mouth to one hand, giving her teeth a break. Her jaw felt strangely light with the weight gone.
"You okay?" Tanner said.
She glanced down.
She couldn't see the city through the storm, but the rock wall was visible enough. Brute climbed relentlessly, a snarl on its face. Roughly five paces separated her from the thing. She thought to dangle the Box out to the side, and threaten to destroy the Control Room, just as she'd threatened to do with the Revision Box once before. But she could tell that the four-armed Direwalker didn't care about the Box. No, it wanted her. Its one good eye stared at Ari with hatred. Its other was an empty socket of gore and blood.
"Tanner!" she said.
He hadn't moved. "I'm here, Ari. What is it?"
"Take it!" She passed the Box upward. He grabbed the side handle, and when she was certain he had a decent hold, she let go. "I'm going to put on the tracker!"
Tanner peered past her. "Ari hurry!"
She reached into her blazer, and her hand closed around the small, spherical shape. She attached the cold metal to the bottom of the Box and pressed a button. A blue light on the tracker began flashing. Now Tanner would be able to move the Control Room from the Outside.
"Give me your sword," she said. There was one last chance.
But she'd waited too long.
"Move!" Tanner said.
A vise clamped around her ankle and Ari felt her body stretch. She nearly lost her hold on the rope.
Brute had grabbed her leg of course. She tried to shake the Direwalker off, tried to kick it in the head. Useless. Its second hand reached up, and latched onto the upper half of her calf.
A stream of flame tore past from above. It was a little too close to her body and she felt her skin blister. Brute took most of the flames in the face, but the fire caused the Direwalker no injury whatsoever.
Brute's third claw fastened onto her leg, higher up. And finally the fourth pierced her. The Direwalker now fully supported itself with her body, and its entire weight dragged on her. Blood trickled down her skin in a perpetual stream. She thought she understood what it felt like to be an animal hung from the butcher's hooks.
One of us has to make it.
"Ari." Tanner's voice sounded muffled.
She looked up at him. He gripped the Box by the handle, between his teeth. He held the rope in one hand, the fire sword in the other. She thought she heard him sob.
It was past her time. Well past her time.
"It's all right," she said. "I'm free now."
A claw dug into her thigh. Then her belly. Her chest. Her upper back.
The Direwalker pulled itself up to eye level. That gory socket stared right into her face.
She let go of the rope.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Tanner watched Ari and the Direwalker plunge to their deaths.
The wind buffeted him, striving to take him from the wall. But he watched.
Ari and the Direwalker rebounded from the wall several times as they fell, and finally vanished in the snowstorm.
Tanner sheathed the fire sword. One of the side handles of the cursed Box was in his mouth, and he bit down harder on it. He was so angry at himself, and at her, that he just kept biting down. Soon all his gol-strength was focused on that task. One of the teeth near the back of his mouth couldn't take the pressure and exploded. He didn't care. He bit down. Bit down. Bit down.
Blood trickled over his chin.
He relented at last, easing the pressure. Though the Box was designed to handle more abuse than any old chest, he'd break the handle if he wasn't careful.
Tanner climbed through the tears, mechanically, not really aware of his body. The snow gusted around him in freezing gusts. His skin tightened, and icicles formed along his brows, his mustache, his hairline, and his eyes. Who would have thought a body could produce so many icicles?
He climbed.
Though he didn't want to.
No. He had to.
Or else her death was for nothing.
Maybe she'd disbelieved reality before she struck the ground. It was a small hope, but he clung to it nonetheless, like a desperate child who clung to his favorite toy while starving to death.
Twenty minutes passed.
He made it to the point where the second rope overlapped the first, and, twining his arm around the first rope so that he wouldn't fall, he slid the Box between that arm and his chest, holding it there. With his free hand, he knotted the end of the second rope to the handle of the Box. It wasn't easy, tying multiple knots with one hand, but he managed.
He pulled himself up, and swung his legs onto the Box, and sat there a quarter of a mile above the city. He moved cautiously, worried that the handle might break off under his weight at any time, or that the knot would unravel. The city was veiled beneath the storm below.
With his sword he cut the first rope in case Brute was on its way up again. He watched the rope descend in a coil like a falling viper.
He scabbarded the blade and retrieved the handmirror from his cloak. Then he began the process of disbelieving reality. It was difficult, pretending that the reflection was real and that he was the illusion. Difficult, because he kept seeing Ari fall to her death.
But the world blinked early.
***
Tanner awoke in the Outside. Beside him, Ari was a dead weight in his arms. He shook her, called her name, but she didn't move. She hadn't disbelieved reality after all. Of course she hadn't. There wasn't enough time. Her face was pale. Her lips blue.
She would never wake up.
There was only about an hour of oxygen left anyway, so maybe it was for the best.
Movement drew his attention across the room, and he realized why he'd been pu
lled out early.
The motion detectors had triggered.
Three iron golems closed.
PART 4
THEY HAVE WAKENED DEATH
CHAPTER ONE
Tanner sat on the floor against a terminal, in the real world with its steel walls and its flickering lights and its unbreathable atmosphere. His spacesuit felt too tight, a body-wide noose, constricting his every movement and his very breathing. The Ganymede landscape mocked him beyond the shattered window, its icy surface pocked, lifeless, uncaring.
In the spacesuit beside him lay Ari. Her eyes were closed. Her lips were blue, her face ashen.
Dead.
Three iron golems—machines—bore down on him. They looked like steel barrels on treads, with wiry arms capped by pincers, heads topped by sword hilts, and three glass disks gleaming in place of eyes.
If Tanner wanted to live—and he did—he had to act right now, because those machines would reach him in seconds.
He scrambled to his feet and disconnected the wireless access port—his umbilical to the Inside—from the suit and tucked it away in his utility belt. On the floor beside him lay an iron desk leg, ready to be used as a weapon. He snatched the leg up and turned toward the closest machine—
A pincer hit him in the chest.
Tanner slammed into the terminal. Gasping in pain, he rolled away from another blow, and positioned the wide desk between himself and his attacker. The machine didn't pursue.
Instead, it was looking down at Ari.
The other machines were closing. With difficulty Tanner hauled himself, heavy suit and all, onto the desk. A good position to strike down at the machines.
The first machine hoisted Ari up by the neck.
"You leave her alone!" Tanner swung the iron leg.
The machine's head swiveled up. The movement saved its vision, because the brunt of Tanner's blow hit the cross-guard of the head. One of the glass disks still shattered though. Not good enough—you had to smash all three disks to disable the machines.