The Forever Gate Compendium Edition

by Isaac Hooke

  Hoodwink remained completely calm. He'd lived through more than a few life and death situations in his time. He'd almost bled to death when he escaped the courthouse. He'd climbed the Forever Gate. He was sucked out into space. A few men pointing bits of steel at his heart didn't do much for him these days. Still, dying would set him back all the way Topside again. And there was always the chance that death there would be permanent.

  "Whose idea was it to leave the swords behind again?" Hoodwink said to Tanner.

  "May have been mine," Tanner admitted.

  "Do you recognize any of them?"

  "Not a man."

  "Do ye notice this one's got the pike aimed at me?" Hoodwink said. "Gives me a swell of pride, it does."

  "Obviously the man has poor taste," Tanner said.

  Hoodwink chuckled. "On the contrary. He knows I'm the more valuable target."

  Tanner pointed through the bars. "Well, take a look at the other men. I think I have more pikes aimed at me in total."

  "Well, you're forgetting to include the bows." Hoodwink glanced up. Those bowmen who weren't aiming at him did so now. "See? Altogether I've got the most bows and pikes aimed at me. Count 'em."

  "Shut up, gols!" the sentry said. "And be off! Your kind isn't welcome here."

  Hoodwink paid the sentry no heed. "What do you think, Tanner? Should we teach these krubs a lesson?"

  "Since when did you start calling humans krubs?" Tanner said. "It's bad form, Hood. Bad form."

  "What? We're gols. And that's what gols do."

  The sentry jabbed the tip of the pike through the bars. "I said—"

  Hoodwink snatched the blade in the blink of an eye and tugged the sentry into the portcullis. He shoved one arm through the portcullis and around the man's head, then he squeezed the man's face between two of the bars.

  The other pikemen sprung into action, and leveled their pikes at Hoodwink.

  "I'm definitely winning now, Tanner," Hoodwink said triumphantly. "Every single pike is on me!"

  Tanner hadn't moved. He glanced upward, at the bowmen. "You're courting death here, Hood. All it takes is one lucky shot..."

  Hoodwink raised his voice. "Oh, there won't be any lucky shots, not from this sorry lot! Because they know that with just a little more pressure, their friend here will have a slight problem with his head. As in—it won't be there anymore." He'd never harm the sentry of course. But he had to sound convincing. You couldn't show weakness in front of men like these.

  One of the pikemen, a man with an angry scar above his brow, jabbed the point of his weapon into Hoodwink's upper arm. The blade didn't pierce, but it hurt. "Get you back to the gutter, scum!" Angry-Scar said. "You think we care about him?"

  The trapped sentry's face had gone bright red, pressed as it was between the two bars, and Hoodwink eased off a bit, letting the man breath. You had to be careful when you were a gol. Your strength could easily get you in trouble—all too easy to squeeze a man's windpipe shut, or burst his head against a portcullis.

  "Well," Tanner said. "It would seem we have ourselves a bit of a problem."

  "Yes," Hoodwink said. "I really have to pee."

  CHAPTER NINE

  "I'm Hoodwink Cooper, I am," he said, raising his voice. "And I'm here to meet Jacob of the New Users."

  None of the pikemen responded. Well, Angry-Scar growled, but that didn't count.

  "Hmm." Hoodwink turned to Tanner. "You think they heard me?"

  Tanner didn't seem too happy. "They heard you."

  "Why do you think they're not hopping to let us through, then? Mentioning the word User used to open so many doors in the past." Hoodwink glanced at the trapped sentry. He eased off a bit more—the man was looking a little sick—but he didn't release him. Hoodwink wasn't sure if Angry-Scar was bluffing when he said no one cared about the man. "I don't suppose the password would help?"

  Tanner shrugged. "It's worth a try." He turned to Angry-Scar. "The password is Nefarious Malarkey, and the call phrase is, Ever catch a raven in the dark?"

  "That were yesterday's!" Angry-Scar said.

  Hoodwink pursed his lips. "What's your name man?"

  "Man?" Angry-Scar said. "You're calling me man, now? What happened to krub?" He looked to his comrades-in-arms. "The gol's calling me man!"

  Some among the others chortled.

  Hoodwink decided this wasn't going to work, and that this new breed of thugs-turned-pikemen really didn't care a whit for each other. So much for honor among thieves.

  He released the trapped sentry. The man immediately fell back onto his arse, and shook his head, wheezing, unused to the sudden flow of blood in his face again.

  "Let's go, Tanner. We'll go back Outside and do what you suggested earlier."

  "Not so fast." Angry-Scar slid his pike toward Hoodwink's belly. "No one treats my friend Pratus here like that. You owe me a blood debt now, gol. And I intend to see you pay it."

  Hoodwink was about to repeat his pike-snatching and head-crushing maneuver when a voice stopped him.

  "What's going on here?"

  A newcomer appeared, standing in the street behind the pikemen. The others immediately gave him room. He looked vaguely familiar, but Hoodwink couldn't place him. He was a tall man, well into his middle years, with a bald head and a face lined by years of hard living. He wore a long-hilted sword at his waist, and two silver skulls were pinned to the high collar of his sealskin jacket. The bronze bitch seemed a little loose on his neck, as if it didn't really quite fit there. Maybe he'd recently lost a lot of weight and hadn't gotten the bitch resized.

  The newcomer seemed to recognize Hoodwink though, because his face lit up and he strode forward eagerly.

  "Well if it ain't Hoodwink Cooper," the newcomer said. "Your ugly face is the last thing I expected to see causing trouble round here. You're looking better than ever I have to say. Haven't aged a day, by my reckoning."

  "He's a gol," Angry-Scar said.

  "Why, he certainly is," the newcomer said. "Looks a bit like the Calico though, don't he?" The newcomer swatted Angry-Scar's pike away from Hoodwink's belly. "Get that out of here! And open the gate for our good guest." When none of the pikemen responded, he rounded on them. "I said—"

  The pikemen jumped into action.

  A winch turned somewhere inside the guard room, and the portcullis raised with a CLANK-A-CLANK.

  When the gate was up, the newcomer came forward, arms wide as if to embrace him.

  Hoodwink smiled knowingly at Tanner. "See my friend, my name opens a few doors now and again." He spread his own arms wide to receive the newcomer.

  At the last moment the newcomer swiveled to the side, came round behind Hoodwink, and hit him a good one in the back of the head.

  Hoodwink staggered forward a pace.

  "That's for abandoning the Users all those years ago," the newcomer said.

  Tanner made to intervene, but Hoodwink raised a warning hand.

  Another blow caught him in the ribs, and Hoodwink stumbled to his knees.

  "And that's for abandoning Ari."

  Hoodwink could hardly see for all the stars. Those blows seriously stung. It was a good thing he was a gol, able to ignore physical pain. But the mental pain was worse. Abandoning Ari.

  The newcomer came back around to the front again, and waited.

  Hoodwink staggered to his feet, rubbing his head, holding his ribs.

  "Still," the newcomer said. "You came back for Ari, eventually. That has to be worth something. And I reckon it's good to see you, in its own way. Well, get on with it then—don't just stand there, come inside. The Den awaits!"

  Hoodwink and Tanner ducked beneath the underside of the portcullis. The pikemen gave them a wide berth, not sure if they were supposed to scowl or grin, and most decided just to hold up their weapons all wary-like.

  "When are you going to tell me who you really are?" Hoodwink said as the newcomer led them into the street beyond.

  "You haven't figured it out yet?" The man
grinned. His mouth was as toothless as a street brawler's. Not a pretty sight. "You, the master of the hoodwink? It's me. Al. Alan Dooran? I rescued you from that courthouse ten years ago. Put the healing shard on your leg. Introduced you to the Users."

  Hoodwink stumbled a few steps, and had to stop. "Al? Al Dooran? The Al Dooran I knew was a man in his eighties!" Al Dooran had served under the previous Leader. "You should be dead!"

  "Ain't that the truth!" Al said. "But I'm alive! You see, when it became clear the gols would hunt the previous Users down to the last man, I went into hiding. Escaped the Great Purge. I came to this place and hid away from the gols, and from the world itself. I fit right in, truth be told. Not so strange, given my past."

  "But you're not old anymore!"

  "Well. I ain't exactly young. More the right age, I would say."

  Hoodwink still couldn't fathom it. "How did you do it?"

  "How do you think? I accepted the collar. Gave up vitra. It was something I was thinking about doing anyway. I didn't want to go the route of Leader and the others. Dying of old age at thirty-five years old didn't quite seem right in my books. But you know, it was the strangest thing—when I gave up vitra I never expected the ravages of age to reverse. No one did. Ain't any other User ever done it, far as I know. Give up vitra, go back to being collared, unthinkable! But I did it. In a year, I looked sixty-five. Another year, fifty-five. And on it went. Of course, my hair didn't come back. Nor my teeth. And my skin is still fairly wrinkly. But at least I'm my actual age now. My actual age! It's an amazing feeling. Course, I'd hoped to get a bit younger, but that just wasn't in the cards."

  "I actually believe you," Hoodwink said. "Mostly because you still talk like an old man," he added wryly. He glanced at Tanner. "What do you think?"

  Tanner nodded. "It makes sense, sort of. Take away the collar, and the simulation reverts the avatar to its previous state, resetting the age flag. Takes a few years to filter through, but eventually his avatar resets itself."

  Al furrowed his brow. "What the hell are you two babbling about? My avatar. The age flag. The only flag around here is drooping at the top of the Warehouse. The official flag of the Den." Al pointed.

  Hoodwink followed his gaze to a distant square roof that pushed above the others. A black flag replete with a skull and crossbones billowed at the top.

  "Well that's new," Hoodwink said. "Cute."

  Other than the flag, the Black Den was just as he remembered. It wasn't too different than a typical street in Luckdown District, the snowpacked way rather narrow, the shoddy, shack-like homes crammed too close together and barely holding back the snow. He'd come here a lot in his youth, putting his name to good use, hoodwinking the other lowbrows out of their illicitly-earned coins. He'd been a gambler, a thug, a cheat, and a womanizer, all at once and in no particular order. He hadn't had many redeeming qualities back then. Though he liked to think that he'd made up for it in later years.

  There were a lot of hard men here. Men with scarred faces, scarred arms, scarred knuckles. Men with pieces missing from their noses, men with chunks gone from their ears. Eye-patched men, cleft-lipped men, arm-stumped men. The Denizens he'd seen outside in Happy-Tot square were the more presentable sorts, it would seem. It was no surprise that the Thief's Kitchen, the Murderer's Guild, and every shady operation in the city had at least one base of operations here.

  Hoodwink noticed that though these men were hard, they all gave way to Al just the same, sometimes even bowing slightly. But after the former User had passed, and the men knew Al wasn't watching, they usually gave Hoodwink and Tanner dark stares. Hoodwink tried not to look anyone in the eye for too long—he'd had enough quarreling for the morning.

  "Looks like you've done well for yourself here," Hoodwink said, trying to distract himself with small talk.

  "I have at that," Al said. "I'm Calico Cap's lieutenant."

  "Calico Cap?"

  Al grinned widely. "Boss of the Black Faction."

  "Oh."

  "You'll like him. Looks like you." Al winked. "But tell me, what's life like beyond the Forever Gate? When I seen Ari a few days ago, she told me a lot of things, how you'd come back and taken her across the Gate and all, but she ain't never told me what was there."

  "Just another world," Hoodwink said. "Though it's not much different from this one, not really. Instead of ice there's metal. Instead of gols there's golems. And that world is under attack, just like this one. Damn depressing, it is. But I tell you, I mean to see that attack ended, one way or another."

  Al studied him through narrowed eyes. As though he didn't believe him. As though perhaps he thought him a madman. "I see. First time I've heard that this world is under attack, but if you say so." Al grinned suddenly. "So how is our mutual ravishing acquaintance? How is Ari?"

  Hoodwink stopped in mid-stride.

  "What's wrong?" Al's face fell. "Has something happened?"

  "No, she's fine," Hoodwink said. "Just busy. Lead on."

  Al watched him suspiciously for a moment, but then he moved on, all grins again.

  Hoodwink let Al walk ahead a few paces, and then he lowered his voice for Tanner alone. "Best to keep her death to ourselves for now." Ari was still officially the Leader of the New Users. Last thing they needed was some power struggle among its members.

  "Agreed," Tanner said.

  When Hoodwink caught up with Al again, he asked the man where he was taking them.

  Al stopped and scratched his forehead. "The Warehouse. I assumed you wanted to meet Jacob, and the New Users? Unless you're here to see the Calico instead?"

  Hoodwink pursed his lips. It might prove useful to meet the boss of the Faction at some point. But not yet. "No. Jacob it is, and the New Users Ari planted here."

  "Planted?" Al frowned. "Hardly planted. Planted implies something sly, secretive. Everyone knows about the New Users we're harboring. So, Jacob it is. And you might just meet Calico Cap too. Jacob was holed up with him for most of the morning."

  "Holed up? Why?"

  Al spread his arms wide. "A new toy arrived this morning."

  CHAPTER TEN

  Hoodwink stood in a room of iron desks and paneled terminals that was almost a mirror image of Zeta Station on the Outside, except in place of a window three large pieces of glass dominated the front of the room. The leftmost display danced with numbers and symbols. The middle had a map of the earth, with curves drawn between the cities. The rightmost had what Tanner called an 'exponential' curve.

  As for the terminals, there were about twenty-five in total, though only three old men filled the seats. The men were New Users, uncollared, and they wore simple gray tops and trousers, their black coats abandoned in bundles on the chairs beside them.

  "Well you certainly set up the Control Room right quick," Hoodwink said.

  "We did," the New User named Jacob said. "Opened the Box the moment it arrived. We've no idea how everything works though. Not yet."

  Dressed like a pauper, all in rags, Jacob was a stooped old man with thin, gray hair. His ears were shrunken like scraps of old leather left too long in the sun, and his eyes were deep-set, peering as if from long tunnels. Though ancient, those eyes pierced like nails, and when Jacob looked at him, Hoodwink felt like everything inside him was stripped bare for the old man to see. Hoodwink didn't like men with eyes like that. Everything about him, from the outfit to the eyes, reminded Hoodwink of the previous Leader who'd ruled the Users ten years ago. He wouldn't have been surprised to learn they were related.

  "Tanner?" Hoodwink regarded his companion.

  "The interface is similar to the terminals of the Outside," Tanner said. He'd been hunched over one of the stations since he got here. "And, as I suspected, we're not sandboxed. I should be able to find the children from here and send them a message."

  "Good. Can we monitor the gols?"

  "Looks like it."

  "Then tell me where Brute is when you figure everything out."

  "Sure thing."
r />   "And teach these New User grunts a few tricks while you're at it, would you?"

  "Yup."

  "And see if you can find out how many of those ravens are circling overhead."

  "Okay."

  "And—"

  "Hood!" Tanner raised his voice in obvious irritation, but he seemed to quickly rein himself in, because his next words were calmer. "Hood. I got this. I know what to do. Just give me room to work."

  Hoodwink took a breath. "All right. Work then. No more micromanaging from me."

  "You still remember that word?" Tanner grinned at him. He'd taught Hoodwink the meaning of 'micromanaging' months ago, when Hoodwink had been guilty of doing that very thing.

  Hoodwink returned the smile politely, and then strode to the aisle. He walked to the front of the room and studied the glass display with the map.

  "Big world, isn't it?" Jacob said, joining him.

  "It is." Too bad it's all fake.

  "I sometimes wonder what it would be like to go Outside. Beyond the Forever Gate. I want to see that ship, and the vast moon that Ari spoke so fondly of."

  Hoodwink thought these surprising words for a man of the Inside.

  The shock must have been evident on Hoodwink's face, because Jacob added, "Oh yes, Ari told me all about your Outside. She and Tanner confided in me, you see."

  Hoodwink rubbed his chin. "She spoke fondly of the moon, and the ship? That seems a little odd. The ship's kind of a shitbox, really. And the moon, well, it's not much better. Just a barren slab of ice."

  Jacob nodded. "Well, I might have added a few embellishments in my imagination."

  Or you might've been fishing, using words you'd heard Ari and Tanner bandy around.

  Hoodwink nodded sarcastically. "You've a good imagination, then."

  "When is she coming?" Jacob said. "Ari."

  Hoodwink swallowed and nearly choked on his own saliva. He coughed something nasty while Jacob patted him on the back.

  "Ari?" Hoodwink eventually managed. He cleared his throat. "She'll be here soon. Real soon." Technically, Jacob was Leader of the New Users now that Ari was gone. He was the last man Hoodwink wanted to break the news to.