by Isaac Hooke
Hoodwink's flyer made its way toward the saucer's rim, the metallic edge of the mothership growing larger by the second. An opening came into view, and his vessel floated into a long tunnel of dark metal. Landing arms locked into place and the flyer halted.
A rapid series of moans and clicks immediately filled Hoodwink's head. An ordinary man would have been driven insane by it.
But Hoodwink was no ordinary man, and he recognized the meaning behind the cacophony.
You have returned early. Why?
In answer, Hoodwink merely grinned.
PART 5
I HAVE SEEN FOREVER
CHAPTER ONE
Graol stared at the broad spike that would impale his gastric cavity and four brains tonight.
The death-dealing instrument was placed on a pedestal in the steel corridor outside, set there to remind the confinement bay occupants of what their short futures held. It was a simple spike, its sharp point gleaming in brutal anticipation. Scenes of agonized victims and delighted torturers etched its surface. The spike seemed rusted in places, perhaps from years of use—those who disagreed with the will of the Council did not live long, nor did those who even thought of disagreeing. But the underwater metal didn't rust, so those dark brown marks had to be something else. Maybe stains from the impaled dead who'd shit themselves.
The light globes flickered and a cold current kissed Graol's epidermis. The touch brought his focus closer, to the energy bars that sealed him inside the cell, and to the murky water that gave him buoyancy.
Around him, everything was silent.
Silent as death.
CHAPTER TWO
Earlier...
Tanner hurried along the claustrophobic corridors of the Outside, making his way toward Omega Station, where the children awaited. The pods of the sleepers lined the way. About one in ten of those pods were black inside, the occupants dead.
He kept an eye out for the machines. He didn't think the A.I.s could decrypt messages sent from the Inside to the children, but he wasn't sure. So far, he hadn't encountered a single machine. He supposed they were occupied throughout the ship, cleaning up the dead and newly awakened—the aftermath of the rise in violent deaths on the Inside.
Most of the ceiling lights were broken or flickering in this section, and in the dim light Tanner almost ran into a form sprawled on the floor.
It was a man clothed in slime. Still connected to his belly, his umbilical ran to a placenta that was wrenched from a pod and lying on the floor behind him. His arms and legs were bone-thin beneath the slime, his torso all ribs, his eyes sunken.
"Hepppp," the man said. Help.
Tanner secured the helmet of his spacesuit to his utility belt, then he scooped up the placenta, wrapped the umbilical around the man's waist, and hauled the man over his shoulder. Tanner staggered forward, wondering if he'd be able to make it to Omega Station under the added weight. Already he was encumbered by the bulky spacesuit, which weighed 150 lbs. The man was at least another 90 lbs.
After three paces, it became apparent that Tanner wouldn't be able to handle the man and the spacesuit both. He set down the man, who seemed to be worried that Tanner was going to abandon him.
"No..." The man flopped his arms toward Tanner.
"Just taking off my suit, friend." Tanner quickly stripped away the spacesuit, leaving himself dressed in the tight blue uniform with the calf-high black boots underneath—one of the standard uniforms of the crew who'd manned this ship over two hundred years ago.
He glanced at the discarded spacesuit, which retained its bulky shape and reminded Tanner of a fat man who'd just come back from the guillotine. He sincerely hoped he wouldn't regret abandoning that suit. If there was a hull breach from an attack then he was in serious trouble, and an attack was definitely long overdue. It seemed a little odd to Tanner that the ship in orbit seemed to be leaving them alone lately. He wasn't sure if that was good or bad.
Tanner scooped the man up and started the advance again. There, that was much better.
The man abruptly squirmed, and pushed his fingers seizure-like against Tanner's chest.
"What is it?" Tanner said. "Calm down, friend. I'm just taking you to—"
"Gol," the man said. "Gol. Gol."
Tanner followed the man's frantic gaze. He saw nothing but empty corridor ahead.
But then one of the overhead lights flickered on and Tanner immediately understood what had spooked the man.
CHAPTER THREE
A machine blocked the corridor. One of the larger ones. Its body was a steel barrel on treads, its head a sword hilt with three glass disks for eyes, its arms wiry tubes capped by pincers. It gripped three writhing humans.
Tanner wished the machine were one of the smaller models, because then he could slit open the blackened pod of a dead sleeper and lay the slime-covered body across the corridor. It was unpleasant work, but it had saved his life in the past. The smaller maintenance machines had shorter arms and couldn't reach obstacles on the floor, and would drive right over anything in their paths. The goo would get into their treads and short them out. But this larger machine would just slide the dead body aside or gather it up. The steel treads on this model were too closely-packed for the organic sludge to do any damage anyway.
All of that flashed through Tanner's mind in the time it took the machine's head to swivel toward him. A red beam of light revolved with that head, tracing a path along the pods until it flashed into Tanner's eyes.
He held the gaunt man close, turned around, and ran.
There was a down-floor ladder here somewhere along the way. Tanner had passed it earlier. He kept his eyes on the floor, expecting the ladder to appear on the leftmost side any second now, but the dim, flickering light made it difficult to see. Tanner's back was beginning to ache from the man's weight, and his legs burned. He forced himself onward.
The heavy moments passed, and still he hadn't reached the ladder, though it should have appeared by now.
With a sick feeling in the pit of his gut, Tanner realized he'd missed it somewhere along the way.
He glanced over his shoulder. Although the machine was burdened by the three bodies, it was closing. There wasn't time to go back.
Tanner would just have to move on to the next down-floor ladder.
A bulge appeared in one of the pods just ahead. A hand broke through the membrane, and Tanner was startled despite himself. An arm followed the hand, and finally a naked woman slid out in a gush of slime. She was bald—the umbilicals released a chemical amalgamate that stunted hair and nail growth, sometimes stalling it altogether—and her chest was flat from emaciation. The only reason he could tell she was a woman at all was because of her lower genitalia.
She lay there on the floor, hacking up goo from her lungs.
The machine was quickly bearing down on his position while Tanner stood there watching. But there was something he had to decide.
He had a chance to save either the man or the woman, but not both. And whoever he left behind might potentially buy him much needed time.
The man, or the woman.
The withered figure in his arms sensed his indecision. "Please..."
Choose, Tanner.
He'd left Ari behind. She had died for him. A woman for a man.
Tanner lowered the man. "I'm sorry."
"No," the man said, and he reached up, extending his bony fingers. "No."
Tanner couldn't keep the emotion from his voice. "You're saving us both, friend." A man for a woman. It was small recompense for the price Ari had paid, and a recompense given by another at that. But it would have to do for now.
Tanner wrenched the coughing woman's placenta from the pod and then hauled her into his arms, resting her head over his right shoulder and the crook of her knees over his left forearm. He balanced the placenta on her belly. She was smaller, and felt much lighter than the man. She was either way younger or way older—he couldn't tell because of the organic slime that covered her.
Two pods turned black as he rushed by. A third pod spat out another man. Tanner wanted to stop and help him, but he couldn't carry anyone else. He felt helpless, yet a part of him was glad, the darker, more selfish part, because that second man would buy Tanner and the woman a little more time.
Finally he reached the next down-floor ladder, and he lowered the woman so that he could remove the floor grill covering it. The woman had stopped hacking at least, a sign that she was breathing normally. He draped her flaccid body over one shoulder and then struggled down the ladder, replacing the grill above him with difficulty along the way.
At the bottom he patted the woman on the back. "Everything's going to be all right."
She didn't give any sign that she heard him—no movement, not even a grunt of understanding. Worried, he gently lowered the woman to the floor.
Her head lolled at an impossible angle and he realized her neck was broken. He'd seen it before, the muscles of the pod-born atrophied to the point where their necks couldn't even support the weight of their heads. Still, the sight stunned him, and he felt that familiar sense of disappointment and grief that came when you did your best to help someone, and failed.
The machine rolled past just above, now carrying five humans pressed to its chest. They were all dead, as far as Tanner could tell. Destined for the meat grinder. Just like this woman. He was glad now that he couldn't make out her age or anything else about her.
He abandoned the dead body and hurried on to Omega Station. He went by several black pods along the way, and paused to carry another man he found sprawled on the floor grill. By the time he reached the door to Omega Station that man too was dead. Not from a broken neck—his heart had simply given out.
Tanner set the dead man down. It was all so useless. Why did he even bother to try anymore?
Because that's what people did for one another. That's what it was to be human. People helped other people. It was the right thing to do.
Still, he grieved for the man. Could he save no one?
He was reminded of the helplessness he felt when Ari had fallen from the Forever Gate. He didn't blame himself for her death, but what truly ate away at him, and plagued him in the quiet moments, was this: If it had been him who had trailed Ari on the Forever Gate, with Brute behind, would he have been able to die for her?
He hoped, when the time came, that he would have the selfless courage to act as she did.
Exhausted, Tanner signaled his presence at the door to Omega Station.
"Tanner!" Stanson's familiar voice echoed from the control pad.
Tanner merely nodded in reply.
The door slid open and he walked inside, shoulders bowed by a world of grief.
CHAPTER FOUR
Tanner entered Omega Station, a room that contained five rows of desks lit by long ceiling lights. A window on the far wall offered a view of the Ganymede surface. The children sat at terminals on those desks, and they were all looking at him.
Caylin's heart-shaped face lit up when he met her eye, and the little girl hurried over, nearly tripping on her gown. "Tanner! It really is you!"
He knelt to give her a hug. His bone-weary despair instantly vanished, and he held her close, like a man reunited with his daughter. Three other children ran over and he readily hugged each of them in turn. He felt invigorated, the grief temporarily forgotten.
The other children just watched him from their terminals. Ari had called them little ghosts. That was an apt description. With their white gowns, pale skin and haunted eyes, they'd fit right in beside any phantasm. And yet when he looked in their eyes, really looked, he saw sadness there too. The eyes of those who had seen too much, at too young an age.
He did a quick head count, and to his relief, noted all the children had survived.
"Where have you been?" Caylin said.
"Oh you know." Tanner ruffled her hair. "Off saving the world."
"Where's Ari?"
Tanner's breath caught. He looked away, feeling a burning in the back of his throat. Caylin had only said two little words, but it was enough to send him back to the pit of despair. "She's coming."
"When?"
He stood. "Later." He hoped she didn't notice the tremble in his voice.
"What about Hoodwink?" Caylin pressed.
Ari and Hoodwink.
It always came back to them, didn't it?
Could Hoodwink really save her?
And had the price been worth it?
Tanner told himself that if the choice had been his, he wouldn't have given the Dwarf to Jeremy for a mere chance at saving Ari, not if doing so potentially doomed the world. Tanner told himself that he wasn't selfish like that.
But to be honest, he wasn't entirely sure. Because Ari truly meant the world to him. The world.
"Tanner?" Caylin said.
He dismissed his grief and self-doubt, and focused on the present.
There was a world to save.
Tanner looked down at the little girl and ruffled her hair. "Caylin."
Stanson came forward. "I missed your ugly face around here." Unlike the others, he was wearing the same blue uniform as Tanner, and gave a nod when Tanner met his eye.
Tanner slipped past the children and clasped Stanson's hand. "And I missed your pretty one."
Stanson had a face like a woman, his features bizarrely pixieish—prominent cheekbones, a button nose, wide eyes. He'd grown his hair long in a cut that reminded Tanner of a pageboy. Still, despite his looks, he had the deepest voice of anyone Tanner had ever known. He was the second oldest among the children after Tanner, at seventeen years old.
"That girl Ari you've been stranded with is far prettier than I," Stanson said. "Even if she is all skin and bones. I bet she looks amazing on the Inside."
Tanner averted his eyes. "Yeah..."
"So you never answered little Caylin here. What about Hoodwink? Is he coming too?"
"He is. They both are." Tanner didn't know what else to say. "Hoodwink and Ari had to take care of some business first."
"Some business..." Stanson left the question unasked, pausing to give Tanner time to elaborate. When he didn't, Stanson frowned. "You know I like to be kept in the loop."
"That's all I can tell you for now."
Stanson shrugged, smiling. "Well then, I'm looking forward to hearing about everything else that's happened since we lost you guys. I'm sure you've got a few exciting stories to share. We've had our own adventures—a couple of us have gone Inside, here and there."
"I'd love to swap stories, but later. We've work to do." Tanner glanced uncertainly at the children, and considered guarding his tongue in their presence, but he figured if they didn't know what was going on now they'd find out soon enough anyway. "It's bad out there, Stanson. In the corridors people are waking up and dying. A lot of people. Have you been in contact with the New Users yet? What's the situation like Inside?"
"We have, and the situation isn't good." Stanson had become all businesslike, which was exactly what Tanner wanted. There wasn't time for small talk. "The New Users have set up the Control Room in a different part of the sewers, and we've been talking back and forth."
The Control Room allowed communication between the simulated world of the Inside and the real-world of the Outside, as well as the ability to track gols, among other things. Basically it allowed the children to bypass the sandbox that blocked access to most of the system operations out here, a sandbox that was set up by the sub-A.I.s beneath One.
"Talking back and forth?" Tanner wondered how much Stanson and the others knew about what had happened. "Did they mention anything about Ari and Hoodwink?"
"No, why?"
"We'll get to that."
"Okay..." Stanson seemed a tad confused, but he smoothed it over with another smile. "Anyway, with the Ne
w Users' help, we've been tracking One's army on the Inside. The Direwalkers have spread worldwide using the portal hops, and they're ripping a path of mayhem through the cities, killing anything that moves. Worse, more Direwalkers are appearing by the second—One seems to have full access to the simulation now. At this rate, there will be more Direwalkers than humans in a few hours, Outside time."
"Damn it. So how can we stop this? I need options Stanson."
Stanson led Tanner to one of the free terminals. The young man bent over the terminal display and pulled up some kind of tracking document. "Well, we've helped the New Users capture a few gols with the mind disease, both Direwalkers and ordinary gols, and we're moving forward with experiments to change them. We're hoping to tweak the germ so that it's harmless to ordinary gols but deadly and more contagious to Direwalkers."
Tanner patted Stanson on the back. "Good work, Stanson. That's exactly what we need. Make it happen."
Stanson raised an eyebrow. Tanner realized that Stanson was used to being in charge these past few days, what with himself and Hoodwink gone. Well, Stanson would have to get used to playing second fiddle again. There wasn't time to argue over pecking order.
Stanson finally lowered his gaze. "Right. We're on it, Tanner. By the way, we have some other developments you might be interested in. Now that we have a way to test our changes, we've been trying some other tweaks to the Inside. There's some wild news you might be interested in. Caylin?"
The heart-faced little girl spoke up excitedly. "I found a way to fix the weather! I went Inside and placed a tracker, then I came back out, had the New Users make my change, then I went back in. All the snow was melted around the tracker, and I could feel the sun on my face! Now I just have to learn how to widen the hot spots. And, and..."