by Isaac Hooke
Ari nodded absently. There was so much she still had to say to Tanner. She hoped she got the chance. She really hoped.
"Your mother would've approved," Briar said.
Your mother. Those words brought her attention back to her uncle, and when she looked at him she saw a strange sadness in his eyes.
Cora.
"She's dead, isn't she?" Ari said.
Briar seemed about to tear-up. "Yes. I'm— I wish—" He closed his eyes, unable to continue.
I saw her, she wanted to say. When I was gone. But Briar wouldn't have believed it. There was no time for such revelations now anyway, not with the entrance to Jeremy's bedchamber looming just ahead.
The open doorway was eerily silent, and dark.
Hoodwink stopped in front of it and raised a fist, halting the group. The carpet just outside the room was soaked in blood.
"Al went in?" Hoodwink asked Briar quietly.
The man nodded. "He did."
Hoodwink rubbed the edge of his mustache. "Tanner, is it possible that Al collared One? And the children sent the whole lot of them beyond the Forever Gate?"
Tanner frowned. "No. We'd be gone too. I told the children to send along everyone carrying a tracker within a 100-yard radius. And we're all carrying trackers..."
Hoodwink sighed. "Nothing's ever easy is it?"
"No Hood, it isn't."
Hoodwink turned back to the dark hole of the doorway, a hole that very likely offered a direct path to the realm of the dead. He seemed hesitant. "This isn't good. This isn't good at all. He's practically inviting us in. Daring us to step into his den. But there's nothing for it is there?"
"This is the only chance we'll get to bitch One," Tanner agreed. "You know the plan, right?"
"Of course I do." Hoodwink glanced at Ari. "I can't stop you from coming. I know I can't. But I want you to stay behind me no matter what happens, do you hear?"
"Dad—"
"I said behind me! Understand?"
Ari sighed. She'd always be his little girl, with the emphasis on little. "Sure dad."
Hoodwink eyed her a moment, then mumbled to himself, "How can I protect her if she won't listen to me?"
Ari felt some of her old spirit coming back. "I don't need you to—"
Hoodwink turned his back on her and marched into the room.
Before anyone could follow, a block of stone slammed down from the top of the doorframe, sealing her father inside.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Hoodwink stood alone in Jeremy's bedchamber.
It wasn't much different than the last time he'd come here. Curtains shut out much of the light. Underwater-themed tapestries, statues, and vases adorned the living space. On the bed, the jellyfish image still decorated the comforter.
But everything was darker. Much, much darker. The fireplace was lit, but the light struggled to pierce the darkness, and its rays diffused only a few paces in any direction. Black shapes were piled inside, fueling the flames. The remnants of Alan Dooran and his men, most likely. Poor Al. The man deserved better.
The robed figure of One lurked beside the mirror on the far side of the room. Its face was hidden in shadow, and only its pale, two-fingered hands were visible, wreathed in flickering electricity. There were reflective shards of glass on the floor in front of the mirror, yet the mirror itself was whole, and inside it stood a single Direwalker with no real-world counterpart. The Direwalker's image repeated recursively, each copy centered and smaller than the last. It was an almost hypnotic "mirror within a mirror" effect, and as Hoodwink regarded the motionless image, he realized the mirror was likely the source of the Direwalkers.
"Welcome, Hoodwink," One said.
Hoodwink didn't answer.
"You have come to see my plan through to the end?" One said. "To watch the death throes of humanity?"
Hoodwink still said nothing.
"Maybe you thought to bargain with me for a place in the new order?"
Again Hoodwink met One's words with silence.
"The world is ending, and you have naught to say? No message from your Satori masters?"
Silence.
"You are injured. Here, let me help you." One didn't move, but all the gashes and bruises Hoodwink had received from Brute instantly healed up.
"There is in fact a message," Hoodwink said. He wanted to step forward, but he found that he couldn't lift his feet. And though his lightning rings still had charge, and he carried the fire sword in his hand, he had absolutely no access to vitra. At least he could still talk. "You are to destroy the Direwalker army. Then leave the simulation and never return."
The air vibrated as One laughed that deep, rumbling laugh. "You know that my new programming cannot allow such a thing."
"The Council commands it. Humanity is to be spared."
One tightened its digits in a fist. "Your petty Council means nothing to me."
Hoodwink hardened his voice. "If you don't obey, they will destroy this ship. You will go back to the nothingness you came from."
"Destroy this ship?" One said. "You are referring to the energy attacks against the outer hull? The very same attacks that have failed to cause any significant damage after two hundred years? The attacks that have ceased entirely in the last few days?"
"The attacks stopped because the Council wants to spare humanity," he lied.
But One called his bluff. "I think not. The scanning capabilities of this ship are not so diminished as you might think. You and your kind do not have the power stores left to destroy this ship. Already you will limp home."
"And you don't have the power stores to ever leave this moon," Hoodwink shot back. "You have enough plutonium to last what, maybe another fifty years on the Outside? But you won't even make it that long. We'll return before then, I swear it. You have a decade, maybe two, and when we do return you'll be destroyed." It wasn't a complete lie—the Satori would return, that was true, but only if One obeyed Hoodwink and spared humanity. If One destroyed humanity, the ship's A.I. would probably be left to live out its days in peace.
One was silent. Finally it unfolded its fist and spoke. "Even if I wished to, I cannot terminate the Direwalker program. And I cannot leave the simulation. Events have been set in motion. My programming has been updated and cannot change."
"So be it," Hoodwink said.
The rock slab over the doorway exploded inward.
Tanner and the others rushed inside, fire swords and collars in hand. The arms and legs of the men randomly seized-up, and their bodies froze in mid-stride so that they ended up scattered unmoving throughout the room. Tanner came the closest to One, though even his body stiffened in the end.
"Excellent." One hadn't lifted a hand the entire time. Nor did it now—the only motion was the electricity sparking across its fingertips. "Most excellent. You've brought the in-flight entertainment."
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The faces of the others were frozen along with their bodies, their features locked in strained expressions, their jaws clenched, the cords standing out in their necks. Hoodwink seemed the only one capable of still moving his head and talking.
"Let them go, One," Hoodwink said.
One moved its body for the first time. The A.I. seemed to float, rather than walk, and the folds in its robes didn't shift whatsoever. It was as if a black statue roved the chamber, the room darkening wherever the statue passed.
"Do you know," One said. "When I merged with Jeremy's avatar, I absorbed a part of his personality? Some of his speech patterns. Some of his madness. His penchant for cruelty." One neared Hoodwink, and the air darkened, crackling with energy. "It is because of him that I will actually feel pleasure killing your friends. Odd, isn't it? An A.I. deriving pleasure from killing.
"In the Core, a million code fragments are terminated every picosecond. And yet there is never any pleasure in that. Just as in the human body, individual cells die by the millions every moment. Again, no joy in such infinitesimal deaths. But when you put
100 trillion of those cells or code fragments together and form a human being or machine, and the complexities of life, real or artificial, arise, that's when the real joy of killing manifests. Destroying those frail complexities, erasing that fragile thing known as consciousness, that is where the real pleasure lies.
"Can you imagine the joy then of obliterating an entire world of consciousness? 100 quintillion cells. 100,000 conscious minds. Pleasure, sheer and utter. Those in this room should feel honored that I am taking the time to personalize their deaths, something I would have never done before the linkage. Jeremy's gift to me. And to you."
"I'm warning you, One," Hoodwink said. "I have more control on the Inside than you think. If you don't let my men go—"
"You'll strike me down? Then do it now." One waited. "That's what I thought. I've shielded this entire mansion from your meddling children. And my source itself is locked away in layers of multi-level encryption. There is no escape for you and your friends. But I will grant you a boon. For you see, I don't wish to further provoke the Satori by killing one of their most esteemed surrogates. So, Hoodwink Cooper, you will watch your friends die, and when I am finished with them you may go."
"No." That was a fate worse than dying. One must have known this. "Please. I'll do whatever you want."
"But you are already doing whatever I want."
One floated over to a young man, no more than twenty-five. Hoodwink didn't know him, but that wouldn't lessen the pain of seeing him die.
The young man's body flickered, and his skin, hair and clothes were replaced by a corrugated white material covered in small cilia. The corrugations were actually the separations between a thousand individual shapes—the man's body had been replaced by white larva that collapsed into a writhing pile, devouring and mating with one another on the floor.
"Well that was over far too quickly," One said.
The A.I. approached an ancient man. Hoodwink recognized him. Gray-cloak.
A wriggling pile of bullet ants appeared at Gray-cloak's feet and swarmed him.
"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.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
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 One 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.