The Forever Gate Compendium Edition

by Isaac Hooke

  Hoodwink approached, pausing to retrieve a sword from a fallen man. He twirled the blade and walked up to One.

  Hoodwink came up behind the A.I. as Tanner and Ari kept it occupied. He studied the globe of darkness that surrounded One, and spotted the chain connected to the collar, the bronze links dragging in the sand.

  Hoodwink entered the globe, picked up the chain, and yanked.

  One whirled toward him.

  Hoodwink sidestepped the killing slash aimed at his neck and he returned the strike with one of his own.

  One didn't even bother to parry. As Hoodwink's weapon bounced from the impervious robe, One merely struck at him again.

  Hoodwink twisted sideways, barely dodging the attack.

  Tanner barreled into One from behind, and the A.I. stumbled forward.

  Hoodwink pulled hard on the chain, adding to the momentum and forcing One closer to the gap.

  One chopped down with its blade, aiming to sever the chain.

  Hoodwink hurled the chain aside just in time, and the A.I.'s sword sliced empty air.

  Tanner pummeled One again from behind. This time, caught off-guard and off-balance, the A.I. toppled. Tanner fell over it.

  Hoodwink dropped his sword and piled onto them. Together he and Tanner wrestled One. The darkness was almost complete this close to the black robes. Still, Hoodwink could see well enough to shove his sweaty palms between One's fingers. He released electricity from his rings while simultaneously prying at those clammy fingers, and the combined effort allowed him to wedge the fire sword from One's grip.

  He threw the weapon aside.

  "One is disarmed!" Hoodwink announced, panting.

  One headbutted him damn hard, and Hoodwink nearly lost consciousness. He rolled away into the sand as Tanner and One continued to wrestle.

  At the edge of his vision he saw Ari throw herself into the fray.

  Hoodwink crawled to his knees, and shook his groggy head.

  The other three were on their feet again. He saw Ari shoving One from behind, while Tanner dragged the A.I. from the front. Tanner had wrapped the chain around his stumped arm, and pulled with his good hand. Together the two of them led One inexorably toward the flickering gap.

  Hoodwink found a sword and scrabbled upright.

  One shook Ari off, and sent her sprawling with a boot to the chest.

  Hoodwink came forward, intending to take her place.

  Tanner was almost at the gap. As Hoodwink closed, he had a sudden worry that Tanner meant to pull the A.I. into the gap with him, killing himself and One together.

  But Tanner never made it.

  A sword pierced him from behind. The blade emerged from Tanner's heart, and he released the chain, falling drunkenly to his knees, sliding off the skewer that was the sword.

  It was Calico Cap. The other man who'd been with Cap lay dead on the ground behind him.

  Hoodwink merely stared, too shocked for anything else.

  He heard Ari scream. She ran across the sand, her fire sword flaring a blinding white. She sprinted straight for Cap, ignoring One.

  But One extended a hand and caught her by the throat. The A.I. moved mechanically and lifted her squirming body toward the gap in the boundary. Her face became a bright red, and she kicked the air helplessly, weakly pounding her sword against One's grip.

  Hoodwink beat One to the gap, and hammered his blade into the A.I.'s arm. Again and again he struck, with a strength that surpassed even his gol powers.

  How dare One threaten his daughter like that? How dare it.

  Hoodwink broke One's hold, and Ari fell to the sand, gasping for air.

  "Touch my daughter, will you?" Hoodwink grabbed One by the arm. He wrenched the A.I. toward the gap. "You'll pay for that." He could scarcely hear his own voice for the hot rage that pumped through his veins.

  One strove to punch Hoodwink in the face, but he dodged each blow. He could feel the gush of air from the near misses—those weren't gentle blows. But neither was Hoodwink in all that gentle of a mood right now.

  He reached the gap and was about to throw the A.I. through and finish this, when a burning sword touched his throat.

  The pain quenched his rage a tiny bit, and Hoodwink froze. He glanced down. Perspiration sizzled onto the blade.

  One's fist crushed into his cheek.

  Hoodwink was distantly aware as an arm wrapped around his torso and pulled him backward, away from One. The hot sword stayed close against his throat.

  "Can't let you betray your own race, Hoodwink," Cap's voice came in his ear.

  Hoodwink blinked away the dizziness from One's blow, and saw Ari rise unsteadily from the dune.

  One smashed her in the face with the back of its pale hand. Blood spattered from her mouth and she fell.

  "No!" Hoodwink struggled against Cap, but the traitor pressed the blade into his neck and stilled him.

  Ari didn't get up again. Her eyes were closed. For a moment Hoodwink feared the worst, but then he saw that her chest still rose and fell.

  "Never thought it would come this far," Cap said. "Never thought any of you would get this close to ruining it all."

  "I'll kill you," Hoodwink said against the pain of the blade.

  "I had wondered," One said. "If any of the others remembered."

  "I remember parts," Cap said. "Enough."

  Cap released Hoodwink and forced him to kneel in the sand beside Tanner. Hoodwink glanced up, readying a string of curses to further chew out the traitor, but his breath caught. He hadn't realized the severity of Cap's burns in the dim light of the mansion, but up close beneath the bright sun the terrible extent of Cap's injuries was revealed. The entire right half of his face was burned away, to the bone in places. Bare tendons, muscle and cartilage hung flaccidly. A lone eyeball perched in a blackened socket. Hoodwink almost sicked up.

  He looked away. The triangular gap in the system boundary was right beside Hoodwink, flickering from black to desert to black again. He wondered if Cap meant to send him through the gap. Well, Hoodwink wouldn't go without a fight.

  He pondered his options.

  Ari hadn't moved. She was still unconscious.

  Tanner meanwhile seemed out of it beside him. His friend had apparently stanched his heart wound with a gol trick, and forced the punctured organ to pump, but Hoodwink didn't think Tanner could last much longer. No one could, not after a blow like that.

  So it was just Hoodwink versus One and the traitor.

  Just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, the bronze bitch around One's throat abruptly dissolved.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Hoodwink stared at One helplessly.

  There was nothing he could do, not anymore.

  One had its full powers restored.

  Humanity was lost.

  Cap turned toward One. "What are your orders—"

  The man exploded in a fountain of blood. Nothing remained of him but a fine red mist.

  "I've changed my mind about not killing Satori surrogates," One said.

  A squadron of fifty uncollared men appeared behind One, led by Jacob.

  Hoodwink hadn't noticed it before, but a two-way diary was open on the sand beside Tanner—somewhere along the way his friend had managed to convey a message to the children for help.

  One swiveled toward the newcomers. Before those men could take a step, or flex an arm, or blink an eye, each of them became rooted in place. One had probably already raised a shield to keep the children from further meddling.

  Hoodwink hadn't been paralyzed, nor Tanner, who still swayed on his knees beside him. Were the two of them overlooked? Or merely beneath One's notice?

  It didn't matter. There was nothing the two of them could do anyway. They were like ants compared to the power that One wielded.

  There had been a few other collars lying in the sand nearby, but they were gone now. Indeed, every item of metal had vanished from the battlefield, including the fire swords and the lightning rings.

 
; Hoodwink had failed humanity.

  He had failed Ari.

  The world was doomed.

  In these final moments as a living man, he experienced a moment of absolute lucidity. For the first time he clearly understood the guilt that had gnawed at him all these years.

  He thought he was doing the right thing by letting Jeremy revise Ari, thought he was saving her from a life as a User. But he'd never done anything so wrong. He'd let Ari down, true, but the greater sin was that he'd let himself down. He'd allowed others to dictate his own affairs. He should've stolen her back from Jeremy once he'd realized his mistake, and taken her to another city, the law be damned. He should have done everything in his power to get her back.

  Everything.

  He suddenly knew what he had to do.

  There was a way to save humanity, though it required the ultimate sacrifice.

  But humanity was worth it.

  She was worth it.

  Hoodwink lowered his voice and spoke for Tanner's ears alone. "Tell her I'm sorry."

  "Whatever for?" Tanner said.

  Hoodwink smiled grimly and then he leaped through the gap.

  ***

  "Hoodwink no!" Tanner tried to grab Hoodwink but his friend was already gone.

  Tanner's body froze like the others.

  His shout had attracted One's attention. Enough for the A.I. to immobilize him, anyway.

  The pain from the sword wound in his heart flared, and he would have grimaced if he was able. But there were worse pains than the physical.

  Hoodwink was dead.

  Stepping beyond the system boundaries would've killed him instantly.

  And since Hoodwink was a gol, that meant he was dead in the real-world too, his mind burned to a crisp by the wires embedded in his neocortex. He would be in that place called Topside, if anywhere.

  Assuming dying as a gol didn't kill him in that place, too.

  Tanner struggled against the invisible binds. When that proved unfruitful, he strove for vitra through the lightning rings he wore, but then he realized the rings were no longer there.

  One didn't seem too concerned that Hoodwink was gone. Without a word, the A.I. moved among the newcomers. Men exploded in blood wherever it went, just like Cap. Gone was the gloating. Gone were the extravagant deaths. One had decided to just kill these men and be done with it.

  It was Tanner's fault. He had summoned these men and condemned them to death. He'd warned all of them before this began that this was a suicide mission. Yet they all volunteered. That didn't stop Tanner from dying a little inside with each man who fell.

  Two men exploded at once. Three. Four men at once. Ten.

  One had circled the area, and it paused now beside Tanner and Ari.

  The A.I. looked down at her sprawled form. Tanner had thought himself emotionally numb at this point, but now that her turn had come, he knew he couldn't watch her die again. He would descend into madness.

  One raised it's palm—

  I'm so sorry Ari.

  Apparently One had decided to prolong her death, because Ari's unconscious body floated into the air.

  Tanner wanted to plead for her life, but his lips were frozen. He knew the A.I. wouldn't listen to him anyway.

  He floated up from the sand now too, and he drifted forward until he hovered beside Ari.

  He had to do something to distract One and somehow buy Ari time. If he could get One to kill him first...

  Like his lungs, his eyes could still move, and he focused on the damaged barrier behind One. He was at just the right angle that he could see the subtle reflection of the desert on the transparent surface. He himself possessed no reflection, but he didn't need one. Not for what he intended.

  Tanner focused on the reflected dunes and cleared his mind, beginning the process of disbelieving reality.

  One followed Tanner's gaze and saw the subtly mirrored landscape. The A.I. swiveled its head back toward him. "Fighting to the very end, Tanner? I propose a race. Let us see if you can disbelieve this reality before I tear out your heart. When Hoodwink's daughter reawakens, I will take hers too so that your hearts may be joined together to the end."

  One squeezed its hand.

  Tanner felt a pressure building inside his chest, right where the wound in his heart was. His body began to shake.

  Of course he wouldn't be able to disbelieve reality, not now, but he took a small comfort in the fact that he'd distracted One long enough to give Ari a few more moments. It was his turn to die for her, after all. And maybe, just maybe, the children would pull her out in time when they realized his vitals had flatlined alongside Hoodwink's.

  It was the last hope he had, the only hope.

  It felt like his chest was about to burst.

  At least he knew the answer to the question he'd asked himself at the start of all this. Would he have the courage to die for her?

  Absolutely.

  Goodbye, Ari.

  Without warning, the pressure in his chest ceded.

  One glanced up sharply. "No."

  The invisible binds lifted, and Tanner and Ari dropped to the sand.

  One flickered. In its place stood a drunken Jeremy, dressed in a black robe with thread-of-gold tentacles running up one sleeve. Jeremy's eyes rolled up in his head and he toppled, lifeless, to the dune.

  Tanner sat upright, hardly able to comprehend what had just happened. It was done then.

  They had won.

  He lifted Ari weakly in his arms. The wound in his chest throbbed painfully. He wasn't able to block the pain anymore.

  Ari opened her eyes.

  "Did we do it?" Ari said groggily. Her cheek was swollen purple where One had struck her.

  Tanner forced a smile. "We did." His voice was just as groggy as hers, if not more so. He ran a gentle finger across her forehead. Vision was beginning to fail him, and it was all he could do to keep himself upright.

  Ari pushed herself up and stared at the fresh blood stains all around her that blackened the dunes. She paused when she saw Jeremy's robed body, his face clearly visible. "Where's Hoodwink?"

  "He—" Tanner's voice caught. Hoodwink threw himself past the system boundaries. Went back to that Topside of his, and somehow saved us all.

  Ari grabbed him by the shoulders. "Tanner, where's Hoodwink?" Her lips were trembling.

  Tanner shook his head. He felt faint, so very faint. He really needed to lie down. Darkness was encroaching on his vision. "He said... he said to tell you he was sorry."

  "What are you talking about?" Ari released him, and clambered to her feet. "Hoodwink?"

  Tanner remained upright for a few seconds longer, but finally his punctured body ceased to obey him and he collapsed.

  "No!" Ari's voice seemed distant. She raised him in her arms, but his head flopped back, and she had to cradle his neck with her hand.

  The darkness almost consumed his vision now. "Cap got me in the heart with his sword. I stanched... the wound... forced the muscle to pump. It's finally giving out on me. It didn't help that One almost pulled my heart out just now. Should've..." But he lost his train of thought. He felt so cold, and he was shivering though his forehead gleamed with sweat. Blood had started to flow again from the stump of his hand. Just as it had started to gush from the wound in his chest.

  Ari tore a handmirror from her cloak. "Stay with me, Tanner. I'll get you out of here."

  He smiled weakly. "One last kiss?"

  She kissed him without hesitation. He felt tears splash onto his cheeks. His, or hers?

  "We've a lobster date to go on," she said, her voice trembling.

  "Sounds nice." Tanner closed his eyes.

  "Stay with me." She sounded so far away. "Don't you dare close your eyes."

  Tanner looked at her groggily. "My turn... to die this time."

  "No! Don't you die! Not now. Not after everything!"

  But the darkness came, and Tanner was gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Drenched in swe
at, Ari focused on the handmirror.

  She had to get out. Now.

  Hoodwink was gone, probably dead. Tanner, the last person she cared about in this world, the last person she had left, was dying. It was up to her to save him. Up to her to return to the Outside and pull him out.

  Her face throbbed in pain where One had hit her. Her battered body ached from the intense melee. But she ignored her physical woes, as gols sometimes could, and stared into the reflected world of the handmirror. She had a reflection, these special mirrors made sure of that, and she looked upon her bruised face, remembering what Hoodwink had told her so long ago.

  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. You are the illusion. The person in the mirror is real.

  That was true in this reality, and the next. After where she had been, what she had seen, she recognized all of this for the fallacy that it was.

  Urgency filled her and, sitting there among the dead, in the sand dunes beyond civilization, she did something that she had never done before. Something no one else had ever done.

  She disbelieved reality in under thirty seconds.

  She blinked her eyes in the real world and immediately sat up.

  Her helmet and gloves lay on the table in front of her. She saw Hoodwink slumped, unconscious, against the terminal beside her. She turned around. Tanner hadn't revived yet either. The other children, intent on their own terminals, hadn't seemed to notice that she was awake.

  She spun back to her own terminal and initiated the retrieval procedure Tanner had taught her.

  Neither Tanner nor Hoodwink awoke.

  She tried again. "Come on. Come on!"

  "Ari!" Caylin came rushing to her side.

  "Wake Tanner up," Ari said. "Someone wake him up! And Hoodwink!"

  "I'm trying!" Stanson said from across the room. His face was grim. "I initiated the pullback for both of them. They should be awake by now..."