Walls of Steel (The Forever Gate Book 7) Read online

  As they lay there cuddling afterward, having copulated for the third time in an hour, Sarella said: "Do you ever wonder what it would be like to go back?"

  "You mean to the Inside?" Hoodwink asked.

  "Yes," she replied.

  He had told her all about his life on the Inside, and the daughter he once had. Sarella had shared her own life as the only child of a baker in return.

  "Every day I dream of it, I do," Hoodwink said. "If the Hivemind would allow it, I would go."

  "On an infiltration mission, you mean?" Sarella asked.

  "If that was what the Hivemind required of me," Hoodwink said carefully.

  "So you would betray the daughter you love?"

  Hoodwink sighed. "Yes. No. I mean, I don't know." He didn't want to have that conversation.

  "What if the Hivemind promised to let her live?" Sarella pressed. "In exchange for your help in destroying the remaining human colonists?"

  "I would refuse the mission then, I think," Hoodwink said. "I couldn't trust myself to complete it. And I don't believe the Hivemind would want me, either. The Satori know the whole surrogate program on Ganymede was flawed. Look at what it did to you and I. We think we're human, and yet in reality we're two aliens living out our lives in stasis far beneath the sea."

  "But you told me you wanted to go back," Sarella said.

  "Yes," Hoodwink agreed. "As a participant. Not a destroyer."

  "Hmm." Sarella gave him a forced smile. He sensed that his words were somehow troubling to her.

  He wondered if it was a bad idea to allow her into his house, and his life.

  He quickly forgot his misgivings when they had sex yet again.

  four

  Javiol floated in a murky holding cell made of steel. Energy bars denied any exit. Beyond, two strange iron golems stood watch. They were cast in the image of these so-called Satori, and occasionally activated rotors or extended metal tentacles to avoid drifting into the walls. Satoroids, they were called.

  How did I know that?

  With his mind, Javiol attempted to access the wall panel interface beyond the energy bars, but that didn't work. He wasn't sure why he thought it would.

  More questions filled his thoughts. How was he breathing underwater? How was he seeing in all those directions at once? Why was he in that body?

  The answer to all of those questions was simple. It was his comeuppance, he knew, for what he had done. To Ari. To the world.

  His punishment? To have his human mind trapped inside the body of an oversized fish.

  If he could have laughed, he would have. He once had so much power. He had been able to manipulate the very fabric of the world. He had created Direwalkers. Brute.

  But somehow he had fallen out of favor with One, his master. One, the AI that ruled the world.

  It was Hoodwink's fault. Hoodwink. Yes, Hoodwink must have done something. He had somehow wormed his way into One's favor. That must be it. And when Hoodwink had received the power to manipulate the world, he had immediately transformed Jeremy into that disgusting creature and placed him at the bottom of the ocean with others of its ilk.

  I'm Jeremy Flanners. Mayor of Severest. Faithful servant of One. Why have you forsaken me, One. Why?

  Perhaps Hoodwink wasn't entirely to blame for his current predicament. He remembered something the man had told him the last time they had talked:

  What reward did One promise anyway? To take you to that world you dream of every night? That world of water? If you ever go back, you'll get your world of water all right. You'll drink your fill. Just not in the way you'd hoped.

  His tentacles trembled. No, it wasn't in the way he had hoped. Not at all.

  Javiol had hated humanity, once. But in that moment he desired nothing more than to be human again.

  Filled with regret, he stared at the satoroids floating outside his cell.

  And then he remembered.

  He transmitted the override code to the robots. A rapid series of clicks, pops, and moans. Those robots in turn transmitted the code to the Shell.

  How can I serve you, oh great Javiol? the Shell sent. Somehow he knew the Shell was the AI of this place. The equivalent of One. Except unlike One, the Shell didn't rule that world.

  Javiol did.

  Let me out of this cage, Javiol transmitted.

  Instantly, the energy bars deactivated.

  Move your servants back, Javiol sent.

  The two satoroids retreated, giving him room.

  He whipped his tail and pumped his torso until he was outside of the cell. The algal colonies in his gastric cavity glowed purple, reflecting his jubilation.

  Before he had left the ocean behind two hundred years ago, he had helped program a much needed software update to the Shell. He had inserted a carefully-crafted, multi-layered backdoor with the patch, one that was designed to escape both the AI and manual code reviews. He was the only one who knew it was there.

  He was a genius.

  Wait a moment. I was here two hundred years ago?

  The moment of insight vanished, and the fleeting sense of who he really was faded with it. It felt like the memory was still there somewhere inside of him, but just out of reach. The feeling was similar to wearing a bronze bitch and sensing the power of vitra teasingly beyond his grasp, so near and yet so far.

  A bronze bitch. It seemed a lifetime ago when he had worn one. When he had been mayor. When he had lost everything.

  I want a human body, he sent the Shell. And I want Hoodwink.

  There was a pause.

  You wish to find Graol? the AI returned.

  Javiol didn't know what that was. No. Hoodwink.

  Another pause.

  Yes, the AI sent. I know where he is. But you also realize, Hoodwink is Graol.

  Javiol didn't know what to make of that. Take me to this Graol.

  The satoroids escorted him through the metal halls. Javiol repeatedly ingested the water and jetted it out again, propelling himself forward. He whipped his tail, too, struggling to keep up with the underwater golems.

  How do I know how to move this body?

  Soon the murky steel corridors gave way to coralline, and he found himself in the main cave system. He passed other satoroids, and sometimes the Satori sea creatures themselves. Occasionally these sea creatures greeted him; instinctively he gave the proper response dictated by Satori social decorum.

  He had intimate knowledge of these creatures and their customs, their security protocols, their AI. Once again he had a glimpse of what he actually was, but once more it slipped away.

  He didn't know what the hell he was. He didn't care. He only wanted to get out of that ocean and back to civilization.

  The tunnel opened out into a wide artificial cliff covered in seaweed. The satoroids led him away from the cliff, into the masses of glowing Satori that were moored to long horizontal tracks by the thousands.

  He swam past these inanimate Satori. Though they were in stasis—or at least he thought they were—he felt like thousands of open eyes were watching him. Javiol strove to ignore the feeling.

  He passed row upon row of the sea creatures until finally the satoroids halted.

  Beside Javiol floated a nondescript entity that looked no different from any of the others.

  Graol, the Shell sent.

  This is Hoodwink? Javiol asked it.

  It is, the Shell returned. The body that is home to his consciousness, anyway.

  Though at first he didn't believe it, somehow he knew that the Shell was right. That was indeed Hoodwink.

  He tried to read the thoughts of that fish. As usual, the images returned were fragmented and incomplete, as could be expected of one whose consciousness had been transferred to another body. He thought he saw a naked woman at one point, but the image quickly evanesced.

  Javiol stared at the tentacled body of his arch enemy and wondered if he should kill him.

  He wrapped his stinging tentacles around the body and began to squeeze. Somehow he knew that if he applied the right amount of pressure to the gastric cavity, he could easily crush the quadbrain that lurked within. The unconscious sea creature did nothing to resist.

  Javiol paused as a sudden twisted idea came to him.

  He released his hold on the body and retreated.

  Can you disconnect him from his body? Javiol asked the Shell.

  I can, the Shell returned.

  Then do so, Javiol instructed the AI.

  Please specify the passcode.

  Javiol felt a surge of anger and his gastrointestinal algae glowed red. What do you mean, specify the passcode?

  Someone has programmed a passcode into the release mechanism of this unit.

  Hoodwink had done it, no doubt.

  Then override it! If Javiol had the ability to snarl, he would have. Instead he intertwined his tentacles.

  Unfortunately, the Shell returned. I cannot. If I attempt to forcibly remove him, he will die.

  Javiol squeezed his tentacles tightly together and then released them. He had another idea.

  If Hoodwink dies in human form, will he return here?

  He will, the Shell returned.

  That seemed at odds with what Ari had told him. Something about, if she died as a gol she would die in the real world. Yet... that probably didn't apply in the current situation, not to the fish technology.

  Are you certain? he asked the AI.

  I am. The fail-safes will protect him. He will awaken as Graol.

  That settled it, then. Javiol would simply have to hunt down Hoodwink in human form.

  That might actually prove to be a lot of fun.

  When he awakens, Javiol told the AI. I want you to escort him to a holding cell. I want him to live out the rest of his days in the body
of that fish, the fate he intended for me.

  It will be done.

  Now give me a human body, he ordered the Shell.

  The satoroids led him three rows down to an empty mooring. He took his place and allowed the fleshy cords to connect to his torso.

  He instructed the Shell to lie to the Hivemind about his execution: the AI was to inform them that Javiol had died and his remains had been disposed of. Then he told the Shell to guard him, giving it strict orders to wake him if any of the other sea creatures should somehow discover his ruse and come to retrieve him. He also commanded the Shell to rouse him the moment Hoodwink—Graol—woke up.

  The consciousness transfer initiated and the underwater world faded.

  * * *

  Jeremy opened his eyes. He looked at his hands, touched his face. He lay on a bed.

  He sat up slowly, his mind working overtime to recall the mental pathways necessary to move a human body. He regarded his surroundings. He seemed to be in a bedroom.

  He was connected to some sort of intravenous drip. He pulled the needle from the crook of his arm and flinched at the pain. He wrapped the resulting wound with the bandage provided on the nightstand.

  He spotted a mirror. He hauled himself to his feet and realized there were more tubes outrageously shoved into his body. In disgust, he reached for the tube that dangled from his penis. But before he touched it a tinny voice erupted from the thing, startling him.

  "Press the button to deflate the small balloon inside your bladder before removing the catheter," the voice said.

  He hesitated.

  "Press the button before removing the catheter," the voice repeated.

  He spotted a flashing green button on the tube. Beneath it, printed in big bold letters were the words: Press Me. Annoyed, Jeremy wrapped his thumb and forefinger around the tube to steady it, and then pressed the button.

  He heard a hiss as air vacated the tube via an opening. The sound abruptly ended.

  "You may now remove the catheter," the tube said.

  Jeremy did so. He felt a stinging sensation as the tip traveled down his urethra. When it emerged, he tossed the whole thing aside in revulsion.

  He followed a similar process to withdraw the second tube from his sphincter.

  When that was done, he forced himself to walk. He felt violated. Debased. His nether orifices pulsed with minor pain.

  He slowly made his way toward the mirror. He stumbled, catching himself on a bed post. He wondered how long the body had been unconscious. Somehow he knew that it didn't really matter, because surrogates didn't suffer the usual symptoms of prolonged coma—no pressure sores, limb contractures, respiratory problems, or atrophied muscles.

  He reached the reflective surface and a feeling of unbridled joy ran through him. Until that point, he hadn't entirely believed that he was human once more. But as he stared at himself in the mirror, he knew it without a doubt. His face had changed, true, but it didn't matter. He was human.

  There was a packet of food on the nightstand. He picked it up, tore open the package, and slowly ate the contents, relishing all the gustatory sensations.

  When he was done, he sighed pleasurably.

  Human.

  As he stared at himself in the mirror, his expression abruptly darkened.

  It was time to find Hoodwink.

  He picked up the pair of glasses on the nightstand. Somehow he knew those glasses were a device called an aReal. He put them on.

  "Shell, are you there?" he asked the empty room.

  Two words overlaid his vision, painted by the aReal so that they seemed to be written on the mirror in white text.

  I am.

  "Where is Hoodwink?"

  A top-down map immediately appeared in the upper right corner of his vision. It zoomed out until a flashing red dot was indicated several neighborhoods away.

  Jeremy smiled widely.

  five

  Hoodwink occupied himself with Sarella, and the two went everywhere together. He explored all the nearby places that hadn't been destroyed in the nuclear devastation. The Sierra Nevada with its giant sequoias. Lake Tahoe with its crystal blue waters. Yosemite Valley with its high granite summits. While those places were beautiful, Hoodwink never saw any animals. No birds. No squirrels. Not even insects. It was altogether eerie, and likely the result of some sort of engineered virus the Satori had released into the atmosphere while following their species extermination protocol—doing their part to ensure when a Satori died, it had a greater chance of reincarnating as a Satori and nothing else.

  On Hoodwink's insistence, they often left their aReals behind during such excursions: he was worried about the Shell constantly tracking them. Sarella told him they could simply remove and replace the batteries at will, but Hoodwink usually opted to leave the devices behind altogether.

  It was good to get away from the claustrophobic city with its giant robots. But even in the wilderness, he might be hiking alone with Sarella, joking and laughing away, only to round a corner to find himself standing face to face with a hovering quadcopter. That, or one of those giant robot soldiers just sitting there, pretending to guard the trail. Whenever he encountered a machine like that, even if it was one of the smaller ones, he couldn't help but feel a fright. If the Shell ever ordered those robots to turn on him, that would be the end of his human body. There was no way to fight back against something like that.

  Indeed, Hoodwink soon realized that those machines were not so much meant to protect the populace, but rather to subdue them, ensuring that the humans and even the surrogates remained docile. Yes, the omnipresent machines, constant reminders of the repressive world they lived in, one ruled by alien masters. Those robots guaranteed that the tiny human population would never forget they existed only because the Shell and the Satori allowed it, and that if any one of them should ever stray from what was expected of them, they would die. And even if they did not stray, they might perish anyway—as decreed by the whims of their Satori masters.

  There were other, less immediate threats to the delicate human bodies. For example, Hoodwink sometimes wondered about the radiation that must still linger from all the nuclear weapons the humans had detonated during the war with the Satori, but Sarella assured him the aliens had cleaned up all of that. Sometimes, in the various wooded areas, he also discovered unexploded ordinance.

  Once, during a particularly long wilderness excursion, he and Sarella encountered the skeletal remains of a platoon the clean-up robots had missed; he and Sarella collected the weapons and hid them inside a fallen trunk, and then memorized the spot. They planned to return to the cache and retrieve those weapons if the need ever arose, because in the city there was nowhere to procure such arms.

  The only sign of any resistance he saw the whole time was graffiti spray-painted in an alleyway beside a boarded-up shop. The words read:

  Resist the dark web of Irotas.

  Irotas was the word "Satori" reversed, as if the underground artist was too frightened even to spell the real name of the oppressors. The graffiti was conveniently painted-over the next time Hoodwink passed that way.

  The weeks went by. Hoodwink and Sarella fell into a routine when they weren't traveling outside the city. They would visit the empty gym in the mornings to exercise, travel to the market to pick up fresh produce from the robot farmers, and then eat it at the roadside spot on the pavement where Hoodwink and Sarella had met. They would stay there for some hours, simply talking, or relaxing in each other's presence, until they were hungry again, at which point they would visit a grocery store and eat their fill as they toured the robotized aisles. They would go for a drive, exploring a new park or some other area of the city, and after a few hours they would return to their neighborhood to visit one of the robot-manned restaurants for supper. They often chose restaurants that were popular with other Satori surrogates, and as such had to avoid the usual sexual advances. When finished eating their meals, they would return home and make love. Afterward, Hoodwink would read one of the great works of human literature on his aReal, or a history book, and Sarella meanwhile would paint, also with her aReal, the device recording her brush strokes as digital patterns of light. They would make love once more before bed, and then sleep, only to begin the process anew the next morning.