The Forever Gate Read Online Free PDF Page A

ordering you around."
    She didn't move.
    Hoodwink heard a low buzzing. He glanced around the circle. The elderly men and women had raised their hands, and electricity flowed between them, from fingertip to fingertip.
    "Please, Hoodwink, sit down." Leader said. "Please."
    Hoodwink lifted his palms in surrender, and sat back down. He was relieved when the electrical flows ceased.
    "Your daughter is the one who planned the Gate attack." Leader smiled that distant smile, and his eyes locked on Hoodwink. "Do you want to know the truth? What lies beyond the Forever Gate?"
    Hoodwink couldn't answer. That gaze overwhelmed him.
    Leader was still smiling when he looked away. "It is a land quite unlike any we have ever known. It— well, it is the land where the gols reside in actuality. As different from this world as the bottom of the ocean is from the top of the sky. In the city, none of the gols can even comprehend our offer of help. It's beyond their programming. We can't break past the generic response loop. But beyond the Gate, they will listen to us. They will ."
    Hoodwink sat back. "How do you know they'll even want your help?"
    Leader sat back. "We don't. But we must try."
    "Okay." Hoodwink glanced from face to face. The expressions were grim, and some of those present glowered at him. "You're forgetting one small thing. You have to cross the Gate . Ari couldn't even make a dent in it with that bomb of hers. So as far as I'm concerned, this discussion is pointless. And I still don't know why you're even telling me all this."
    "The bomb was only a hope we'd entertained. To create a passage for us all. But there is another way." Leader was silent a moment. He stared at that peeling wallpaper, and the guttering wall candles flicked shadows across his face. "It is a dangerous path, too perilous for most of us. A path only the strong and hale among us can take."
    Leader's eyes found Hoodwink, then shifted to Ari, at his side.
    Hoodwink realized what the man implied, and he stood. "Ari's not doing it."
    "You're not my father anymore, remember that," Ari said quietly.
    Hoodwink didn't look at her. "I'll do it. Whatever you planned for her, I'll do. Send me in her place."
    Leader nodded to himself. "This is what I want, too. Ari must stay here. Her connections to the mayor are too important. Someone else must go. Someone newly uncollared, yet still strong in body. But you should know, no one we've ever sent beyond the Gate has returned."
    "I don't need you to save me," Ari said it to his back.
    "I'll do it," Hoodwink said. He wasn't going to lose her again.
    Leader nodded solemnly. "If there's anyone you want to say good-bye to, anyone you truly care about, now's the time. Because as I said, no one's ever come back."
    Hoodwink glanced at Ari. "I plan to be the first."

CHAPTER SIX
     
    Hoodwink sat in the plush chair in the plush sitting room, right where the maid had told him to. Those cold, travertine walls seemed to be closing in around him. He hated travertine. It was like ice in this weather, and the sitting room had no fireplace. But that was the style of the rich. And the rich so loved imitating the rich.
    Well, at least the floor was carpeted. That helped retain some of the heat. Still, it wasn't for the cold that he was shivering. No, he worried what his reception would be. He hadn't come to this place in six months. And visiting now, after what happened yesterday morning... the maid's eyes had nearly bugged out of their head when she saw him, and it was only with an effort that she'd managed to calm herself down after he'd forced his way in.
    Hoodwink fingered the false bronze collar the blacksmith Karl Marx had made for him. The sham had worked so far. He'd passed a group of gol soldiers on the way here. Though it was broad daylight, and the snowstorm had let up, the men hadn't even spared him a glance.
    He was staring at a wall hanging of a strange underwater scene when Briar came into the foyer. The two exchanged