Gatekeeper's Secret
Copyright© 2026 by Fick Suck
Chapter 40
The necklace woke Grady. Glancing at the clock reading 4:02, he thanked the powers that be that Linh had worked at the restaurant the previous evening and had remained in town. He planted both feet on the ground before lurching into a standing position. Ten minutes later, he was saddling one of the new horses, Larghetto.
The name did not match the horse. Maybe the breeder had an ideal of a gentle horse, but Larghetto was anything but gentle. “Gentle” in English did not appreciate the early wake up, but once he got the idea they were going up the mountain, the horse grew excited. Grady had to hold him back at points where the trail was a bit precarious for a rambunctious explorer.
There was some daylight in the far eastern sky by the time Grady reached the gateway. He still needed his flashlight as the rock and stone crunched under foot as he walked. The being lit its own light as Grady approached. The being was a meter high, maybe a tad more and wrapped in clothing that obscured its body from the bottom to the top. Bipedal, two more limbs and a face partially covered with a mask that appeared to be a breathing apparatus.
The being raised a limb and a twig-like finger was extended. Grady drew near and allowed the finger-thing to touch his jewel. “Greetings,” the being said with a rasping that reminded Grady of sandpaper. “Are you the gatekeeper?”
“Yes, I am. How can I help you?”
“I seek a device that may have been deposited here,” the being said. “It stands as tall as me, but is a thin cylinder with a base to keep it upright. It is 400 @$^&!@ in color.”
“Your statement of color did not translate,” Grady said. The being held up its appendage again and touched the jewel.
“Four hundred, base 10 to the minus 9 wavelength,” the being said.
Grady had no idea what colors were what wavelengths. “I haven’t seen anything that color in the repository. Can you tell me more about the device that I may recognize it?”
“The device is warm to the touch, and surface is almost too smooth for organic beings to grasp without a glove.”
Grady had a terrible thought. “Is this device a weapon?”
The being hesitated. “The device can be used as a weapon, but that is not its creator’s purpose.”
“Bullshit,” Grady thought as he shifted his rifle in his arms and moved his finger down to the trigger. “There is no such device that matches your description. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“You are mistaken, perhaps. You should let me examine your repository for myself,” the being said.
Grady gave a slight whistle, calling for Larghetto to come. As the horse came through the bushes, Grady declared, “It is time for you to leave.”
The being appeared spooked by the size of the horse approaching. With a slight bow, it ambled to the gateway and disappeared. Grady counted to a hundred before he dropped his finger from the trigger. Sunlight was starting to fill the grove.
“This is not getting any easier,” Grady said to the horse as it picked its way down the mountain trail. Grady was holding the reins loosely while rocking with the beast almost absentmindedly. He slapped his head as he reviewed what he had said. He had told that creature that there was a repository, and he implied there were weapons stored there. He worried that the creature could come back with firepower to back up his demand.
At the ranch, he greeted Brianna as she was feeding the horses and moving them outside for the day. She gave him a quizzical look as he dismounted but she went back to her tasks without asking questions. “Top of the morning,” Grady called out with a wave. He put away the rifle and immediately sought out Claire.
“None of the journals said much about people coming to seek out weapons,” Grady said. “This being was insisting we had this thing he called a device but refused to admit that it might be a weapon. What if he comes back?”
“We have two arsenals, sir,” Claire said as she looked up from her screen. “We have your world’s weapons, and we have two storerooms peppered with other worlds’ weapons. You have forewarning when beings arrive. Even more, I believe there are safeguards built into the gateway system that block attempts to attack other worlds. Sir, since this gateway has functioned as a mercantile destination for over one hundred and forty of your years, I am more surprised that more traveling beings do not know your gateway’s coordinates. Beings who deal in exotics would sell one or two of their limbs to come here and purchase goods.”
“Safeguards? None of my ancestors mention any safety measures,” Grady said. Grady slurped down half a glass of orange juice. “This reconstituted stuff tastes like concrete.”
“Your first ancestor on the land was far more ignorant of technology and most sciences than you, sir. His journal makes no recording of his first encounter with the gateway, leaving us entirely removed from whatever first instructions came with your signaling jewel. You mentioned that your grandfather failed to inform you of protocols as well. One may easily deduce that despite the records kept, each generation lost more knowledge of how the business of the gateway functions.”
“Great, I’m going to get shot or fried or reduced to ash one of these days,” Grady said. “Just fine and dandy. At the very least, I’m going to need a better weapon when I return to the gateway. What have we got?”
“I will check the better storeroom, but my first inclination is to suggest you use the weapons that you have already mastered, and you trust. The most potent weapon is useless if you cannot aim and fire accurately in an instant.”
Grady raised his hands to heavens with a silent plea before he returned to the refrigerator where he rooted around for suitable leftovers. He shoved the bowl of mashed potatoes in the microwave and threw a couple pats of butter on top. When the machine beeped, Grady took his bowl to the table and dug in with a spoon.
“Sir, the inventory catalog is now over 1000 items. Three hundred and twenty-two of them I am classifying as dangerous enough to be placed inside a more secure room. They need to be locked up. We need a secure repository with some haste.”
Grady put down his spoon. “My issue, as I told you before, is the biggest builder in the area is the Paramount Group and I’m suing the living shit out of them. I’m not even first in line, but a distant second. Furthermore, what we need requires an architect and a structural engineer, both of which could open us up to unwanted exposure. The County Planning Board is going to require blueprints and a structural review, and they’re not wrong.”
Bri came through the back door, throwing her boots on the plastic tray before tromping directly to the coffee pot. After pouring a cup of coffee in a mug, adding sugar and a good serving of milk from the fridge, she turned to the other two and declared, “I could really use a decent Cappuccino this morning. Someone make it happen, puh-leez.”
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