MirrorWorld (17 page)

And yet the monster lives.

But it’s been injured. There’s a splash of bright-green wetness on its back.

It turns around to face me as I round the last flight. I can’t tell if it’s surprised by my arrival. Those wide eyes never change, like a fish, expressionless.

It vibrates again, coming clearly into view. The whispers, like indistinct hissing, grow louder.

I feel nothing.

The thing’s head reels back a bit, showing a hint of surprise, which brings a smile to my face. And it’s the smile that has the most impact. The creature rears up on its back legs, vibrating furiously. Its underside looks soft.

“Big mistake, buddy.” I leap at the thing, pulling my trigger twelve times in the seconds it takes to reach the monster. It falls back from the force of the bullets, injured but not dead.

Yet.

As I fall within striking distance, I swing my weapon like a club, hoping to crack its domed skull, or at least daze the creature.

But I miss.

Well,
miss
isn’t entirely accurate. The weapon hits the hard skull and is torn from my hand. While the handgun makes contact, my hand goes
through
the thing. Right through its head, like it’s some kind of immaterial specter.

The creature reaches out its thickly muscled arms and catches hold of the railing and wall, stopping its backward descent. Instead of slamming into the thing, I simply pass straight through it. The concrete floor greets me harshly. I roll with the impact, but there isn’t much room, and my roll ends against the equally solid wall.

The bull spins around, looking down at me, vibrating. This time I hear a rattle and a whispered shriek. The sound brings fresh pain, radiating from my ears, but I’m not sure if it is the sound causing the pain or whatever is allowing me to hear it. I fight to stand. I don’t think anything is broken, but I’m going to hurt in the morning.

Enraged by my nonresponse to its strange behavior, the monster leans in closer. The massive hippo mouth drops open large enough to swallow me whole, but it’s not trying to eat me. It’s roaring. The wormy tongue shakes. Saliva sprays but doesn’t strike me.

Then the sound reaches my ears. It starts as a whistle and builds into a deep, throaty roar, like a lion’s, but sustained. I catch a whiff of the thing’s warm, rotten breath. The brief sense feels like a punch to my nose.

Unfazed by the freakish sight, I push past the pain, recover my dropped weapon from the floor, take aim, and pull the trigger.

The weapon clicks. I’ve already drained the magazine.

Stupid mistake.

The sound snaps the bull out of its intimidation display. It stops shaking and fades partially from view. The head turns toward the door. The exit.

It bolts.

As the large body passes by, I reach over my back, clasp the machete’s handle, draw the blade, and swing, all in one fluid motion. While I’m sure my hand would pass straight through the thing, the weapon’s black blade bites into flesh. Bites—and sticks.

The massive bounding weight of the bull yanks the blade from my hand. The creature—the Dread, capital
D
—lands on the first floor and then leaps through the door like it wasn’t there. The machete, however, makes contact with the door and stays behind, tearing a green splash of gore from the monster’s backside.

I recover the machete and shove through the door. The bull is already fifty feet away, running on all fours and trailing a stream of what looks like thick Mello Yello. I give chase, but there’s no way to catch it. It’s clearly trying to find a way out. I’m either going to be there to see how it escapes or greet it when it can’t.

As the Dread approaches the end of the hall, it never slows.

Ahh,
I think, understanding the creature’s escape plan. But will it work?

The monster leaps a potted plant, throws its head up, and lunges at the tinted window. The window resists the monster’s head but bends. Then the creature’s massive body adds its weight to the impact, and the window explodes outward. The bull rolls out into the night.

I pick up my pace, machete in hand.

I can reach it. I can—

An alarm sounds. Small LED lights blink above the broken window. Just seconds before I’m through, a sheet of black metal slides down, blocking my path. Through the next window over, I see the spectral brute limp off into the darkness.

A loud ding whirls me around, machete raised. Elevator doors open. Allenby, Katzman, and four members of Alpha Team step out.

“What happened?” Allenby asks, looking around. “Is it still here?”

I point my blade at the sheet of black covering the broken window.

“Dammit!” Katzman shouts.

“I can track it,” I say, but the man is shaking his head before I finish the sentence.

“Too dangerous,” he says. “They’ll know about you now.”

“
How
could you track it?” Allenby asks.

“You’re standing in its blood,” I say, and, with a flick of my wrist, clear the green goo from the blade. Allenby looks down, and for a moment I see the floor the way she does—white, polished, and sparkling clean. She can’t see it. None of them can.

I slip the machete into the scabbard on my back. “I want answers. All of them. Now.”

22.

“Not possible,” Lyons says. He sits behind his office desk, elbows resting on the mahogany surface. The room, like the living quarters, looks more like a cozy home office than something in a vast corporate, black budget headquarters. The only real aberration is that there are no windows. The office is located on the fourth floor, perfectly positioned at the building’s core. I glance around the space, looking for something expensive to destroy. And there is a lot to choose from. Ancient weapons from cultures around the world cover the walls, desktop, and shelves. It’s like a “history of warfare” museum. And it’s all tied together by a framed quote behind Lyons’s desk chair:

The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.

—S
UN
T
ZU

“Please don’t break anything,” he says. To show that he doesn’t know me as well as he thinks he does—even though he does—I listen and take a seat across from him. Allenby, behind me, breathes a sigh of relief. Katzman stands beside the desk, not taking sides in what started as a request for answers. And yeah, you could probably call the kicked-in door, my loud voice, and thrust index finger a demand, but I
was
holding back.

“Why
isn’t
it possible?” I say.

“Because…” Lyons thrums his fingers over the desktop, three strokes of four. He stops and looks me in the eyes. “Telling you the truth now will set you on a path I’m not entirely convinced you can handle.”

“From what I’ve seen today, it’s not something you’re capable of handling, either.”

He nods slowly. “Setbacks are to be expected. Every war has its risks.”

“War?”

“War,” he repeats, nodding just once. “Did you know that this world has never really known peace? Not once? At every point in history, somewhere around the world, war has raged. Even today. Especially today. Here in the States, the population is insulated from this reality. We read about it. Watch it on the news. But only a select few really get their hands dirty. Men like you. And me. It becomes a part of you, mingling with your DNA, changing you from the inside out. When war rears up again, men like us see it coming before anyone else. And we can react first. Fight and win. It’s what we do.”

“I thought you were a scientist,” I say.

“In the modern age, science is capable of killing far more people than brawn.” He leans back, supporting a grim, heavyset brow. “War isn’t coming. It’s here.”

“You make it sound like Neuro is fighting this war alone. What about your bosses at the CIA? The government will—”

Lyons picks up a TV remote. Aims it at the flat screen mounted to the side wall. “I don’t suppose you’ve watched the news this morning?” He hits the power button and the TV comes to life, already tuned to a news channel. There are no pundits talking, just a news ticker at the bottom, scrolling tidbits of violent clashes around the world and clips of recent events. Soldiers in an eastern European city I can’t identify open fire on a crowd, gunning them down. Instead of fleeing, the mob rushes through the bullets, swarming over the men while armored units roll in. These are soldiers fighting the people they’re supposed to protect. The video changes to a studio. A tired-looking reporter with disheveled hair sits solitarily behind a desk like the last bastion of cable news. “That was the scene in Kazakhstan earlier today. We now take you to the White House, where the president is making a statement already in progress.”

Somewhere in the White House Frank Paisley, the president of the United States, standing behind a podium, appears on the screen. “… have taken all possible steps to prevent domestic casualties, but no promises can be made if civil unrest continues. Make no mistake, in the defense of innocents, who are peacefully residing in their homes or places of business, the National Guard has been authorized to use lethal force. If you are in one of the twenty-three counties currently under martial law, please obey the curfew, and the property and personal rights of your neighbors. On the matter of international tensions, we are doing our best to quell fears of an imminent attack. While Russia has invaded many of its former Soviet states, we maintain a strong alliance with our border countries and are working to maintain the longtime bond with our fellow NATO members, despite unproductive rhetoric. On the subject of China, we stand behind our Japanese allies and have urged China to stand down its aggressive naval—”

Lyons turns the TV off. “The United States government currently has more tangible threats to manage. Civil unrest. External threats. Global strife. We’re at the tipping point of World War Three.” I open my mouth to speak, but he holds up his hand. “And the powers that be can’t be fully trusted to act accordingly. They, like the rest of the world, have already been affected and influenced by the Dread’s prodding fear, directing humanity towards a precipice like a herd of panicked cattle. Further exposing men like the president to the Dread could spiral things out of control even faster. Ultimately, involving outside government agencies is Winters’s call, but I have made my case to her as well, and she agrees. Neuro was tasked with handling what we call the mirror world and its residents and that’s what we’re going to do. We’re the front line in this war, and you will either be part of finding a solution or wait the crisis out from the confines of your apartment upstairs. Or SafeHaven if you’d prefer. But I can’t have you punching any more holes in my building. You could undo everything.”

“That possibility exists whether you answer my questions or I start looking for them,” I say. “I can see them now.”

“And they you from what I’ve heard.”

I nod.

“You won’t last long on your own,” he says.

“Can we please stop with the bravado?” Allenby asks. “I expect it from him, but not from you.”

With my back to Allenby, I’m not sure who “him” and “you” are, though I suspect I am the “him” in question.

Lyons takes a laborious breath. “I will answer your questions. All of them. But first, a request.”

“What?” I say.

“Clean up your mess.”

“
My
mess?”

“Security was compromised because of your paranoia-fueled egress yesterday.” He motions around the room with both hands. “This building’s natural defenses—”

“The tinted windows.” I guess. It’s the same odd tint I noticed in the ice creambulance.

He nods. “The glass is laced with oscillium particles. Not impenetrable, but solid in either world. Several of them were shattered and have yet to be replaced. The Dread typically try not to be noticed. They prefer subtlety. They won’t force their way through the windows, but the breaks already made in floors not protected by the shielding you saw on the ground level must have been too tempting. And we didn’t anticipate a situation where a window higher than the second floor could be shattered.”

“Cracks or no cracks,” Katzman says, “it was brazen for the Dread. We’re running out of—”

Lyons holds up a hand, silencing the Dread Squad leader. “I want you, Crazy”—he has to force himself to use the nickname—“to track down the injured bull and kill it before it can relate what it found to the colony.”

“On his own?” Katzman looks equal parts surprised and offended.

Lyons swivels around toward Katzman and, with something close to a growl, says, “You have other matters to focus on.”

Katzman just purses his lips and nods.

Lyons’s chair squeals as he swivels back toward me. “The bull has a fifteen-minute head start, but I’m told you wounded it. The nearest colony is an hour south, on foot. If it’s moving slowly, you’ll be able to catch it in time.”

“And if I don’t?”

Lyons’s face grows dark. “You have cost this organization a great deal. Never mind the dead men lying in the stairwell. You’ve exposed us to the enemy. Provided a chink in our armor. Even worse, you have given our enemy advance warning.”

“Of what?”

He raises a single eyebrow and points a finger at me. “Of
you
. Imagine if Japan had advance knowledge of the atom bomb. Do you think the B-29 bomber would have reached Hiroshima unscathed?”

“You’re … comparing me to an atom bomb?” I’m seriously starting to wonder what kind of a man I was before losing my memory.

He shrugs. “Perhaps closer to the
Enola Gay,
the B-29 that carried the bomb. Either way, the choices you make will have an impact on a war that most people aren’t aware of but are feeling all around them. There is no insulation from what’s coming. We will prevail and live or lose and die. That is the nature of war, and your actions will have very real and long-reaching consequences. I need you—we
all
need you—to take this seriously.”

I look to Allenby, knowing she’ll give it to me straight. “Is he serious?”