MirrorWorld

27.

“It’s what you did to you,” Lyons says, “when you decided to inject the—”

“But that was the plan all along, right? Turn me into one of them?”

“Not one of them,” Allenby says. “We need people like you to fight them. And we needed you to still be human.”

“So who else but me could?” I ask. “That’s your justification.”

“Once again,” Lyons says. “It was you who decided to—”

“You brought me here under false pretenses,” I say. “Created a scenario that you knew would end the way it did. You didn’t put the needle in my leg, but you convinced me it was the only course of action I had left. There isn’t much difference. All because I’m the only guy who can fight these things.”

Katzman takes a step forward like a recruit volunteering for duty. “Dread Squad can fight them. It’s not impossible. Fear can be overcome, through training—”

“I’ve seen how well that works.”

Winters speaks up for the first time since I embarrassed her. “And drugs that temporarily block the amygdala’s function.”

“Drugs?” The question comes from Cobb.

Winters rolls her neck, cracking the tension from it. She’s got an edge, and is undeniably beautiful, almost sculpted. I can see what I liked about her, physically at least. We haven’t exactly hit if off yet, but that’s my fault. “BDO. It’s a mix of benzodiazepine, dextroamphetamine, and OxyContin.”

“Geez.” Cobb laughs a little “Sounds addictive as hell.”

“It is,” Winters concedes. “But the Oxy inhibits the amygdala.”

“And the rest?” I ask.

“Makes you feel like Superman,” Katzman says. “The cravings for more after a single hit can take months to go away, so it’s a last resort.”

Katzman has clearly tried the stuff. The thirsty look in his eyes as he speaks reveals the truth: the craving for more never goes away. Good thing I don’t need it. Of course, I’m now part monster from a hidden dimension. A drug addiction might be preferable. I doubt the genetic changes made to my body can be undone.

Speaking of which. “If you can’t really see or interact with the Dread, how did you change me?”

“The process of genetically altering a human being is actually quite simple. Dread cells are broken down though a process called sonication. We add a detergent to remove the membrane lipids, remove the proteins by adding a protase, then the RNA. We purify the remaining DNA, isolate the genes with traits we want to pass on and—”

I wave my hand around in circles. “Fast-forwarding…”

“Transgenesis, the process of taking genes from one organism and injecting them into another, was accomplished using a gene gun.”

“That sounds horrible,” Cobb says.

Lyons waves him off. “The DNA is combined with a genetically altered retrovirus that causes no outward symptoms but modifies the host’s DNA with the new code.”

“But that’s not what Crazy used on himself,” Cobb says. “That was an ordinary syringe. And how could DNA injected days ago already be changing his body? That would require—”

“Time.” Lyons turns his attention from Cobb back to me. “The changes made to your DNA were made four years ago. You stuck yourself with that needle, too, though it was a far more informed decision. You volunteered.”

Of course I did. A lack of fear is sometimes the worst enemy of sound decision making. Even now, the revelation that I’ve been part Dread for four years hardly fazes me. I don’t appreciate the not knowing. The lies. My feelings of right and wrong begin to fuel a smattering of righteous indignation, but the ramifications of being not fully human for years don’t rattle me. The biggest reaction I can manage is a simple question. “How did I not know?”

“When we took care of your memory,” Lyons says, “we also inhibited your new genes. The drug you injected, the one we let you believe was important and irreplaceable, simply unlocked those latent abilities. It’s why you felt them right away.”

All of this makes a strange kind of sense. I get what he’s telling me. But it doesn’t answer the original question. “What I meant was, if you can’t really see or interact with the Dread out there”—I motion toward the Documentum room—“all you had was mathematical theories, and I hadn’t yet been… altered, where did you get your original DNA sample?”

“That… came from you, too.” Lyons stands above me. Points at my chest. “Do you remember how you got that scar?”

I glance down. There’s a large round scar from a puncture wound in the meat between my shoulder and heart.

“One of them slipped partially into our world and put a talon in your chest. It was aiming for your heart. But unlike you, it had no experience physically killing a human being, let alone a fearless special-ops-trained CIA assassin. You rolled, took the blow to your chest, and then removed the digit with a knife. The whole encounter lasted just seconds and left us with a Dread finger. Once in our dimension, separated from the body, the finger remained. You packed it in ice, brought it to me, and voilà, Dread DNA. That moment was like a quantum shift for Neuro. Physical proof at last. It changed everything.”

“You said the Dread avoided entering our frequency physically,” Cobb points out.

“I said it was rare,” Lyons says. “Not impossible. In this case it was likely the lack of a fear response that instigated a reaction.”

Something in me wants to argue this history lesson. It feels too simple. Too clean. But I have no memory, so how can I argue? “The severed finger didn’t have a negative effect on the people who saw it?”

Lyons shakes his head. “Once fully in our world, the Dread’s effect on the human psyche is mostly negated, at least to a point where it can be overcome and recovered from. Some of the fear projected from a Dread comes from the way they vibrate. Their frequency. When so close to our reality, we can feel their presence in the very strings of reality, like the universe is suddenly out of tune. It makes us uncomfortable, disoriented, and, most often, afraid. But there is something else. Something more. We don’t understand it yet, but they are able to magnify, and even direct, that fear response. To fully enter our frequency of reality, the Dread must be in sync with it. So the natural fear created by their presence is negated, and when they’re dead, well, they can no longer push fear at anyone.”

“Are you sure about that?” I ask.

Dearborn raises his hands, eager to share. “Not all myths are about specters and demons. Some include physical confrontation.”

“Couldn’t they just be ancient ‘big fish’ stories made up to get into a girl’s pants… or tunic?” Cobb asks.

“Since many of the stories end with the heroes’ death, I’d venture at least some of them were genuine confrontations. There is Humbaba the Terrible, an ancient Mesopotamian beast whose job was to inflict human beings with terror. It had a face that looked like coiled entrails, or a lion’s, depending on which hieroglyphs you believe. The monster was confronted by Gilgamesh and slain. Then there is Scylla, the Greek cave-dwelling sea monster described as a ‘thing of terror.’ The monster was slain by Hercules, who is undoubtedly a creation of legend, and recent information obtained by Neuro suggests the true slayer of the monster was a man named Alexander.

“These are all mythological battles with creatures that I believe were likely”—he raises a finger—“real, physical events.” He raises a second finger. “Lacking any real knowledge of the Dread, ancient peoples attributed those events to already-existing myths, or brand-new ones conforming to whatever belief system or religion was prevalent at the specific time and place. And, of course, there is always a good amount of embellishment, or legend, that is added to these things over time. A Dread bull with no horns might have the huge horns of a Minotaur after two thousand years of oral tradition. So all we can really glean is that physical confrontations with Dread, while rare, have occurred in the past—in your case, the recent past—and the human involved had the wherewithal to fight back. Ipso facto, the fear effect generated by the Dread is negated or substantially reduced when they’re fully immersed in our frequency of reality.”

Dearborn’s depth of knowledge is impressive, but is he overreaching? Who’s to say that all those stories about monsters weren’t just created by the ancient horror authors of the time, spreading their tales through oral tradition rather than the printing press? “Maybe it’s just that a dead finger isn’t that scary? Or the mythological heroes who fought back were born like me. I can’t be the only one in the history of mankind to be born with deformed amygdalas.”

The old man twists his lips back and forth, which I now know means he’s thinking. “I believe we’ve answered enough questions for now.” He stands over me, breathing.

“You sound like Darth Vader,” I point out.

He grins. “Most overweight men do.” The operating table groans when Lyons leans over and uses it to support his weary-limbed girth. “Now then, tell me what you saw.”

While I haven’t been told everything, Lyons has been forthcoming. I decide to keep the exchange of information going. “I can see them in several different ways. First, in our world, or dimension, or frequency. Whatever you want to call it. Then there is the world between. It looks similar to the real world, but is intercut by glowing green veins, which also cover the Dread. I think it’s blood, like an external vascular system. The sky is purple. There are also black trees, some intermingling with the trees from our world. Basically, all the really solid, immovable stuff from both sides is there.”

“It all matches his previous description,” Katzman says.

“Yes, yes,” Lyons says, nodding quickly, moving his hand around in circles, urging me to continue on. “Stationary objects of concrete reality tend to stretch between frequencies further than living, moving matter, overlapping with the next fully realized frequency. We know all this already.”

I pick up the ice packs on my stomach, flipping them over one by one. They’re getting warm.

Lyons loses his patience. Snaps his fingers at me. “The mirror dimension. That’s where you went, isn’t it?”

“I killed it there, yes.”

Lyons steps back a bit, finds a chair, and sits. He doesn’t seem surprised, and I think I know why. Despite his claim that all the specimens were trapped while entering Neuro, some of them came from me. I’ve killed them before. “Good,” he says. “This is good. Give me details.”

“I’ll give you the whole story,” I say, and I break the details down for my entranced audience, telling them about the trail of green blood, the veined trees and earth, and my crash with and travel through the pine tree, and the muddy landing in the Dread’s world, which I describe in detail. I tell them how I killed the bull but leave out the pugs and colony. We’ll get to that soon enough. I finish with an explanation of how my pendant made the leap between worlds with me, confirming that all matter can change frequencies; oscillium just does it more easily.

“Show me,” Lyons says.

“Show you what?”

“Look into the world between.”

“Isn’t this old news?” I ask.

“You were very private about this before,” Lyons says. “Didn’t want Maya to know. Or Simon.”

With a flex of my new eye muscles, I feel the shift in my vision into the world between. The pain caused by this subtle shift—though slightly less intense than my previous experiences—forces my eyes shut, but I grit my teeth and push past it, opening my eyes again. The room’s structure is the same, but the people are gone, as are the less solid elements of the room—chairs, supplies, papers. I focus on my vision, shifting back to my home frequency without instigating a physical change, seeing the real world with Dread eyes. The room appears again. Everyone in the room, minus Katzman and Lyons, has taken a step back.

“What?” I ask.

“Your eyes,” Winters says.

Katzman is the least shocked, and Lyons just looks interested. He produces a small flashlight and shines it back and forth between my eyes. “Have you noticed any other changes? Perhaps less overt. Increased strength, or stamina, or—”

I shake my head. “I didn’t even know my eyes could look different.” There’s a mirror above a sink at the back of the room. I slide off the table, letting the now warm ice packs fall away, and head for the mirror. I can see something is wrong with my eyes, even from a distance. Up close, the truth is revealed. My once-circular pupils have split into two vertical rectangles, connected by a small dash. Like the bull. But they’re not glowing from within. My blood, it seems, is still human.

Not all of me, though. I really am part Dread.

But how much?

I still feel human. Like myself. My experience of the string-theory frequencies I call home hasn’t changed at all.

Except that I can choose to change that experience. I can see, hear, smell, taste, and feel what a Dread can, but can I really do those things like a Dread? And if so, are there other things I can do?

Only one way to find out. I decide to make the others my guinea pigs. I turn, face the group, and try to intimidate them. At first, nothing happens. Everyone just stares.

“You’re kind of freaking me out, man,” Cobb says.

“What are you doing?” Winters asks.

Katzman, hand on his sidearm, is nervous but tries to relieve it with humor. “Looks like he’s trying to shit his pants.”

Cobb steps closer to me, hand reaching out. “Are you feeling all r—”

A vibration slips from my limbs and into my core. My gut twists with agony, and I suspect the pain might be caused by the physical changes taking place, tapping underused muscles, or organs. But I turn the negative feelings outward, willing them toward the others… until five voices shout with surprise—and fear.

That’s when I hear it, in my head. The whispering. But it sounds more like static, lacking the cadence of the Dread whispers.

The vibration stops quickly as the pain becomes so intense that I nearly buckle and fall to the floor. When I look up, sweat dripping in my eyes, everyone in the room has backed away. I only managed to conjure up and project a brief moment of fear, but it’s had a clear effect on the others. Cobb is on the floor, scrambling to his feet. Katzman has his weapon drawn, aimed at me. Allenby is pale. Winters looks ready to fight, which I admire. And Lyons has a hand over his heart, not acting this time. Sweat on his brow.

“How?” Lyons says, before taking a deep breath. “How did you do that?”

Feeling winded, like I’ve just run several miles, I sit down. The pain begins to fade as I let my body become its old self. “Maybe I’m more Dread than you thought.”

Lyons pushes past his fear, and the others. With excited eyes, he says, “You’ve certainly never done that before.”

“Could his DNA have continued to change over the past year?” Allenby asks, sounding more concerned than scientifically interested.

“It’s possible, but it’s also likely the old Josef never thought to try.” Lyons looks at me. “Or perhaps he just kept it from us. Show me more.”

“I’m not sure what else a Dread can do.”

“Enter their world,” he says. “I want to see it happen.”

“It hurts,” I tell him. “A lot.”

“Does the pain linger?”

“Fades over time, but the initial shift is like getting kicked in the nuts. If you want to see it, you’re going to have to answer one more question for me.”

Lyons nods. “Anything.”

“What do they want? Aside from dominance. Because from what I can see, they’re moving away from primal dominance and closer to a kind of psy-ops war.”

Lyons leans back against a counter, twisting his lips, eyes on the ceiling.

“It’s a simple question,” I say.

“With a complicated answer, in part because we’re not entirely sure.”

“So let’s skip to the end game for now. Ignore the why. They’re spurring on violent mobs around the world, building a fear-fueled frenzy between governments, turning the whole world on itself. But to what end?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Lyons says. “Fear is one of the strongest emotions. Enough of it can destroy logic and fuel paranoia. When this happens en masse, we see genocides, mass murder, and war.”

“They’ve done this before?” I ask.

Lyons nods. “Undoubtedly. But not at this scale. The human race will soon be at each other’s throats. Brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor, nation against nation. There will come a point when world powers fear each other more than they do the mutually assured annihilation their nuclear arsenals provide.” He pauses for a breath. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“They want us to do their dirty work for them,” I say.

Cobb, still steadying himself, asks, “But why? Two weeks ago, the world was fine and dandy. Then everything went nuts. What changed?”

Lyons turns to Cobb. “I have no idea.” Back to me. “But it started when you took that finger all those years ago.”

“This is my fault?”

“How would you feel if the animals in the slaughterhouse suddenly understood why they were there and who was responsible for it? They know we know. That we can detect them.” He raises a hand toward the Documentum room. “That we can collect and study them. Kill them. Consider what we do in less severe situations. When an animal population gets out of control, maybe it’s predators attacking livestock, or deer wrecking cars, what do we do? It’s a tradition going back through all of recorded human history, and is likely responsible for the extinction of several ancient species as well as several more recent extinctions—wolves in the U.S., sharks off of Australia, deer in the Northeast.”

I see where he’s going, and in a horrible way it makes perfect sense. “It’s a cull.”

Lyons nods. “I think they mean to set the human race back. Reduce our numbers. Remove our technology, without which we have no hope of detecting them or resisting their influence. They’re going to return us to the Stone Age, and themselves to the shadows, where they’re safe from us.”

“From me,” I say.

“It’s a preemptive strike against humanity before we can really fight back.” He looks at me with deadly serious eyes. “Now, show me.”

I take a step away from him and focus my whole body and all of my senses on what is just beyond reach. I can feel it now, the change within my body and mind, as I let the Dread part of me, and its senses, become dominant. At first, it’s subtle, like the stretch of an elastic band that then snaps, painfully. I feel the shift to the world between, and then, with a shout of muscle-shaking pain, darkness. I’m fully in the other realm but still inside the oscillium confines of Neuro. The building is jet-black in all directions, lacking any kind of light. There are no interior walls—and no floors.

But in this mirror dimension, where physics are the same, there is gravity. And it tugs me downward. My stomach lurches as I fall from a height of seven stories.