MirrorWorld

56.

Lyons strides into the colony’s core, determination wafting from him. He’s close to having his revenge for his childhood and the acts of violence against our family and to ending a war that he believes has been waged for generations but that, in truth, he began. But there’s something else about him. Something different. A strange confidence, like he’s already won. Given the amount of firepower the black-clad Dread Squad is packing, it would appear he’s correct. If the Dread mole attempts to free itself from the earth, it will be cut down by RPGs, machine guns, and high-caliber weapons. Following the pack is Katzman, still carrying his backpack.

I don’t know how many of these men are still outside. There could be hundreds of soldiers fighting out and around the colony, but that’s not a concern at the moment. Aside from the microwave bomb strapped to Katzman’s back, Lyons has all my attention. Not just because he’s the architect of all this or because he’s the one who stole my memory, but because I’ve gotten a better look at the man. He’s changed. Physically.

The hunch is gone, as is the cane. Loose skin has been replaced by taut muscle. This is Lyons if he’d been a marine or a professional wrestler and twenty years younger. Maybe thirty. He’s got a barrel chest, thick arms, and perfect posture. If not for the still-recognizable facial features and gray hair, I’m not sure I would have known him.

No one speaks or pushes fear or anything else. Both sides silently take stock of the other, forming strategies and picking targets.

Without a second thought, I do the one thing no one expects. “Lyons!” I try to look unruffled by his appearance and the knowledge of what he did to me and head toward my father-in-law.

Several of the Dread Squad members aim their weapons at me. They’re hopped up on drugs, barely in control, and look confused by the appearance of a man. I hold out my empty hands so they can see I’m not armed, while simultaneously taking stock of the weapons I have in reach. The Dread left me with the two trench knives, the Desert Eagle, and Faithful. They took a big risk trusting me. I hope it wasn’t misplaced.

“Stephen,” I say, getting Lyons’s attention.

Confusion fills his eyes, quickly replaced by surprise. “Crazy?” He steps closer to me, fearless despite knowing what I can do. And it’s not without reason. He’s nearly a foot taller than me now.

“Josef,” I say.

“You… remember?”

“Everything… Dad,” letting him know that our previous relationship is no longer a secret. I only called him Dad to rib him. He’s always hated it. I hope the casualness of this old gag will lower his defenses. I wave my hand dismissively, even though I really just want to punch him in the face. But if I can get Lyons to listen, maybe back down, I am willing to delay the introduction of my knuckles to his nose, and to the rest of him. “You had to make tough choices. I understand that now.”

He flexes his chest, watching me with predatory eyes. Dread eyes. “I know you better than that.”

“Not anymore.” I stop ten feet from him, within the reach of his men but not his meaty hands.

“Why are you here?” he asks.

“I came for Maya.” I can see he’s about to argue, so I point her out. She’s two hundred feet away, between the two mammoths. “They took her to lure me in.”

His surprise becomes suspicion as he seems to forget his own daughter. “Lure you in?” He turns those hungry eyes back on me. “Why?”

The Dread never said they were luring me in. It’s entirely possible that she really is here as a human shield and to deter Lyons. When I was attacked earlier, I might have been seen as just another advance Dread Squad member. But when they caught me… the strategy changed. “To help me understand.”

He turns away from me, casually looking at the Dread all around us. “And do you? Understand?”

“They’re not what you think,” I tell him. “They don’t want a war. They—”

“Are monsters, Josef. Murderers. Of our family. Of countless others. They are little more than territorial bullies hiding in the shadows. They have nearly destroyed me. Twice.”

I take a step closer. Weapons follow my movement, trained on my head. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“They got to you,” he says.

“What?”

A smile forms on Lyons’s lips. His teeth… they’re black. “They got inside your head. Messed with your memories. Didn’t they? Made you their puppet.”

I say nothing because it could be true. Have I been manipulated? I suppose there is no real way to be sure. But Lyons quickly reinforces that he screwed with my mind first.

“You really are the perfect puppet, Josef. Your fearless nature made you quick to accept orders. You’re not afraid to believe what you’re told. You’re quick to obey and slow to question. It’s what made you the perfect assassin and the best man to handle the Dread. That’s not the case anymore, as you can see.” He motions to the men around us.

“The drugs will wear off.”

“We have time.”

Time… I look at my watch. “We have thirteen minutes.” He says nothing so I fill in the blanks. “In thirteen minutes, the president is going to attack Russia’s nuclear arsenal. When that happens, Russia will launch. We’ll launch. And just to put a cherry on top, everyone else will launch.”

“Then it’s time we get started,” he says. “Don’t you think?”

“What’s your goal, here? You kill the Dread, destroy a major colony, and then what? The Dread will—”

“Do nothing,” he hisses. “I know what you think. That they’ll push the president into some world-ending military action. That they’ve got their fingers on the button. And maybe they do, but there is a reason they haven’t already hit that button. No one, not even the Dread, wants to cook the entire planet.”

“They won’t have any other choice.”

“It’s a bluff. They drew first blood, and now they’re—”

“We drew first blood!” I shout. “You did. You destroyed their colony, cooked them alive. They have families, just like us. Children. And our family paid the—”

“You naive little boy.” He looks down at me, hatred in his eyes. “They’ve been—”

“Evolving. Like us. Trying to understand. But mostly hiding from men like you. And me. We’re as monstrous to them as they are to us.”

He stares at me, one eyebrow cocked slightly higher than the other. “I am far more monstrous than you know.”

A flicker of red illuminates his skin from the inside. He leans down so our faces are inches apart. “Everything you think you know is wrong. The Dread will not destroy both worlds. This will be a conventional war, and which side of the mirror do you think will win that fight?”

“You’re wrong. I’ve seen it.”

“When I destroy this colony, the control it exerts over the others will be severed. All of the Dread and colonies connected to this one will be lobotomized. You’ve seen it for yourself. How can the Dread hurt us then?”

“Preemptively,” I say. “How long do you think it will take the Dread to push the world into nuclear war. Minutes? My bet is on seconds. You haven’t seen what they can do. Not like I have.”

Lyons shakes his head. “You’re grasping. Weak. You shame yourself. The time for action has come.”

“Is that why Katzman has a microwave bomb strapped to his back?”

He pauses to glare at Katzman, but the man doesn’t notice. He’s too busy looking at the silent Dread surrounding us. Lyons turns back to me, black smile returning. “If the big one doesn’t come out to say hello, we’re going to burn it out. We are not simply here to destroy, Josef. Today is our D-day. We are here to invade. And the best way to start an invasion is to kill the leadership. You know that. Then I’m going to wipe out the resistance, capture the weak, and turn the young against their own kind. They started a war with humanity, and now they’re going to truly understand what that means. I’ll destroy this place if it comes to that, but you and our enemy have underestimated my true intentions.”

The full ramifications of the D-day name come clear. This isn’t a simple assault, it’s a beachhead into the Dread world, the first step of an invasion. “What about Maya? She’ll be killed.”

He glances toward Maya, his face softening a touch. “She has been dead for a long time. She is now as lost as you. I can see it in her eyes, just as I see it in yours. Death will be a mercy.” He turns to his men. “Kill him.”

I raise my hands as Lyons takes a step back. The men hold their fire for a moment. They probably didn’t count on shooting a man with his hands up.

“Are you there?” I think, hoping the matriarch will hear my thoughts.

Whispering fills my head, much of it beyond my comprehension, but a single line is for me. “There is a natural cavern sharing this space.”

“Get Maya out of here, please,” I reply, and glance at my wife as though to say good-bye. “Thank you,” I think to the matriarch as Maya is whisked away by a bull. It retreats toward the archway on the far end. She’s safe. For now.

Me, on the other hand, not so much.

Lyons loses his patience. “Kill him!”

I slip into the real world and dive to the side, but it’s unnecessary. The men and their weapons have shifted fully into the Dread frequency of reality. Their bullets can’t reach me here.

And then, in a flash, they can. Five Dread Squad men wink into reality. I see them for a moment as they pop into the darkness, but then I’m blind. Rather than fight in the dark, I let my vision slip into the world between. Luminous veins, some as thick as a man, cover the walls. “You don’t have to do this. You can still walk away.” But then the five men, who must have also adjusted their vision, take aim and fire.