MirrorWorld

57.

The bullets pass through empty space. At least, I’m assuming they do. I’m no longer there. I’ve slipped back into the mirror world, taking a soldier by surprise.

I don’t know who these men are or whether they have families or children who will miss them. But I do know they heard what I said: that peace is an option, that no one else needs to die. Maybe it’s the drugs, or they’ve been brainwashed to not think, or they simply believe Lyons’s Dread doctrine. I don’t know. But I do know that they are still willing to threaten the safety of every man, woman, child, and Dread on this planet in service of my father-in-law. So when I act without hesitation, it’s also without guilt.

The shock at my sudden appearance lasts just a fraction of a second. The soldier is already spinning his weapon toward me. But he’s not quite fast enough, even pumped full of drugs. My fist finds his jaw, sprawling him back, directly into the path of a soldier pursuing me between dimensions. The falling man is nearly cleaved in two by the newly arrived soldier, who has shifted from the real world to the mirror world inside the other, destroying the matter that was the man’s gut, cleaving a hole in his body just as I did the lab table back at Neuro. The falling soldier dies instantly and without a sound. The new arrival sees what has happened and screams. No one hears him, though. The chamber roils with the sounds of battle. Roaring, explosions, gunfire. Both sides have launched attacks.

I take a moment to look around, hoping to catch Lyons by surprise. But he’s already moved beyond my reach, running—actually running—toward the Dread mole, which has yet to rise from the ground. A wedge of soldiers frames him, firing at everything that moves.

A second Dread Squad soldier shifts from the real world to the mirror right in front of me, spinning, assault rifle raised. Ready to put a bullet in my head. But he’s too close for the assault rifle to be effective.

I grab hold of the still-hot rifle muzzle, pull the weapon out, twist it, and then slam it back into the surprised soldier’s face. While he’s stunned, I slip behind him and pull us both back to our home dimension, keeping my vision locked in the world between. The three remaining soldiers open fire, killing their comrade. While they continue the barrage, filling his oscillium armor with lead, I slip back into the mirror world and charge toward empty space. Hoping I’ve timed it right, I shift back, punching.

My fist connects with a man’s face. I’m back in the cavern, and then I’m not. While the punched man falls, I dive and roll through the mirror dimension before shifting again, grabbing hold of one of the still-upright soldier’s weapons, thrusting it up, and chopping him in the throat. While he starts to gag, I slip out of the real world once more, move to a new position, and return home again. I’m standing directly in front of the last soldier.

My strobelike assault, slipping in and out of view, slows the man, but the drugs keep him moving.

He discards his rifle and draws a blade, thrusting it at my throat. As the tip cuts a nick into my skin, I catch both of his hands in mine. We push against each other for a moment, maneuvering the knife away from and closer to my throat—that is, until I shift frequencies again, this time taking the man’s hands and the knife with me. When I shift back, the now-handless man is screaming. I silence him by turning his own hands around and plunging the blade into his heart.

Taking a moment, I flicker in and out of the world between, leaving behind the blood on my hands, not because it’s gross, but because it’s slippery. I recover a Vector assault rifle and several spare clips from the fallen men. I then take the headgear from the man with a knife in his chest, clutched by his own severed hands. The black mask and round goggles make me look just like one of them. Just another Dread Squad. After a quick check of the rifle’s chamber, I slip back into chaos.

The colony is a war zone.

More soldiers storm into the chamber, arriving in small groups. The Dread are being reinforced from the other side. Bulls thunder across the arena, taking streams of bullets before falling to the might of men. Men who are eventually going to run out of ammunition. Mothmen descend from above, tackling soldiers, tearing into them. Others simply carry the men up and release them, letting gravity do the rest. And still others are shot from the air. They’re swift, but in the enclosed space, facing men who have trained to hit moving targets, they’re dying more than they’re killing.

A cloud of Dread bats swirls around the chamber. They’re not attacking. They’re panicking, swirling upward toward the ceiling and the many holes leading out. They’re good for gathering intelligence, but I suspect they’re closer to trained animals than to higher functioning Dread.

The two mammoths are making a mess of the human soldiers, kicking, stomping, and charging through the Dread Squad ranks. An RPG cuts across the open chamber, snaking a trail of smoke behind it. The projectile strikes one of the mammoth’s flanks, detonating with a fiery explosion that sends a wash of gore over the men nearby. It also sends the remaining mammoth into a frenzy. Knowing what I do know about the Dread, I realize the two giants were probably friends. Maybe family.

An approaching buzz turns me around. A mothman descends toward me, clawed feet extended. I raise the Vector, but hold my fire and push a wave of fear at the thing while thinking, It’s me! The thing swerves away, picking another target, but is shot down in a splatter of bright red.

Are my thoughts part of the whisper? The Dread whisper is now like a rushing wind. There are so many mental voices mixed together that I can’t tell if there is any kind of actual communication getting through. The screaming on the human side of things isn’t much different.

Until I receive a message loud and clear. A soldier punches my shoulder. “Weapons up, asshole!”

He rushes past me, firing. I shoot him in the back without a second thought. Then I turn on the rest of Dread Squad, pick a target, and fire.

Pick a target. Fire.

Pick a target. Fire.

I repeat the process five times before my treachery is seen by someone who doesn’t receive a bullet to the head a moment later. Bullets chew up the chamber floor, then stop when I slip between frequencies, back to the natural cavern. I start running, slipping in and out of worlds, firing at soldiers as they try to adjust to my new position. It’s an impossible task. Every time I leave the mirror world, I alter my pace and course.

The confusion caused by my interdimensional counterattack distracts at least a third of the Dread Squad in the chamber. It’s just a moment, but it’s enough for the Dread to attack anew. Charging forward, pushing a tidal wave of fear ahead of them, the mammoth and five large bulls slam into the enemy ranks, stomping, thrashing, and swiping with claws. Some men are trampled underfoot. Some find themselves crushed by massive bear-trap jaws. The rest are tossed about like juggling pins.

For a moment, the Dread have the upper hand.

But it’s only a moment.

Two chain-fed M2 Browning machine guns, now resting on tripods, open fire from the far end of the chamber. The weapons unleash up to twelve hundred .50 caliber rounds per minute. That’s like having rapid fire on the Desert Eagle and a nearly infinite amount of ammo. The thunderous roar of the two guns drowns out all the screaming, but the whispering in my head is still clear—and frantic.

As the mammoth and line of bulls are cut down and my presence is, for the moment, forgotten, I scan the chamber. Lyons is at the front line, his wedge of men now twice as long and two men thick. They’re heading for the matriarch. I consider going for the machine guns, but the time it would take to reach them and take them out would mean leaving the matriarch at the mercy of Lyons. Were it any other Dread, I’d let it fend for itself, but the giant creature buried beneath this chamber is the key to life or death for our planet. If it dies, we all die.

Mind made up, I take aim at Lyons and fire a single shot, striking him in the back. He pitches forward but quickly stands upright. His armor absorbed the shot, but it should have knocked him to the ground and left him gasping for air. I should have aimed for his head. Why didn’t I aim for his head?

For Maya. The man is still her father.

Lyons glares at me, oblivious to the danger around him, unflinching at the sound of gunfire, the closeness of Dread, and the fear they’re pushing. Unlike the other Dread Squad members, who, despite the drugs, still flinch at the fear effect, Lyons appears to be impervious. He’s fearless. And impossibly large. Powerful.

And… glowing. Radiating red from inside.

What has he done? Whatever it is, I’m going to undo it. And him.

I peel the mask from my head, let him know I’m still alive and kicking—and coming for him. And then I wink out of the mirror world and charge toward his position.