MirrorWorld

58.

I race through the cavern, alone except for the dead Dread Squad men behind me. The air is crisp, clean, and a welcome change from the tang of the mirror world. A distant roar reveals the underground river’s outlet, which pours into the cavern, beyond my sight, no doubt flowing away, back into the earth.

Lyons had been a good hundred feet from me when I started running. If he’s still pushing forward, he’ll be within reach in just a few seconds. He’ll be surrounded by his soldiers, too, but I really don’t care.

At all.

Brief winks of light mark the arrival of the Dread Squad. Seven of them.

Not enough, I think. But then I remember what’s happening in the mirror world. That he sent seven of his protectors says he realizes the danger I present. But he’s still underestimating me. Had he really understood what I can do, he’d have sent everyone.

While the seven men take aim, I roar. Carried along with my voice, moving at roughly the same speed, is a whisper of fear the likes of which these men have yet to encounter. It’s a gift, I realize, from the matriarch, and it’s painless. The matriarch did a little more than return the last bits of my memory. While I can’t feel the fear effect myself, I somehow know that it’s on the level of what a Dread mole can produce. And I remember that feeling. It nearly broke me. No amount of drugs can overcome such raw, unfiltered terror.

I push it in waves, each invisible torrent crashing into and through the very souls of these men. I become their worst fears, in the flesh, rushing toward them. I’m so focused on generating this mind-numbing fear that I almost don’t notice I’m also pulling the assault rifle’s trigger, sending the last of my ammo into the seven men, ending their fear forever.

When the last of them drops in a heap, I stop, draw my Desert Eagle, and slip back into the mirror world, intending to put a bullet in the back of Lyons’s head.

Instead, I’m met by a thick fist, driven into my gut. I stumble back, pitched over, sucking air. The handgun drops from my grasp. Bent over, eyes shut, I can’t see a thing, but I know everything has changed during my brief time in the cavern.

“I saw you coming.” Lyons’s voice is deeper than before. Stronger. So is his punch. “You always seem to find a way to surprise me, but not this time. It’s your turn to be surprised. Your turn to feel fear.”

When he says “fear,” a ripple of energy flows through me. He’s pushing fear at me, but not hard enough. I barely feel it. Still, he’s adjusting to the change faster than I did. And in ways I didn’t.

He’s stronger, faster, all his previous ailments repaired, and then there’s the glow radiating from under his skin like… veins of color.

Oh my God… The refinements he made to the Dread DNA that allow a human being to sense the world like a mirror-world resident were intensified, or perhaps lessened, with his own personal batch. How long has he been changing? Did the alterations to his own DNA effect his mind? Is all of this a result of some kind of faulty rewiring? He wouldn’t be the first person to have boosted aggression from a body-altering substance.

“Look at me, son,” Lyons says.

Catching my breath, I crane my head up. He stands above me, looking bigger and meaner than ever. He’s nearly bursting out of his armor. Thick veins pulse with red light just beneath the skin of his neck. He’s becoming more Dread with each passing second.

“I can see it in you. The fear.” Lyons chuckles. “Look around, Josef. Your treachery has failed.”

He’s right about that. The only Dread left in the colony are dead or dying. That is, except for the matriarch, which still hasn’t climbed out of its hole. Is it hiding? Knowledge surfaces, answering the question. It’s rooted. The larger the colony, the older the matriarch. It’s actually part of the colony, unable to rise up again, held in place by the colorful veins that feed everything in this world. If it leaves, it dies. And if that happens, the Earth dies on both sides of the mirror. The matriarch I killed in New Hampshire had been a youth, loosely rooted and inexperienced. It should have never left its colony. It would still be alive if it hadn’t.

But staying hidden beneath the ground isn’t going to help this subterranean behemoth at all. The Dread Squad numbers have been whittled down. A large number of the bodies littering the arena floor are human. But there are still forty of them, most uninjured, some aiming RPGs at the tendrils slowly warbling behind Lyons. Others are repositioning the machine guns on either side of the matriarch. If it rises, they’ll cut it to pieces.

I am the last hope for both worlds now.

“You are not alone,” says a whispering voice. The matriarch. She’s still in my head. “Delay them.”

I search the eyes of the Dread Squad soldiers, stopping on a familiar face kneeling down, opening a backpack. “If you set that thing off, you’re killing the world.”

Katzman pauses. Meets my gaze until Lyons’s breaks it, saying, “Finish your job.” The words propel Katzman back into action. He takes out a large black device with a black, domed top. The microwave bomb.

“We are liberating this world,” Lyons says, “one colony at a time. And when they lose this colony, they’ll lose control of colonies across the continent. They’ll also lose control of the hundreds of millions of people they’re affecting in North America alone. Don’t you see what that means? Riots will end. The government will rein in control, easing tensions. We’ll be saving the world. That you think otherwise is—”

“Educated,” I say. “That’s not how this works. The moment that bomb goes off, the matriarch will trigger nuclear Armageddon. You will destroy the world. And for what? Because you pissed your bed every night when you were a kid? Because the big, bad Dread made noise or moved things, made you feel a little screwy in the head?”

Lyons growls and flexes his fingers. The fingernails pop off, replaced by sharp, black talons. He’s oblivious to the change.

“It doesn’t matter what happened in the past,” I say. “Genocide isn’t an acceptable solution.”

“Genocide?” He laughs. “They’re not even human.”

“I’m not sure any of us are really human anymore,” I say, motioning to myself and the Dread Squad. “Have you looked in a mirror lately? Look at your hands.”

He lifts his thick fingers up, inspecting them. He flinches upon seeing his sprouted claws. He looks confused, but it’s just for a moment. Whatever discomfort he feels about his physical transformation is replaced by a wicked smile. The change has got to be altering his mind, too. This is no longer the Lyons I knew. No longer the man who was Maya’s father. “I am becoming more than both races. I am… evolving.”

“You’re a monster,” I tell him.

When he looks down at me, the sides of his head bulge, split with a slurp, and open, revealing a second set of eyes. “Monsters both.”

“Sir,” Katzman says. “It’s ready.”

“Start it,” Lyons says.

“Don’t!” I shout, but am quickly silenced by claws raking across my chest. The powerful and sharp-tipped hand tears the armor away from my chest, leaving faint, paper-cut-thin slices in my skin. Had I not been wearing the armor, I’d be missing my chest.

“Help is coming,” the matriarch whispers in my head. “In the cavern.”

Rippling energy courses through me. It’s Lyons, pushing his fear, hammering it down on me like a weapon. I fall to my knees, clenching my fists, shaking and hissing through my teeth. A sob bursts from my mouth, embarrassingly loud.

“How does it feel? To experience fear after a lifetime of not knowing it?” Lyons steps closer, reaches out for me.

“They are ready and will follow your lead,” the matriarch whispers.

“Actually,” I say to Lyons, “I couldn’t tell you.” I turn my head up, not a trace of fear in my eyes, and smile. Turns out I’m a decent actor, though I have my short time as a fear-feeling person to thank for the authentic, trembling sob. Despite Lyons’s inhuman appearance and increasing size, I feel nothing beyond the desire to beat him senseless. I didn’t realize it at first, but then I picked up on the signs. Acting without thought. Disregard for bullets. A steady heartbeat. When the matriarch restored my mind, she didn’t just return my memory but my fearless nature as well. “Surprise.”

I slip out of the mirror world and into the real-world cavern. While I once again feel no fear, I have what might be the single largest “holy shit” moment of my life. And then I smile.