Jeremy Robinson - MirrorWorld

The unanswered question is, Why did I run from them in the past?

Knowing that the answer will eventually be freed by changing scar tissue, I decide to waste no time or energy trying to uncover it. Given the look in Allenby’s eyes, I think time is something I don’t have.

Allenby gets her hands under my arms and lifts. I stand with her. “We need to go.”

I understand her urgency. Maya’s kidnapping now weighs heavily on me. The idea of losing her, for good, and in such a horrible way, after betraying her trust all those years ago, is unacceptable. But where there was urgency before, there now seems to be a ticking clock. “What’s changed?”

Allenby heads for the door. I follow, shakily at first, but then steadied by Winters’s hand on my back.

“They’re on their way here,” Allenby says, looking over her shoulder.

“Who is?”

“Dread Squad.”

I’m about to say that’s a good thing when I realize the implications of her fear. They’re not on their way to help; they’re coming to stop us.

“I spoke to Lyons,” Allenby says. “He sounded… different. Angry.”

“He thinks they killed Maya?” I ask.

She nods. “But I think it’s more than that. He seemed more upset about the attack. Compared it to Pearl Harbor. Said the Dread had awakened a sleeping giant.”

“He’s been comparing the Dread to World War Two Japan,” I say. “Sees this as the first wave of an invasion.”

“His war has finally begun,” Winters says. “I knew he was preparing for the worst, but I didn’t know he was actually ready to strike. While I’m sure he has support from people above my pay grade, this is war, and I doubt he has the president’s stamp of approval. This was all supposed to be a process. Build evidence. A game plan. Present it all to the president and let him decide.”

“I think that this was the plan all along,” I say. “Something started two weeks ago. It’s why he brought me back. I was going to be his Enola Gay .” My eyes widen. “I was going to deliver a bomb.”

“What bomb?” Winters asks.

I shrug. “I have no idea, but I was his delivery system.” I turn to Allenby. “He’s found someone else to do it.”

This is something he’s been working on for a long time at that second location, and if the World War Two analogy is accurate, I don’t think Maya will survive it… if she’s alive. Whether or not Lyons’s actions are impulsive, misguided, or on target and justified, Maya’s life is at risk. “What’s the plan?” I ask, strengthened by my increasing resolve.

“Maya’s embedded tracker is transmitting. You’re going after her,” she says. “You’re the only one who can. I’m going to let the Dread Squad take me in so I can have a chat with your father-in-law. See if I can’t talk him back from the brink. There has to be another way to do this, or at least do it with the full support of the U.S. military.”

I nearly point out that the U.S. military might be compromised already, that under Dread influence they might be more likely to shoot each other or us. This is probably the same conclusion Lyons has come to. If so, he can tell Allenby himself. Let them debate strategy and protocol. I’m going after Maya.

I notice a slight tremor in Allenby’s hands. It started when she mentioned Dread Squad. “You seem a little nervous. You don’t think Katzman will—”

“I don’t think it will be Katzman,” she says, “or anyone else we might know. Dread Squad isn’t just the handful of men you saw here.” She stops in front of an armory door. “There are hundreds of them.”

“Three hundred thirty-three,” Winters says. “I helped vet them. They were supposed to be a defensive force, like the Secret Service, protecting VIPs from Dread influence, but I think they’ve been trained for something else.”

“They’re not your problem.” Allenby enters the armory.

The armory has been picked over, but an array of familiar clothing and weapons has been laid out for me. I pick up the machete and whisper, “Faithful.”

Winters looks at me like I just passed gas. “Excuse me?”

“The best weapons have names,” I say, speaking as old Josef, who I now recall had a habit of naming prized weaponry, and apparently still does. I hold the machete up. “This is Faithful.” Which makes it better than me, I think, but keep to myself. I turn to Allenby. “You said Maya’s tracker signal popped back up. Is she nearby?”

Allenby frowns. “Louisiana. New Orleans. Hope you’re not afraid of flying now. Lyons sent a team in that direction an hour ago, so they’ve got a head start.”

“You said Lyons didn’t think Maya was alive,” I point out.

“It’s not a rescue mission. It’s an assault.”

“If they’re already in the air, how are we going to catch up?”

“I’ve made arrangements,” Winters says. “Lyons might have vast resources, including planes, but Neuro is just a small cog in the larger machine that I have access to. We’ll get there first, if we leave now.”

“This might be a stupid question,” I say, “but why don’t we have a couple of F-22s force them to land?”

“Lyons has a lot of friends,” Winters says. “In Washington and the military. He’s probably got F-22s escorting him. Our best play is to beat him there, get Maya to safety, and see if her survival takes the wind out of his sails.”

I appreciate that Winters and Allenby think there is an alternative to the coming violence, but I’m not convinced. Not by a long shot. Conflicts like this are ended by violence, an opinion that is, thus far, supported by my returning memory. If I’m able to get Maya clear, I might even give Lyons my blessing. I have no love for the Dread, and he’s the only one capable of responding to the threat. Allenby seems to think I’ve been cut out of the loop because a fearful Crazy wouldn’t approve of war—of fighting the Dread. But the opposite is true. By taking Maya, they’ve rekindled my hatred for them. I appreciate Allenby’s position, but Maya is my only concern. Not only did she love me, unconditionally, but she also made me feel more… human. I lived in darkness so vast that I was able to see the Dread, not with my eyes, but with my heart. I recognized the effect they had on people because it was the same effect my presence so often elicited. Maya freed me from that, and now I’m going to free her from it.

Voices, firm and professional, slide into the room from the hallway beyond. Commands and confirmations. Dread Squad. They’re already here.

Allenby picks up and shoves the oscillium armor at me. “We can’t let them take you. It’s time to be Crazy.”

The plan is simple. Allenby, a trusted higher-up at Neuro, will claim I’ve left, and she’ll request an audience, via phone or video, with Lyons. Winters, whose oversight of Neuro gives her authority separate from Lyons, will vouch for her. If granted, she can try to talk him out of whatever endgame he’s working toward, or at least glean some intel, which could help my rescue effort. If we can’t do that, Allenby thinks Lyons might have the sleeping-giant comparison backward, that he might instigate the end of humanity at the hands of the Dread. I’m not convinced, and until Maya is safe, I’m not taking sides.

Some of what I remember about Lyons isn’t encouraging. On the surface, he’s a good grandfather and devoted father. He’s also a tortured soul, deeply feeling the frightening events of his youth, when the Dread visited him at night, nightmares made real. He didn’t talk about those dark times often, not that I can remember yet, anyway, but when he did… The emotional scars are deep. But there is another side to the man, kept from plain sight, that is emerging in my memory. After his time with the Dread, before the CIA, he saw war as a young man. In Korea. I now remember a conversation with him, during which he reminisced about the firefights, the confusion and sound and adrenaline of battle. He waxed about battle the way an ex–football star fondly remembers game-winning plays. While he’s been content to research his lifelong enemy, collect war trophies from around the world, and oversee his own private army, perhaps the events of the past two weeks have freed him to relive his glory days, if only vicariously through Dread Squad? Has Maya’s abduction pushed him over the edge and thrust him to wage war he can’t win?