Jeremy Robinson - MirrorWorld

I’m about to tell her that’s not how it works, that the memories come back randomly, but then, with quick breath, I realize that I already remember this. It came in a cluster of information, hidden until now, freed and brought to the forefront of my thoughts.

Something’s burning, I think, and stand from my home-office chair. The chemical scent in the air is subtle, but so out of place in my home that I react immediately. There are several things in this world that produce similar odors, none of them good, and I wonder for a moment if one of the CIA’s enemies has figured out who I am. Recovering and unlocking the handgun hidden in my desk drawer, I hurry through the house, following the scent toward the kitchen.

I pause at the open doorway, no danger in sight, but with Simon home I’m not going to take any chances. Right now it’s just the two of us. Maya is out shopping. Moving slowly, I lean into the room and quickly spot my target—a panicking six-year-old boy who has melted two action figures on the stove top. A cookie sheet covered with chicken nuggets and french fries lays next to the mess.

I tuck the gun behind my back and hurry into the room. Simon turns toward me, eyes wide and overflowing with tears. He’s waving his hands at the rising toxic smoke. “I was trying to make lunch for us! I turned on the wrong one!”

The action figures are now a puddle of colorful swirling plastic sitting atop the smooth-topped stove.

“I’m sorry,” he says, now blubbering and snotty. His abject despair breaks my heart.

I quickly turn off the burner. “Hey, hey, it’s okay.” It’s really not okay, but I’m pretty sure he’s learned that on his own.

“I melted my guys,” he says, revealing the true source of his sadness.

I kiss his forehead and stand up. It’s an ungodly mess. And nothing I do now is going to change that. I get two knives from a drawer and return to the cooling stove top. Using, and ruining, the two blades, I carve the liquid, still-fuming plastic into two gooey mounds. Then I form them into thick, colorful masses. I open two windows, letting the cross-breeze clean the air, and we spend the next ten minutes it takes for the burner and plastic to cool in silence. When everything is cool to the touch, I wedge a metal spatula beneath the two circles of plastic and chip them off.

Simon is no longer sad. He’s curious. I lead him down to the basement, set up two spots at the workbench, and take out some tools. After drilling holes in both plastic circles, I set to work with a wood burner, melting words into the back of both chunks. The air fills, once again, with the stench of melting plastic, but the work doesn’t take long. When I’m done, I turn them around so Simon can see my handiwork.

“What do they say?” he asks.

“It says, ‘evidence,’” I tell him, and then slide old neck chains through each. I put the first over his head and the second over mine. “This way we’ll never forget what happened… and your mom will never know.”

That gets a smile out of him.

And me.

Until I return from the memory, lift the plastic pendant, and turn it around. The word is still there. “Evidence.” So neither of us will ever forget. I nearly start crying, in part because of the sweet memory, but also because I chose to forget it. It’s unforgivable. Then I hear footsteps. Rushing. Whispered commands. More soldiers moving down the hallway, no doubt rushing to inspect their dead.

I recover the Vector assault rifle I’d failed to remember before.

Allenby takes my arm. “Are you okay to do this?”

I chamber a round, slip my arm out of her hand, and step into the hallway. It takes just a moment for me to confirm the targets are not friendly, and then I sweep the muzzle back and forth, finger held down hard over the trigger. It’s some of the poorest, old-world-style gangster shooting I’ve ever done, but the sheer number of rounds makes it effective. All three soldiers drop.

I take one last look into the armory, at the woman who might have loved me, and then turn to Allenby. No words need to be said. We’re going to get Maya back and rain down hell on anyone stupid enough to get in our way. She nods and we head out together.

After meeting Cobb, Blair, and Stephanie, we race to the airport. While Allenby coordinates with Winters’s CIA contact, Cobb tends to her shoulder. Stephanie, who’s already done everything she can to help, parts ways with us at the airport, taking the car and heading west to stay with family in Vermont, one of the few places on earth to still be largely free of violence.

After passing through a security check, we’re escorted onto the tarmac by two silent men in suits and head for an open hangar. Blair stops, mouth open, when we reach the doors. “Is that a—”

“Concorde,” Allenby says.

The plane’s sharp, downward sloping nose makes it easy to identify. The Concorde is the fastest passenger plane to have every crisscrossed the Atlantic. It was decommissioned after a few well-publicized crashes and more than a few complaints about the sonic boom generated when the plane breaks the sound barrier, tearing through the sky at Mach 2, more than twice the speed of the fastest troop transport.

Ten minutes later, we’re in the air, cruising at 1500 miles per hour and escorted through the FAA-emptied skies by three F-18s. Our man at the CIA is getting things done, and quietly. Lyons will have no idea we’re coming.

I spend part of the three-hour flight catching up on global news, which is dramatically grim. The way global events are being presented leaves little doubt that a nuclear holocaust is imminent; the government is days, if not hours, from being overthrown; and better make friends with your gun-carrying neighbors because militia frontier life is the only hope for survival in the soon-to-be nuclear wasteland. For once, all the drama is justified. Cities are imploding, the violence chaotic and without reason. Militaries are still largely under control, but there are troop movements on the borders of too many countries to count. The Dread need to be stopped through whatever means necessary, meaning there is a chance that Lyons’s aggressive option is justified. It is, after all, a proven tactic. If Maya is safe and her father really has a way to remove the Dread threat from our world, then I hope he succeeds. And when he’s done, he’ll answer for Winters.

Violence has escalated out of control in major cities around the world, and tensions between nations are reaching the point where a few navies and air forces have skirmished, leaving nearly two hundred dead and a Japanese maritime self-defense force destroyer limping back to port, courtesy of the Chinese. If it weren’t for the trouble brewing in the major cities of most nations, I think the world would have already rushed headlong into war. The threat of civil war seems to be the only thing tempering militaries, just in case they’re needed at home. Alliances are breaking down as paranoia runs rampant. An every-man-for-himself mentality has taken hold of governments.

It’s a brilliant strategy. No one outside Neuro would even think to consider the real cause of all this chaos. People are afraid and, like good mammals, are focused solely on the clear and present dangers, rather than the ones lurking just beyond perception. All the Dread need to do is pull their influence from one area and apply it to another. Send the rioters home, and the world goes to war. Turn government attention inward, and the riots become civil war. Maybe they’ll do all of the above?

Allenby thinks that the only way out of this for the human race is for the Dread to back off. I’m not totally convinced, and the memories of what they took from me and how they did it fuel a deeply personal desire for vengeance.