Jeremy Robinson - MirrorWorld

“Doesn’t matter,” he says. A thick vein on his forehead twitches. “We’re doing the right thing, and I have my orders. We’ve been planning this for—”

He closes his mouth.

“Planning what ?”

I follow a subtle shift of his eyes and see the strap of his backpack. When he looks back at me, his face is twitching, his mouth pulling in and out of a smile. He shakes his head like he’s having a seizure, but I think he’s refusing to answer.

“Destroying the colony might not stop a war with the Dread,” I tell him. “It could start one.” I don’t know if Allenby’s position on this matter is right or not, but if it hasn’t been considered, it needs to be.

You’d think I just told him I was pregnant. He gapes at me, the drugs exaggerating his reaction. Then his mouth slaps shut, and he pulls himself together. “We’re already at war. Once upon a time, you knew that, too.”

I can’t argue about what I don’t yet remember, so I ask, “What if everything happening around the world is a warning? A shot across the bow.”

“A warning?” He scoffs. “For who?”

“Who do you think?”

It takes him only a moment to understand. “You think all of this… everything that’s happening around the world is a warning—for Neuro?”

“Not Neuro. Lyons. You don’t find it odd that they took his daughter? That they brought her here, to his first target?”

“If she really is here, they’re using her as a human shield. They’re desperate. Afraid. We can end this today, and they know it.”

I don’t argue. He could be right. The tracker signal might just be exposed to let us know she’s here, because they think that will stop Lyons. “I’m not going to get in your way, and I hope you’re right about all this, but if there’s a chance she’s alive, I need to at least try to get her back. How long do I have? Give me that much.”

“Ten minutes,” he says.

“Until what?”

“Let’s just say we’re going to do this the old-fashioned way first.”

“World War Two–style,” I guess, and he doesn’t argue. “Just tell me it’s not a nuke. There’s already enough talk of that.”

“Not a nuke,” he says, lowering the weapon. “What do you mean? Enough talk about what?”

“Russia’s nukes are on standby. Ready for launch. Which means everyone else’s are, too. The president issued an ultimatum: stand down in…” I look at my watch. “Eighty-six minutes, or else…”

“Or else what?”

“Nothing good,” I say, “but it won’t take much more than a nudge from the Dread to make sure it’s the worst possible ‘or else.’”

Katzman slowly shakes his head. “Then we need to stop them. Here and now.”

He’s right about the here and now, but the method is still up for debate.

“Look,” he says, “if you’re not out of here in ten, you probably never will be.”

“Anyone else I should worry about?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “We’re holding a perimeter until the—” He closes his mouth, realizing he almost gave me too much information. “No. Beyond me, it’s just th—”

His eyes go wide. The weapon comes up. I dive to the side as he fires, feeling the zing of bullets passing inches from my cheek. My roll is slowed by the foot-deep water, but I manage to get my feet under me and draw my sound-suppressed P229 handgun. Too bad it’s the wrong weapon for this fight.

Four bulls charge through the swamp, their massive mouths hanging open with worm-covered tongues, and green veins pulsing with energy, charge through the swamp.

“Oh my God,” Katzman whispers. “Oh my God.” The drugs do the trick. Katzman stands his ground and fires. The problem is, he’s about to become a mirror-world pancake.

Katzman pulls what I like to call “a Hudson.” Like the space marine in Aliens, he stands his ground, firing and swearing, out of his mind while still inflicting damage. The drugs he’s on keep him from running but, mixed with adrenaline, are sending him into a manic state of mind.

“Fuck you!” he shouts, emptying his handgun and dropping it into the foot-deep water. To his credit, the bull he emptied the clip into is now limping and slow, but it’s still coming. “Fuck you!” he shouts again, unslinging his assault rifle and spraying an arc into the rushing monsters.

While he’s doing a horrible job killing the Dread, he is drawing their attention, freeing me up to act, which I appreciate because, unlike him, I’m not on any fear-fighting drugs. I suppose that’s lucky for both of us. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if we both fearlessly drained our magazines into a mirror-world swamp and died.

I consider leaving Katzman to face the bulls alone. Both fearless versions of myself probably would. I wouldn’t have been afraid to let Katzman face the result of his actions, even if he died. The ramifications of making a morally wrong choice wouldn’t scare me. For the first time in my life, I’m afraid of what the choice will mean for my soul. So I take a moment to think about it and come to a different conclusion.

I draw my Vector assault rifle, take aim, and pull the trigger. A full magazine peppers a Dread bull’s gaping mouth, shredding its innards and dropping it to the ground. A cascade of water explodes around the monster, sending sparkles of luminescent blood in all directions.

One of the three remaining bulls turns on me. The other two, including the limper, continue toward Katzman, who is struggling to reload his weapon. I have no trouble switching out the magazine but am very aware that if it takes a full magazine to take down a bull, I’m going to run out of ammo very quickly.

Think, I tell myself with just seconds left to act. The Dread bull is thirty feet out, pulsing fear at me. A wave of nausea sweeps through my body. I fight it, strategizing. Aiming. I pull the trigger, popping out a three-round burst. Bright green geysers of blood erupt from the bull’s right knee, just as it puts its weight down on the limb. With a warbling shriek, the creature spills forward and to the side. An arcing wave of water rises up to engulf me, but I slip out of the mirror world and move forward. The bull flinches as I reenter the mirror world, weapon already aimed down. Once again, I realize the Dread, while physically superior, are not accustomed to combat—their world is all about mental warfare, psyops. Nor are they used to using multiple dimensions in a strategic way. It catches them off guard. While they are comfortable with humanity in general, they’ve never seen anything like me, and it scares them, maybe as much as seeing a Dread in the flesh would frighten a person.

I pull the trigger. At close range, all three rounds punch through the eye on the side of the Dread bull’s head, shoving the monster’s brains out the other side. A plume of glowing green bursts into the water beneath the bull’s head.

A cough of sound-suppressed gunfire, drowned out by the wild shout of a man, turns me around in time to see Katzman’s final moments. The bull, even if it was shot and killed, will plow into him.

Katzman’s eyes go wide as even he realizes this. And then, he’s gone.

Not dead. Just gone. Returned to his home dimension. The bull passes through the empty space.

But Katzman, perhaps just reacting without too much thought, slips back into the mirror world before the bull has fully passed by. As a result, he reenters this world partially inside the bull. His legs are yanked up off the ground and pulled along for the ride, but the bull, whose gut has now been replaced by a panicking man, spasms and topples forward.

Get out of there, I think.