Jeremy Robinson - MirrorWorld

“You’re not afraid?” I ask.

“Of you? Never.” She falls forward, wrapping her arms around me. We stay there, immersed in the swamp of a mirror dimension, holding each other for several minutes.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I say, jumping straight to the crux of that matter that took her from me.

“I know,” she says, squeezing me harder, which still isn’t very hard. Suddenly aware of her fragile state, not to mention the fact that I’m probably bleeding out, I take one last look around.

The Dread watch us with quiet fascination.

“Are we done?” I ask, the question as much about me and Maya as the rest of the world on the brink of annihilation.

When I get no response or even a quizzical look, I shout the words, sending a burst of fear in all directions—except Maya’s. “Are we done!”

The reply comes as a whisper in my mind. “It is finished.”

I sag in Maya’s arms. “Love you.”

By the time she replies, we’re kneeling on the concrete walkway of Storyland, breathing ammonia-free air in a world freed from dread.

Cobb found us ten minutes later. He’d managed to get the mircrowave bomb to a bank. Once he revealed he was carrying a bomb that would cook everyone and everything within a mile unless it was contained inside something metal and grounded, the manager let him put it inside the vault. Under normal circumstances, I doubt the manager would have believed the story, but the whole world was hopped up on fear. Cobb saved the city and helped save the world without ever setting foot in the mirror world, which is fine by him. We’ve remained friends, but he wanted no part in what I’m up to today.

Maya, on the other hand, stands by my side, hidden in the woods of New Hampshire. She’s been eating well over the past month. Recovering, body and soul. My body is recovering, too. I required a blood transfusion, which nearly didn’t come in time, thanks to all the violence ravaging supplies. But there was an outpouring of goodwill following the cease-fire of Dread fear, and I pulled through. And now I’m not even sore. Whatever part of me is Dread still heals fast. At least physically. Despite the return of my memory and fearless nature, there are things I would like to forget. Things I’ve done and that I’ve endured.

Mostly things I’ve done. I can justify them, sure. I was one of the good guys, preventing terrorism or international organized crime. But the truth is that I don’t know. Being fearless means not being afraid to carry out orders. There’s no way to know if someone took advantage of that. I take solace in the knowledge that I saved the world.

Two worlds.

Things have been good between Maya and me. Rough, but good. A lot of the rough has to do with my unfettered honesty. I say what I think. But it also leaves no doubt about my honesty, and when I tell her I love her, she believes me. We’ve talked a lot. About Simon’s death. About her father’s quest for vengeance. About Winters. To my surprise, she understood and forgave me. Life will never be in short supply of painful memories, but we’re moving forward. Together. And that’s a gift. I thought I’d lost her forever.

And we’re not the only ones healing. The heavy blanket of fear driving people to the streets and nations to the brink of war has lifted worldwide. I’ve gone over the timing and, as best as I can figure it, the Dread removed its influence from humanity, worldwide, when the matriarch spoke the words, “It is finished.”

While I’m sure people are still getting the chills when they pass a Dread, I don’t think the mirror world will be poking the human race anytime soon. We might not have the natural ability to move between worlds yet, but humanity is no longer a slave to the slow machinations of evolution. Technology allows us to do things we’re not quite ready for and don’t fully understand. Maybe we’ll be ready to play nice with the Dread someday—they’ll need a different name—but until then, I’m going to do what I can to slow the process.

“They’re everywhere,” Maya says, lowering the binoculars.

We’re looking at the outside of the Neuro building. The branch of the CIA that supported Lyons’s quiet war has descended on the facility. Where there was once a collection of black and gray vehicles in the parking lot, they’re all just black now. I look for a splash of orange, remembering Winters’s sacrifice, and a little bit more.

I take the binoculars from Maya and scan the area. There’s plenty of security. Far more than before. But the building is still being repaired. There are chinks in the armor. All I really need to do is get beyond the damn electrified fence, which still exists in both worlds.

I stand from my crouched position, ready to make my move.

“Are you sure you need to do this?” Maya asks.

“Everything is in there,” I say. “I don’t think the Dread will be so merciful a second time around.”

“Let the boy go,” Allenby says from my other side. Her poofy hair is tied back. The look in her eyes says she’d like to do this herself. She’s been by our side since we returned to the airport, bloodied but alive. We’ve been staying in the home she’d lived in with Hugh, the home she couldn’t bring herself to sell, just fifteen minutes from Neuro. “He might not be able to stop the demons haunting our souls, but he can at least remove them from this world.”

Allenby, like me, was more deeply involved in Neuro. She feels the weight of what happened and is determined to prevent it from happening again. Today was her idea. I only hope I can do what she’s asked.

Maya sighs, gives me a sheepish smile, and kisses my cheek. “Be careful.”

“Have no fear,” I say and slip into the mirror world. Hand on Faithful, which is sheathed on my back, I scour the surrounding area. Not a living Dread in sight. There are plenty of dead, though, corpses from my encounter with the local matriarch. Her flesh has fallen away, leaving a large skeleton rising up the side of the oscillium building.

Thanks to the mirror world’s disregard for the landscaping of men, I quickly find a tree with long, sweeping branches. I climb up slowly, trying not to break the veins covering the tree, but failing. I’m still not sure how this world works, but my best guess is that the Dread and this world are interconnected: all part of one big ecosystem, driven by fluid veins rather than the cycle of decay and rebirth that governs what I still think of as the real world, despite all frequencies of reality being equally real.

I slide down the branch. It bends under my weight but keeps me above the buzzing fence and deposits me gently on the other side. I lie on the ground, facing the woods, and slip out of the mirror world long enough to give Maya and Allenby a wave and let them know I am past the fence.

Free of interference, I run through the mirror-world swamp toward Neuro’s oscillium shell. I pause at the bottom, considering what I’m about to do. It’s a desecration of the dead, but maybe the Dread won’t see it that way? I have no way to find out, and I don’t think any of them are around to see this anyway. Stepping inside the matriarch’s remains, I scale the side of the building, using her ribs and spine for hand and footholds. At the top, I turn toward the monster’s massive skull. The tendrils are gone. The eye sockets empty. But the holes in its skull, created by the 20 mm rounds I fired, remain. I say my apologies and head on my way.

The ruined elevator shaft grants me entrance beyond the oscillium shield, and I quickly make my way inside the building, moving through the interior while in the world between. With my memory returned, I have no trouble locating the nearest security room. There’s one on every floor. Looking into both worlds, I keep watch on the security guard seated in front of a group of monitors. The screens are alive with movement. Rooms are crowded as scientists, analysts, and men in black suits comb through and inventory everything. It’s possible some of it has already been moved off-site, especially the data. There’s nothing I can do about that, but I can stop them from getting any further.