MirrorWorld

“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.”





45.

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?

He might even view himself as some kind of noble hero, a modern-day George Washington, crossing the rift between worlds to free humanity from the Dread tyranny. It’s not even that much of a stretch if he could pull it off. But Allenby thinks he’s more likely to doom us all. She might be right, but if the Dread could wipe us out, why haven’t they done it already? That alone says a conventional victory might be possible.

My part of the current plan is simple. Hide and wait. Cobb and Blair have transportation ready and waiting. Once Allenby is away, I’ll be off to New Orleans with Winters and whatever help she’s summoned. Like I said, simple.

“Don’t move,” a man shouts. I can’t see him from my hiding place behind a weapons counter, but I can see Winters and Allenby. And I don’t like what I’m seeing. The looks on their faces, along with their suddenly raised hands, tells me two things. They don’t know these men, and they’ve got guns pointed at them.

My heart starts pumping hard. I can hear the rushing blood behind my ears. My vision narrows. Muscles tense. Even if nothing happens, I’m going to need a little time to recover from the adrenaline dump.

“I’m Dr. Allenby, and I would like to—”

“Don’t care who you say you are, so shut it.” The gruff man’s voice carries an unsaid threat. His next words are spoken into the hallway beyond him. “Are they on the list?”

“Both of you know me,” Winters says, glaring at them. “Lower your weapons, now, or—”

“Yeah, they’re on the list,” someone else replies. A hand slips into view, holding a small tablet. I can barely make out a photo of Allenby on the screen. The man holding the tablet swipes his thumb a few times. I see Cobb’s photo, and mine, and then Winters’s.