MirrorWorld

“And Maya.” She smiles. “It was a good day, despite the long cross-campus line.”


Lyons clears his throat. “Josef’s past is hardly relevant to our current situation, and in response to your query about mathematical predictions of the mirror dimension, you are correct. They’re educated guesses, at best. To really observe and interact with the other world in a way that allows us to make real measurements and observations, we have to alter our physical state. We have to become capable of interacting with all frequencies of reality.”

“We would have to become like the Dread,” I say.

Lyons stares at me, curious. “Precisely.”

His confirmation hangs in the air for a moment, until the implications of what he’s said sinks in.

“Is that what you did to me?”





27.

“It’s what you did to you,” Lyons says, “when you decided to inject the—”

“But that was the plan all along, right? Turn me into one of them?”

“Not one of them,” Allenby says. “We need people like you to fight them. And we needed you to still be human.”

“So who else but me could?” I ask. “That’s your justification.”

“Once again,” Lyons says. “It was you who decided to—”

“You brought me here under false pretenses,” I say. “Created a scenario that you knew would end the way it did. You didn’t put the needle in my leg, but you convinced me it was the only course of action I had left. There isn’t much difference. All because I’m the only guy who can fight these things.”

Katzman takes a step forward like a recruit volunteering for duty. “Dread Squad can fight them. It’s not impossible. Fear can be overcome, through training—”

“I’ve seen how well that works.”

Winters speaks up for the first time since I embarrassed her. “And drugs that temporarily block the amygdala’s function.”

“Drugs?” The question comes from Cobb.

Winters rolls her neck, cracking the tension from it. She’s got an edge, and is undeniably beautiful, almost sculpted. I can see what I liked about her, physically at least. We haven’t exactly hit if off yet, but that’s my fault. “BDO. It’s a mix of benzodiazepine, dextroamphetamine, and OxyContin.”

“Geez.” Cobb laughs a little “Sounds addictive as hell.”

“It is,” Winters concedes. “But the Oxy inhibits the amygdala.”

“And the rest?” I ask.

“Makes you feel like Superman,” Katzman says. “The cravings for more after a single hit can take months to go away, so it’s a last resort.”

Katzman has clearly tried the stuff. The thirsty look in his eyes as he speaks reveals the truth: the craving for more never goes away. Good thing I don’t need it. Of course, I’m now part monster from a hidden dimension. A drug addiction might be preferable. I doubt the genetic changes made to my body can be undone.

Speaking of which. “If you can’t really see or interact with the Dread, how did you change me?”

“The process of genetically altering a human being is actually quite simple. Dread cells are broken down though a process called sonication. We add a detergent to remove the membrane lipids, remove the proteins by adding a protase, then the RNA. We purify the remaining DNA, isolate the genes with traits we want to pass on and—”

I wave my hand around in circles. “Fast-forwarding…”

“Transgenesis, the process of taking genes from one organism and injecting them into another, was accomplished using a gene gun.”

“That sounds horrible,” Cobb says.

Lyons waves him off. “The DNA is combined with a genetically altered retrovirus that causes no outward symptoms but modifies the host’s DNA with the new code.”

“But that’s not what Crazy used on himself,” Cobb says. “That was an ordinary syringe. And how could DNA injected days ago already be changing his body? That would require—”

“Time.” Lyons turns his attention from Cobb back to me. “The changes made to your DNA were made four years ago. You stuck yourself with that needle, too, though it was a far more informed decision. You volunteered.”

Of course I did. A lack of fear is sometimes the worst enemy of sound decision making. Even now, the revelation that I’ve been part Dread for four years hardly fazes me. I don’t appreciate the not knowing. The lies. My feelings of right and wrong begin to fuel a smattering of righteous indignation, but the ramifications of being not fully human for years don’t rattle me. The biggest reaction I can manage is a simple question. “How did I not know?”