MirrorWorld

Cobb steps closer to me, hand reaching out. “Are you feeling all r—”

A vibration slips from my limbs and into my core. My gut twists with agony, and I suspect the pain might be caused by the physical changes taking place, tapping underused muscles, or organs. But I turn the negative feelings outward, willing them toward the others … until five voices shout with surprise—and fear.

That’s when I hear it, in my head. The whispering. But it sounds more like static, lacking the cadence of the Dread whispers.

The vibration stops quickly as the pain becomes so intense that I nearly buckle and fall to the floor. When I look up, sweat dripping in my eyes, everyone in the room has backed away. I only managed to conjure up and project a brief moment of fear, but it’s had a clear effect on the others. Cobb is on the floor, scrambling to his feet. Katzman has his weapon drawn, aimed at me. Allenby is pale. Winters looks ready to fight, which I admire. And Lyons has a hand over his heart, not acting this time. Sweat on his brow.

“How?” Lyons says, before taking a deep breath. “How did you do that?”

Feeling winded, like I’ve just run several miles, I sit down. The pain begins to fade as I let my body become its old self. “Maybe I’m more Dread than you thought.”

Lyons pushes past his fear, and the others. With excited eyes, he says, “You’ve certainly never done that before.”

“Could his DNA have continued to change over the past year?” Allenby asks, sounding more concerned than scientifically interested.

“It’s possible, but it’s also likely the old Josef never thought to try.” Lyons looks at me. “Or perhaps he just kept it from us. Show me more.”

“I’m not sure what else a Dread can do.”

“Enter their world,” he says. “I want to see it happen.”

“It hurts,” I tell him. “A lot.”

“Does the pain linger?”

“Fades over time, but the initial shift is like getting kicked in the nuts. If you want to see it, you’re going to have to answer one more question for me.”

Lyons nods. “Anything.”

“What do they want? Aside from dominance. Because from what I can see, they’re moving away from primal dominance and closer to a kind of psy-ops war.”

Lyons leans back against a counter, twisting his lips, eyes on the ceiling.

“It’s a simple question,” I say.

“With a complicated answer, in part because we’re not entirely sure.”

“So let’s skip to the end game for now. Ignore the why. They’re spurring on violent mobs around the world, building a fear-fueled frenzy between governments, turning the whole world on itself. But to what end?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Lyons says. “Fear is one of the strongest emotions. Enough of it can destroy logic and fuel paranoia. When this happens en masse, we see genocides, mass murder, and war.”

“They’ve done this before?” I ask.

Lyons nods. “Undoubtedly. But not at this scale. The human race will soon be at each other’s throats. Brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor, nation against nation. There will come a point when world powers fear each other more than they do the mutually assured annihilation their nuclear arsenals provide.” He pauses for a breath. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“They want us to do their dirty work for them,” I say.

Cobb, still steadying himself, asks, “But why? Two weeks ago, the world was fine and dandy. Then everything went nuts. What changed?”

Lyons turns to Cobb. “I have no idea.” Back to me. “But it started when you took that finger all those years ago.”

“This is my fault?”

“How would you feel if the animals in the slaughterhouse suddenly understood why they were there and who was responsible for it? They know we know. That we can detect them.” He raises a hand toward the Documentum room. “That we can collect and study them. Kill them. Consider what we do in less severe situations. When an animal population gets out of control, maybe it’s predators attacking livestock, or deer wrecking cars, what do we do? It’s a tradition going back through all of recorded human history, and is likely responsible for the extinction of several ancient species as well as several more recent extinctions—wolves in the U.S., sharks off of Australia, deer in the Northeast.”

I see where he’s going, and in a horrible way it makes perfect sense. “It’s a cull.”

Lyons nods. “I think they mean to set the human race back. Reduce our numbers. Remove our technology, without which we have no hope of detecting them or resisting their influence. They’re going to return us to the Stone Age, and themselves to the shadows, where they’re safe from us.”

“From me,” I say.