MirrorWorld

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 His legs are yanked up off the ground and pulled along for the ride, but the bull, whose gut has now been replaced by a panicking man, spasms and topples forward.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.

Katzman’s kicking legs suddenly disappear, leaving a gaping wound behind. The bull splashes into the water, dying slowly, mewling pitifully. I feel a moment of pity for the thing and then turn to the fourth bull, already injured by Katzman. It has pulled up short, shifting its four eyes between the most recently slain bull and me.

Whispering fills the air.

I take aim and fire, emptying the clip. The bull flinches back, turning to run, but then a round hits something vital and the monster falls limp. The whispering stops.

Katzman hasn’t returned, so I chase him back to the real world. He’s on the ground, coughing and sputtering, panicked and furiously wiping at himself. He’s covered in bright green gore, viscous slime, and chunks of Dread organs. When he left the second time, he took a lot of the Dread with him. I note that he’s not writhing in pain, either. They’ve trained for this but, unlike me, lack the ability to push fear. I volunteered to be the first guinea pig. I remember that now. The rest of Dread Squad must have received a more-refined batch of the DNA-altering retrovirus, leaving them more human than Dread, not fully both like me and not able to do everything I can.

“Calm down,” I tell him. He flinches when I stand over him but slows down a bit when he sees it’s me. “They’re all dead.”

I don’t know if he hears me. The foul-smelling guts covering his body have his undivided attention.

“Katzman!”

His eyes lock onto mine, wide with fear and drug-induced focus.

“You can leave all this behind when you slip between worlds.” I’ve been leaving the blood of dead Dread behind. Katzman, it seems, needs a little practice. “Just focus on what you want to take with you. Everything else will stay behind.”

He stares for just a moment, then gives just a hint of a nod.

“Go to the world between first,” I tell him.

“I–I don’t know if I can.”

I crouch beside him. “I trained you better than this. I remember that now. Just focus.” I shrug. “Or you can stay covered in gore.”

Strands of florescent-green slime dangle from his arms as he lifts them up, inspecting his situation. His stomach lurches. He’s about to wretch. I put my hand on his back and do the job for him.

Faster than you can blink, we’re in the world between for just a moment, and then back home, leaving the gore behind. Katzman is dry again, patting his body down with his hands. We’re surrounded by lush green willows.

“Thanks,” he says. “For helping.”

I move my hand from his back to his shoulder. “Tell me what’s going to happen.”

“I can’t.”

“I could have left you,” I say. “I saved your life.”

After a beat, he says, “It’s a weapon.”

“What kind of a weapon?”

He looks unsure for a moment, but a word bubbles out of him when I lean a bit closer. “Microwave.”

“I thought microwave weapons in the field were a no-go.”

“Not guns,” he says.

“A bomb,” I say, finishing the thought. “A microwave bomb.”