MirrorWorld

“We’ll wait until Shiloh wakes up. See what she has to say.” I tilt my beer back. Polish it off. “If Neuro is out looking for us, they’ll have widened the search far beyond this place in just a few hours, and they won’t be looking for that sweet number out in the garage. If we take back roads and avoid tolls, we shouldn’t have any trouble getting to the hospital.”

“So we go to the hospital, and then what?”

I smile the kind of smile that also serves as an apology. “You’re going to help me get back inside Neuro.”

He groans, no doubt hoping that wouldn’t be the answer I gave. “And then?”

I dip the pepperoni in the peanut butter, take a bite, and, with a full mouth, say, “You should probably … start looking … for a new job.”

“And what if they just kill you?” he asks.

“They won’t.”

“’Cause you’re sooo good at hurting people?”

I smile, genuinely, and dig the plastic case containing the syringe out of my pocket. “Because I have this.”

He leans forward, looking at the syringe behind the clear plastic cover. “And that is?”

“I have no idea.”

“What do you know?”

“That they’ve killed a lot people to create this.” I tap the plastic case. “And that they will kill me to retrieve it. I’m just never going to give them the chance.”

14

Full of pepperoni and peanut butter, I lounge back on the couch, lost in thought. About Neuro, the things I saw there, and Shiloh. It all made some kind of twisted sense when I first saw everything. But now, in retrospect, it’s a mess. Too many questions remain unanswered, but doubt has begun weakening my resolve. It wouldn’t be the first time my lack of fear has caused me to act without thinking beyond immediate circumstances.

It’s not that the horrible things I saw no longer seem horrible, it’s that Allenby was downright likable. And I don’t think it was an act. She struck me as a good person, and I’m a fairly good, and quick, judge of character. So how could she abide such lethal human experimentation?

Part of me says she couldn’t. That’s where the doubt comes from.

And here’s the thing about doubt. It changes nothing. While I may not be 100 percent certain in my verdict about Neuro, I have no fear of discovering I’m wrong, even if I’ve already reduced the building to a pile of rubble. I should probably still be locked up. I recognize the flaw. But it doesn’t change anything.

The large-screen TV blinks on.

“Do you mind?” Cobb asks, remote in hand.

I shake my head. “What time is it?”

Cobb looks at his watch. “Eleven in the A.M.”

“Price Is Right is on,” I say. “Channel seven.”

Instead of punching in the number, Cobb surfs through the channels, one digit at a time, counting down from 347. Around 300 he starts hitting the cable news networks. The images I see on each are very similar.

And familiar.

“Wait,” I say. He stops two channels past the news networks. “Go back.”

The TV blinks twice and then displays an aerial view of New York City. The streets are full of people, swarming about. I can’t tell if it’s a protest or a riot, but if things turned violent in Manchester, New Hampshire, the atmosphere in New York must be worse. “What’s happening?”

“What, the riots?” Cobb looks confused. “You don’t know?”

“I’ve been in an institution,” I remind him.

“Right.” He turns back to the screen.

People swirl through the streets, entering and leaving shattered storefronts, taking part in or cheering on several brawls. SafeHaven now seems like an asylum for the sane compared to the scene unfolding in New York.

“It started in the largest cities with the highest violent crime rates. Detroit. Memphis. St. Louis. They were small protests at first, but there was no unified theme. People just seemed to be protesting whatever made them afraid. The government. Wall Street. GMO foods. The protests grew in size and spread to the larger cities. Los Angeles. New York. Washington, D.C. For a week, this is how it went. Until Portland.”

“Maine?” I ask.

“Oregon — which, by the way, is basically the world capital for nice people. A parade of atheists protesting an Easter egg hunt on government property turned violent. Killed a guy in a bunny suit. The whole thing was live on TV. It acted as a catalyst. In response to the bunny murder, a religious group torched an abortion clinic. One act of violence led to another, spreading across the country’s most densely populated areas. But things really got bad when riot police began pushing back. Some cities are like war zones.”

“Is anyone instigating the attacks?” I ask. “Foreign countries? Terror organizations?”

“That’s just the thing,” Cobb says. “The protests didn’t stop at the U.S. border. They’re now worldwide. And you’re not the first person to wonder if fear had somehow been weaponized. Tension between nations is building the same way it is with people on the street. And that’s only making things worse. It seemed like New England, north of Boston, was a safe zone, like there was a buffer of calm logic holding the fear back, but yesterday…”

“What happened?”