“131 and Pearl,” she directed Ms. Johnson as she buckled in.
“Oooh, yeah,” Johnson replied from the front seat.
“Do you mind filling me in?” Smith asked.
The two women shared a glance and then she gave a slight shake of her head. “I think the surprise will be worth it.”
Ms. Johnson pulled out and headed down the road.
Smith had long ago given up on figuring out women so he just turned to Dr. Anna, “Okay then, tell me what else you know.”
“When I got back to our SUV and started scanning I immediately found the signal from the mirror in the living room and the residual from next door. Then I noticed something else coming from a bit of a distance away. I had to use some other equipment and ended up tapping into a satellite, but narrowed it down to a five block radius downtown.”
“The address you gave...”
“I think you’ll see it when we get there.”
Smith relented and told her to go on.
“Well, while you were with Johnson and Johnson, I received a report from the forensic teams in North Dakota and Virginia. Short story, they were both implosions. In both cases, everything was sucked into a single point inside the house. They did some 3D mapping in both cases and discovered the point of origin in both houses.”
Smith gave a low wry chuckle, “Let me guess, a mirror.”
She nodded vigorously. “Nailed it. Something hinky is going on. Look at this.”
She pulled out the half-flashlight from earlier. “Notice the jagged edges where you pulled it apart? I looked at it under a microscope and it looks like the basic structure has been ripped. It wouldn’t surprise me to know that the molecules themselves were torn apart.”
“And the mirror did that?”
“Yes. Or portal, or whatever we’re calling those things. My guess is that it was the change in direction that caused the tear. It probably wouldn’t be all that bad for one trip as long as there’s forward momentum. However, I wouldn’t want to do that to myself repeatedly. Any slight change of direction as you’re going through and...”
Agent Smith thought of insane Frank at the table. “It would probably mess a guy up pretty good.”
“Uh, yeah. Who knows why he was going back and forth, but the repeated trips were certainly bad for his health. You should get him checked out medically. There are probably other things misaligned in his body by this point.”
Smith agreed and got on the phone to Mr. Johnson to make it happen.
As he was finishing that conversation and hanging up, the SUV rounded a corner and he saw it: a large building covered with mirrored windows. On the side of the building were emblazoned the words Gerald R. Ford Museum. Suddenly this little trip made more sense. When looking for a mirror, why not a whole building full of them?
They parked and Dr. Anna took the lead. “I’m not a hundred percent sure about this but it seemed like a good place to start.” She watched the readout on a handheld device and led on.
Smith reached inside his jacket and put his hand close to his weapon. Ms. Johnson did the same. They walked up to the main entrance and took a right along the side of the building just before going inside, following Dr. Anna’s directions.
The mirrors on the building were in panels. The bottom panel went to about waist high and a second panel went from there to just above Smith’s height. As Anna searched he watched his own reflection go by in every panel he passed.
Just in front of the main entrance, the mirrors took on a different tone. The shading was darker, yet they were in the same amount of light as all the others. It was clear, the image visible in these panels was not a reflection—it was a projection from the other side. Whatever or wherever that was. Agent Smith felt his grip tighten on his service weapon by sheer reflex as his eyes met the reflection in the mirror.
Smith kept his gaze locked on the other’s eyes for about ten seconds, unmoving, until something happened.
He saw himself blink.
Flutter
Nik checked the bathroom when he got home from school. RepNika was nowhere to be seen, but the sign was affixed to the shower door in the other bathroom through the reflection. Well that was concerning. A mirror with no reflection of himself at all?
Nik left, but kept checking back in so often that Penny was concerned about his stomach. She was right to be concerned, but she didn’t know the half of it.
“I’m fine,” he told her. He wasn’t though. Nik’s stomach was in knots. He could have helped, but instead was just worried about himself. He had thought his own world and his own problems were more important, but what if there was more at stake?
Nik tossed and turned all night. When he woke up the next morning, there was still no sign of recent activity in the mirror. The note was still stuck on the shower door, but the tape had slipped a little making the paper a tad askew.
Nik thought he was done being shocked at what he saw in his master bathroom, but when he looked closer at the mirror, he noticed something off. In the bottom left corner of the mirror, a small crack had begun and had already spread upwards. As Nik’s eye followed the crack, he saw an almost identical crack forming in the top right.
Something was happening and Nik had no idea what to do.
He examined the cracks a little more closely, careful not to touch them with his bare hands. Nik didn’t know what exactly was going on, but he was going to insulate himself as much as he could from its effects.
He put on a rubber glove that he used sometimes when cleaning the grimy parts of the bathroom and felt the corners of the mirror. He couldn’t feel the crack. He ran his fingers along the edges of the pane and found it to be as smooth as the marble countertops below. There was no crack...and yet there was.
Was the crack on the inside of the mirror? How was that possible?
It must be that the crack was only on RepNika’s side of the mirror. Somehow the other mirror had developed a crack while Nik’s side was perfectly fine. As he felt the edges again, his eyes drifted to the “EM PLEH” sign on the shower. Just as his eye caught it, the tape refused to hold any longer and the sign fluttered to the bathroom floor.
Nik wondered about his opposite. Where had he gone? Why wasn’t he there? Up until yesterday he had shown up every time Nik was there. Shoot, up until a few days ago, Nik thought his mirror was an actual mirror. Now he thought he knew the truth...that it was really a window into an alternate reality.
A reality where he...or perhaps the other Nik...was in danger.
Nik decided he needed to try to do something. He didn’t know if it would work, but if he just sat and watched through this mirror, he would question himself the rest of his life. After Nik got Penny and the kids up, he told them he wanted to go to the city and do some shopping.
It was time to upgrade the bathroom. Specifically, the mirror.
Conversation with Smith
Even though Smith had already watched his doppelganger aim a gun at him through the mirror and then attempt to talk to him, it was still a little jarring to see his mirror image repeat his actions and reflect what he did...until it didn’t. He blinked—the one in the reflection, not Smith. The man in the mirror stared for a few more seconds, until Smith blinked in return. Agent Smith wasn’t sure where this was going, but was fully prepared to jump out of the way in case the other Smith pulled a gun again.
Then, alter-Smith reached down for something hidden on the ground. Agent Smith tensed, but when the mirror image came up, he was holding a computer tablet. Smith breathed out in relief.
The other Smith typed a few words, then turned it toward Smith.
You need to crack the mirror on your end for us to talk.
Smith glanced over at Johnson with a questioning look. She pulled out a small blackjack. He didn’t need to know what she used it for, but it was handy now. She seemed to have a knack for having the right tool for the occasion.
Johnson stayed out of view, but tapped the corner of the mi
rror a few times until a small fissure began to form. Immediately, Smith began to hear sounds that had not been there before: some traffic noise that was not present in the moments before Johnson cracked the mirror.
He gestured with an open hand towards doppelganger Smith, giving him the floor.
“Hey you,” Other Smith said.
“Hello,” Smith replied warily.
“Who else you got over there? Is that Wesson? Or one of the Johnsons?”
Smith glanced over at Johnson, apparently just out of frame for our mirror guest. “It’s Johnson. Ms. Johnson.” He returned his attention to the man in the mirror, but he could see his fellow agent check her weapon. She was even more itchy than Smith was.
As Smith returned his gaze to the mirror, he thought he saw a tear in the corner of the other Smith’s eye. But as soon as he saw that faint glimmer, it was gone, replaced by a hardened look, with a hint of mischievousness.
“I’m glad you’ve got your team. We’ll probably need them.”
“We will? Why’s that? What’s going on? Did you have something to do with Frank Caplan?” The man in the mirror might have the same face, but Smith was suspicious. He knew himself too well.
“Frank? Yeah, I know Frank. What happened to him?
“Depends on which Frank you’re talking about. Our Frank has been dead for a while. Your Frank is responsible and is certifiably crazy. He can hardly get more than a few words out. Couldn’t put him in a courtroom for the mass murders...not that we would,” Smith said. He watched his doppelganger’s eyes as he told him about Caplan. The man in the mirror softened briefly, but the tough visage returned quickly.
“Well, shoot. That’s a shame, but not everyone is cut out for this life.”
“This life?”
Smith couldn’t see the other man below the knees, but he could tell he was shifting on the balls of his feet. He didn’t know if he was uncomfortable with this or if his feet just hurt. Either way, Smith decided to press on.
“What are you talking about? Tell me about Caplan. Tell me about what this,” he motioned to the mirror they were both using, “is.”
“This mirror is more than that. We’ve had use of them for a few years now over here. The science is...complicated. If we can ever have a nice chat over a cup of coffee, I can draw you a fancy diagram or two,” he said with a laugh.
After the sights Smith had already seen that morning, he wasn’t feeling too jovial. “Fine. Tell me about Caplan,” he said.
Alter-Smith rubbed his chin and paused. For a moment, it was almost as if the video was buffering before regaining the lost signal and then he was running his hand through his hair. Smith blinked, unsure of what he had just seen. Before he could say anything, Other Smith was answering the question.
“Caplan is...was...one of us. You didn’t know him on your side, but over here, Caplan was an Agent. We called him Agent Young. Once we had instructions to explore your side of the portals, he joined the ranks of volunteers. Him, me, and a few others.”
“So...he came over here willingly?”
“Yeah, but he wasn’t supposed to stay. He was supposed to come back within twenty-four hours and stay on our side. It was supposed to be a trial, but the pull of the portal was too strong. Anytime he got near a portal, he went through. Eventually we had to cut him off. We couldn’t control him anymore,” he said.
Smith lost it. “You did this! A family...others…who knows how many are dead because of you! Johnson and Johnson are still digging up the bodies,” Smith said through gritted teeth. He was seething. It was a good thing this other guy was on the other side of the glass. At this point, all he could do was growl. “This is on you.”
The other Smith ran his tongue along his teeth as Smith talked, as if he was simply waiting for Smith to finish.
“Yeah. I know. But we’ve got bigger problems than Caplan right now.”
Bigger Problems
Smith shook his head. Bigger problems than a serial killer?
Then he remembered something Other Smith said a minute earlier. “Wait, what did you mean you were glad I had my team? What about you? What about your team?”
He smiled without showing his teeth and nodded. “Yep. You’re me. You’re figuring it out. You might not know that you are, but it’s coming to you, slowly.”
“Quit stalling,” Smith said. He had never hated looking at himself more than at that moment. “What about your team?”
“I’m the only one left. There were a few we sent over, but the portal wasn’t calibrated correctly. We didn’t hear back and the portal collapsed in a contained singularity. A black hole, if you will. I believe you know which events I am referring to.”
North Dakota. Virginia. Everything gone. The houses, property—wiped out as if they had never existed.
The look on Smith’s face must’ve confirmed his thoughts.
“Yep,” said the other Smith, “We learned pretty quick, but not quick enough for those two agents.”
“So, it was you, Agent Young, the two in North Dakota and Virginia,” Smith said, not daring to name any of his own agents who may have had their duplicates obliterated in those events. “Is that it?”
“Almost. There was one more,” Alter-Smith said. “He quit after seeing what happened to the others, but we suspect there is more to it. We suspect he didn’t really quit, but instead is manipulating the portals for his own ends, whatever they may be. We call him Agent Green.”
Smith didn’t recognize an Agent Green. Another difference between the other reality and his own. He was curious about so many things, but hopefully once all the craziness died down, he could talk to Alter-Smith more and learn about the other side. For now, though, they needed to capture Agent Green.
“Okay, so where is he?” Smith asked.
“Southern Indiana. I am heading there right after we finish up. I’ll try to meet up with you in two days. Don’t call me, I’ll call you,” he said, and then stepped out of frame.
“Hey!” Smith yelled. Nothing happened. The only thing he saw were the strange looks he got from a few passers-by on the street. Alter-Smith was gone. There was no communication about where to go, who to look for, or what mirror to find. Smith figured the other Smith must have some sort of system for finding and communicating with him when needed.
“Smith,” Johnson said. Smith shook his head to pull himself out of his subconscious and turned his eyes towards her. She pointed behind him and he snapped his head back, only to see the cracks she had started in the corner expanding around the mirror until the entire pane was webbed with countless tiny fissures. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I agree,” Smith said, but before he could take too many steps, the glass shattered with a deafening shriek, followed by a loud pop. He managed to turn his head, but the explosion covered him in shards of mirror. He put his hand on his neck and felt a few of slivers embedded in his skin. Smith pulled a couple out and immediately had trickles of blood streaming down his neck, under the collar of his shirt, and down his back. It was a pain, but not one that would keep him sidelined.
Johnson gripped Smith’s arm and he looked her in the eye. “Stop. You’ll only make it worse. We need to get you to a hospital.”
She was scratch-free, but she wasn’t lead on this case. Smith was.
He took a look back at where the mirror used to be and found a void in its place. No mirror, just a hole into the museum where it had been. Maintenance crews were already rushing to their position; it was time to get lost.
“Fine. Let’s go.”
Smith winced as he ducked his head getting into the SUV. As soon as he buckled his seatbelt, he heard a chirp from his phone at the same time Anna’s phone buzzed in the backseat.
It was a message from headquarters. A new signature had been detected. They weren’t sure of the exact location yet, but something was beginning to develop in Southern Indiana.
Agent Smith and Dr. Anna exchanged looks. They knew this was no mere coincidenc
e. Information about this Agent Green being in Southern Indiana and then this mysterious signature popped up there? They had their next location.
Smith dialed his assistant right away, “Nora, recall as many agents as possible from Arizona and Tennessee. Also, we need the emergency response team activated and ready for action in two days. Finally, make sure we have a fleet of black SUVs waiting for us in Indy. That’s right. No matter the cost.”
Constructive Destruction
The next several hours were spent bouncing from one home improvement store to another. Nik told his wife he wanted to upgrade the bathroom and wanted to start with the mirrors. “They’re outdated and too big for the wall, anyway,” he said.
Penny was more than happy that Nik was actually volunteering to do some housework, so off they went. They looked at nearly a hundred mirrors before she found some she was happy with. They wrapped them up and took them home.
Once back at the house, Nik quickly went to work on the old mirrors.
“I don’t want the kids getting hurt, so can you watch them while I work on the bathroom?” he asked.
She smiled at him. “You know what? Since you’re actually voluntarily working on the house, I will. You think you can get it done in the next two days?”
“I’d better,” Nik said.
He ended up working in the bathroom most of the night. Half the time he prepped the walls, and actually took down Penny’s mirror. The other half of the time he spent debating with himself whether he was actually doing the right thing. It would have been one thing if his doppelganger was there to stare back at him, but RepNika was gone. Where had he gone? Nik had no idea. Maybe it was too late to help. Maybe Nik could save an entire world? A lot of maybes, but not a lot of answers.
Utility Company (Book 1): Blink Page 6