“You know, like the famous composer,” Wall had said in front of a squad of his future co-workers. The team chuckled. Liszt knew it was going to be hard enough to get along with Jones and his team as the “resident nerd,” but now that Wall had tossed a Hungarian composer from two hundred years ago into the mix, he was going to have to work even harder.
It was right in the middle of Miles Davis’ epic song “Freddie Freeloader” from the Kind of Blue album when Liszt’s thoughts were interrupted by the car door opening. He’d been so totally engrossed in the song and the strange data surrounding the house across the street that he’d completely shut himself off from the world. It wasn’t the first time, and it surely wouldn’t be the last.
Agent Jones had hopped into the driver’s seat, and Quincy was right alongside him. It was almost as if they hadn’t even noticed his presence. He hated to even mention anything, but with the lead agent back, Liszt knew part of his duty was to inform his superior officer to changes in the readings. Readings that had spiked off the charts just minutes earlier.
“Ahem,” Liszt said, trying to simultaneously clear his throat and get Agent Jones’ attention.
Nothing.
Introverted throughout school, this was a bit awkward for Liszt. He wanted for his coworkers to like him, but all the bullying in school came back almost every time he suited up for a mission. His team had been great to him, but it had always been the cool kids and the jocks who dismissed and tortured him throughout junior high school. Just like Pavlov’s dog was conditioned to salivate, Liszt was conditioned to cower when anyone nearby showed any dominance.
Being an analyst was right up his alley. He was able to use skills unique to only a few people, and was counted on by Jones and the rest of his team.
Not sure if he should say anything more, Liszt hesitated. It was in that brief moment when Agent Quincy turned and looked in the back seat, finding Liszt there.
“Uh, Jones, we’ve got someone in the back seat,” Quincy said to his partner. Liszt noticed a red mark on Quincy’s cheek. He didn’t think it had been there before, but then again, he really only noticed if something was out of order when someone messed with his iTunes playlists, which had been known to happen.
Jones suddenly turned and glared at Liszt. He quickly drew his sidearm and aimed it right at Liszt. “Who the hell are you?”
Tucking as He Rolled
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Agent Jones, it’s me! Liszt...you know, the guy who tells you what the heck is going on on all our missions? You know, the jazz junkie? Liszt?”
To say that Liszt was concerned would be putting it mildly. Liszt had never had a gun pointed at him before, and certainly never expected Agent Jones to be the first to do so. Maybe Agent James, but Jones had always been super-professional around Liszt, even quelling small bouts of harassment from his team towards the analyst on a few occasions. As soon as that gun went up, the verbal vomit began, and Liszt said anything and everything he could to get Jones to put it down.
“We’ve been coworkers for a couple years. I like to eat Twinkies but only the cake...the cream is gross. I can’t stand portabello mushrooms, but love a good mushroom pizza. I…”
Jones jerked the gun and shushed the analyst.
Liszt stared wide-eyed at Jones, who digested what Liszt said and then slowly blinked. A big smile crossed the agent’s face and he slowly lowered his weapon.
“Yeah. Sorry Liszt, I’m just messing around. You know me,” Jones said with a laugh.
Liszt gave a half-grin and nodded, but knew Jones well enough he wouldn’t joke about that. But, maybe this whole mission had everyone on edge. He certainly couldn’t tell them anything definitive.
“Yeah, boss,” Liszt said. “You want to know how the scans are going?”
Jones looked over to Quincy and then back at Liszt. “Yep. What d’ya got?”
“When you guys went in, I started scanning the residence. No change, up until a few minutes ago and then the instruments all went haywire. It was nuts,” Liszt said. “I’m still trying to piece it all together, though. Maybe after a good meal and a night at the motel, I’ll have some answers. Did you guys see anything unusual in there?”
Quincy answered this time. “Nope. Just your standard run-down mid-century home on the verge of collapsing on itself.”
Liszt thought to himself that the home couldn’t be more than ten years old. Max. Weird.
“There was something peculiar about the mirrors,” Jones said.
“Oh yeah?” Liszt asked.
“Yeah. I didn’t have a hot babe in my arms when I was looking in them,” Jones said, exploding with laughter. Next to him, Quincy shook with laughter, as if they were exchanging some strange inside joke.
Liszt offered up a small chuckle, but was quiet otherwise. While Liszt and the rest of Jones’ team weren’t exactly bosom buddies, he had gotten to know Jones a little over the past year. He knew Jones was still madly in love with his college sweetheart, Lucy. For years they had stayed together, even when he wasn’t always able to tell Lucy the truth about his career choice. The two celebrated their twelfth anniversary just last month; there was no way Jones would have joked like that.
Was something in the house messing with their heads? Quincy was acting odd as well. Quincy was usually a lot more reserved, but his behavior since getting in the vehicle was…different.
“Are you two okay?”
“Yeah, man, why wouldn’t we be?” Jones said, starting up the car and pulling out of the driveway.
“I don’t know. Wall told me to observe and pay attention to deviant behavior, and while I might not call it ‘deviant,’ there is something different about you,” Liszt said, trying to stay politically neutral. He wasn’t the armed one in the vehicle, after all.
“Jones said we’re okay, so we’re okay,” Quincy retorted. “Okay?”
“Yeah. Oh, hey, where’re the other guys? James, Edwards, and Dow? They stay at the house?”
Jones seemed to pause for a moment, as if he had forgotten about the three other members of the team.
“Yes and no. I told them to finish up at the house and to meet us back at the hotel. I figured they would also chat with some of the locals before they got back. I don’t expect them for hours,” he said, then reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a pack of Marlboro cigarettes. Without hesitating, Jones lit one up.
Liszt couldn’t believe it. Jones had been trying desperately to quit for a few months now—it was something Lucy had wanted him to do as an anniversary gift. To just pull out a cigarette and so casually light it…
His head spinning, Liszt calmly opened his laptop, typed out a small message and hit send. Then, he undid his seatbelt.
“Whatcha doing?” Quincy asked from the front seat.
“Oh, I’m just getting comfortable,” Liszt said. Then he opened the door and leapt out of the car, tucking his head as he rolled. Normally he would have ended up with a few scrapes and bruises—Jones wasn’t going that fast yet. But the terrain of Arizona was such that the side Liszt jumped out on was overlooking the edge of a mountain. Liszt tumbled over the edge, hoping he would survive, and praying that Dr. Anna would get his message.
He didn’t know who or what had come back from that house, but he knew it wasn’t the Jones and Quincy he had worked with for the past year.
Wake Up
The cloud was thick over Nik’s brain. He was lost somewhere inside of himself.
Or was he lost outside of himself?
It was so hard to keep it straight when there were two of you walking around. Two? How did that happen? He didn’t have a twin. His mom and dad would have told him…
The cloud was heavy. Hard to think. Hard to focus.
Penny would help. Penny would take care of him. Just like she always had. She was the best part of his life. She married him even though he was...himself. She put up with him and supported him. Penny gave him two kids. Kira first. Sisco second. Not at all like it wou
ld have been on Deep Space Nine.
Even with the cloud pressing down on him, Nik still chuckled.
Penny loved him.
But he didn’t love her enough. When Nik noticed the mirror, did he tell her?
Nope. He kept it quiet. Was he trying to keep it all for himself? Was he trying to protect his family? Was he a psychopath?
He didn’t know the answer to any of those questions any more. His brain hurt so much and his ears were ringing so loud he couldn’t think about himself, let alone himself.
Himself…
There were two of him. How?
The mirror. He went through and found himself. He found Nik. His doppelganger. Rep-Nik-a, or whatever Nik came up with.
The cloud was clearing, but the confusion was as prevalent as ever. Who was he? Was he just like Nik? How much was he the same?
As the fog began to abate, Nik’s thoughts centered on one thing: they blew it up. Smith and his men blew up my house. My house!
A toe gently tapped Nik’s side.
“Wake up, Mr. Davidson,” the voice said. Nik had heard that voice before, but couldn’t place it. He didn’t even know where he was, let alone who was talking to him.
Nik could tell that the light beyond his eyelids was too much, especially since the world underneath his eyelids was exploding every few seconds. This was a headache that would rival any out there and would surely exceed the capabilities of Excedrin Migraine.
Nik stayed still, but it was clear he was waking up. Then, as he was trying to regain his own sense of awareness, the voice piped up again.
“You too, let’s get up. We’ve got questions.”
“Fine. Quit bugging me,” Nik said. “Gimme a few minutes to clear my head.”
Nik noticed then that the voice turned around. “Oh, there you are Mr. Davidson. Sorry, that last line wasn’t intended for you. Well, not really.”
He pried his eyelids open, his brain still detonating small IEDs every few moments, and looked up at the voice. At Agent Smith.
“Then who are you talking to?”
“I was talking to the other you,” Smith said, stepping aside, showing Nik his double, lying on the rough dirt floor of an antiquated shed. He’d never seen himself sleep before, but thanks to a trickle of clotted blood on his forehead, Nik suspected sleep wasn’t his own choice.
In the Shed
Carefully, slowly, Nik sat up, his head still pounding. He glared at Smith—the man responsible for the destruction of his house. Possibly also for the disappearance of his family.
“What do you want me to say? I’m sorry?” Smith asked, pulling up a couple of chairs. He motioned for Nik to sit in one of them. Nik noticed that his mirror-self was still unconscious a few feet away.
“That’d be nice. Some government reparations would be helpful as well. I know my rights. The Fifth Amendment deals with Eminent Domain…” Nik started.
“And we both know there isn’t a court in the United States that is going to hear that case,” Smith interrupted. His chiseled face was firm, but Nik could tell there was something else. Doubt? Smith continued, “Look, I’m not unreasonable. Tell me what’s going on. Why did you jump through the portal as soon as me and my team showed up? Where is your family? Why did you bring him back with you?”
Nik realized then that he held some leverage. Smith might know a lot, but he didn’t actually know what was going on with his family. He wasn’t all knowing after all.
“I’ll answer some of your questions if you’ll answer some of mine,” Nik replied. He kept his eyes squarely on Smith’s, looking for any hesitation, anything that might be something he could use. He didn’t have his house, his kids, or his wife. Information was about the only commodity Nik still possessed.
“Okay,” Smith said, planting himself in a chair a few feet away from Nik. Close enough to touch either Nik or Mirror-Nik should the need arise. He obviously didn’t trust Nik. Let’s see if we can change that, Nik thought. “I’ll start. Tell me about the portal. I know about them, but tell me your experience.”
“About a week ago, I started noticing...strange things in the mirror. Things that weren’t true to reality. Then a few days later, I saw myself blink.”
“Blink?” Smith asked, slightly taken aback. It was almost exactly what had happened to him in Grand Rapids.
“Yeah. It was almost as if we were totally synced up until that moment and then...we weren’t. Next thing I knew, that guy,” Nik said, motioning to his opposite self, “had a sign up asking me for help.”
“What kind of help?”
“I didn’t know. We couldn’t communicate verbally and I tried to forget about it. I thought…I don’t know…also…”
“Yes?”
Nicholas had told Nik about the Smith in his reality taking his wife. He decided to keep it to himself for now. Maybe his other self would want to keep that quiet.
“And he disappeared. I started breaking my own mirror, but accidentally created a passage between worlds.”
“Oops,” Smith said.
“I don’t think so. He wants to help me. We’re going to help each other out,” Nik said.
Smith cast a sideways glance at the prone figure from the opposite side of the mirror, but didn’t say anything.
“So if you aren’t here because of me, why are you here?” Nik asked.
“Who says we aren’t here because of you?”
Nik grinned. “You did. When you asked where my family is and why I jumped through when you showed up. You didn’t know me at all—you just found the portal and I happened to be living in the house where it was. Right?”
Smith was silent for a few seconds, sizing up his opponent.
“You’re a smart guy, Nik Davidson. You’re right. We were tipped off about Southern Indiana because of somebody else. I am not at liberty to say who tipped us off at this point, but it is correct to assume we lucked into finding you. Not that we wouldn’t have at some point,” Agent Smith said. “We have already identified similar portals in numerous locations around the U.S., such as Michigan, Kentucky, North Dakota, Virginia, and possibly Arizona.”
Smith didn’t see the harm in telling Nik about the other locations. Besides, he would be headed to a federal safe house soon, kept in confinement until this blew over. Or he vanished, whichever came first. Not that Nik needed to know that now. He turned his attention back to Nik, whose eyes were wide with amazement.
“Similar portals? You mean there have been more? I mean, the other me said the technology was everywhere over there, but…”
Nik trailed off, unsure of where he was going. He needed to regain control of the conversation.
“Where’s my family?”
Smith was thrown a little, Nik could tell. He hesitated a moment.
“You know, don’t you? What happened to them? Where is Penny? Where are my kids? Kira and Sisco? Before I jumped, you said you knew about them,” Nik demanded, scooting forward in his chair until his knees were mere inches away from Smith’s.
“That’s what we were hoping you could tell us, Mr. Davidson. Where did you bury them?”
Cat and Mouse
Nik was speechless for a moment, but not for long.
“Bury them? Bury who?”
Agent Smith coolly sat back and gave Nik a sly grin. “Why, your family, of course. I told you about the other portals. Now you need to tell us about what you did with your family. Where you buried them. Was it somewhere here? We haven’t found evidence of that...yet. Maybe you took them through the portal and got rid of the evidence there. Either way…”
The agent just trailed off, apparently content to let Nik simmer just a few feet away. Just behind Smith, another agent walked into the shed, standing silent at the doorframe.
“Now wait a minute. That’s not at all what happened,” Nik said, furrowing his brow. The headache hadn’t improved any and now this man was accusing him of murder? It was almost too much to take.
“It isn’t?” Smi
th asked. He took out his cell phone and swiped. He turned the phone back around to Davidson, showing him the grisly details of the Caplan family burial site from Michigan. Nik grimaced, but didn’t look away.
“That’s not my family. Who are they?”
“These people? They were someone else’s family. A family was that was doing just fine...until their house ended up having a portal inside. Ol’ dad went nuts...or was it his doppelganger from the other side? I can never keep it straight,” Smith said. “Hey Wesson? Is he awake over there?”
The other agent, who Nik now identified as Agent Wesson, (Smith & Wesson?) cocked his head to look at Nik’s duplicate, and spoke up. “Yep.”
“Outstanding,” Agent Smith said. He stood up and moved his chair next to Nik’s chair. Smith and Wesson went together to Nik’s mirror-self and lifted him up by the arms. He was, indeed, awake.
Nicholas sat calmly in the chair, and then Nik saw him reach towards his back pocket.
Wesson lifted up a previously unseen duffel bag. Smith reached in with both hands. In one hand was the shotgun Nicholas brought with him from the other side. In the other was the handgun Nik had been given over there.
“Looking for these?”
Nik kept silent, but Nicholas spoke up. “So what if I was?”
“Nothing. I guess they are legally yours if you have a gun permit,” Smith said. Then, as if a light bulb appeared over his head, “Oh wait...since you are technically not from this world, you don’t technically exist here and therefore don’t have any way of getting a gun card. In fact, Mr. Davidson number two, you aren’t a citizen of the United States in this reality. There is no Constitution this side of one of your portals that protects any rights you think you have.”
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