BROKEN SYMMETRY: A Young Adult Science Fiction Thriller

by Dan Rix

  On the wall hung the frame of what used to be a single six-foot high mirror. Shards hung off it and littered the floor. Under the mirror a trapdoor hung open which I could only assume emptied into the alley.

  The dumpster full of broken mirrors . . . it all came from these rooms. Room A and Room B.

  “How’d the mirror break?” I said.

  “Acoustic strength testing. You might need to replace the mirrors often.”

  Other details jumped out at me. A huge red button next to the mirror, the size of a palm, and beside that, an axe. “How often?” I asked.

  “It varies, but at most once a day.”

  “So you try to break them?”

  Charles winked. “I’ll bring you some tools. Be careful not to cut yourself,” he said. “Oh, and Blaire, one more thing . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t press the red button.”

  With that, he backed out of the room and abandoned me in the petrifying silence. A sharp, mechanical smell hung around me, like burnt air.

  Bewildered, I studied the room in more detail—and spotted other strange features. Over the door through which I’d entered, two lights wrapped in metal cages, red and green, both off. Alarm lights.

  Another door just like the first led out of the room on the opposite side. A foreign word, set in bold letters, labeled the center of the door. Swedish . . . or Russian, I couldn’t tell. I tried the handle. Locked. The red button?

  Don’t press the red button, Blaire.

  An identical fingerprint scanner flanked this door as well, blinking red. I completed my survey of the room, and my eyes rose to another piece of the puzzle. Up in the corner almost tucked out of sight, a satellite dish—at least what looked like one—had been tilted so it broadcast into the room. I followed the dish’s line of focus.

  It was aimed at the broken mirror.

  ***

  My internship had decidedly taken a turn for the worse. In the belly of a dark, soundless chamber, I was crouching on my hands and knees picking slivers of glass out of the floor. I paused to wipe the sweat off my forehead.

  The little satellite dish had to be some kind of high-tech speaker system. They were testing the strength of different kinds of glass. In particular, mirror glass. I recalled the one-way mirror at the police station where Detective Paretti had probed me about the diary.

  The interrogation room.

  It made sense, considering the blueprints I’d seen earlier. Maybe they were testing one-way mirrors for interrogation rooms.

  Despite my frustration, I couldn’t help but feel impressed. Perhaps this internship was more promising than I first thought.

  Though I couldn’t see any more glass, I ran my palm over the floor just to check. Smooth as a baby’s ass. I propped up the new mirror and selected one of the screws Charles had given me.

  Still, I liked my other explanations better than acoustic strength testing, like the one where Amy was some kind of beast they had to lock up every night and that she was so horrified of her own reflection she smashed every mirror they put in front of her.

  While I inserted the first screw, I pressed the edge of the mirror to hold it in place—

  The mirror slipped out of the frame and plummeted. My blood froze. It gouged out a chunk of floor, bounced, and toppled over. But it didn’t break. Amazing.

  Fully tempered, according to Charles.

  I propped the mirror back up and finished mounting it. But as I tightened the last screw, now sweating, I caught sight of the label in the center of the second door in the mirror’s reflection. I spun around.

  I had pegged it for a different language. Actually, the word was backwards, so it read forward in the mirror. Like my dad’s diary.

  Looking at it now, it clearly spelled reflection.

  Someone’s idea of a joke? I glanced back at the door I’d entered through, the door that led back to the office. An even stranger word appeared in the center of this door, at eye level. The correct orientation.

  My curiosity spiked, and I moved around the room again, touching the walls and feeling the material. All padded, sound proof.

  Don’t press the red button.

  I touched the button’s surface. Rubbery plastic, forgiving. You were supposed to slam the button with your fist.

  I threw a final glance around the room and, before I could change my mind, I pressed the red button.

  A screech stabbed my ears. I winced and clamped them with my palms, but it was no use. The scream clawed between my fingers and pierced my ear drums. I writhed in pain.

  The trap door fell open under my toes, and I teetered, gaping down its black throat. I stepped to the side and only just managed to regain my balance. By then I understood what was happening.

  The surface of the mirror vibrated, rippled almost, resonating with the throbbing pitch. My reflection blurred. Then all at once, the mirror I’d just installed shattered. A shower of tiny, cubic shards littered the floor and echoed down the chute.

  Then quiet.

  I stared at the scene in horror, and another sound filtered into the room, a voice over an intercom system. Charles.

  “Blaire, please see me in my office.”

  ***

  Head held in shame, I trudged back up the hall to his office. Please don’t get fired . . . please don’t get fired . . .

  Without Joe, this internship offered me the only hope of solving my dad’s case. I simply couldn’t get fired.

  I found Charles examining my report under the rims of his glasses, the report I had hastily scribbled up on the Immunology building before fixing the mirror. I fidgeted in front of his desk, waiting for him to look up.

  Instead his eyes narrowed at something I had written. He uncapped a red pen to make a correction, then licked his thumb and flipped to the next page. I glimpsed the previous page. Every last word had been crossed out, rewritten. Paragraphs of red notes bled in the margins. When he saw the next sheet, his already tense eyebrows knotted in confusion. He muttered something in bewilderment and shook his head. “Blaire, have a seat.”

  I lowered myself into the chair opposite his desk, shaking.

  “Blaire, I’m looking over your report . . .” he began, crossing off more of what I’d written. At last he lowered his glasses and studied me over the top of the rims. “Suffice it to say, I think we need to work on this.”

  “To be honest, I was a little confused.”

  Charles peered into me. “You know you can talk to Amy if you have questions.”

  “She looked busy.”

  “Blaire, it’s important that we’re completely one-hundred percent accurate with each and every report. Do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  “I know you’re just the intern, but I expect a lot out of you. Just as much as the others. Do you understand that?”

  I nodded, my throat thick. I had only ever felt this scolded when my dad caught me sneaking out once for a midnight premiere.

  “Good.” He glanced at the clock and pressed a button on his phone. “Amy, check that Damian’s prepping. He hasn’t gotten me those preliminaries yet.”

  Amy’s voice came through. “Got it, Dad, I’ll help him.”

  Charles handed me the report, which I took with trembling fingers, and smiled. “So . . . did you get that mirror fixed?” he said.

  “Still working on it.” I swallowed. “Actually, I might need a new mirror.”

  “You pressed the red button?” he said, amused.

  “What’s the point of that thing?” I said. “You know the mirrors break, so why do you need to test them?”

  “You’ll see. Help yourself to the stack for now.” He nodded to the recently delivered stack across from his desk, now one mirror shorter
. “And do be careful with the broken glass. Don’t pick it up with your bare fingers.”

  “Thanks.” I headed for the door.

  “Oh, and Blaire, I was wondering . . .” he said, stopping me in the doorway. “This weekend is Easter. If you don’t have plans, I’d like you to come over on Sunday for brunch. It’ll just be the four of us—myself, Amy, Damian, and you.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure,” I mumbled. “Thanks.” Easter. I had completely forgotten.

  He smiled. “You’re going to find we’re like a family here.”

  I knew why he said it. He wanted to make me feel better, because I no longer had a family of my own.

  ***

  I swept up the shards that hadn’t fallen through the trap door and tossed them into the trash chute, both sad and touched by Charles’s gesture. One cube hit the edge and bounced out.

  I kicked it in the direction of the hole, but my shoe just embedded it in the floor. I sighed, disregarded Charles’s advice, and reached for the sliver.

  Too late, I realized the glass had sliced my skin. I dropped it, more surprised than hurt, and watched the white scratch along my index finger pool with red.

  At the sight of blood, my hearing sharpened. In the dampened, sound-proof room, I heard the first drop strike the floor and splatter my ankles.

  I opened the door, keeping the finger elevated, and rushed down the hall to the bathroom. I jerked the handle with my right hand and barged in.

  Except the bathroom was occupied.

  Damian was bent over the sink, yellow liquid dribbling from his lips. Vomit bubbled down the drain. He dragged his hand across his mouth and jerked around to face me.

  “Don’t you freaking knock?” he spat, the veins around his eyes swollen and black. Hatred welled up in his pupils.

  “Are you okay?” I whispered.

  “Leave!” he shouted, returning to the faucet to scrub at his face.

  I fled. In the hall, I collapsed against the wall outside the bathroom and slid to the floor. I heard him throw up again, followed by frenzied spitting.

  He reminded me of my dad. His illness, just days before he vanished and again the night he died. The pale skin and vomiting. The black, enlarged veins around his eyes. Doctors had once likened my description of his symptoms to those of radiation poisoning.

  The memories surged through my system and left me shivering.

  Damian had said something earlier, something about a bad crossover—

  The bathroom door swung open and he emerged, his normal composed self again, with no sign of just being sick. I searched his face, but the dark discoloration of his veins had all but receded. His look said I wasn’t to talk about this to anybody.

  “Let me see it,” he said.

  I just stared at him. “Are you okay?”

  “Let me see your finger.”

  I showed him my hand, which he tilted to get a view of my cut, sending prickles down my arm. “What’s a crossover?” I asked.

  He let go of my hand, rummaged in a nearby closet, and brought back a first aid kit. He wiped the cut with an alcohol swab and wrapped a Band-Aid around my finger. Still in shock at what I had seen, I let him. I had never seen him this gentle.

  “You said you had a bad crossover,” I said. “What is that?”

  “You should be more careful,” he said, smoothing the adhesive to the sensitive underside of my finger. “Didn’t Charles tell you not to pick up glass with your bare hands?” He raised an eyebrow. But before I could even mutter thank you, he swept away, leaving me in an intoxicating haze of emotions.

  I ran after him.

  ***

  “Damian, what’s a crossover?” I caught up with him at the bottom of the stairs and grabbed his arm. His triceps hardened under my grip and he jerked away from me, splaying my fingers and nearly dislodging my shoulder.

  He spun, and his stare bored into me. “It’s what we do here, Blaire.”

  “Stop dodging and just tell me what it is.”

  “You already know what it is,” he said. “You saw me in your dream.”

  “Because I’ve seen you around. You said so yourself.”

  “Oh please,” he sneered. “You know better. Your neighbor killed himself.”

  Amy glared at him from her desk. “She’s not ready yet, Damian.”

  “Put a sock in it, Amy,” he said. “This isn’t about you.”

  “But my dad said—”

  “I don’t give a damn what your dad said. Mind your own shit.”

  “So you did that to Doctor Benjamin?” I said. “You made him kill himself?”

  “Not on purpose.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said, folding my arms. “He killed himself before the dream.”

  “Sure. Whatever you say.” Damian’s flat tone indicated the conversation was over, and without another word he strode toward the couch.

  “You haven’t told me crap,” I spat.

  “Because you’re not paying attention,” he said over his shoulder. “Your dad said it best—we don’t need to lie. People lie for us. They’ll lock themselves in cages just so they don’t have to face what’s obvious.”

  “That’s not what he said.”

  “That’s what he said to me.” He jammed his earbuds into his ears and hoisted his computer onto his lap.

  The words stung. Before he could react, I rushed the couch and grabbed his laptop, and dangled it over the floor. “I’m dropping this unless you tell me what crossover means.”

  His eyes narrowed to hateful slits. “Don’t, Blaire.”

  “It’s important isn’t it?”

  “If you drop that . . .”

  “Am I important?” I said. “Tell me what it means.”

  He lunged for the laptop, but I held it out of reach. I let it slip a few inches.

  “Blaire,” he warned, his ashy eyes full of threat and danger.

  I refused to lose this staring contest. “Crossover?”

  He pressed his lips together. Through the blinds, harsh afternoon rays slanted through the office, lighting the swirls of dust eddies that Damian’s sudden motion had set in flight. His eyes drilled into me, freezing my insides.

  But I was so close to the truth.

  “It’s what we’re capable of,” he said, finally. “The forty-seventh chromosome. It’s not just taking up space. It gives us the ability to do something normal humans can’t.”

  I returned the computer to his lap and allowed myself to breathe again, released from his spell. “Do what? Appear in other people’s dreams?”

  “No, no—” He waved away my suggestion with his hand. “It’s nothing like that.”

  “Then what?”

  “Charles wants to tell you himself.”

  “So you have the forty-seventh chromosome too?”

  “So do Charles and Amy. And your father. That’s why we work here.”

  “And you’re sick right now, because of that? Because of whatever it is you guys do?”

  “It’s part of the work. We all signed the agreement.”

  “We’re minors. We can’t sign agreements like that.”

  “Yes you can, Blaire. You did,” he said. “Where are your parents? You’re independent, right? Have you ever seen my parents? No. Amy’s the only one who’s even got a father . . . and you already know who that is. Wake up to what’s around you, Blaire. This is how it is.”

  “We all die young,” I muttered.

  “Not if we’re careful,” he said. “Not if you learn the rules and follow them.”

  “And when will that be?” I asked. “Summer? Next year? When I’m thirty?”

  “Monday,” he said. “Charles wants me to teach you how to crossover on Monday.”
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  Chapter 7

  The weekend passed in a blur. I couldn’t get that word out of my mind.

  Crossover.

  I hated it, what it implied. Crossing over what? To get where? It sounded like a drug thing, a trip . . . and why?

  My instinct recoiled at the thought. But the worst part of all was the unease. The world felt flimsier than ever, and I could almost see through the air, see the edges of the horizon shimmer like a mirage.

  Charles Donovan’s sprawling mansion crested a lush hill in La Jolla. Beyond a fence overgrown with bougainvillea, a shiny green Prius reflected the waves of a swimming pool.

  I helped myself to salad, a hardboiled egg dyed blue, a slice of quiche, and a spoonful of chicken casserole, then plopped myself down by the pool next to Charles, who gazed vaguely into space. I peeled the egg, one tiny piece at a time.

  “I still miss her sometimes,” he said, nibbling on his own quiche. “Amy’s mother. She left us a long time ago when your father and I were starting the company. I like to think things turned out differently in another life.”

  I tried to pay attention to him, but my eyes wandered over to Damian at the edge of the pool, feet trailing in the deep end, where his unbuttoned shirt exposed a sculpted rack of tanned abs. What was with this guy?

  Amy stripped down to her bikini and swam mermaid-like around his legs. And she looked good, too. Evidently, she also made keeping in shape a priority.

  There went my edge.

  “Amy’s not doing so well,” said Charles, watching his daughter fondly. “She’s so intelligent—and so outgoing—I think she misses being in a real school.”

  “She’s homeschooled?”

  “I just . . . I just thought it would be better.”