by Anna Lewis
“Mack,” Reilly said. “Why did you think we'd meant things to happen like this?” She held up her hand. “Wait. I'm not mad; I'm just trying to see it from your point of view.”
“Why?”
Reilly considered. “You have experiences I don’t. Maybe you saw something about the whole situation that I didn’t.”
Maksim grimaced. “Most of it is probably my own bias.” He lifted his bionic arm by way of example. “I’ve been burned by government sponsored scientists before.”
Reilly frowned. “The US government did that to you?” Looking out over the smoke-shrouded city, she didn't find the idea so far-fetched. Her experiment hadn't just gone wrong; it had been a catastrophe of epic proportions. Her studies into wormholes had always been a passion for her, but the precise nature of the project had been the idea of the government agency that had sponsored the contract. She wondered again if the Department of Energy had been her true patron.
Maksim was once again smiling that bitter not-smile. “Not the United States, though I have no doubt they were doing their own work in this field at the same time. No, I was a soldier with Russian Special Forces.” He stared out into the sky, which had taken on the quality of a funeral shroud; a thin gauzy veil of smoke and dust roiled in the air between them and the sun. The city was alive with screams, the sounds of crashing destruction, and the hunting calls of creatures that had never before seen the light of day. Maksim pointed out into the haze, and Reilly saw, silhouetted against the spoiling sky, the tiny shape of an aircraft coming in from the direction of the sea.
Maksim watched the little speck grow larger for a moment before he continued his story. “We were deployed to some sandy hellhole in the Gulf. We were supposed to…it doesn't matter what we thought we were supposed to do. We were supposed to die—or at least we were supposed to almost die.” He grimaced, rolling his tattered right shoulder so that the skin stretched, and the places where the metal muscle of his bionic arm showed through were all the more stark and obvious. “Our bird was hit just as we were preparing for the drop. We were seventy, eighty feet above the ground. All of us, just over a dozen of us, fell screaming amidst the pieces of the chopper. Not sure if the ground or the wreck hit us first.”
The distant shape of the gunship was growing larger and larger. It passed between two tall buildings, making swirling eddies of the smoky haze. It was not, as Reilly had expected, a conventional helicopter. It was cutting edge tech, stuff that only the mega-corporations were using—the kind of vehicle not even the government could afford to use. Its body was much like that of an attack chopper, but it had no great rotor, and its tail was stubby and graced with tiny fins. Instead of the iconic whirling blades were four articulating arms, which suspended the body of the vehicle between four metal cylinders. Blades must have been whirling inside them, but Reilly could not see them. It looked like nothing so much as a giant drone, like the kind she could have bought off the internet. Each one of its miniature rotors tipped individually, this way and that, so the gunship traveled in the precise path that the pilot desired. It was fascinating to watch it fly. She realized suddenly that Maksim had just told her an intensely personal story, and she hadn't responded. She looked up at the big Russian expat. “You survived the crash. How?”
Maksim shrugged. “The rescue bird was there. It got to us so fast. I don't remember much. I just remember waking up blind and in so much pain.” He trailed off. Clenching and unclenching his jaw, he tilted his head from side to side, and the exposed prosthetic muscles beneath the shredded right side of his neck tensed and released in a hypnotic rhythm. The gunship was getting closer. It altered its course slightly to avoid the side of a nearby tower, the headquarters of another corporation, done all over in smooth hexagons of glass. The tower, itself a hexagonal pillar, reflected the sun and shattered the light across its many facets, leaving the gunship in shadow as it was illuminated from behind. “They replaced my eyes, my right arm, both legs, and much of my spine. The rest they reinforced and strengthened. Found out later that was what they'd intended all along.” Maksim grimaced again, as the light of the sun seemed to waver in the great glass tower, and he could see the gunship more clearly. “At this point, I'm about forty percent meat. The rest is metal. Any more taken away and the U.N. won't legally consider me a human anymore.”
Reilly reached out and awkwardly put a hand on the mercenary's broad shoulder. “You seem human enough to me.” He turned and met her eyes, his face empty of expression, but for the barest flicker of bitter humor around the corners of his eyes. There was something hollow in that expression as if at any moment the man might collapse in on himself and vanish. Reilly continued, blinking as the glare from the other tower disappeared, and she stopped having to squint against it. “Maksim, you just called in what I assume was a personal favor, flew through a catastrophe, and then fought your way down into a building filled with monsters from another dimension, just to help me.” She grinned at him, despite his flat expression, and her tone turned lightly mocking. “And I get the feeling that you did it at least in part because then you’d get to be all heroic and manly and ‘rescue the damsel.’”
Mack’s empty gaze softened, and a little genuine warmth crept in around the edges. He let out a quiet chuckle and his lips quirked with the barest shadow of a smile. “The thought may have crossed my mind.”
Reilly grinned triumphantly, her green eyes bright with laughter. “There you have it! Only a human could be a horn dog during the apocalypse.” Then, surprising herself as much as Maksim, Reilly stepped forward and kissed him on his lips. He was startled at first, but then he returned the kiss, plus a little extra, his metal hand resting gently against her back and pressing her against him. His other hand ran over her, down her back and toward her ass. The kiss was good. It was really good, and Reilly let it linger for a long time, enjoying the salty, sweaty taste of Mack’s lips. After a moment, she broke away, grinning, her eyes alight with excitement and adrenaline. “How’s that for a thank you, ‘hero’?”
Mack snorted, and his mouth began to spread into a real smile. But then the expression froze. Reilly followed his gaze and turned, and her heart dropped into her stomach, all her laughter forgotten. The nearby tower no longer reflected the light of the sun. All of its mirrored glass had turned black as sin, an oily, viscous darkness that reminded Reilly forcibly of mold and rot, of grave-dirt and charcoal. The glass began to distort and stretch, pressed outward like a syrupy, thick membrane. Something truly massive was warping the side of the building, something impossibly large. From the twisting glass, there grasped a great, eight-fingered hand, stretching and twisting at the end of a vast, muscled arm as it forced its way into reality. The gunship hung in the air, just between the two buildings, frozen in that single moment, in that single instant of dawning horror, framed by fingers as massive as subway trains.
Mack was shouting something, but Reilly couldn't hear him over the ringing, rushing sound in her ears. The huge hand spread wide to seize the gunship and crush it. The migraine was coming back, but she clenched her teeth and forced herself to focus through the gathering pain. It’s the portals, Reilly thought. They’re doing this to me. The monstrous hand clenched into a fist, but to her surprise, the gunship dropped a dozen meters abruptly, narrowly avoiding being crushed. The massive arm was followed by a shoulder, which became a broad chest. The arm reached up to grip the top of the tower it was using as a portal, bracing the body so that it could come all the way through. The gunship sped toward Reilly and Maksim, all four of its little rotors tilted forward to yank the little craft through the air at full speed.
The migraine was shooting branches of electric pain twisting through Reilly's brain. She swayed, dangerously close to the edge of the building. Mack grabbed her shoulder and said something, but she still couldn't hear him. The ringing in her ears was like standing beneath the bells of a cathedral, driving away everything else before it in atonal thunder. The giant came through the thirty-story portal
completely, breaking out into the open air. It had too many arms, and its cavernous head was adorned with horns that curled up to stab at the sky. The black ooze that seemed to cover all the creatures that had come through did not fully coat the four-armed titan. Its face was partially clean, and where the ooze didn't cover it, Reilly could see skin covered in glittering red scales. It blinked great yellow eyes, its gaze fixed directly on Reilly. The colossal lips parted, showing a forest of uneven teeth in a horrible smile.
The gunship was right there, hovering just over the rooftop, and a brown-skinned man in green flight-suit was gesturing energetically for them to hurry. Reilly couldn’t move, though. She was trapped in that golden stare as words formed, unbidden, in her mind. GATE-KEEPER. WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD YOU HAVE BROUGHT US. SO RICH WITH FOOD.
Mack was shouting at her, but that didn’t matter. She screamed back at the giant, though her lips didn’t move. She screamed back in her mind, knowing the titan would hear her. Why! Why are you doing this!
The monster took a single, thunderous step forward, and the building beneath Reilly's feet shook with the force. YOU ARE FOOD. IT IS SIMPLE. YOU OPENED A WAY FOR US, AND WE HAVE COME.
The migraine had taken root at her brain stem, and Reilly was sure that if this went on much longer, an actual tree made of pain would burst forth from her skull. I closed the Door! How can you still be coming?!
YOU WERE SO KIND AS TO PROVIDE US WITH A KEY. The red-scaled giant took another step, and the city shook.
Reilly wrestled with this thought for a moment, but she couldn’t grip it, not through the pain. It didn’t make sense. A key? What key had she provided? She couldn’t see for the agony. She wasn’t sure if she was standing anymore, or if she’d already started falling. Distantly, she was aware of Maksim screaming, of strong arms wrapping around her, of the whole world twisting and buckling beneath her feet. She blinked and squinted, and her sight returned for a moment, just in time to see the giant sprinting toward the NextGen building. She realized that Maksim was carrying her, and they were moving.
Suddenly, they were in the gunship, and Maksim was shouting something at the pilot. The aircraft pressed up beneath them and pulled up away from the NextGen building. The great red-scaled giant plowed into the tower shoulder-first, like a football player, shattering the building like it had been built of toothpicks and styrofoam. The monster twisted to snatch again at the gunship, but it missed, its fingertips coming close enough that in one of those moments of delirious clarity, Reilly could the individual nicks and scratches in its hooked talons as they whipped by. The pain of the migraine was indescribable now, and Reilly could no longer hold on to consciousness. Darkness descended over her mind.
Late Friday night: Breach plus eighteen hours
Reilly opened her eyes. For a moment, she didn't remember what had happened. She just knew she was comfortable. She closed her eyes again as some of the details began to seep back into her brain. Maybe she was in her bed in her apartment. Maybe the dark things tickling at the corners of her mind were just the dregs of a nightmare, and none of it had happened. Maybe… She opened her eyes again. She was staring at the ceiling. It was not the ceiling in her bedroom. The light fixture was wrong. Her arm itched, so she scratched at it. She froze, and slowly turned her head to look. There was an IV in her arm; the needle taped down so that it wouldn't move. She followed the tube to the bag that hung from a metal stand by the side of the bed. It was mostly empty and had been labeled “saline solution” in permanent marker block letters. She frowned at the IV. A voice came from a room nearby, deep and masculine. She couldn't make out what he was saying.
Reilly sighed. She couldn't pretend any longer. It wasn't a nightmare; it was real. She'd opened the Door in her lab, and doomed the world. But where was she? She wrinkled her nose with distaste as she pulled the IV out of her arm, then she kicked free of the blankets and swung her legs over the side of the bed. For the first time, she noticed that she was naked. She looked around the room. A pair of jeans and a t-shirt were folded neatly on a battered-looking chest of drawers at the foot of the bed. She put her bare feet down on the shaggy carpet and stood, making the floor creak beneath her. She slipped into the jeans, which were a half-size too big. The t-shirt, likewise, was for someone a little broader in the shoulders than she was, and Reilly felt like she was wearing an older sister's clothing. Still, it was better than nothing.
Reilly had just finished shrugging into the shirt when a knock came at the door. “Come in,” she called.
The bedroom door opened, and Maksim stepped partway inside. He had changed out of his shredded tactical gear and was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a t-shirt that advertised a band that Reilly had never heard of. Framed in the doorway, Reilly was struck by how large he was. His shoulders filled the space, and his arms looked like they'd been carved from stone. He looked more like a bodybuilder than a soldier now that he was out of his tactical gear. Reilly noted with interest that the damage to his skin had been repaired, and she could no longer see the evidence that the mercenary was anything more than an athletic human man. “You're up,” Maksim said, unfazed by her scrutiny. “How do you feel?”
“Pretty good,” Reilly replied. She gestured down at her unfamiliar clothing. “What happened to my clothes?”
Mack winced. “You… bled all over them. I'm soaking them in the washing machine. Hopefully, we can get the stains out, but it's going to be hard to get your lab coat clean again.”
Reilly shrugged. “That’s what lab coats are for. You want to know when you spill something on yourself, so you don’t get a chemical burn or something.” She flicked a gaze over at the IV stand. “So I lost enough blood that I needed that?”
Maksim looked uncomfortable. “Yeah. And I can’t explain it. It was like the nosebleed from hell. Fortunately, I had a full trauma kit stashed here. We’ve got plenty of saline. I just wanted to make sure you got some liquids back into you.”
Reilly nodded. “Makes sense. But where are we?”
Maksim jerked his head in a “follow me” motion. “A safehouse in Northern Virginia. It's not much more than a trailer home I had set up in the woods, but it's off the map, and far enough from anyone else that we don't have to worry much about any of the creatures coming out of someone else's mirrors. I already got rid of all the mirrors in the house.” He led the way out of the bedroom as he talked, and into a narrow hallway. They passed the door to a little bathroom and a cramped kitchenette, and then the hallway opened out into a living room laid out with mismatched furniture. Though everything in the trailer was shabby, it was scrupulously clean. “There's another couple tiny bedrooms at the other end.” Maksim smiled a little self-consciously. “It isn't much, but I figured we needed a place to rest and plan our next move.”
Reilly felt herself smile in reaction to Maksim’s seeming nervousness. “Where’s your pilot friend?”
“He’s flying to Michigan. He’s got a wife and kids in Dearborn. It’s apparently not as bad the further you are from D.C., but it’s been getting worse, and he wanted to get them out of there before the city fell apart. The radio says these things have been seen all over the world.”
Reilly’s face went pale. “What’s being done? Is the military doing anything to stop this?”
Maksim shrugged unhappily. “I don't know. There isn't much solid information coming from anywhere. All anyone is saying is that D.C. is a hellhole and that people need to smash their mirrors.”
Reilly groaned and sat down on the sagging blue couch opposite the television. She put her head in her hands. “I did this. I started the end of the world.”
Maksim sat down beside her. “It’s not your fault. How could you know what would happen?”
Reilly shot a sideways glare at him. “Don't be patronizing. I opened the Door. They—” she waved her hand vaguely at the word ‘they,' “came through, and they can apparently now open new portals wherever they want. It was something I did, something I apparently gave them, that
lets them do this.”
Maksim was silent for a moment. “How do you know that?” he eventually asked. His dark eyes fixed on Reilly’s. He was putting something together, and she wasn’t sure that it was something good.
Reilly grimaced. “The portals… did something to me. I get these massive headaches when they open nearby, and weird shit has been happening.” She gestured to Maksim with one hand. “You saw the first thing when I stopped that monster in the hallway. And when the giant stepped out of the side of that office building, it was talking to me, in my head. It called me ‘Gatekeeper, ' and it said I had given it a ‘key' that let those things come into our world.”
Maksim nodded. “Right. Well, this is all a bunch of lunacy to me.” As Reilly began to bristle at this, he held up his hands defensively. “Not you, that's not what I am saying. You're not crazy. I just mean that this whole situation is way off the reservation. I don’t know what to think about any of this. So instead of trying to understand the whole thing, which would probably drive us both insane, I’m just going to apply logic to the part that I think I get. Could help us get somewhere. Follow?”
Reilly nodded in agreement. “Right. Break the big problem into smaller problems.” She grinned. “That’s like step one of how people like me work. You might make a good researcher with that attitude.”
Maksim smirked back. “Yeah, I don’t think that kind of job is for me. I’m good at kicking ass. I think I’ll stick to kicking ass.”
“I dunno,” Reilly said slyly, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. “That thing in the hallway smacked you around pretty good. You might want to consider a career change.”
The mercenary laughed out loud. “Reilly, with your level of attitude, how is it that I never asked you to get a drink with me?”
Reilly shrugged. “Professionalism. I keep all the sass to myself when I’ve got my work clothes on.”