“Let’s find out,” I say, and look back at Alpha Team. “Teams of two. No bunching up. Katz, you’re with me.” I point at the next two men in line. “You two enter when we hit the first landing.” I point at the last two. “You two stay put with Allenby. If it’s not us that comes out the door…”
The four men under Katzman’s command all turn to him.
He’s clearly annoyed but gives a curt nod.
I open the door and step into the stairwell. The walls are gray. So are the railings. And the concrete steps. It’s woefully bland in an industrial-Russia kind of way. No windows. Wire-encased bulbs line the walls. Whoever designed the rest of Neuro’s HQ really skimped on the stairwells. Of course, this is the modern world. How many people still use stairs?
The landing ahead is empty, so I track the steps down and around with the barrel of my gun. Seeing nothing, I lean over the railing and look down.
Nothing.
The stairwell is empty.
“There’s nothing here,” I say.
Katzman grabs my arm. Hard. His sleeve pulls up a bit. The hairs on his exposed arm stand on end. The hairs on the back of his neck spring up, too. He puts a finger to his lips and then mouths, “It’s here.”
I look over the railing again. There’s not a damn thing in the stairwell besides us.
Katzman slides the strange round goggles over his eyes. He inches toward the railing. Painfully slow. Then, with a quick motion, he glances over the edge, just for a moment, and springs back. His chest heaves. His weapon lowers. His eyes, behind the tinted goggles, go wide.
What. The. Hell?
Katzman is a brave man. He’s stood up to me twice. But that man is gone. He’s withered into a child just woken from a nightmare. He manages to find his voice, though. “Three stories down.” A gasp for air. “Use your eyes. Like you did earlier.”
I remember my strange look out the window. What it felt like. What it looked like. Dark. Tinged with green. Otherworldly. The living shadow. But I’m not sure how to trigger … whatever that was, again.
I lean over the edge, looking for a target. Eager to pull my trigger. To draw my machete. To tame the chaos.
But there is nothing in my repertoire I can do about a drab stairwell.
That’s all I see.
I blink hard, trying to alter my vision. Trying to see what’s not there.
Allenby told me to “see what you want to see.” She might not understand how to control the changes my body is going through, but she probably knows how it’s supposed to work.
I lean over the edge again, aiming down at nothing.
See, I think.
See!
I relax my thoughts. Focus my attention on what I can’t see. Then I feel it. That strange new muscle. I flex. My eyes tingle, then sting, and suddenly, like a light switch has been thrown, I can see what’s not there. And it hurts. The pain nearly cripples me, exploding from my eyes and roiling through my blood, but what I now see keeps me upright and focused past the physical discomfort.
I’m looking at my target, which is very much not a shadow, straight in the eyes.
And it’s looking right back.
21.
I empty the P229 at the thing. Twelve .40 caliber rounds. It should be dead. Most everything else on the planet short of a blue whale or armor-plated rhino would be. Then again, it’s about the size of a rhino, and the way it’s flickering in and out of view makes the details hard to discern. It could be armored. Or thick-skinned. Or who knows what.
I have no idea what it is.
But it’s there.
It’s real.
And then it’s not.
I blink and it disappears. I’m about to ask where it went but then realize I’m focusing on what it is rather than seeing it. I narrow my eyes, willing them to see what is unseen, and feel a shift in my vision. This muscle just needs exercise.
With a fresh wave of pain, the monster reappears, one floor higher and on the move. It’s fast for its size, taking each flight of stairs with a single leap.
My hands reload the P229 without taxing my mind and despite the pain. It’s a reflex, muscle memory, and I’m able to keep my eyes on the rising creature.
It’s mostly black, which doesn’t help with the details, but twisting green lines trace the body, helping to define its muscular forearms, powerful limbs, and arched back. It has no hair to speak of, just rough black flesh like the skin of a stealth bomber … or the black machete on my back. There are four glowing green eyes atop its head, two on the sides, two looking forward.
But that’s all I get. The flickering effect intensifies as the creature nears.
Its massive mouth opens like a hippo’s, long strands of saliva stretching out, revealing large, sharp teeth and a tongue composed of what looks like undulating worms. It appears to be roaring, its entire body shimmering, vibrating, but all I hear is a whispered hiss. Katzman reacts to the sound by yelping and scrabbling back toward the door. “Shoot it,” he says through grinding teeth. “Shoot it!”
It’s just one story down when I empty the second magazine into it. If I missed at all the first time, which is doubtful, I score a hit with each and every round this time. The thing bucks and reels, throwing itself back against the wall, but it doesn’t go down. All I’m really doing is irritating it.
“Not working,” I say to Katzman.
The creature drops back down to all fours and turns its flickering head up.
“It’s a bull,” he says, looking a little more put together, but still wild-eyed.
“Is that supposed to mean something?”
“They’re tougher.”
The bull’s green eyes come into focus. The pupils are split, two vertical rectangles connected in the middle, forming an H.
“What’s it doing?” Katzman asks.
“Looking at me.”
“Does it know you’re looking back?”
“We’re having a staring contest, so that’s a safe bet, yeah.”
He pushes himself up, fighting against quivering legs. “You can’t let it escape. If they find out…”
My hands eject the spent magazine and slap in a fresh one. My last twelve rounds.
I keep my eyes locked onto the beast’s. The rest of its ugly face slowly comes into focus. Its domed head has no nose. No ears. Its eyes are circular, blank, but somehow also filled with loathing. The teeth in its prodigious hippo mouth are like a great white shark’s, but the color of night. The only color aside from black and pale, fleshy worm-tongue is green. Thick, glowing, fluorescent-green veins twist away from its eyes, forming pathways around its body.
“Find out about what?” I ask.
“You,” he says. “That you can see them.”
“Right. Any advice on where to shoot it?”
“I’ve never killed one in combat.”
Great. I adjust my aim, pointing the barrel of my gun at its right eye. If a .40 caliber in the eye won’t put it down, I’m not sure what will. It just stares back, as fearless as me, either not fearing the weapon or naive about its ability. I squeeze the trigger.
Far below, a door bursts open. Beta Team surges into the first-floor stairwell. My first shot misses. The bull is no longer there. Has it disappeared or did it move? A blur of movement, bounding down the stairs, is my answer. It’s going for Beta Team.
“Incoming!” I shout down the stairwell, and charge down after the unreal creature. It’s taking the flights down, one leap at a time, but slows to round the bend. As I keep my downward sprint at an even pace, we move in tandem, separated by a story and a half of stairs.
With one hand on the railing, I try to run faster, swinging around the corners. It helps, and I avoid smashing into the concrete walls, but I’m going to dislocate my left shoulder if I’m not careful. That said, my pace never slows because I’m not afraid of dislocating the arm. Sure, it will hurt, but I don’t need it to fire a weapon and a quick slam into the wall can pop things back into place.
&n
bsp; Screams rise up from below as I reach the building’s third floor. I look over the edge. The bull is still two flights above the Beta Team, but they’ve spotted it, and, like Katzman, they’ve become useless sacks of molten fear. The four men climb over each other to escape.
There’s no way I’ll be able to stop it in time.
I’m just two sets of stairs above the group when it reaches them.
But it doesn’t attack. It simply lands among them and vibrates. Otherworldly whispering fills the stairwell. When it does, I see it better than ever. Its frequency is changing, I think, closer to A than B, having a more profound effect.
A kind of madness grips the men. They react out of terror.
One man turns to run and careens straight into the concrete wall. The impact knocks him out cold. He tumbles limply down the stairs, bruised and broken, but still alive.
He’s the lucky one.
The other three pull triggers. Unaimed bullets rip through the stairwell. The sound is thunderous. The effect, savage.
As I round the final flight of stairs, I’m greeted by bloody carnage. Despite the armor, the three men have managed to cut each other down, coating the stairs and walls with blood, guts, and brains.
And yet the monster lives.
But it’s been injured. There’s a splash of bright-green wetness on its back.
It turns around to face me as I round the last flight. I can’t tell if it’s surprised by my arrival. Those wide eyes never change, like a fish, expressionless.
It vibrates again, coming clearly into view. The whispers, like indistinct hissing, grow louder.
I feel nothing.
The thing’s head reels back a bit, showing a hint of surprise, which brings a smile to my face. And it’s the smile that has the most impact. The creature rears up on its back legs, vibrating furiously. Its underside looks soft.
“Big mistake, buddy.” I leap at the thing, pulling my trigger twelve times in the seconds it takes to reach the monster. It falls back from the force of the bullets, injured but not dead.
Yet.
As I fall within striking distance, I swing my weapon like a club, hoping to crack its domed skull, or at least daze the creature.
But I miss.
Well, miss isn’t entirely accurate. The weapon hits the hard skull and is torn from my hand. While the handgun makes contact, my hand goes through the thing. Right through its head, like it’s some kind of immaterial specter.
The creature reaches out its thickly muscled arms and catches hold of the railing and wall, stopping its backward descent. Instead of slamming into the thing, I simply pass straight through it. The concrete floor greets me harshly. I roll with the impact, but there isn’t much room, and my roll ends against the equally solid wall.
The bull spins around, looking down at me, vibrating. This time I hear a rattle and a whispered shriek. The sound brings fresh pain, radiating from my ears, but I’m not sure if it is the sound causing the pain or whatever is allowing me to hear it. I fight to stand. I don’t think anything is broken, but I’m going to hurt in the morning.
Enraged by my nonresponse to its strange behavior, the monster leans in closer. The massive hippo mouth drops open large enough to swallow me whole, but it’s not trying to eat me. It’s roaring. The wormy tongue shakes. Saliva sprays but doesn’t strike me.
Then the sound reaches my ears. It starts as a whistle and builds into a deep, throaty roar, like a lion’s, but sustained. I catch a whiff of the thing’s warm, rotten breath. The brief sense feels like a punch to my nose.
Unfazed by the freakish sight, I push past the pain, recover my dropped weapon from the floor, take aim, and pull the trigger.
The weapon clicks. I’ve already drained the magazine.
Stupid mistake.
The sound snaps the bull out of its intimidation display. It stops shaking and fades partially from view. The head turns toward the door. The exit.
It bolts.
As the large body passes by, I reach over my back, clasp the machete’s handle, draw the blade, and swing, all in one fluid motion. While I’m sure my hand would pass straight through the thing, the weapon’s black blade bites into flesh. Bites—and sticks.
The massive bounding weight of the bull yanks the blade from my hand. The creature—the Dread, capital D—lands on the first floor and then leaps through the door like it wasn’t there. The machete, however, makes contact with the door and stays behind, tearing a green splash of gore from the monster’s backside.
I recover the machete and shove through the door. The bull is already fifty feet away, running on all fours and trailing a stream of what looks like thick Mello Yello. I give chase, but there’s no way to catch it. It’s clearly trying to find a way out. I’m either going to be there to see how it escapes or greet it when it can’t.
As the Dread approaches the end of the hall, it never slows.
Ahh, I think, understanding the creature’s escape plan. But will it work?
The monster leaps a potted plant, throws its head up, and lunges at the tinted window. The window resists the monster’s head but bends. Then the creature’s massive body adds its weight to the impact, and the window explodes outward. The bull rolls out into the night.
I pick up my pace, machete in hand.
I can reach it. I can—
An alarm sounds. Small LED lights blink above the broken window. Just seconds before I’m through, a sheet of black metal slides down, blocking my path. Through the next window over, I see the spectral brute limp off into the darkness.
A loud ding whirls me around, machete raised. Elevator doors open. Allenby, Katzman, and four members of Alpha Team step out.
“What happened?” Allenby asks, looking around. “Is it still here?”
I point my blade at the sheet of black covering the broken window.
“Dammit!” Katzman shouts.
“I can track it,” I say, but the man is shaking his head before I finish the sentence.
“Too dangerous,” he says. “They’ll know about you now.”
“How could you track it?” Allenby asks.
“You’re standing in its blood,” I say, and, with a flick of my wrist, clear the green goo from the blade. Allenby looks down, and for a moment I see the floor the way she does—white, polished, and sparkling clean. She can’t see it. None of them can.
I slip the machete into the scabbard on my back. “I want answers. All of them. Now.”
22.
“Not possible,” Lyons says. He sits behind his office desk, elbows resting on the mahogany surface. The room, like the living quarters, looks more like a cozy home office than something in a vast corporate, black budget headquarters. The only real aberration is that there are no windows. The office is located on the fourth floor, perfectly positioned at the building’s core. I glance around the space, looking for something expensive to destroy. And there is a lot to choose from. Ancient weapons from cultures around the world cover the walls, desktop, and shelves. It’s like a “history of warfare” museum. And it’s all tied together by a framed quote behind Lyons’s desk chair:
The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.
—SUN TZU
“Please don’t break anything,” he says. To show that he doesn’t know me as well as he thinks he does—even though he does—I listen and take a seat across from him. Allenby, behind me, breathes a sigh of relief. Katzman stands beside the desk, not taking sides in what started as a request for answers. And yeah, you could probably call the kicked-in door, my loud voice, and thrust index finger a demand, but I was holding back.
“Why isn’t it possible?” I say.
“Because…” Lyons thrums his fingers over the desktop, three strokes of four. He stops and looks me in the eyes. “Telling you the truth now will set you on a path I’m not entirely convinced you can handle.”
“From what I�
��ve seen today, it’s not something you’re capable of handling, either.”
He nods slowly. “Setbacks are to be expected. Every war has its risks.”
“War?”
“War,” he repeats, nodding just once. “Did you know that this world has never really known peace? Not once? At every point in history, somewhere around the world, war has raged. Even today. Especially today. Here in the States, the population is insulated from this reality. We read about it. Watch it on the news. But only a select few really get their hands dirty. Men like you. And me. It becomes a part of you, mingling with your DNA, changing you from the inside out. When war rears up again, men like us see it coming before anyone else. And we can react first. Fight and win. It’s what we do.”
“I thought you were a scientist,” I say.
“In the modern age, science is capable of killing far more people than brawn.” He leans back, supporting a grim, heavyset brow. “War isn’t coming. It’s here.”
“You make it sound like Neuro is fighting this war alone. What about your bosses at the CIA? The government will—”
Lyons picks up a TV remote. Aims it at the flat screen mounted to the side wall. “I don’t suppose you’ve watched the news this morning?” He hits the power button and the TV comes to life, already tuned to a news channel. There are no pundits talking, just a news ticker at the bottom, scrolling tidbits of violent clashes around the world and clips of recent events. Soldiers in an eastern European city I can’t identify open fire on a crowd, gunning them down. Instead of fleeing, the mob rushes through the bullets, swarming over the men while armored units roll in. These are soldiers fighting the people they’re supposed to protect. The video changes to a studio. A tired-looking reporter with disheveled hair sits solitarily behind a desk like the last bastion of cable news. “That was the scene in Kazakhstan earlier today. We now take you to the White House, where the president is making a statement already in progress.”
Somewhere in the White House Frank Paisley, the president of the United States, standing behind a podium, appears on the screen. “… have taken all possible steps to prevent domestic casualties, but no promises can be made if civil unrest continues. Make no mistake, in the defense of innocents, who are peacefully residing in their homes or places of business, the National Guard has been authorized to use lethal force. If you are in one of the twenty-three counties currently under martial law, please obey the curfew, and the property and personal rights of your neighbors. On the matter of international tensions, we are doing our best to quell fears of an imminent attack. While Russia has invaded many of its former Soviet states, we maintain a strong alliance with our border countries and are working to maintain the longtime bond with our fellow NATO members, despite unproductive rhetoric. On the subject of China, we stand behind our Japanese allies and have urged China to stand down its aggressive naval—”
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