MirrorWorld

“Humanity’s brief encounters with the Dread are simply a by-product of sharing the planet with them,” Dearborn says. Because they live in another plane of existence, or frequency — another dimension, for lack of a better word — we can literally occupy the same time and space. And we often do, accidentally. Most day-to-day interactions with the Dread are coincidental, but some, the ones that result in the creation of mythology, especially sustained mythology ranging hundreds of years, is intentional on the part of the Dread.”

“Why?” I ask.

“To frighten us,” Lyons says. “To harm us. Asserting dominance. It’s a natural instinct for most lower life-forms on Earth, like hyenas harassing lions.”

“So they’re asserting dominance by frightening people?” I ask.

Lyons raises his voice a little. Clenches his fists. “Fear is more powerful than you could possibly know, especially given your condition. It is the perfect tool to keep the human race from reaching our full potential. It keeps us primal. Afraid of the unknown. Flight wins out more often over fight. And it sets us against each other. The Dread don’t need to touch us to kill us. We happily do that for them with the right motivation. Lives are lost. Wars are waged.” There’s a little bit of fire in Lyons’s eyes. “Every person on this planet is a puppet to be played with. Or discarded. When they want to hurt us, all they really have to do is get close enough to our frequency of reality and push their fear into our minds. Sometimes, when it’s dark, we don’t see them. But when we do, when that shadowy thing rears up, combined with the fear they implant…” A shiver shakes the old man’s body. He’s speaking from experience.

The whispering that isn’t actually sound, I think. They get in your head.

“That’s how you found them,” I say. “They found you first.”

Lyons’s head lowers to the floor, lips twitching. Finally, he says, “Yes. I suppose, like many children, I experienced their presence through the frequencies as typical unexplained events. What child doesn’t have stories of hidden monsters, of being watched, or stalked, of fearing what lurks in the dark. But on one particular night, after seeing a shadow slip from one side of my room to the other, I made a terrible mistake — I confronted it. The fear I felt when that shadow stopped moving…” He shakes again. “I tried to stand up to it. It was my room. My world. I believed the monsters were real and wanted them out. So I told them that. Demanded it.

“It was ten years before they got bored with me. They left me alone long enough to join the CIA, rise through the ranks, and gain access to some of the most amazing minds on the planet. Many of the first people working on string theory were actually working for me. By nineteen seventy, we had a basic and rough string theory model that suggested the existence of other dimensions. Over the next twenty-five years, our research led to the first and second superstring revolutions that revealed eleven dimensions of reality, otherwise known as M theory. At this point, the math revealed the potential for pocket universes, but it was just numbers and symbols without concrete evidence. That would come later …

“By seeing them for what they were, I invited their torment. Other people might have been driven insane, but they only strengthened my resolve. I knew they were real. I just needed to prove it. They set my path all those years ago. This is still my world. And I still want them out.”

The room is silent for a moment, but Lyons recovers, lifting his head and turning toward me. “A quick burst can freeze the bravest man in his tracks. Sustained exposure can drive the most strong-willed person mad, or even stop a heart. Whether or not they can, or would, invade our reality isn’t the point. The point is, they don’t need to. We are already at their mercy, defeated without ever really knowing the enemy. But we know them now. The only reason humanity didn’t find them earlier is because we never thought to look.”

“So, these things,” Cobb says. “The Dread. They’re in another dimension. I get that, but how are they able to move between them?” He points at me. “How is he? Is it like an Einstein-Rosen bridge to parallel worlds kind of a thing?”

Several surprised gazes turn to Cobb.

“Doctor Who?” Lyons asks, a trace of impatience lining his voice.

Cobb just grins.