If he was somehow suspicious of me, it was an indication that maybe he wasn’t himself yet. It was entirely possible that – despite appearing fairly lucid and leaving clues for me to find him – Mouse was still somewhat under the effect of whatever the Tristan Construct had done to him. And if that were the case, he might still be dangerous.
“Anyway,” he continued, bringing me back to myself, “I’m glad you were able to figure out my clues. I was worried there for a bit that they were too tricky for you.”
“No, it was absolutely perfect,” I attested. “Whatever the Construct exposed you to or infected you with, it didn’t affect your ability to leave a great trail of breadcrumbs.”
As I finished speaking, my eyes went wide as I realized what I’d done. I had somehow drifted into speaking casually with my mentor, and thus had slipped up by saying something I shouldn’t have. There was a chance that Mouse wouldn’t catch it, but one glance at his face told me it was a futile hope.
Frowning, Mouse said, “Excuse me?”
As had happened many times recently, I wanted to kick myself. In telling Mouse he was infected, I had violated a basic tenet of psychotherapy: never tell a crazy person he’s crazy. More importantly, I wasn’t sure I could fix my blunder, but I had to try.
“I just said you left a great trail of breadcrumbs,” I explained.
“No,” Mouse said, shaking his head. “You said I was infected.”
He looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to say something. I spent a moment considering various things I could try to tell him to convince him he’d misheard or misunderstood me. Ultimately, I rejected them all. Plainly speaking, even half crazy, Mouse was too smart to lie to. My best bet was to come clean.
“Yes, you’ve been infected,” I declared. “The Construct exposed you to something that altered your thinking. You’re not yourself.”
Mouse simply stared at me for a moment, and then, to my great surprise, burst into laughter. And to be clear, it wasn’t just a few chuckles; it was gut-busting, side-splitting, knee-slapping laughter – the kind that brings tears to your eyes. It was probably a full minute before Mouse regained his composure, but for me, it just seemed to reaffirm the notion that he wasn’t himself.
“Oh, man,” Mouse finally muttered, wiping tears from his eyes. “I needed that – really, I did. That had to be the funniest thing I’ve heard in a while.”
“Okay, I have to ask,” I stated. “What’s so funny?”
“The fact that you called me infected,” Mouse replied with a grin.
I scratched my temple. “What’s so funny about that?”
“Because,” Mouse explained. “I’m not infected – you are!”
Chapter 57
“They’re called the Busuigno,” Mouse explained. “They’re mid-dimensional beings.”
“Mid-dimensional?” I repeated.
“They exist in a space between dimensions,” Mouse said.
“You mean like this place?” I asked, making an all-encompassing gesture.
We were currently in a room about two hundred square feet in size, and which was set up like a smaller version of Mouse’s lab, with a number of worktables, computers, monitors, and other devices.
“Not quite like this,” Mouse said. “This room is an interdimensional product – it actually exists in another dimension outside our own. I set it up, along with several others like it, as a kind of safe house I could get to quickly.”
I nodded. “I understand now how you just seemed to vanish during your recent skirmishes with the League. You opened a dimensional doorway and stepped through.”
“Pretty much,” Mouse admitted, although my statement wasn’t really a theory or guess. It was how Mouse had brought us to our current locus after telling me I was infected.
“Anyway, we were talking about the Busuigno,” Mouse continued. “They’re a symbiotic race – they attach themselves to other beings and take over their hosts, mind and body.”
As he spoke, Mouse brought up an image on one of the monitors near us – specifically, a pic of me in his lab just before he showed up. The color appeared washed out, but I knew that was because the image had been captured with a special camera. Other than that, there wasn’t anything unusual about the pic – unless you counted the dark mass that looked like an ugly, crumpled cowl draped over my head and shoulders.
“That’s a Busuigno?” I asked, pointing at the cowl.
“Yeah,” Mouse answered.
“And it’s on me now?”
“Absolutely.”
“So…it’s controlling me in some way?”
“Actually, it isn’t,” Mouse said. “I don’t doubt that it’s trying, but you seem to have some type of immunity – probably a result of your singular genetic structure.”
I gave him a curious look. “So you knew that I was immune? That’s why you left me hints on how to track you down?”
“Well, I didn’t know,” he admitted. “But I had a hint in that direction.”
“What kind of hint?”
Mouse seemed to reflect for a moment. “I know someone who has experience with the Busuigno. He suggested that certain people might be immune to their effects and you seemed to have the proper characteristics.”
“Oh – the future me,” I surmised. He had mentioned how everything that was happening was part of his past, which essentially made him the only person experienced with this situation.
Mouse looked startled. “You met him?”
I nodded. “We had a chat.”
Mouse shook his head in disbelief. “That idiot. I told him not to talk to anybody.”
“Well, technically, he only talked to himself, so…”
“Really?” Mouse shot back as I trailed off. “That’s the argument you want to go with?”
“Okay, I agree that he probably should have heeded your advice, but it’s not like he simply revealed himself,” I stated. I then gave a brief explanation of how Myshtal’s power had brought Older Jim to my attention. “And I’m sure he knew – just like you – that there was no way I was going to ignore the possibility of another Jim being around.”
Mouse simply nodded as I spoke. My statement referred to the fact that I’d had to deal with a
