“Now you put this in front of me,” Mr. Silva said. “There is this chance I can tell her I understand why she ran, why she shut me out. That I know what she did. That even though I would have done everything in my power to stop her—”
He fell apart. “I’m still so proud of her. I’ve prayed. Prayed that, wherever she is, she’d know . . . and so much more that I never got to say. If there is a chance I can say those things—that I could know she heard them . . .”
He straightened with a sharp sniff and wiped the tears from his cheeks. “I find I care very little about how big the question is, Leah. I don’t even care what God thinks.”
“Under the circumstances,” Leah said. “I think God would understand.”
He nodded, then drew in a long breath. “You said this will be difficult. That we may not have long to make it work. So, where do we start?”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
HE WAS SURPRISED, having expected Heyer to come alone, when Grant walked in beside him. The room was a small chamber that Mr. Clean had manifested beside the armory. Jonathan’s eyes wandered back and forth between the two, but finally they focused on Heyer. He studied the alien the way a chess player might search the face of an opponent who just made a move he didn’t understand.
Grant was uncomfortable in Jonathan’s presence and wasn’t making much of an effort to mask it. Jonathan didn’t know what to make of that either. He was used to a man who hid behind an unfazed male bravado. But he hadn’t spoken with the man since he came out of his catatonic state.
Grant now possessed his shadow’s memories—he would have remembered Jonathan killing him in The Never. Perhaps it was fair to assume that would make anyone uncomfortable.
Eventually Jonathan let out a long breath, resigned to Grant’s presence and turned to Heyer. “Are you ready?”
“As ready as one can be, under the circumstances,” Heyer said, removing his coat and hat.
For a moment, the alien saw nowhere to set the items. Grant was quick to offer to hold them. In the pettiest sort of way, this bothered Jonathan, but he kept it off his face.
Heyer then left the two of them, stepping to the other side of the room as a floor to ceiling window formed, separating the original room into two halves. Grant and Jonathan watched Heyer from their side.
A moment later, a waist-high platform, the size of an altar, formed out of the floor behind the alien.
Heyer removed his shirt. The light from his chest shone brightly as he walked to the platform.
For Jonathan, watching him, brought one of his father’s memories to the surface of his thoughts. Beneath a smoldering piece of fuselage in the Libyan Desert, Douglas had looked down at his blood-covered hands as he cut away Johanna O’Sullivan’s flesh to free the Borealis implant. The surgery, if one could call it that, done as quickly as was possible with little more than his belt knife for a scalpel. Only a little less disturbing was having to pull the shrapnel from Holloway’s skull with pliers.
Despite all the ugliness that had led to that final moment, as he took the fading light of Heyer’s device and placed it inside Holloway’s body, Douglas had felt he was witnessing a small miracle. It was the light—growing bright as it took over, both cutting through and healing its way into Holloway’s skin. The wound around his head closing where Douglas had done all he could to remove the shrapnel.
Of course, it seemed a miracle, because his friend’s eyes soon opened. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long until the alien behind those eyes assured him—Holloway was no longer with them. There was nothing more to be done.
Watching Mr. Clean perform the same procedure would hopefully be far less traumatic—not just for Jonathan but for Heyer. The alien laid back onto the table and gave Mr. Clean permission to proceed. He’d only just closed his eyes when Jonathan broke the silence. “Thank you . . .”
The AI stopped moving as Heyer opened his eyes and turned his head to look at him.
“. . . for your trust. I’m sorry . . . I had to ask you for this.”
“You were worried I would not go through with it?” Heyer asked.
“I was,” Jonathan admitted.
Heyer was thoughtful for a moment. “You once told me you’d put your faith in me. I think I lost it along the way.”
“You have it now, Old Man,” Jonathan said.
“Good, because I want you to do something for me,” Heyer said.
Mr. Clean, having decided that none of this dialog was intended to cancel the procedure, resumed his work. Cable-like attachments, identical to those the AI had used during the removal of the dampening bracer, came down from the ceiling and attached to his exposed skin.
“Let Leah decide,” Heyer said. “Do not stand in her way.”
“You know I hate that plan,” Jonathan said.
The alien paused thoughtfully. “How do you think I feel about this one?”
Jonathan returned a sober nod as the three cables made contact with each of the lines that ran across Heyer’s chest. The alien smiled faintly then closed his eyes—the lights across his chest dimming to a fainter thrumming glow.
“Consciousness and motor functions offline,” Mr. Clean said. “Beginning extraction.”
Six cables, their heads tipped with scalpel like blades, rose out of the table. They hovered over Heyer for a moment, looking like metallic spider legs that were about to close on him. In a graceful unison of movement, they went to work cutting through the true tissue around the device with a precision and speed no human surgical team could have managed.
When the cutting was complete the scalpels all moved aside. The cables attached to the implant lifted, and the faintly glowing lines rose free of Holloway’s body. As though Heyer’s soul hung there above his abandoned vessel.
The glowing lines reacted to the change in environment quickly, being exposed to open air triggering activity within. It had been different when Douglas did this by hand twenty years ago. Today, the lines of light collapsed in on themself like a flower shutting its petals when the night grew cold. They shrank, hardened down until Jonathan and Grant were looking at a stone one might have mistaken for any other device in the Armory. Except, Heyer’s implant wasn’t fully dormant. While the shape hardened down to a silver metallic glyph in black stone, the connection to Mr. Clean kept the implant from going offline. The lines on Heyer’s device never ceased to glow.
While this happened above Holloway’s body, Mr. Clean’s spiderlike limbs lost their cutting edges, and went back to work. The appendages stapled shut the exposed wound left by the implant’s removal where possible, bandaged where it was not. Air and feeding tubes hooked up to Holloway’s face and IV lines carrying blood and saline were placed, the skin now breaking for the needle with no trouble.
A white sheet was drawn over him, and in a matter of minutes, it was unclear to Jonathan exactly how to think of that body now that the implant was gone. Was it Heyer’s vessel or Holloway? The body looked like any ordinary man hooked to life support in a hospital. Once complete, the table moved across the floor and disappeared into a coffin sized compartment within Mr. Clean. The whole event was like watching a morgue door close. Except, this door disappeared from existence. Only Jonathan and Grant would know that the body remained safe within a wall of Mr. Clean.
He and Grant hadn’t spoken a word to one another through the entire process, but as they stared at the glowing lines of light still pulsating in the stone, Jonathan spoke. “Everything you asked for will be arranged. You have my word as well as Heyer’s. But as soon as he is ready, you’ll be leaving.”
Opposite the wall where the body disappeared, a larger section liquefied to reveal the new host body. Grant shivered as he watched. Perhaps he wanted to look away, but still preferred what was happening on the other side than looking at Jonathan.
“I’ll make sure it gets done,” Grant said, looking down at the alien’s hat and folded coat still held in his arms.
Jonathan took a long breath, his arms folding acro
ss his chest. “Under any other circumstances I’d send someone else.”
“Feeling’s mutual,” Grant said. “Let’s just hope we’re both wrong.”
Jonathan frowned. “Guess we had to agree on something eventually.”
They grew quiet again. Grant looked down at Heyer’s fedora as if considering it.
“Walker,” he said, as he picked it up by the crown.
He moved as though he was about to try it on but froze at the edge in Jonathan’s voice. “Don’t even.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
WITH THE EXCEPTION of Mr. Clean—who knew everything that happened at Hangman’s Tree—Jonathan and Grant were the only two who knew what Heyer was setting out to do tonight.
Grant came out of a room wearing the first of the prototypes Hayden and Mr. Clean had prepared. With his implant active and armored uniform, Jonathan had to begrudgingly admit he carried a certain—presence—he hadn’t previously.
“Seeing me off?” Grant asked. “Nice to know I’ll be missed.”
Jonathan shook his head and held out a bag of supplies. Most of the contents were rations—there was no way to know with any certainty how long Grant would need to survive. There wouldn’t be any food where he was going.
“You should shield your implant,” Jonathan said.
Grant put the pack on his back, then took a long breath as he looked down at the hole into the transport vessel. Vessel was misleading—it was a mold the size of a coffin which had surfaces that looked like avocado skin. Appropriately, inside the hole was a canvas sac the size of a body bag.
“If you’re feeling claustrophobic there isn’t any shame in it,” Jonathan said. “But I need to know if it’ll be a problem now so we can sedate you.”
Grant activated the shielding on his implant, its glow hidden behind the armored plates of the uniform. “I’ll be fine, doesn’t mean I’m looking forward to this.”
“Fair enough.”
Grant laid down in the mold and awkwardly got himself into the body bag. Once in the bag, he covered himself to the face.
“We ready, Mr. Clean?” Jonathan asked.
“On your command,” the AI replied.
Jonathan grabbed the last item, an air tank, and handed it down. “That should last you a good hour. If you need much longer then something has likely gone wrong. Still,” Jonathan handed him a secondary smaller backup tank, “here, it’s good for ten minutes tops.”
Grant took the tank. “Thanks.”
They exchanged a last unpleasant smirk.
“Try not to die before making yourself useful,” Jonathan said.
Grant’s helmet slammed shut, covering his face. The prototype’s helmet had the latest version of their HUD built in. The faceguard was made of a Borealis plastic equivalent, far more resilient than a motorcycle helmet visor but still the weakest spot in the armor. It was reinforced with a thin cage of alien steel. Grant’s helmet had been altered from Hayden’s original design to provide him an oxygen port for the air tank. It took him a moment to get the line connected.
When he was ready, Jonathan finished closing the bag over him and waited for Grant’s signal. Said signal was supposed to be a thumbs up but, of course, Grant took the final opportunity to go with a more offensive hand gesture.
“Go ahead, Mr. Clean,” Jonathan said.
The floor morphed, a transparent cover lined with the same avocado texture as the vessel formed over the top of Grant. A moment later, a thick waxy purple and black mixture began to fill the cavity.
“How are his vitals?” Jonathan asked.
“His heart rate is accelerated,” Mr. Clean said. “But within normal range. He does not appear at risk of panic—he should acclimate soon enough.”
He heard Heyer’s heavy footsteps finally approaching behind him. “Let me know when the cocoon is stable,” Jonathan said.
Jonathan turned away from the purple and black sludge filling the chamber at his feet as Heyer drew closer. As the alien came to a stop and looked down at him, Jonathan spoke candidly. “I’m not gonna lie, Old Man. This is a new level of weird even for us.”
Heyer grinned—or at least he tried to—whatever expression his Feroxian face made seemed to have the opposite of the intended effect. Jonathan almost immediately put a calming hand up as though Heyer was on the brink of taking a swing at him. “Everything okay?”
“I was attempting to look humored,” Heyer said.
Jonathan looked troubled and struggled to keep it from his face.
“What is it?”
“You sound . . . well, like your brother,” Jonathan said. “If he were trying to do an impression of an English accent.”
“It does take time to grow familiar with a new host species,” Heyer said.
Jonathan studied him for a moment. “What is it like?”
Heyer took a long breath and it sounded like a rhino was filling its lungs. “Strange. Not human. But, despite the new proclivities of this life form I find I cannot yet shake a powerful desire to put on clothes.”
“Right,” Jonathan said. “After a couple thousand years as a human this must be like trying to blend in at a nudist colony.”
“Yes, Jonathan. It is just like that,” Heyer said.
They stared at one another for a long moment.
“Your words sound like sarcasm,” Jonathan said. “Your body language says you’re trying not to pass gas.”
“Excellent,” Heyer replied.
“Still getting gas here,” Jonathan said.
“Still attempting sarcasm,” Heyer said.
“Maybe . . . don’t?” Jonathan asked. “I don’t know if the Ferox have sarcasm anyway.”
“I will keep it in mind,” Heyer said.
Jonathan nodded. “Well, moving on. Mr. Clean has the signal inhibitor ready.”
A small pillar rose out of the floor with a triangular plate of steel the size of a Feroxian palm laying atop. Jonathan picked up the plate and placed it awkwardly into Heyer’s giant clawed hand. Without delay, Heyer pressed it against the three lines glowing across his chest.
The device wasn’t Jonathan’s idea. When Jonathan and his father had fought Malkier in The Never, initially neither of them had been able to detect a portal stone. For that matter, the glowing lines that would have given away Malkier’s Borealis implant had not been present. Only after Malkier’s device had been knocked offline by a massive jolt of electricity had Jonathan been able to see the lines of light and sense the stone’s presence.
Explaining this to Mr. Clean, the AI had been able to create a close approximation to what Malkier used to hide his identity from his people. However, for this mission, Heyer’s Signal Inhibitor had required a few additional features.
The first of which being that Heyer needed to appear ready to—well—mate.
The triangle lost shape, melting as it made contact with Heyer’s implant. Transparent at first, its volume spread to cover the three lines of light on Heyer’s chest. At the same time, two additional threads crawled toward opposite sides of his neck where they soon touched the outer edges of Heyer’s white Feroxian eyes. The glowing light on his chest disappeared, replaced with natural Feroxian tissue. At the same time, Heyer’s eyes turned black.
“The effect should be an adequate representation of male Ferox arousal,” Mr. Clean said.
“Well,” Jonathan said. “Usually, when they look at me like that, I start planning to stab them in the neck. So, yeah—it’ll pass.”
“Let us hope I do not draw any female’s notice when I arrive. The disguise will not trick their senses should they show . . . interest,” Heyer said. “While I doubt a Ferox would know what to make of that, it would be best not to draw unnecessary attention.”
“You’re on your own with that one,” Jonathan said. “If Feroxian Viagra was a thing we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
A sound like a pressure valve releasing steam followed, and the cover to the chamber in the floor opened. “Looks like your Grant
trophy sac is done baking.”
Jonathan’s expression soured and he covered his face with his forearm. “Mr. Clean definitely got the odor right.”
Heyer, reaching down to heft the cocoon over his shoulder, stood and sniffed at the air. “Doesn’t seem so bad.”
Jonathan grimaced as he looked between the sac and the alien. “Small blessings, I guess.”
Finally, Jonathan took a small cloth bundle from his pocket. Careful not to touch the thing, he untied the fabric revealing the portal stone they had extracted from the Ferox Heyer was now currently inhabiting.
“I was gonna make a bigger deal about this send off,” Jonathan said. “But, Grant’s only got so much oxygen, and the sooner you get the hell out of here with that sac the better.”
Heyer put his palm out.
Jonathan looked at that hand for a moment as though something about this whole exchange seemed funny to him. He reached to put the stone in Heyer’s palm and then stopped an inch over his hand.
“It will be disorientating . . . you will be confused,” Jonathan said.
Heyer looked at him curiously, or at least he tried to.
“The first time you handed me one of these, that’s what your shadow said. It was right before you told me your name.”
“I imagine that is what I tell all of them,” Heyer said.
He nodded. “Jonathan Tibbs, nice to meet you,” he said, dropping the stone into Heyer’s palm.
The alien stared down at the stone for a long moment. He knew he shouldn’t ask but, of all the things he had to accept on faith, all hope for their plan hinged on something Jonathan claimed to be certain of . . . and yet couldn’t possibly know.
“Yes, Heyer, it will be there,” Jonathan said, seeming to have read Heyer’s mind. “Trust me.”
Heyer sighed and nodded. He took a few steps back to get out of range.
“If you want to do us all a favor and leave Grant on the other side,” Jonathan smiled. “Well . . .”
“Certainly would be easiest,” Heyer said. “But . . . I . . .”
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