The General didn’t respond, not right away. He seemed to be waiting for Jonathan to say something more, but nothing followed.
“Everything you are asking for is going to cause an uncontainable worldwide panic. You seem certain you can deliver a victory this time. What about the next? This attack is going to change mankind’s entire understanding of its place in the universe. People will be living in fear,” Olivia said.
“No,” Jonathan said. “They won’t. I repeat. You don’t understand how this war is going to be fought. You don’t even know what victory looks like. My army—we understand. I need you to convince those with the power to make it happen to put their faith in us.”
“You mean in you,” Olivia said.
Jonathan’s jaw tightened, but he did not argue.
They stared at one another a long while.
“General Delacy, Dr. Watts,” Olivia finally said. “Please give Mr. Tibbs and I a moment alone.”
While at first, General Delacy didn’t seem to think he should be left out of any discussion, a quick glance exchanged between him and Olivia seemed to convince him. The look was not a glare, not a warning, simply a nod that she knew what she was about, and he should trust her. His hesitation ended almost immediately.
Observing this, Jonathan was momentarily envious. How nice to share command with someone who has such faith in your judgement.
When they were alone, Olivia asked. “Do you know what I’m thinking?”
He looked into her eyes for a moment. “You want to trust me, but you can’t.”
“That’s right,” she said.
Jonathan closed his eyes. “It’s not me, you know. I’ve never broken my word. Never lied to you.”
“Good people always keep their word—until they can’t,” Olivia said.
He shrugged, but there was a sadness in him. “I am all out of ideas. Tell me what you want.”
She was quiet for a while.
“There is something,” Olivia said. “The name. How did you get it from me and how much do you know?”
Jonathan winced, a guilty smile forming on his lips.
“This is no joke, Mr. Tibbs,” Olivia said.
“I know,” Jonathan said. “But the truth might still make you laugh.”
“I’m waiting.”
“All I knew was the name, Olivia. You assumed it meant I knew more.”
Her eyes narrowed, studying him with suspicion as she seemed to consider.
“The name then,” Olivia said. “How did you get it from me?”
He bit down on his lip for moment, then looked into her eyes and nodded. “Let me tell you a story about the most stubborn woman in the world.”
THE QUEUE LOOP | ACTIVATION THREE
Barefoot and still wearing the white prisoner outfit they had issued him, Jonathan stepped out of the hallway that opened into the larger hangar bay. He estimated there were over sixty men spread out in a half circle around the opening. Some were out in the open, but most had found cover or put up some sort of a barricade.
Every single one had a weapon trained at him.
He came to an abrupt stop, and every man in the room stared down with cautious fear at the light blazing beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. Scanning the faces, he finally spotted her watching him from behind a hastily erected barricade.
When he caught her eyes, he held her with a gaze that pleaded before he yelled, “Scarred Dragonfly, Olivia.”
Her brow shot up in surprise. For a few tense seconds no one in the hangar seemed to breathe—including Jonathan. He watched as her mind raced to understand how he could possibly have known to speak those words. Then he felt the Ferox moving outside. For the briefest moment, his eyes broke from hers as he judged the monster’s distance from them.
When he looked back to Olivia—something had changed—and not for the good. Her eyes had narrowed into slits of suspicion—hardened to the brink of anger.
“Oliv—”
“Open fire!”
Jonathan only had enough time for his expression to ask the question you-can’t-be-serious? Then he was pelted with a barrage of bullets—hit with more lead than he had ever been on the receiving end of. Within seconds the thin fabric of his clothing was a tattered mess.
Then, as though life could not pass up the opportunity to be funny—a lucky shot pinged against his open eye.
If Hayden asked again, he could now confirm that the experience was unpleasant. Suddenly, Jonathan found himself standing at the center of a barrage of machine gun fire with one hand shielding his face, flinching as though a hard wind had blown dust in his eye. He got over it quickly enough, but as he parted his fingers to see Olivia again, he had just enough time to see the man standing nearest to her pull the trigger on what looked like . . .
“Ahhh, hell.”
He hardly had time to think RPG before an explosion went off in the middle of his chest. A second later he was flying back down the hallway and slamming into the elevator doors.
He found himself sitting with both legs straight out in front of him. Ears ringing as he coughed out a lungful of black smoke.
He could still feel bullets managing to hit him from all the way back in the hangar but for the moment he couldn’t hear them. He got to his feet, saw that some of the agents were growing braver, now that they had seen him knocked down, to approach the mouth of the hallway.
“Well, screw this . . .” he said, getting to his feet.
He looked down to see he barely had any clothing left to speak of, then headed to his left. It was the most direct route toward the Ferox’s location outside. He was running at a good clip as he neared the end. At the last moment, he dropped one shoulder and brought his arm up as a shield before ramming a hole through the wall. A second later his bare feet were running through the grassy field outside the hangar.
“I hate that woman,” he said, not bothering to look back as he broke into a sprint for the Ferox.
THE QUEUE LOOP | ACTIVATION FOUR
Wearing armored gear he’d borrowed off the guards in the facility’s lower tunnels, Jonathan once again stepped out of the elevator and into the hallway of the hangar bay. Not much had changed from the last time—he was surrounded again. The men armed to the teeth and waiting for him again.
His eyes went straight to Olivia behind her barricade.
He kept the tone of his voice calm. “Olivia! You promised me, if I spoke these words, you would hear me out!”
She said nothing but eyed him with a wary curiosity.
“The Drowning Monk incident of ’98.”
The same look of surprise came over her. Jonathan didn’t so much as blink when he felt the Ferox’s movement outside. He watched every crease of her face. A few seconds later doubt began to harden in her eyes again.
The moment before she spoke, Jonathan yelled. “No, no, no, no . . . there’s more . . . um . . . Scarred Dragonfly! Scarred Dragonf—”
“Open Fire!”
Groaning, “Ohhh, you monumental pain in the . . .”
He leaped forward, racing across the room instead of giving them a stationary target. The bullets managing to hit were far less, fewer and fewer agents having clear shots that would not risk hitting their allies.
He saw fear take Olivia as he charged toward her, and she began to back away from her cover. He was over the barricade before she managed five steps backward. The gunfire almost ceased completely once he was standing so close to the agents’ commanding officer. But, he didn’t go for her first, he grabbed the man beside her who was in the middle of exchanging his M4 for an RPG.
“Nope . . .” Jonathan said, yanking the weapon away from the man with one hand and tossing him up and over the barricade with the other.
Then he turned his attention back on Olivia. She was almost pressed against the wall of the hangar with a small sidearm leveled at him. He took a step toward her just as a wooden baton broke in half across his forehead.
Jonathan turned to the man holding the b
roken end in annoyance before grabbing him by the Kevlar on his chest and shoving him across the floor with a flick of his wrist.
A moment later, the firing stopped all together when he lifted Olivia off the ground by her shirt collar.
“You are the most infuriatingly stubborn . . .”
He trailed off as he looked into her eyes and saw pure panic. She looked as though she thought he were a second from ripping her in half. Her agents were quickly surrounding them.
Jonathan closed his eyes and took a long breath. When he opened them, he looked up at her with a smile that really did nothing to hide his anger. He spoke loud and slow, as though she were a child. “We seem to be having an issue with our communication.”
THE QUEUE LOOP | ACTIVATION NINE
There was only Jonathan and Olivia now. Everyone else in the hangar had been immobilized. A few moments earlier, while he was busy with the rest of the agents, Olivia and two armed escorts tried to make a run for reinforcements. As a result, the larger bay door stood open letting in light from the outside. He’d quickly dealt with the two agents, and Olivia had found him right in front of her outside the hangar.
For the next few seconds, he felt like a sheep dog trying to herd her back to the hangar as she tried to get to a vehicle parked out in front.
“Your favorite book as a child was, Where the Red Fern Grows,” he said.
She backed away, caught sight of a weapon near the outstretched hand of one of the unconscious agents and dove for it. His foot stepped down and obliterated the rifle before she could get her hands on it.
“Are you even listening?” Jonathan asked. “Broken Hill, Australia, ‘96?”
She crawled back on hands and knees and struggled to her feet while he cocked his head at her. “Hotan, China, ‘89?”
She grimaced, his words bringing rage and not a willingness to consider how or why he knew to speak them.
How would he ever get her to see he wasn’t trying to trick her?
Olivia’s eyes set on the vehicle once again.
“Boston! Ms. Hong’s Bakery. The best Nuomici you’ve ever had.”
Olivia made a break for it.
“Oh, come on!” he yelled after her. “I don’t even know what Nuomici is!”
He landed in front of her again and she nearly ran into him before stumbling back to the ground.
“How? How do you know any of this!”
Jonathan lifted his hands in front of him and mimed an urge to strangle her. “You! You told me! This is your idea! Seven times! Seven times you’ve told me you’d listen if I just gave you the right signal. We go through this every time!”
He raised his voice a few octaves in a poor impression of Olivia’s, “It has to be something no one else could know. Something only I could have told you.”
Unamused, he saw her hand reaching slowly for the front pocket of her coat.
The agitation left his face and he held up his palms. “Please don’t, Olivia.”
Her hand paused, but only for a moment before the inching continued.
“I could have taken it from you at any time. You have to know that!” He said as her hand locked around the trigger in her pocket.
She brought the trigger out, putting her thumb on the button.
“I’m not trying to take the alien from you,” Jonathan said. “Dammit, listen!”
Jonathan felt it coming long before its arrival. He’d considered himself lucky that all the noise from the hangar hadn’t drawn it sooner. He grimaced when the beast landed twenty feet behind him, smashing the very vehicle Olivia had been trying to reach with its landing. The ground shook, and Olivia nearly pressed the trigger when she jerked in surprise.
Jonathan heard the word translate in his mind as the guttural growls of Feroxian vocal cords filled the air behind him. Challenger.
He looked at Olivia one last time, shrugging with his palms turned up. “Scarred Dragonfly?”
She didn’t seem to hear him—had forgotten he existed—now that her attention was fully focused on the massive Ferox stepping off of the crushed vehicle.
“Go back inside, shut the bay doors. Try not to blow the place up,” Jonathan said, as he turned to face the beast.
He gave the—Red, it turned out—Ferox a shake of the head. “I swear . . . one of these times I’m going to let one of you eat her. Just to see if it’s therapeutic.”
The Ferox’s face studied him as though uncertain of the translation it was hearing.
Challeng—
“Oh, just shut up.”
THE QUEUE | ACTIVATION TEN
Helicopters flew overhead, following him from a safe distance as he returned to the hangar. Jonathan dragged a Green Ferox behind him. The beast was hog-tied with a chain of alien steel, bloodied from a one-sided fight it never had a hope of winning, but it still had enough spirit to thrash against its restraints.
Despite Olivia’s repeated promises, he’d given up on a scenario where he had a rational, albeit rapid, discussion with her inside the hangar. No matter what he tried or what words he spoke, he either ended up in a prolonged negotiation with Olivia, or fighting his way through guards to the surface. This time, he used the one hour of assistance Mr. Clean could offer before protocols forced the AI’s consciousness into hibernation; to be teleported outside the hangar beside a chain of alien steel long enough to subdue the Ferox.
As he returned, men poured out of the hangar and surrounded him.
“Olivia, I need a word,” Jonathan yelled.
A moment passed, then the men parted for her like she was the conductor of an orchestra. She had her weapon drawn as she stepped out of the throng of heavily armed agents.
One motion of her hand was followed by a familiar unison of sound—that of so many different weapons being prepared to fire on him. A hushed moment passed like the downbeat before a performance. To Jonathan, even the helicopter blades whirring in the background seemed to fade like an audience growing quiet in anticipation. As she stepped close enough to speak, she leveled her weapon on him.
One word from her, one gesture, and Jonathan would be hearing the same song her agents had played for him with every iteration of the Queue Loop. Moving ever so slowly, he tossed the length of chain down at her feet and waited. She eyed the Ferox warily, having seen what that Beast was capable of before watching him subdue it.
Every time they played this game, one thing was certain—she wanted the specimen, and alive was a better bargaining chip than dead. So, this time he was starting their dialogue with something tangible to get her listening.
“Mr. Tibbs. One step. One move. One look I don’t like . . .”
She chose to give a nod to the men surrounding them rather than finish the threat.
He had to fight the desire to make a flippant remark. Still, the frustration he felt about her statement couldn’t be entirely kept from his face.
“Avriel Mikhailov.”
Olivia blinked. She looked as though someone had stepped on her grave. He could see her fighting the urge to stumble back—to hold her ground. Her bottom lip trembled.
While there was no chance anyone else had heard the words he spoke, Olivia’s eyes left his, searching the faces of the men surrounding them. As though she couldn’t gamble with the possibility that a single one might know that name.
She swallowed, calmed her panic before it gave way to paranoia. She looked at him again and he held her gaze, but he saw her expression hardening against him . . . again.
“You told me you were sure. That there was no way to know that name. That only you could have said it to me. You made me promise I’d never speak it to anyone but you. I’ve kept that promise. I won’t say it to them even if you order them to kill me . . . but, please . . .”
His voice became pleading, “Please, just try to believe what I came to say.”
Slowly, Olivia let her weapon lower to her side. She stepped closer, only stopping when she was at arm’s reach.
Her voice trembled, “
Believe what?”
Jonathan let out a long breath. “That you and I need to be allies.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
NOV 12, 2005 | 3 PM | HANGMAN’S TREE
SHE’D LISTENED AS he recounted these glimpses of his time in the queue loop. When he’d finished she was thoughtful. Then she laughed—actually it was more of a snort.
Jonathan frowned somewhat sourly at her. “It makes sense that the one time I see you laugh—it’s from hearing how much of a pain in my ass you were.”
“Perspective,” Olivia said, clearing her throat. “Consider how much trouble you’ve caused me.”
His face softened. “Fair enough.”
She sighed and her smile faded back behind a wall of cement before she signaled to General Delacy and Dr. Watts to rejoin them. Then she said as she offered a hand to him, “Mr. Tibbs, I want to hear how you intend to deal with our pending apocalypse.”
He shook her hand, but before the others were within earshot, she pulled him close enough to whisper. “This better be impressive.”
“Your shadows were consulted,” he whispered back.
“Hmm,” she said approvingly as they parted.
By the time they were ready to part ways the sun was going down. Jonathan held out a small thumb drive to Olivia.
“Everything you’ve seen here, as well as the necessary specifics of everything we’ve discussed,” Jonathan said. “If the President or the Pentagon still need to see with their own eyes, I’ll make it happen. I’m not giving up this location or the identities of anyone. So, if they come, they’ll get here the same way you did.”
Olivia took the drive. She studied him again, as though she needed to stare him down one last time to be sure.
“I wouldn’t blame you,” she said, “if you can’t live up to this bargain when the time comes.”
“I won’t run, Olivia,” Jonathan said. “And yes, you would.”
Perhaps accidentally, some warmth slipped into her expression. Then immediately slipped away again. “In regard to Grant Morgan, I understand that you’ve agreed to his requests. But if I’m being honest, if you were going to break your word on some part of this . . .”
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