The Never Paradox (Chronicles Of Jonathan Tibbs Book 2)

by T. Ellery Hodges

  “This is standard human male implant in its dormant state. This model is less advanced than your own, though it was built around the same era,” Heyer said.

  He placed the device on the table beside the spinning hologram of the gateway. Jonathan stared down at it, trying to comprehend how this insignificant-looking object became a biological weapon—a piece of technology advanced enough to mimic a man’s cellular structure and give him the strength to fight nightmarish monsters from another dimension. He looked away when the clank of the safe’s steel door finally locking broke the silence. That chamber—it had held hundreds of these devices. Such a small thing that could destroy the lives of those who had to bear them so that they might protect the lives of everyone else.

  “I am sure, by now, that you have wondered, Jonathan,” Heyer said. “Why mankind? Of all the planets and species, my brother set his eyes on Earth when the Ferox faced extinction.”

  Jonathan had pondered the question frequently, but as with everything else he didn’t know, he was reduced to speculation. Still, he felt one thing had been certain. It could be no coincidence—no astronomically incalculable bad luck. There had to be a reason that the planet Heyer called home was the only one his brother had seen fit to target.

  “From what little you’ve told me about your brother, I had assumed he’d chosen mankind because we reminded him of his own species.”

  Heyer’s eyes became sad, thoughtful. “Perhaps. You are correct in seeing how he rationalizes the action. But no, I do not believe my brother would threaten my home world using prejudice as his justification if there were a feasible alternative.”

  The alien returned to his chair, and Jonathan waited for him to explain.

  “Mankind was the only species we were able to turn into a worthy adversary, strong enough to confront the Ferox in battle,” he said. “After the extinction of our ancestors, my brother and I did not possess the means to enhance the biology of any other species.”

  Jonathan glanced away from Heyer to the stone now resting on the table. Up until now, he had thought of the device as mankind’s one weapon, the only thing allowing them hope of fighting the impending Feroxian invasion. If Heyer was saying what he thought he was saying, then the reality was the complete opposite—the existence of these implants was what had made mankind a target in the first place.

  “Never trust a man with power unless he is smart enough not to want it,” Jonathan whispered.

  The alien nodded, glumly acknowledging the appropriateness of Jonathan’s quoting his own words back to him. “Rylee being here, now, was never my intention. I doubt she purposely set out to hurt mankind, but she has unknowingly taken what I had hoped to be a future advantage and turned it into an immediate problem. To understand, I have to tell you about a dark period in the Borealis history…” Heyer paused. “There are decisions you will need to make. Knowing the truth is the only guidance I can give you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “LONG BEFORE I came to Earth, before Malkier set out to save the Ferox, we were archaeologists of our own species, excavating what was left behind by our ancestors. We searched for survivors, of course, but as you know, we never found any. Hundreds of settlements throughout the dimensions were abandoned. One was here, in the home dimension of mankind. At the time, we never could have imagined that what we uncovered there would lead us here,” the alien said.

  “Heyer?” Jonathan interrupted. “How many of your kind were there? Before the extinction, I mean.”

  “Billions.”

  “How?” Jonathan shook his head. Though he wished he could muster more sympathy, his mind filled up with questions. “How does a species so advanced, so spread out, just go… extinct?”

  Heyer exhaled a long thoughtful breath. “It is fortunate you only ask how. If you had asked me who or why, I would have no answers for you. My brother and I have searched for thousands of years, and we have found no trace of who was responsible or why they committed genocide. All I have to show for our search is a trail of dead-ends and an absurdly hard-learned lesson.”

  Jonathan’s eyebrows drew down. “Lesson?”

  “That safety is an illusion. No matter what amount of power you possess, there is no strength without inherent weakness. No such thing as invincibility. You see, the Borealis were spread out over multiple dimensions and planets; their technology made the species, as a whole, take immortality for granted. They were the first beings to rise to such a state of mastery over nature, and as far as I know, the last,” Heyer said. “Yet, the entire population was decimated in a single moment. Billions, reduced … to a mere two.”

  Heyer shook his head. “To this day, I cannot wrap my mind around the magnitude of the tragedy. It is a date, the words ‘Billions dead’ written into a historical record. I was too young to know what I lived through—my brother was not so fortunate.” Heyer grew quiet for a moment then, realizing he had digressed from what was important. “The point is, for so many to suddenly die off in unison, the only plausible theory was that there existed some viral weapon. Something designed to lay dormant and undetected until triggered throughout the entire population in unison, something targeted to a universal trait in all the Borealis. The profoundly disturbing part of this is that in all our records and exploration, Malkier and I have never found another lifeform with the technological capability to create such a weapon. Therefore, the means to kill our species could only have originated from within.”

  Jonathan listened to the alien’s explanation, trying to imagine how his own species might meet a similar fate. The question he could not have answered was what could possibly lead any one person or group to decide, for all of mankind, that it was their sole decision whether the species lived or died? What could possibly convince someone that so much power belonged in their hands? What could possibly convince them to use it? What madness would that person have to believe?

  “No one claimed responsibility?” Jonathan asked, a disbelief he hadn’t anticipated finding its way into his voice. “How could there not be a single record left behind?”

  Heyer’s jaw clenched and Jonathan wondered if the question had sounded more offensive than he meant it; but slowly, the agitation left the alien’s eyes.

  “I apologize for my reaction, Jonathan. It is a fair question,” he said. “But, as I already said, who and why remains a mystery. I admit, the failure to answer those questions has weighed on me longer than you’ve lived, with all due respect—longer than you can imagine. Picture, for a moment, standing in a cemetery of victims, knowing every corpse beneath you is an unsolved crime that chance put into your hands to solve. Now imagine living thousands of years without being able to accomplish this one task.”

  There was a long pause before he spoke again.

  “You asked about records. Unfortunately, it was never a matter of simple research,” Heyer said. “The Borealis were quite similar to Man in that they had conflicting ideologies, wars over resources, politics, religion, and historical animosities. But what transgression could lead one group or individual within a society to decide that every member of their species, including the perpetrator, owed their lives? This weapon spared no one, including those who had not yet been born. Knowing this, you see that only the deeply disturbed remains. My best guess is this was set in motion by a very small group, or perhaps one incredibility cowardly individual.” Heyer raised his palm in a gesture of admitted defeat. “Eventually, we ran out of clues—Malkier and I had to accept that there were things we may never know.”

  “Heyer… ” Jonathan, looking down at the floor, blinked in disbelief. “If mankind started dying tomorrow, there would be mountains of information left behind. Newscasts, internet posts, newspapers—video footage uploaded to YouTube, if nothing else. How could there have been nothing?”

  “Ahhh,” Heyer said, nodding. “Yes, I suppose that by describing the deaths as viral, it gave the impression of a plague, people falling victim to a disease. This was not a virus of simply a biolo
gical nature. My species died as one; in a shared instant. No one was there to document the event itself. Malkier and I were not even conscious when it occurred.”

  Jonathan’s eyes fell to the floor, a look of suspicion creeping into his eyes.

  “I didn’t tell you all this to give you a mystery to solve, Jonathan,” Heyer said. “The extinction itself had conse—”

  “How is it that you and Malkier were spared?” Jonathan asked.

  Heyer paused at being interrupted. A silence fell between them and seemed to lengthen until Heyer grasped where Jonathan’s persistence came from.

  “You think it Malkier’s doing? Is that what you are getting at, Jonathan?”

  “You said it had to have come from within. That only leaves two suspects. If I was a detective, it would seem a fair question.”

  “No, it’s naive. Surviving a genocide is hardly evidence of orchestrating it.” Heyer held Jonathan’s eyes, allowing a moment to pass. “My brother’s actions have placed him into the role of mankind’s enemy, so I understand how easy it is to cast Malkier as a monster capable of any atrocity. But, if you want to understand the truth, you will have to resist the urge to see whatever suits you.”

  Jonathan blinked, unsure if the alien had intended to sound so disappointed. “All right, so how exactly am I misjudging the situation?”

  The alien leaned forward and rested his elbows on the chair. “My brother’s attitude toward man grew over thousands of years, taking root long after our ancestors were gone. When we were young, this part of him was only a shadow. He would not yet have had the desire nor the means to put such a tragedy in motion. It was the history he lived through that led my brother to hate his own species. To him, humanity is a mirror, and he does not wish to catch a glimpse of his reflection. That is the irony of hatred—it turns a blind eye when you run the risk of becoming the very thing you despise. Malkier, unfortunately, does not care for such introspection.”

  Jonathan nodded, seeing the glaring flaw in his suspicion, but Heyer’s explanation still left his question unanswered. “So then, how is it that only you two survived?”

  “As I mentioned, the virus was not explicitly of a biological nature. There was not anything different about my brother or I on a genetic level that would have protected us from a targeted plague. Only one unique circumstance applied to us.”

  He stood, removing his coat and folding it over the back of his chair. With the outer garment removed, the three parallel lines of yellow light running along Heyer’s chest showed bright beneath his shirt. Then he reached for the device he had placed on the table earlier. He sat back down, and held the dormant implant up between them.

  “I told you once, that this was an antiquated relic from my species’ history,” he said. “Its very existence reflects a mark of shame on my kind. These implants were intended to protect life, but under the control of the wrong people, they became the chains of enslavement—an implement of cruelty. You see, this device in my hand was altered. It now only functions in a human—and not just any human, but a genetically compatible male. The implant you see activated within my chest is not bound by any such limits.”

  “Why are they so different?”

  “It would be like comparing a tape cassette player to an iPod. The device within me is hundreds of years more advanced, capable of functioning in all species known to the Borealis prior to their extinction, regardless of sex or genetic compatibility. It has no need for the presence of an energy source, as it produces power to function on its own.” Heyer looked down at the implant resting in his palm. “In contrast, this requires the presence of an energy signature, which you have seen an example of in the portal stone brought through by the Ferox.”

  Heyer hesitated then, giving Jonathan an appraising look, seeming unsure of how he may react to what he was about to say.

  “Perhaps you already suspected, but the body you see before you is not the one I was born in,” Heyer said. “In order to hide amongst Man, and for my brother to hide amongst the Ferox, we have each had to take bodies from members of our surrogate species. The man I inhabit now belonged to an American who died, for all intents and purposes, in an overseas conflict roughly twenty years ago.”

  Jonathan nodded. Heyer was correct in that this came as no surprise to him. Months earlier, after the alien revealed that Malkier had taken the body of a Ferox Alpha to secure leadership on the Feroxian plane, Jonathan had assumed that Heyer must have had to make similar accommodations. Still, there was some relief in knowing that the body he inhabited had been borrowed from a dead man, not taken against a man’s will.

  “My birth body was left behind lifetimes ago. Who and what I am is contained within my device. You might say I am no longer a self-sustaining life form, but a parasite. It is in this way that Malkier and I can live as long as we do,” Heyer said. “As long as this device functions, and my body remains intact, our lives go on indefinitely.”

  Jonathan looked to the glow emanating from within the alien’s chest with confusion. He didn’t see the connection, didn’t understand why the alien felt he needed to know these things at all. “What is it you’re getting at, Heyer?” he asked. “If it’s obvious, I’m not seeing it.”

  Heyer nodded. “Every Borealis was implanted with a device such as this shortly after birth, Jonathan. It made our species strong, resistant to the normal degradations of age, and very difficult to kill. Prior to the extinction, no Borealis had fallen ill from an infection in hundreds of years. The device in my chest was the last model ever designed by the Borealis. Only two were ever implanted. What I am saying is, the weapon that killed the Borealis attacked the entire species by leveraging a weakness in the devices installed throughout all of them. Whatever weakness the virus exploited in the older models, it was not able to target Malkier or myself. It is this sole difference that spared us. I am alive today, it seems, because of something as simple as a software update.”

  They sat in silence for a while, Jonathan processing everything he’d learned.

  “Why only two?” he finally asked. “It seems strange, that you and your brother were singled out for the upgraded device.”

  Heyer nodded. “There is an explanation, Jonathan,” he said. “But, you will not require it to understand what I need to tell you. Suffice to say, my brother and I were chosen because of who our father was—but being selected was not the type of thing one considered an honor. Quite the opposite. It is not something I wish to speak of with you or anyone else.”

  Reluctantly, Jonathan nodded. Heyer had refused to tell him a lot of things since they had met. This was the first time Jonathan felt he had no right to push.

  Heyer placed the dormant device back on the table. “Anyways, how the Borealis went extinct is not our concern. It is the consequences of their extinction that you need to understand.”

  Peter had been standing right in front of her the night he’d disappeared. He’d been yelling at her. “Leah, dammit! Would you just leave it alone?”

  Her brother was like all the others who’d come in contact with The Mark—defiant, but afraid, up until the moment he was lost.

  “You can’t help me,” he’d said.

  Those words turned out to be last her brother had ever said to her—the last he said to anyone. Then, as though Leah had blinked and he was no longer there, Peter was gone. But Leah hadn’t blinked. She’d been staring unshakably back at her brother as he told her to “leave it alone,” and the next moment, there was empty space, nothing but the white wall that had been behind him. She had found herself alone in his empty apartment, beginning to tremble. She had known for some time that he wasn’t telling her something, that he had been hiding whatever it was that caused him to spiral into depression in the months leading up to that moment. She hadn’t had a clue.

  When she revisited the memory, the sounds were the worst. First, that terrible silence as she began to fill up with fear. When the tears began, she couldn’t remember the rhythm of breathing, could o
nly draw in desperate chokes of air between fits of crying. Hearing those cries creeping in on her from in her memory always brought back a sense of that awful debilitation. She’d never grown immune to it.

  It could cut her down, and Leah repeatedly had to remind herself that she’d made a contract with her emotions—a restraining order. She would not acknowledge that grief had any claim on her. She would make no peace and no compromises with it. Until she had the alien in front of her, heard from his lips what had happened to her brother, there would be no giving in.

  Leah knew there were only two possibilities. Her brother was either trapped or dead. If he was dead, then she would let the pain have its way with her, but she would not waste a single moment on remorse if it kept her from doing the one thing she could. Leah was never going to leave it alone.

  As she made her way down the stairs from Paige’s bedroom, her brother’s defiance and fear were her own, and they pleaded for her to act.

  She had not been able to get her brother to tell her the truth before it was too late, and she couldn’t let that story repeat with Jonathan. So, she told herself that The Mark did not have her permission to take him. She ignored the whispers that told her she was hiding behind bravado, the very idea that these things were outside her control. The text from her phone told her that The Cell had not been able to reestablish his location for over a half hour. Olivia’s team did not realize that message translated into another meaning for Leah. It read: Jonathan may now be with Peter—this may be the moment you fail them both.

  Every minute Jonathan’s location remained unknown brought her closer to a moment she would not allow herself to experience. Leah had to hold that fear at bay—force herself to think things through. What could she do, here and now, to change this situation? How could she prove to herself that he wasn’t truly gone?