The Never Paradox (Chronicles Of Jonathan Tibbs Book 2)

by T. Ellery Hodges

  The alien smirked. “I never said you were special,” he said. “It is true, you can hit a Ferox harder than any other man on Earth, but I would not give leadership to a tank on the merit that it is a powerful weapon.”

  “Then… why?”

  Heyer sighed. “Some things in life are like humor, Jonathan. You endanger the chances of their success when you risk explaining them.”

  Heyer tilted his head toward the safe door then, indicating he wished for Jonathan to leave the armory before heading for the exit himself. Jonathan followed, though somewhat in a haze from trying to process everything he had learned this evening. As he exited, he took one last glance back, looking past the two pedestals meant for the bonded pair and lingering on the third pedestal at the far back of the room. Even from where he stood, he could see the pedestal’s socket was empty. If the bonded pair had been singled out from the other devices, then that third pedestal must have been a unique implant as well.

  “The role of leadership weighs on you, Jonathan. Let me take the burden off your mind,” Heyer said, interrupting his thoughts. “When the time comes, if you still believe yourself unfit to lead, I will give that role to whoever you wish.”

  Jonathan blinked at the alien for a moment. “Just like that?”

  Heyer returned a knowing look. “When the time comes that we need a leader, I believe you will not trust the responsibility to anyone else.”

  A moment passed, Jonathan’s face hardening as he studied the alien’s. “Well, that makes one of us,” he said.

  “If the subject is closed for now,” Heyer replied, “shall we return to the problem at hand?”

  He took a moment longer than he probably should have, but Jonathan nodded. “Heyer, you said that the device mimicked ordinary cells when it wasn’t active,” he said. “That was why it went completely undetected when I was being tested in the hospital. So how is it that the bond is able to manipulate us when we aren’t in combat?”

  “Well, I certainly did not intend to mislead you. At the time, the contingency was not a realistic concern, but yes, the bonded pair is a slight exception,” Heyer said. “Though it depends on how you define ordinary—nothing about the bond is outside of normal human biology, at least when you are not in an active state. The effect will be amplified when you are activated.”

  Jonathan frowned uncomfortably. The alien hadn’t purposely failed to answer his question—Jonathan simply wasn’t sure what he was asking.

  “Jonathan?” Heyer asked. “What is troubling you, precisely?”

  “I guess I’m trying to figure out exactly when I would have started noticing the bond’s effects,” Jonathan said. “The last few days … my reactions—they seem so different than Rylee’s.”

  “You will have to give me some specifics.”

  He nodded, taking a moment to figure out where to start. “After you left. The last month or so that followed, I wasn’t in the best place.” He didn’t look at the alien when he said this—he stared at the floor and tapped his index finger against his skull. “Mentally, I guess.”

  Heyer nodded. “That seems fairly reasonable. You had absorbed a great deal—”

  “No—I mean yes. The thing is, I was getting a grip on it. But, the last few days in particular, I’ve been better….” He shrugged and looked back at the alien. “A lot better. Good, even.”

  “I am following you,” Heyer said. “But I’m not sure what you are asking.”

  “When I found Rylee, she was not good,” Jonathan said. He was terrible at explaining this, grimacing at how poorly his words captured Rylee’s condition. “Heyer, she was really not good.”

  “I see,” Heyer said, his face troubled while he took a long breath. “Unfortunately, we are getting into the theoretical—but yes, there is a likely explanation.”

  “Theoretical? You mean you aren’t sure.”

  Heyer nodded. “A lot is at play in this, Jonathan. Proximity, personal psychology, association, timing, device compatibility… I suspect that, prior to your initial overlap within The Never, Rylee also experienced a period of improving mental outlook.”

  Jonathan frowned. “Why would you expect that?”

  “Well, I cannot give you precise distances, but at some point while Rylee was crossing the continent, she passed a proximity threshold—came within close enough range of you that your individual devices detected one another. From that point forward, the strength of the bond’s effects grew as she came nearer.”

  “Wait,” Jonathan said. “Are you saying that the only reason I started to feel—”

  “No, Jonathan,” Heyer said, shaking his head. “These things do not exist in a vacuum, but—”

  “Think of it as if you started taking anti-depressants and slowly increased the dosage,” Mr. Clean interrupted.

  Jonathan pinched his eyes shut and groaned as he nodded—why Heyer did not allow Mr. Clean to deliver this sort of information was becoming abundantly clear.

  “I would think of this differently,” Heyer said.

  “Oh, good,” Jonathan said. “Because I’d really prefer another way to think of this.”

  “As I said, the bond cannot build false memories. It does not fully function without association. So, the brain chemistry you experienced was similar to the onset of an intense new romantic relationship—increasing your hopefulness, perhaps—but, despite being driven to that state, your mind was left searching for whom those feelings would imprint.”

  Jonathan tapped the arm of his chair, his face nearly blank as he tried to decide if Heyer’s explanation was actually better than Mr. Clean’s. He found himself imagining running into Heyer’s shadow in The Never. More precisely, he pictured sucker-punching the alien before crushing the stone to exit. It was the best he could hope for. If he tried to hit the alien now, he’d probably break every bone in his hand—assuming he managed to connect at all.

  “Okay,” Jonathan finally said. “So, then what happened to Rylee that would have changed this?”

  “As you noticed, inside the Arena, the combatants did not enter The Never,” Heyer said. “The pair was originally designed to solidify the bond at the same instance after surviving their first battle. What Rylee experienced, I cannot say for sure. Though, I imagine it would have been something like the emotional trauma that the Arena combatants feel when their bond is severed by the death of their partner—an incomplete bonding.”

  “So, her device finished its half of the process, but because I didn’t have the memories needed, my half was incomplete,” Jonathan said.

  Heyer nodded.

  Jonathan was quiet for a long while. Perhaps, to Heyer, it appeared he was trying to get a grip on it all. Mostly, he thought about how uncomfortable he had been imagining he’d never see Rylee again—how insignificant that discomfort must have been compared to what Rylee had been put through.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was even, but the words came slowly. “For the time being, I’m going to set aside everything I’ve heard tonight. Frankly, a conversation about personal boundaries seems a little pointless. What scares me now is that I still don’t understand.” Jonathan shook his head. “You need to know how Rylee got here. Fine. You want me to find out, but needed to warn me not to trust my instincts. Fine. But, Heyer, as much as all this news is terrible, I don’t see how any of it is an Earth-threatening emergency.”

  Heyer gathered his thoughts for a moment, steepling his fingers before he spoke. “The devices that make up the bonded pair are allowed to be in play. In single combat, they act as any other device, given the compatibility of their owner is not too high. But, they are not allowed to be activated together, as this unlocks the strength of the bond,” he said.

  “When you and Rylee slay two Ferox within the same instance of The Never, it does not matter if each of you breaks a stone separately or at a different time while you remain inside, because the corpses are sent back through the gates at the exact same instant. This has now happened twice in a matter of days a
nd Malkier’s A.I. will have taken notice on the other side. One instance might have been considered a coincidence, but two will require I give an explanation. If a third instance occurs, it will not only be clear that the bonded pair is in play, but that I have either taken no action to stop it, or that I deliberately put events in motion to create an unfair contest.

  “Given a third instance has yet to occur, this may have been something I could have explained away. Unfortunately, my brother is not in a state of mind where he can be trusted to see reason. He will notice and scrutinize any abnormalities associated to your gateway, Jonathan. He is….” Heyer paused. “Quite focused on it.”

  Jonathan titled his head, confused by the alien’s statement. “You said that there were hundreds of gates—why is he paying attention to mine?” Jonathan asked.

  Heyer’s eyes dropped to the floor, and he seemed to grow distant as he spoke. “He is grieving. Dams the Gate was his son.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “DAMMIT HEYER!” JONATHAN said. “You think maybe you should have led with that? You have spent all night talking about bonded pairs and the Foedrata and Feroxian creation stories, and you mention I killed your bastard brother’s son only just now?” Jonathan stood from his chair, beginning to pace.

  “I would tell you to calm down, Jonathan,” Heyer said. “but, admittedly the news is—”

  “How?” Jonathan asked, thinking out loud. “How does Malkier have a Ferox son?”

  “Malkier inhabits the body of a Ferox Alpha,” Mr. Clean said. “The device does not impair reproductive functionality.”

  “Mr. Clean, I….” Jonathan shook his head, deciding it would be a waste of breath to explain to an inorganic life form that his question wasn’t that simple. Instead, he turned back to Heyer. “They aren’t his species!”

  “Yes,” Heyer said. “The biology of a host body, despite being under the control of a Borealis consciousness, has powerful instinctual pulls.”

  Jonathan stopped and raised his hand to his forehead, still trying to wrap his head around how this could be possible. “And of all the gates his son could have picked, he just happened to choose mine?” he asked. “Our luck can’t possibly be that bad.”

  “As far as our luck goes, I would say the verdict is not in yet. But Malkier’s son did not enter your gate at random. He chose with a purpose—because of your gate’s history.”

  Jonathan’s head pulled up from his hands. “Gates have histories?”

  Heyer leaned forward in his chair. “I have told you that I once came quite close to ending my brother’s life,” he said. “The event that made me so angry took place years ago. I had gone to the Feroxian plane, seeking a meeting with my brother. Normally, we met in a stretch of land far away from the Ferox populations, but he hadn’t arrived as planned. So, I made my way to his vessel. When I came upon him, I found that he had been badly injured.

  “What you need to understand is that Malkier, much like myself, has one of the two most advanced implants the Borealis had ever built protecting him. He is thousands of years old, the difference is that he is inhabiting an Alpha Ferox body. Beings such as my brother do not encounter true threats on their life. I, myself, do not believe I could kill him in a fair fight. Finding him recovering from a near life-threatening wound left me at a loss for what could have possibly managed to harm him. My brother knew I would soon find out what he had done, and who had delivered that wound. So, he told me the truth.”

  Heyer placed his fist against his lips, his eyes having grown bitter.

  “There was a man the Ferox called Echoes the Borealis. He was a strange case—could not be killed, always survived his encounters within The Never. To this day, no human has sent so many corpses back through the gates. But, Echoes the Borealis was more than unique; his survival could not be accounted for by his compatibility with his device. The man commanded far less power from his device than many who still perished in The Never.

  “The Ferox do not fear a challenge, and as the gate of Echoes the Borealis returned body after body of their children, each Ferox coveted the chance to be the next combatant to enter his gate. Echoes’ survival had, in their eyes, turned him into the ultimate abomination—the ultimate trophy. The Ferox who defeated such an affront to their gods would become a legend to the rest. However, my brother could not abide the death tolls. Echoes’ refusal to die was breaking a precarious balance, but he knew I would not kill this man for the crime of defending himself. Malkier took it upon himself.”

  Jonathan had frozen in thought as Heyer explained. He had heard of this man—the Ferox he’d fought had said his name before, but until now, he’d had no idea what they were telling him—no idea that Echoes the Borealis was a reference to a combatant.

  “Bleeds the Stone called me the legacy of Echoes the Borealis,” Jonathan said. “The gate that brings them to me, it was this man’s gate?”

  Heyer nodded. “When I learned of what my brother had done….” He trailed off, eyes shut, the memory still able to bring the alien to anger. “Jonathan, I do not know how to express the type of outrage one must feel to find themselves considering fratricide. You see, what my brother could not have known was that this man’s continued survival had other consequences. Echoes the Borealis was merely a problem to Malkier, but he was also my oldest living friend on earth. I thought of him as more of a brother to me than Malkier had ever been.

  “I never told my brother of this. Nonetheless, when Malkier stood before me, weakened, and confessed what he had done, I nearly allowed my pain to guide my actions.”

  “I’m not really seeing what stopped you,” Jonathan said.

  Heyer’s eyes were full of regret when he looked at Jonathan. “Empathy.”

  The alien looked at the floor then, leaving Jonathan to frown as he waited for an explanation.

  “As I stood on the brink, my brother showed emotion I could not ignore. Despite his wound, he was happier than I had seen him in centuries. He had mated, and the Ferox woman he had chosen was with child. I had not known that my brother hid a desperate desire to be a father, but I should have. I have felt that same longing in myself.

  “Jonathan, it is impossible for either of us to bring a newborn Borealis into the world. My brother begged my understanding—and my anger hesitated. I despised him for the agreement he’d broken, for the pain he unknowingly caused me, but in the end, I walked away.”

  Jonathan was not swayed much by empathy himself, at the moment. When he took his seat, he felt as though he were ready to rip the arm rests off his chair.

  “The incident marked the end of our relationship as brothers. Malkier knew, on some level, that his actions had brought me to consider violence against the only remaining member of my species that day,” Heyer said. “What he didn’t know is that he had finally made me capable of things far worse than he realized. That he had used the last of my mercy. A mind that wants revenge starts to see things it may not have before. You see, it is common for Ferox women to have two to four children per birth. Yet the mate who accepted my brother’s seed only had the one. It is unfortunate, because even before Dams the Gate was born, I saw an insurance policy.”

  Jonathan tilted his head, and his anger stalled as he started to see what Heyer was telling him. If Malkier would be difficult to dispatch at full health, even for Heyer, then making a threat on his brother’s life was a bluff that might be called. A Ferox child was a different story—a weakness that Malkier would be far less likely to take chances with.

  “If he ever moved to take Earth,” Jonathan said. “He would never expect you to threaten his child.”

  “It is a cold feeling, Jonathan,” Heyer said. “When I realized I would not hesitate to use the innocent Ferox child’s life. That I would take Dams the Gate right out from under him, and hold the boy’s life in the balance if he dared invade Earth.

  “Our relationship became a mere partnership around that time. I reported, we adjusted as necessary, but any act of kinship was
a facade. After years, I think Malkier ceased to bother wanting my forgiveness. He sacrificed my trust to create his son, and he could not find true regret for his decision. Still, knowing that he couldn’t be trusted should his son perish in a confrontation with man—and secretly not wanting my insurance package compromised—we agreed that his progeny was never to be allowed access to the gates.

  “Malkier understood this would cause his son great pain, but saw a fatherly wisdom in it—his Borealis side wished to preserve the safety of his son’s life. As a father, he now had something to lose,” Heyer said.

  “So, how did Dams the Gate end up pulling me into The Never?” Jonathan asked.

  “He was never supposed to access the gates. How he gained entry is a question my brother is investigating. Though I have little doubt that he will find that the rebellion he has tried to hide from me had a hand in it,” Heyer said. “Malkier’s son chose the gate of Echoes the Borealis, because it was the gate that had given him life.”

  Jonathan closed his eyes. “And I killed him,” he said bitterly.

  Heyer nodded, sighing with the same exasperation. “Yes, and unfortunately, it appears that, in my brother’s grief, he has lost any desire to conform to our agreements—at least in regards to your gateway. In the month and a half I lost on my return from the Feroxian plane, the evidence that he is attempting to assassinate you has become clear.”

  Jonathan tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

  “My brother would not dare send an Alpha,” Heyer said. “Too extreme, he would risk alienating me further, and would contradict his decree as prophet for a second time. He would not wish to give any fuel to the small rebellion that questions his authority. Malkier has taken a subtler route.

  “Bleeds the Stone was no random selection of the lottery. I knew the moment you said that he’d referred to you as Brings the Rain. You see, my brother asked me if his son had given you a title. Only he could have told his assassin what to call you. But frankly, I don’t believe this was Malkier’s first attempt on your life.”