The Never Paradox (Chronicles Of Jonathan Tibbs Book 2)

by T. Ellery Hodges

  Jonathan felt his armor become heavier, found himself sitting down on the edge of his weight bench to hear more, to understand his father just a little better.

  “I didn’t buy any of it,” Evelyn said. “I told him so. I told him I wanted the damn truth of it. Not a bunch of rhetoric that sounded like it came from an adoption brochure.” She shook her head. “I loved your father, but he was a complicated man. And if there was one thing I wouldn’t endure, it was being told my husband would deny me a child of my own.” She frowned, and then corrected herself. “Our own.”

  She didn’t speak for a moment, seeming to wonder if she had said too much already. Finally, she decided she would not leave the story unfinished.

  “You see, what he didn’t know was that I was already pregnant. It had happened the last time he was on leave. I was about to tell him, because he didn’t understand why he was hurting me so much,” Evelyn said. “But, before I could, he asked me the strangest question.”

  Jonathan looked at her now, his eyes betraying him.

  “He asked me if….” Evelyn hesitated again. “If I ever wished that my parents hadn’t given me life. That was when I understood how much he had been hurt. All those things he said about adopting, they had been camouflage. He didn’t want me to know that a part of him wished he had never been born, that he was worried about making a choice that could one day force his child to wish the same thing.”

  Jonathan took a long breath. He nodded in understanding, before putting a hand on his mother’s shoulder. “Mom, I see why you wouldn’t want me to know this. It doesn’t change who he was to me. Just helps me understand him.”

  Evelyn nodded. “It’s not why I said it. I am trying to make you understand how terrifying it is for me to see that look on your face.”

  He turned away, but nodded, understanding.

  “It’s getting late, and this is exhausting,” she finally said. “I think after a good night’s sleep, we can try this conversation again.”

  “Is it your intention to come here and stare at me every day?” Jonathan asked. “It will end the same.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “You’ll have to go home—go back to work at some point. I may not be able to make you leave—I know that—but you can’t be getting in my way.”

  “Perhaps,” Evelyn replied, not conceding to this statement. She went to the stairs to leave.

  “Mom,” Jonathan said before she opened the door. “You said that something made him change. What was it?”

  Evelyn looked at him as though she thought the answer was obvious, like she had already told him. “He held his son,” she said. As she turned to exit, his mother made sure she slipped in one last thing. “I look forward to getting to know your new friends.”

  Jonathan stared at the door for a while once she had left. He wished that, in all this time, he could have found a lie that would make his friends and family leave him be. That wasn’t how it worked. Rylee, it seemed, had found that the only way was to leave.

  When he took his eyes off the closed door, he saw that his mother had left the cardboard box on the counter. He walked over to it and pulled off the lid. There were a number of trinkets, picture frames, an old uniform of his father’s. He recognized some of it. Reaching inside, he moved some of the frames out of the way, and his eye was drawn to picture clipped on to a stack of envelopes. A picture of his father he hadn’t seen before.

  It was a black and white image, and Douglas did not seem to be aware that he was being photographed. He sat at a table in his uniform, lost in his thoughts, holding the pocket watch he’d left to Jonathan. His father’s thumb was pressed lightly on the watch’s engraving, a habit Jonathan shared when he held the timepiece. There was a look in the man’s eyes, the look Jonathan had when he was hiding behind the wall, the mask of his own face.

  His father was young in the photo, but still older than Jonathan was now. People had told him that they could tell he was his father’s son when he was growing up, but he’d never been able to see it. Perhaps it was that, in his early teens, he’d been too awkward to notice the similarities. Now, though, with his hair cut short, his face cut with harder edges, and his body hardened by hours of training, he saw it.

  Eventually, the lateness of the hour started to encroach on his thoughts. There were conversations that needed to happen that he could not put off.

  He put the picture in his pocket, and returned the lid to the box. Turning back to the garage, something struck him as off. He hadn’t noticed it before, and for a moment, he wasn’t sure what bothered him. Something was missing.

  Where did my bike go? he thought.

  Leah and Evelyn spoke little when she returned. Evelyn looked tired. Her conversation with Jonathan had been a taxing one, apparently. Leah wished her a good night, and when the door to the guest bedroom shut, she returned to her neighbor’s house.

  “You really don’t have to knock,” Paige said, stepping out of the doorway to let her in.

  Jonathan noticed her enter, but was in the middle of a conversation. “Collin, did you move my bike?” he asked.

  Collin shared a conspiratorial glance with Rylee. “Um, yeah. I figured you wouldn’t want your mom seeing it.”

  A bit of gratefulness touched Jonathan’s face. “Thanks,” he said, and the two fist-bumped.

  “We hid it out in the backyard,” Rylee said. “Follow me. I’ll show you.”

  Jonathan frowned. “It’s late. I’m sure it’ll be fine for one night.”

  “Best we do it now,” Collin said. “I don’t want you waking me up when you can’t find it in the morning.”

  Leah, Paige, and Jonathan all stared blankly at Collin. He’d made it sound like their backyard was so vast one could lose track of an entire motorcycle—it wasn’t. Collin ignored their looks, already heading toward the door with Rylee and Hayden seeming quick to follow.

  “What?” Jonathan asked lifting an eyebrow. “Did you bury it?”

  Leah exchanged a glance with Paige, and her friend shrugged back at her. Shenanigans were obviously in motion, but apparently, they were as much in the dark as Jonathan. In the backyard, the motorcycle was impossible to miss, sitting plainly in the middle of the patio, but under a tarp.

  “Okay,” Jonathan said, looking at the three conspirators. “So what’s going on? Did you knock it over or something? Is it damaged?”

  Collin snorted. “Right, damaged,” he said as he stepped behind the bike. “We’d have had to drop it off a cliff for anyone to notice any more damage.”

  Collin took hold of the bike’s cover with both hands. He waited until everyone was still, then looked to Rylee for permission. She smiled and gave him a nod.

  “We went on a mercy mission today,” she said.

  Collin pulled the tarp away, and Leah’s eyes grew large at what lay beneath. She had figured they had gotten the bike repaired, repainted, or touched up. This wasn’t Jonathan’s bike at all. It was new, brand new—didn’t even have a license plate yet.

  Awkward silence seemed to come over everyone while Rylee and Collin were waiting for sounds of awe. Leah found herself caught between smiling politely and trying not to flinch. She felt embarrassed for Rylee. The girl seemed to desperately need Jonathan’s affections—did she even realize how needy such an extravagant gesture would look? Then she found herself wondering, What do you do for the person who kept you from taking your own life?

  “I don’t … it’s too much,” Jonathan stuttered. “How did you pay for this?”

  Paige, of course, had no way of knowing why Rylee would go to such an absurd length, and since Leah wasn’t supposed to either, she tried her best to mime her friend’s reaction.

  “Seriously,” Paige said in agreement, her voice critical. “What are you thinking?”

  Jonathan, seeing the deflation of Rylee’s smile, turned to Paige. “No,” he said. “Not like that, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s amazing, I just—I can’t possibly accept this.”


  “If it’s the money, don’t worry about it.” Rylee winked.

  “Collin,” Jonathan said. “Please tell me you didn’t pay for any of this?”

  “Of course not. I just drove the old one down for the trade in.” Collin coughed, then. “Though, allegedly, I may have forged a signature on the bill of sale.” Collin lifted his palm toward Rylee. “Moneybags here bought the new one. In cash, no less.”

  Leah watched Jonathan’s reaction—saw how he looked at Rylee after this disclosure.

  A quick moment of suspicion followed by a spark of insight in his eyes. The Cell was quite aware that Rylee had the funds to make such a purchase with little concern, that she had won it all from gambling under circumstances that strained the chances of her simply being lucky. Studying Jonathan, Leah found herself willing to make a wager. Right now, she would bet ten to one that he knew exactly how Rylee had managed it.

  “Tibbs! Would you thank the lady already?” Collin asked. “I am, frankly, pretty jealous right now. It’s a Suzuki SV 650—she got you this year’s model of my bike.”

  Jonathan forced himself to smile, then knelt beside the motorcycle, his hands running down the plastic side paneling.

  “What?” Collin asked. “You don’t like the color?”

  Leah watched as Jonathan scratched his head, and looked back to Rylee. He was an open book to her; she knew the moment his empathy took over, when he realized his subdued enthusiasm was hurting the girl.

  “No,” Jonathan smiled. “It’s beautiful. Really, I’m just stunned, is all.”

  Rylee tilted her head at him, not so convinced he was being honest, but as Jonathan continued to commit, her smile returned. Leah found herself questioning her original thought. Rylee might not have been motivated by gaining his affection, but by something else. His respect? His approval? His trust? Leah couldn’t put her finger on it.

  “Well, are you gonna sit on it or what?” Collin asked.

  Jonathan smiled, and everyone stepped back as he mounted the bike. It reminded Leah of the day in her driveway, when she’d been working on the older bike, and when she’d touched his face gently to inspect the black eye that Grant had given him the night before. How she hadn’t wanted to take her hand off him…

  She understood what had been bothering Jonathan a moment earlier, what he’d been looking for when he examined the plastic shielding of the bike’s exterior. There wasn’t any obvious way to get around the paneling to the frame—not enough exposed metal to alter the bike in the same manner that Leah had on Jonathan’s older Honda. Leah had been standing back, trying to remain unnoticed as she studied everyone else—but she’d also been hoping to get a single moment alone with him. This gave her an opening.

  Rylee’s smile dampened when Leah stepped toward him. Jonathan must have noticed it as well, as his gaze turned where Rylee was looking, and found her. She stood close to him, held his eyes without looking away for the first time since their awkward parting the night before.

  “I can make the same modification,” Leah said. “It’ll be a bit trickier this time, but not impossible.” She leaned in closer then, so only Jonathan would hear her whisper. “But it would appear as though you’ll be owing me another favor.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  SUNDAY| OCTOBER 9, 2005 | 10:30 PM | SEATTLE

  “THERE IS BLOOD on your hands,” Mr. Clean said.

  As he stepped back into his living room, Heyer paused to look down at his palms. The A.I. had detected the remnants of biological material that he had neglected to clean off himself from the most recent volunteer. “Thank you,” Heyer whispered. “The Shenzhen node is implanted.”

  He walked over to his bathroom sink, running water from the tap to remove what had dried on his skin and settled beneath his fingernails.

  “Redirect Cede if the new node receives any inbounds while I am away,” Heyer said. “It is unlikely he will survive, but men with slimmer chances have managed it. When I return, I’ll make sure that I am present for his first combat within The Never should he need to learn how the gates are closed.”

  The installation had been a routine matter. None of the complications that had occurred during Jonathan’s implant had taken place. The young man lived alone—and had volunteered.

  Knowing the boy’s chances weighed on the alien’s conscience. There were reasons to hope at times. Some volunteers had a higher compatibility, a background in warfare. Sometimes, he implanted a device knowing that he was creating a powerful weapon on purpose. This boy had hardly been of drinking age, naively jumping at the chance to be the defender of his species. That glimmer behind the young man’s eyes as Heyer played the part, the dark and mysterious stranger who arrived one day to tell him he was special, to finally give the man’s life the meaning he had always suspected was out there, waiting to find him. All that soul searching put to rest because he was a hero.

  It was the story Heyer had to tell. A story that might even be true. More likely, it was exactly what Jonathan had called it when he had learned the reality. The refilling of a bird feeder.

  “It’s not much longer, sir,” Mr. Clean said.

  Heyer glanced at the screen. The computer had an intuition for his moods. It was why Heyer considered him his friend, and never treated the computer as though he were some sort of butler. “The boy,” he said, his eyes tired. “He volunteered.”

  The image of Mr. Clean nodded. “He made the right decision.”

  Heyer sighed. He often wondered if Mr. Clean felt guilt. No, felt wasn’t the right word. He wondered if such philosophical burdens could plague the A.I.’s conscience. Mr. Clean understood that the situation presented no option but to turn to the hard math. How many would be saved versus how many lost. Could the A.I. regret the sacrifice of a digit for the sake of balancing an equation?

  Heyer respected those that volunteered. Still, he respected those, like Rylee, that didn’t. The ones that weighed on him the most were the ones he couldn’t afford to give an option.

  Much like Jonathan, there were times when there was only one applicant. Heyer told no story to those men—requested no consent. At least, he no longer did, not since Rylee. It had become too much for him to pretend they had a choice in the matter when the reality would not make room for them to have a choice.

  “Were you able to take control of the hub inside Jonathan’s residence?” Heyer asked.

  “Yes,” Mr. Clean replied. “Jonathan has not yet had an opportunity to question Rylee in private, but access to their internal network allowed me to discover a number of other surveillance setups within the Seattle area.”

  Heyer frowned in curiosity. “They are watching others inside the city?”

  Mr. Clean disappeared to show the first of the feeds. The footage belonged to a shabby hotel room with no occupant. This, Heyer quickly realized, had been Rylee’s hotel room and was no longer of interest. The next feed had only one angle. Mounted inside the vent of a bedroom, a man he immediately recognized stepped into view.

  “Grant Morgan,” Heyer said. “It was too much to hope he had left town after The Cell dismissed him.”

  “It would appear so,” Mr. Clean replied. “I noticed you chose not to advise Jonathan of the circumstances that led to his involvement.”

  Heyer sighed. “We have to be careful with Jonathan for the time being. Telling him now would have led to questions I don’t yet want him asking.” Heyer watched the man on the feed a moment longer before turning away in thought. “If The Cell’s attention is still on Grant, we have to assume they made the connection between their fathers’ military unit. It is of no consequence. The Cell is grasping. If they know who Grant Morgan is, they would be foolish to think they can exploit it. For now, this works to our advantage. The Cell will keep tabs on him for us.”

  Mr. Clean brought up the last set of feeds, which appeared to be a network of cameras monitoring a residence.

  “Where is this?” Heyer asked.

  “The house beside Jonathan’s,�
�� Mr. Clean said. “The property is a rental. Current tenants are a Leah McGuire and her younger brother, Jack.”

  Heyer nodded, observing the footage. He saw a young woman standing in the dark, her back to him as she leaned on the rail, looking over a balcony. Another showed a child asleep in his bed. On a separate camera feed, Heyer saw a guest bedroom and a face he recognized.

  “Evelyn Tibbs… is currently staying at the residence?” he asked.

  “She arrived this evening. Miss McGuire interacts socially with members of Jonathan’s household, but the house is within range of the audio block, likely why The Cell has cameras on the premises,” Mr. Clean said.

  “Do you have any footage of this Ms. McGuire?” Heyer asked.

  A feed from earlier that evening played on the screen. It showed Leah talking with one of Jonathan’s roommates in the living room. Heyer’s eyes narrowed as he studied her face. “Why does she look familiar to me, Mr. Clean?” he asked.

  “Facial recognition does not match her with any persons of interest we have on file,” Mr. Clean said. “She did occupy the residence roughly two days after Jonathan’s implant was installed. Analysis of her face shows signs that plastic surgery may have altered her appearance.”

  Heyer watched the girl a moment longer, but if he knew her, he couldn’t place where their paths had crossed. “See what you can find on her and the child,” he said.

  “I will monitor the feed,” Mr. Clean said. “If there is a development, I’ll report on your return.”

  “You have prepared the beacon, then?”

  “You should rest before departure, sir,” the A.I. said.