The Never Paradox (Chronicles Of Jonathan Tibbs Book 2)

by T. Ellery Hodges

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  THURSDAY| OCTOBER 14, 2005 | 5:00 AM | SEATTLE

  THE SUN WAS coming up when Jonathan and Evelyn backed into the driveway. His mother helped him unload the footlocker, setting it on the garage floor. When they’d finished, Jonathan waited, not knowing how to ask her to leave.

  This quickly became an awkward silence, as Evelyn had not seemed to realize that she knew more than he’d wanted her to and Jonathan didn’t wish to exacerbate the problem. Whatever he found inside the box, he wanted it to stay between him and his father.

  “Well,” Evelyn said. “Let’s get this thing open.”

  “Mom,” Jonathan said. “I need you to go.”

  She looked surprised.

  “You wanted to help,” he said. “You did.”

  “You listen to me—”

  Evelyn found herself cut off when her cell phone rang. His mother’s eyes narrowed as she looked at the caller ID. She seemed reluctant to answer while he was standing in front of her. Jonathan watched her suspiciously as she continued to hesitate with each ring. She didn’t want to let the call go to voice mail.

  Finally, Evelyn released a tense breath, retreating out of the garage with the phone in hand, answering the call only as she closed the door into the house behind her. He was curious as he watched the door close. He hadn’t known what he was going to say to get her to leave, but a call important enough to take her out of the room, though convenient, was just as worrisome.

  Pulling the garage door down, he turned his attention back to the footlocker. In the large drawer at the bottom of Collin’s tool box, he found the bolt cutters. He stopped before he reached for them—he needed to check on Rylee, but didn’t know how long that phone call was going to keep his mother busy. Then he heard a car door shutting outside, the engine of his mother’s car pulling away.

  He sighed.

  Whatever call she had received was apparently important enough for her to leave. His mother was definitely up to something. He knew she meant well, but no matter what she was doing, it was obviously something she didn’t want him finding out about. Which meant it had to be stopped. Seeing there was nothing he could do about it in that moment, he went inside.

  The hour was still early and he didn’t want to wake his roommates, so he was quiet on his way up the stairs. When he reached the second floor, he saw Paige’s door was open, her bed empty. His own door was shut, and he gently turned the handle.

  Rylee lay in his bed. She didn’t wake as he stepped into the room. He stood over her for a moment, letting the sight of her drain the tension from him. She’d fallen asleep with her phone clutched in her hand. Jonathan had wanted to hear her voice all night, but hadn’t wanted to risk calling, afraid he might wake her if she slept. He grimaced, wondering if she’d felt the pain of his absence. Had she wanted to call, but resisted because she wanted to prove she wasn’t weak—show him her strength even after he told her he did not question it?

  He closed his eyes then, fighting a desire to wake her, to touch her skin—as though placing his hand over hers, seeing her looking back at him, would somehow make her presence feel more real. Frustratingly, his thoughts told him he would only do her harm in the long run, while the rest of him couldn’t understand how the warmth of her hand could possibly be a bad thing. Did it matter that they were being manipulated if he no longer cared?

  He stopped, finding his hand already reaching for her.

  Heyer had warned him that if he indulged the artificial he would lose sight of the real. Wouldn’t be able to see what should and shouldn’t be happening within him. The alien hadn’t lied, but Jonathan saw now that it wasn’t the truth. It wouldn’t be a matter of losing sight, it would simply be choosing not to care about what was true.

  Carefully, he slipped the cell phone from her palm to place it beside her on the bed stand. As soon as he pulled it free, Rylee’s hand reacted, taking took hold of his.

  “Tibbs,” Rylee whispered, her lips curving into a peaceful smile.

  The sensation of her fingers wrapped around his own sent a tremble up him, every hair on his arm standing up. It was part disappointment and part relief when he realized she hadn’t woken, but only reacted to him in her sleep. Carefully, he slipped his hand away, gently pulling the covers over her before he slipped back out of the room.

  When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he saw Hayden standing in the living room. Apparently, his roommate had also been trying to keep quiet, not wanting to wake those who slept. He wasn’t dressed, still wearing his robe as he stared at the shelf of DVDs. He turned to Jonathan with tired eyes and waved halfheartedly. Jonathan looked to the garage door, where he knew the footlocker waited for him. Seeing Hayden still awake at this time of the morning, though, he found he could put off the box a moment longer.

  “You haven’t slept?” Jonathan asked.

  Hayden shook his head.

  Jonathan stepped closer, his face sympathetic. “You know,” he said. “I haven’t asked. I was being selfish, if I am being honest, because it was nice not to be the only one awake most nights. But, why aren’t you sleeping, Hayden?”

  Hayden shrugged. “Kind of one of those things where…” He paused. “If I knew, then I probably would be sleeping right now.”

  “Yeah,” Jonathan smiled. “I get that.”

  Hayden nodded, his eyes going back to the DVD titles. Jonathan scratched his head, deciding he owed it to his friend to pry a little more.

  “You seemed upset the other night. About the comic book.”

  Hayden nodded, but didn’t reply.

  Jonathan bit his lip. “Look, I had this idea,” he said. “Hear me out on it?”

  Hayden turned to Jonathan, his eyes curious despite the shadows from lack of sleep. “Sure.”

  Jonathan took a moment to think about what he wanted to say. “In the Bible, did Jesus ever ask for forgiveness?” he asked carefully. “I don’t mean from God—I mean, did he ever ask for a man to forgive him?”

  Hayden thought about it, but shook his head. “No … at least, I don’t think so. It would kinda negate the whole ‘perfect being’ concept if he did.”

  Jonathan nodded.

  “Right, he is your role model, and so you want him to be perfect,” Jonathan said, shaking his head a moment later. “The thing is, Collin will always be able to put a perfect person in a situation where no amount of power in the world can create a perfect outcome, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

  Hayden gave a questioning glance.

  “You can’t ever really know what the messiah would do,” Jonathan said. “If you did, you would be a messiah, and you wouldn’t have to question if you made the right decision, you would just know.”

  “Yeah,” Hayden said. “What is it you’re getting at?”

  “What I’m saying is that a perfect person might be a comforting thing to believe in, but it isn’t very helpful as far as role models go.”

  Jonathan sighed, swallowing before he went on.

  “I think what is bothering you is that you want Jesus to save the day with philosophy, not a miracle. You want him to make a moral judgment. Because you want his decision to be one that any person could make.”

  Hayden nodded, still seeming uncertain where Jonathan was heading.

  “A man can’t make the same decision as Superman would, let alone a messiah,” Jonathan said. “He can’t skip the hard questions because he knows he has a miracle up his sleeve. He has to make choices, and then he has to live with them, but he never gets to be sure it was the right call.”

  “Okay,” Hayden said. “So what was your idea for the comic book?”

  Jonathan squinted at him, smiling with half his lip. “I know it started out as a joke. But you wouldn’t have rebooted the Bible if you wanted to read about a perfect person doing perfect things. If you’re dead set on having one of Jesus’s miracles be the trigger that leads Damian to become the antichrist, then maybe it can be whatever teaches Jesus th
at there isn’t always a perfect solution…”

  Jonathan trailed off, thinking over his words, before continuing:

  “I’m sure you and Collin have a big finale planned out, but maybe the last step for Jesus to become the messiah is asking Damian to forgive him for whatever part he played in turning him into the villain he became. Because, in your story, Jesus and Damian don’t even know who their fathers were yet. I mean, Damian thought he was just a man, that he had to make a man’s decision.”

  “Huh … so, in a way, the solution that seems perfect at the time actually creates the antichrist?” Hayden asked. “It could work. JC is pretty big on forgiveness, so it would make a decent back story if he had to ask for it at least once.” He looked at Jonathan questioningly. “So, where the heck did you come up with this?”

  Jonathan groaned as he pointed to a collector’s edition box set on the DVD shelf. “I figured you are essentially writing a sequel—I kept thinking of that line from The Empire Strikes back, ‘But you are not a Jedi yet,’ got me thinking that you shouldn’t have Super-Jesus be a fully realized messiah in the sequel, because you need to save that for the finale.”

  “Ahhh….” Hayden smiled. “Once again, The Holy Trilogy comes to our aid.”

  Jonathan smiled at him.

  “You’re right you know,” Hayden said. “At this point in the story, Jesus is kind of like Skywalker. He doesn’t really know who his father is.”

  The padlock on his father’s footlocker was no cheap piece of hardware. Even with the bolt cutters, Jonathan had to wrestle it for quite a while before he managed to get the angle and leverage to cut through the steel. When the snap finally came, he dropped the bolt cutters and removed the now-useless hunk of metal, leaving it beside him as he knelt in front of the box.

  He hesitated.

  You only think this is what you’re here for. Jess’s words echoed. It’s not.

  He knew the footlocker promised nothing—could well be a dead end. He might reach the bottom only to find that his imagination had constructed an elaborate dream out of dusty memories. Given that the moment he’d been on his way to retrieve the box those dreams seemed to try and backpedal, he knew he needed to be prepared for disappointment.

  That level-headed thinking lasted a few seconds. Then he opened the lid and the first thing he saw was the picture of his mother holding him in the hospital. Immediately, Jonathan felt a sense of providence. He set the picture gently beside him and began to dig.

  Civilian clothing was neatly folded beside military dress uniforms. There was a disassembled assault rifle and a small box containing a side arm and spare clips. He removed the guns carefully. It wasn’t a surprise to find them, but their presence put a crack in his confidence. That lock that had given him so much trouble may not have been protecting a secret, but only keeping a weapon safe.

  He found more battle fatigues, a flak jacket, belts and harnesses, a gas mask, and an Army issue helmet. Yet, when his eyes fell on a pair of boots, he paused. He’d thought they were hiking boots when he had seen them in his dreams—he realized now that they matched the rest of his father’s gear.

  In a corner of the box, he uncovered a stack of old letters held together by a rubber band. The paper had yellowed with age, the envelopes addressed from his mother to Douglas. From their age, Jonathan figured they must have been sent while his father had been overseas. He didn’t want to open them out of respect for the privacy of his parents. Regardless, he doubted he would find useful information in the letters. He knew his father had guarded his secrets from Evelyn. He put them aside, deciding not to open them unless nothing else in the box shed any light on his immediate questions.

  He fought worried thoughts as the bottom of the box drew closer, but when he reached the final article, the fear solidified. There, lying on the bottom of the chest, he found a thick, heavy blanket. It was utilitarian, brown, and without any aesthetic appeal—something a soldier might use to line a tent. He felt himself giving up but ignored it out of denial. His eyes searched the sides of the box for something he’d missed, a compartment—something hidden.

  Nothing.

  The word entered his thoughts without his permission, with no regard as to whether he was willing to accept it. He closed his eyes, only to find he still didn’t believe it. In desperation, he turned back to the pile he’d made while emptying the footlocker’s contents and dug through the things he had extracted, checking every article of clothing for something he had missed, every coat and pant pocket.

  There is nothing here.

  He shut his eyes trying to contain his frustration, but disappointment got the better of him, and exploded into anger. “Dammit!” he growled, shoving the footlocker away.

  The box slid across the floor, no longer heavy with the weight of his father’s possessions, and toppled onto its side. The lid slammed shut when it came to a stop.

  The muffled sound of metal colliding with metal reached him.

  Jonathan froze, his eyes opening as he stared at the box now lying on its side.

  It had been subdued, its vibrations silenced by fabric within the box. His head lifted, tilting as he wondered at the footlocker. He hadn’t imagined it, and that was not the noise of a blanket. He crawled over and lifted the box upright. Again, the sound of steel. He reopened the box to find the blanket’s fabric no longer nicely folded.

  A thick piece of black steel had fallen free of the blanket’s folds. A handle—engraved with a word still half-covered by the blanket.

  Dooms—

  He recognized the style of writing immediately and reached down, knowing the feel of alien steel as soon as he took hold. As he pulled the handle from the fabric, he heard the clinking of metal links beneath.

  Doomsday.

  He dropped the steel onto the blanket, stunned by what it meant. His face hardened, and a moment later he threw the fabric off, exposing the weapon in whole.

  He’d only been looking at the end. A long chain connected to the base of the handle, the length of it wrapped in circles and finally connecting to a head of steel that was half spike and half scythe-like on the other end. He’d seen something like it before, mounted on the wall of his staff instructor’s studio. A kusarigama—though this had been highly modified. The weapon would be far too cumbersome, too heavy to take into combat with a man, but ideal for an active combatant to dispatch a Ferox.

  Unable to take his eyes away, he pulled Doomsday out of the footlocker and rested it on his lap. His hand reached across the floor without thought, finding the toolbox and a flat metal file. In a moment, he scratched off the black carbonite on one of the chain links to see the reflective surface of the metal beneath. There was no doubting its origin; this was a weapon only Heyer could have given to his father. Douglas Tibbs had not died from a car accident. He’d been killed by a Ferox, and the alien had covered up his disappearance. From what his mother had said, Jonathan suspected Heyer had staged the accident, replaced the body with one so badly burned that the identity had been hidden.

  Why—why make a special exception? Why go to that trouble when he didn’t bother for all the other disappearances? He felt his faith in the alien crumbling, unable to justify such an omission. Why keep this from him now?

  “Ten years,” Jonathan whispered.

  Something Heyer had said—Jonathan’s mind grabbed hold of it, desperately trying to see the connection. He fought to focus, to remember every word the alien had ever exchanged with him. It had to be right in front of him if he could just see how the pieces came together. He repeated the words over and over in his head, as though he was, yet again, trying to cut his way through a lock.

  Ten years… ten years… ten damn years!

  He closed his eyes in frustration, unable to unearth what he knew was buried somewhere in his memories. He wished for his father to be there—to tell him who he’d been.

  After some time, he hung Doomsday next to Excali-bar and Themyscira, hidden behind the facade in the cupboard. He s
tarted to put the contents of the box away, wrapping the guns in the blanket, placing them at the bottom beneath the rest. It was the best he could do to hide the firearms until he could replace the lock. He took care placing each item back into the box. Finally, he rested the picture frame and the letters on top, knowing that they would be the first thing his mother would find when she ignored his request to leave the box to him.

  For now, he needed a lock, and knew where to get one.

  When he stole his bike back from Leah’s, he found the plastic fenders were back in place and the alteration was finished. He didn’t want to wake her—already had enough going on in his head. Riding the bike had always been a way to turn off his thoughts for a while. Maybe if he got away from everything for a bit, the answer he couldn’t pull out of the clutter would come to him.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  DATE | TIME: UNKNOWN | FEROXIAN PLANE

  GRANT’S SHADOW FOLLOWED Malkier outside. When he stepped past the boundaries of Cede into the ravine his eyes squinted in discomfort. He’d not had open sky overhead since being taken below, and the purple morning light of the Feroxian Plane was unpleasant on eyes that had adapted to little light. He shaded his face with a hand and peered up. He was unable to see the horizon from inside the rocky walls, but could tell where the sun was rising from how the slow gradient of red grew brightest in one direction. Still, his eyes would not adapt fast enough, and he turned away.

  The doorway shimmered closed behind him, returning to camouflaged stone, and Grant caught his reflection on the glassy black mirror. Over his shoulder, Malkier strode toward the gateway.

  After Grant had left the chamber where the parasite inhabiting his father’s body was held prisoner, Malkier had remained inside for quite some time. Once he emerged, events had moved forward so quickly that Grant had been hard-pressed to keep up.

  The Alpha leaders of each tribe had been visited by a broadcasted vision of Ends the Storm. In reality, they had only witnessed a holographic image that their primitive understanding believed to be the prophet’s astral projection. Each had bowed in reverence to the power of their gods as the visage of their prophet spoke to them across the distance.