She grinned, but her face betrayed that she wasn’t sure if he was kidding. Jack, content just to be sitting on it, didn’t seem to care that the bike was a mess.
“I had Collin check it out. He says it‘ll run. That’s all I need it to do,” Jonathan said.
She nodded, but still looked skeptical.
“So what do you need from me?” she asked.
Jonathan walked over to the cabinet where he stored his training staffs. Beside the practice weapons was a thick steel demolition bar. It was heavy, hexagonal in shape, coated with a rust resistant black oxide. The bar was the same length and height of the practice staffs, but thicker, with ends that looked like giant flat head screw drivers. He held it parallel to the side of the bike.
“I need to weld on clasps for this so that I can easily clip this bar on to the bike when I’m riding. I need to be sure it won’t slip loose and that it doesn’t hinder any of the operations of the bike. Also, I need to be able to get it free easily,” Jonathan said.
She looked up at him questioningly from beside the bike. He could see this wasn’t the type of welding she’d imagined him asking for.
“No big deal to do the alteration, especially since I don’t think you’ll care how it looks. We’ll put it on the side where the fuel tank is dented and the paint is scratched off. But…” She paused as she rose from kneeling beside the bike. “Why do you need to carry an oversized crowbar around?”
“It’s a demolition bar, a rather expensive one that I had to special order,” he said. “I’ve been looking at getting a side gig on a demolition’s crew, but I don’t want to leave this at work sites.”
The beauty of this lie was that it wasn’t a lie at all. Jonathan had been looking into an employment change with a demolitions crew as Mr. Fletcher had offered to help him with his current monetary issues. Running a hardware store gave the man a wide net of acquaintances that were always looking for a hardworking young man whom a trusted colleague like Mr. Fletcher could vouch for. The part about needing a special crowbar was complete crap, but at least if the story ever came up, it would sound legit to someone like Leah.
“That sounds like it’s half BS to me,” she said.
Or not, he thought. Jonathan was about to defend his story, but she stopped him.
“Tell you what, Tibbs,” she said. “You come out with us tonight, I’ll do your welding, and I won’t ask what it’s really for.”
Her offer not to require he explain himself was relieving, but much like buying the motorcycle had usurped his schedule, it now looked like this evening was going to be a wash as well. Luckily, he didn’t have a shift at the hardware store today, so he still had the rest of the afternoon. September was looming closer. The deadline was charging at him, whether he was ready or not. The only reason he could agree to forfeiting a night of training was if it was at least in an effort to move forward. Of course, it being Paige’s birthday also weighed in, he might not be there for the next one.
“Tibbs,” Leah said. “It’s getting offensive that you need to think about it this long.”
“Deal,” he said, sticking out his hand for her to shake.
“How formal,” she said, shaking his hand.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SATURDAY | AUGUST 13, 2005 | 3:15 PM
HE struggled to keep from growing frustrated as he threw his strikes into the punching bag, the familiar feeling of sweat beading up onto his forehead. With every punch that landed on the canvas he reprimanded himself for the imperfections in his technique.
His hand to hand wasn’t progressing as well as his weapons training. The fighting style couldn’t be learned as quickly. This realization, with his slow and disjointed rate of improvement, crept into his thoughts, regularly poisoning his confidence.
To be a master of hand-to-hand required a greater degree of fluidity gained through sparring and real life experience, a development of movements that needed to be instinctual, but on a deeper level than the staff. Jonathan was hard pressed to fit such a transformation into his deadline. If he’d already been acquainted with a fighting style, the standard body movements from an earlier age, it would have helped him immensely on the onset. As it was, Jonathan had never so much as taken a kickboxing class as a child. His mother had never pushed him toward such things and he had never pushed himself.
Through Lincoln’s contacts he’d been able to gain private training from a professional, much like his staff instructor. His teacher gave him praise for his degree of focus and commitment. The praise was, of course, lost on Jonathan. He was used to this reaction, much like with Lincoln training him at the gym and his staff instructor; they seemed to covet what they saw as raw determination.
The teachers could not find it in themselves, because they still believed that what they were seeing was ‘determination’; a desire inspired by an aspiration could not contend with need. Desire might gain strength from praise, but it did nothing for true need.
The instructor he’d chosen taught the Keysi Fight Method. Having no background from which to draw on, Jonathan had picked KFM because it was principled on effectiveness. It wasn’t a martial art meant for recreation, but for reality. It was a hard decision to research, as reality would be bent when he fought a monster capable of knocking him through walls with a single strike.
Keep your chin tucked in, shoulders up, he chastised himself.
He caught himself dropping his arms again and turned away hastily.
He fumed for a minute and forced some deep breaths. It was better to let his irritation run its course he’d found, than to force himself to try and struggle through it. Frustration could sometimes lead to a completely wasted training session or even a back slide if he allowed it to become strong enough.
Take a moment, his father would say.
It was then, while he tried to let his anger seep out, that he noticed he was no longer alone in the garage.
The blond man with his fedora stood against the wall, watching him train.
“Crap!” Jonathan jumped. His irritation replaced with shock.
“I apologize. I didn’t mean to startle you, but you looked so focused,” Heyer said. “I thought it best to wait.”
Jonathan laughed at himself. Here he was training to be some kind of warrior and he’d practically jumped into the rafters.
“It looks as though you have taken my instruction to heart,” Heyer said. “I’d wager you are twenty pounds heavier than when I saw you last.”
He’d expected he’d be angry when he saw the alien again. Instead, a tension he’d blamed on the stress of his circumstances relaxed. It was one of many burdens, but still, as it happened, he became aware of how much it had weighed on him, how he must have adapted unconsciously to carry it. Only as it lifted did he realize how heavy it had really been.
“Let’s hope it’s worth it,” Jonathan replied. “If I end up dying anyway, I could have spent the last three months in a drug-induced coma instead of wasting the time I had left.”
Heyer’s expression looked concerned at Jonathan’s grim outlook.
“I don’t think you ever would have done that, Jonathan,” Heyer replied.
Jonathan frowned at him.
“Oh, you were being comical,” Heyer said.
“I’m glad to see you,” Jonathan said, letting it show on his features that he was as surprised to say it as Heyer likely was to hear it. “Frankly, I question my sanity sometimes.”
“I apologize that I have been absent so long,” Heyer said. “You know it’s funny, all the technological advancements of my species have colluded to make me busier than any one man should be required. I can’t imagine being constrained to a 24 hour sleep pattern as humans are. But I digress, I returned as soon as I could.”
Jonathan found it odd that the alien referred to himself as a man.
“Don’t suppose I can ask what you were off doing?”
“I was engaged in a matter of diplomacy on the East Coast until a few moments ago,”
Heyer said. “Off planet before that.”
Jonathan nodded.
“So you’re just going to be purposely cryptic then?” he said. “I guess I shouldn’t be asking anyway.”
Heyer halfheartedly smiled and began to pace around the garage. Tapping his foot against one of the weights Jonathan had left on the floor, reaching out and pushing the punching bag to see it sway, he seemed more human for a moment as he busied his body with the examination of the room. It reminded Jonathan of the way his grandfather used to look when he’d taken him garage sale shopping as a kid.
“It’s not my aim to keep you in the dark, Jonathan. But the less you know the safer we both remain. In the end, there is nothing I could reveal to you that will serve you in any useful capacity. Still though,” Heyer paused, appraising Jonathan before committing to anything. “I understand what it is to want to know what you are a part of. It is not, after all, a desire unique to man.”
“What does that mean?” Jonathan asked.
“Perhaps…” Heyer emphasized the word and let it linger. “Once you’ve repelled the next inbound, we will discuss some of your questions,” Heyer said, stressing the word some as deliberately as the word perhaps.
“What?” Jonathan said skeptically, unsure of what the alien seemed to be offering. “Is that your idea of a reward?”
“No, Jonathan, I would not consider knowing anything about our arrangement a reward,” Heyer said. “More of a responsibility.”
“I don’t get it. What difference does it make if you tell me now or later?” Jonathan asked.
“There’s still some time to pass before that next Ferox breaches the gates,” Heyer said. “Between then and now, you and I may find we need to be able to trust each other.”
The word trust seemed to cause them both to pause. Jonathan hadn’t previously thought of trust as something Heyer would need of him. Reflecting on the notion, Jonathan wasn’t sure if he could ever trust the alien.
“I’m not sure how people in a situation like ours go about building trust,” he said bluntly.
“Nor I, in fact,” Heyer said, with a small grin, “but despite how difficult things may seem now, information is a heavier burden than you imagine. There may be a time when you think fondly of these days, when your only concern was killing a monster, when you may wish you could go back to being in the dark.”
Jonathan began to argue, but Heyer put his hand up to stop him. “It is not a point of debate, Jonathan. It is my responsibility, and I must decide the burden you are prepared to carry. I do not think it wise that you carry any more weight into your confrontation with the Ferox.”
They starred at each other as the alien’s decree sank in.
“Time is drawing near, Jonathan,” he said. “You have had some time to adapt to your situation, to think about the challenges ahead. I came to see if there was anything I could do to help you.”
Jonathan teetered back and forth like a rebellious teenager, not wanting to be told that the discussion was simply over, but seeing the necessity of changing topics. Finally, he quashed his rebellion and started asking other questions.
“Do the Ferox have any weaknesses?” Jonathan asked.
“No, at least not outside of what you already know. Drowning or blunt force trauma,” Heyer replied.
“Can’t you give me some kind of weapon to fight them?” Jonathan asked. “A space gun or something?”
Heyer looked like he was coming close to rolling his eyes at such a juvenile question.
“No, Jonathan, if things were that simple, there would be no need for our current arrangement. Outside of the device implanted in your chest, I cannot help you by any means that are not of this earth.” Heyer said.
“That sounds like,” Jonathan paused. “That sounds like a rule.”
“In fact it is,” Heyer replied. “But for the record, I do not possess an armory of the kind you are imagining.”
“If you can’t help outside of the device, can you make the device itself stronger?” Jonathan asked, pointing to his chest.
“No,” Heyer replied.
“Why not?” Jonathan asked.
“I did not build the device, I do not know how it works on an engineering level,” Heyer said.
“What do you mean you don’t know how it works?” Jonathan asked incredulously.
Heyer, looking slightly exasperated, glanced around the room until he noticed Jonathan’s cell phone on top of a cabinet. He walked over and picked it up, holding it before Jonathan.
“Jonathan do you know how to operate this cell phone?” he asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Do you know how to build one, or make this one any better?” Heyer asked.
“No,” Jonathan said, dejectedly seeing Heyer’s point.
“It’s the same with technology from my civilization,” he said. “I’m not an engineer. To give you better context, I once had to make a modification to your device. If an engineer of my people had seen that attempt, it would have been like watching a toddler trying to break the encryptions around the Pentagon.”
Jonathan found himself disarmed when the alien compared himself to a child. Heyer always seemed so grave in his explanations, it seemed inconsistent that the alien did not in fact take himself just as seriously.
“With the assistance of artificial intelligence, it took me over ten years to make that one adjustment,” Heyer explained.
“Well fine, fair enough,” Jonathan said. “Can you get an engineer from your species to help?”
Heyer sighed. Clearly these weren’t the sort of questions he had intended to be fielding.
“No,” he said. “It is not an option.”
“Why wouldn’t someone help you?” Jonathan asked.
Heyer shook his head. Apparently this information was off limits as well.
“Let’s try to stick with practical matters, Jonathan. Just accept that if there was some simple technological way for me to make your confrontation any easier, I would have already told you,” Heyer said.
Jonathan thought about that for a moment. Like most things Heyer told him, there was little more that he could do than accept them as truth, as skeptical as he might be. There was no way to fact check the alien.
“Heyer, what would you be doing if you were me?” Jonathan asked.
“I think you have the right idea, Jonathan. I’ve only seen a Ferox brought down by those who brought a superior offense; no small task, I know, but not impossible as you’ve proven. As you’ve surmised, our inability to plan beyond knowing the window of time it should appear in, and knowing roughly a ten mile radius of where, makes setting up a trap almost impossible,” Heyer said.
It was disappointing to Jonathan, the man who knew all the real details of what was happening and what he was up against had not been able to come up with a better solution than Jonathan had flying nearly blind, yet there was one piece of information that Jonathan realized he hadn’t known previously.
“Wait, a ten mile radius of where exactly?” Jonathan asked.
Heyer paused.
Had the alien slipped and told him something he hadn’t intended? He looked Jonathan in the eye now, as though he was carefully choosing his words.
“Let’s just say, roughly within ten miles of where we stand,” Heyer said.
“Why would my garage be the center of a ten mile bull’s-eye for these damn things?” Jonathan said hearing the anger creep into his voice. He felt this disclosure reeked of some betrayal on the alien’s part, but he already knew that Heyer wasn’t going to answer him. This detail, it seemed to be screaming something at him but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
“Jonathan, please. Let’s return to matters of utility,” Heyer said, and before Jonathan could argue he changed the subject. “What is your strategy? You don’t intend to face your enemy with nothing but your hands.”
Jonathan’s inner struggle was showing on his face again as he did not want to relinquish the pursuit of his
previous question. In the end, if the alien wasn’t going to explain, there was nothing he could do to make him. So he dropped it for the moment and responded.
“No,” Jonathan said as he walked to the cabinet where he stored his practice staffs and opened the door.
“Yes,” Heyer said, “the bo staff; an ideal choice.”
“I’ve trained every day with this. The problem is,” Jonathan said, “there’s no way to practice fighting a monster.”
Heyer nodded, understanding the complication.
“Yes, I imagine it would be odd to persistently request your sparring partner’s fight you unarmed,” he said.
Heyer removed his trench coat and laid it over the weight bench, then checked his watch. “This I can help you with, Jonathan. You will attempt to strike me.”
The alien went about removing his shoes as though he’d not said anything out of the ordinary. He placed them neatly under his coat.
It made a sort of sense. Jonathan remembered hitting the alien with the baseball bat. It was unlikely that he could hurt Heyer without the aid of the device in his chest. He paused a moment mulling over if he could truly attack the alien now, but quickly embraced the opportunity. It was the best practice he could hope for, unless he could talk Hayden or Collin into running around the garage in hockey pads while he tried to take their head off. This was considerably less dangerous.
Jonathan nodded slowly and picked up the training staff. They faced one another in the center of the room. He noticed then, that there was a glow from beneath Heyer’s shirt. It was not unlike the glow Jonathan had seen on his own chest when he’d been activated. Heyer’s glow was yellow though and less pronounced. The lines were smaller, not reaching around his entire torso but centered into the place where his chest and stomach met. None of the yellow lines crossed, they ran parallel, one on top of the other.
Heyer, seeing Jonathan distracted by the light, addressed his unspoken question.
“Yes, it is not unlike the device in your chest, Jonathan. Its power source is not tied to the presence of a portal stone. Do not let it distract you. Focus on striking me.”
Jonathan nodded, and readied himself. He started with a display of skill, whipping the staff around him in a manner that demonstrated his aptitude with the weapon.
Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs 1: The Never Hero Page 25