He tossed Collin’s prison door through the gaping hole at the shell’s entrance, then walked over to Hayden’s cell and repeated the process. For the time being, he didn’t really acknowledge his friends’ wide-eyed stares.
“Am I correct in assuming that it’s pointless to bother getting you caught up on what’s happened since we saw each other last?” Jonathan asked.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Mr. Clean replied. “My shadow cannot transfer information to my counterpart outside The Never. However, I can report some good news. A team has been assembled and a strategy for extracting you from your location is in development.”
“Since you mentioned it, where the hell is my location?” Jonathan asked.
“A cold war research facility beneath Fort Base Lewis-McChord. Its construction is completely off record. As a result, the extraction team is still gathering pertinent tactical details,” Mr. Clean said. “However, you are directly beneath one of the base’s landing strips. The main way in and out is a primary elevator shaft that empties into a large hangar on the surface. The surface building . . .”
While Jonathan was absorbing information, he began to feel the pressure of his friends staring at him as well as the certainty that every passing second The Cell was mounting an assault to recapture him.
“Look, I know you deserve an explanation,” Jonathan said. “It’s coming, but I need a minute. So, for now, Hayden, she’s got an extra set of cuffs on her belt, put them on her. Collin, see if her vest fits.”
Jonathan threw a last warning glance at Harrison not to make trouble before walking away and kneeling at the front of the shell. Collin and Hayden stared at one another for a long moment of indecision, then back to Jonathan who appeared to be having a private conversation with an imaginary friend. Finally, Collin’s hands went up. “Well, what the hell else are we going to do?”
“Mr. Clean,” Jonathan said. “You must know about Rylee by now?”
“Yes, her device returned to the armory yesterday, though the greater mystery was the arrival of the Alpha Slayer implant around the same instant. When we last had the Alpha Slayer in our possession, Heyer had returned it to the Foedrata arena,” Mr. Clean said.
Jonathan spared a bitter glance at Grant’s cell.
“Malkier retrieved it. Implanted it into a shadow of Grant Morgan,” Jonathan said with a sigh. “Look, it’s a long story that ends with me uninstalling it. I’ll fill you in on the details in the real world, but right now . . .
Jonathan closed his eyes, swallowed. “I need your help. I’m . . . I’m about to be in bad shape.”
“The broken bond—it is known to be a uniquely cruel experience. I am sorry, Jonathan. Anything I can do to be of assistance I will,” Mr. Clean said.
“The records you took from the Foedrata mainframe, do any of them tell you what happened to combatants who survived the bond being severed?”
“You are wondering if any recovered?” Mr. Clean asked.
“Tell me whatever you know,” Jonathan said.
“This is what humans refer to as a good news/bad news situation,” Mr. Clean said. “The bad news is that only three such records exist, though only one survived. In the first case, the female lived through the death of her bonded partner but died shortly after from wounds obtained during the battle.”
“In the second, it is less clear, the male died the next time he was put in the arena,” Mr. Clean said. “The Ferox hunted him down, but he put up no resistance. Victory was one-sided and swift.”
“You said there was a third case?” Jonathan asked.
“Yes, a female survived. Unfortunately, this was because the bond was reestablished to a new male, which, even if there was a candidate, is not a solution we can attempt while you are in the temporary dimension.”
“You said there was good news?” Jonathan asked.
“Yes, though it’s theoretical. Rylee barely survived the implantation of her device due to her minimal compatibility. This resulted in a weaker bond. Also, she was only in close proximity to you for a few days, whereas the Foedrata’s human combatants were under the bond’s influence for long periods depending on their success in the arena. There is reason to hope the bond will affect you less severely.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head, but he didn’t bother saying that this was not actually good news. Even if Mr. Clean was right, and he was experiencing something less terrible than those poor souls in the past, it did nothing to help him now. He was terrified of the bond’s capabilities, and it was already reasserting itself.
If he stopped caring in the middle of a fight with a Ferox—he was dead.
If he didn’t retrieve the stone—he was dead.
“You seem to have your wits about you,” Mr. Clean said.
“For now, but I can feel it taking control back,” Jonathan said. “Don’t know how long I have.”
“I wish I had some actionable intelligence to offer you,” Mr. Clean replied.
“Well, I’ve got exactly one idea,” Jonathan said, forcing his voice to take on a satirical optimism. “It’s a really bad one . . . but seeing as it’s all I’ve got, it’s time we get excited about it.”
A momentary silence from Mr. Clean indicated that he wasn’t certain how to respond. “What can I do?”
“How long would it take you to craft something out of true Borealis steel and get it to me?”
“Not long,” Mr. Clean said. “Under normal circumstances, I try not to be too liberal with True Steel. As you may know, it is a limited resource, but given whatever use you have in mind will only exist in this temporary reality, I can provide whatever you require.”
“Really?” Jonathan said, teeth tightening in annoyance.
If only this extremely useful information could have been revealed at any point in the months before . . . nope, no time for that right now.
“Good to know! Gosh, we’ll have to circle back to that! Right now, I need a few things. The first is a syringe that can penetrate my skin, and your best guess on how much synthetic adrenaline I can inject without killing myself.”
Awkwardly, Collin undid the straps holding Harrison’s vest over her torso. Meanwhile, Hayden clumsily went about securing her wrists behind her back with her own handcuffs, apologizing the entire time he was doing so. Through the whole exchange, the two glanced anxiously at Jonathan.
He was still kneeling at the front of the shell, talking to himself. He didn’t look crazy at first but as the one-sided conversation went on his voice was getting—more colorful.
“Maybe he actually is talking to someone?” Collin whispered.
Hayden’s face tilted out from behind Harrison, and the anxiety running through his thoughts was palpable. He started to speak, then seemed to consider Harrison standing between them.
“Um, sorry about this ma’am,” he said, before placing his clammy hands over her ears.
“Did you get the feeling he . . . wasn’t . . . bluffing when he said he’d break her bones?”
Collin shrugged uncomfortably.
He’d found that exchange disturbing as well. But Jonathan’s chest was glowing, and he’d just ripped their prison doors off like they were made of cardboard. At the time, it hadn’t seemed like the thing to focus on. Except . . . now that he thought about it . . . Tibbs had that look on his face when he was threatening Harrison.
Collin had started noticing that look months ago. He’d even confided in Tibbs once that it disturbed him on a primal level. When Jonathan got that predatory gaze, Collin got a fear like he was standing beside a man who was capable of anything.
But . . .
“He seems to know what he’s doing,” Collin whispered. “So that makes exactly one of us.”
He’d just gotten Harrison’s vest in place when he noticed Jonathan reach down and pick something up off the corridor floor. Collin couldn’t make it out before Tibbs tucked it into the back of his pants and covered it with his shirt. He spoke to himself a little while longer, then
he was walking back their way.
He frowned at them. “Why are you covering her ears?”
Hayden, having forgotten he was still doing so, pulled his hands back.
“Alright,” Jonathan said. “For the next minute, just accept everything I tell you is the truth. I’ve explained this to you so many times that I’ve gotten pretty good at it.”
Collin and Hayden glanced at one another. Looking for any indication that Jonathan had ever said anything to either of them that explained this.
“Each time this happens to me,” Jonathan pointed at his chest, “you don’t remember. You’re like Drew Barrymore in Fifty First Dates. When the two of you found me on the kitchen floor a few months back, it was because an alien showed up and installed this MacGyver unit in my chest.”
Collin frowned, glancing at Hayden to see his friend was also confused. “Wait, Jonathan did . . . did you mean a Guyver unit?” Collin asked.
“Sorry, yeah,” Jonathan said.
Collin nodded slowly in understanding.
“Anyway,” Jonathan continued, “that alien did this because every so often, a creature from another dimension attacks Earth. The sort mankind isn’t equipped to deal with. When that happens, this thing in my chest activates and I go take care of it. No one ever remembers, because the moment I’m done, I’m Ground Hog Day-ed back to the moment before it happened.”
Harrison seemed to also be listening to what Jonathan was saying, but her face looked like only half the words she was hearing were in English. Meanwhile Collin and Hayden nodded along in comprehension.
“What does that thing do to you exactly?” Collin asked, nodding at the orange glow.
“Hayden says it makes me something like The Tick without the stupidity,” Jonathan said.
“Oh,” Hayden nodded. “Semi-impervious with enhanced strength.”
“Sure, anyhow, after I found out the real-life Men in Black,” Jonathan pointed at Harrison, “were tracking the alien’s activities, I couldn’t tell you anything. Ironically, I was trying to avoid the exact situation we are currently in the middle of . . .”
“This is heavy,” Collin said. “And . . . this . . . this was the best explanation you came up with?”
Jonathan suppressed a smile. “For you two, when I’m pressed for time . . . yeah.”
There was a pause as they thought this over.
“I mean,” Collin looked to Hayden, “it does sound a lot more like something we’d come up with than anything Tibbs would.”
Hayden’s eyes suddenly turned from excited to worried. “Wait, so some monster is coming for us right now?”
Jonathan tilted his head as though he was listening. “Soon. Hopefully when it does whoever is running this facility won’t take too long realizing I’m not the problem they should be worrying about.”
“So, what do we do?” Collin asked.
“Harrison here is going to kindly guide me through this facility. It’s up to you two if you want to follow, probably a lot safer if you stay put. I’m going to get shot at on my way out . . . a lot.”
“. . . and you’re bulletproof?” Hayden asked
“So far,” he said.
Hayden nodded, looking impressed as he thought about it. Then asked, “Even if they shoot you in the eye?”
Jonathan frowned as he considered. In the span of a few seconds his expression went from confident, to uncertain, and finally annoyed. “For the love of . . . I don’t know! Not going to stand still long enough to find out what that feels like.”
With that, Jonathan tugged Harrison out in front and began heading down the corridor.
“Jeez,” Hayden whispered. “Sensitive about your superpowers much?”
Having promised Harrison that, should either of his friends come to harm because she led them into a trap, she would endure an identical fate, she led the way through the corridors. She had looked as though she believed the threat and was weighing if she wanted to gamble. But, when Jonathan told her where he wanted to go, she seemed to conclude that it wasn’t in her interest to thwart him.
They hadn’t run into any resistance—they hadn’t run into anyone. The alarm had either triggered a lockdown or an evacuation protocol. For now, the empty hallways flashed their angry red lights and the walrus alarm kept right on barking.
In short, the atmosphere was less than charming.
To the uninitiated, the place was a small maze. Every hall and doorway looking similar enough that it would be easy to waste time going in circles. Jonathan assumed every step they took was being monitored by security cameras. He was cautious of the areas that looked ideal for an ambush. He’d told his friends to hit the ground the moment they heard gunfire—told them not to think twice about using Harrison as a human shield for that matter. He was fast, but there was no way he could protect them from automatic fire if they were boxed in. In these corridors it wouldn’t be hard for The Cell to accomplish just that. They knew the layout and he didn’t.
He was torn on whether he should have allowed them to come. If they were harmed in The Never it would only be their shadows. Jonathan still had no desire to see it happen. On the other hand, had he left them behind, The Cell would have surely retrieved them and tried to use their lives as leverage to get him to stand down. Which, he not only would not—but could not—do.
So, the math hadn’t been great with either choice. For now, he hoped that anyone opening fire on them would see the guy glowing bright orange first and aim accordingly.
Finally, just as they approached a corner, the alarm abruptly stopped and a second later the corridor lights went out.
Had Jonathan not been his own walking flashlight he’d have been standing in the darkness. Instead, he could see the fear of his friends illuminated in his orange glow as they pressed their backs to the wall behind him. Jonathan stopped, held up a palm to get their attention, then pointed at the ground. They nodded, even Harrison seeming eager to get as flat against the floor as possible.
Jonathan took a deep breath. Here we go.
He turned the corner, stepping right out into the center of the hallway and making himself into a glowing target none could miss in the dark.
“Jonathan Tibbs! Stand down!” yelled a voice from other side of the corridor. “One move and we’ll open fi—”
The moment the man’s voice gave Jonathan a sense of the distance between them, he shot sprinting into the darkness.
“Take him down! Take him down!”
In the narrow corridors, the sound of automatic weapons was deafening. Jonathan felt the rounds, most of them were finding their target after all, a lot like being assaulted with ping-pong balls. Unfortunately for his attackers, the darkness turned the bursts of fire from their muzzles into targets. The moment Jonathan knew precisely where they were standing, he launched toward them, clearing the distance in one bound.
He spread his arms wide as he went and barreled in like a bowling ball hitting pins. Their formation was thrown into chaos as two of the men took the blunt force of his body crashing into them while two others were clotheslined by his arms. He tucked into a ball and rolled to one knee, knowing that he’d just put four men on the ground and suspecting that at least two of them would be headed to the hospital.
As he stood, the entire squad became illuminated in the orange glow of his chest.
Eight men surrounded him, all in full combat gear and carrying military grade assault rifles. Their faces were covered by the thermal optics they had hoped would give them an advantage after the lights went out. The two he’d clipped with his arms had been knocked into their allies harder than he’d intended.
One yelled, moving as though he must have broken a collar bone or a rib in the collision. It was unfortunate—he wasn’t trying to kill but even with his attempts to hold back, the human body was just too fragile.
The first man to recover his wits, one of the few that hadn’t been thrown off his feet, took aim, managing to get off three point-blank shots into his abdom
en before Jonathan grabbed him by his armored vest and pulled him off his feet. The man kept firing as Jonathan crushed his goggles.
He sensed the movement of two more behind him; they’d been pushed to the corridor wall when he landed. Their weapons raised, they were holding their fire, not wanting to hit one of their own in these close quarters. Sweeping around, he let go of the man’s vest throwing him across the corridor to slam into his allies. Without the deafening blast of gun fire, Jonathan was sure he heard bones breaking just before the men’s muffled screams confirmed it.
Still hitting too hard.
The next member of The Cell’s assault team never got fully off the floor. Jonathan’s bare foot came down on his rifle. He’d only intended to pin the gun to the floor but ended up crushing the weapon’s receiver into a mangled useless mess. The man tried to crawl back as he saw the weapon destroyed, but found he was still anchored to it by his shoulder strap. Jonathan reached out as the man tried to rear back and crushed his optics as well.
The man then went for his sidearm, but by the time he’d pulled it from his belt holster Jonathan had snatched the weapon from him. He heard the man wail in unexpected pain. Somewhat shocked, Jonathan looked to see that he’d torn the man’s trigger finger off along with the gun.
Well, Jonathan thought, at least he’ll live.
The weapon in his hand was immediately familiar to him, and he pulled it to pieces in two quick motions. His finger pressed the release on the magazine, while his other hand pulled the barrel free. He let the grip fall to the floor with the man’s finger but crushed the barrel itself in his fist. The man was bent over, his good hand cradling the one with the missing finger when Jonathan grabbed him by the back of his collar.
Automatic fire began to ping off his lower back from behind, and Jonathan—gently as he could—slammed the man against the corridor wall. He was fairly sure he’d only knocked the wind out of Nine Fingers, so he was feeling a little better about himself as he whirled on the person shooting at him. Then one of the bullets ricocheted off his chest into the unarmored portion of another man’s thigh.
The Never Army Page 11
