“You were watching me from the helicopter?” Jonathan interrupted.
She paused. “Of course, did you imagine I’d just allow you to run free and hope you came back? Nothing in your terms indicated you were to be given no leash.”
“Good,” Jonathan said, noticing she hid a twitch of surprise. “I don’t care that you were keeping tabs on me. But I need to see what you saw.”
She considered him for a moment. “Why?”
“Because,” he sighed. “I can’t remember what happened out there.”
Her jaw clenched. “Come with me, Mr. Tibbs.”
A short time later Jonathan stood in a cubicle on the hangar floor surrounded by a half circle of displays. Each showed camera feeds from all over the base and helicopters; some displayed the information that had been recorded by tracking devices they had on him while he was outside.
Olivia stood, arms folded across her chest a few feet behind him as Jonathan’s eyes scanned over the monitors. His attention intensified as the bird’s eye view of one of the helicopters watched him running to that last stand of trees before he’d used the syringe.
The seconds ticked by as he waited, the monitor reporting his coordinates showed no change in position. There was no way for him to see what happened inside those woods. This was of course his own doing—he hadn’t wanted Olivia to see him shooting the highly concentrated adrenaline—he hadn’t considered that he might be curious what happened to him later.
As he waited for the tracker to show some indication that he had moved, a group of Olivia’s men approached. They were carrying items he’d had with him when he entered the woods. Excali-bar, Doomsday, and a canvas sac he assumed contained his jacket and boots. However, the man carrying the bag leaned in to whisper in Olivia’s ear before he set it on a table. Jonathan couldn’t hear what was said, but her eyes lingered on him curiously while the man took his leave. It wasn’t long before he knew. Olivia reached inside the canvas sac and pulled a smaller plastic bag from the contents. Holding it up, she studied the alien steel syringe, before looking back at him—her head tilting as she gave him that ‘my my, what do we have here’ look.
A ping indicating the tracker had moved drew his attention back to the screens. He saw a shape shoot out of the trees. It—he—suddenly launched toward the buildings where the Ferox was still engaged by soldiers.
He was moving fast, the helicopters already having trouble keeping up, lost him temporarily. He had to search the camera’s feeds from the other monitors, but those hadn’t been set up to track him. His head whipped from screen to screen trying to get a good look at himself.
“Your eyes looked like they were on fire,” Olivia said as she came to stand beside him. The bag with the syringe no longer in her hands.
Jonathan swallowed when he finally saw his face on the monitor.
He’d seen this once before, but under far different circumstances. Namely, when he’d been empowered by the strength of the bond. This was similar, in that the energy poured out of his eyes as though his body couldn’t contain it. That was where the similarities ended. The energy in his eyes in this footage was far more chaotic, malignant. An angry red that seemed to burn away rather than the calm wisps of energy that had come off him under the Bond’s influence.
Without Heyer or Mr. Clean to give any expertise, he had to call it for himself. His best guess—and he had no idea if it were possible—was that he’d just come dangerously close to burning out the implant.
As disturbing as all that was, his behavior seemed a reflection of the red chaos pouring out of his eyes and chest. There was no Jonathan there, just a rabid mindless rage. Well, perhaps not completely mindless. It—he—was very focused on one impulse—The Ferox.
He noticed he wasn’t carrying his weapons or armor. He wondered if he’d ripped the gear off in some sort of bestial need for freedom while he was still beneath the canopy.
As he barreled through the streets, he didn’t avoid obstacles. He crashed through the outer wall of a building to come out the other side with no apparent care for self-preservation. It was as though he were trying to take a straight line, the fastest possible route, to the signal in his head.
When he’d finally laid eyes on the Ferox he paused to roar at it like a damn zombie before plunging forward. He was more animal than man, teeth bared and hands reaching out as though he had claws. He lacked any grace, any bare nuance of martial cunning.
The Ferox took advantage of this, or—tried to. When Jonathan rammed into the thing, they shot down the street like a rock skipping along the surface of a lake. The Ferox opened his mouth to bite into him, and in the moment, Jonathan worried—actually worried for himself—but much to his own shock, as the monster’s jaws locked down, it may as well have bitten into solid steel.
The Ferox wrenched away in pain, its teeth bent back against the surface of its gums.
Well, he’d wondered how he could have possibly survived—now he knew. The Ferox wasn’t strong enough to hurt him. A moment later, the Ferox retreated away, trying to get some space between them, and he’d watched himself run straight for it again. This time, his feral self seemed to have no gauge on his own strength. Because his attempt to tackle the monster to the ground ended with them flying out of the entire area and plowing down into the wilderness somewhere.
By the time the helicopters reacted and caught up to their position, he could just see himself tearing an arm off the creature while his foot pinned it to the ground. He turned away as he saw his teeth sink into the soft black tissue beneath the outer armor. He recognized the field—didn’t need to see the rest to know where it went from there.
When he turned away, he found Olivia watching him.
“Mr. Tibbs, you’re acting as though all this is as unsettling to you as it was for the rest of us,” Olivia said.
“You’ve no idea,” Jonathan said.
She was quiet a moment, looking between him and the footage.
“Let’s say that, watching you observe yourself just now, it’s not that hard of a sell to believe you weren’t really yourself out there. But if that is the case, I need to know right now why I shouldn’t be worried that, whatever that was, won’t come over you again.”
Jonathan shook his head. “No, I made it happen, I didn’t have a choice, but . . . Olivia, I know we aren’t off to a good start here . . .”
He trailed off. Closing his eyes; he dropped it. All of it. The posturing, the bravado, any semblance of belief that he controlled his own future. His shoulders slumped as he gave up on standing and sat down in the middle of the hangar floor. There was no point in the façade; she needed to see all of his desperation. “I need your help.”
The change in him was so sudden it startled her. She looked down at him, her head cocked, her face giving away how off guard she’d been left by the sudden vulnerability. In fact, it didn’t even seem to occur to her that this moment would be the perfect chance to reassert dominance.
“Mr. Tibbs . . . Jonathan, despite appearances, a great deal has occurred to cast doubt . . .” She trailed off. “Your government would prefer you to be an asset. If you’re in a bind of some kind . . . and our resources can provide assistance . . . an understanding can be reached. Assuming you’re willing to help us in our own endeavors.”
“Olivia, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know for as long as I can,” Jonathan said, letting her see the cloth wrapped stone he held in his palm. “I’m running out of time again . . . and you’re literally the only option I’ve got.”
She had been in her quarters when the alarms had set lock down protocols into motion. For most of the morning, all Leah knew was that there was a threat being neutralized within the facility. Given her current standing with Olivia, there was no expectation that her involvement would be requested.
Later, details began trickling down like unconfirmed rumors. Jonathan had made an escape attempt. No, he had freed himself and decimated the entire team of specialists sent to recaptur
e him. No, actually he never made any real effort to escape. He fought his way through several heavily armed guards trying to get Olivia’s attention.
He’d gone mad, spouting some crazy story about a dangerous hostile of alien origin that was coming for them. Actually no, he had offered to capture the hostile. Actually no, Jonathan had eaten the hostile.
After the lock down measures were lifted, Leah was more inclined to believe a rat had eaten through a wire in the security system causing the alarms to trigger. After all, it was far more believable than anything else she’d heard. It wasn’t until later, while she sat at a station amongst a number of The Cell’s analysts in the hangar bay, that some official details were made known and she saw the security footage for herself.
Jonathan’s chest glowed. He was bulletproof. He tossed their agents around like they were porcelain dishes. He hadn’t killed anyone. Went out of his way not to—and given how easily it would have been for him to do otherwise, Olivia had agreed to negotiate with him.
There were a lot of unanswered questions. How was it possible that he was capable of this? Why had he ever allowed himself to be captured in the first place? Why wait until the moment a threat attacked the base to show his hand? Why volunteer to help his captors? What the hell was going on inside that man’s head?
The footage of the Ferox was harder to watch, and it didn’t get any easier when Jonathan got involved. He hadn’t looked human. In some ways he’d looked more frightening than the monster he had been sent to capture. And his eyes . . .
“Leah,” Rivers said. “We need you to drop whatever you’re doing and come with me.”
Startled out of her thoughts, she found Rivers waiting for her to follow. She couldn’t imagine what he needed from her so urgently, but his face told her to ask on the way.
Luckily, he started explaining as soon as they were out of ear shot.
Jonathan had surrendered—sort of. Had willingly agreed to be returned to the containment shell in isolation.
“Is he asking for me?” she asked.
“I was only told to bring you,” Rivers said as they passed through the main tunnel that connected the containment shell’s wing to the rest of the facility.
When they arrived, she saw what was left of the shell after Jonathan’s handiwork. There were two electricians, working hastily to reconnect the conduit Jonathan had destroyed.
Grant, Hayden, and Collin’s cells had been emptied. She knew that Jonathan’s roommates had been moved to a less draconian containment area; what Olivia had done with Grant remained a mystery. When they reached Jonathan’s chamber, the door was open. The lights were not back up inside the shell, but the entire room was cast in an orange glow.
She was relieved when she looked into his eyes and saw no trace of the thing that had torn that creature apart, but she was also seeing the light blazing on his chest in person for the first time. She found it difficult not to stare, her eyes drawn to it like a campfire.
Jonathan didn’t look powerful. There was no sign of the strength he’d exhibited that morning. If anything, he looked almost like he had the night before. He glanced at her as she came inside, but hardly reacted. He didn’t stare at her with seething hatred. Rather, it was as though whatever weighed on him now was too heavy for him to do more than notice her presence.
“Keep going, Jonathan, don’t waste any time repeating yourself,” General Delacy said.
Until he spoke, she hadn’t noticed her father standing in the corner.
“We’re recording,” Rivers explained.
She understood then, that Jonathan had not requested her. Olivia didn’t want her there. No, her father had given an order, and there wasn’t much room to skirt it while he was standing in the room.
“. . . the details are important,” Jonathan said.
He was scaring her; he had the faraway look of a man who was suffocating on the inside. A man dying alone in a hospital. A man who knew what it was to lose himself and was watching it happen.
He knew he was running out of time. Each instruction he gave getting harder to get out and stranger than the one that came before.
He wanted the power to be restored to the shell—but its ability to shield signals disabled. It had to be the shell; the tunnel could be caved in to seal it off from the rest of the facility.
He asked for the white room. Said he didn’t want to go into the dark.
There was no fixing the outer door to the shell itself; the damage Jonathan had done there was too extensive, but he was right about the rest. Each wing of the facility had a single-entry point, and this one was no exception. If needed, it could be cut off from the rest.
He was becoming less responsive. He said that eventually he’d be gone. Once this happened, he needed The Cell to do what they could to keep him alive as long as possible.
“I’ll be trapped inside my own mind,” Jonathan had said. “If there is a way out, I need to live long enough to find it.” The way he said it—he sounded like his only choice was to walk into a woodchipper and hope he could put himself back together on the other side. He said he didn’t know what his condition would look like to them. He might have lucid moments; he might come in and out of spells.
He kept saying, “Keep my heart beating.”
There was a needle tip that had been recovered from the forest. He said it was the only thing that would penetrate his skin. They would need it to hook him up to an IV—fluids and nutrition. Whatever they could get into him.
He said no one should try to feed him, he couldn’t be sure how he might react. That under no circumstances should anyone attempt to intervene with any sort of drugs. That there was no way for their doctors to estimate a correct dosage, and even if they could he didn’t know how he might react. It was just too dangerous.
While all these directions had been strange, they paled in comparison to what followed. Jonathan pulled the black cloth wrapped around a small stone from his pocket. He explained that this was why they could not risk him escaping without his wits. He couldn’t be parted from this object. He said this, more than anything, was the most important thing—because while right now he was strong enough to ensure it stayed with him, soon he would have to put his faith in them.
That what he was about to tell them could very well mean they would end up needing to protect it not just from him but eventually from themselves.
“The stone has to stay near me at all costs,” he said. “If I haven’t come back to myself within a certain amount of time, everyone in this facility—the world—they’re going to lose themselves. When the deterioration begins, you have to be vigilant. This stone has to be destroyed in my hand, against my skin. It has to be the most important thing to all of you. If it comes to that, whoever does it, they need to get the hell away from me the moment it breaks.”
“If they don’t,” he continued, “they’re going somewhere bad . . . the home of those creatures.”
He had more instructions; everything Jonathan needed they could provide. He seemed to have done all he could to ensure they understood every detail. He looked so tired and hopeless; Leah didn’t know how he was clinging to cognizance.
They couldn’t know how much effort it took for him to try and fulfill his end of the agreement. What followed was a candid discussion. Unfortunately, the reason Jonathan seemed so uncharacteristically open about everything he told them, soon became clear.
If he was telling the truth, they were never going to remember any of it. They weren’t even really who they thought they were at all.
It took Jonathan over an hour to explain the nature of this reality—The Never—to them. It grew more and more difficult for him with each passing minute. His sentences becoming shorter and simpler as time went on.
Those in attendance were trapped between denial and the unfortunate fact that, unlike previous theories of what might be going on with the alien and those he contacted, everything Jonathan had said lined up with what The Cell had witnessed throughout years
of investigation.
He seemed desperate for them to understand what was at stake.
Olivia was first to state the obvious. “If what he says is true, he’s been playing us since the moment he opened his mouth.”
“If it’s true, I’m not sure he had much choice,” General Delacy said. “He had to get the stone no matter what it took.”
“He could have just killed us to get to it,” Olivia said. “What difference is it to him how many of us shadows die?”
“Not so easy,” Jonathan whispered. He was circling the drain, his words almost like he spoke in his sleep.
Leah watched as Olivia stared down Jonathan, though he hadn’t raised his eyes for some time now. “You didn’t change course when I threatened the lives of your friends and family. Didn’t head straight for the surface to get out in front of this creature before it killed dozens of people on the base. You stalled until we agreed—”
“Olivia! Just stop!” Leah interrupted.
She’d been the quietest of all involved, had listened more than spoke. She couldn’t stand seeing him forced to use what little time he had left being second guessed. She didn’t care if Olivia was in denial or if the woman’s doubts were understandable—she believed every word Jonathan had said.
Unlike the rest, she’d been trying to face the existential crisis of being a shadow copy since the moment he’d told them. Leah had always been able to tell when Jonathan was hiding something—and in the last hour he hadn’t had the strength to bother. He was begging them to believe.
Meanwhile, Olivia struggled to keep her doubts alive.
“Think of them. These men we’ve watched. They were doing everything they could to protect us and we’ve hunted them like criminals,” Leah said.
“They should have told us what was happening,” Olivia said.
“Tell us? We can see it for ourselves right now and you don’t want to believe!” Leah yelled.
The Never Army Page 14
